Saraswath Vani

Transcription

Saraswath Vani

SARASWATH VANI
Winter Edition, February 2012
Gowda Saraswath Sabha (UK)
(Registered by the Charity Commission of the United Kingdom. Reg No: 299275)
http://www.konkaniEU.com
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Winter EdItIon, FEB 2012
Saraswath VANI
Contents
Sabha Address
Your Committee Members
3
Members News
3
82,Priory Field Drive
Secretary’s Report
4
Edgware, Middlesex
Editorial
5
G S Sabha (UK)
HA8 9PU
SABHA EVENTS
Tel: (0208) 958 9334
Letter from Kashi Math
6
Behind the Scenes
7
DISTINGUISHED KONKANI’S
Uncle Pai
13
PEARLS OF WISDOM
Vani Address
Saraswath Vani Editor
Flat 2,Gable Lodge
Torrington Park Road
London N12 9Tb
[email protected]
Spiritual LSD
15
Hidden Benefits of ...
16
BHAKTI
Pooja Thali –Diwali 2011
16
Bhakti –Sweetness of Devotion
17
Crossword
18
AMCHI GELE
Manjeshwar Gawanche Phardi
GSB –STARS
Collection Of Poems
19
8
22
AMCHI
RANDAP
CHI Jawan
Undi
23
Buns
24
QUIZ –TIME
At what age ?
26
25
25
Disclaimer:
The Saraswath Vani Editorial Committee and G.S. Sabha (UK) do not accept any responsibility for any views
expressed by individuals and/or parties in the Saraswath Vani. The Editorial Committee reserves the right to
exclude, edit and correct all material received for publication. The Editorial Committee reserves the right to
acknowledge or not, all correspondence received. Unless specifically requested, articles will not be returned.
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Saraswath VANI
Your Committee Members Year 2011 - 12
Trustees
Mrs.Suman Naik
Dr.Umesh Prabhu
Chairperson
Mr.Sadananda Nayak
Vice Chairperson
Dr.Geeta Pai
Secretary
Mr.Jayanarayan Bhat
Joint Secretary
Dr.Vinod Gadiyar
Treasurer
Mr.Dipak Rao
Dr.Vasudeva Kamath
Auditor
Mr.Subhash Kamath
Dr.Ashwin Mallya
Vani Editor
Mrs.Gauri Shanbhag
Mr.Padmanabha Shanbhag
Dr.Balakrishna Shenoy
Executive Committee Members
Mr.Kiran Pai
Mr.Ananth Pai
Youth Co-ordinator Mr.Nimish Ubhaykar
Web Co-Master
Mrs.Shwetha Nayak
Web Co-Master
Mr.Sudeep Shenoy
Members Events
Congratulations and best
wishes to newly wed couple
Mr.Naresh and Mrs.Vidya Pai
who got married on 21st July
2011.
Congratulations and best
wishes to newly wed
couple Mr.Nitin and
Mrs.Kirthi Bhat. They tied
the knot on 23rd July
2011.
Our blessings to
baby Samar, second child
of Mr.Satyaprasad and
Mrs Leena Bhat. His birthday is 2nd December
2011.
Saraswath VANI
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Secretar y’s Report
Dear Konkani families,
Greetings to you all and wish you a happy new year! Even with all the doom and gloom of the global
economy ,G S Sabha celebrated the Silver Jubilee Year in style last year. The celebrations and YHA
in Stafford–Upon –Avon was very well organized and everyone enjoyed the 48 hours,one platform
and 150 Konkanis. This was followed by a very successful Diwali Celebrations together with Saraswat
Samaj. Icing on the cake was the generous contribution given by our members to the Silver Jubilee
Charity Appeal. We collected and donated an amount of £ 4,000/- to Vishwa Konkani Student Scholarship Fund, £ 300/- to Anugraha Trust and £2,000/- towards G S Sabha general reserves. One of
our life member donated Rs 50,000/- to VKSSF and Rs 50,000/- to Anugraha Trust. For and on behalf of the Trustees and the Committee, I take this opportunity to thank you all for your kind charity
spirit.
Hope 2012 will usher peace and prosperity to all. I hope too that this year we will start seeing a
growth in our membership and activities. I know for sure that we have another 40 to 60 konkani
families whom we have not met and surprisingly vice versa could also be true. I met someone who
has been in this country for 3 years and they were unaware of the existence of the G S Sabha. We
certainly need to bridge this gap, sooner the better.
The Sabha Website, under active management by Sudeep and Shweta is proving to be a great success. Please do visit our website www.konkaniEU.com or www.gowdasaraswathsabha.org and check
out the guest book entries and regular updates. The Sabha would like to make more and more use
of the net to communicate with the members regarding the Sabha activities to save time, postage
and paper.
The Annual General Body meeting is planned to take place in the second half of April this year. I will
let you all know the exact date and venue as soon as possible. Please make it a point to participate
and contribute towards the direction and success of the Sabha. The committee is also looking to organize a Badminton evening for the members.
I am really grateful for the wonderful co-operation and support given by the fellow Committee members, Trustees and the members in general. It was great fun working for the Sabha and in the process I have become closer to the members and made lot of friends. I am sure you will continue to
show the same level of enthusiasm and support.
Devu barre koro (God Bless you all )
Jayanarayan Bhat
Saraswath VANI
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Editorial
Dear Readers,
Gowda Saraswath Sabha Uk , has not only grown to become a part of my family, but has also
aspired me to become an integral part of a community . What it means to be a part of a loving
family, I reckon nobody else would know it better than me, especially during the course of the
past two and a half years .
This being my first edition , I am getting butterflies in my stomach, wondering if my GSS family
members would have enjoyed reading the Saraswath Vani as much as I have enjoyed compiling
it . I am eagerly awaiting for feedback and suggestions and contributions with the sole intention
of trying to improvise and make Saraswath Vani a gateway to the literary adventures of the
past ,present and the future . May I seek everybody’s blessings and wishes to help me serve our
Gowda Saraswath Community to my best and fullest capacity .
During the making of the Saraswath Vani , there might have been situations in the past or there
may arise events in the future that may lead to misunderstandings . On such circumstances I
would sincerely in advance like to extend my apologies, as none of the articles had or will ever
have any intention of hurting any individual feelings .
As Gurudev ( Swami Chinmayananda ) says ‘All disturbances and challenges arise not only from
our relationship with others but in our attitude to all the other things and beings’ .
Gurudev also says that ‘In all worthwhile undertakings ,there will be risks of failure ,
of disappointments ,or even disaster . To face them all with the inner poise and firm faith is to
discover the glory of final victory . A conquest without facing dangers is as dull as a victory
without a shinning glory – a game without a prize’ .
On that note I would like to wish all my readers, friends and family a very successful journey
towards the final victory .
Last but not the least I would like to thank Mr.Vinay Pai for helping me bring out my first
Saraswath Vani issue . Hats off to my dear Vinay and his wife Sandhya who have taken out time
from their busy family life and supported me in my new role as an Editor of the Sarswath Vani .
Best Wishes,
Gauri Shanbhag
[email protected]
Corrections and Clarifications :
This is with reference to the last paragraph of the article ‘The Birth and Development of the Gowda Saraswath Sabha’
in the Saraswath Vani Special Silver Jubilee August 2011 edition . There is a sentence ‘At the AGM held in Derby last
year Ambee made a comment about something having been done in the same way by the Sabha in the past 30
years’. With reference to this sentence the author of this article Shambhavi Kamath , would like to clarify and
apologize that she had inadvertently mentioned the name Ambee .
