Wednesday, January 07, 2009

NRI Shaani Shurunai

I don't know what you call it but we call it Shaani Shurunai also called as Fab India. Supported and promoted mostly by plus sizes like yours truly, Fab India's clothes have looked the same for decades now.

After the first wash, Fab India clothes lose colour, shrink in size and become veedu todaikkara tunis. Believe it or not, everytime I wear a Fab India kurta after its first wash, I get one "nammaku ivvalavu daaridiriyama?" look from my kanavan who does one poatta potti with me to snatch it to use it as his car-cleaning cloth - Avlo soft-a look-oda irukkam!

When Deepz had come down two years ago, we went shopping and landed at Fab India and came out of the store in eggjactly five minutes without buying a single thing 'coz we had seen the same stuff a decade ago when we were in college (naanga romba youth-u ppa!).

Ofcourse, please not to be forgetting Fab India's snooty Dilli attitude - They cater and nakkify select people like the Kothari road Seth-u aanties, Besant Nagar-Chetpet mallus, Bandra -Malabar Hill ladies and the Madras (R.A.Puram, Adyar type) maamis who wear crisp cotton saree and say "En payyan Bay area la irukkan, unga ponnu enga irukka?" . The high and mighty staff will agree to pull out the kurtas from the already messed up shelf only if the hip n hep ladies are not around for them to nakkify.

Fab India is fully aware that people like me and friends who don't get our sizes anywhere else have to come back to their shop to buy cotton tuni-mani. Few places that stock Indian kurtis in plus sizes like O.M.O, Reeth etc, have just about two pieces per size for a particular design and you've gotta be maha lucky to get the right design in the right size... so much adirshtam to buy one tuni mani man! Cottons (Bandra) has plus sizes too but they have everything from a bell to a salangai attached to its kurtas and I literally and figure-atively look like 'Yaanai varum pinne mani osai varum munne' when I wear stuff from Cottons. For the price of one Anokhi stole, you can buy a Rangachari pudavai, so that too is out of the list.

That brings me back to Fab Shaani Shurunai India which has L, XL, XXL in kurtas, mini kurtas, salwars, kurtis. Ofcourse there is yet another problem. You will have your neighbour in office, at home, on the train, on the bus, at the restaurant wearing the same design-colour Fab India kurta (may be a different size) . Afterall, they have been stocking the same azhudu vadiyara poo poatta yellow kurti and blue n white kurta for many many years now.

Now for the main purpose of this post


Akka, romba naala unga veetula car tudaikka tuni kettundu irundiye? Here it is.. Fab India stitches deal with UK's East . Now buy designer-ethnic Shaani Shurunai at a store near you.

Glossary

Shaani Shurunai - Don't know the origin of the word but this is our Tamizh version of mop cloth

When Jarigandi did not become Pudhe Chala

Our pazhaya car now affectionately called as Dabba was our faithful companion on our umpteen road trips across the state, particularly along the Konkan coast where we covered almost 70% of the destinations mentioned in Outlook traveller's 52 weekend getaways. After he (dabba) retired a year ago, we were pudu maadu kulipaating our new guy for almost a year and now looks like he is all set to accompany us on our road trips starting with the one to mini Tirupati, at Ketkawale, 40 kms from Pune.


Three hours to Tirupati

This Balaji temple is a replica of the one in Tirupati. From Mumbai you take the Express highway to Pune and drive towards the Pune-Satara highway. Take a left at Kapurhol Phata (where you see this big hoarding in the pic) and further inside is this beautiful temple.


The parking at the temple is a bit of struggle thanks to the sad parking lot. This was our third trip to the temple and the parking area hasn't seen any improvement.
You leave your footwear at the main counter for chappals and walk to the temple which is a bit of a struggle. You sing 'Kallum MuLLum kaalukku metthai' and walk through the rubble for sometime and reach the temple. Senior citizens will find it a bit tough, though the walk is only for a minute or so.


The temple shuts for around half an hour at various intervals - i.e 1st and 2nd bells. Please check pic for timings. Just before you enter the temple, here's a cool break for your feet with water flowing automatically from a hosepipe chill your feet.



A great darshan of the tall , dark and handsome for almost a minute. No Jarigandi! No Pudhechala... beautiful darshan!
You proceed to say hello to Mrs. Padmavathi, Hanumar and Kuber(ar). No archanai, no kumgumam, chandanam... just walk around, say hello to the deities and proceed...Prasadam? Yes ofcourse!

Saar Laddu...

One Tirupati Laddu per person - free! But strictly one laddu with one big mundiriparuppu. Chaala Baaga undi

The best time to visit the temple is between 8 and 9 am. Leave Mumbai at 5 o clock, reach the temple at 8.20 am with a 15 minute break for breakfast, petrol, tea, kaapi etc just before Lonavla. Leave the temple at 9.30 or so and you are in Mumbai at lunch time.
May the Ezhukuntala vaada Venkataramana give you loads of money and stress free life this New Year!

Govindaaaa Goooovinda!

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Vaazhga nee Rahman!

Even after eleven and a half years, I remember every bit of the shoot for this music video. Right from the recce` to the 20 hour travel from Bhuj to Jaisalmer to the first time I was face to face with the man himself... He was pretty shy and it took quite sometime for him to give the shots where he just had to walk towards the camera.

Just being there at the studio, watching him work with great singers like SPB and Hariharan was simply amazing. Ah! I felt like a Goddess when boss(ini) asked me to shop for his white kurta at Amarsons for another music video. Sometime later, at his studio when he hummed an impromptu song with my name, I was on 8th heaven. Inda video  la avar poattrukkara kurta-vum naa vaanginadudaan (yenna ...kanna tottu kumbittaacha?)

Three esclusive pikchars for you


Happy birthday Oscar Nayagan 'Raga'man!