Babbling Brooks

The year 2014 was a great year, marked by several milestones in our personal and professional lives. For the very first time, we joined a Toronto based Tamil forum, to celebrate Pongal Celebration this year and as our friends supported and encouraged, Unni Maya performed `Karagattam  - a Tamil folk dance form with a group of kids. This was very first stage dance performance (serious one). The winter this time was one of it’s kind. Not just since we immigrated to Canada but since the past 35 years reports say this this winter was the worst ever since. We experienced bone-chilling temperatures upto -45deg C and also witnessed a rare occurrence (so far) called an Ice rain. It left many parts of the GTA powerless and we had power gone for a day. It brought several trees down and costed the City and all the GTA municipalities millions of dollars to restore normalcy. As temperatures, dipped below -20Deg C in the nights, we experienced another phenomenon called  C ryo...

This is an Autobiography  by one of the India`s most celebrated scientists and leaders, who has a tremendous following across all different age groups especially India`s youngsters. It may lack the literary flamboyance   of   an eminent author; it may not meet the standards   that a literary critic would weigh in on , but it leaves you glued to the life   of  a boat owner’s son, his passion towards rocketry, science , his career struggle through the red-tape clad ladders   of   the Indian Bureaucracy which aligns itself with the journey   of   India's technology advancement and self-reliance in the field of Rocketry and nuclear defence capabilities. It draws you into an aura of amazement and wonder when you read through the indescribable sense   of   accomplishment at the peak period   of   Mr. Kalam’s life and sometime make you feel that they are your(reader’s) accomplishments and that`s the indisputable success fa...

It has been several years since I touched on a fiction novel; I have always thought the fictitious days were over for me, but always had an open mind when it comes to master story tellers like Dan Brown. I chose to read " மூன்றாம் உலகப்போர் " just to fuel my veneration for Mr Vairamuthu, his literary abilities and the "widely talked about" theme that the novel was based on. Beyond his mastery over the language which is unparalleled among his contemporaries (Poet Late. Mr.Vaali is not one of them) , I have always enjoyed his thoughtful and well researched tidbits that he sprinkles to his speeches, writings and even songs. This novel was an absolute pleasure to read and Mr Vairamuthu has literally packed a pile of very useful facts and thought provoking pro-environment arguments within this fiction tale. On my scale, I have no hesitation to say that the book is about 60% non-fiction. It's just the backdrop of the story that's a remote Tamil Nadu vil...

It started with the shocking and irreplaceable loss of my mother-in-law, yes. 1st Jan 2013 was when we landed back to Toronto after her passing away. First, few months were quiet and was trying hard to bring my wife back to normalcy. It's been more than an year now - we were reminded harshly of the famous quote - "Take life as it comes". My wife later turned back to serious volunteering and part time involvement in Unni maya's School's student care activities and also found herself a part-time permanent Job, which is a big step in our life. Since our early days of association, we had always thought she should be no more than an affectionate home maker, but this is amazing too, more than her active engagement in a professional activity, it helps with many other aspects which brought in most welcome and helpful changes to our lives. This year, while my wife took up her first job, I took over to help Unni Maya with her studies and extra-curricular initiatives. I...

This article and the facts provided are absolutely time-sensitive, so readers are requested to check / validate the relevance of the contents whenever they wish to exercise the options explained below. If at all it's relevant, this is relevant and may be useful only for those who currently reside in Canada. The final and conclusive step in the process of "Applying Canadian Permanent Residence" is the one by which the applicants and their dependents enter Canada and do the "Landing". This is a required step even if the applicant resides in Canada as a temporary resident or visitor. Such applicants who reside within Canada, can choose to drive/travel up to their nearest border with United States and cross the borders and re-enter back in Canada without a valid US Visa. The informal provision that allows this type of border crossing solely for the purposes of re-entering Canada for landing is called " Flagpole " Applicants along with their dependents( who...

Am a die hard fish lover, especially the Salmon. The most favorite Salmon recipe is the thick and spicy, coconut Gravy with cooked Salmon and sour and unripe mangoes. Another favorite is deep fried, spicy and oily marinated Salmon fry. But trust me, both of them are thoroughly unhealthy and cholesterol rich. The latter, deep fry one can be made using Olive oil but wouldn’t taste that great. In the light of my 2010 - theme of life – FFF (just not to let your imagination go elsewhere – Fit, Fitter, Fittest) , was looking for a heart-friendly, low calorie Salmon recipe that doesn’t take a lot of prep work or kitchen work and here is my kitchen discovery. Ingredients: · Oval shaped Salmon slices(with skin) – 3 · 1tbl spoon – red chili powder(roasted – if you find) · 1/2 tbl spoon – turmeric powder · 6 pinches of salt [will be really low in Sodium, you may want to add more] · ½ tbl spoon – Ginger / Garlic paste · ½ tbl spoo...

The title of this blog-entry is not mine but a quotable quote from one of the greatest classical poets of Rome, Virgil(Publius Vergilius Maro). I felt this quote will be befitting title for the kind of content that I'm intending to throw into this blogosphere. There is one challenge that invariably featured in all my new year's resolutions, that's about "getting slimmer, lighter and fitter....yes it's all about getting rid of my embonpoint". But believe me this has been one of the things on which, I've made some conscious effort so far, but none of them have seen any encouraging results so far. Repeated set-back's and failures made me think of a systematic approach to the problem. I thought of the factors that generally seem to influence our Body Mass Index(BMI), the food I eat, my active side of life and other potential hormonal imbalances. Out of these three, the first one, the food we eat is the factor that I chose to do a "deep-dive" in...