Pongal and Sambar Vadai combo

(The following was sent to me by my dear friend, the world famous, Cuddalore Chandrasekhar.  I translated it in English.)

Pongal and Sambar Vadai combination must be handled very carefully. 

I would order Pongal and Sambar Vadai together. Still, some idiot (server) will bring the Pongal only and say “sambar vadai varudhu sir (sambar vadai is coming sir)”. It is as cruel as separating couples in the month of Aadi. 

Let the Pongal become cold. Like, until the village festival will not start until the big honcho comes to inaugurate it, until the sambar vadai comes I cannot eat even a small portion of Pongal. 

Cut the sambar vadai with spoon and a small portion of Pongal simultaneously should be enjoyed like tabla by Zakir Hussain and Thavil by A. K. Pazhanivel (jugal bandhi). 

Some restaurants will not give a spoon for Pongal. It is not etiquette to use the same spoon for Pongal that was used for sambar vadai. That is disrespecting the Pongal. Therefore, we should take a small portion of Pongal with hand, touch it with sambar or chutney, put it in the mouth and then use the spoon to cut a portion of sambar vadai to eat. 

If we eat the Pongal with hand, then the moistness of the sambar makes the fingers sticky. If we touch the sambar vadai spoon with the same sticky fingers, it is disrespecting the sambar vadai. 

Therefore, even if I lose my self-respect, I should clean the sambar/chutney stickiness of my fingers by licking them good and then touch the spoon meant for sambar vadai. 

In spite of these complicated rules, it will take less than 5 minutes to finish the Pongal and sambar vadai combination. 

An ideal leader in emergency is Pongal and his lovely partner is sambar vadai.

Cricket in USA

I always thought if only Americans play cricket they can beat the heck out of Indians and Australians. Now I am glad to say cricket has come to America in the form of MLC (Major League Cricket). 

To paraphrase Neil Armstrong “This is one small step for USA, one giant leap for the game of Cricket”. 

Major League Cricket in USA, similar to IPL, has 6 teams this year. These are the teams and their current standing as of July 21. 

Los Angeles Knight Riders (NO win and 4 loss) (Owned by KKR) 

MI New York (1 win and 2 loss) (owned by Mumbai Indians) 

San Francisco Unicorn (2 wins and 1 loss) 

Seattle Orcas (2 wins and NO loss) 

Texas Super Kings (2 wins and 1 loss) (Owned by CSK) 

Washington Freedom (2 wins and 1 loss) 

These matches started on July 13. The final will be played on July 30. 

These six teams have recruited, in addition to local Americans, players from all over the world. Some of the famous names are: 

Faf du Plessis, David Miller, Devon Conway, Kieron Pollard, Tim David, Rashid Khan, Nicholas Pooran, Unmukt Chand, Martin Guptill, Corey Anderson, Lungi Ngidi, Sunil Narine, and many others. 

I am confused. I read somewhere that Indians who want to play in MLC has to sever all connections with BCCI and IPL. I don’t know how far this is true. 

Tickets to all matches are sold out. 

Eagerly waiting for the final on July 30.

Video Game Love Affair

A 27-year-old married Pakistani woman used to play the popular game PUBG with a 22 year old Indian guy. After playing this game together for many hours each for many days, they both fell for each other. The woman, along with her 4 children, entered India illegally via Nepal. They both lived happily near New Delhi. Their lawyer came to know about this and alerted the police. They were arrested. 

This news was reported prominently in the American newspapers. What I found interesting was how the readers reacted through their comments. Most of the times, reader comments are more interesting than the story itself.  Want to share some of their comments.  They are:

In America, the lawyer would have been in trouble for revealing privileged information.

Common on, they have to let her stay there and let them get married. She cannot go back anyway; she will be either killed either by her husband or the government. Sweet story, wish them well.

People in Pakistan both men and women would do anything to leave their country, they would even risk drowning 

I'm amazed that a 22-year-old man would want to marry a woman who has four kids! 

Nice starter family. 

You mean they actually ENFORCE their laws against illegal entry. What a novel concept. Maybe Brandon* could contemplate doing that. 

I think this country should adopt India's immigration laws. 

India Government should give her an Indian equivalent of H1B visa. 

The lawyer proved they are not to be trusted. 

Love is strong but beware of rats. 

Hindus can call this reverse love jihad. 

How does she have so much time playing a game with 4 children, all under the age of seven? 

This is such a crazy story. He is suddenly the dad of four little kids and she’s with a guy who’s basically unemployed. 

I’ll wait for the Disney movie to explain it all. 

They should have met in America, would received a home, transportation, food, clothing, child care, health care, and anything else their hearts desire at a cost of NOTHING. Good old USA, we’ll care for anyone except our own citizens and we’ll use their money to do it. 

I kept waiting to read they had a go fund me** open. 

This story is better than mine and I am jealous. 

So that’s the secret. Let’s get Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy to play PUBG: Battlegrounds. 

What does a woman want? We finally have an answer.

*Brandon is a nick name for President Biden.  How he got that name? I will let you know in my next blog post.

**GoFundMe is a personal crowdfunding site designed to help ease the financial stresses of life for families and businesses.