let it snow...

this has turned out to be a beautiful sunday, with the first snowfall of the season just starting now outside my window !

as i write, the swirls of snow are coming down steadily, and just starting to leave a powdery coating on the tree branches and rooftops... (if it leaves a thick layer before dusk i should probably get out the camera - it has been a long while since i did.)

ideally i would like to just make myself a hot cup of chai and pull a chair by the window and keep watching, but today, work beckons. we had originally thought we'd be moving in sep-oct, but that didnt happen and instead we are planning to relocate next weekend. so im looking at a lot of packing to be done in the next few days.

meanwhile, here's a first look - and hope you are having a nice weekend wherever you are :)

update - here are a few more pics from the camera after the snow had fallen for quite some time - (the one above being from the mobile )

throwback thursday - #22

tomorrow is the indian festival of pongal, or makar sankranti. astrologically, is it considered to mark the movement of sun into capricorn, but it is also india's most important celebration of harvest and 'thanksgiving'.

celebrations for every festival vary from state to state in india, and in my home state of tamilnadu, pongal marks a very festive celebration of 3-4 days. the first day of bhogi sees all the homes cleaned, decorated and old stuff discarded. the second day is the main festival of pongal, the birth of the 'thai' month, which marks the beginning of an auspicious season. newly harvested rice is cooked with freshly boiled milk & jaggery, offered to the gods, (especially the sun) and eaten along with sugarcane. the third day is 'maatu pongal', in honour of cattle & livestock, when they are decorated and given offerings of food. even the birds are left with offerings of coloured rice for them to eat.

with that little preface, we come to today's throwback thursday - i was looking for old pongal ads or greeting cards, and ended up finding some beautiful cards listed on ebay. here are a few below -

the colourfully painted card has a woman making traditional offerings on the right, while the left one has a pongal message, signed with a name in tamil that possibly seems 'meyyappan' - and it also bears the location as ipoh, which is in malaysia. ('meyyappan' is a common natukkottai chettiar name and many chettiars were living in malaya/malaysia in the olden days, doing business and bringing wealth back home. )
the card at the top, as can be seen, is signed with the date of jan 14th 1954  - that is exactly 62 years before!

image source for both the above images - from here 

this one shows a rustic rural setting, with a man and woman bundling freshly harvested paddy in the fields, with other farmhands and cattle in the background. this one seems to be painted by the eminent artist k.madhavan, whose works graced many of the tamil magazines and ads of his time.

image source - from here

lastly, the two above seem to be from a three-fold card - featuring the amazingly beautiful yesteryear actress padmini, who is an evergreen favourite of tamil movie fans ! each of the panels has a different message about pongal, with photos of padmini in beautiful traditional jewellery - nethi chutti, jhimki, maatal, kal attigai and oddiyanam !

wishing everyone a very happy pongal and makar sankranti !

mundane monday - #64

this is a photo of my coin bank that i took back in 2012, when it was almost full... ( it is shaped like an old red british pillar box, and i just opened the top/lid to take this pic.)

among the assortment of coins you can find a few of the US state 'quarters' - 25cent coins - which are part of a series of 50 coins issued by the US mint over a period of 10 years, to commemorate each of US's 50 states. i think i started sometime in 2009, and finished collecting them by the end of 2011. during the time i did that, it was always interesting to eagerly go through all the spare change i could find, to see if i got any new state that i didnt have :) 

the US mint also has several other coin series, like 'america the beautiful' quarters (featuring US natural landscapes) and presidential dollars, of which i have managed to collect some.

(the state quarters of wyoming and idaho can be seen in this pic, and oregon partly seen.)

throwback thursday - #21

this is that awkward phase - where saying 'last year' seems so odd, it being so recent - and yet we come to terms with the reality of seeing a new number on our calendars. (honestly, a new year doesnt seem much more than that - just a new number on the calendar.)

anyhoo, 2016 has already completed seven days. meanwhile i realised throwback thursday has completed 20 posts in 2015, and the first one of 2016, today, is the 21st.

sharing with you all today, this vintage black&white new year ad for coca cola, which i found on flickr -

have a good 2016 folks.

image source - from flickr

mundane monday - #63

today being the first monday of the year, i thought it wouldn't be a good idea to put it off :)

this mug was gifted to me last year by a friend who really gets me :D