What does it take to make you happy?

The latest iPhone?

A huge promotion?

A giant shopping spree?

Sometimes teeny tiny things are enough to make people happy, like this...

A few dried leaves, a few twigs...

It made him a king for half an hour

Lord of all he surveyed...

Best of all, it brought out his lovely smile.

Ani was so pleased with the crown I made that he wore it to school last month (you can tell I was desperate to keep him from mischief while we were waiting for the school bus?!) AND brought it intact at the end of the day. He said his teachers and friends had admired the crown and his teacher had kept it on top of a cupboard for safekeeping till the end of the day. Isn't Montessori great?

Movie Review: Amen - A Divine Comedy (Must Watch!!!!)

It is seldom that I get the privilege to share a movie with you that I can genuinely call a must watch. Lijo Jose Pellissery's Amen certainly fits the bill! Starting from the catchy title tune (Aatmavil thinkal kulir... has been the all-pervasive tune in my home for three days now) and lovely, quirky graphics, I was hooked and ready for a joyful two and a half hours.

This movie is testament of the fact that the story can be as old and cliched as the hills, but the treatment can make the movie. The story takes place in a fictional Kuttanad village, Kumarankari. It centers around the St. Geevarghese Church diocese, especially the church band which was once very famous, but has been humiliatingly defeated by other bands in the New Year competition. At the fringes of this band, Solomon (Fahad Fazil) lurks, pleading for a chance to perform although so far all he has to show is his departed father's prowess as an unmatched clarinet player. Predictably, his sole supporter and beloved Sosanna (Swati Reddy) belongs to one of the richest and most influential families in the parish.

Things take an ugly turn after yet another humiliating defeat in the annual band competition and Fr. Ottaplacken (Joy Thomas) decides to give the band a decent burial. This is the cue for the entry of the hip, young curate Vincent Vattoli (Indrajith). But is his intervention enough to save the band? A young curate has his limits when dealing with the higher echleons, Vattoli soon finds out. Can Solomon ever get over his stage fright? Will the ever-troublesome Vishakkol succeed in his sabotaging efforts? Will the centuries-old church building be demolished by vested interests? You may know the answers to all these questions, but I was certainly willing to put it all away to see how the story would play out.

Highlights: Joy Thomas as Fr. Ottaplacken - the slight squint of his light-colored eyes added to his spookiness. Truly gives one the creeps. Fahad as the repressed genius Solomon. 

Lowlights: A few instances of bathroom humor, one or two needlessly elongated scenes. But these were tiny flaws in the gem.

Biggest highlight: The camera by Abhinandan Ramanujam (Who is he? Where was he till now???) He presents the best views of our Kuttanad after what we saw in Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaaya. Simply superb. If for nothing else, go to see Kuttanad as you have never seen it before. You will agree with S.K. Pottekad that Venice is nothing before it.

This movie certainly makes my "must have in DVD collection" category.

Bengaluru Hogi!

Wheeze, wheeze, air-conditioners and I really do not mix. Fortunately, this time my preventive measures worked somewhat well on the journey (Vitamin C, warm head covers), so I have escaped with minimal damage. This time we took a long-weekend trip to Bengaluru.

If it had been left to us, we would have spent all the time visiting our various friends and relatives. But there are the little people to consider. They want excitement. They want fun. They want time to play and jump around. They want NEW experiences.

Our first kiddie stop was Snow City in the Palace Grounds. Anikkuttan, our younger one was the most vociferous in the demand for this. He's always been asking us to "get on a plane and go somewhere with snow". At Snow City, DH and the kiddos waited for almost an hour to gain entry into the 1 p.m. slot for some snow fun. They were provided with a protective jacket, gloves, ear muffs and snow boots. They also waited in a somewhat cold chamber to acclimatize themselves before being exposed to the -5 degree Celsius of the snow room. For the first few minutes everything was hunky dory as they rolled snow balls and pelted each other and posed for pictures taken by their doting Dad. But soon enough, a few snowballs found their way into the boots and poor Ani's feet were chilled to the bone. Ten minutes into the much-awaited snow experience, Ani was out for the count and DH had to follow leaving the hardier Kunjunni to enjoy himself to the max on all the rides. He didn't come out till HIS 45 minutes were up.

