Mother's Day Special - Amma Endru & Chinna Thaayaval

Love exists in multiple varied forms but when interwoven with the feature of purity, nothing really beats the Love that is associated between a mother and child.  We celebrate Love stories of different kinds be it Romeo & Juliet, Laila & Majnu or even the likes of Radha & Krishna, Rama & Seetha but there are hardly any tales eulogizing the love that percolates between a Mother and child. 

There need not be one particular day to celebrate as Mothers Day since they are in effect the backbone of our very existence. This is a relationship that transcends beyond the layers of Love and especially the term sacrifice can never be better defined than what a Mother does for her child.

On this Mother's Day, I am paying a humble homage to 2 compositions that visually depicts and decorate the role of a Mother in all it's splendour. Both these songs have touched the inner most of the soul and have left an indelible impression from within. Incidentally both these two songs feature Superstar Rajinikanth and coincidentally came about just months apart from each other with Thalapathi releasing on 5th Nov 1991 (Deepavali) followed by Mannan on 14th Jan 1992 (Pongal). The similarities don't end there as both these 2 lilting lullabies glorifying the mother were penned by Poet Vaalee and set to tune by Maestro Ilaiyaraaja.

A Mother's Day may come up just one day in a year but they deserve to be celebrated every day of the year. A Mother's Love is simply the greatest there can ever be. Dedicating a small portion of these 2 emotional tearjerkers to God's ultimate creation - "The Mother".

Memory recall as a new dawn unfolds in Tamil Nadu Politics

About 25 years back around 2001-02 much before all those sprawling apartments and star hotels had cropped up in MRC Nagar, we used to regularly play cricket in that neck of the woods. I recall vividly one day after finishing playing, we were walking back when a crowd had congregated a portion of that area. I was curious as to why the formation of people that too during the peak summer hour and hence asked someone there as to what was happening. The person quite bemused with my question quoted the following "Deivam munnadi irukam podhu yaaru nu kekreenga". Then I turned for a bit and took a glimpse to see a young actor on a bike shooting for a movie. That was my first tryst with crazy fandom and was long before the advent of social media. I believe that was also the first time I was seeing a celebrity Live in Person although it was just for a blink and miss moment. That young actor by the name of Joseph Vijay who was back then only in his 20s is now appointed to take charge as the Chief Minister of the state of Tamil Nadu.

I am not in any way a fan of the man or his movies but this golden memory is entrenched within me. He will no doubt be facing the music in times to come but what he has done by breaking the bastion and emerging victorious over the 2 dynasty parties who have been exchanging power for the last 6 decades is quite epoch making to say the least. May a new revolution in Tamil Nadu politics begin and wishing Vijay all the best as he embarks on this exciting new venture of heading and leading the ever cultural and traditional state of Tamil Nadu.

Soulful Love - Kanna Kanmaniye / Deewana Deewana

AR Rahman has this uncanny ability of coming up with gems from time to time. Many a time, it might be just a minor bit portion from out of the blue but he times it so well that it resoundingly goes out of the park.

This particular composition Kanne Kalaimane or Deewana Deewana has a small verse sung by Isai Puyal himself whose strains are so addictive that I couldn't but resist trying it out.

It is basically a swara portion sung as a sargam which comes interlaced within the interlude that adds a pristine touch to the composition. The alternative use of the Dhaivatams leading to a 3 phrase chromatics is truly the signature special of this tune. 

The way it flows and branches to the main melody is simply sublime. It feels so tailormade and created exclusively for ARR to sing this composition and he has done full justice to this scorcher of a song.

Grilled Vegetarian - The Greenhouse Barbecue

There is nothing new when it comes to the concept of barbeque. It has been a tried & tested model and been in existence for almost 2 decades in the food circle of Chennai. Even to this day, the restaurants serving those grilled stuff over those charcoal boxes have found favour especially for office lunches/dinners or even family gatherings.

However what strikes out in The Greenhouse Barbeque is that they have catered it into an all vegetarian enclosure and it looks like they've been pretty successful going by the looks of things. Must say they have pulled it off really well. Traditionally these kind of barbeque restaurants are more associated with non vegetarian grills making the hardcore vegetarian population a little apprehensive especially the older generation sit in because of the over powering smell of meat hovering over despite plenty of options available on the green side of things as well. So there have always been reluctant starters to this brand of food by a certain section. This has now been addressed with an exclusive herbivorous spread.

Seeing the crowds throng in, it's pretty clear that they have been successful with this foray. It's always difficult to get a table here and they operate in different hourly shifts during both lunch and dinner. Apart from the plethora of starter options which is brought to the table, they have host of other items as part of the buffet spread including few live counters as well. They keep changing the menu also on a weekly basis by exploring with various variety.

For the vegetarian lovers, this is a welcome change from the renowned South Indian names and the exclusive multicuisine options as it options grilled food in addition to a buffet like setting with plenty to gorge over. The food as such is nothing to complain about. Choices in panneer, potato, mushroom, gobi, corn etc almost always hits the mark and even the fruity grills like pineapple, watermelon add a divergent flavour.

Other than all the barbecue bonanza, our last visit had live counters for dosa, pasta, chaat and even one for sushi and it was delectable to gorge over them. The sushi was not the run off the mill stuff - they had options of cream cheese, avacado and shitake mushrooms. The chaat had all the usual names with bombay sandwich added to the mix. Pasta varieties were plenty in number and so too was the case with dosas. The salad & dessert options were also quite a lot in number and you also get to have those roll based stone creations of ice cream. Even on the soup front we had 2 choices in the form of a Pineapple shorba and a potato leek variant.

The service is relatively quick and one good thing is they don't take off the grilled sticks till we finish our entire meal as opposed to removing them off before going for the main course. The pricing seems to be a little bit on the higher side setting you back by a well over 1000 bucks per individual. It tends to be a tad extra expensive during the weekends.

All in all, they've really attracted crowds in a big way in their short stint and been successful in creating an alternative choice exclusively for the vegetarian food loving afficianado. If you like to have a really elaborate lunch or dinner traversing through multiple options in the mix, definitely one can say that The Greenhouse Barbeque will not only satisfy but also satiate to your tummy and hearts content.