Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Murungakka Sambhar

The comments on the last few posts cannot be ignored. Especially the ones by a number of vegetables. I didn’t comprehend a number of them, but the vegetables itself reminded me of my pet grouse.

Amma makes sambhar very often, once in a day usually. I am not much of a sambhar fan. I like rasam much more - it is lighter and is unlikely to contain any vegetable that one dislikes.

Appa says it is illegal to make sambhar without the vendakkai. While it tastes rather nice, I don’t like it. Vendakkai is the vegetable that allegedly improves one’s performance in any mathematics exam. It helps to process complex problems and get you the elusive, Centum in Maths. However, no amount of Vendakai consumption helped me or my friend Poongothai. So I concluded that, it didn’t work. And just so that, amma didn’t put too much pressure on me by saying, why after so much of vendakkais also your maths scores don’t improve, I chose to boycott the vegetable completely.

However, slightly more difficult to ignore was – murungakka. We had a tree and T Anna got glasses when he was six. So murungakka found its way into every meal of ours. It is the most annoying vegetable. The flavour, while being nice, completely overwhelms every other taste. A small bit can sometimes get stuck in your throat and make you feel that you might choke to death. It is a bit annoying to watch people eat a murungakka, there is something brutal about it. It is a bit of a social embarrassment.

However a big part of my dislike for murungakka was to do with the fact that the men always ate/ still eat before the women in my house. I am okay with that also. It is too small a thing to rebel and get self righteous about, I think. The not so pleasant part was to clear the plates after the men were done with the eating. I had to usually do it and I used to hate the days when it was murungakka on the menu. The violently chewed on remnants of the erstwhile good looking vegetable, which I needed to throw before washing the plates would gross me out. I must have cursed T Anna a million times at least; appa was a little more delicate.

Since then, I made a promise to myself that when I get married, I shall never cook the murungakka. At least T Anna and Appa are my blood and gothram, imagine doing this for some strange man?

46 comments:

Anonymous said...

In case you missed this:
http://retributions.wordpress.com/2007/06/16/on-rajnikanth-the-boss

Your comments please?

Let me go and read your posts now!

Anonymous said...

i pity

murungakka is too tasty a vegetable to avoid for such trivial reasons.. why not make that strange man clean his own plates?

athuthan oru asal thamiz peNNukku azhagu, illiyO?

Anonymous said...

Heh! I will marry you and clean the plate.

Anonymous said...

Two posts and none about me? Hmmppph!

I said...

murungakka sambhar sapta maari gumm nu irukku.

Anonymous said...

You are no Asal Tamil Penn if you don't comment on this:

http://retributions.wordpress.com/2007/06/16/on-rajnikanth-the-boss/

Asal Tamil Penn said...

Errr, why should I have an opinion on a badly written and incredibly boring piece to assert my Tamizhness? Enna gothram avan? Free ya vidu.

Anonymous said...

Nice, very nice!

P.S.:- I'll also take this moment to reiterate that you bring out the Tamil-thing very well.

Anonymous said...

I am heart-broken.

Anonymous said...

murungakka sapta mood varuma?

Anonymous said...

The murungakka leaves are awesome though. My paati used to roast the murungakkas and make this nice kootu with the pulp that was squeezed out!

Just add murungakka hater to your ever growing list of must-haves! :D

Unknown said...

Highly entertaining. Are you feeling sorry for the murungakka?

Anonymous said...

Unga kaal kunjam kaaminga.

Anonymous said...

You have'nt commented on this murungakka supposed to be useful for some purposes !!!

and with 'strange men ' .... i dont think you will get grossed out when that happens.. i havent seen any tamil penn getting grossed out like that ..ofcourse the reasons are obvious

Anonymous said...

You are very rude, you don't respond to most of the comments. Please tell why?

Anonymous said...

May be, there is a relationship between mathematics and gothram?

Anonymous said...

My grandmother, now 90 years old, does not wait for men to eat first. She usually tells them that it is medieval to expect women to eat after men. And since she is 90 years old, nobody questions her.

Anonymous said...

At least, it has not put you off marriage! :)

Anonymous said...

Marry a North Indian boy. No need for sambhar then. Na rahega..

Anonymous said...

any sound north indian boy will not marry iyr girls. These so called intellectual girls ruin our tamil culture. they are arrogant, suffer from attitude problems ..blah blah blah..i pity poor tamil iyr boys they are forced to marry these girls bcos of parent pressure.

Anonymous said...

Sound North Indian boy?
What is that? A newly discovered mythical creature?

