A very traditional tambram dish, Vazhakai Podimas is a healthy plantain stir fry which barely uses any oil. So this is a very good alternative for those who want to eat green bananas, but don’t want to fry them.
Vazhakai Podimas
Ingredients:
4 medium-sized raw bananas
4 tbsp grated coconut
1 tbsp grated ginger
1 tbsp oil or ghee
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tbsp split urad dal
1 tsp green chilli paste or 2 green chillies, chopped
3-4 curry leaves, torn
1-2 tsp lemon juice
Salt to taste
Method:
Wash the raw banana and discard the top and bottom. Cut the bananas into 2-3 large pieces.
In a large pan heat water and once the water comes to a rolling boil add the raw bananas and cook them for about 5-6 minutes until the bananas are cooked. You can also steam the bananas.
Once the bananas are cooked evenly and the skin darkens, remove them from the water and peel the skin. Because it is fully cooked, the skin should come off easily.
Take out the cooked raw bananas from the water and allow them to cool completely. Peel the skin and grate them after peeling.
Now add the grated ginger, coconut and salt and gently mix so the grated raw banana does not get mushy.
Heat the oil or ghee in a pan. Once the oil is warm, add the mustard seeds and let them splutter. At this point, add the urad dal and let the dal slightly brown.
Then add the green chilli paste or green chilles and curry leaves and stir well.
At this point, add the grated bananas which has been mixed with ginger, coconut and salt and mix gently so the tempering is mixed with the vegetable.
Drizzle some lemon juice and serve hot with any south Indian meal like sambar or rasam.
Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know – Adam M. Grant
Think Again is a book about the benefit of doubt, and about how we can get better at embracing the unknown and the joy of being wrong. Evidence has shown that creative geniuses are not attached to one identity, but constantly willing to rethink their stances and that leaders who admit they don’t know something and seek critical feedback lead more productive and innovative teams.
New evidence shows us that as a mindset and a skilllset, rethinking can be taught and Grant explains how to develop the necessary qualities to do it. Section 1 explores why we struggle to think again and how we can learn to do it as individuals, arguing that ‘grit’ alone can actually be counterproductive. Section 2 discusses how we can help others think again through learning about ‘argument literacy’. And the final section 3 looks at how schools, businesses and governments fall short in building cultures that encourage rethinking.
In the end, learning to rethink may be the secret skill to give you the edge in a world changing faster than ever.
Though technically not a festival in the way we have come to associate festivals with, the Tyagaraja Aradhana is an annual music festival that glorifies the Telugu saint composer Tyagaraja. The music festival is observed in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, primarily in Tiruvaiyaru in the Thanjavur district, where Tyagaraja attained Samadhi. The Aaradhana is observed on Pushya Bahula Panchami day when the saint attained samadhi when musicians render the saint’s Pancharatna Kritis.
A composer and Carnatic music vocalist, Thyagaraja or Kakarla Thyagabrahmam was born on the 4 May 1767, to a Telugu Vaidiki Mulakanadu Brahmin family in Tiruvarur in present-day Tiruvarur District of Tamil Nadu. Tyagaraja and his contemporaries, Shyama Shastri and Muthuswami Dikshitar are regarded as the Trinity of Carnatic music. Thyagaraja composed thousands of devotional compositions, most in Telugu and in praise of Lord Rama, many of which remain popular today, the most popular being Nagumomu. Of special mention are five of his compositions called the Pancharatna Kritis or the five gems, which are often sung in programs in his honour, and Utsava Sampradaya Krithis or festive ritual compositions, which are often sung to accompany temple rituals.
Tyagaraja hero-worshipped the celestial sage Narada, a reference to this is Tyagaraja’s krithi Vara Nārada in Vijayaarī raga and in Adi taḷam. Legend has it that a hermit taught him a mantra invoking Narada, and Tyagaraja, meditating on this mantra, received a vision of Narada and was blessed with the book Svarārnavam by the sage. During his last days, Tyagaraja took vows of Sannyasa. Tyagaraja died on a Pushya Bahula Panchami day, or 6 January 1847, at the age of 79. His last composition before his death was Giripai Nelakonna in rāga Sahāna, Ādi tāḷam and was cremated on the banks of the Kaveri river at Thiruvaiyaru.
The Aradhana or ceremony of adoration is held every year on the anniversary of his death which is the fifth day of the waning moon in the Hindu lunar month of Pushya. The Aradhana is conducted by the Sri Thyagabrahma Mahotsava Sabha and is held in the precincts of the samadhi or memorial of the saint located at Thiruvaiyaru village in Thanjavur district. The Aradhana in its present format is less than a century old. A few days before his death in 1847, he formally renounced everything and become a sanyasi. When he passed on, his mortal remains were buried on the banks of the river Kaveri and a small memorial was built at the site. His disciples returned to their respective villages and observed his death anniversary at their own homes. The memorial soon fell into neglect and became quite dilapidated by 1903, when two of the last surviving students to have been taught by Tyagaraja happened to make a nostalgic visit to the site. These were the elderly and eminent musicians Umayalpuram Krishna Bhagavatar and Sundara Bhagavatar who were dismayed by the neglect and dilapidation and had to search for the memorial in the wild foliage of the riverbank. They arranged for the renovation of the samadhi and decided to commemorate the tithi or death anniversary of their guru every year at the Samadhi itself.
