After I went out and bought the carton of Ginger Chai tea bags (yes, my friends, there’s one for each one of you. I promise!), I made a cuppa and allowed my mind to wander around – wanting my first post on this site to be really, really impactful. And naturally, as with such thought-processes, the mind remained pleasantly blank, while the tummy became pleasantly warm and full, with tea.
It was then that I remembered Lakshmi Rajan’s very nice reply to my email, telling me I could “explore my writing skills on subjects of my interest” and what could be more interesting than Life? So here I am – to muse on the week gone past – thinking back, its been quite a fun-filled week. Although, at the time each ‘funny’ event happened, it was not-so-funny and I found myself feeling quite murderous more than once. Ok, twice. Alright – several times!
It all began with Pongalo Pongal, which is a significant festival for us. Apart from the chakra pongal, venn pongal, vadai payasam stuff – and the quick puja because preparing everything took a lot of time and we could hear the collective rumble of the family stomach – there’s also this: giving tamboolam. Tray of betel leaves, real betelnut or a sachet of betel nut, kumkum, turmeric, a blouse piece, a dakshina (cash), fruit, flowers, a coconut and some yummy stuff – on this occasion, the handy chakra pongal.
I was feeling really proud of myself (you know what they say about the Pride-Fall sequence…) – everything went so well that morning. My pooja room looked cool – and I thought, secretly, of course, hey – am better than my mom at all this.
The next thing I knew – all my tamboolam sets had a pack of chili flakes from Domino’s Pizza instead of betel nut sachets. I swear they look so similar –and since I wasn’t wearing my glasses at the time, I goofed up. So you’re wondering – why didn’t I change them to the betel nuts? Because, my friends, I only noticed after the last one had been given – and there was one set dedicated to the Goddess before distribution.
Lesson Learned? Yes. NEVER use sachets. Only real betel nuts. And when visually challenged, please wear glasses. Plus, don’t even breathe a word about it to the family. They never let you hear the end of it – laughter unlimited guaranteed. For them, that is. Worse still, they’ll tell everyone willing to hear.
Ok. Life goes on, you know. Next episode later.
Editor’s note: Vidya Sury is a freelance writer from Bangalore. On behalf of all authors of GingerChai and readers, I Welcome Vidya Sury to GingerChai author panel. Let’s sip her various flavor of thoughts!
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Now imagine someone actually folding a nice kumbakonam vethalai leaf with the chunnambu and Dominoes chilli flakes (to be frank, these are not that ‘hot’)…
I can imagine steam whistling out of the ears!
Ambi –
luckily, tamboolam vethlais, once received are usually separated from their ‘accessories’. Only 3 of the people who received them came back to tell me about the blooper. 
The others didn’t – so am assuming that the sneaky chili flake sachets must have joined their existing horde of paakku potlams – to be redistributed – until someone notices. So MLM no??
Lol! And so it spreads.
Curiously, how come you ended up with so many sachets unused? If I had ordered the Mexican Green wave, I would have used up all the flake sachets myself.
Welcome to Ginger Chai. Enjoyed your piece. Waiting to read your other fiascoes. Want to see if you can outdo my fiasco counts or not.
Thanks Mani. Actually folks consider me quite efficient – And then something like this happens!:-D It keeps the balance going ..
Hey, this is fun! even i am handicapped without my specs but haven’t fallen into the chillie sachet situation yet
Tamboolam packets out, domino’s chilli flakes packets in. You could start a new fad this way!!!
…. was this the “twilight zone”
Aneet, it was the twilight zone.
Stranger things have happened.
I just congratulated Sury on his wife’s post at Ginger Chai and encouraged him to read it
Really liked the post.
I could really relate to it.