DuckTanic sinks in HongKong

Author : Gauri      Blog : Tiny Tidbits      Date : 5/15/2013 5:01:00 AM

'(Pic courtesy : guardian.co.uk via Google)Excerpt from the Quack Quack Daily“It is with profound sadness and regret that we announce the passing away of one of our brethren – DuckTanic.  DuckTanic met his end on the 15th of May 2013 in the waters of the Victoria Harbour in HongKong.  We hope he takes a lot of fond memories with him, having travelled through many countries".Our reporters however, have been given to understand that DuckTanic’s last few days were quite trauma(...)'

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Sampradaaya Ganaanjali - in praise of Lord Guruvayoorappan

Author : Gauri      Blog : Tiny Tidbits      Date : 5/14/2013 8:23:00 AM

'(Pic courtesy : hindudevotionalblog.com via Google)May is turning out to be a busy month for the Indian community in HK – a culturally busy month.  It all started off with Kathakitathom on the 4th of May which completely blew us away.  Then came another invite, this one for a programme called “Sampradaaya - Ganaanjali” on the 11th of May at City Hall.Lord Guruvayoorappan has always had a special place in my heart.  At my parents’ home in Bombay, we used to have a full(...)'

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Kalyanam - The TamBrahm Wedding Part 3 - Kalyana Saddhi and Nalangu

Author : Gauri      Blog : Tiny Tidbits      Date : 5/8/2013 5:26:00 AM

'(Picture courtesy : mywedding.com via Google)While the Mapillai (groom) and the Mattuponnu (daughter in law though literally translated it stands for CowGirl !!) are busy finding feet to prostrate in front of, most of the crowd would, quintessentially, have made a beeline towards the dining hall.  In the olden days (I mean days when I used to attend TamBrahm weddings regularly a.k.a my school / college days) – that is not to say that I’m Jurassic – a traditional lunch was alway(...)'

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Kathakitathom - The Rhythm of Nirvana

Author : Gauri      Blog : Tiny Tidbits      Date : 5/6/2013 5:09:00 AM

'(Image courtesy : kshk.org)Martha Graham once said“Art is eternal, for it reveals the inner landscape, which is the soul of man”.It is often said that the beauty of art lies in the fact that it can be used as a powerful medium to transport people to a magical land.  It is often said that art forms can release in people, the ability to imagine scenarios beyond what they had thought possible in their realms of imagination.  It is often said that art forms mesmerise peop(...)'

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Empowering children to say "NO" !!

Author : Gauri      Blog : Tiny Tidbits      Date : 4/11/2013 8:45:00 AM

'It is like one of those things that people know exists – yet something that people do not want to acknowledge.  All of us know for certain that this is a big bad world we live in.   Not that I’m trying to generalize.  Yes, there are a lot of good things going for this planet and the people that call it their homes but what I’m trying to say is that the bad things that happen far outweigh the good.   I work in a field that brings me in contact with child(...)'

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Braidy days are here again

Author : Gauri      Blog : Tiny Tidbits      Date : 4/3/2013 10:57:00 AM

'(Pic courtesy : www.dove.in via Google)The word “braids” takes me a long way down memory lane.  To my childhood days and by that I don’t mean just school days.  I mean “childhood days”.  Every single day (as far as I can remember and I should be a fairly good judge of that one given the fact that we are talking about my life here) of my childhood life has had my crowning glory, my flowing tresses locked in braids.  Not that I had anything against braids – they ke(...)'

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Kalyanam - The Wedding (Part 2)

Author : Gauri      Blog : Tiny Tidbits      Date : 3/28/2013 10:14:00 AM

'(Pic courtesy : theweddinggurus.blogspot.com via Google)Kalyanam - Part 1 can be found here.It usually takes a few minutes for the full fledged sobs to temper down to the occasional sniffle, by which time the priest is usually in a hurry to get on with the deed.  Making it sound rather ominous, am I not ?  The bride and the groom would make their way back to the seats in front of the homa kundam and plonk there for more mantrams to follow.  I’ve always had the feeling(...)'

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The politicization of the Indian Police Force

Author : Gauri      Blog : Tiny Tidbits      Date : 3/22/2013 5:19:00 AM

'(Image courtesy : manjul.com via Google)There was a lot of brouhaha recently about a policeman being beaten up by a bunch of MLAs in Vidhan Sabha.  People expressed shock, they expressed their distress over the incident and the social networking sites were pretty much peppered with status updates which indicated the outrage that the general population felt over this incident.Aside of what just happened, this incident has been on my mind over the past couple of days.  One q(...)'

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Kalyanam (The Wedding) - Part 1

Author : Gauri      Blog : Tiny Tidbits      Date : 3/12/2013 6:51:00 AM

'(Pic courtesy : ventuno.in via Google)Ah ha !!  The kalyanam – finally !!  Before you got here, I do hope you’ve read the prequels – the bride viewing and the re-engagement posts which are super duper important, if you are to make any sense whatsoever of what’s happening in this post.  Simply put, a South Indian kalyanam is a very complex process.  After all the brouhaha that the groom and the bride have had to go through the previous evening, what with getting r(...)'

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The Hunt - by Abhay Venkitaraman

Author : Gauri      Blog : Tiny Tidbits      Date : 3/9/2013 4:18:00 AM

'(Pic Courtesy : vector.us via Google)It was a good day at the S.S (Secret Service) headquarters.  Suddenly, the Chairman dashed in and said “AJ, please come inside”.  AJ was a rookie who had joined the SS just 10 days ago.  He was a very brave man who did not care much about his own safety.  He was kind, generous and was already popular among his colleagues.   However, the Chairman was a pessimist.  He was the kind of person who worried about going(...)'

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What is a woman ?

