She was but 6...

When I heard about the shooting on Friday, I was shocked and then scared...I am the mother of a 6 year old, a first grader and I can't bear to imagine the anguish, gut wrenching pain and emptiness that the parents of these beautiful babies are going through...I hugged my son close the past two days, not letting him too far away from sight...

Innocence was lost on this day...

All  that was left with the parents was silence...

And the ricochet of bullets...

Birthdays lost, proms unattended...

Field trips, Impish Smiles and teen love no more...

Life crushed....life obliterated.

Yet the ones that live,

Left with an awareness so keen,

Unexplained violence,

Bloodshed and tears...

In temples, schools, malls, theaters...

I cannot tell my little boy -

Go play outside with your friends,

You are safe...watched over.

I hover over my little one, 

Anxious, Paranoid, Afraid....

When will I ever feel safe again...

Will I ever speak to my little boy of the ugliness?

Of those beautiful children lying bloody and mangled...

Victims of a sick, depraved and lost soul.

The words stick in my throat,

A reluctance to strip away more innocence...

All I am left with is - an image and a thought...

She was but 6....

Dedicated to Emilie and all the beautiful souls lost on Dec 14th....Say No to Violence !!!

Creativity Unleashed : A Doodle and a Poem...

"Vakratund mahakaay, Suryakoti samaprabha, Nirvighnam kuru me dev, sarvakaryeshu sarvada."-
O large-bodied Lord with a curved trunk, you who have the brilliance of ten million suns, I pray to you to always make all my activities obstacle-free."

Yesterday as I was sitting in a looooooong meeting, with my raspy throat feeling generally sick...I started thinking of  Ganesha...Who is Ganesha you ask me? He is my buddy...been by me all the years of my life, I rub his tummy anytime I get anxious or worried and I feel better, I make deals with him all the time (now you know if you see me talking to myself in the car), you might even see him around my house, my car, even my neck (the pendant on my chain) - he is the elephant god....the remover of all obstacles...and my not-so-creative self started doodling ( I even used the Orange, Blue and Yellow highlighters at my desk)...here is what I came up with (and yes I am very proud of it) and I gave it to K2 for safe keeping - Happy Ganesh Chathurthi !

When K2 was born  in 2006, I got 6 weeks of maternity leave and like some new mothers I was both overwhelmed and bored. In the nights I  took to this exciting hobby of blog hopping... During one such blog hop, I discovered a poetry competition that had been organized and I got hooked (JL do you remember?). Every week we were given a couple words and we had to come up with a poem around those words. The words for the first competition were - Changeling…Fury…Paramount…Aphrodisiac…Tantalizing…Shrouded…Weave…Engage...and Empower. I was very creative as a young girl but lost it somewhere along the way...this was my first effort at poetry (rusty with 15+ years of disuse)...

(I)

Looking at me with huge longing eyes was this wee changeling...

Standing half drenched in the fury that the skies had unleashed...

Her hair unkempt, her body so thin that the ribs one could count.

I looked away from that barely shrouded picture of poverty...

She showed me a glimpse of a world I did not want to see.

(II)

Weaving her way unsteadily to me,

She stared at me...my prosperity a tantalizing bait of things unknown

Yet paramount in her was the need to survive,

Looking in through the windows of my fancy car,

She implored with her expressive eyes..and I drove away...

Leaving behind a trail of dirt.

(III)

Money... my ultimate aphrodisiac,

Why should I engage in this fruitless battle with my conscience,

When I could empower my capitalistic self to multiply,

In my world, there is no time for pity....

So there...don't you think this is Creativity Unleashed....well you ain't heard the last of it...

The Dirty "C" Word...

"Sticks and stones may break your bones but words can help you to feel good about yourself and those you share them with"

Yes...I wish I could use words to make myself feel better but as I sit more than 8000 miles away from my father...as he moves from treatment to treatment...the latest one being a blood transfusion due to incredibly low platelet count...all I feel is a sense of helplessness and anger. Helplessness because I am here and he is there and there is not much I can do from here...anger because I don't understand why he can't be that minority that miraculously gets better...why not him? Every treatment brings with it a new surge of hope...a hope that what is broken will be fixed yet the reality is that with every surge there is a following ebb and it is that  ebb that is intolerable...I go through my day almost like a robot...emotions, feelings...even sensations wrung out ( I realized at 3 PM that I hadn't eaten in 12 hours and I wasn't even hungry!)...Cancer is a four lettered word in my dictionary - A hardened inflexible nemesis which has found one of my two Achilles points...how is one to stay positive. If I feel so lost 8000 miles away, I shudder to think of what my parents go through day in day out...fighting, hoping, fighting some more and trying to stay positive? Yes in my life Cancer is a dirty word...it has made me in a not-so-positive way :

