The Blue Pencil

At a point when career is the most important thing, there are a billion questions buzzing....what if I made the right choice, what if I get burnt out, what if I get stuck, what if...what if?!

And having an academics-obsessed family, which makes sure to fill you with dread and doubt every step doesnt help.

But then my office is a great place and today I realised that I am where I belong... enlightenment came in the form of 'iruttu kadai halwa', ginger biscuits and coffee eclairs.

The surest way to one's heart is through the stomach, Vini always proclaimed and the universal truth in her statement struck me today. Enter office on a 'busy week' thursday and the last thing you expect, is to be greeted with is halwa made at the legendary 'iruttu kadai' (the dark shop).

History has it that halwa made from a small, non-descreipt shop in Tirunelveli was favoured by several food connoisseurs, one of them was a local chieftain whose patronage helped the shop outlive its age.

The tradition continues and the dinghy shop retains its trademark dark room lit by a single oil lamp as its signage and halwa is still developed with the same precision.

TSS's courtesy ensured that office today bore allday the heavy fragrance of ghee and sugar syrup, all those who entered or walked by were curiously looking around while we rubbed the ghee of our hands on yesterday's dummies. Burp!

An hour of work and Sashi's larder opens noiselessly, well not so silently as we start gulping down ginger biscuits, courtesy: another colleague who just hopped across the Atlantic.

After lunch it is time for dessert, a box of coffee eclairs, we managed to polish off a box of almond chocolates yesterday.


As my stomach rumbles happily at the bounty, I vaguely try to complete a copy on 1857 mutiny. Didnt the mutiny soldiers also embed messages in rotis and lotus stalks?

Peppered with thoughts on those ingenious soldiers, Fowler's rules on apostrophes and the page making software's latest jinx against shoulder tags, it strikes me that I couldnt have chosen a better place.

A bunch of non-conformists, respect for personal space, jokes on political gags, income tax, 'bracket' writers, 'hyphen' editors, coloumn-isms, photogenic criminals and how to add a 's' to Moses and Jesus. Not to forget infinite patience with slow learners as myself...

I do miss my mischevious students and notoriously mischevious colleagues and friends from college-teaching days but there are compensations...did I hear that biscuit tin open?!

romila ;)

P.S: Statutory warning: Irutukadai halwa can blur vision, the following issue carried two corrections in the copy, unnecessary italics and an extra 'h' in a word. Ugh!


Photograph of Sashi's larder that we contribute and subscribe too.