Look at the poor forlorn guy in blue - doesn't his very pose say, "Please get me out of here!" And now here's his brother:

The very picture of true enjoyment and intrepidity!

While the guys were scampering through the snow, my MIL and I went on another expedition - to see the Bangalore Palace. Here is the castle-like exterior:

The entry ticket includes an audio-tour! We get a handheld device and headphones which explain the exhibits to us. First time I've seen anything of the kind in India. The tour is even available in Malayalam! Note: Please carry a photo-id with you because that needs to be given as security for the audio device. As for the tour - see all those interesting turrets and round rooms? There was no access to them or the balcony. Inside, the architecture and decor is a mishmash of Tudor, Victorian and Art Deco styles with a generous sprinkle of Indian all over. The general effect is not bad, though. There were beautiful stenciling patterns, absolutely gorgeous floor tile patterns and a few unique pieces like the weighing machine for the royal jockey.  To add to the fun, we had a celebrity sighting. We spotted actor Venkatesh in action for a Telugu movie! All in all, good for an outing if you have time to kill when the rest of the family are having fun at Snow City. Can't guarantee the celebrity sighting, though!!!

Next we took the kids to that school-tour staple - the Vishveswarayya Science and Technology museum. Well, it has changed a bit from what I remember of seeing 25 years ago. There is a life-size exhibit of the Wright brothers' first aircraft that greets you right in the main hall. The story of the creation of the replica to mark the centenary of the invention also gets pride of place alongside the exhibit. There is also an animatronic dinosaur that scared all the little kids who went in. Well, the rolling eyes which swiveled to nail one were a bit too much for me too, I must confess!  And I had to carry my almost-five-year-old to "make friends with the TOY dinosaur", swiveling eye or not. That's a huge perk of being a parent, one can hang on for dear life to another morsel of humanity and pretend you are doing it to give THEM courage! Planes and dinosaurs aside, the kids including our 6-ft one were entranced by the science toy store in the museum and spent almost an hour picking and choosing what to take home, worse than any group of women in a bag shop. 

Since all we ladies wanted to do after all the walking was to just relax, we went to the kids' play area at Cubbon park, where adults are not allowed in unless accompanied by children. Understandably, the attraction is free for the pint-sized whereas we have to pay! Apart from all the innumerable rides, swings etc., the kiddos enjoyed a ride on this...

Yep, the toy train!

And as for the adults: all we had was a very rushed one hour at Commercial Street, almost half of which went in walking to and from the parking area! Life is so unfair!!!

Having traveled in most of the southern and eastern portions of the fast-expanding city, one could not but marvel at the change and feel nostalgic about the old Bangalore. So many of the main roads of the old, elegant residential areas are now full of plate-glass showrooms of international brands. KFC which had just one outlet on Brigade Road back in 2001 now has so many outlets that it is like a rash that has spread over the city. "Development" is going on at such a fast pace that infrastructure is not even in the previous chapter, let alone on the same page. We went to a luxury apartment complex situated on the shores of a lake, only it was literally in the middle of nowhere - there was only a dust track of the kind seldom seen even in my road-wise backward home state! The state of our backs after we bumped our way to the apartment and were hopelessly lost on our way back, was pathetic. I thought that the old Bangalore was only a thing of fond memory until we were on our train back from the City Railway station. The train passed through some old neighborhoods and the Cantonment area and I heaved a sigh of relief. At least a part of old Bangalore was left unmolested. Thank God for small mercies!

Vacation time is travel and small trips time!

Can you hear the sighs of contentment and general sense of laziness pervading here at Karthi? Yep, the big break of the year is here. No more school lunches to pack everyday, no more nagging about homework, no more hurried bathroom breaks required when the school bus is almost at the doorstep... yep, not for another two and a quarter months!!!

We celebrated the first weekend of our freedom with a mini-outing to a place that was not very likely to hold our young kids' interest. But we were pleasantly surprised when the kiddos enjoyed the trip. This is where we went...

Nope, sorry, not my ancestral home! This is the front view of the Koyikkal Palace in Nedumangadu which now houses a Numismatic Study Centre and a Folklore Museum. The palace itself is a humble dwelling - a grandiose double-storeyed naalukettu. It was abandoned and in ruins when the Archaeological Survey of India adopted it and made it a repository of those ephemeral fragments of our culture that are fast disappearing.