1.  rethink my priorities
2. taken me into the deep abyss of depression...and I am mostly an optimistic sort of a person
3.  question the purpose of life ( we die anyway...so why is living so important)
4. makes me irrationally over-correct 

And honestly, the hype about people who become strong in the face of adversity is passe...I am one of those people who crumbles under extreme pressure (and the reality is those moments of extreme pressure have been few and far between)...however these days  I feel like I am hitting that break point quite often (giving myself countless pep talks...I believe the support system needs to be internal)...I pull myself from the brink...go on with some semblance of  normalcy...but what exactly is "normal" in such circumstances???

I listen to Mariah Carey's "Hero Within"  again and again and in some ways it is my coping mechanism for today and for now I will take what I can get -

"There's a hero
If you look inside your heart
You don't have to be afraid
Of what you are
There's an answer
If you reach into your soul
And the sorrow that you know
Will melt away

And then a hero comes along
With the strength to carry on
And you cast your fears aside
And you know you can survive
So when you feel like hope is gone
Look inside you and be strong
And you'll finally see the truth-
That a hero lies in you"

Watch it here -



And I hope it helps you someday,as it helped me today...

The ticking timebomb...

I am generally not a person prone to fears about death and disease and usually believe that there is order and balance in the way that life moves around us. Three distinct events have shaken this belief of mine in a period of three years - Cancer  hit  close home twice, reaching straight for my heart and mind, pulling out ruthlessly all the emotions and fears and creating a writhing cauldron of negative feelings inside me , shaking me to the core...if I thought I was strong, it proved to me that I was weak. Yesterday,we spent time with R&M and I revisited the story of a young mother who lost the battle to cancer, her young child was not even 2 years - there is no justification in your head for such a happening.

Is our body really a ticking time bomb? Am I  being extremely morbid when I say that it almost feels like the immigration office where every single one of us has a number and it is just a matter of when it is called out...does it really matter - all the treating yourself right emotionally, spiritually and physically? Life has left me with a series of questions that - I don't have the answers to yet ...I read a beautiful poem by someone called Crystal (a cancer survivor), it was almost as if she had snatched the words out of my mind...

 Hope

Its Magic & Its Free

Its not in a prescription

Its not in a IV

It punctuates out laughter

It Sparkles in our tears

It simmers under sorrows

and dissipates our fears

Do you know what hope is?

Its reaching past today

Its dreaming of tomorrow

Its trying a new way

Its Questioning All the Answers

And always seeking more"

Hope your weekend has been relaxed and not too introspective as mine.

Chalks and Chopsticks : With the toss of a Lime

She said “Amma, I am coming home”…a deluge of emotions and feelings flooded my being. My baby was coming home. What a journey the past three decades have been…from the moment I knew Vani existed my body craved lime – like Kali assuaged the darkness with sour and pungent – Lime Rice, Lime Pickle, Lime Juice became a part of my existence for the next ten months. In fact, the meal I had the night I delivered Vani was Lime Rice and a spicy Lime Pickle. Her coming was not easy – the night was long, the pain intense and of course she had to make her entry feet first…she had a lot of reasons to cry for and cry hard she did – born into an orthodox Brahmin family where the girl was taught to be submissive, with an impulsive mother who saw herself as a thwarted artist…an autocratic father who was rich in material matters and yet impoverished when it came to emotions. When Vani was two, we moved across the oceans to an unknown land where the sun was pale, the air cold and the food was tasteless. Yet, we learnt to make it home – I planted a Lime Tree in the back yard which over time grew big, beautiful and strong like my baby. Ironically, Vani’s comfort food of choice was Lime Rice or Chitrannam as she called it – every time I knew she had a tough day I would boil a pot of rice. In a few minutes I would pluck a couple limes from the garden and have her favorite meal prepared with crisp papadam and a home-made pachadi.
Time flew, my baby grew up all of twenty one – the sweetest and gentlest daughter a mother could hope for – yet there was a part of me that wished she stood up to her father a little bit more. Instead of saying Yes to all his aggressive choices for her life and career – I just wished she had learnt to stand up for what she believed in….or maybe I wished I had taught her to follow her dreams…instead of being the silent hand that comforted…the unsaid left unsaid. When her Appa said – marry Sanjay – he is a doctor, a prime catch, he owns a house and is of our caste– she agreed silently. I saw the disappointment in her eyes, and yet we left the words unsaid. Every year she came visiting, I saw her losing a bit more of herself…I gave her the Chitrannam and Pickles – comforting with food where I should have been comforting with words and actions. Sanjay, the doctor turned out to be not such a prime catch – a womanizing lout with not much time for his simple wife -- I never told her to leave him, or that I am here for you. Vani’s Appa blamed fate but I silently blamed him – one day he was not around to blame anymore. I lived alone in my big house with the lime tree in the backyard wishing I had taught my daughter to stand up for herself. So today, when I got this call almost a little too late – a part of me grieves for my poor Vani and another part rejoices that my baby girl has been set free…maybe just maybe we can turn back the clock  and learn to live again. I finish cooking the Chitrannam and as I am adding the final sprigs of Cilantro to the rice, I hear the bell ring…