Author : Gauri      Blog : Tiny Tidbits      Date : 3/8/2013 6:46:00 AM

'(pic courtesy : 123rf.com via Google)What is a woman ?  Is she just a daughter, a wife, a mother,  an aunt, a niece, a cousin, a sister – well, the labels can go on and on and on.  Truth be told, I guess no woman will ever fit into just one of those categories.  In saying that, I mean this not in terms of familial relationships, I mean this in terms of a woman’s psyche.  At any given point of time in her life, right from childhood to adulthood to old age, a (...)'

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Pilot Rapper Rapped for Rapping ....

Author : Gauri      Blog : Tiny Tidbits      Date : 2/21/2013 7:59:00 AM

'(Pic courtesy : manjul.com via Google)Hmmm …. Came across this news article today about an Air India pilot who got into trouble for creating and singing a rap about the company.  Needless to say, he has been slapped with a gag order by Air India and his job now hangs in balance.  The senior officials are apparently going to look into this matter and then “decide his fate”.Here is the link to the rap on YouTube.Yes, he has indeed used a lot of expletives in his rap, he has (...)'

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Letter Writing - An Extinct Art ?

Author : Gauri      Blog : Tiny Tidbits      Date : 2/18/2013 2:04:00 AM

'(Pic courtesy : boomer-livingplus.com via Google)Even the most hardcore of computer geeks probably must pause every once in a while and wonder about the almost extinct art of letter writing.  That is not to say that people do not write letters to each other any more but rather to say that writing to each other has become / is becoming increasingly digitized.  We are indeed in a time and place in this world when things are getting increasingly mechanized and the d(...)'

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A Tambrahm Legacy (Part 2) - Nischayathaartham a.k.a Engagement Ceremony

Author : Gauri      Blog : Tiny Tidbits      Date : 2/15/2013 4:04:00 AM

'(Pic courtesy : momentville.com via Google)In continuum to my previous post on the JadaagamEduthachaa bit, we now proceed with much elan towards the main event  – a TamBrahm wedding.  It is a massive, large scale affair, not unlike the gargantuan sizes that invariably personify some of the TamBrahm Mamis and Mamas.  Well, not all of them are mammoth, to be fair but there are those that can just run over your senses pretty much like a steamroller runs over a freshly ta(...)'

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A TamBrahm Legacy - Part 1 (Jaadagam Eduthachha ?)

Author : Gauri      Blog : Tiny Tidbits      Date : 2/6/2013 2:59:00 AM

'(Pic courtesy : bikerdude via bengaloorubanter.blogspot.com via Google)Ever attended a TamBrahm wedding ?  Well, if you haven’t, trust me when I say you have no idea what you’ve missed.  If you have, then let me just say, you know exactly what you’ve been through.  My sympathies. A TamBrahm wedding starts well before the actual wedding itself.  Let’s start with the “jadagam eduthaachaa ?” bit.  It is quite common to see mamas and mamis randomly asking what w(...)'

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Rahul Gandhi - India's next PM ?????

Author : Gauri      Blog : Tiny Tidbits      Date : 2/1/2013 4:21:00 AM

'(Pic courtesy : manjul.com via Google)Something over the past few days has been reminding me of Rahul Gandhi (of all the people !).  No, it’s not what you’re thinking.  I’m no fan of the crown prince or whatever title that it is he is being anointed with at this moment.  Back to the question of what has been reminding me of Rahul Gandhi – it’s the promo that TVB Pearl has been broadcasting for the Oscars this year.  The lamest of promos I’ve come across – truth b(...)'

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My wayward crowning glory !!

Author : Gauri      Blog : Tiny Tidbits      Date : 1/31/2013 7:10:00 AM

'(Pic courtesy : cartoonstock.com via Google)“I wish I had hair like yours” quipped someone, the other day.  “Falls in such soft waves around the shoulder, looks like you actually style it that way” remarked another.  Trust me, people – you do not want to have hair like my crowning glory.  My crowning glory has a mind of its own – literally, it does.  It is like a child – a rather unpredictable one.  On some days it decides to behave itself – so beautifully t(...)'

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The J.S.Verma Report - Couple of points to ponder on

Author : Gauri      Blog : Tiny Tidbits      Date : 1/28/2013 7:01:00 AM

'(Pic courtesy : creativeyouthideas.com via Google)At first glance, upon reading the gist of the Justice J.S.Verma report, though it did sound quite balanced overall, some bits did leave me bothered.  A couple of aspects in the report specifically stood out.One question has consistently been on my mind ever since I read about the fifth rapist in the Nirbhaya case not being tried in an adult court of law on account of being a juvenile.  Now the Justice Verma report too has n(...)'

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No ads on my blog, please !!!

Author : Gauri      Blog : Tiny Tidbits      Date : 1/24/2013 8:19:00 AM

'(Pic courtesy : edublogs.org via Google)I guess there are many different reasons why people blog.  I’ve been blogging for more than seven years now.  I started this blog mainly as an online diary of sorts, to record those little snippets that tend to get forgotten over a period of time, those anecdotes relating to the growing up years of both Macadamia and Pecan.  Nowadays, even though I blog less about Macadamia and Pecan, what with them growing up and wishing to see(...)'

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India - Ready for Change ??

Author : Gauri      Blog : Tiny Tidbits      Date : 1/22/2013 7:36:00 AM

'(Picture courtesy : indianfusion.aglasem.com via Google)India is quite literally in the spotlight, of late – a spotlight that is shining harsh and bright and bringing to the fore a lot of feelings and attitudes that were hitherto, hidden within the recesses of the mind.  On the one hand, we have a large section of Indians, both in India and abroad, rooting and clamouring for justice and a need to change for the better, the very basic fibre of our society and of course, the lega(...)'

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