The numismatic display has coins worth a lot and the knowledgable docent really drew us enough to ask questions which she fielded with equanimity. For instance, there were these tiny little coins which looked like cousins of manjadikkuru.  I wondered aloud how ever in the world did they manage to count those coins. In reply our docent showed us this:

They just poured the coins into grids like these, gave it a shake, swiped off the excess and counted  by the board! Great, innit???

But more fascinating than the money was the folklore museum which actually looks more like a collection of old, forgotten things from our old homes' attics. But as we went through exhibits, we realized that our kids have never seen these things in their lives and didn't know what they were used for. Even we hadn't seen some of them in use.

Do you know what these are?

These are known as Ammaanakkaay, literally "juggling balls" and were vessels for a primitive form of preventive medicine. When seasonal epidemics ravaged the land, people would throng temples for succour. The local velichappadu would fill these balls with medicinal herb powders and juggle them in the crowd, thus dispersing the medicine among the people. Wow, physic, psychic and entertainment all rolled into one! 

And how many of you have seen one of these in an abandoned corner of your parents' homes?

This was what busy moms of yore resorted to when they didn't have the time to hold their kids' hands to steady their first steps. Yep, the original baby walker!

Apart from those lovely, worn items of domestic use, there were also some gruesome things like this!

This is what wrongdoers were punished with in those days. The whip's lash ended in the tail from a sting ray. The wound inflicted by this grisly thing would fester around each anniversary of the punishment, making it unforgettable as long as the recipient lived.

Besides such  mundane things are instruments of torture or baby care, there were also exhibits of folk art forms too..

Cat's cradle aka kayar pinnal

Can you name the three Thullal forms??? C'mon, be a good sport, don't Google it..!

There are numerous other exhibits - too many to show here. Another group of these are these lovely pieces that were thrown out when a local temple was "renovated" - the ASI scavenged the pieces and scrubbed off centuries worth of grime and garish paint to reveal these:

No doubt, those were REAL artists and artisans who designed and executed these as opposed to some nouveau artists who don't even know how to draw a decent perspective and still call themselves artists by producing high-faluting "interpretations" of their work! Yep, I mean several artists that I saw at the recent Biennale!!!

I have to say this: the docent of this museum, I totally forgot to ask the worthy lady's name, was the one who made the exhibits come alive for us. She was very knowledgeable and courteous - not just another government servant doing this for the salary. We showered her with our gratitude when we came out of the museum and words were all she would take from us. I hope we can we meet her some other time. We lingered around the palace grounds for sometime, even under the glaring Meenom sun, the palace and its grounds were verdant, cool and an ideal summer getaway spot. 

The Elanji gave us plenty of  shade and fragrance...

A single Elanji blossom

And our resident joker kept us in stitches....

Yeah, he thinks he's doing the Ottam thullal, of course!

Do take the kids for the trip and enjoy a lovely couple of hours in a cool palace visiting with the past. Directions to the Koyikkal palace? You were already Googling for the thullal forms, just Google this too, huh!!!!

A Kanji day (in the good sense!)

Much needed and heartily appreciated rainy day here at Karthi. Overcast skies, thunderstorm, intermittent showers and frequent power outages. Plentiful "aaahchoos"  and complaints of throat aches to be heard. A perfect day for this...

Hot and steaming Podiyari Kanji with dollops of slightly tangy curd, Vanpayar Mezhukkkupuratti for protein, crisp papads and multicolored fryums for fun, lime pickle for spice. Yum!

Revolutionary Breakthrough!!! Easiest Way to Lose Weight!!!!

Eureka! Eureka!

Last night, several years of my research into finding sure-fire methods for sustainable weight loss reached their culmination! Before I reveal this momentous discovery to you, let me first enumerate the myriad benefits of this ULTIMATE weight-loss method!!!!!!

1. Eat ANYTHING you want and still weigh NEXT to NOTHING!
2. NEVER again count calories or hunt for calorie charts for Indian foods!
3. Portions size? Who cares? Eat JUMBO size portions of anything you want!
4. Absolutely NO side effects except for lots of confidence and enhanced self-esteem!
5. No need to work hard at the gym ANY MORE and permanently damage your knee joints!
6. Save money by cancelling your gym membership and by never having to buy another diet book/ workout DVD etc. EVER AGAIN!!
7. No Diet foods or costly medications required, it's DIRT CHEAP!!!
8. The results are INSTANTANEOUS!!!!! 