To make Lime Rice –

1. Heat Sesame Oil
2. When the Oil is shimmering add Hing.
3. Add in the urad dal, mustard seeds, chopped ginger and green chillies and curry leaves
4. When the urad dal is golden brown and the mustard seeds are spluttering, add in ½ teaspoons of turmeric
5. Add in the boiled rice (2 big cups).
6. Add in the squeezed juice of 3-4 limes (as per taste).
7. Garnish with fried peanuts, sprigs of cilantro and lots of love and hope.

-------
This story is pure fiction and title credits go to Padma Vishwanathan who wrote a splendid book "The toss of a Lemon"...however the story line is original :)

Chalks and Chopsticks is an idea concepted by Aqua and this month's event is being hosted by Desi Soccer Mom

Life: A Perspective...

A perfectionist with an organized To-Do list for both home and work, an obsessive attitude towards cleanliness and paying bills on time and being debt free…this poem by Nadine Stair hit a nerve…I have printed it out and it is displayed very prominently at my work area yet…I don’t think I have completely internalized it….is it complacency that I think time is on my side…however this is my inspiration for 2011 ...for living Life a different way.

IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER

I'd dare to make more mistakes next time.

I'd relax, I would limber up.

I would be sillier than I have been this trip.

I would take fewer things seriously.

I would take more chances.

I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers.

I would eat more ice cream and less beans.

I would perhaps have more actual troubles,

but I'd have fewer imaginary ones.

You see, I'm one of those people who live

sensibly and sanely hour after hour,

day after day.

Oh, I've had my moments,

And if I had it to do over again,

I'd have more of them.

In fact, I'd try to have nothing else.

Just moments, one after another,

instead of living so many years ahead of each day.

I've been one of those people who never goes anywhere

without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat

and a parachute.

If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter than I have.

If I had my life to live over,

I would start barefoot earlier in the spring

and stay that way later in the fall.

I would go to more dances.

I would ride more merry-go-rounds.

I would pick more daisies.

                                                                                      By, (Late)Nadine Stair, 85 years old.

For the love of a child : Bread Rolls

Some mothers are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together. ~Pearl S. Buck

Circa 1983
The little girl rushed home in the heat…a sense of anticipation in her every step. Evenings were the time when Ma kept Tiffin ready for her. It was always a taste adventure – Piping Hot Tomato Cheese Pizza, Spongy Cake with Pink Icing, Spiced Beetroot Cutlets and Samosas. On the days that Ma was busy and could not make Tiffin she got the sponge cake from Iyengar Bakery, Tapioca chips from Hot Chips or Hot Puffs and Ginger Snaps from Adyar Bakery. The little girl never remembered a day when she came back to an empty home…there was a smiling welcome, a hug and a kiss and a hot plate of food…to her that Tiffin from Ma signified love…transcending any other emotion.

Circa 2010
The little boy sits in his car seat…it is 6.30 pm and there is a sense of anticipation in his face, His Ma is fighting her way home in the heavy highway traffic mentally preparing a viable dinner plan for him. The options were limited as the above said little boy is still not used to the Indian spices that Ma uses in her cooking. She decides to make a quick couscous pilaf and a broccoli stir-fry for the little guy. However, when Ma reaches home, she sees the loaf of fresh whole wheat bread lying on the counter and is reminded of the wonderful Bread Roll that Ma used to make for her. Piping hot and fried…oodles of taste and love…washing her hands and face she quickly starts preparing Bread Rolls for her little boy. When the little boy enters the house 15 minutes later and shouts – Mama, where are you? She beckons him to the kitchen, makes him sit down and gives him a plate with 2 piping hot bread rolls. He asks her – who made this? And she smiles and says –Bunny Rabbit asked Mama to make Bunny Rabbit Ears for you.His wolfing down the food gives her an immense sense of satisfaction.

