Recipe - Mango Thokku And Avakkai

Thokku:
Grate mango. Roast methi,  fry solid hing and powder both just as in Puli milagai. 
Fry mustard, red chilli powder,  salt,  haldi powder, add grated mango and keep frying. Add powdered methi and hing. Grated mango has to be fried for about 25 minutes in medium flame. பச்சை வாசனை போக வேண்டும். (Raw smell has to go.)

The ratio of mango (grated, not cut) and chili powder and salt will be about the same as for avakkai pickle (see later). Note that there will be no kadalai or mustard powder nor a 3-4 day soaking period. This one gets done in about an hour. Transfer from frying kadai to a bottle (porcelain or glass only. NO plastic container for any pickle. 

Mustard fried.

Grated Mango - 4 numbers from my mango tree

Roasted Methi and Fried solid hing being ground. Til oil container to the left.

Grated mango being fried in til (gingelly) oil

Chili powder and salt added. Also powdered hing and methi and haldi powder. Add sufficient til oil

Keep Stirring and frying. That's it

Avakkai Pickle:

1. Take cut (and peeled) avakkai
2. Avakkai: chili powder : salt : mustard  powder = 3:2:0.67:1 = 9:6:2:3 by volume. For 3/4 kg mango about 0.5 liter Idhayam gingingelly oil needed. Grind small mustard to create mustard powder, the smell is apparently better than with large mustard.
3. Mix the powders in gingelly oil after adding a little oil until it becomes a paste. Then add mango, add more oil until it becomes like gravy. 
4. Add koththu kadalai (black karuppu konda kadalai) - about a 50-100gms. Add one teaspoon methi also. 
5. Let the mixture soak for 3-5 days. 
6. Stir the mixture everyday during that time while adding til oil each day.

Note:
Store in a cool dark place. Stir every month and add some gingelly oil once in a while. You can buy mustard, red chilies and grind in a mixie to make the respective powders. When you mix on the first day add a little less of the powders than mentioned. Each day when you mix well and add oil, taste the WIP (work in progress) pickle and add extra powder as necessary.

This is how the container has to "packed" to keep it cool and away from light - for 3-5 days. The top is wrapped with a cloth

Avakkai - soaking in yummy கடுகு பொடி (mustard powder) and gingelly oil and salt, chili powder etc. After 3rd day.

After 6 days

Stored in a Glass Bottle - Never in Plastic container.

Stir avakkai once in 2-3 weeks after adding gingelly oil, if necessary.

Additional reading:

• http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2017/02/recipe-puli-milagai.html
• http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2016/08/making-sambar-and-rasam-powder-and.html
• http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2015/08/a-list-of-indian-mostly-tamil-lunch-and.html

Recipe - Mor Milagai And Manathakaalikkai Vethal

1. Cut green chilies into one inch pieces. 
2. Dip green chilies in butter milk. Add salt and hing powder to the butter milk. Should soak for 4-5 days outside in cool area.  
3. Then remove green chilies and dry in sunlight for few hours. 
4. Put dried chili back in the same buttermilk and let it soak overnight. 

Repeat steps 3-4 everyday for a few days until all butter milk is absorbed by chilies or manatha kaalikka veththal. Green chilies should become white. I do not know what color manatha kalikka vethal should become. 

Finally store the by now crisp milagai or manatha kalikka veththal.  Fry it and serve.

Cut into 1" pieces

Dipped in buttermilk

After 3 days of soaking

Buttermilk and Green chili - both being dried in the Sun. I think buttermilk is dried so that the salt can be absorbed better by chilies when the latter is soaked in the former later in the day,

I use a cover for both buttermilk and green chilies so birds and insects don't mess with them.

Final Mor Milagai - Its Crisp

Touchiness

Are animals touchy?

Touchiness is something which human beings have and it's counter to living and breeding successfully. 

Look at any animal. Especially a hyena. Is it touchy?  It lives by attacking and stealing someone else's food. If the need to live and survive and reproduce is strong, one cannot and will not be touchy. 

So why did we humans (at least some of us) become touchy? Touchiness is the tendency to switch off / stop a necessary activity in life out of anger or hurt. The activity that we stop could be holding on to a friendship, eating, working - any of the things that we need to do to live. 

Touchiness has its roots in shame. Not in anger, sadness,  hatred, vindictiveness. Why do touchy people feel so much shame? i don't think Touchiness causes shame. It's the other way around. 

is it that they hold themselves to a very high standard and hence feel shame when they don't achieve it? Touchy people's claim to fame is in restraining themselves from pursuing happiness. Is it their proclivity to shame that prevents pursuit of happiness? Do touchy people have a self sabotaging mechanism preventing them from achieving their potential? 

Touchy people aren't happy people. One cannot be touchy and happy. Happy people choose what they want to do and actively pursue those activities. 

While i thought most touchy people were IJ (introverted judging as in MBTI), i have come across couple of extroverts and one P that are touchy. 

Interesting Puzzles

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/apr/24/did-you-solve-it-the-wrestler-the-wind-up-clock-and-the-pickle-jar

Pain

How is it that we let ourselves drown in pain and let it pervade every pore of our being and of our dwelling so much that it contaminates everything around us? Is it being too sensitive or too insensitive? 

When the people around us want euthanasia for themselves when we are the ones that have the real pain, what do we call those people around us? 

When we want to live in pain and want to talk about it rather than let it be fixed and cured -  a

are we tolerating pain or craving pain? 

Why Hindus In India Behave Like Muslims Now - Fight Or Flight?

A friend sent me this article and said that it explains why Hindus are behaving like Muslims. I thought of something else.

