Pondicherry special adakari!

Another Puducherry Special Item on your way!

Its called adakari!

Ingredients:

Green Gram - 250 gm

Ginger Garlic paste - 2 tablespoons

Fennel Seed (Perumjeeragam) - 1 tablespoon

Crushed Onion - 2 medium size onions

Green Chilli - 4 chillies

Coriander leaves - few

Curry Leaves - few

Salt - 2 tablespoons

Steps:

- Fry the  green gram without oil in tawa 2-3 mins lightly until it becomes light golden color

- Immerse the fried green gram in water for 2 hours

- Filter out the water and grind it in mixie, until it becomes a paste. Paste should NOT be watery, it should be a tight paste. So dont put water while grinding it.

- After you get the paste, add the rest of the ingredients listed above. While adding chilli, grind it once in mixie along with ginger/garlic paste, fennel seeds an chilli together and the masala paste to the green gram paste.

-Add salt, onion to the mix

- Add curry leaves and coriander leaves

- Make this paste into small cakes , boil it in water vapour like you do for idly

- After its boiled, take it out and leave it cool down for sometime like 5-7 mins

- If needed cut the cakes into further small pieces

- Then deep fry the cakes, in 500 ml of oil until it becomes golden color

Adakari is ready!!!

Siddhars of Pondicherry - Guru Siddhananda

Pondicherry is a place of fun to many, but inherently it had been a place of salvation since ancient times. Not many people know or realize that all in all there are 30 siddhars who attained jeeva samadhi in and around Pondicherry. I seek the support and blessings of all the siddhars to help me write about them, in this blog. The first and foremost among them is Guru Siddhananda. Siddhars are not Gods. But these are people who actually lived in this world and performed miracles. Guru Siddhananada lived 175 years ago. He is said to have possessed powers to convert water to gold. But please don't go here for Gold. You land here for inner peace.

The temple is right at the entrance of Pondicherry when one comes from Chennai. The first stop (if the buses go via bye pass) is Sivaji Silai/Siddhananda koil. When one enters the temple, on the left there are two trees intermingled on to one another. One is the neem tree and the other banyan. Its very rare for these two trees intermingle and it stands testimony to divinity of the site. The trees stood the thane cyclone. There were lot of trees in the Siddhananda temple which got uprooted in the Thane cyclone but they stayed there strong. Its said that the roots of these trees actually go right below the jeeva samadhi of Guru Siddhananda.

The temple has a lingam inside the sanctum sanctorum which is on the samadhi of Guru Siddhananda. The temple has a beautiful pond (please dont pollute it, for God's sake). Since people come here in search of inner peace, there is a meditation hall in the temple. Please maintain silence and reflect on your inner self.

Poet Bharathi composed the Kuyil Pattu within the farms of this temple though a small extent of is what is left out now. He has a small statue erected in memory of him.

I could find only one picture of Guru Siddhanada over the web. Om nama sivaya!

Courtesy: Agasthiyar.org

Temples of the town - Vedhapureeswarar temple

The town of Pondicherry  is blessed with many temples. The natives built temples that stand testimony to their love of God even today. I will be writing about some of the key temples within the town of Pondicherry. Every town in Tamil Nadu will have one main temple around which the town's religious activities are centered. Sri Tirupurasundari sametha Vedhapureeswarar temple is the main temple of Pondicherry.

It is said Pondicherry was known as Vedhapuri during ancient times. It was a seat of Vedic studies and hence the name Vedhapuri. The Siva derives the name Vedhapureeswarar from the town's name. His consort is known as Thirupurasundari. Goddess Thirupurasundari is in standing position and shes quite tall and explicitly carved. Shri Vedhapureeuswarar is said to be Swaymbhu Lingam.

This temple was built during the French occupation. There used to be another ancient temple called  the "Sambha" temple. The "Sambha" temple was destroyed by the French and the natives had to carry the idols and rebuild a new temple. It is said the main Lingam of "Sambha" temple was installed in a separate shrine in the new temple, called "Bhakthapureeswarar"

Hundreds of devotees throng the temple on Pradosham, Shivarathri, Karthigai and so on. The temple has a beautiful rajagopuram more than 70 feet tall. The sculptures on the rajagopuram are intricate.

When you plan to visit Vedhapureeswarar temple, one should also visit the nearby temples in one go. Each street in this part of the town is named after one temple. The temples are Vedhapureeswar Temple, Vardaraja Perumal Temple, MuthuMarriAmman Temple and Kamatchi Amman temple. We have each one street named after each of these temples.

More detail about the temple at dinamalar site : http://temple.dinamalar.com/en/new_en.php?id=640

Picture Courtsey: Dinamalar.

More pictures at : http://temple.dinamalar.com/en/new_en.php?id=640

Names of Pondicherrians

One of the traits that outsiders easily come across when they get to know the the names of Pondicherrians is the spelling we use! To many its peculiar! They come up with question, are you sure your spelling it correct? Well, its quite right!  The gap is in the fact that we use to write our names in French and not in English. Though the number of French speakers is dwindling in Pondicherry, this is something the natives have hooked on to. Here are some samples:

Kathirvel  written as Cadirvel

Kumaravel written as Coumaravel

Sathyanaryanan written as Sathyanarayanae

Velmurugan written as Velmourougane

Some people think these names are spelt in a different way due to numerology. But its just plain FRENCH! Remants of the French past!

Pondy Special Sundal!

One of the best outing for us in Pondicherry was to visit the beach during holidays. Of course, this was long before all the tourists started coming in! Its very crowded nowadays. We used to live in a quiet little town, with hardly people on the streets during Sundays. As a child used to remember the sundal we used to get from a old man in beach. It used to be awesome! Very tasty! He passed away and later for some time his son was doing the same business. But we don't find it nowadays. Mom did it today!!. So here is the recipe with a decent little pic!

 

Ingredients:

Curry Leaves

250 gm Peas

Coriander Leaves

1 slice of 250 gm Mango for garnishing

1 small piece of Ginger

2 Green Chilly

Oil

Garam Masala (One can use asafoeteda instead of garam masala as well)

Salt

 

Steps:

 

• Bake the peas in cooker in one  tumbler of water. Make sure to add salt.
• Make sure the peas becomes soft. 4 whistles would be decent enough . But depends on your cooker.
• Pour 3 teaspoons of oil in kadai and add 1 teaspoon of garam masala once the oil gets hot
• Cut the green chilly into small pieces and ginger into small pieces and add it to the oil
• Fry them for some seconds and then add the boiled peas along with small pieces of mango slice
• Mix it well and stir it for 2 - 3 minutes
• Add curry leaves, coriander leaves and mix it for some seconds

 

Its ready!!!

 

Have a taste of pondy special sundal!