Thenga Manga Pattani Sundal

What is thenga manga pattaani sundal?

Literally: A mixture of salted boiled peas (pattani sundal) topped with coconut (thenga) and raw mango (manga). A favourite at Marina beach, Chennai.
In this page’s context: Just a potpourri of thoughts.

  • A man of letters

    But on Day 1 of college, I was raging. A fan in our classroom didn’t work; the water cooler expelled air at high velocities instead of water; the benches were dusty, and the computers seemed to have been around since the time of Raja Raja Chola I.

  • Kochi: A tale of sea breeze, sunsets, and surprise guests

    Seaside resorts unanimously charge a premium for rooms that overlook the ocean. We were ready to shell out something extra for the following:  What we were not ready to shell out something extra for:  Four-legged fiends (but more on that later).  When we reached the place, the guy at the reception gave us the stink…

  • GI tags: Exploring India’s diverse cultural heritage

    Imagine the fireworks in your taste buds as you sink your teeth into a delectable, juicy mango. Or activating your senses with a steaming cup of aromatic coffee from the hills.  Any place you go to in India, there’s always something famous. If you just say “laddu” or “orange”, it might not mean much. But…

  • A coder-journalist origin story

    Part 1 How often can you change your profession? Though “inspirational” posts on LinkedIn will tell you otherwise, adding a hyphen and another skillset to your professional repertoire is painful. TL;DR: I was a coder, a journalist, a coder-journalist, and now a content marketer. If I hear just one more time the statement, “Oh, journalism…

  • How many satellites has India launched?

    From the experimental satellite Aryabhatta launched in 1975, to RISAT-2BR1 in 2019, India’s space odyssey has spanned 44 years and over 100 satellites. RISAT-2BR1, India’s 32nd earth observation satellite, was successfully launched on board the PSLV-C48 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on December 11. This also was the 50th launch of the Polar Satellite…

  • The widest and narrowest win margins of the Lok Sabha 2019 election

    Candidates in the 2019 Lok Sabha election had their fair share of wafer-thin and landslide victories. In absolute terms, C. R. Patil, the newly minted BJP MP from the Navsari constituency in Gujarat, defeated his closest rival Patel Dharmeshbhai Bhimbai (INC) by the highest number of votes (6.89 lakh). Uttar Pradesh’s Machhlishahr constituency saw the…

  • Keeping the filter kaapi hot for 50 years

    He pours a cup of tea from one of the hundreds of flasks in his shop and pushes it towards this journalist. “This is important for your story,” says M Balasubramanian, who runs the Sharadha Agencies Flask Hospital on Kutchery Road, Mylapore. The shop was started by his father in 1961 and is filled with…

  • Raise a toast to ‘Royal’, the king of sandwiches

    The year: 1999; Opening scene: Sheik Dawood hops onto his bicycle and pedals for about 14 km from his house in Maduravoyal all the way to TTK Road, to sell sandwiches from a bunk shop. It’s just bread and jam, vegetable sandwich and bread omelette at the time. Fast-forward to 2016. The bunk shop has…

  • Tiruvallur: Haunted by the shadow of bonded labour

    The same Cooum River that flows through Chennai snakes into Tiruvallur too along its 72-km journey. But unlike in Chennai, where Cooum is filthy, in Tiruvallur, it’s what outside the river that’s filthier – the shadow of bonded labour. The blight obliterates generations with back-breaking labour at rice mills or unending toil in the searing…

  • Trekking through Malana

    Alexander the Great descended on what is modern day India and Pakistan in 326 BC and decimated the forces of King Porus of the Punjab, in the Battle of the Hydaspes, on the banks of the Jhelum. Braving a storm and a tricky river-crossing, a portion of his battle-worn army mutinied at the Hyphasis river…