Gentle Green Giants

Drove past a lovely avenue of trees after 30 years. First time, I was wandering on my bicycle and was struck by the beauty of the tall trees and pinkish flowers in summer.

Those tall trees have just grown taller.

Waiting in style

While waiting in the Passport Kendra office for renewing mine on 11th Sep 23 , I had to deal with the long wait times and processing by very few officials at the counter.. That's when I channeled the inner spirit of my late Father on his birth anniversary, to deal with this kind of challenging situation in life..

Went for a Veg puff and coffee in the nearest kiosk!

Five Rupees

I earned 5 rupees yesterday thru hard work and negotiation skills

I lugged a few kgs of glass bottles collected over time to nearby recycling shop, he checked the weight and said with an apologetic tone-

"Saar.. indha edaikku rendu illai moonu rooba thaan kidaikkum"

Me: " paravaillai Saar. Andha rendu illai moonu rooba aavadhu kodunga, menakettu thookittu vandhirukken"

Then he gave me a shining 5 rupee brass coin.

One truth, many lies

https://youtu.be/TyZSBqQ813c?si=4RJlcJ0bOwcIGyFN

Amusing plight of spouses of complicated and articulate men.

I was thinking what to say when I forgot to buy green chillies and coriander leaves, when she asked me to do so on my way home. Inspired by the above video-

Green colour corresponds to 495-570nm wavelength which is roughly in the middle of the visual spectrum that most sensitive to the colour sensitive photoreceptors known as cones in our retina, and therefore all the blades of grass and the leaves in the trees caused such a distracting background with low signal to noise ratio that I could not isolate the green chillies and coriander in such an environment on the way home.

I then got curious with what ChatGPT would come up with..

These days we can choose between one simple truth (I'm Sorry, I forgot to buy) or a hundred creative lies!

The secret ingredient noodle soup

About 3 decades ago (1989) a boy and his sea-faring father went out in a remote Japanese port town (Yawata? Shimizu? Nagoya) . It wasn't a town for sightseeing but an industrial one, and the purpose of the visit was to visit a doctor to get some medicine for the boy who suffered from mild sickness. On the way back both of them felt very hungry and it was a long walk back to the ship. 

In the entire trip, they had eaten all meals only in McDonald's, for it was only there that they knew what to order and what to expect. This was not a town that was frequented by foreign tourists and all restaurants were local with all-Japanese menus.

They walked into some traditional eatery and just ordered a random bowl of noodle soup with some broken Japanese that the father could speak. It was a dark brown broth with a fragrance of burnt onion in soy sauce with seaweed,  strange purple noodles and slices of tender beef. It was an unforgettable experience, a culinary adventure, probably the first time the boy experienced the distinct taste profile of a dish rich in umami.

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33 years later, in a 30 year old Japanese restaurant (Dahlia) in his own hometown (Chennai that is Madras), the boy rediscovered that dish that was hidden deep in his memory. 

Niku Soba.

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Among so many things that parents do for their children, from birth to adulthood, unique experiences and memories such as these are probably the most subtle but unforgettable gifts. 

Credit Worthiness

I got a new swanky credit card, touted to be premium all-metal and contactless. It looks so good, that now I have to upgrade my wallet that now looks too old and tattered to house it.