http://NourishNCherish.Wordpress.com

This blog has moved to : http://NourishNCherish.Wordpress.com

I can't tell you how this post makes me feel. Emotions are splurging freely, the frame shakes in farewell.

I tried wordpress a while ago, and liked some of its features, but I kept putting the final decision away.

However, change is the only thing that is constant and all that drivel, later, here I am.

See you all at http://NourishNCherish.Wordpress.com

The President's Address

I challenge you to find a single bloke who has visited the parents' home, and hasn't seen the photographs of the daughter of the house sitting with the President of India. The show runs for 2 hours and 12 minutes and is accompanied with a full theatrical demonstration of all the words spoken by the President. Usually, excellent coffee is served during the interval.

You see, the sister won 4 medals for various activities from the then President of India, R.Venkatraman. He then called for her after the ceremony, and sat her down to see what kept her ticking, and all that. The sis' was given a new red-and-black dress for the occasion, and the photographs and medals occupy a somewhat better position than the sons and daughters of the house. It isn't everyday that the President hobnobs with the children of teachers.

The photographs themselves can be used for toothpaste advertisements, teeth whitening etc, but the President declined from going after fame in that direction, so the opp. was dropped. I remember what a great deal it was to have the President visit our School. There were black cats streaming all over the place, and everybody was checked. I almost had my priya sweets removed from my body. Quite scary I tell you.

The father was given the unique honour of signing the cards needed to present the guards with, to allow people access to the auditorium. Never has anybody approached the man with such a compelling need to get signatures from him, and he came forward with his most gallant attempt, and signed his full name, all of 23 consonants and 15 syllables (okay.....but it's a long name!) It wasn't till he signed the 502nd card that he started questioning his decision to sign the full name.

The President landed on the grounds, and we dutifully sang the national anthem, the guard of honour with the right click, shoes all polished, the works. It is something of a memory. The chance to see and shake hands with the President is one so unique.

I wonder why there is a controversy about President Obama addressing the children of the nation.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/09/coming_up_president_obamas_add.html
The most common complaint seems to be that he will push forth his propoganda. I ask you - to what end? When these children are old enough to vote, he might not be in the President's office any longer.

Turns out the President only said what parents hoot everyday, but now the country is just hoping that coming from the President's mouth, the children would listen.http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaResources/PreparedSchoolRemarks/

He said children should make the best of life's opportunities and learn to live responsibly. Where's the propoganda? All I see is many more proud families who can show pictures of their children with the President.

When to update Facebook?

What a coincidence? I have been meaning to write about Facebook for a while now, when New York times runs this article

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/magazine/30FOB-medium-t.html

I quote from the article above:
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. Facebook, the online social grid, could not command loyalty forever. If you ask around, as I did, you’ll find quitters. One person shut down her account because she disliked how nosy it made her. Another thought the scene had turned desperate. A third feared stalkers. A fourth believed his privacy was compromised. A fifth disappeared without a word.

The exodus is not evident from the site’s overall numbers. According to comScore, Facebook attracted 87.7 million unique visitors in the United States in July. But while people are still joining Facebook and compulsively visiting the site, a small but noticeable group are fleeing — some of them ostentatiously

This piece aligns itself with the sort of news I was recently criticizing. "If you ask around" - this had me dished. How was I supposed to ask around - on Facebook?! Clearly, people are quitting the site. How would they answer me? The stress made me want to update my status.

This statement is of course the crowning glory:
But while people are still joining Facebook and compulsively visiting the site, a small but noticeable group are fleeing — some of them ostentatiously. (Uh....duh....scratch. So, are people joining or are they quitting?)

But, I shall interpret this prolific link to read that many people have been quitting Facebook lately. I have felt like an aging dinosaur, pummeling myself into thinking that by spurning Facebook, I would lose touch with my friends, and like the dinosaurs unable to adapt, roam in a physical world, where the only contact was through Facebook, and water only the virtual kind. Sad, speechless....well....you get the drift.

Don't get me wrong, but Facebook felt to me like a big "Oops!" waiting to happen. I accepted anyone wanting to reach out to me, and before I knew it, I had a whole lot of friends from all my associations - kindergarten classmates, tea stall mates, college bonda mates, colleagues in the various companies I have worked in. Everytime, I attempted to post a message, I was baffled. What on Earth will I tell all these people that will interest them all at the same time?

Feeling sleepy?
Want to drink Tea?
Wants to step out

The problem with all the messages I did want to put up was that, it felt like a yearning. If I was already drinking tea, I wouldn't put that up, I'd be busy sipping my tea. If I went out, I would not stop to update my Facebook status, I'd be out the door.

The only time I felt a status was warranted was when I finished running a half-marathon. But, I think the World will agree with me here when I say that, that seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through in order to put up a Facebook status.

So life passes me by, and the stress of not having anything to say gnaws at me ..........

PS: Another link: Recruiters screen facebook too! http://msn.careerbuilder.com/Article/MSN-2035-Job-Info-and-Trends-More-Employers-Screening-Candidates-via-Social-Networking-Sites/?sc_extcmp=JS_2035_home1&SiteId=cbmsnhp42035&ArticleID=2035&gt1=23000&cbRecursionCnt=1&cbsid=d1afeba127564100aae4334a5fe432f0-305904617-w6-6

This Day That Age

This day that age.

"You know what?" the words barely left my smiling lips, when I had the attention that any teacher would kill to have from just one student in his class. I was flustered. I would have to admit it was embarrassing to have somebody pay this much attention to my words. After all, most times I was trying to get the selective hearing dad and the don't care-unless-its-sports brother to listen to something. Most attempts were feeble bleats erupting every minute for several hours. And then start afresh again after a bite of the energizing and sometimes impressively finish with a grand finale before somebody twitched a ear in my direction. When this sentence (I know, that was barely a sentence!), was met with an impressive

"Yes tell me" with the body leaning forward, I was taken aback. The face glowed with appreciation, and I found I had forgotten what I really wanted to say. Just the warmth of the reception to my sentiments were enough to soothe the soul. I hastily ushered the fellow in to my favourite ice-cream store with gratitude and bought him a rather impressive banana fudge ice-cream. What's more I presented him with a hideous tie (with love!)

Turns out the fellow doesn't like ice cream, and seldom wore ties. So, we decided to get married.

My husband - this day that age.

This day this age

"You know what?" I hollered at the breakfast table. *Ignore*
A minute later: "You know what?"
"Huunh?" or similar sounding grunt. IT's hard to reproduce, and a lapse into some important program on TV

If ever there was a soul of determination, that's me. As many times as this happened, I never quit saying "You know what?" I finished at an impressive 8 times before I decided to throw in the towel. I threw my hands up in desperation and sighed for good measure. That did it.

"Huh.....what?" said the husband turning towards me. His eyes glazed, his mind still wandering in the meaningless forest of the previous advertisement selling fresh juice from the mushy murks of some godly place. I gave up.

"Never mind, I forgot what I wanted to say", I said.
"Oh okay"

Since both times I forgot what I really wanted to say, it can't have been that important!

Festival Time ?!

Festivals are for a time of harmony. The old family spirit, the smiling pictures - the "totadoin" music in the background. Yet, I am still waiting to witness one festival where the mother of the household is not looking like a frazzled lump with a ready lampoon hoisted at the end of a javelin stick waiting to scorch through your insides if you don't make way for the steam engine(that's her) while the vadai is being fried, and before the appam needs to be turned over.

By the time, the family sits down for the meal, several feathers are ruffled, there has been at least one meltdown, especially if it involves smart-aleck daughters. Then, there is the whole post-meal sensation where the outlines of the layers of intestine have merged into an amalgamation of jaggery, oil, butter, vegetable oil, turmeric, a large shipment of rice with lentils washed down with curd. The final slurp does it.

Now, after a bustling 4 hour ordeal to whip up a meal such as this, one would expect to push the chair backward long enough for it to creak and stretch into a raised bed. What we would really look forward to doing is gently massaging the stomach area. It would help if somebody could do the same with your hair and play some lullabies. OH NO!