Saraswath VANI
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Swamiji’s Blessings on GSS Silver Jubilee Celebrations
Last year our Secretary Mr.Jayanarayan Bhat had written to all the four Maths in India , namely Gokarn Math , Chitrapur math , Kavale math and Kashi Math , seeking the blessings of our Swamijis
on the occasion of the Silver jubilee celebrations of GSS UK . In response he received a letter from
the Kashi math , which we would like to share with our readers.
SABHA EVENTS
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Saraswath VANI
A Glimpse Behind The Scenes Of The Silver Jubilee
We are all familiar with viewing “the making of” features
on movies of what went on
behind the scenes and how it
all came together. I thought I
would steal a leaf out of their
book to give you an insight
into how we put together the
Silver Jubilee celebration
event.
For those of you who have
read my article in the Silver
Jubilee edition of the Vani you
will be familiar with how the
idea of this celebration germinated in my mind. As it happens with most things, I realised that when I open my
mouth and put an idea forward, I generally get tasked (I
was going to say lumbered but
changed my mind) with executing the idea. I put forward
the suggestion to Dr Prakash
Nayak our Secretary at the
time who then discussed it at
the next executive committee
meeting and there was overwhelming support for the Silver Jubilee celebration to take
place. I was invited to be on
the sub-committee with
Sadanand, Leela, Suman and
Jayant.
Time went by and no further
progress was made as we
were all waiting for somebody
to take the lead and guide us
in planning this celebration.
Little did I know then that I
was the one who had drawn
the invisible short straw dished
out by destiny. When I returned from a trip to India in
May 2010, we were invited to
lunch at Satheesh Prabhu’s
house in Rochdale. Now, that
is one invitation that should
never be turned down as his
wife Aparna is a girl after my
own heart in the culinary field.
We enjoyed delicious authentic
Konkani dishes that she had
learnt from her mother-in-law.
Of course this article is going to
be liberally sprinkled with references to food as the “JevaN” is
at the core of every true Konkani and I am a firm believer
that any Konkani worth his or
her salt most definitely lives to
eat rather than the other way
round. When we were all feeling rather contented and lazily
chatting about this and that,
the topic swung round to the
Silver Jubilee celebration planning or rather the lack of it (no
offence intended to anybody
please). The general consensus was that since we (the
families in the North were able
to meet more regularly) should
take the lead and put forward a
plan to the Executive committee. Being the glutton for punishment that I am, I took the
bait and called the first brainstorming session at our house
on Sunday 16th October.
Before the brainstorming session we wanted to do our
homework as this was planned
to be a very special event. We
wanted to hold it in a hotel that
was in the Midlands, close to
the motorway network and allowed outside catering. Anoth-
er important fact I have
learned over the years is that
the enjoyment of an Indian
event is directly proportionate
to the gastronomic experience
hence bland meals were not an
option. Shanta and I spent a
whole day on my dining table
with two laptops and a phone
trying to source venues that
met with all our demands. As
we drew blanks everywhere,
we then tasked Suraj to help us
with sourcing venues as he was
on his summer holidays at that
time. Lee Valley YHA was at
the top of the list and as the
Sabha was owed money from
the Bank Holiday weekend, we
wanted to cash in on it in true
Konkani style
The success of any event is
solely dependent on team work
and effective delegation, a fact
I had learnt on many an occasion. Whilst there were 5 of us
on the sub-committee, I felt
that we were not equipped with
the skill sets required for the
various elements of the event
and decided to take on board
other families who could fill in
the missing pieces of the jigsaw
puzzle to complete the picture.
They were Vinod Gadiyar and
family, Shanta and Umesh
Prabhu, Ashwin and Maya Mallya and our son Arun.
SABHA EVENTS
Saraswath VANI
I stressed to everyone invited
that lunch would be served at
1 pm sharp whether they were
there or not (only kidding
folks!) and that the meeting
would commence at 2 pm
sharp. Needless to say, they
were all very punctual - I
wonder whether my culinary
reputation had something to
do with it hmmmm…. I did
not disappoint them as we had
Chicken Kundapuri, Neer
dosa, Jiva Kadgi phodi, Tendle
Bibbo upkari and our Konkani
staple Dalithoi. I have forgotten what other dishes I had
cooked and we made a
prompt start at 2 pm. Leela
was appointed as our scribe
and she did such a wonderful
job that nobody else dared to
take a turn afterwards as we
could never have matched up
to her brilliant minute taking
skills. Lots of ideas were
thrashed about and before I
got round to serving the dessert, a broad framework was
already in place of a sit down
dinner dance with professional
entertainment on Saturday,
adult and children’s games
like egg and spoon race etc.
on Sunday, Anand Mela at
lunchtime with home grown
entertainment and Youth disco
in the evening after a buffet
dinner. Leela offered to collect black bags full of unwanted clothing and shoes which
she could sell at her local
charity shop for £5 to raise
funds for the event. From
then on we loaded her car
with so many black bags she
could hardly see out of her
rear view mirror. Nevertheless, she managed to raise
over £100 towards the event.
Leela’s father Ambee was tremendously supportive of the
event and put up a page on
Facebook where he kept everybody posted on the latest
news regarding the event.
No doubt you have heard
Umesh on a few occasions talking about the passion felt in the
team about this event and he is
absolutely right in that we all
wanted to plan a fantastic
event for all of our membership
– one that would be remembered for many years to come.
The focus was on quality and a
much higher level of enjoyment
than ever before by the attendees. We also wanted to
make sure that we addressed
the interests of all age groups
from the very youngest to our
most mature individuals and
that is how the phrase
“Something for Everyone” became our tag line.
Vinod, Shalini, Vasu and myself
were tasked with checking out
the possibility of holding this
event at Lee Valley YHA, we
made this visit on the day after
the Diwali celebration. Within a
few minutes of staking out the
hostel we realised that the facility would be completely unsuitable for the framework that
we had drawn up and we were
back to the drawing board.
I prayed to Lord Google and
my prayers were answered and
the Stratford YHA details were
displayed on my screen. I
picked up the phone and spoke
to Stephen Dodgson the manager and provisionally booked
the hostel for the August Bank
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Holiday weekend as it was
available. Shanta and I made a
visit to this hostel in early January armed with digital cameras
to take pictures to present at
our next meeting scheduled for
15th January in Shanta’s house.
On the morning of the visit,
Shanta came over and we drove
to Stratford merrily chatting
away and I nearly missed the
turn off on to M5. As I waited
to slip into the lane to take M5,
the irate truck driver behind me
must have used numerous
choice gender specific expletives; fortunately I could not
hear them other than the frantic
honking of his horn. We arrived
at the YHA and were warmly
welcomed and shown round the
facilities. I was amused at
Shanta’s camera that was held
together with sellotape as she
clicked away. When we got
home I downloaded her pictures
onto my laptop and only when I
put the presentation together
for the next meeting for a walk
through of the YHA with the
snapshots that I realised that I
had failed miserably in my photo shoot. Shanta had taken
much better pictures with her
injured camera than I had with
mine!!!
The next SJPT (Silver Jubilee
Planning Team) meeting was at
Shanta and Umesh’s house in
the middle of January. Umesh
promised fish and chips for
lunch but we knew that Shanta
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Saraswath VANI
Behind The Scenes….
would most definitely delight
us with a mouth-watering
spread which she did. If she
decided to market her recipe
for her delicious “saaru” MTR
sales in this section would definitely plummet. We enjoyed
chilli fish (like chilli paneer)
chana ghashi and lots of other
delicious dishes after which we
settled down to serious discussions. I put on a Powerpoint presentation of a
walkthrough of the YHA to
give everyone an idea of what
the accommodation was like
and the spacious grounds. We
also discussed the quotes received from various marquee
companies as the only way we
could all have a dinner dance
was to have a marquee erected on the premises to accommodate everyone.
