Monday, January 18, 2021

RGB Monday

The four days of the Pongal festival went with the flow and I was just idle watching a couple of newly released movies on OTT and entertained by other programs on tv and YouTube.   As usual, I went for Kolam hunting on our streets on the Pongal evening, but as I expected, I couldn’t see many colorful kolams, and some are in regular patterns to shoot. The Pongal festival wasn’t lively at home, and we miss the Pongal cooked in mud pot right outside the home, what we had done for the last four years, including two years along with uncle’s family. This year’s Pongal was the same as what happens when you eat Pongal – a dull feeling.


But the next day, the Mattu Pongal was good enough as I went on an outing on ECR to explore a couple of places, and what can give me happiness other than the opportunity of travel? I enjoyed the day, except for a couple of disadvantages, and this was my first outing with the sister-in-law, and it went all comfortably. I may write on the places in further posts with photos.


Now coming to RGB Monday, I share my aunt’s colorful pot Kolam she drew for the Pongal festival. Mom’s knee pain stopped her from participating in drawing Kolam, so my aunty managed to draw two more simple Kolams, the only colorful thing we added this year for the Pongal. Hope the Pongal is celebrated with happiness and peace at every house of Tamil people and a wonderful weekend for the others.

Monday, January 11, 2021

Spiritless Pongal Festival?

2020 exists no more, but it took away the happiness and festival spirit with along. I didn’t decorate the Christmas tree or put lights for Christmas and New Year, and now with Pongal, in 2 days I couldn’t feel excited in the usual way.  Pongal is the only festival that leftover to speak the tradition and culture of Tamil people living all over the world and it is a common festival that communicates our lifestyle and unites the people to support and thank farmers for their continuous work of feeding.

Every year we used to draw colorful Kolams, aka Rangoli, in front of the home to add auspiciousness to the festival, and boiling milk and rice in a mud pot, on top of firewood, is another kind of gesture greeting farmers and nature, and also helping the pottery workers.

I always love celebrating a festival beyond its religious beliefs and rituals, as I believe festivals are mean to gather people and celebrate the spirit of togetherness. Pongal is a social festival and farmer’s festive so wishing for their wellness is important and being a pandemic period, we had no option other than limiting our celebrations although our celebration is always restrained to two families. But this year is gonna be celebrated in the kitchen itself. Hehe

Talking about the past year will only make it sadder than happier, and it is a year the world will never forget for the number of losses mankind faced, but the consoling fact was nature restored its place even if it is a temporary phase.  Personally, 2020 is a devastating year for us apart from the pandemic Dracula sucking the life from all over the world, some lives were lost in our family circle and a couple of them were quite unexpected. Though no life is lost for COVID-19, my uncle’s death was the most sent tremors into our family than the cousin who died leaving back two little kids. No life is left to comparable and life is a life that is replaceable by anything but we haven’t been close with that cousin to deeply feel the pain.

This cousin is a good-hearted guy, and kindness would melt in front of his smile, and he had never raised his voice or think to hurt anybody, but he died out of high pressure and cardiac arrest. Perhaps because of this, he hadn't shared his problems with others, and this is a problem with many of our reserved types is to suffer silently. He’s a project manager in a reputed IT firm and an affectionate kid to his mom and with a problematic married life, should I need to define the challenges he got in front of him to cease his life?

My uncle is just 6 months younger than my dad and thus they are like best friends and whatever it is dad only call him first to know his thought before proceeding. I would say he was an iron man who lived among us, and his support to our families is significantly strong and there’s nothing he unknown, and has great grasping power to workout things at observing.  It was him, and it was on his captainship my brother’s wedding in November held successfully. But he couldn’t live less than a week to see them lead their life or any of our future events.  

We meet him frequently or to say at least once in a week or two, it was hard for us to think or feel he’s no more but we feel regret for our aunt who misses him the most as a loving wife. They lived like made for each other and as a cool and casual couple.  They lead any of our functions from the front and now seeing her confined to home hurts really. I hope she returns to normalcy and continues the way she was earlier. I know she too knows life has to move on, more than any of the other, as she already came over her daughter’s demise a decade ago. My thoughts go for her…

Thank you

Wednesday, January 06, 2021

Asus Vivobook X441ua

Begin the year with a new laptop as I said goodbye to my nine-year-old companion, the Dell Inspiron 15. It was a journey uninterrupted in any major ways, and it doesn't require service for the last 3 years perhaps it could be a reason for its sudden loss of response. I could have woken it up by changing the motherboard, but I decided to put it rest and went for a new one.  Asus Vivobook is cool and enough for the works I do. It was quite an upgrade for me from Intel i3 to i5 processor, 4Gb to 8Gb ram and 500Gb to 1TB HDD, and Windows 7 to win 10. 

Actually, I thought of creating a record as I believed my Dell laptop would last another year to complete a round of 10 years. But I could have made it if I could spend one-third of the amount spent on a new one. I know it would give me trouble even if I spend the amount as the touchpad lost its senses – I couldn’t be comforting all the time with a mouse and a broken bezel, and I needed an upgrade, so I decided to spend the money on a new laptop. Though I couldn't think of any other laptop other than the Dell, I also no need to say why as its sturdiness is world known, but a friend suggested me to go for an Intel i5 processor and Dell's laptops at this range are out of my budget, so I went for the Asus which came under my budget.

The only difficulty with the Asus Vivobook was its change in some key positions on the righthand side of the keyboard. But the typing is much easier than before, perhaps because of the soft-touch keys, and being a new laptop thing looks easier. I need to install MS-office and photoshop, the prime software’s I use on my computer, separately, and add backup files from the previous laptop hard drive. I’m overall content with the gadget and need to work more to use its various features.  

Monday, January 04, 2021

RGB Monday

 A rainbow walks my street…    Let's begin the year colorful :) 


Hi guys, hope you all doing well and had a wonderful festive season of Christmas and New Year. I wish the year 2021 brings all good things to people all over the world and witnesses the end of the pandemic.  It has been a few weeks since I blogged and this is a long break I took after a long time because of the loss of my laptop. The laptop that was back from service didn’t last a few days and the technicians tried to save the laptop without changing the motherboard but failed to result in buying a new one after days of research.

I wish you all Happy, COVID-19-less, and Healthy and Wealthy New Year

Saturday, December 12, 2020

Lappy back and A short video/photo slide of Bro’s wedding

The laptop is back in its former condition, and I'm glad the technicians saved the laptop nor should have looked out for new. To everyone’s amazement, my laptop survives 9 years without any major repair! There won’t be a surprise if it comes up with another issue because I’m in a situation to install anything additional to the system or force anything out of its circuit. I’m happy I could blog again, and I wish this laptop last some time to celebrate our 10 years partnership. lol 

Brothers wedding photos selection was going on my laptop and this setback with the laptop delayed the progress of sending photos for the album. I took some photos from the wedding folders and made a short video or photo slide with the Clips app on the iPhone to send to friends and relatives as Whatsapp messages. The app has some animation clips, and I used them to enhance the photo view. I share below the video for your views. Watch in full screen for a good show.