The bustling mother is now bustling at 80% speed owing to the bulk of food still occupying the abdominal area, but she bustles all the same. The dishes need to be cleared away, the dirty dishes washed, the remaining sweets tucked away....

Why? I ask you why? Why do these festivals have to be this way? Take Krishna for example, is he going to refuse to step into a house where gulab jamuns are missing from the list below?
Krishna Jayanthi:

• Seedai
• Patta Naada
• Theratti Paal
• Aval
• Kunzhi aapam
• 7 cup cake
• Vadai
• Payasam

In my opinion, we would be doing ol' Ganesha a favour by reducing his calorie intake instead of this:
Vinayaka Chathurthi:

• Vadai
• Payasam
• Aval
• Kunzhi aapam
• Modakam

But as always, the genii of the world go unheard....

PS: This is also my 200-th post.

P.B with only E

I have a friend who's watched 'You've Got Mail' more times than is considered civil to admit. In the movie, the huge bookstore brings the little bookstore (owned by Meg Ryan) down the corner to bankruptcy. Admittedly, it is a heart rending angle to small businesses, and a long time ago, I found myself admiring the pluck of the lady who owned a small coffee shop. She had put up a sign imploring customers to not go to Starbucks.

The placard said: "Don't let your friends go to Starbucks!"

I haven't gone to the small place in a while - I vaguely tried to recollect why, and couldn't. I stepped in.

Before you go off imagining Meg Ryan in a coffee shop, let me stop you in your tracks and state that I am not particularly fond of this lady who runs the shop. If I were Malcolm Gladwell, I could have written a book about this particular phenomenon, and how I should trust my instincts etc. I am not Malcolm Gladwell, so I shall satisfy myself with saying I am not fond of her.

This morning, I read all about sumptuous breakfasts in the English countryside and by the time I took the swift walk down to the office, my stomach was starting on a tantrum for a spot of breakfast. I relented and ordered a plain bagel with only eggs - no cheese, no tomatoes.
I can hear you mutter in your little head that there really is no need for all this detail about a breakfast order, but the crux lies here. You see the rates written up in this shop are as follows:
1) Plain bagel with only eggs is $3
2) Plain bagel with eggs and cheese is $3.25
3) Plain bagel with eggs, cheese and tomato is $3.50

I paid her $5 expecting $2 in return. The shop, meanwhile, has 2 more people in there oggling at my back. I don't know about you, but everytime I feel like a bottleneck, I will squirm and rush.
All a sales person needs to say is:
"Uh...I don't know why - let me go and check" , and I would hang onto their hands, and stop them, thinking furiously:

"Just service me please - I can't hold all these people up. "

As you can imagine, as soon as these strangers walked in, this particular sentiment kicked in. Just give me $2, so I can move. Come on : $2. Quick!

She gives me $1.75. See! In one blinding flash of revelation, I see why I stopped going there. This wasn't a mistake - she did this everytime I ordered p.b with only e. Once, when the shop was empty, I gulped down her potential cheap-skate view of me and showed her the sign for $3, but everytime?!

Why not just update the board to say $3.25? It's not like I would change my mind and not buy because of the 25 cents. Next time, I'll step into Starbucks on my way - the SKU can only give the advertised rates see?!

I am asking myself why I put up this post now. Because I have ensured that all my friends can think of me as a cheap-skate from now on.

Where do you belong?

Last week I met a person who was bang in the center of this chart.

(Courtesy: Bud Caldwell)
His eyes shone with the inner peace of doing something he loved for a living. How many of us can honestly feel that we belong in the center?

Cold blooded wonderers

I take public transit to work everyday as regular readers know. The mornings are of particular interest to me, since that is the time that has seasonal or climatic variations on the experience. There is a tower clearly visible from the platform with a temperature monitor. It helps me decide how to feel: cold, cool, pleasant or hot.

This particular temperature monitor tower alternates with the digital time display. So, after I've decided that I am shivering, I can count my minutes by looking at the clock to see when I can get into the stationary train with the doors closed resolutely. I find it particularly trying in Winter, because I am holed up in a jacket, glancing at 29 F, and wondering how long it would take for my toes to fall off with frost bite. * I know it doesn't snow where I stay, but you get the drift?*

You are wondering why the train doors are resolutely shut? I formally welcome you to join the esteemed club of cold-blooded wonderers. Here is the series of events that happens in the section of time before the train departs.
* Train comes everyday 5-8 minutes ahead of scheduled departure time. (that is good)

* Train lets people who rode in out of the compartment (still good)

* Said train is a smaller one and must be linked with another half of train that arrives just before departure time. (No unrelated ideas please, it is freezing remember?)
This is where things start to get puzzling:
* The train operator announces loudly, making several jarring noises that the train is out of service, and nobody should board the train. Puzzled first-timers walk in, look around quizzically, fear a lifetime of claustrophobic experiences of being stuck in a train compartment without food or water and come out looking worried.
* Doors close.
* Then, the train operator exits, using the smallest possible timeframe to complete the act. His expression resembles most unsettlingly that of a scuttling rabbit. Any sooner and the operator's hands would jam while they are locking the doors and letting himself out. The fear of people trying to squeeze into the train for an extra minute's warmth is clearly writ large on the operator's face. There isn't a word for this phobia yet - I checked.
* A thousand glares are directed at the operator who let himself out, which he carefully ignores for his own sake.
* Second half of the train arrives devoid of passengers, is linked to the first half and the doors are still closed.
By now people's faces are slowly moving to unmistakable scowling territory.
Finally, the helpful tower flashes the time ( a minute before departure), - some people look like they can kiss the tower at this point, if only they could move their lips.
* The doors open.
* People tumble in - partially to find seats, but mostly because they've lost the senses in their legs from the cold, and are yearning for the warmth inside the train.

I've tried plausible explanations and came up with the following:

1) If somebody complains of knee pain because of the 0.00002 level jerk on the richter scale when the train is attached with more compartments, it is a potential lawsuit.
2) Fresh air is good for the soul, and the longer people enjoy the fresh air, the better it is for their health.
That is why I weighed all the pros and cons and try my best to arrive exactly when the doors open. But it is a fine line between doors opening and the train doors closing-leaving for good.

Running does that to you - My First 1/2 Marathon

The ambience was great - a mild drizzle, chill enough to lift the spirits of a nervous first time 1/2 marathoner. As I saw the throng of people waiting to go at the start line, I got a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold drizzle or the temperature - this shiver was triggered entirely by adrenalin.

I jostled at the start line smiling nervously at the head of my cheering crew(my husband - who else?!) and the announcer's voice cracked into the air

"Do you know why you are here?"
Crowd: NOOOOOOOO
"Do you like to torture yourselves?"
Crowd: NOOOOOOOO"
But you still want to do this?"
Crowd: YESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!
"Well, then here you go............."

That pretty much summarized my running experience. This was the longest I had attempted so far. I had no idea why I was doing it. The weeks of training prior to the marathon had achieved one thing. It had awakened in me a long dormant self discipline, I had almost forgotten existed. I felt good about setting a task and overcoming hurdles to achieve what I set my eyes on.

I am a firm believer of the theory that the right things will happen at the right time. Two years ago when I attempted a half marathon, I had to limp out of training around the 6th mile - I wasn't ready. For an erstwhile short distance track athlete, endurance running was a different ballgame and I found my competitive spirit raising it's ugly head at the most inconvenient of times, like when I saw runners with biceps the size of my thighs run faster than me. I would throw caution to the winds as to the consequences of overtaking such runners, and thump behind them. (what if the biceps lunged out at me because Mr Biceps does not like to be overtaken? - BRR)

I also realised that though I was fast enough (in my cocky mind of course!), I wasn't exactly a teenager competing in the Inter School Athetic Meet in Wellington, and spotty training was clearly not enough. The dreaded ITB surfaced and my shoes retired to a quiet corner.

I read about running injuries and all the websites said it was hard to not run. I disagree. Not running is very easy - just curl up in bed! I went back to poking fun at the husband for his running socks and running t-shirts.