Ashwin was tasked with sourc-
ing the professional entertainment and Leela was tasked
with sourcing the DJ for the
Youth disco and the professional photographer. We also
set the dates of the next two
meetings – one in March at
Vinod’s house and the next in
May at Suman’s house. The
decision on booking the YHA
at Stratford-upon-Avon was
also made and we decided to
make a trip there to finalise
the deal with them for the
provisional booking that I had
made in December. We also
decided that we would deliver a
presentation at the AGM in
April to whet the appetite of
the membership as we were
keen for the event to be completely sold out and have day
delegates attending.
I made an appointment with
Stephen Dodgson the manager
at Stratford YHA to visit the
facility on the last Saturday of
January with Vinod, Shalini and
Vasu. We were welcomed by
the staff at the YHA and soon
got down to talking business.
We let Vinod do all the talking
as he had managed many an
August Bank Holiday weekend
in the past but what took us by
surprise was his ability to crack
the best deal. Looks can be
deceptive and beneath that
saintly exterior there is a hard
core businessman and before
we knew it the price for the
package deal for the entire
weekend had dropped by 2K!!!
After this achievement we
coined the phrase “the Vinod
Factor” which we used whenever we wanted to get the best
prices whilst firming up various
deals for the event.
A couple of weeks after this,
Vinod, Shalini, Shanta and I
went to Leicester to see Mr
Surya from Shivalli restaurant
and for sampling his buffet.
Although I had spoken to other
caterers in the region, we were
bowled over by the quality of
food that we had and decided
to award the catering contract
to him. The journey there and
back was like a dream with all
of us chatting and laughing all
the way.
The meeting at Vinod’s house
saw more progress being made
on the event and as this meeting was very close to my visit to
India I offered to get the leaflets designed and printed in India as it would be very cost effective and also to get the felicitation mementos designed and
crafted from a jeweller in Mangalore. I stayed with Rajani my
cousin whose husband Ranga is
extremely resourceful with numerous contacts and very talented with design and wording.
We are grateful to Rangabhavaji, who designed the memento beautifully with appropriate wording on his computer
and emailed it to the jeweller.
He also put me in touch with a
local graphic designer who designed the leaflet. Although his
initial concept was good, the
colour scheme was very garish
and I spent a couple of hours in
his office breathing down his
neck whilst I got him to re-do
the colour scheme and modify
the leaflet till I got the results I
wanted.
I also made a trip to Mumbai
and went shopping with my
aunt to Santa Cruz market
where I bought nearly 9 Kg of
bangles for sale at the Bangles
and Bindis stall for the Anand
Mela. That was a real experience which still brings a smile
to my face when I think about
it. After spending almost two
SABHA EVENTS
Saraswath VANI
hours choosing bangles of various designs and sizes and my
aunt haggling the price, I offered my credit card for payment. To my dismay they did
not accept credit cards and
after a quick rummage in my
bag I realised that I did not
have enough cash to pay for
my purchases. They then
sent one of their assistants
with me to the ATM a short
walk away and when we got
there as luck would have it,
the ATM was broken and we
had to cross the bridge to get
to the other side to use the
machine stationed there.
What an experience that was!!
I felt like a prize idiot despite
people extolling the virtues of
my computer skills. I was unable to get the machine to
give me cash after several attempts and was acutely aware
of an impatient queue building
up outside. Finally one of the
youngsters in the queue
poked her head around the
door and told me that I had to
insert the card and immediately remove it for the transaction to proceed. I managed
to get the necessary amount
and realised what it feels like
to be on the “older side”. Remember how we used to get
impatient with our older generation who could not grasp
the nuances of technology? I
realised with a pang that I
very much belonged to the
older generation that day. I
also realised that I must also
be quite thick skinned to ward
off all the abuses that people
have hurled at me both mentally and verbally. The bank
manager in Mangalore explained the difference between
an ATM and a cash machine
and it was the latter that I
was using in Mumbai whereby
the card is not left in the machine during the transaction
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process.
and the Mela.
The presentation at the AGM
The next stage was to send the
physical mailing of the booking
form with the leaflets for which
I had a lot of help from my recumbent husband. He helped
me check addresses and was
very keen to paste the labels
that I had printed however; after a couple of labels I asked
him to abandon that idea as the
labels looked wonky as they
were being pasted in an oblique
fashion due to his reclining posture. Such was his enthusiasm
to help me from his prone position that he enlisted the help of
well-wishers who came to visit
him. He peeled off the address
labels and got Anil Shenoy to
stick them on to the envelopes.
We had to postpone the session
for pricing the bangles to a later
generated a lot of interest and
we were cautiously optimistic
that we would have a sell-out
event. The Gadiyars, Prabhus,
Naiks and Kamaths proceeded
from the AGM to Rusoi restaurant in Warrington for a delicious authentic Indian meal.
We had a wonderful evening of
delicious cuisine and a lot of
laughs. Little did I know then
that crisis was just round the
corner for me. That week saw
me rushing Vasu to Liverpool
for surgery on his detached retina after which the poor man
was subjected to bed rest for
two weeks on his left side only
being allowed out of bed for
short periods for meals and attending to calls of nature. The
next SJPT meeting was scheduled for the Saturday after the
AGM and the only way I could
make it to the meeting at Suman’s house was to call on
Arun for a “daddy sitting” session which he was very happy
to do. He is a modern day example of “Shravan Kumar” who
is very happy to care for his
parents in their hour of need,
he had proved himself worthy
of that title when he provided
care for me after my knee surgery in 1999 when he was only
13 years of age. Arun had already given me his input for
the meeting in confirming that
he would provide the PA system for the icebreaker session
date due to Vasu’s health problems. I was unable to offer our
house for this purpose as we
had no seating space at home
due to a major refurbishment
project that was in progress at
our house. A date was set for
this to take place at Shanta’s
house with Shalini’s help.
Shalini became our bangle sizing guide when we came across
unmarked bangles where we
needed to determine the size.
As most of you ladies will know,
bangles are sized on the internal diameter and Shalini simply
put them on to her hand to determine the size almost like the
ring sizer that you see at the
SABHA EVENTS
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Saraswath VANI
Behind The Scenes….
jewellers. If they stopped a
third of the way down her arm
they were 2.4”, if they
stopped two thirds of the way
they were 2.6” and if they
reached her elbow they were
2.8”!!! Shanta had made a
lovely lunch for us and Shalini
came with biscuit rotti made
by her mother which was reminiscent of the ones from Taj
Mahal in Mangalore for those
who are familiar with this delicacy. We had these for tea
with shevayi usli made by
Shanta and decided that we
would meet again on another
date for the rest of the preparations.
day from lunchtime till 11 pm
around my dinner table after a
lunch of veg biryani and fish
curry. We continued into the
evening breaking for charamburo upkari and mango kulfi
and continuing into the night
when we had the leftovers from
the afternoon. A very worried
Umesh called me at 11:15 pm
to enquire about Shanta’s
whereabouts and was told that
she would be with him very
soon. As luck would have it
due to road closures and confused SatNavs, it was very late
when Shanta eventually
reached home.
Shalini and Vinod took the responsibility of procuring the
door prizes with Suman’s help
who had access to quality
goods at heavily discounted
prices. Leela took the responsibility of running the Best
Dressed Man, Best Dressed Lady and Best Dressed Competitions which was her idea. So,
the moral of the story is, if you
come up with an idea more
than likely you will be expected
to take the responsibility for
executing it!