She realizes that she is just  continuing that cycle of love…

Bread Rolls aka Bunny Rabbit Ears

Ingredients

4 Slices of Whole Wheat Bread
1 Large Boiled Potato (crushed)
½ Cup of Frozen Peas
½ Cup of Grated Carrots
1 Shallot (finely chopped)
A handful of fresh chopped Cilantro if you have it
Oil to Pan Fry
Masala: Dry Roasted Cumin and Coriander Powder, Amchur Powder, Turmeric Powder

Method

Soak the Bread Slices in Water, Squeeze out all the water and keep the bread slices on a napkin sheet

For the filling – Take 1 spoon of Vegetable oil in a cooking pan. Add the Shallot (or onion) and then the turmeric and cumin and coriander powder. Add the boiled potatoes, peas and carrots, Cook the mixture till the carrots are done (about 3-5 minutes). Add Salt to taste and Amchur for a tangy bit. Cool the filling

Now take one slice of bread. Add the filling to the center. Roll the slice of bread. Roll it and with your hands seal press all sides (see the finished bread roll for a better idea).

Pan Fry in a shallow frying pan with vegetable oil. Serve hot with ketchup and love.

I am sending out this recipe to a couple events happening in the blog world –

(a) A dish starting with B :Akila’s Kitchen

http://akilaskitchen.blogspot.com/search/label/Events

(b) Kids Delight - Finger Foods : Spice your life

http://spicingyourlife.blogspot.com/2010/09/announcing-kids-delight-finger-food.html


(c) Of Chalks and Chopsticks : Seduce your taste buds

http://seduceyourtastebuds.blogspot.com/2010/09/ready-for-another-round-of-food-and.html

For more information on these events please do go ahead and check out the soulful food blogs maintained by these lovely ladies, that this working mom faithfully browses through at the wee hours of morning…Insomnia you say…well that is the topic for yet another blog :)

P.S: If you do try this dish, do let me know how it turned out for you. I have been blogging almost 2 years now and the comments are few and far in between…almost makes me want to stand on a soap box and shout out – Anybody out there? Anybody in the www space who actually cares about my blogs?

P.P.S : For the photo connoisseur this picture was hastily taken with my trusty Nokia E72 and mailed to self via Mail for Exchange. And yes, it tastes way better than it looks :)

Revisiting Life...

A dark stormy night,

Rain pouring, the stormy waters riled,

The winds incensed, the clouds seething

Nature setting up a jangling chord of dissonance.

Seeking for answers,

Finding a milion riddling questions,

I am drowning in uncertainity

Lost and not finding...

It seemed like the world was making peace,

A gentle breeze, the sea calm,

Like a Phoenix, igniting,healing and self-creating,

I revisit Life....

The past few weeks have been puzzling, introspective and extremely uncomfortable. Have I totally recovered...I don't think so. My voice for one is a "Lost Cause"...fighting a battle with Laryngitis and losing it...there were other decision making points...I think I have tried to approach every problem with a brave front and dignity...I guess the key to remember is I am not alone.

I have been attracted to the story of the Phoenix...Simurg (for Persians) and Garuda (for Hindus, Lord Vishnu's vehicle of choice)....a beautiful mythical bird with miraculous healing powers... a colorful plumage and a tail of gold and scarlet. Towards the end of its life journey, it sings a beautiful song, ignites and burns to ashes and from those very same ashes it is reborn...thus immortalizing it's existence...the concept is comforting.

Thanksgiving has been a quiet week...How has life been treating you?

Yesterday's Child...

Not long back, I was walking along the bay behind our house with K1 and K2 when we ran into this gaggle of geese, a mommy, a daddy and 14 geeselings...very cute family with the babies trying to balance themselves carefully on the slippery slope. They bought a smile to everyone's face with their antics. The next day while I was driving to work, I saw (much to my horror) that one of the adult goose had been run down by a car... and the other adult was waiting on the side with the babies...I spent time stewing on the fact that people were not considerate around where I live ( which oh! by the way has been classified protected for endangered wild species) to drive slowly and protect these beautiful birds and animals...