Somehow, this time felt different from the word 'Go'. This time, I was ready. For one, I trained steadily. I religiously maintained my mid week runs followed by my long week-end runs. I gulped down the encouragement streaming from my husband and kept going. I learnt to
repeatedly tell myself that my goal was to finish, and beating others was not my priority. I found that I enjoyed running - my thoughts and myself in tune with the early morning birdsong was one I learned to cherish.

So, on the marathon day, all I had to do was keep telling myself my mantra
"Just run slowly Just run slowly"

What amazed me was the number of people who had turned out on race day. And I don't just mean the runners. I had already joined the nutter category and revelled in the runner-nutter-camaraderie. I mean the number of people who are not running who had turned out to help. I felt the goodwill rivers flowing freely towards random strangers. People took time off from their lives to shout out encouragement, volunteer at aid stations, hold placards to bring a smile. There was one place where after a killer uphill run, people were huffing and puffing only to come up the slope and see an old lady leaning on a walking stick holding a placard - "Yeah downhill!!!"

Who does that? These people don't get anything more than a smile from the tired runners, and yet stood on street corners, straining to read your name and shouting encouragement. I felt selfish - I had never done anything like that before. I suddenly felt like my life had been lived in a cocoon of me, myself and mine.

I ran on, slowing down near water stops and gulping the horrible tasting cytomax, but never stopping. Despite the hilly terrains, I found myself running non-stop and for that I credit all the selfless volunteers who cheered. Here is a tribute to all you people who devoted some hours of your life to enable me to achieve my goal (See?!)

Just like that, I had breezed through to 8 miles when I saw a peek of my support group at a signal and then pounded the remaining miles. As I neared the end point, I was slowing down, maybe subsconsciously sorry for the event to end. I saw a little ahead of me that people automatically started running faster. I soon found out: there was a person with a placard reading
"Almost there! Run like you stole those sneakers!"

I laughed out loud and found myself running faster too! I finished strongly in 2 hours and 21 minutes. I got the finisher's medal and almost kissed it. I saw the pride in my family's eyes and suddenly felt overwhelmed.

I reached home and lost all my rights to crib about my husband's clothes again. Said husband always wears these strapping running t-shirts and I was sick of seeing him in them. Yet, this time after a shower, I found myself proudly wearing the San Francisco Marathon T-shirt.

Running does that to you.

The Gift of Personality

I have become an aunt over again. Over the years, I have cherished the special relationship of Aunt. Predictably, when news of my niece reached me, I was all agog.

What is it about a birth of baby that has us all excited? To me, it is the dimension that is added to you simply because of the richness of personality added into the mix. This little person holds within her love, strength, compassion, intelligence and many more qualities. She will enrich our lives by making herself a part of our lives.

For now, she sleeps placidly, while we wait for her to blossom into herself.

On the occasion of her birth, I listened to one of my favourite songs in Tamil - that of a daughter growing up too fast. The song put our complex thoughts into words, and that in turn put complex thoughts into my mind. I savoured the news of my niece and the beautiful song.

All in all, the news of my niece has put me in a state of joy. Welcome little one - this post is all I have to offer now, though my heart yearns to see you.

80% of Americans.....

I have had the opportunity to talk about dubious news items before. But with the Internet, it seems anybody can put up any numbers never to be cross-verified with anybody else, and what is more, it comes up as the first hits on Google.

This particular article claims 80% of Americans want to write a book. That had me stumped. 99% of Americans are literate. But 80% want to write a book?

Not to speak disparagingly of the American public or anything, but I wonder if 80% of Americans READ books.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705316098/So-you-think-youre-the-next-Rowling.html

This particular article talked about people wanting to write like J.K.Rowling.

I am guessing at what the survey looked like
Question 1: Do you know how to read
Ans: YES

Question 2: Do you know how to write
Ans: YES

Question 2: Do you want to write a book and become a billionaire like J.K. Rowling?
Ans: YES

That is the only way I can think of explaining that survey of 80% of Americans wanting to write a book.

What do we crave?

A while ago Scott Adams had posted on his blog about the blogs with the most popular ratings and went on to analyze the readers' profiles.

http://www.dilbert.com/blog/entry/your_psychological_profile/

One closer look at the whole post indicates that the profile he has outlined is nothing but the topics written most often by him. In short, things he likes, similar to his profile and such. For example: when he says that we like to read posts based on how things work or possible solutions to global problems because we are logical thinkers, means nothing more than the fact that he blogs on these topics the most. By derivation, if we read that, we must like that. Predictably, this post received the highest number of comments.

I can't help thinking that this is exactly the same choice facing me when I chance upon my astrological profile. My mind will subconsciously go to my zodiac sign, and if there is something I think of as positive, I want to believe it. If there isn't I can shrug it off. And the more I see the astrological predictions in store for me, the more I see the pattern of his post in it. Randomly, there will be some aspect of the prediction that will hold for me, but there are huge portions that don't. But the small portion sticks.

Emphasizes time and again how much we crave for an understanding of ourselves and our futures. In that respect, I found Jikku's(http://lettersforall.blogspot.com/) letter to her teenage self series very interesting. How our life would have changed if we knew then what life had in store for us?!

Landing on the mooon and Harry Potter

Today is the 40th anniversary of the Moon Landing - the triumph of the 'can-do' attitude. I am becoming a big fan of this attitude, although it is taking a lot of practice to not lapse into the "Can I do it?" mode.

My posts of late are reeking of the Twitter-ish tinge. I shouldn't have read about the brevity becoming the new breakfast cereal. My words seem to be slowing down at 140. I am sure the sub-conscious is playing its role. Today, I am determined to fight back. I can do it, and therefore, I am going to sit here and tell you all about my views on the latest Harry Potter movie.

As far as books go, Half Blood Prince is courageous. The book was a nice prequel to Deathly Hallows and answered for us the questions about Lord Voldemort. However, the movie was a disappointment for me at many levels.

Plainly put, a person who has not read the books and has only seen the movies, would not be able to string the story together. And that is a huge miss. Arguably, Harry Potter need not cater to a base that hasn't read a book or atleast the book review, so they should be able to string things together. But, I still find this discomforting in a movie.

Contrary to the other movies, there was too much of the dating aspect in this movie and quite a few out of character treatments.

Dumbledore, for example, is seen asking Harry about his relationship with Hermione, out of his curiosity! Like Headmasters stand around asking who is dating who?!

Lavendar creates a scene and fights with Hermione over Ron in front of - get this: Professors Snape, McGonagall, Dumbledore, Slughorn and Madam Pomfrey, and it isn't over yet - IN the hospital. All the professors stand by and watch the altercation with either consternation, a smirk or amusement, depending on their characterization.

Harry is made to stand aside and watch Dumbledore succumb wandless without a compelling reason to do so. In the book, he is stunned and under the invisiblity cloak. He is UNABLE to do anything. In the movie, he is standing right under the scene, with a perfectly functioning wand, and a clearly nervous Draco and wandless Dumbledore standing and chatting about Draco's task like it was a tea-party at Hogsmeade or something. This is so unlike Harry - when has he hesitated to help anybody? In fact, Hermione helpfuly pointed out the "hero mentality" in the previous movie!

All in all, looks like Warner Bros knew what they were doing - they kept all the crucial plot points to secure their earnings in financial years 2010 and 2011.

Now, you are wondering what the can-do attitude of landing on the moon has with my opinion of the latest Harry Potter movie. Nothing.

Deciphering t-shirts

Conservationism thy name is me most of the time when it comes to
dressing for work. Recently, when my attire drew the attention of a
room-full of people I was genuinely embarrassed. I was wearing a
T-shirt that had something scribbled across it. I tried figuring out
what it was, but couldn't.

My father's handwriting is like steaming noodles. It is in a hurry
to get eaten, and like peas dotting the otherwise hurried noodles,
the neat numerals light up the page. Therefore, it can be reasonably
agreed that I have some good experience with deciphering noodles,
but I gave up on this one. It was most probably the designer's
signature I finally decided. I tested the waters by wearing said
T-shirt to the park and am still alive. Therefore, it could not have
been offensive.