Then there was the task of
room allocation and table
planning which required a lot
of thought, care and attention.
We wanted to group people
according to age, compatibility
and keep young families together. This involved allocating beds and rooms according
to the floor plan and bed
availability of the rooms at the
YHA. Vinod, Shalini, Shanta,
Vasu and I spent one whole
Towards the end of July we had
our final SJPT face to face
meeting at the YHA – a brilliant
suggestion by Leela. This
helped us to get familiar with
the surroundings and this is
when we decided the menu
items very carefully. Kiran Pai
and Jayant Shenoi wrote the
menu choices on the whiteboard in the Seminar Room
whilst we debated on specific
items. Jayant had brought
samples of designs for a new
banner for the Sabha and took
the responsibility of procuring
them at throwaway prices in
true Konkani style. Most of us
then proceeded to Leicester to
sample the food from Shivalli
restaurant’s delicious buffet.
Once again Vinod got down to
business and clinched the deal
on the meal prices whilst the
rest of us tickled our taste buds
sampling the delights of fresh
hot dosas, pooris, kurma, mysore bondas and many more
items on the menu.
Events on this scale need a lot
of planning and hard work behind the scenes and over the
years I have learnt many a time
saving technique which was put
to good use. We planned a Blue
Peter session at Shanta’s house
in early August to organise all
the various elements for the
event. When we arrived at
Shanta’s house, her conservatory was set up like a school room
with tables and chairs and
Shalini, Kiran and Shanta were
already busy pasting the stall
names on card paper. Vasu
took over most of the guillotining work for cutting up sheets
with the name badges, the slips
for the Name the Teddy stall,
the fortunes for the cookies and
the numbers for the door prizes.
We assembled the registration
packs with name badges and
door prizes and then got round
to assembling the table packs
with the party poppers, table
names, table confetti and the
programme and menu cards.
Then we assembled the balloon
weights with the different coloured ribbons ready for tying
the blown up balloons on the
day. By the time all these tasks
were complete, it was dinner
time and Shanta delighted us
with home-made chapathis,
chana curry, chicken curry and
a few other dishes. She took
Saraswath VANI
pictures of us hard at work which I am sharing with you in this article.
Shanta and Shalini were responsible for
most of the stalls at the Anand Mela with
Ashwin and Maya taking responsibility for
the face painting and coconut shy stalls.
Shanta had conceptualised most of the stalls
at the Mela and procured all the required
items for this as well with the help of her
friend Mrs Anand visiting a party warehouse
for shopping for the Mela stalls and games
that were planned. She also spent hours
grouping things together and packing them
into bags and labelling each bag with its
contents list.
The final task was to curl the ribbon lengths
in readiness for tying on to the balloons and
printing the place cards and assembling the
table plan that I did whilst watching TV on a
couple of evenings. Ashwini was home for a
little while on the weekend before the event
and helped me with her artistic touch in assembling the table plan while Vasu helped
me with cutting up the printed place cards
and placing them in the correct table bags.
The man has the patience of a sage – he
needs every iota of it for living with me!!!!
Page 12
cake, flowers (Shanta), table decorations like
the vases and mirrors that could only be done a
day or two before the event. When we got to
the venue, everyone was fully aware of their responsibilities from my detailed task list and it
was simply wonderful to have the designated
people turning up to help set up the marquee.
All I had to do was give directions and it all
came together as if by magic. Even when it
came to clearing up I just had to mention that I
needed a few volunteers and a whole lot of people turned up and just followed my instructions
and achieved the tasks on hand within minutes
of my saying what needed to be done.
The secret of success behind the whole event
was teamwork both from the team members
and the volunteers on both the days (too many
to name individually) who showed so much willingness and enthusiasm in doing the various
tasks on hand. I can confidently say on behalf of
the whole team that we have had tremendous
fun in putting the event together with a lot of
laughs and good food when we got together to
work on the various aspects of the event. May
this feeling of togetherness and kinship continue
well into the future both amongst us and our
younger generatio. As my son Arun would say
we Konkanis rule!!!!
Then there were the tasks of picking up the
Written by Mrs. Shambhavi Kamath
Page 13
Saraswath VANI
Uncle Pai: Amar Chitra Katha's Final Chapter
(17th September 1929 — 24th February 2011)
For millions of Indians like me,
our acquaintance with India’s
incredibly rich history, mythology, folklore and culture
would have been so much the
poorer without Amar Chitra
Katha, the legendary comic
book series, whose visionary
founding editor Ananth ‘Uncle’
Pai passed away this week.
I had the good fortune of not
just having been raised with a
growing library of Amar Chitra
Katha since I was five but also
realising a childhood dream of
actually working with Uncle
Pai on the celebrated comic
book series and its sister publication Tinkle for a few years
– that, too, as my very first
job in my writing career!
Uncle Pai was a legend in his
lifetime.
He was the google before
Google. His knowledge was
colossal and his memory prodigious. Be they chapters from
the Bhagwad Gita or long
verses from the Guru Granth
Sahib and be they Kabir’s Dohas, lengthy shlokas from the
Upanishads or Tagore’s Bengali poems, he could reel
them off effortlessly to drive
home a point – whether at
work or in the course of his
wonderfully engaging extempore speeches.
We would walk into his office
anytime and ask him any
question: a date in history, a
place name, the sequence of a
dynasty – anything. And we
would have the answer in seconds.
He knew eight languages – he
could read, write and speak in
each of them and had even
authored books and magazine
articles in some of them. He
would often converse with me
in our native Konkani even in
the office.
He was a scholar cast in the
classic old mould of preindependence philosopherstatesmen like Dr S Radhakrishnan. But unlike them, he
was able to explain the most
abstruse of concepts to young
children in an amazingly interesting way. That was his gift.
Though he didn’t have any of
his own, children were Uncle
Pai’s be all and end all. His
dedication to regaling them
with books, stories, anecdotes,
quiz contests, running nation
wide clubs and playing mentor,
career guide and friend was
consummate.
Children from Srinagar to
Thiruananthapuram and from
Dwaraka to Gauhati adored him
and on a typical day in the Amar Chitra Katha offices, as
many as three hundred letters
would be opened and read by a
dedicated staff tasked only with
reading and replying to children’s letters and filing away
contributions for future publication.
“Nothing encourages a child as
much as recognition and nothing discourages as much as the
lack of it,” Uncle Pai would say
insisting that every letter was
acknowledged – and he replied
to many of them personally,
with great fondness. Remember, that was before the age of
computers and email – so it involved dictating to stenos, typing, mailing, filing, keeping
written records …
I know of several people who
have still saved the replies they
received from Uncle Pai to show
their own kids.
His day would begin at 4am and
he would be in the office at the
crack of dawn. As well as attending to the voluminous correspondence, he had to pore
through script ideas for future
Amar Chitra Katha titles, edit
scripts, guide illustrators, supervise production and oversee
distribution besides looking after the publishing company’s
other children’s publications like
Tinkle.
Publishing for children was the
brilliant chemical engineer’s
passion from the very start.
Having failed to run a children’s
magazine in the 1950s, he
joined the publishers of the
Times of Indian in the 1960s
and was asked to come up with
ideas to fill the idle capacity of
the newly imported colour printing plant that was used to churn
out the prestigious Illustrated
weekly, Femina and Filmfare.
Uncle Pai saw this as a great
opportunity to indulge in his
passion: of starting with Indian
illustrated classics for children
Saraswath VANI
but the publishers didn’t share
his excitement. He struck a
deal with New York based King
Features and converted Phantom and Mandrake comic
strips into 32 page books published monthly and then fortnightly.
