Weekend...a long story

Had a hectic weekend. Well! Not exactly. It wasn't like I was sitting in a lab in the basement, not knowing whether the sun was out or not, whether it was time for lunch or tea... you get the idea, right?

This was totally different kind of hectic. Saturday morning, I heard my call from the Almighty - went to the Hindu Temple (what can I do, thats what they call it) at an unearthly hour of 8 and volunteered to help. You see! the temple had setup a stall in the International Food festival of the National Multicultural Festival and they wanted young energetic boys (hmmm! yup thats me) to help them running errands. Actually driving errands.

Spent an eternity chopping vegetables, a chore I wrought on myself. I chopped 78 capsicums and believe me I can't stand the sight of capsicums for atleast another year. Driving the cooked food to the stall at city centre wasn't a problem at all but finding parking was. Ended up parking far from the stall site and spilt dhall all over my T-shirt while lugging the ton load of it. A few more errands and I was on my own loitering around, catching a few European dances (Scottish was real good and so was Finnish), grabbing a bite at a Mexican stall (most other stalls had some form of meat and nothing but meat) On the whole, there were abt 100 stalls and food from as many countries. And almost all of Canberra (and many from out-of-state) attended it. Kept bumping into people I know all the time and repeated the 'World is small and Canberra is smaller' a zillion times (How innovative of me!)

Come evening, I went to help arrange a Bharathanatyam performance. Mainly sat in the counter, sold tickets, handed out Incredible India tourism brochures and more enjoyably took care of canteen (amazing Samosa and Tamarind chutney I have tasted in a long long time). Met lot of maama, maamis that I felt so totally at home...infact it was more like a kutcheri in Mylapore.

Sunday was no less hectic (hhhehhhhe). After waking up at 10, a movie marathon... 'Bride and Prejudice', 'Bend it like beckham' and 'Bollywood Hollywood'. Only BILB was good (even though I have watched a few times before).

In the evening went to a Vishnu Sahasranama Parayanam at a pious Brahmin's house. They were chanting it five times....dunno why. Am doing OK with the sahasranamam now but was astonished to see almost everyone there chant it without seeing the book.

Ofcourse the highlight was the super dinner there. Ven pongal, puliyodharai, chakkarapongal, saadham, morekuzhambu, sambhar, rasam, thayir sadham, appalam, three types of sundal, brocolli curry, salad, kesari, etc. etc. Well! I can't even stop drooling.

Back to experiments n lab work today. poof... another weekend gone. Atleast I earned some punya. And had heaps of fun.