All is well..

A nine nights and ten day festival, worshiping the Hindu god Shakti is called,The Navratri.and we along with the students celebrated Navratri today as an academic activity.A teaching and learning experience.

Saying all is well, do not turn a curdled milk and I learned that there are more than a couple of excuses when a milk curdles.The menu was Tempered Chick peas (Sundal), Sweet Pongal , (Spinach)Keera Vada , Sweetened Pressed rice, Mashed bananas with jaggery and a Mint sherbat.

The guest was not more than thirty , and we welcomed everyone with the sweet strong mint sherbat, followed by a speech on Navratri and Poojas. "Everything went well" is what the feedback I got,searching the meaning for the word "Everything" , my mind didn't forget that not "All is well" . Sometimes too much hospitality fades or erases the bad taste of food.Here, I am not complaining of the food ,only the sourness in it.

The milk boiling for the pongal tarted curdling, as soon as the rice is added and resulted in a sour sour taste.Later the sourness in the pongal was destroyed by adding melted jaggery and Of-course some Ghee to overcome the flavor of the curdled milk. The frowned faces on the curdled milk turned Grin when the pongal turned sweet, and towards the corner something carried more sourness and more frown.

The something was none other than the grounded dal for vada, the excited chef who was suppose to prepare the vada , soaked the dal last night , say around two am. If only he had knew-ed earlier, that over soaking will end up in sourness, he would have had a good night sleep. The hands of Mr. Manikandan(Classmate & Friend)did as much magic as possible to rectify the sourness, but gave up after comprehending that jaggery is not an ingredient in Vada.(if only jaggerey were an ingredient).


The only option left was to rename the Vada, so that , to do some justification for the sour taste in it, and Mr.Classmate did the naming ceremony, naming it Vilasikpura Vada , because there is no or nothing called as such Vilasikpura. I wondered weather its a bad omen that everything is sounding sour and tasting sour, its like breaking a yukky coconut to Hindu God, where God never feels bad , its we who carry the dilemma(yukky) in heart.

Not to my surprise, I found the last three liters of milk Curdle in front of my eyes, which was on flame for preparing Tea. My angry eyes on the student near the milk pot gave an answer that the vessel was very much clean and no soap water in it, a word from behind me said its too much of heat that made it curdle,a couple of mouths complaining the shopkeeper for the stale milk, and someone inspecting the packing date on the milk packet. But the Milk curdled is Curdled , removing the Letters TEA from the menu card.The function ended with a glass of water to wash down the dishes which the guest consumed.

The three things, The milk for pongal, the sour grounded dal and the milk for TEA, made me ponder , and its not the bad omen its like "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong". Thanking Edward Aloysius Murphy for his Murphy's law, I walked back slowly carrying a happy face saying "All is well, if something goes wrong, there is Murphy's to tell".