Boo tagged me on Indian writing. I ditto Boo on reading non-detail textbooks before the start of the academic year! I don’t remember how and when I started reading English. But I clearly remember how I started reading tamil. My parents religiously read Kumudam and Vikatan every week. I knew that these books had jokes and jokes were funny. I was just 4 years old and was not proficient in reading. So I used to pester my parents/other adults at home to read and interpret the jokes for me. At a point of time, the adults started running away the minute they saw me approaching them with a book! So I decided that it was time to take matters in my own hands. My father had a kidney surgery that summer and I was sent to stay with my father’s uncle and aunt (I call them thatha and patti) so that my mom can have one less thing to worry about. My patti’s father was staying with them. He was very old, had lost most of his eyesight, very badly in need of company and more importantly needed some one to read him the Dhinathandhi. I used to read the paper with my araai-kurai (incomplete) reading skills and he would correct me and explain the words and contents I didn’t know/understand. Voila, I was a skilled tamil reader in 20 days!

By the time I was 8 years old, I was reading Gokulam, Muthu comics and any other tamil magazines that was available at home. I remember my father getting me a bunch of Gokulam, Muthu comics, Twinkle and Ambulimama from used bookstore at the beginning of my summer holidays hoping that it would keep me out of my mom’s hair for at least a week. I would finish the books in two days and would start bugging my mother. I remember my father getting me the next set of books under the condition that I must read only a certain number of pages every day!

I am an only child. I did not grow up with cousins. I didn’t have children my age to keep me company. I grew up with my aunts (my moms sisters, who my father was putting through college) who were a good decade older than I was. I never ‘played’ as a child. I remember reading, talking, drawing and pestering the life out of my aunts to tell me new stories every waking moment. My house consisted mostly of adult things and activities. I read mostly grownup magazines (adult magazine sounds shady!), the newspaper, especially the cinema section and stories. When I was well over 15 years old, I read the usual Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew stories. When I was reading Enid Bltyon, I had already read Rajeshkumar thrillers and Sujatha’s sci-fi-s! In a way I was regressing in the maturity of content of my reading material, but I didn’t care, because of two reasons. The primary one being, my love for reading, the second one was that I didn’t quite get the adult part of the stories. My limitations are that I cannot read non-fiction books. I haven’t crossed 10 pages – uh-uh, sorry, not for me! Also I prefer light works. Humor is the top of my list. I want the author to think, describe and reason out for me. If (s)he manages to do this with a sense of humor, (s)he has my vote!

Please read Part II for my list of Indian authors.

I have come up with my list of blogs that make me think. The funny thing about this list is couple of them don’t know I exist on this planet! I, people, am a serious lurker who takes lurking very seriously! I will let them know, but I am not sure if they will be passing the torch on. I mean, if some one tags me out of the blue, I would think twice too!

And I am doing repeats and back tags. Because my blogging world is quite small.

Boo: Two years ago, Big Boo comes to me and tells me that her sister has a blog. And me goes, Blog?! What in the world is that? So Boo practically introduced blogging to me. Ever since I have been compulsively checking her blogs atleast 2-3 times a day, mainly to update myself on baby Ashu’s antics and also because her style of writing leaves me wanting for more. We go a long way back and she is as wonderful, fun and thoughtful in person as she is in her blogs.

Tharini: The minute I open her blog, a calmness seeps in to me. Be it the banner or the image of the teacups, its all so serene. She puts in so much effort in to each post, with those special banners and images. She takes parenting very seriously and at those times I get in to one of my temper tantrums, I compare self(which I do a lot) with people like Tharini and feel embarrassed. Her family must be really lucky.

Kiran: I am back tagging you. I am a bit of a dope head – explanation follows shortly. I had been reading your mommyblog and also your personal blog at wordpress and was amazed by the way you write, quite contrary to the modest picture you paint about yourself.{Begin explanation for dope head }All along I had been thinking that these two ladies write so similarly. Even after looking your pictures, I still hadn’t figured it out. Finally it hit me only after reading your comment. {End explanation}

Ammani: She is known as the quick tales lady. She has close to 200 QT in her blogs. Each tale is unique and has a different flavor. The reason her tales are so close to heart are because the crux is so common that we all experience it day in and day out. But it takes talent to present it as captivating quick tale. Hats off to you Ammani.

Chennaikaran: He sure makes me laugh. I have laughed so hard that I have blast food out of my nose! He has such a wonderful, light take on life. I wish I could have his sense of humor. You have to read him to believe him.

If you choose to pass it on, these are the Thinking Blogger Award rules:
This award was started here.
You have to award five others whose blog you think deserve this award.
Should you choose to participate, please make sure you pass this list of rules to the blogs you are tagging.
If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.
Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.

Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.Please, remember to tag blogs with real merits, i.e. relative content, and above all — blogs that really get you thinking!

[Update:Linked the image to thethinkingblog]

Thanks Kiran for nominating me for the thinking blogger award. This is prefect because I live for gratification. I even created a new category for this post , some where I can file away the other awards and rewards that are going to come knocking…he..he..he.

If I have to come with 5 things about myself I would have jump started my post and would be done with it. But I have to think about 5 people(gulp), other than self(gulp, gulp), who make me think(GULP, GULP, GULP)??!

This people is going to take sometime.

Poppin tagged me…what seems like a … few years back. I was a little tied up, so couldn’t blog. Here is the list of 8 things about me. BTW, why only 8 things? Considering my self-obsession I found it difficult to come up with just 8 🙂

1. I am a better mom when there are people around.
2. When I get mad, I stop communicating and then I start starving myself. The idea is to let the person whom I am mad at figure out that I am mad and also feel guilty that I am starving. Has never, ever, not even once worked on hubby – the person whom I get mad at like million times a day. He used to be clueless, now a days he does not care.
3. I love to cook, it is a major stress reliever for me. I get kicks out of making many, many, many fancy dishes for company. But I hate it if hubby asks for something as simple as hot water.
4. I believe in instant gratification.
5. Be it a movie or a sitcom, I have watch from the very beginning to the very end. I can’t stand it even if I miss one second of the movie/sitcom.
6. I come up with ideas, be it topics for my blog or menu for a party or a trip planning, in the shower. There is nothing like hot water on your face to get the creative juices flowing.
7. Few things I cannot stand – hair on face, sand on feet, any one touching my ears or hair.
8. When I get sick, I tell people not to fuss about me, but I get mad if they don’t.

I tag Boo, Sundar, Krishnapriya, the-joy-of-my-life-and-other-things and Miniyamma