The temple beats and the Pallavur trinity

I spent most of my childhood vacations near the temples of Pallavur, the bigger one being the Thrippallavurappan temple, with Lord Siva as the main deity and I have been lucky to see & listen to the great Pallavur trinity comprising the brothers, Appu, Kunjukuttan & Manian. I introduced them...

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Oh! How I need my MPG

I still remember our driver of yester years in India, with much fondness. He used a number of methods to help conserve fuel or for that matter to get more bang for the ‘small’ buck in those days where a car was a luxury and gas cost Rs 10-15 per liter in India. As a child I remember him saying “Ah!...

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Gandhiji’s Ingersoll watch

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's one worldly possession was an Ingersoll ‘Turnip’ pocket watch, which he wore tied on a string (somewhere along, he must have lost the chain, if it had one) around his waist, hidden between the folds of his dhoti. As he bent down or stopped, the watch would spring free to...

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A Tumultuous Week

Some weeks ago, I had commented on a couple of blogs that I was looking forward to a trip to India and that I had envied the trips others had planned. Little did I know that within hours, I would be in India to spend a fast paced and torrid week….It was an international call the wee hours of a morning that started it all.Soon I was sitting on the SAL flight to Taiwan from LAX. The Singapore girls...

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When Fingers Talk

During the days of the radio, we used to have a perfectly boring period when a program called Kambola Nilavaram (Market situation) was aired. They droned out the prices per quintal of spices, and all kinds of commodities. Then I heard from my Badagara friends about how these prices were set or fixed...

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