Reminded me a poem I had written when I was thirteen for this beautiful flower which lay in the college corridor, no one stopped to pick it up and a lot of people just walked right over it -

Yesterday's Child

Gone are the fragrances which once adorned her,
She lay wilted and shuddering...
A cast-off reminder of happy yesterday,
The breeze soon scatters her petals.
The unhappy stalk is crushed underneath hurrying feet;
As I passed her by, I saw her lying broken and torn.
I gently picked her up and wondered -
Why such a fate for so pretty a thing?
I placed her in my notebook and gave a sigh,
Because I knew she was a faded Yesterday's Child....

Past week has been rough,with K1 fighting a flu and a ear infection and I was bogged down with the same flu...we are much better now. Next week will be eventful with K2's 3rd B'day and Diwali...we went down to a Diwali Mela this weekend and K2 had tonnes of fun playing with other kids. I picked up 6 Tintin DVDs for him, I think I am probably more excited about watching them than he is...we stuffed ourselves with Indian Style Pizza, Choley Baturas and Chaat...thanks R&M for inviting us...How was your week and weekend?

Slow Burn...

Some wise woman named Susan wrote a poem Slow Burn -

I wanted to be Cinderella – the Belle of the Ball at the end of the tale,
All I got was a broom and a dirty hearth,
It seems like the tale has no end…
Sweeping away the cobwebs in my mind,
Pollyanna, I am not…there is not a positive spin to my tale…
Prince Charming has been late to the party,
Fairy Godmother is missing in action…
Stuck at a dead-end junction, I wonder if there is a cross road ahead…
Yet, all this inaction seems to be burning the spirit inside…
Slow Burn…Slow Burn
Slow Burn for me has a different meaning this week...I went to my first Vinyasa Yoga class in 6 months...I held my warrior's proudly and did my backbends flexibly but for the next 3 days my muscles have been burning slowly...work wise life's been busy, personal life wise -- things have been interesting. We have my MIL visiting for 10 weeks, and she will be joined by my FIL in 2 weeks...

K1 and K2 spied a baby seal in the bay over the weekend...here's a picture we took of the baby seal on our Nokia Phone...mailed to self over Ovi Mail (shameless promotion you say...execution on 4 P's I say ;-) )...

Creativity Unleashed - Part 2

If you have been following my blog you know what this is about...if you are at a loss, you can go back and read the post Creativity Unleashed ;-)

The 2nd Poetry Competition was tougher...there was a word Consigliore which I had never heard off ...this poem I named Obsession...Enjoy
(I)
A love so deep, in a heart so tender,
Enslaved was I, my soul captured…
The rapture of first love captivating me such,
No other reality did exist.
(II)
Yet something was missing,
You saw me as your consigliore,
Someone you could lean on,
You liked the absolute oblation of self,
Yet your freedom you chose to keep,
(III)
In walked that handsome stranger,
And you decided to walk into the sunset with him,
The shaft of hopeless love pierced deep through my soul,
Slowly draining the life from my being
(IV)
The shared sense of ethos dying a painful death,
A broken raft lost in the stormy sea…
I consoled myself with thoughts of revenge,
Fueling the monstrous beast within…
(V)
The sun was shining brightly,
I walked up to you my darling,
You were with your lover smiling radiantly,
You looked at me with your dark beautiful eyes,
The jealousy corroding like acid
I picked up the 38 and aimed,
In the end all that remained was a pool of blood…

Creativity Unleashed...

When I was on maternity leave about 30 months back, it was life changing, exhilirating and also mind numbingly boring. Imagine going from 14 hour work days to almost no brain work...when my baby went to sleep (which was a lot)...I travelled the world and visited my friends through their blogs. During one such blog hop, I discovered a poetry competition that had been organized and I got hooked. Every week we were given a couple words and we had to come up with a poem around those words. The words for the first competition were - Changeling…Fury…Paramount…Aphrodisiac…Tantalizing…Shroud…Weave…Engage...and Empower. I was very creative as a young girl but lost it somewhere along the way...this was my first effort at poetry (rusty with 10 years of disuse)...

(I)

Looking at me with huge longing eyes was this wee changeling...

Standing half drenched in the fury that the skies had unleashed...

Her hair unkempt, her body so thin that the ribs one could count.

I looked away from that barely shrouded picture of poverty...