Both Muslims - let's not leave Catholics, they are also similar. Recently I read an article that explained why northern Europe was more advanced and richer than countries in Southern Europe. The author suggested that it was because the south was and is predominantly Catholic while the north is largely Protestant - and Ayn Rand have one thing in common. 

Neither could stand people who were different. Both wanted people to convert to their religion. Ayn Rand's religion was of course Laissez Faire Capitalism. But there was one difference. Rand would never use force. While Muslims (and Catholics) use force.

What makes one set of people use force while another party doesn't? Is it that Ayn Rand was intelligent and hence never needed to use force? Does it mean that people use force largely because they can't get their desires met any other way?

No. Physical force (that an alpha male uses) is but one way to get what you want but can't get through other peaceful and fair means. Emotional and verbal bullying (that feminine people indulge in) is another way to achieve it. Neither I think was Ayn Rand's way.

She insisted on fair play, in every transaction, devoid of physical aggression or emotional manipulation. And her heroes in Atlas Shrugged refused to have anything to do with the "non-Rands" (Jim, Lilian, Philip Rearden etc.). They hid out in Galt's Gulch. It was a peaceful war without physical force or manipulation. They let the world realize what it would be like with them not around. 

Was Ayn Rand's war more like Gandhi's Satyagraha? I do not think so. Satyagraha was emotional manipulation. "I will fast until death and my death will be on your hands" is not the kind that Ayn Rand would subscribe to. She (by her I refer to her heroes) would just leave and never be part of anything low class. Remember how John Galt quit the 20th Century Motor Company when the company announced socialistic policies.

So when confronted with stuff we can't stand what are our options? 

• Kill, convert or rape like how Muslims and Catholics did and like how Hindus are doing now as my friend pointed out. 
• Escape to Galt's Gulch and wait for the propitious time to return. Is this escapism? A refusal to deal with reality or with unpalatable options? A friend asked me - How can these people just run away leaving everything behind? Don't they covet material things and wealth? My answer follows. It is slightly long. No, they covet or embrace something else, their ideas and ideals which are much more important to them. They are passionate but not ambitious Galt hated to negotiate with Mr Thompson, the President of USA while the latter insisted on negotiating with Galt. Imagine how Galt would have felt negotiating with the Starnes heirs about their new HR policy and his revolutionary motor. Only if you are like Galt can you imagine the sickness you would feel having to discuss with Mr Thompson or with Starnes heirs. Can you imagine Gail Wynand discuss some serious stuff with the girl (not Dominique) he was engaged to? When Wynand told her that he was dedicating to her not his wealth and power but that quality in him that gave him his power and wealth, the girl responded to him asking him how her dress was. While discussion or negotiation is an important tool in today's world to use with opposing parties, Ayn Rand's heroes never could use it. They would rather leave or vanish. Wynand gave Peter a contract that he (Peter) wanted desperately and in return Wynand took Peter's wife. Read that passage in Fountainhead to understand how much Wynand hated even having to communicate this barter to Peter. Incidentally, while Franciso gave a long lecture about how money was not the root of all evil, he was NOT avaricious. He lived the idea of money but not about hording money itself. Quote from the acne link "Only the man who does not need it,  is fit to inherit wealth – the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started." 
• Show the other cheek like Gandhi suggested hoping to embarrass the opponent. As the poet Thiruvalluvar suggested 2000 years back "Inna cheidharai oruthal avarnaana Nannayam cheidu vidal" - the way to hurt someone who wronged you is to be nice to them. This probably is or includes passive aggression. There is another type where people are so naive they either don't understand what others are doing or too nice to bother about it. 
• Is there any other way to handle this? Appoint a commission, negotiate a settlement? - probably this is the way that most of the developed world would operate. Muslims are under attack because they choose an unacceptable mechanism to deal with unpalatable things. Are there any Gandhis and Galts left? 

When you can't show the other cheek like Gandhi did, when you aren't competent and passionate and unambitious as Galt was and hence can't afford to walk away leaving everything behind and if you can't stand the idea of negotiating with people who are unlike you then you have no other option than to behave like Muslims.

Additional reading:

http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2016/05/aphorisms.html

Maths Puzzle - Find Common Area

A friend sent me this.

ABCD is a rectangle with sides 8cm and 4cm. Taking each of the 8cm sides as diameter,  two semicircles are drawn as shown in picture above. Find the area of the common shaded portion. I have modified the text in the picture above slightly to make the problem clearer. 

I marked points E, F, G, H on the common area's perimeter and point O which is at the center of the area.

DFC is a semicircle with CD as the diameter and AHB is another semicircle with AB as its diameter.

Solution:

AD = 4cm

DC = 8cm

FO = 1/2 of FH (because of symmetry) = 2cm

The shaded area EOH (with EH being a part of the circumference) is 1/4 of the total common or shaded area.

FE and FH are both equal to radius of circle = FA = 4cm

In right angled triangle FEO, FE = 4cm, FO = 2cm, EO can be found out.

Area of right angled triangle EOF can be determined. If the shaded area to the north west of the chord EH can be determined then the shaded area EOH can be determined which is the area of the right angled triangle EOH and the shaded area to the NW of EH. And the total shaded area = 4 * shaded area EOH.

So all that remains is to find out the area to the NW of EH.

In triangle FEH, FE and FH are both 4 cm (both being radius) and hence it's an isosceles triangle. EH is also a radius and hence equals 4cm. EFH becomes an equilateral triangle of side 4cm. And hence its area can be determined. Area of EFH which is a part of the circle = 60/360 * area of circle. 60 being each of the angles in the triangle = 1/6 area of circle whose radius =4cm

Now subtract the area of the equilateral triangle from 1/6 part of circle and the reminder gives the area to the NW of EH. Now add the area of right angled triangle EOH. The sum gives 1/4 of the common area. Multiply by 4 to get the total shaded area.