A Fun Trip

Well August 15th came and went and I am glad this year we had no untoward incidents. Indeed an anti-climax and one for which I am grateful. And i instead of cringing with anxiety in front of the TV decided to do something different this year....... :) My friend and his wife came down during that weekend and i took them to see an Athirapally waterfall which is around an hours drive from my place. It was crowded as hell since it was a holiday weekend, yet there is something so infinitely soothing about nature that just puts you into a good mood! The water was clear and quiet abundant due to the recent rains, and although my friends fell in love with the falls I was pretty nonchalant about it since I had been there like umpteen times. What I did fall in love with or simply adore about the trip was that on the way back somewhere in between the winding down road of that small hill the driver found us a quiet place to have our lunch. Mum had packed "Pathiri" (rice roti's) and curry for lunch. The place had a small clear stream with water up to 3 inches above our ankles and grassy bank.....that was heaven. You know it had been so long since i had been on a picnic......mostly in the trips I had been doing till recently, my friends and i have invariably always decided on eating at some road side stalls rather than pack lunches from home...... It was simple food, but for me, that day that place it tasted like delicious morsels from heaven. The next day we went to this place called Palayoor next to Guruvayur which is where St. Thomas first converted people to Christianity. It is claimed as the first point of entry for Christianity. “First Christian Church in India” – wikipedia.org. The place is undergoing this metamorphosis into an international pilgrimage and I wager that in years to come this will become a huge tourist destination too. St Thomas is said to have first de-embarked at Kodungallur, which he somehow didn’t find a suitable place so then he chose Palayoor as his next point. Here he saw some resident Kerala Brahmins (Namboodhiri’s) do the suryanamaskar after bathing in the pond and he challenged them to make the Hindu God accept the water they were offering. They couldn’t do that so they challenged St. Thomas back, seems he offered water which was then suspended in air for a minute before disappearing entirely. The Namboodhiri’s decided to embrace Christianity after that. What’s different about this church is that since the initial believers were from Hinduism there are quite a few things in the church which you will not normally find in other churches, like the church built has diya’s used in temples and even the practice of Thulabharam (offering your equal weight of some food particle/ flowers to god) still continues to exist in this Church. There is a huge museum built there as well, in the name of St. Thomas. This is the same St. Thomas who achieved martyrdom in Madras and in whose name you have St. Thomas Mount there.

So my independence day went in me utilizing my freedom and also exploring what our India is so great for, its natural fauna and its abundant and diverse culture. Jai Hind :)

August 15th! Independence Day! A holiday! A day where in today’s India, we are free to die at the hands of an unknown terrorist for his/her religious or financial or fanatic cause! My initial thoughts as this day approaches are usually on the lines of – “ Do Not Travel. Avoid crowded places and try to stay out of Metro’s” And after each August 15th I heave a sigh of relief – “phew escaped!”

Through the day itself I invariably keep scanning the channels to check if a blast has occurred or not, where have we been hit? I know its not just me either, I know the entire nation is gripped with the same thoughts, we may miss our national flag hoisting or even forget to stand up in respect for our national anthem but seldom do we allow ourselves to miss the grotesque details of mindless violence unleashed in our country on OUR DAY!

I am scared, I am concerned and I bloody well identify with Nasureedin Shah’s character in the movie “A Wednesday”. Where do we stop this? How do we get it stopped? Exercising my voting rights, ensuring awareness displaces ignorance or getting into the citizen police act all helps and contributes to save ourselves and our country but it feels like a drop of water against the red ocean of terrorism.

Intelligent society says as “Love” is the only vaccine for HIV so too is it the only vaccine for terrorism. But I am no Buddha to smile in the face of uncalled for anger and violence. I react with a mind filled with impotent fury and then get even more frustrated when I realize that my reactions don’t count.

It’s at times like this that I wish technological advancements had been restricted to only the field of medical science. After all without bombs and nuclear weapons we wouldn’t have been able to kill so many of us at one go huh?

Amidst all these thoughts I await Independence Day. May my country’s flag fly high and proudly with no blood shed to stain it. Jai Hind!

The Romance in Fragrances

A perfume has 3 notes - the head, the heart and the base. The head note is what you initially smell, the first impression, the heart note is what lingers and pervades your senses and the base note is what you are finally left with.......Astounding!!!! i never knew there was such romance to perfumes.....!!!

To me a perfume means nothing more than something to mask your body odor and that’s a nasty way of looking at it, I confess. Perfumes conjure up well groomed images, persons with manicured hands, attired to the occasion...... the final touch that lends the right "AAH" factor. And I truly envy those sorts; they seem ethereal and confident, as if they could handle anything that comes their way. I know i know.....don’t judge a book by its cover and blah blah......but hey what’s wrong in having an attractive cover?!!!

I’ve never been able to identify perfumes, fragrances….indeed it took me a long while to discover the existence of Eau de Cologne, Par fume extracts, Eau de Perfume, deodorants and what not…..But hey I am not a lost cause all together, I do know the basics…..perfume is meant not to be sprayed on but to be dabbed on your pulse points…the base of your neck, behind your ears, wrists, where the body emits heat and the perfume rises up around you mingling with your own body scent (or odor!). As the famous Coco Chanel quote goes - ''Wear perfume wherever you want to be kissed'' Lovely isn’t it?

Which reminds me….well yeah I like the romantic part of perfume and fragrances but then the business side of it got me curious, who are the top selling perfume companies in the world……well for one its called the fragrance and flavor industry and I discovered names that I had never heard of before like….GIVAUDAN, SYMRISE, IFF, TAKASAGO, FIRMENICH….. well Givaudan leads the pack is what I could make out from the net and they are headquartered in Switzerland with an all over the world presence but then the names didn’t strike a chord with me…..so I thought let me then read up on Chanel itself and I discovered Chanel No. 5 - “The company estimates that a bottle is sold worldwide every 30 seconds”

A perfume that was introduced in 1921 and is termed as a legendary scent…… my noses started twitching (pun intended!) While the history of how this perfume came about is interesting to read it, I liked the fact that I was able to uncover the three notes of this successful fragrance so lemme share that bit of info with you - Chanel No. 5 is classified as a floral-aldehyde. Its top notes include ylang ylang, neroli and synthetic long chain aldehydes such as 2-methylundecanal; its mid notes may rose and jasmine; and its base notes sandalwood, vetiver and vanilla.

Well, I guess its time to wonder about the scents and see if I can make myself a well groomed person too…..never too late for a make over I think, what say?