She showed me a glimpse of a world I did not want to see.

(II)

Weaving her way unsteadily to me,

She stared at me...my prosperity a tantilizing bait of things unknown

Yet paramount in her was the need to survive,

Looking in through the windows of my fancy car,

She implored with her expressive eyes..and I drove away...

Leaving behind a trail of dirt.

(III)

Money... my ultimate aphrodisiac,

Why should I engage in this fruitless battle with my conscience,

When I could empower my capitalistic self to multiply,

In my world, there is no time for pity....

The Requirements Requiem

P.S: This is one of my older blogs written last May,2008 (old but not forgotten)...that I am reviving here...call it lack of inspiration or too much love

The past two months have been eventful...won't go into details but the new product that I am working on is close to my heart. When you work on something for more than a decade it morphs from being a technology /a product to being a "loved one"...and that's when you have a tendency to become too attached, complacent or biased ( all things not good!). In the midst of all these changes was one constant - the incessant commute on Route 101...fellow travellers will understand and empathize with the feelings of road rage, anger, utter helplessness and the constant knock on your wallet of the rising gas prices...it was on these long commutes that I started noticing a beautiful piece of technology that people called a "Prius"...50 miles per gallon sounded like music to my ears...long story short 6 weeks back... I had my gas guzzling Lexus traded in for a brand new Prius...it was while I was buying the Prius and accepting all the "bells and whistles"...3 places to store your sun glasses, rear view camera, Nav. System, DVD Player (yeah! like I will watch a movie and drive), sheer paint protector, climate control and a billion other things that I realized that this was not very different from our requirements process.

There were features that were must-haves - Eg. Fuel Efficiency ( 50 miles/gallon)
There were features that the PM obsessed over which were not critical to market launch but she had convinced herself and the rest of the company that they cannot survive without - Eg. - Rear view Camera ( Hey! I am human)
Peer Pressure ( read Competition, colleagues) - Eg. XYZ has a Navigation System , so I need one too
External Pressure and Image - Eg. DVD System...kinda cool HUH!
Based on my years in Product Management, I have realized a few facts of life - when a Product Manager gets down to writing requirements, they usually start of with a well defined, streamlined MRD/PRD ( admitted with some opinions and biases of the PM layered in). It is as this document goes through the review cycles through the organization that unrequired layers get added in - based on the need to be better than competition, the need for a fabulous USP, political pressure (i.e., the CXO believes we need this, the boss has advised us that this needs to be in), perceived market demands (customer said it was kinda cool etc. etc.)....and we lose sight of what is required....i.e. what can we build in the timeframe that we can sell today at a profit.

Now as I sit down and write yet another requirements document...I also write a short requiem in anticipation of the downfall -

You were perfect when you began...market driven and sharp focus,

You will be not-so-perfect towards the end...

Distorted by opinions, politics,biases and perceptions

Yet as I write you this farewell note, remember you are something I created,

With a lot of hope for the future....

May you rest in peace !!!


And as I write the requiem I make a mental note that I do not need 3 sunglass holders, a rear view camera, a DVD player, 8 cup holders in my car....so I am sure my baby (aka product) can make do without a lot of the empty features that we front load the requirements document with and be delivered as per market needs on time and within budget...amen!

350 Years Madras

I had written this poem 23 years back about my wonderful hometown - Madras. Hope you enjoy it and it gives you a glimpse of my city

(I)

My grandfather told me of those bygone days,

When Madras was just a small place,

Huts scattered here and there,

A gentle serenity in the air.

Scenic green fields where the paddy grains,

Would nod their golden heads attuned to the breeze.

Then came the English who robbed Madras of her peace,

Stealing her gentle beauty and throwing people to the streets.

(II)

My father told me of that Madras which rose from the shambles,

Of her many leader who strove to maintain her serenity.

From Chitambaram Pillai who built her seaways to Annie Beasant who loved her nature,

She produced many brains like Ramanujam,

Who kept her name alight everywhere.

Her monuments & structures sent art lovers into excited raptures,

That was the Madras of my dreams.

(III)

As I look around I see the traffic moving by a never-ending stream,

The fast food restaurants, the loud clothes and the noisy discos reigning supreme,

But as I wake in the morning to the warm smell of filter coffee,

And hear the sweet notes of the suprabhatam,

I realize the blend of the old and the new,

I give a sigh of sheer content for being a part of you Madras...

And I have grown with you in spirit for 350 Years.