In comics with shorter stories
that finished in 28 pages, he
inserted what could well be
India’s first-ever regular comic
book feature – Around the
world with Kunju Pillay, which
catalogued the eponymous
character’s bicycle journeys
around the world.
Having successfully launched
the comic series, which was
published under the banner
“Indrajal Comics,” Uncle Pai
began to scout for publishers
to back his Indian illustrated
classics project. That’s when
he met with G.L. Mirchandani,
the founder of India Book
House who said he would back
the project as long as Uncle
Pai would not charge for his
own labours until it went into
print and recovered the expenses.
Uncle Pai took up the challenge and scoured hard to find
a good illustrator. He found
Ram Waeerkar to illustrate the
first script, “Krishna.”
Waeerkar remained with the
project for several decades
before his death a few years
ago – and “Krishna” remains
the most reprinted title in the
series having sold several million copies in nearly 50 languages around the world.
The first half a dozen titles took
long and made it to the newsstands quite irregularly. It took
a few years and a team – comprising Kamala Chandrakant
and Subba Rao besides about a
dozen illustrators and a production set up – before Amar
Chitra Katha began to roll as a
successful enterprise.
Uncle Pai won many accolades
in his long career with Amar
Chitra Katha. While leading
that great enterprise, he also
ran a syndicated feature service, Rang Rekha Features,
which he later sold and a personality development system
based on Indian values called
Partha.
I know of several Partha graduates around the world who
have greatly succeeded in their
professional and personal lives
and who look back at Uncle Pai
and the “Partha Institute” with
fondness and gratitude.
After the Mirchandanis sold
Amar Chitra Katha to a private
equity enterprise, the new set
up stopped publishing new titles ,instead leveraging the cre-
Contributed by Mrs Gauri Shanbhag
Page 14
ative and intellectual capital
that had been created over the
decades by launching a series of
products based on the series.
Both Amar Chitra Katha and
Tinkle though are still published
and are highly successful as a
series of repackaged products
from their earlier avataars.
Though the new set up continued to employ Uncle Pai and
looked after him well, he had
little to do in the last years of
his life. For a man who put in
18 tireless hours a day to create
products like Amar Chitra Katha
and Tinkle for much of his life,
such a void was hard to handle,
according to those close to him.
The 81-year-old had a fall about
ten days ago, which necessitated surgery to his hip. He passed
away after a massive heart attack while recovering quite well
from the fall. He is survived by
his dear wife Lalitha, several
nephews and nieces – and of
course by millions upon millions
of Indians who will remember
Uncle Pai’s immense contribution to their early lives.
(This article was written by
Mr. Dev Nadkarni and was published in Indian Weekender.
Saturday, February 26, 2011)
PEARLS OF WISDOM
Page 15
Saraswath VANI
Spiritual LSD
Everybody wants to be happy.
We cannot be happy if we are
starving or have no shelter or
if we are facing any scarcity.
Naturally, for happiness, we
turn to Lakshmi, goddess of
wealth. When she comes into
our lives, there is food and
clothing and shelter. We can
survive and hope to thrive.
More Lakshmi means abundance: there is money in the
bank, investments, property,
the future is financially secure.
More Lakshmi means health
and time to do things that we
love doing. There is prosperity
with pleasure.
The wise say that if you want
Lakshmi to come into your
life, you must never chase
her. She must chase you. Otherwise she will come into your
life with her twin-sister,
Alakshmi, goddess of quarrels.
A house filled with wealth as
well as strife is a house inhabited by both Lakshmi and
Alakshmi.
To make oneself worthy of
Lakshmi, to ensure that she
comes without Alakshmi , one
has to chase Saraswati, goddess of knowledge, who is
dressed in white and bears a
book in her hand. Lakshmi is a
whimsical goddess, who may
move in your direction at one
point, even without effort, and
then move away from you at
another. But Saraswati is a
dependable goddess, very dif-
ficult to acquire, but once she
comes by our side, she stays
with us.
The more Saraswati we have,
the more we know what people
want, how to get things done,
how to solve problems, how to
take the right decisions. Saraswati enlightens us, helps us
make sense of the world. Saraswati makes us sensitive to all
things around us. One who has
Saraswati in their lives knows
how much they don’t know;
hence they are humble and
generous. There is no anxiety
about the movement of Lakshmi. And there is no fear of
Alakshmi.
They say that Lakshmi and
Saraswati rarely stay in the
same house. When one has too
much Saraswati, one holds
Lakshmi in disdain. If one has
too much Lakshmi, one holds
Saraswati in disdain. But Lakshmi without Saraswati invites
Alakshmi. And that is not a
good thing. And Saraswati
without Lakshmi invites Daridra, the goddess of poverty,
which is also not a good thing.
But neither financial security
nor knowledge guarantees
emotional security. One can
have all the money in the world
but it does not guarantee a
successful, fruitful relationship.
One can possess all the
knowledge of the world, but if
relations are strained with par-
ents and children and siblings,
one cannot be happy. And so
we seek Shakti, the goddess of
power. When we say we want
fruitful relationships, we are actually saying we seek relationships that empower us, make
us feel secure and safe and significant, as one does when one
carries weapons. We want to
feel invulnerable like a citadel or
‘durg’ from where comes the
name Durga. Durga is sanctuary, emotional sanctuary, and a
place where we feel secure and
wanted. As Durga, Shakti rides
the tiger, fearless and holds
weapons in her hands, protecting us, unafraid to go into battle
for us. We want her in our life.
And to get Durga into our life,
we have to give Durga. To feel
secure and included, we have to
give others feelings of security
and inclusion. This will never
happen if we do not have sensitivity, if we differentiate between ‘mine’ and ‘not mine’. To
break the divide between ‘mine’
and ‘not mine’ we need Saraswati once more.
Thus happiness requires all
three goddesses: L (Lakshmi),
Saraswati (S) and Durga (D).
This is spiritual LSD that every
human being craves.
(This article first appeared in
The Speaking Tree dated Dec
12, 2010, Courtesy: The Times
of India)
Contributed by Mr Jayanarayan Bhat
PEARLS OF WISDOM
Page 16
Saraswath VANI
The Hidden Benefits of the Credit Cr unch
As most people are feeling the
uncertainty (if not any real
effects) around the 'credit
crunch' I think an interesting
thing is starting to happen. We
all know that food and oil prices
are on the rise and that house
prices are meant to be on the
decline, but what does that
mean? Obviously that means
keeping an eye on the bank
account and how you spend your
money, but money has no real
value in itself.
The value of money is created by
how we use it. Some people
value spending money on cars
whilst others see no value in
buying a new car at all. For
some people buying a designer
shirt is worth it whilst others
don't see the sense in paying
that sort of money for a piece of
clothing. No one goes to work
for money, they go to work for
what they can do with the money
they earn.
So the change in the economic
climate isn't really about the
availability or amount of
money, it's about making
lifestyle choices.
It's never fun when we are
forced to reconsider the way
we live our lives but
frequently these events can
bring some unexpected
positives.
When we can't do what we
want to do we have to reevaluate what is important to
us. If we have limited
resources we need to decide
what to use them on. The
credit crunch and the
economic climate will force us
to do just that.
It is not pleasant to think we
have to cut back but what if
we took the opportunity and
spun it on its head?
If you were to look into the
future what would you cut out
of your lifestyle but wouldn't
really miss? If you look at
what you have bought
recently, what would you
really want to keep because it
is worth it?
