Chocolates

I somehow dont like the taste of all these milk chocolates. Some how the white color doesnt impress me much and it doesnt give me the feel of chocolate at all. The taste is so blunt and it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. (isnt weird to hear)

I always had a penchant for these chocolates with a hint of nuts and also the wafer chocolates. Especially kit kat and perk (who would forget the preity zinta ad ) .My all time favourite is Dairy Milk. All the special occasions would demand a bar of Dairy Milk.

My recent craze are these unique and delicious Ferrero Rocher chocolate sweets which come individually warped in a distinctive and rich looking gold colored wrapper. I learnt that these candies are made of roasted hazelnuts. They just melt in your mouth and i like the sweet sensation tingling in your mouth. ( should watch out for calories though)

And there were a whole lots of chocolates all of which were available for 25 np and 50 np . To name a few caramilk, coconut punch, aasai , lacto king, and this pulippu mittai which would leave a sore tongue at the end of it.

There was this theatre just a stone's throw away from our house where we friends would hand out once in a while. So while we are up to the movie we would fill our bags with this brownie chocolate which was 5p at that time. It is a groundnut coated with chocolate and was called the bournvita chocolate and who would forget the sweet honey laced then mittai. I just would love it. Whenever i and my cousin used to go to the shop which was just behind our house to get "vethala paakku" for my grandpa we would demand extra money to get these then mittais.

It was also a season of frymes and wheel chips but i didnt favour them much. I hated the very chikku naatham of it. But, i loved those cute little samosas.

Somehow all those little expeditions gave us the chance to know the value of money. They trusted us with the money how much ever little it was. It gave us a sense of responsibilities and a penchant for savings. But, i dont think i give the same to my son. All those fun of running to the " mona naattar kadai" whenever we get a little amount from our grandparents or relatives cannot be put into words. I feel guilty when i take him to the super market and allow him to choose from a wide range of products. But i make sure to tell him the price of that and try to teach him the value of money in my own possible way.

Gooseberry alais nellikkai

The very word Gooseberry alais "nellikkai " in tamil kindled all my childhood memories not to be mentioned rather sweet ones.
The other day i was teachin my pre-school kid all the fruits both orally as well visually through CD ROM of fruit rhymes. Rather i should say i was educating myself all the english acronyms of the fruits which i hadn't heard of.
Fine, now back to our topic. We moved to our new house which is surrounded by whole bunch of trees which includes mango, gooseberry , guava, plantain and not to leave behind cocunut.
My kid was asking the name of the trees and i was very ashamed to tell him those rather lettin him to discover on his own. Then, there aroused my memories of how independent i was and playful which is very much not at all provided to this generation kids.

I grew up in the locality of independent houses where the apartments were not so much heard of though in the heart of the city that too near the shopping paradise of T.Nagar. We, the children would never be at home in the evenings and should i mention anything about the holidays? There was one this house a not so huge one but well surrounded by trees of which the nellikkai maram would occupy considerable space. The inmates of the house were so sweet that they would never close their gate and would never mind us play there. We would climb the trees and would have the nellikkai and play all sort of games over there which are not at all heard now-a-days.
We would sit on the tree and chat for hours together and u bet we wud get the salt and chilli mixture from the aunty of the house itself. All the boys and girls together would be around 10 and we would play ; paandi, dog and the bone , Nondi, help, lock and key, Thayam, pallankuzhi . All these games we would play with loud screams and laughter, and not even once that aunty had ever scolded us. She would also give us water to drink though our houses were the opposite ones.
I dont remember her face or name but we would address her as uthra aunty since there was a baby called uthra there.

Imagine now for putting my boy to sleep, i close all the windows, doors, and switch off my mobile and lower the volume of telephone.

HAS TIME CHANGED OR WE PEOPLE HAVE CHANGED.

Wish i would try being like uthra aunty.