I walked into the meeting room, and everyone asked me what it said.
I blushed a deep red and confessed that I didn't know, only to have
the room guessing. I don't know about you, but I usually opt for a
quiet corner in larger meetings, and don the vaguely interested
look. I will melt into the background and sink through the bottom of
the chair hole. Having the spotlight turned on me was quite the jar.
I must remember to go back to shopping in the old ladies section, if
I have to don the interested yet dreamy looks in meetings.

For Pots and Mirrors

We were lucky enough to catch the last and most thrilling sector of the Men's Wimbledone Finals. Federer and Roddick gauged each other and combatted with the spirit that only stalwarts can command. Shot for shot, point for point. The game went on..

Finally when Federer won, our hearts went out to Roddick, though Federer had broken a world record. That is the true spirit of sports and overwhelms me every time. The youngest and oldest in our group at the time made two startling revelations:

The youngest quipped at the award giving ceremony: "See, one got a pot and the other got a mirror!"

The oldest quipped: "You know it is far more thrilling to watch a match without knowing the outcome!" (DUHH .. coming from a man who spent half his grown-up years advising his son that watching a match live was worthless, this was a revelation of sorts!)

While the grandfather discovered that watching a match live was thrilling, the grand-daughter discovered that people spent a LOT of energy to get a pot and a mirror.

Phone Message

Have you tried calling anybody lately? You would pull up the person from your phone's contact list, or take the trouble of punching the numbers in only to get to their voicemail. Isn't it funny that a majority of voicemails first tell you the number you dialled. "I know!" you want to scream, "I dialled it remember?!"

"You have reached the voicemail box of 4-8-9-3-3-8-5-9-7-4."*"Dulcet Tone?"*" is not available. Please leave your n-am-e and telephone number at the beep" BEEP!

I've also noticed that everytime one is asked to say their name under pressure, they say it with a questioning tone of incredulity. It sounds like they can't believe they said their name correctly at the right time and want to ask you if it is okay.

The tone is irresistibly influenced by the automated message tone. So, "Melody Personified" invariably sounds like "Squeaky horn?"

The exact same thing happens with conference bridges. "Saumya?" has joined the conference *BEEP* "Chris?" has joined the conference

If you call me, you will be treated to the same phenomenon, but when has that stopped me from saying anything?

News

Yesterday, I heard something bizarre from one of my friends. The United States has its own definition of what it terms "NEWS". Basically, it should be dramatic to the point of taking notice, but not dramatic enough to cripple the economy and make it hobble on crutches for months afterward. Which is why, the mortgage crisis and the internet bubble burst and 9/11 weren't good. On the other hand, there is news just waiting to be reported. But, news from other countries (especially those with a sea between US and said country) doesn't count for news at all.

So, the San Francisco Chronicle found it prudent to run a full-blown report on the shocking incident of birds now attacking people in San Francisco. (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/30/BA8317TUO2.DTL)

One of my friends just went walking on the street. One bird flew straight at her hair. Said friend ducked in time to avoid being in the trajectory of evidently direction-challenged-and-therefore-attacking flying bird. Out of thin air, a reporter materializes and asks her if she is willing to give an interview. A number of questions arise. How was the reporter there at exactly the same time? Would newspapers actually assign reporters to random street corners waiting for a bird to attack? Or was the bird trained for this in collusion with the reporter? If it is the latter, I would be very sorry for the new lows journalism has taken in this country!

My friend, passed up the opportunity to appear in the local news. I assured her that fame was a fickle friend, and it was best if she wasn't recognized as the girl the birds attacked. Nevertheless, I stepped out for a few minutes and it looks like I could write a whole newspaper.

"Current generation less tolerant towards children."
Now, that would sell a few papers surely. Well, I did hear two people say the following while waiting for the walk sign!
"You know, I just can't stand them. I don't know how people tolerate kids. "

This means/implies nothing other than the fact that one denizen doesn't like children. I could also build a study around it, with entirely made up numbers and suddenly my news item gains a shade of credibility.

Here's another one: "Housing economy easing up" OR "Loans not as difficult anymore."
What I heard on the street again was this:"You know, it's like buying a house. A bank puts up 80% of the capital, and you just have to sign"
Evidently, some soul was being persuaded to buy a house, or some soul was telling somebody else how easy it is to buy a house, because suddenly, buying became "just signing"

Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to get into the house, where I have my child waiting for me with love, to escape the birds.

Thank you!

Camping

"Amma - Get up! The sun is setting - SEE?!"

I groggily sat and up and peered out. I had barely had an hour's sleep. I could only manage to fall asleep after I could be reasonably assured that the howling wind around us would not life us and drop somewhere in the pacific ocean. We'd been camping and were spending the night in a tent. It's supposed to be an insulated tent, but it's not shaped like a boat! So it would have been a rough sail (if at all, such a thing sailed)

It was a beautiful morning. I corrected the excited daughter - "It is a sunrise, not a sunset!" As you can see, we aren't one of those who rise before the roosters and wait for the sun to come up. So, the only time, the daughter has seen the sun low, is when it is setting. We had been camping with a bunch of kids (here's proof!)

The whole experience was great fun, and was quite enough to jerk us out of our cubic worlds momentarily. Treks, hot tea, a waterside, excellent company - everything was just perfect. Even the squabbles were fun to watch. The sheer joblessness of a couple of 1-year olds against the perceived-important-but-equally-jobless 7 year olds, the whipping wind against the tea reluctantly holding its warmth, the good food with the chatter.

I was dubious when we started. The car trunk looked like we were moving houses. Sleeping bags, tents, shoes, jackets all jostled for space. Sure though I was, that we wouldn't use half of them, I was unsure of leaving anything behind just in case. It's not like we were taking the moon shuttle to get off in space for a night of camping. We were going to be half-an-hour away from an outlet mall! I seemed to have tired out even before starting!

I had only to reach the spot and inhale the beauty of the place, when all my reluctance vanished with a wisp. In fact, I was thereafter, quite the hearty soul! The only dampener to the exciting trip was the wind. It whipped up with such ferocity - and wouldn't relent. It raged and stomped through the night - till around 4:30 a.m. But any day, another camping trip is welcome.

Ahh- I love camping!

Pensick

Those were the days! The years when the heart was young, and the palpable energy of youth was looking for an outlet. The finality of the written word against the hazy thought circulating in the throes of the brain.

I revered my heroes with an insane love. I liked my hero to be either maroon or green. I rather liked the green for luck, and the maroon for looks. With my heroes by my side, I could tear any examination apart, I could make the protoganist of any novel cry through my sarcastic witticisms. In short, I truly believed in the power of the pen.

Yes, another one of my quirks. I was very attached to my pens. I had two "Hero" pens as they were called. I took care of them. While the apes among us used their hero ink-pens as darts, I polished them, made sure they were filled with ink, and were never insulted with a bent nib. The pen somehow aided my flow of thoughts.

The ballpoint pens nestled in the box too. The sleek and thin Reynolds. The super-hero that could save you, when you had to ditch the quaint calligraphic style and rush in a hurriedly drafted incorrect assignment.

Through my college, I stuck to my hero-pen and reynolds ballpoint pens. They were my friends.

Then, something sad happened. I entered the corporate world - the world of mass production and abundance as it were. I tell you, the more people earn, the pettier they become. At one point, people started perceiving free pens as a component of their salary! I once saw a person stuff his pants with free pens (I had to keep trying not to think how/where it would poke when he sat!) I lost the awe for pens - ruined forever! I could pick up any pen, that looked exactly like any other free pen in the office. As long as I tried not to imagine it being used a tooth-pick, or a gum-substitute or a ear-bud by somebody else, it would give me the same experience.

I am penstalgic and I want my own special pens once more. (Yes, I made up the word penstalgic - Bad? Yes, I know! But I am sure I could come up with a better word if I had a pen I was attached to!)

Laptop retirement schemes

What is a laptop?

Pardon me, but I am in the mood for pedantic explanations. It is a portable device with a processor that can be used without constraining the user to a particular geographical location. Wireless routers just worked hand-in-hand with this definition, because you were not required to have the network cable plugged in.