Sometimes we can get caught
in a 'keeping up with the
Jones' mentality. If you take
a good long look at how you
live your life at the moment
and the things you buy, how
many of them are really that
important?
In a time of crisis people
frequently comment on how
they understood what was
really important to them.
How smart can you be in
making the changes before a
crisis happens?
What is it you really value?
Contributed by
Mrs Seema Kamath
Bhakti –Pooja Thali Competition –Diwali 2011
BHAKTI
Saraswath VANI
Bhakti is the Gowda Saraswath Sabha’s driving force to
engage youngsters in a
variety of activities to not
only promote bonding with the
cultural and traditional heritage of India , but also provide
a platform to our budding
stars to display their creative
flair .
One such feather added to the
coveted crown of Bhakti was
the display of Pooja thali’s
during the Diwali celebration
in 2011. More than 20 families
from Gowda Saraswath Sabha
and Gowda Saraswath Samaj
participated in this competition .
In this Vani edition I would
like to share some of the
pooja thalis decorated by the
children .
Page 17
For me like many other parents
it has been a challenge to ensure that my children had an
exposure to our native culture
and traditions . At that point ,
the enthusiasm and keen interest of the sabha members gave
birth to Bhakti .
With the continuous support of
GSS friends we plan to hold
many more events in the future
and expand our Bhakti family .
Please do feel free to get in
touch with me at
[email protected] with
your feedback and suggestions .
Best Wishes,
Gauri Shanbhag
Bhakti……...The sweetness of Devotion
When the Pandavas completed
their twelve years of dwelling
in the forest and living one
year of incognito ,they wanted
to get back their kingdom
from the Kauravas .Sri Krishna came to Hastinapura as
their peace ambassador to
hold talks with Duryodhana
and his brothers .
In Hastinapura, Sri Krishna
was invited both by
Duryodhana and Vidura to eat
with them .Though Vidura was
poor and could not offer royal
meal like Duryodhana ,Sri
Krishna accepted Vidura’s invitation because he and his wife
was a great devotee of the
Lord . With great love the
husband and wife welcomed
Lord Krishna to their humble
abode and served the food .
Krishna loved the food though
it was simple , he knew the
love and devotion that was in
during the preparation of the
food.
After the meal Vidura’s wife
brought nice ripe plantains Sri
Krishna . In the presence of the
Lord she forgot herself ,her
house ,husband and even what
she was doing .Gazing at the
sweet face of the Lord ,she
picked up the plantains one by
one ,peeled them and put the
skin into his mouth . The lord
too was so lost in the devotion
of the woman , and ate whatever she fed him. The plate
was almost empty ,when suddenly Vidura came into the
room .To his horror he found
that his wife was unconsciously
throwing away the fruit and
putting the skin into Krishna’s
mouth .In great anger he cried
out at his wife “ You fool, what
have you done ? You have fed
the Lord with plantain skins !”.
The ecstasy of Vidura’s wife was
broken with this cry from her
husband .She looked down and
saw what she had done . Shedding tears of repentance ,she
picked up the fruit and tried to
put it in the Lords mouth .The
ecstasy of the Lord was also
broken and He did not like the
taste of the fruit . He said ,”No
more ,please .This is not as
sweet as what you gave me before !”
Is there a difference for the
Lord between the skin and the
fruit ? Both are created by him.
What he tastes is the sweetness
of our devotion when we offer
something to him .
Contributed by
Mrs Gauri Shanbhag
BHAKTI
Page 18
Saraswath VANI
Bhakti — Crossword
1
11
13
14
2
12
3
4
10
5
9
16
8
15
6
17
ACROSS :
1) Name the female child who was born
before the birth of Krishna
2) The place where Krishna spent his
child hood was
3) Name of the woman who gave birth
to Krishna
4) Another name of Krishna
5) Name of Krishna’s elder brother
6) She tried to Kill Krishna
7) Krishna killed this snake
8) Krishna loves to play this instrument
9) Krishna helped him get his kingdom
back
10) Just after his birth Krishna was
taken to
16)Krishna used to steal this
DOWN :
10) He named him as Krishna
11) Krishna lifted this mountain
12) Name the foster mother of Krishna
13) She is the childhood friend of
Krishna
14) He is the uncle of Krishna
15) Krishna used to steal butter from
the homes of
16) The colour of Krishna’s skin.
17) Krishna used to look after these
animals.
Contributed by
Mrs Gauri Shanbhag
7
Please email your answers to [email protected]
Amchigele
Page 19
Saraswath VANI
Migele SaanpaNe Manjeshwar Gavanche pharDi
written by Mr Manjeshwar Kamath
One of the biggest passions for
Konkani's around the world has
been their jibbe ruchi. DaaLithoy,
saaru,
ghashi,
bibya-upkari,
kuvale-saasam, etc. that too in a
devasthana jewan. This recalls
me
the
famous
Shashti
Rathotsav
at
Manjeshwar
Temple. The population swells a
hundred
folds
as
people
assemble in this small town to
celebrate the a weeklong festival.
It is pleasure to join hands at
aalath (rope) in pulling the
Brahma-Rath, loudly chanting
“Govindaa” that moves the 70
feet tall structure on six wheels
inching through the street, rathbeedhi as the western sky turns
orange at the sunset. Every year
the upper frame of the chariot is
built and decorated with flags by
chapTekars, Konkani carpenters.
Flowers, palm leaves, bunch of
fruits, and nuts decorate the
base of the chariot. At the end of
the day we have “ek ghasu
jewan, just as a prasad” but in
fact we eat pot-bhar until we get
burps!
Probably everyone loves to write
about his or her native place,
and here I am writing about
Manjeshwar, more about the
lifestyle during my childhood
days (1960s). Like many GSBs
(Gaavu SoNu Bhovanthale?) in
search of better roTi, kapDaa,
aur makaa we too migrated to a
far away place. A bunch of
friends, relatives and the temple
website keep me posted about
the happenings in my native
place.
All activities in Manjeshwar are
linked to Srimath Anantheshwar
Temple located about 10miles
south of Mangalore along the
coast. As per sthaLapurana,
centuries ago one Konkani
pilgrim,
Ranga
Sharma
discovered the Shivalinga in
the hilly wooded area Shankamaley and a sacred pond
Shesha-thirtha.
Ranga
Sharma spread the word to 18
towns along the west coast of
India, and with their combined
effort the temple was built at
this same place. Thus even
today the temple belongs to
the Konkani people of these
18 towns, and the devotees
are all over the world.
Devotees located anywhere
merely recall Almighty and
pray to receive blessings or to
solve their problems.
The temple runs the school 1st
to 10th standard, where I had
my basic education. My father
and uncle were students and
later became teachers in the
same school.
The library,
reading
room,
and
the
laboratory are well maintained
even today. The school garden
is a great collection of exotic
shrubs, trees that kindled a
kind of love for plants in me.
The school playground is a
place for recreation, exercise,
and relaxation for people of all
ages. In the hot summer
days, people relax and enjoy
panchadika (chit-chats) sitting
on the kaTTe (stage) built
around Ashwatha (Peepal sacred fig) trees. In fact
Manjeshwar is famous for
other roadside trees like goLi
rook (Banyan Tree -aalada
mara), surava rook, chinche
rook(tamarind).
Ekra
ganTe
thanniche
(11o’clock tea) at Manjeshwar
draws me a special attention.
It is a simple cup of relishing
hot tea along with a small
snack
such
as
baTaTe
amboDo/waDa, goLi bajo, or
biskiT
roTTi.
It
is
refreshment
in
between
breakfast and lunch. Many
get the snack from the
nearby hotel while tea is
getting
ready
at
home.
