POTI- DUST – POWDER Dear friends,
When I thought of writing aboutPoti, on thinking I found it is a very large subject. From milk powder toPotimattai Ananthanarayanan passed through my mind. From Sambar powder to Potiari kanji (porridge) passed through my mind. Wheat powder aatta and chapathiand poori passed through my thinking. >From Talcum powder to medicinesin powder from like Nebasulf came to my mind. >And latest Diabetic powder tostabilise the blood sugar reading marketed by >Appollo pharmacy. >From Potimanal (fine sand) toTravancore Maharaja wiping his leg while leaving >Pradmanabhaswamy temple afterprayer came to my mind >From the Poompodi carried bybutter flies for pollination, poti apple (a >variety of apple) now flooding inthe Chennai market came to my mind. >From Potikkai (a timely simpleact) to Driver Potiyan flashed through my mind. >From utsavam poti poticchu (Festivalconducted with pomp) and thattan >potivecchu vilakki (goldsmith solderingjoints) passed through my mind. Potivechhu samsarikkal (talkingwith some indirect intentional wounding talking), and still more flashedthrough. So I thought from them and othersto pick up some Poti in this posting. Sincerely, Gopala Krishnan 19-12-2013 Reposted after editing and updating information on 24-4-2021. R. GopalaKrishnan 1. Rain water for drinking. In the middle school class Ilearnt about dust particles not visible to naked eye present in the atmosphereand though rain water is good for drinking, the first rain water should not be consumed since itwill have more dust. The dust present in theatmosphere may not be visible to naked eye. But we can see this dust resting inwindow insect screen filters, air conditioner filters etc. when taken forcleaning. The dust may settle in suitable location. When sudden storm or heavy windoccurs one can see the dust particles flying closing vision of the eye. 2. Dust cleaning Earlier I am not sure, whethersuch cleaning was there, now many high ways are cleaned at least once in amonth in the middle partition area and on the sides and dust is collected insmall trucks. One could wonder- so much of dust in roads. Due to increasednumber of vehicles through their wheels dust come to roads. In fact seeing such manualcleaning I was prompted to write on dust. In national highways in thecentre small plants are grown, a lot of dust is collected on their leaves also.There is an upper limit, dust which can be collected, hence they are cleanedwith water also. Dust fall and settle down. Natural cleaning is by rain. Butperiodical rain cannot be expected. Near Walayar for Kilometres whiletravelling in the train between Palakkad and Coimbatore, I could see cementdust rusting in leaves from a nearby cement factory. In places close to Alleppy, Sherthala etc.,the soil itself is dust sand. Every time one has to clean the feet on foot matand foot mast itself has to be cleaned most of the day. But this sand is notsuitable for building works also. For reasons known to MotherNature, there is a place nearby home in Kerala with full of tiny sand called Poozhikkad. For roofplastering this sand is collected and added with cement. But Poozhikkad remains Poozhikkad.Again and again tiny sand is available. 2. Tooth powder I am not sure whether the toothpowder has to be slightly coarse or to be fine, either way, they are powder. Ihave seen periodical tooth powder advertisement from Colgate, but now a day notseen. At one time we had coarse black monkey brand tooth powder. Now ayurvedictooth powders are there, at least three times costlier than pastes. Still Gopaltooth powder is available in Chennai. A less costly tooth powder. But many havechanged to toothpaste. Actually they are to be called teeth cleaningpowder/paste. These powders are applied to teeth with a brush and after a fewseconds washed with water. Iread elsewhere if teeth has to appear white, gargling has to be done after aminute at least. 3. Kitchen and powders. Maximum of powdered items areused in kitchen. I read elsewhere for quality filter coffee, the grindingshould be coarse. However while travelling in train the smell of Nescafe frompantry car deeply enter in our nose and we wait for the coffee- Nescafe.. Personanxiously. A finely grounded and processed coffee powder Though the tea is coarse still we call it tea powder (Chayapoti). I recollect the posting of one ofour members about the mulakapoti using as it is without adding oil. If mulakappoti is not a little coarse itcannot be a perfect combination with iddali and dosai. The other way ifParippupoti is coarse, it will not be tasty with rice. Two days back one of our membershad wrote to me- Ghee has to be used after melting- Nei urukki kazhi. If it issolidified, we can feel the coarse granules while using. 4. Milk powder. Except for children as baby food,keeping milk powder has become rare now a day. Probably most houses havingrefrigerator milk could be preserved, At one time we used to keep milk powderin tins and used to prepare emergent coffee. But now shops have milk, curd, butter and ghee across the table. 5. Poruvalangai. Maalad and maida. The sugar is coarse, it isfurther ground to powder to prepare Poruvilangai and maalatu. The maindifference between maida and rava is the size of granules between them, maida is fine powder. 6. Thavitupoti aakki. (Breaking to smaller pieces) Certain items like glass andceramic if fall down it would break like small pieces. Though a large number ofmedium and dust like particles would be there along with large pieces. Howthavitu has come is not known. Somehow poti would be there. Normally it iswiped off with a cloth and put faraway. 7. Potiyan Small naughty kids are calledPotiyan or potikochhu. For some the name continues even when they grow up. 8. Turisu and ink tablets At one times we used to get inktablets, we had to grind it with some stone, and add proper quantity of waterto make it as ink. Normally water is added little by little. On those days we had to makepaste using maida and adding turisu. Turisu was ground and added whichprotected the pasted item from white ants, foul smell and some more shelf life.Today’s paste tubes or sticks could not be imagined even 20 years ago. 9. Poti jokes. Husband was watching TV. Seeinghim interestingly watching the program wife asked with a little suspicion- Whatis in the TV? Husband respectfully replied DUST. There started the day’s quarrel. One young advocate was not havingmany cases. One day his assistant asked him the clause of a rule. Advocateopened his book shelf and just wiped the book before opening. His uncle senior advocate camethat way. He sarcastically asked- “Kesilla vakkilu entha poti thattunnathu”. (Why advocate not having casesdusting?) Nephew told back in the sametone- “Ammavante mettu veeno. Thudaikkam” (I have not seen the dust fallen on you. I will wipe) 10 Window mesh For windows now mesh is provided.It provided two facilities. The mesh will act like a hindrance. Hence nocreatures can enter though mesh. We can courageously open windows. Secondprevents dust. Though entering wind is reduced by 50% still most new homesprovide aluminium mesh. Cleaned with brush periodically. Present day meshes aredifficult to see on first seeing!! 11 Cleaning For fine cleaning dusting cloth isapplied. Dust cannot be avoided but can be removed. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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