How often is it that you come across a book that deeply, and very strongly, touches you? When you feel like falling to your knees in wet grass and crying out to God, tears streaming down your face, thanking Him for the power of words, of language? When you feel outrageous pity for the people who do not give themselves this gift of experiencing something so powerful, yet delivered simply through words? God bless language. God bless words. God bless the people who have the power to write, and God bless those who can do a brilliant job of it.

Triggered by a visit to the food court nearby for 'Prata' for dinner, I am here to write the first of what I hope is a good series of memories from university. Fondly (!) called 'PP' by the Indians in my univ, Prata Point changed from a place whose very name I sneered at in the beginning to one where I go quite often (that even my mom asks if I had prata!).

Be it the plain (kosong!) prata or the yummy chilli-cheese-onion prata or the funny banana version, pratas have become a refreshing change to both canteen food and my cooking :) [Ah, my cooking deserves a whole special post of its own!] Ordering the prata with sambaarrr and not sambal (chicken curry!), watching the stall guy earnestly speak Tamil to my non-Tamil speaking friends, the smile he has for his regulars, the cigarette stench of the place, the nonchalant men with their bottles of cheap beer, people of all kinds with plates of steaming food, the plump drinks stall ladies asking us if we'd like anything to drink, have all become so normal it's tough to think of them as something acquired more during the last year than earlier.

But whatever said and done, pratas will remind me most of the irritable lady in one of the canteens who chops chicken and pratas alike in the same chopping board before giving them to the customers, and my angry retort when I realized she does that: "Don't touch my pratas with that knife!"

Little wonder she always barks at me.

Pratas. Not parathas, not paranthas.
Pratas.

Thanks to blogger hautestuff for the image.

The blog's THREE! She's growing :D

During her first year, she was a place where I dumped random thoughts - reading them now, I feel like an immature kid excited about a space where others could read her.

Second year was when I realized I could probably put up my stories!

Third year became just a place for me to rant about things that worked - and those that didn't.

And now, hmm.. a sudden thought.. this being my last semester in university, if I have the mood and time and everything else, maybe I might put up things about the university that were so important to me in the four years here. Let's see.