All four of us were outside this evening, preparing seedling bags and putting in some tree seeds. We punched holes in old milk sachets (Vangal Dairy!), then packed them with a mix of mud and compost, pressed the seed in and watered the bags.

Whatever seeds pop, will be nursed in the nursery...

Shakshuka is a dish which Sunny and Meeta taught us: They had learnt it from an Israeli friend. Essentially, you poach eggs on a mush of cooked tomatoes, onion, garlic and herbs and green chillies.

Shakshuquiche is our variation which was tried out yesterday for tiffin.

Recipe:
For the...

Chinnathambi, Arunachalam and Thenan just called us to share some honey which they had extracted from a hive under some rocks, whilst clearing part of our land. Talking to them, looking at how they function, I wonder about their lives and the lives of the next generation of villagers which seem to b...

Our house has become a "Linux household" in the last couple of months, and the boys have been furiously drawing stuff, apart from working on the computer. Sketches of Linus Torvalds and Linux-related themes are all over the house. Varun Baba even has Tux (the penguin) with the features of Lin...

I went into Thekambattu, one morning, last week, to "check my mail" (at the Post Office) and was passing the time of the day with Vellian, when the "Oppari" wailing started on the loudspeaker.

Vellian told me that Ramasamy, who had broken stones to build our house, was dead. He had committed sui...

At the shandy, on Saturday, I was treated to a cup of tea by an old man who rode pillion behind me to Karumandurai. Then, I got into a conversation with Shiva, my kaaikaran (vegetable vendor).

He very sweetly warned me about the danger to children of consuming "Gold Winner" (the most common pack...

Russell was a whirlwind Scott
Who came one Thursday noon.
He left after five days' stay,
And oh! that was much too soon.

His visit leavened many things,
Not least our painting skills.
Sourdough Bread, of course, was baked;
Cakes cooled on window sills.

We learnt to 'sit' while he pain...

BALA MANIKANDAN C (in BLOCK letters, in English) came up a couple of days ago, for help with filling a form for "Teacher Training".He is the only student from Valagapattu to have written the XII std exam this year and he passed with just over 50% marks.

What and how he will teach, were he to qua...

These photos are taken by Deepak., Pablo, and Madhu, when they visited here, at various times.For the uninitiated (like yours truly), click on a picture to enlarge.

Phoenix is scheduled to land on Mars at about 4.30 am, IST, tomorrow (26 May 2008) according to Badri Baba, who got this information from a Countdown timer at the NASA site when he was doing various other "looking for"s.

I remember, some thirty years ago,when I was Badri Baba's age, Viking...

Our neighbour, Duraisamy has just bought a Diesel Engine and pump after at least two years of saving and skimping. So we were worried about all this talk of soaring Oil prices and Rationing of Diesel...

Duraisamy was pushed in this direction by various things. Till now, he cultivated Tapioca whi...

New Year's Time was when we had a house full of kids and tried various ways of getting the house empty.

One such was a trek to Dipodo's Hill with Madhu

"Plant your words where Profit lies; Whiter cloth takes faster Dyes": This from the Panchatantra.
Both Sonati and I have been feeling/wondering for a while now about putting up a blog. to "interact" as it were. After all, we do read blogs, visit other sites etc.

Then came Sumana's article on Ho...

Leaven (Starter):
Take a tablespoon of atta and add water to make it chutney consistency, and leave for 4 hours.Dilute this (after 4 hours) and discard half the "batter". Add more atta to get it back to chutney consistency.
Repeat this at least 5 times over two days (You can leave it for 8 hours o...

Like I said, Chakki is best