Have you seen this advertisement where an old grandmother uses the laptop as a cutting board/pizza pan/baking/cleaning surface etc? If you haven't, then here it is.
http://current.com/items/89889276_funny-ad-grandma-proof-laptop.htm

I wouldn't say our laptop was stress-tested by a grandmother, but it has been stress-tested by a budding family. The device has aged gracefully in my opinion. The first signs started with the wireless. It now remains immobile by being chained to a network cable because the wireless doesn't work anymore.

After hours with a customer specialist, nothing was achieved - in fact, the last of the calls finished with the exasperating statement from the husband telling the CSR that he was a network engineer, and has tried "right clicking and hitting repair" several times before calling! Unfortunately, customer service representatives are not trained to handle network engineers who have already tried Option X on their list, and our wireless died.

Never one to chicken out this easily, we just bought a network cable long enough to stretch across the Golden Gate Bridge and restored a certain mobility to it. I think the laptop sulked for a while, and tried acting up because of the leash, but seeing the other option - that of jostling for space on the tiny computer table, decided to work with the leash instead.
One time, it whined too loudly and the sound blasters stopped working. So, now, we could attach those over-the-ear speaker phones at the sound socket, and listen to sound. Here's a hint, it isn't worth the trouble. For one, you can never find the headphones when you need them. One of my friends is a popular audio-blogger, and that meant letting go of tuning in to her site every now and then to listen to some treats (hey, she wouldn't miss one of her fans not being able to listen as much I miss listening to her songs!)

"It is still functional though", I argue weakly. "Yeah? Tell me one thing you still enjoy doing with the thing?" demands the network-engineer-husband. "I can still see photos, and I love to do that!" I counter. I wear a smug smile on my face and move towards the laptop again. It's spooky, it was like the laptop HEARD me, and in a last bid to free itself ruined the screen. All I could see was red and blue all over. It had streaks all over, and if I squinted my eyes and tilted my face, I
could still find the icons on the desktop.

Then, one day, one of us went somersaulting on the long cable. The flying sensation was not good for 2 reasons:
1) The actual airborne sensation was exceptionally short-lived and

2) The body doesn't take easily to falling-by-tripping-on-network-cables that easily. Maybe a respectable fall while running/playing, it can still manage. But tripping on a network cable? Your body asks : "Dude seriously?!" And then, just hurts like crazy!

So, now the cable is bundled up and tied with a rope, and the laptop jostles for space with the computer anyway. It really can't whine too much, because the sound blasters are gone, and if I squint hard enough, I can find the mozilla icon somewhere.

I am not sure if laptop societies had any laws on retirement per se, but mine really seems to have reached the end of it's reign. It's time my laptop retired - what do you say?

Appeal to my vanity - yes go on!

I would rather be a man. I know it is difficult to shave everyday, and all that, but it is easier buying a pair of trousers for men. Imagine: I go to the store and the only choice facing me is 3 colours. What's the worst case scenario? I buy 3 pairs of trousers and come home. I don't have to think about trousers for a long time. For some people, they also don't have to think about height separately.

"What size Sir"
"32-32"

You don't even need to remember 2 separate numbers. How cool is that?

Or I could be a child, just ask me how old I am and bingo! I swear I would not be offended if it saved me hours of agonizing over the right fit. For those who insist on not divulging their age, it could be arranged by decades, and you could go there and pick out your age.

"How old are you?"
"You know, I look like a 2T, but I am really 3 years old!" *Gush gush blush blush*

Honestly, I don't know the deal with women's sizes. By the time, I arrive in the approximate geographical location, after hours of meandering down "Woman", "Petite Large", "Misses Petite" and "Misses Pregnant, but not yet large", I am ready to leave. But if I really must buy trousers, I dig up my perseverance and lumber on. Dockers, Lee, Gloria Vanderbilt, NY&C - every single brand appeals to my vanity in different ways. One says, I am size 2, another insists I am 0, another says 4 in the PM section(That's petite medium!) As if, these brands were not making it hard enough, stores decide to chip in for their share too. One store had sizes 3,5,7 - maybe, the odd numbers came and cried in the Board of Governors meeting.

One place, I picked up size 1. Now unless, we have the changed the value-based system of counting, 1 is lower-end and 10 is higher end. So, for pants, one would assume that 1 uses less cloth when you look at circumference right? Wrong! This '1' size was enough for the elephant in Oakland Zoo.

I would like to meet the marketing wizard who came up with the "psychology" that women would like to think themselves as slimmer, and the only way to do that was by confusing the trouser sizes?!

I gave up finally! The left leg doesn't have a tear yet, so, I suppose I could wait before buying another pair, I tell myself. Then, I see one pair for an obscene price with a tear in both legs. That's easy - I'll just pick up a pair of scissors and try to recreate another symmetrical tear, and make do for another year or two!

Vazhga Tamizh!

The week-end was spent in California Tamil Academy. Sat was graduation day - completion of a school year. California Tamil Academy is an amazing organization - run entirely by volunteers, they teach Tamil to over 3000 children in Bay Area. I really like the setup and the dedication. It gives a sense of belonging in more ways than one. People felt at home - at times, they behaved just as badly as they would in a political rally in India without the lathi-armed police.

For example, the secretary was pleading, shouting, cajoling anything to get people to settle down so the ceremony could start to no avail. It was so disheartening to see people (most of them with professional careers no doubt!) standing around without the least bit of consideration for the Secretary's increasingly hoarse voice. I wonder why we embarrass ourselves thus when we congregate.

Finally, the program started, and the children trooped on stage to receive their certificates. As usual, they first sent the pre-schoolers onto the stage. They got them to stand on stage, and there was a slight delay before the certificates were given. The children were left standing on stage looking around at the crowd! One of them sat down on the stage (Guilty as charged: that clown was my child!) I was visible in the audience wringing my hands with an upward swing movement ("You can't sit like that on stage K!" I said to her multiple times after the ceremony quite horrified)

http://www.hashwinphotography.com/cta/index.php?album=cta-fremont-graudation-day-2009

Here is what she learnt to write though!

The day after, was the annual day program. It was a grand mela - a LARGE congregation of people belonging to a similar demographic (all Tamilians with one or more children studying Tamil). The day long program started with the preschoolers. We had to drop them off after taking them to the restroom!

The cuteness index to quality of the program was inversely proportional.

In the preschool lot, there was one who decided to admire the chain she was wearing in the middle of HER program (this time, thankfully, it wasn't my daughter!), one of them wanted to talk to his friends on the stage and another decided to just run to his mother halfway through the performance!

As the day wore on, the children definitely performed better! All in all, I laud the academy's efforts.

Vazhga Tamizh!

The beauty of questioning

I spend a lot of time vacillating between an agnostic secular person and a religious person, who doesn't believe 80% of what my religion has become over the ages. Suffice it to say that the days I spend in my former state far outnumber the days I spend in the latter.

Here is my problem: I like to believe in the power of hope and if belief is what brings hope, I am all for it. On the other hand, over the ages, I can categorically state that religion has done more damage to mankind than good. The moment religion ceases to be a personal experience, I can see it wreaking havoc.

I quite like the idea of finding yourself. Easily, that is the path taken by all the "founders" of religion - be it Buddha or the Sufi saints of Islam or the Bhagavad Gita. But how does one explain "finding oneself" to the masses? That is where the problem begins. So, the explanation became finding one's moral conscience - still good! But a few centuries later, moral conscience evolves into a set of rules written by the elitist community of the religion. Slowly, the congregation becomes more of a unifying force, one to forge your identity with, than to use as a tool to better yourself.

At my wedding, the priest was a person who was my grandfather's friend. My grandfather was a kind-hearted, generous, loving, able teacher, caring husband/father and he was a pious man. But somehow, whenever people described him, they put his piety ahead of his other virtues! This priest came to my wedding and said he would do all it takes in his power to make sure that great man's grand-daughter lived a fantastic life, and put us through the most grueling wedding ceremony in recent times. I didn't understand more than a few words of what was said - there was no need for me to elongate the proceedings by asking for clarifications in between on a hot day in front of the fire, with no food in my stomach! The ceremony lasted a good 9 hours of listening to things I didn't understand. Everyone who came to congratulate me, said the priest was excellent, he hadn't missed a single thing - who would understand how my intestines were reacting at the time? Which religion?