Evening we go to penTaak
(bazaar) to get the groceries.
We used to enjoy chats such
as fried chillies, charmuro etc.
The fried chilly was so hot
and spicy that the first bite
kicked me up in the air by
four feet. Shopkeeper pushed
the goLi, and offered me
lamlet
(sweet soda,
red
colored) to overcome the
pain. Also we used to relish
ice candy and freshly grated
ice (in the absence of ice
creams)
Coconuts,
mangos
and
cashews grow all over this
town. I remember roasting
cashews in a small fire
prepared by burning piDDe
koththel(palm leaf) in a pit.
Today the similar joy we get
at
barbeque
grill
or
a
campfire, a modern name for
the primitive way of cooking
on direct fire. I loved roasting
kaNang(sweet
potato),
bikkanD
(jackfruit
seed),
kajjubi (cashew nuts) in
ingaLo (the charcoal fire) in
the backyard. It was our time
-pass khana too. The food is
roasted and cooked slowly
imparting a special chararoma! One has to develop
taste for it. Moreover it is
healthy too. No oil or butter
needed. No utensils to clean.
Hopefully no germs
can
survive in the red-hot coal.
Amchigele
Page 20
On the hillocks of Manjeshwar
we used to enjoy picking purple
berries called beDas or kunTale
hannu and red berries called
kepuLa etc. I acquired monkeyclimbing or pebble-shooting skill
to bring down the cashew nuts
from the trees. I am always
successful in aiming at the ripe
cashew apple on the neighbor’s
tree, and enjoy the falling fruit.
If the neighbor sees, he
demands his valuable share that
is the nut! This urge to gather is
part of our instinct, probably
inherited from those “vanavas
(living in forest) days” when
people had to hunt for food to
eat. Probably there was a time;
long ago people would have
lunch on berries, nuts and
tubers. They looked for just
about anything they could eat
and gathered it.
Recently I went out into the
wooded
area
to
pick
blackberries. After an hour I
gathered a bagful of berries. I
enjoy this kind of activities. To
gather that small amount, I
drenched my shirt with a liter of
sweat, got my shirts and pants
all scratched (black berry plants
have thorns), received a dozen
of bites from berry loving local
insects that developed into a
beautiful as well as painful
chaab(bite)-rangoli
on
my
arms. Seeing my avatar, my
friend commented, “It would
have been far more practical to
just go to the market to buy
this stuff.” But, I do not get that
accomplishment by buying a
ready-made box of berries
when I see them growing wild
in the neighborhood.
I am fond of picking wild
flowers
such
as
OvvaLa
(bakuLa, renje hoo), Surovu
(sorage hoo), parijaath, saLook
(lotus), and kedaki(kevDa) and
offering these flowers at the
temple. OvvaLa and Parijaath,
are fragrant tiny star shaped
flowers just fall of the tree on
to the floor the flower has a
built in hole to pass the thread
through to make a garland. It
is not so in case of Surovu.
One needs to pick the buds
before sunrise by climbing on
to the tree. The garland is
made by folding the calyx, and
passing the fine needle with
thread, do all this before it
blooms.
I enjoyed picking
lotus wading through the kneedeep water in the pond, often
welcomed by the scary water
snakes
and
jumbo
frogs.
Kedaki grows on a thorny
bush, and picking it is an art, a
task, as well as an exercise.
My mom used to make
pappoDu from scratch, really
from scratch. It is a laborious
multi-step procedure. All starts
from the harvest of udad pods
still clinging to the plants. They
are sun-dried, beaten with a
stick to break open the pods
and release the black udad
grains. These grains are swept,
further sun dried, and split into
daal using a danthe (two stone
hand grinder). This recalls me
udada
muhurath
at
the
ceremonies. Peeling off the
black skin is through kaanDunu
(hand pounding) using vaan
and kanDaN (in-ground mortar
and pastle). Then the white
daal is ground into fine powder
using danthe. PappaDa peeT
(dough) is prepared by mixing
salt water, pappad khaar, and
udad flour followed by hand
kneading. Then all family
members join hands to prepare
pappoDu using laTTuNi (rolling
pin - like making chapathis)
and solar dry. Invariably crows
and stray cows often attack
these pappads when they are
in open for solar drying. As a
small
boy
it
was
my
Saraswath VANI
responsibility to stand as a
guard in the drying area to
drive off crows and cows with
the help of a stick and protect
the pappoDus. It was a full
time job, that is when I used
the
innovative
scarecrow
techniques.
In those days we did not have
bills to pay for electricity,
phone, or Internet since it was
either not available or it was
simply unaffordable . Only the
temple had the electric power
generated by the dynamo.
Starting a dynamo is a great
skill to watch. Entire household
work is done manually (that is
the way we stay fit!). We used
to fetch water in kaLso(pot)
from the well. We developed
the art of supporting kaLso,
sometimes two on the shoulder
and walking uphill from the
well to home (not downhill like
Jack and Jill). Pulling water
from the well using rajjo(rope)
and gaaDo (pulley) was equally
tedious one. Firewood used to
be the only fuel used for
cooking, baking etc. Valuable
kerosene oil is used only in the
lamps at night.
Recently I had been to
Manjeshwar and stayed at the
Traveler’s Bungalow located on
a scenic spot overlooking the
sea, the river, and the temple.
Although there are many
modern amenities , my son
enjoyed the simplicity of the
rural life, divinity of the
temple, the magical taste of
the devasthana jewan, and the
serenity of the beautiful
beach. I recharged my memory
batteries, renewed my
contacts, and scribbled this
article.
Contributed by
Mr. Sunil Prabhu
GSB STARS
Saraswath VANI
Page 21
Poems
Desert
The Jewel In the Crown
When I was in the middle of the desert
I realized that water was very less
Of this I became very alert
Because if I wasn't I would fall in a mess
The rumble of the city
The crumble of the streets
The whine of the beggars
The fine dinner of the rich
The loudness of the shopping centre
The crowdedness of the shops
The crash of the coconut trees
The bash of hands on horns
When I wanted to quench my thirst
I would tell myself NO NO!
I should keep it for the worst
as water was very low
Riding on the camel was a big pain
Because it was the first time I was riding
For the first time I wished that it would rain
So that I could go along while drinking
At last I saw a oasis
So I finished my last bottle in a hurry
I thought this was a bliss
But later I got such fury
A mirage it had been
I almost fainted
Oh! What had I seen
Now in a few hours I might be dead
But as it grew darker
My village I could see
I went to a shop and drank water
Oh! Thank you God for saving me
Written by Gaurang Rao age 12 years .
(Son of Mr Ram and Mrs Vandana Rao –Sharjah
UAE)
This place isn’t Dubai
It’s the city centre of Mumbai
The splash of the pool
The moustache of the chaiwala
The gorgeous smell from the kitchen
The luxurious swing of the hammocks
The spice of the fish curry
The rice of your dreams
The blue of the sea
The queue for the daily massage
This place is beyond what we’ve been taught
It’s a beautiful beach resort
The start of the journey home
The depart time has come
The chairs go back
The glares at the screens begin
The pop of ears
The stop is near
After three weeks out
“We’re home!” everyone shouts
Written by Ralph Curwen age 11 years .
(Son of Mr Geoff and Laxmi Curwen )
GSB STARS
Page 22
Saraswath VANI
Poems
War Is Not All Rainbows And Butterflies
Weary and wary, we trudge through the mud
broken and battered with chests fully of blood
Leaving the pain and memories behind
seeking some peace, saying “it'll be fine”
Cuts cover legs, causing footsteps like drunkards
need refuge from the trenches, the weapons, the bunkers
The state we are in is clearly appalling
too tired to hear the gas shells start falling
“Masks on!” I yell, fearing for our safety
will any of us even live to be eighty ?