I said...

anon1: No non-iyer women can make such wonderful murungakka sambhar. All you keezh jaadhi men will never get that.

Anonymous said...

I am bored, please post.

Anonymous said...

Tamizh Penn,

Did you see my new movie - JBJ? It is much better than Sivaji, even if I say so myself.

Kind Regards,

Amitabh

Anonymous said...

I would love to be forced to marry a Tamil Iyer girl. Especially if she is ATP.

Anonymous said...

Bhai Saheb,
Aap bekaar mein Iyer ladkiyon ki ninda na karein.
Yahan se nau do gyarah ho jayiye.
Turant.

ATP,
I might be moving to Chennai very soon! :)
Forget all these bickering Tamizh boys. None better than us men from Jaipur! Promise.

Anonymous said...

Why is your Blogroll so skewed to women? That too only posh Iyer girls? Racist! Elitist.
Lalita is not even a Tam.
And Ro is not one anymore. Of course, I understand the ACJ loyalty.

Asal Tamil Penn said...

Aiyyo, why is everyone so angry all the time?
Free ya vidu.

The girl said...

The murungakai can be eaten in dignified ways. Firstly, my mom makes kootu in which the succulent pulp is squeezed into. The sheath is removed during the preparation itself. The best about that kootu is that crunchy kottai amidst the gooey mass.

It is hard to get Indian veggies in my place, and tasting murungakkai sambar once a while is like frenching a long lost lover.

And muruggakai is rich in iron... I think. or was it manganese? whatever.

Anonymous said...

LOL at anon. I think the Bloggers she links to must be dying of embarassment. Fun only this is!

Anonymous said...

1) Iyr gals think they are the most beautiful creature on earth. But sadly it isnt.
2) They think they are the only intelligent specimen in this world. But they are dumbos
3) The think they are the savior of tami culture. But they are the one who ruin them.
4) They think they are the sweetest person on this earth. But they are arrogant, egoistic and suffer from superiority complex.
5) They think boys ( read hindi) are dying to have relationship with them. But in reality boys dont give a crap.

But iyr boys are very chamatu, pavam guyz. I have respect for them.

Abe sale RAJASTANI BOY..teri jaat ki...chennai kyu aa raha hai?? meenas aur gujjars ne teri gaand marle kya? kutte ke aulad saare rajastani sade huey tamatar ki tarah dekti hain..apni shakal aainey me dekhiyo jale hua beingan sale!

I said...

Anon: Ettadha pazham pulikum. And enga ponalum indha indhi tholla thangala. Anything North of Tamil Nadu has to be nuked.

Anonymous said...

ATP, Nuke ellam thevai illai. I spent 7 years in Delhi and trust me, generally freea vutta, they will nuke themselves to oblivion. Oru nuke miccham.

Anonymous said...

Heh! What a fun blog you have. And what comments also? Kallaku! :)

Anonymous said...

Found some strange man already?

Sidin said...

I am the very much liking this blog. The blogrolling immediately.

The vegetables I hate with all my heart and soul are the beetroot and radish. They are the devil's brainchild.

I think I must start an anti-beetroot Orkut group immediately.

Vinod Khare said...

Hi! Cool blog! Though I'm really a bloody northie, I really liked the Tamil centered-ness of this blog. It is quite refreshing to see an indian theme oriented blog which has been so nicely executed.

Pri said...

I quite like murungakka in my sambhar but I’ve seen what it looks like after it’s been chewed up and I agree it’s not the most pleasant sight.
Growing up I had a murungakka tree in my garden and this one uncle would come over every few weeks and demurungakkafy the tree and then go around distributing the stock to the rest of the extended family and we’d all eat the same exact lunch that day. 

Anonymous said...

Tamizh Ponnu, New post?

Anonymous said...

Nilu is underground and this girl doesnt post. Is there a connection? And where are Avataram and his thatha hanging out these days?

Anonymous said...

Yes, ATP is mourning Nilu.

Anonymous said...

C'mon girl, post.

~V

Rishabh Kaul said...

I love this blog! hahahahahah! The last was killer! Strange man it seems!

Unknown said...

That is truly funny ... woman u have a good sense o humor !! i feel sorry for the murungakai !

Anonymous said...

I hate Nilu. Thank god he is dead.

Hariharan Rahul said...

Since then, I made a promise to myself that when I get married, I shall never cook the murungakka. At least T Anna and Appa are my blood and gothram, imagine doing this for some strange man?

I can't believe nobody has commented on the most crucial problem with this statement. After marriage, you will be the same gothram as the strange man, so you are duty bound to cater to every whim of that bhadava rascal.