What I am trying to say is, some people are ritualistic by nature - to them, rituals become religion - this isn't orthodoxy, this is just an interpretation of their own religion. It is also show-case worthy.

I have spent all my growing years chanting some prayers that my mother taught me on the way to the school in the morning, as we ran for the train. That is all I know today, and probably that is all I will ever know - who knows? Every now and then, I think that just because I have become an agnostic, I should not deny the experience of a religion to my daughter. So, I take her to the local temple. She asks a million questions along the way as usual. We are in the temple, and she looks at the statues and asks - "If Ummachi (God) made everything and gave us everything, how come he isn't even moving?"

I savoured the question - the beauty of questioning always delights me. I am sorry that when it comes to religion so few people still have the power of questioning left in them.

Only running.....

To everyone who heard the shocking news that my husband left me for a sleepover in a van, and how much my daughter misses her dad - here is the good news, my husband is back!

Really? I did not think he was going to do that? The family seemed pretty stable, don't you think?

To all those potential rumour mills that started buzzing, luckily I was nearby to explain the reason behind the husband's sudden disappearance! He ran a 200 mile relay for the India Literacy Project. He and his team spent the week-end in a van sleeping and eating off the road, while they passed the baton. Over 200 teams participated in the relay, and the mild drizzle was an added twist to the tale. (Regular readers would be pleased to know that now, I have 2 chaffing-proof raincoats added to all the other running condiments at home!)

Of course, all my daughter knew was that her father was missing for the whole week-end. He had gone for a sleep-over, and that too in a van! I had to quickly explain that he hadn't joined the hippies out to explore lands unknown, but was really only running - PHEW!

The tired h. came back last night battered and tired and certainly in heavy need of a shower, but back he was! Meanwhile, the daughter filled him up with all the cool things the girls did this week-end.

I am getting the news of the relay itself in installments, since I wasn't given much air-time with the father-daughter reunion and all. What I did get was some of the funny team names that participated.

Slow As Molasses (They beat the husband's team by about 5 minutes)
Dude, Where's My Van?
Smells Like Team Spirit
Heart And Soles
6 Degrees Of Perspiration 12 Women Of Inspiration
The Fast, The Slow, And The Pretty
Slower Than Turtles, Faster Than Dsl
Babes Are Back In Black
Google Leftovers [Google]
Who's Watching The Kids? [Willow Glen Track Club]
Shut Up And Run [Kaiser Electronics]
Suns Of A Beach
Cheaper Than Therapy
Does This Van Make My Butt Look Big?
Just Watering Your Flowers, Ma'am
That Wasn't A Mile
Y R We Runnin?Running Noses [Stanford University Otolaryngology]

There was a walking team christened "What's the hurry?" (that was my favourite!)

Oh Lord My God

Every morning, I arrive at the public transit terminal in San Francisco city as the morning fog is deliberating whether to lift from the streets or not. Whether it is the reluctant fog, or sheets of rain or a lazy sun peeking through the cloudy skies, I am reassured that the Lord is there to take care of me. I ascend the escalator and as I come out, one cannot escape the screaming. "HE knows" he shouts. "HE knows all the good and will take care of you. ". Sometimes, I am tempted to stop and ask this guy what HE knows? And if he does, why HE is letting him waste his energy standing and shouting HIS glory at people who are evidently not interested in his daily sojourn.

No kidding rain or sun, this man shouts himself hoarse about the Lord's glory. Maybe, this is a form of ecstasy like people whipping themselves to transcend levels (none of which I have ever understood)All the people around me try to ignore him for the most part. He stands there telling us that the greatest thing that ever happened is the fact that the Lord is there watching over us.

Similarly, every Friday, no matter how early I leave, I always find a man with brown eyes of medium build handing out pamphlets with the Lord's glory printed on them. I don't think these people are being paid for this, so what is their motivation?

I would never know. I wander around looking for a bear claw. The staff inform me courteously of course, that bear claws have been discontinued. (Bear claw is a kind of a breakfast thingy that I particularly love. Generally, I am not looking for the literal bear claws in the morning - by evening, it is a different story of course!)

Now, screaming outside Starbucks saying - "DON'T DISCONTINUE BEAR CLAWS!" may have had some effect. Maybe, the company would have seen the undying love people had for bear claws, and continued the product! But shouting that the Lord is watching over me when I've just been denied my pamper-myself-breakfast-item is a whole different elephant!

Ergonomic bliss and werewolf howls

I've been having ergonomic problems lately. The problems have little to do with ergonomics, it has more to do with the fact that I have been forced to spend the bright spring days couped up in a drab cubicle with gray and beige shades, barely having time to stuff the old mouth with lunch. So, the finger moans, and the knees groan. It is all a collective attention seeking mechanism to lure me out into the open.

The truth being, I do load balance making my mouse left-handed because of the carpal tunnel syndrome. So, a colleague of mine declared that all I need was one of those large, unwieldy trays that pull out from under the desk, and I would feel like I had relaxed in a hot bath the whole day, followed by a professional massage. The painted image was too good for me to bear. I had to act, and fast!

In a moment of weakness, I caught the company carpenter unawares on his bi-weekly visit, and got the tray done. I imagined painting my cubicle with a cool colour and put up a tent with spinning juice trays etc, as I pulled out the heaven equivalent from under my desk. (You get the general picture as I visualised my path into "heaven")

The tray came, and I found the effect strange. Given that most of my tasks are done with the suspense and thrill of a racing car in a Grand Prix, I find myself sitting on the edge of the seat quite often and poking my beak towards the screen. The pull-out tray demanded a more relaxed position, and the beak was too far from the computer! Over and above that, the phone was too far from my relaxed position for comfort.

I'd already mentioned the left handed mouse temptation that I yield to once in a while, this large tray put a cork screw stopper to that as well! See the pic, the mouse area is always on the right! So, not only could I lose all cool imagination about being the superwoman flying in to tackle the issues at work with the leaning-in-tip-of-chair posture, I had to also make the carpal tunnel tunnel in harder to make its presence known!

You all know where this is leading I am sure. Even if I did manage to make peace with the tray, the chair I was sitting on was just not suited to the new lower height. So, I ran after a good chair. I am not tall, but I am not included in the dwarfish subset either, yet I had a chair that either had my legs dangling or sloping forward at an incline (almost waiting to tip me off any moment - because of lean-in-ahead car-racing-posture, I am sure). So, my hunt for a chair started.
Then, the mouse pad joined in - the carpal tunnel effect could be remedied with a mouse pad with a wrist support pad, said another ergonomic expert.

I now sit in my original bad leaning-in-position, yelping and howling every few minutes. The pull-out tray has been sent to an early retirement citing performance issues. But, it still hides under my desk!

Everytime, I inadvertently cross my legs, I howl like a werewolf calling its kind. (This pain can't wait for full-moons for werewolf transformations!) My knee is badly bruised with the banging on tray injuries, and the carpenter took leave this week!

Want-to-do Vs Have-to-do

I sometimes like to let domesticity and a full-time job fulfill its duties of giving me excuses from doing the things I want to do. I find that every time I am really looking for an excuse, the never ending domestic tasks or the ever demanding official tasks jump upto the bait with enthusiasm, and I spend week after week letting my want-to-do simmer in the background, while my have-to-do takes over my life.

This week, after a particularly brutal have-to-do week, I decided to have a want-to-do week-end, and while I am still battling with the have-to-do's on my list, I had fun. For one, we went for a Dandia dance program (the kind where we can dance rather than passively sit by and watch). It was fun to think of oneself as dancing gracefully, while co-dancers deftly dodged the bludgeoning monsters unleashed by dancers such as me. While we all danced our way through the large hall to the fantastic music provided by the band, we lost rhythm more times than once, and stepped into people's toes and raised our sticks for banging on an non-existent partner,
or a partner who was there, and disappeared just as we turned around from our graceful swing. I enjoyed dandia with my daughter who decided to dance to her own rhythm, found the most amusing place to be beneath the table lining the walls for no apparent reason and numerous other reasons! (The one in black is me!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7J3vF9gDVY

In Dandia, a moment's negligence can cause disarray and as I turned to see where the little one was during the dance, the whole party missed their respective partners, and we were all waving our sticks at random people who were all looking for their partners who just slipped a position! Anyway, the group was accomodating and I soon left to see the little chef sitting in the middle of the room stirring and cooking with her dandia sticks! I asked her what she was doing and she explained that she was making soup and rasam (In the middle of a hundred people dancing for God's sake!)