In the next year, efforts were made by musical stalwarts to observe the death anniversary regularly at Tiruvayyaru, and to use the occasion as an opportunity for his followers to converge and interact with each other. In 1905, a lavish ceremony, complete with the feeding of the poor and worship at the memorial as per Vedic tenets, was celebrated. Brothers Tillaisthanam Narasimha Bhagavatar and Tillaisthanam Panju Bhagavatar were the main financiers and organisers of the aaradhana. By the next year, the brothers had fallen out with each other and from 1906, each began conducting a parallel Aradhana. Various musicians also aligned themselves with one or the other and two rival factions came into being. The group and Aradhana celebration conducted by Narasimha Bhagavatar came to be called the Periya Katchi or the senior party since he was the elder, and that of Panju Bhat became known as the Chinna Katchi. Gradually, a convention emerged whereby the Chinna Katchi’s celebrations began five days before the Aradhana and concluded on the Aradhana day, while the Periya Katchi’s celebration began on Aradhana day and continued for four days after that. Both groups organised music performances and the feeding of the poor and so the public was the real beneficiary during the nine days. At one point, both groups were united and did not allow women to perform during the Aradhana as in those days, the only women who sang or danced in public were the devadasi or temple performers. Another point in common between the two groups was that they did not permit nadaswaram performances.
In 1921, the aged and childless Bangalore Nagarathnamma, an ardent devotee of Tyaharaja decided to dedicate her life’s earnings to preserving Tyagaraja’s legacy and perpetuating his memory. In 1925, she began the construction of a temple enclosing the memorial and according to some sources, she purchased the land on which the grave stood, whereas according to other sources, her construction was illegal, but tolerated by local residents due to its pious intentions. Nagarathnamma also had an idol of Tyagaraja sculpted and installed in front of the memorial. The consecration of the temple took place in early 1926. The two rival groups, while not interfering with all this, refused to let Nagarathnamma perform her music, or even Harikatha, within the temple which she herself had had constructed. Undeterred, Nagarathnammal began a third front which conducted its music programs at the rear of the shrine. This third event featured many women artists, and perhaps for that very reason, it began eating into the public popularity of the events hosted by the two Katchis. She also filed suits in the local courts demanding the prevention of the Katchis from entering the temple, claiming that it belonged to her by right. She lost the case, but the hours of worship were laid down by the courts, dividing the Aradhana day equally between the two Katchis and her group. Matters continued this way till 1940 when the groups united and it was in 1941 that the Aradhana as we know was first conducted and the choral rendition of the five songs was made an integral feature of the Aradhana. A huge complex is now under construction at Thiruvaiyaru at this site to accommodate the large audience that comes to the concert in ever-increasing numbers every year.
And just like that, we are in the month of love, February. I always associate February being a month filled with love and laughter and so hope that this month is like that for all of us.
I finally reached my home state of Maharashtra this month, after walking nearly 6,000 km since the beginning of 2021. I am currently on the outskirts of Maharastra’s third-largest city and its winter capital, Nagpur. To reach my home in Mumbai, I still need to walk another 700 km.
I exceeded my expectations this month and read 12 books, a mixture of both fiction and non-fiction. I don’t think I have read this much in a month in recent years, so this was a very good start for the year for me, in reading terms. Now comes the part, which is to sustain this reading pace.
This week’s quote comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and his ideology was disseminated through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States. Waldo as he was known as tells us that our past and future circumstances are not important as our character; no matter what setbacks we’ve faced or challenges that lie ahead, we can succeed if we have inner strength. Food for thought, right?
The children are busy with school and winding down to the end of the last semester of their polytechnic education. And GG is also busy with university applications and I hope she gets admitted into the course of her choice at the university she wants to attend. BB will now be liable for National Service and we are still waiting for his enlistment letter which should come anytime soon. So after the end of his diploma, he will start focusing on his fitness, so that he does not have too much of a problem during his Basic Military Training.
That’s all for this week. I hope February is just as lovely as the promise it shows.
‘…And then we heard the rain falling, and that was the drops of blood falling; and when we came to get the crops, it was dead men that we reaped.’ Harriet Tubman
In five years, Jesmyn Ward lost five men in her life, to drugs, accidents, suicide, and the bad luck that can follow people who live in poverty, particularly black men.
Dealing with these losses, one after another, made Jesmyn ask the question: why? And as she began to write about the experience of living through all the dying, she realized the truth–and it took her breath away. Her brother and her friends all died because of who they were and where they were from, because they lived with a history of racism and economic struggle that fostered drug addiction and the dissolution of family and relationships. Jesmyn says the answer was so obvious she felt stupid for not seeing it. But it nagged at her until she knew she had to write about her community, to write their stories and her own.
Jesmyn grew up in poverty in rural Mississippi. She writes powerfully about the pressures this brings, on the men who can do no right and the women who stand in for family in a society where the men are often absent. She bravely tells her story, revisiting the agonizing losses of her only brother and her friends. As the sole member of her family to leave home and pursue high education, she writes about this parallel American universe with the objectivity distance provides and the intimacy of utter familiarity.
Memories and Such 