Oh, if I had only known this earlier, I could have escaped from YEARS of misery at being overweight. The solution is so simple that a child can do it!

In fact, a child did do it...

Aaaand you weigh....

Yup, thaaat's right, NEXT TO NOTHING!!!!

Disclaimer: Please follow the weight loss method described at your own risk. This website washes its hands of all negative consequences arising from not aligning the chair properly or leaning forward too much over tummy to peek at the scale resulting in overbalancing and subsequent contact of subject's nose with aforesaid scale. Please note that as with all weight loss ads, model in photos is very, very slim.

Movie Review: Celluloid

This weekend we finally ended our drought of watching movies in the theater. Not that we were not watching new, good movies - there are still good movies from 2012 that we have caught and are waiting to catch on DVD. I'll give you a list of recommendations at the end of this review.

Now to head to Celluloid - it has been making news as THE movie to watch for some months now. As you may know, it is the story of the first ever Malayalam movie and what went behind it. We've all heard  of the "JC Daniel Lifetime Achievement Award" given by the State of Kerala, but did you know that it is given in the name of a man who achieved nothing but financial ruin and neglect in his lifetime? He was given his rightful place in Malayalam movie history due to the efforts of ardent cinematic history lovers only about 70 years after his first and only movie was made.

Celluloid is not just the story of a man who wanted to bring this new artistic form into his state. It is also a window into a socially dark era that was bound by caste and creed differences. It is at the same time so terrifying and so heartening to view those incidents on celluloid (or digital form!) and know that although they still do exist, those demons are much more tamed now - dangerous yet, yes, but not showing all their fangs and riding roughshod over the whole society. One cannot but wonder at the enthusiasm and persistence of a man who will go to literally any end to learn a new art form and create one of his own literally from scratch. It is perhaps well that his story was not known widely, one wonders how many budding filmmakers would have lost heart if they had come to know how this first Malayalam filmmaker (and first leading actor too!) fared in his life. But then I think, true artists cannot but help following their Muse where it leads them!

Director Kamal has walked the narrow path between documentary and feature film pretty well, achieving the fine balance in telling the story that might have degenerated into maudlin drama easily. There are humorous moments, tense moments and exciting moments galore. The cast consisting of Prithviraj, Mamta, Sreenivasan etc., have done an exemplary job. Prithvi as JC Daniel richly deserves the award for Best Actor for the homework he has put in - it must have been refreshing for him to essay this role after playing a taciturn hunk in Aiyaa. Chandni - a fresh face - does justice to her role as the first heroine of Malayalam cinema.

Much more than just the entertainment value that this movie provides, it makes me grateful for the personal freedoms that we enjoy in this time and age. My sentiments were amply echoed in the applause and sighs of the rest of the audience. We had had an inkling of the standard of the audience that had come to watch the movie when my DH observed that the four-time repetition of the Polio vaccine ad did not invoke the customary catcalls.

Do go and watch Celluloid!!

My recommendations for recent Malayalam movies to watch on DVDs:

Ozhimuri: Directed by Madhupal. If Celluloid was not around, this movie would have won the award for best film. I had wanted to watch this movie, but it was shown only in one theater and stayed for only a week. Thank God for DVDs. I cannot watch it enough for its setting, its language, its history and its brilliant psychological analysis and a brilliant cast. Must watch.

Chapters: A "newgen" movie that has an interesting format, and intriguing storyline. Good for one watch.

Jawan of Vellimala: A Mammootty starrer that was thoroughly massacred by critics - but which we found to be okay for one watch at least. We certainly didn't feel like that it was a total disappointment. 

Trivandrum Lodge: We avoided this movie in theatres because our kids did not appreciate being left behind when we went to see 22, Female, Kottayam. But we thoroughly enjoyed the movie on DVD. 

Black Friday: The story of the adventures four different groups of people go through in the space of one day in verdant Alleppey. Good for one watch.

Arike: Has the feel of a novel set in the 80s. Syamaprasad's latest is more food for the mind than the heart, but still manages to touch somewhere. Although the movie moves forward to a foregone conclusion, the path it takes remains obscure and delights in its unique twists and turns.