All in all, the evening was filled with dance, music, imaginary food and just a stirring of the joie de vivre that is so carefully concealed in the folds of the daily grind.

The next morning, I decided to continue the trend, and spent the morning in the park with some friends, with a good run thrown in for good measure! I loved the joys of a spring morning - and step after painful step (remember the dandia the night before), made me savour the day.

I still have to to-do list to deal with - but my mind is revelling on the want-to's that I indulged in after a long time!

How to eat a sandwich?

When is the last time you ate a sandwich or a burrito or a wrap gracefully? By sandwich, I don't mean the bread/butter variety, but the variety where the first layer contains sprouts, followed by a layer of large leaves and twigs, and then a tree of something. A thin layer of cheese and the forest again on the other side! I am not one to comment on the taste, since I seem to reach out to this variety quite readily. But I do want to write about is the eating.


One bite into the infernal thing sends the taste buds reeling, and then when I pull away, a large leaf the size of 3 plates will want to get pulled out from between, and the flora above shifts sending the incumbents of the sandwich to scramble for safety. Something like a tectonic plate movement-earthquake-sort of thing. On my end, I can't let the stuff loose and in a moment of reining in the chaos will try to rearrange the thing.

Just when I get it to resembling a sandwich again, I find that another bite makes the soggy stuff to start levitating towards the opposite end. You get the pictiure. The mouth on the southern end, the contents shifting and spilling out through the northern end. Almost like it wants to get away from being eaten. You see, when one is holding a largish object, gravitation exerts its influence as always, and the thing slopes downwards (around 12 degree incline is usual)

So, I rearrange the elements again and try a third time holding it at a perfect 180 degree angle, only to have the thing leaking on the sides and messing my arms.

The next item on my list is the height. I shall talk in term of units because I haven't yet reached the stage of measuring the thickness of bread. Let us assume we are making a sandwich - the bread on either side is 2 units each, making a height of 4 units. Then the stuffing adds another 8 units, making it a grand 12 units high.

Sometimes, I feel like a crocodile. I open my mouth so wide, I can feel the bones make a cracking noise. I then have to adjust the cheek bones, give them a loving pat, assure them that what I am putting them through is actually good for them in the long run and start afresh with renewed vigour and fraying enthusiasm.

By this time, I don't care about graceful eating anymore - in fact most times, I care neither about grace nor eating! I just let nature take its course. I pull and let the contents shift freely. I allow the sprouts to mingle and socialize with the tomato, while the pickles boss the mushrooms around as they spill onto the plate below. I eat whatever cares to remain within the sandwich - this is called wolfing down the sandwich. This activity is followed by cleaning up the spilled adventures with a spoon!

I feel full, and tell myself to go for soup the next time around.

Boutique? Really?

English continues to amaze and astonish me. I received this communication earlier today from a staffing firm.

At --- Solutions, we specialize in staffing a wide variety of technical positions on a Contract, Contract-To-Hire and Direct Hire basis. As a boutique staffing firm, we are well suited to meet the unique needs of our clients.

Boutique staffing firm? Maybe my conditioned response to 'Boutiques' associates it with products - such as clothes, jewellery and the like. I have to hand it to the bloke writing out these notices. I can't imagine him having the most enviable career coming up with lines intended to dazzle the reader! What in essence he must do is use big words in the sad hope that in this economy people would take notice.

Maybe he has attended the school of thought that tells him using exquisite words for body-shopping is cool. To me it sounds strange and a bit sad.

Dame Wash-a-lot

I am in a deeply introspective mood. Economics has no explanation, common sense has no explanation. Continuum and chaos are the only probable explanations. Here is my problem.
For a family of three, we wash a lot.
"So?", you ask.
By wash a lot I mean this. If I were to use a laundromat (the ones where you tip in the quarters for a wash, for those not in the USA), I couldn't afford it. The financial strain would begin to show. We have a washing machine that groans when it hears approaching footsteps. "Not again!" I can hear it say. In fact, when I was once in an advanced state of delirium and woke up in the middle of the night to transfer the clothes from the washer to the dryer, I almost saw the dryer's pitiable eyes, with tears flowing freely.

For the ones who live in countries with advanced washing machines, don't smirk! I know the USA is missing out on the automatic, semi-automatic, washer-cum-dryer models etc, but President Obama has promised me he will be taking steps to correct the issue in the future by investing more in education (especially Science). So, I remain with the optimism that very soon I will not have to take the midnight trudge down to the washing machine to transfer clothes to the dryer.

Oh...it is true that sometimes I can't find a spot for the folded clothes and dump them in the wash basket again. Some orphaned sock lands up there too, till I finally trash the loner. But these can't account for that many!

With that level of washing, our clothes should be impeccable. Guess what, they sometimes are. Sometimes, I see my white and grey T-shirt with cute specks of crimson that undeniably came from the sweater in the load. I can recognize the "white" banians (vests and briefs!) from a mile away. They are the ones that have all been experimented to an artists palette down by the wash. I remedy the situation readily by repeatedly washing them again and again, so the crimson speckels barely show, while the bright clothes ... well, lose their colour and look dull! I've tried sorting the whites with little improvement to show, and have quickly gone back to the old ways after an unsuccessful rehab exercise.

Now for the vessels! I enjoy cooking, I don't deny it. I am also known for reusing vessels while cooking. Yet, everyday I find a full load of dishwashing. So, for one whole day, I made the family eat out. (Not that it required persuasion of any kind!) I refused to dirty my kitchen. Guess what, I had a dishwasher load in spite of that - glasses and bowls from god-knows-where after eating god-knows-what?

So, I give up! I surrender. I shall rename myself Dame Wash-a-lot like the character in Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree series and spend the next few decades washing and humming a dhobin's tune.

Teenage begins!

He was named after Gautama Buddha - Siddarth. Yes, without the 'h' after the 'd' for those who ask, and believe me a lot of people asked! It's funny how many people had to point it out, as though we had made a spelling mistake. He is nothing like Buddha - in fact he has every characteristic but tranquillity. Yet, he has provided our family with entertainment of every sort. He could be the court jester, the clown, the one who knows exactly what would get his mother and father wound up like a clock.

I remember the phone call. 13 years ago, I got up as usual in my hostel room wondering whether today would be the day. It was. In a few minutes after my daily duties, I received the call that changed my life positively forever, my nephew was born. He was also the first grandchild of our family. I left for home that very afternoon and arrived short of breath at a hospital 4 hours away. After a blurry conv with the elated father, grandfather, hugs etc, I held the most beautiful baby in my life.

"Hold the neck!" screeched a voice
"Isn't he beautiful?" asked another
"Who does he look like?" demanded another. It was cacaphony, and then I realised I hadn't congratulated the woman who'd made it through it all, and my sister looked elated and tired at the same time.

From then on, people have often wondered why is it I would throw every holiday to be with my nephew - the first one to call me "Chitthi". I neglected college trips with class, turned askance at group trips to some place. Every conceivable holiday, I spent with the little fellow. I watched him grow into a boy and as he steps into teenage, I wait with bated breath to see how he would progress into manhood from boyhood.

Enjoy your teen years Siddu.

Go Penguins!

We had to go to Antartica. We couldn't.

We should have been wearing thick jackets with woollen leggings, gloves, tracks and snow shoes bearing down with an amazing sense of purpose against the cold Southern winds. We should have been huddling together and drawing comfort from numbers just like the Penguins do down in Antartica. The Aurora Australis forming a beautiful back-drop against the chill night.

We had to go to Australia. We couldn't.

We should have been yearning to splash some water over ourselves and licking ice-cubes while the unbearable heat of the desert seeped in through every conceivable pore, while Kangaroo gazing in the deserts of Australia.