The thought of death propels us to prepare
masks on our heads, apart from Johnson, crying, lying,
dying over there
The gas is almost solid, the horrid colour of death
these brave men fought for my chance to take one final
breath
BUT WAIT! With courage, he emerges from the cloud
Harry Brown, gave his life for mine, died proud, coughing aloud
His twisted remain buried in my head
have you ever loved someone, and then, seen them
dead?
He was on the ground twitching, his skin an acid mess
He did what he deemed best, as we lay his body to rest
I had to keep my upper lip straight, as we carried him
across,
the uneven ground, knowing a soldier had been lost
He came back for a second, “send my family my love”
and he drifted away, on his way to the above
And for those who say dying for our country is glorious
we may have won the war, but we were not victorious
If you'd felt what I had felt, deal with the things I'd
been through
May be you'd change your mind, and wouldn't be so
keen to Die…..
Written by Amol Prabhu age 15 years.
(Son of Mr Sunil and Latha Prabhu )
My Mum
You are the apple of my eye
When you are happy
Your eyes glisten like topaz
Your angelic smile lights up the room
And you fill me with love
Your hair is a river of dark chocolate
As it cascades down your back
When plaited, it looks like a rope
Curling over your shoulder
You do so much for me, mum
For this I shall always be grateful
Though sometimes I might not show it
You are the brightest jewel in my life
Who I will treasure for ever!
Written by Avani Shanbhag when she
was 9 years .
(Daughter of (Late)Mr Sandeep and
Gauri Shanbhag )
The Magical Door
As the door was steadily opening
A new world was forming
Rays of sunshine were hitting the
ground
Grey clouds drift away
Blue skies expand across the land
Waves, serene and tranquil like fish
glide through the majestic sapphire
ocean.
Delicate flowers bloom and blossom
Bees swarm and huddle near the pollen.
Leaves swell through the bare trees like
a whirlpool
Nobody argues, the world is at peace
I wish the door never closes!
Written by Serena Nayak age 10 years.
(Daughter of Mr Krishna and Seema
Nayak )
AMCHI RANDAP
Saraswath VANI
Page 23
UNDI
Undi is a traditional Konkani breakfast item made of rice. The traditional way of making undis involves
soaking the rice for few hours and then grinding it, followed by adding this mixture to the seasoning
made of mustard seeds,methi seeds,and curry leaves and further boiling the mixture on high temperature with constant mixing to avoid the formation of lumps and final step is making the balls when
this mixture is cool enough to handle it and steaming the rice balls.
However as the saying goes "Necessity is the mother of invention, due to paucity of time, working
women have found out a short cut method- to make instant undis using idli rava eliminating the first
step which involves soaking the rice for few hours and then grinding. It tastes the same either ways.
Ingredients
2 cups Idli rava /rice rava or Rice for the traditional method.
1/2 to 3/4 cup freshly grated coconut or dessicated coconut
3/4 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp urad dal/black gram
1 tsp methi/fenugreek seeds
5 to 6 curry leaves
Asafoetida/hingu
Oil / ghee
red chillies [optional]
green chillies [optional]
Salt to taste
Traditional Method:
1. Soak rice for 4-6 hours and then grind to a coarse consistency
with freshly grated coconut/desiccated coconut .Keep this aside for
further use later.
2. In a big wok or kadai heat about 2 tbsp of oil. Add mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds and allow it
splutter, further add red chillies, green chillies and curry leaves and finally asafoetida.
3. Once the seasoning is done, add the ground rice-coconut mixture to this, salt to taste and bring the
mixture to a boil; continue boiling until the water is absorbed with constant mixing to avoid the formation of lumps.
4. Cover and leave aside for 10 minutes until the mixture cools. [When the mixture is touched, it
shouldn't feel very stick. If it does, cook for another few minutes until all the water is absorbed and it
is semi-solid in consistency.
5. Cool this mixture for a while and then shape the mixture into balls/undi when warm enough to
hold, and make a depression at the centre of the ball with the thumb.
6. Arrange the balls in a steamer taking care to leave a little space between the undis.
7. Steam the undis for about 20 minutes and allow them to cool for a while. Undis are ready for serving.
Instant Method:
Wash 2 cups of idli rava well a couple of times. Drain and keep it aside.
Grind the washed idli rava with grated coconut coarsely with minimum water.
After grinding empty the batter into a vessel and then add 2 cups water and mix thoroughly.
Set the mixture aside for 5 to 10 minutes.
Further follow the Traditional method from step 2.
AMCHI RANDAP
Page 24
Saraswath VANI
Typically Undis are served with godda ravo, some prefer to have it with chutney.
One can also relish undis with pickles and fresh dollop of butter. It tastes yumm …..ilicious!!
Godda Rava/ Jaggery Syrup :
To make Godda Ravo, just boil a big cube of jaggery with 2 cups of water. Add 2-3 cloves,1-2
cardamom pods and 3-4 pepper corns during the boiling process .This gives a lovely flavour. Boiling
is continued for a while (with stirring in between) until the volume reduces and the solution
becomes slightly thicker in consistency. Cool and store in a clean, air-tight moisture-free container
to have longer shelf life.
Tips:
If you do not have a lot of time to make Undis in the morning, you can do most of the work the
previous day. Just store the unsteamed balls in an airtight container and refrigerate it and the
following day it can just be steamed.
Recipe courtesy by Mrs Gopika Pai
BUNS
Ingredients:
1. Two cups plain flour
2. One tablespoon gram flour
3. One medium ripe banana
4. One teaspoon baking soda
5. Two teaspoons sugar
6. Golf ball size (85-100 gram) jaggery
7. Four tablespoons natural yogurt (can be low fat)
8. 3/4th tsp salt
Method :
In a bowl, mix together yogurt, salt, sugar, jaggery and baking
soda powder.
Mash the ripe banana with your hand in the mixture till it forms a smooth paste.
Add gram flour and mix.
Add plain flour , spoon by spoon as much as the mixture absorbs and knead together.
Do not add all the flour at once.
Do not add water.
The dough should be smooth in consistency as chapathi dough.
Pour 1-2 spoon oil over dough and keep it covered overnight (6-8 hours).
Next day make small balls and roll them round to poori size. The poori shaped dough should be thick
and not too thin. (The thickness should be almost 2 times that of poori and 3 times that of chapathi)
Heat oil in a frying pan and when hot, fry the buns till golden brown in colour.
Tips:
Adding jaggery instead of sugar makes the buns softer and fluffier. You can use 4 tablespoons of
brown sugar instead of jaggery.
Recipe courtesy by Mrs Shalini Gadiyar
QUIZZ-TIME
Page 25
QUIZ-TIME
At what age in England can you legally?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
Sit on a jury
Hold a passport in your own right
Buy a pet
Consent to medical treatment
Drink alcohol in private
Give evidence in a court of law
Vote in a government election
Be employed part-time
Be employed full-time
Be held criminally responsible
Stand for election to parliament
Have a legal right to be heard
Drink alcohol in a pub
Drive a car on public roads
Make a will
Buy a lotto ticket
Open a National Savings & Investment account at the Post office
Choose your own GP
Be responsible for wearing a seat belt
Bet on the football pools
Contributed by Mrs Shalini Gadiyar
Please email your answers to [email protected]
Saraswath VANI

Saraswath Vani

Transcription

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