Penguins and Kangaroos are the little ones favourite animals by far, and the journey to Antarctica and Australia proving cumbersome, we took the next best option and went to San Diego. That meant, escaping the cold of San Francisco, and basking in the warmth of San Diego.
Numerous trips into the Penguin encounter later, we held up for parental authority and firmly held that we will undertake no more trips into the dashed building again, only to be carted off to a 'Pets Rule' show!

I loved Sea World. I did enjoy the warm San Diego weather and the hospitality of an old friend.
It was fascinating to note that the high temperatures in both San(Jose and Diego) were the same while the fluctuation between high and low temperatures was what caused the teeth typing in San Jose.

The Thali

A Punjabi Pehalwan (body builder) and a South Indian lady meet. For the purposes of this story, let us assume that this is the first time the lady has stirred out of her village and is still taking in the sights of a town while waiting for a bus. Educated at her village school, she speaks English.

The occasion being Nombu, the lady initiates the conversation. Nombu is the festival on which one is supposed to petition the Gods for longevity of their husbands. In fact, the exact verse is

"Urugaadha vennaiyum oru adai-yum nookarean
Or naalum yen kanavan piriyaamal irukkanum"

Loosely translated, it means:
I'll give you butter and some stuff to eat
Make sure my husband doesn't leave me ever.

Seems like bargaining to me, but that's the whole verse.

Anyway, the South Indian lady (S I L ) starts off by saying

S I L: Thali is my life. I will do anything for the thali (Thali is akin to the wedding ring/mangal sutra in South India)

Pehalwan (P): Yes...yes. Me too. I cannot live without thali you know (The pehelwan is of course referring to the food thali - meaning plate of food. In restaurant parlance, the thali is now synonymous with a wholesome meal comprising roti, rice, side dishes and dessert)

S I L sounding surprised: Really? You too have a thali? (Only the married woman wears the thali, men have no means of showing themselves married)

Pehelwan: What do you mean? You too have a thali? I am telling you, I cannot live without a thali!

S I L: Hmm...Interesting

Pehelwan: How many thalis can you have? *stroking his expansive belly*

S I L: What nonsense is this? How many thalis can you have! * 'Abhachaaram abhachaaram' she mutters to herself meaning 'Blasphemy!"

Pehelwan wondering why such an innocent question should cause so much grief to an individual: What is wrong with my question? Women - pah! I can have 4 thalis at one shot do you know? *flexing his muscles *
Pehelwan continues: I am feeling hungry now - how about having a thali together? There is a temple nearby somewhere. Look for it, there is a restaurant nearby I believe.

The South Indian lady flees before things take a nasty turn and chastises herself for even talking to another man. She finds her husband, and immediately falls at his feet and takes the thali out of her saree and dabs it reverently, while the husband looks on bewildered!

Rant over but ache continues...

Every so often I come across individuals who have been given the finest opportunities life can afford, yet behave like frogs stuck in a well. Education has no impact on them, interacting with diverse cultures and personalities has no impact on them. In short, with the best kind of exposure, they rigidly stick to their prejudices.

A jarring news item that came to my notice today.
http://www.hindu.com/2009/03/14/stories/2009031454830100.htm
Appalling as this sounds, the news item goes on to say that a 28 year old software engineer in Bangalore threw his 4-day old daughter in a well because he "did not want to have children"! A number of questions arise:

1) Why did he indulge in the act of procreation without protection if he felt this strongly about not wanting children? Surely, a 28 year software engineer in Bangalore has heard of birth control! It does say that he tried to convince his wife to abort, but she refused, and they seem to have gone on after that.
2) Why was a post-graduate education wasted on this individual? Clearly, education has done nothing to educate him on moral grounds or otherwise.

Everytime I come across something like this, my heart aches. An innocent life that so many people yearn to have in their lives, wasted in a moment's rash behaviour.

Rant over, but ache continues....

The Perfect Envelope

The mind cannot concentrate while that obtrusive thing is there. It doesn't really occupy much space, but when it is there, you cannot concentrate on what you are doing, till you have made the darn thing disappear!

If you've used Outlook with the new mail notification envelope set to to 'On', you know exactly what I am talking about. The tiny envelope can permeate your most deep thoughts and make you zone out of them in a jiffy! I have tried turning the notification off, only to have some harried person sneak up to me behind my back and bellow - "DID YOU SEE MY EMAIL?!" After jumping a good foot in the air, I then sheepishly acknowledge that I turned the notification off, because it was disturbing me.

Then, I realise, it is better to be interrupted with the yellow envelope than with an actual 6 foot tall person hovering over me literally. I am always seated while the person is standing. The craned neck gulps involuntarily, and it may be construed as a sign of weakness in case there were email wars being waged, with tiny words as swords on the battlefield of an email template.

I found that constructing complex rules and moving them to a different folder helps - the notification does not appear, but people always seem to find a way around my rules. I would say: If sender personality like 'bullfrog' and mail subject is unsavoury and if contents not terribly important to saving world then move to 'Folder I might get to later on'.

Invariably bull-frogs break the system: they alias themselves to be vermin, or spice up the subject to make it sound like it needs reading and end up popping up in my icon area anyway.

I suppose it would be nice to sit and read automated notifications every minute if one had nothing to do. But given few of us have such luxuries, I spend hour upon endless hour cursing the relentless interruption, and admiring the perfect envelope icon!

Oscars

I watched Oscars like millions did. Some random points that came to mind:

I did clap when Slumdog Millionaire reaped in the awards, but the logical side of me couldn't concede that the movie was worth 8 of them. I would call it a nice enough movie, but just that. Not great, not wonderful - tad better than mediocre. Another example of how right place at right time far outweighs merit.

And then, of course some "Body" comes along and does an illogical thing, and basks in the narrow glow of publicity it brings. They gifted the children a concrete house and claimed they are working for the upliftment of conditions in slums. My head reels - how?! By moving the children who already made some money to a concrete house? How does that equate to "working for upliftment of slums"?

I loved the way Danny Boyle jumped up and down like Tigger in Winnie The Pooh when he won his Oscar. It was a helpful reminder that we all have a child in us, and sometimes takes hard work finding it.

I watched with amusement as the cameras rolled on the best dressed women. I couldn't help comparing the style to the women in South Indian villages who tie a hard knot with their "ull-paavadais" just covering their breasts and dropping down below their knees, as they took a bath in semi-privacy (a term used for not bathing in a closed bathroom - say at the well, or in the courtyard in their homes)"Ull-paavadai" is the inner skirt worn underneath a saree.

Almost all the dazzling clothes were of the same bathing-in-courtyard style, and most of the colours were the same tried and tested variety. But, speaking with a sense of negative fashion IQ , I am not the person most suited to make judgements I am afraid. After all, I still hold the unique honour of selecting all my wedding sarees in 2 hours and not wearing them even once ever since!

I scoured the crowd and found only 2 women wearing a pair of glasses, but the same was not true of Men. Are men more comfortable with glasses or are women more self-conscious about the bespectacled image?!

For a country as vast as India, I find few authors of merit, especially in the children's genre. In fact, after R.K.Narayan, I can think of few others who I can genuinely claim I enjoy. This for a country with the second largest population in the world, and probably the largest English speaking population in the world!

Why the disconnect? Do we lack imagination - I think not! Do we as a people still feel that books are best written by a different race, or is it that we don't see books as a valuable source of income? It is the latter I would guess. The copyright laws that are in effect in India as as effective as a dog told not to scratch his you-know-what on the side wall! The moment a book is out, and it shows any promise of being a partial success, we have printing presses queueing up to churn out cheap copies. It is no doubt then, folks prefer to bottle up their creativity with a hard cork screw than to let their family go hungry and stand outside restaurants waiting for scrap food!

If J.K.Rowling were born in India and tried an Indian publisher, I don't think she'd be living in any 5 bedroom mansion anywhere! More importantly, I don't think she would have taken the step of being jobless for a year to churn out a book. There are no social security payouts to carry one through lean times. Pretty much relatives, who would make sure they run in with a vigour of a Kerala-style oil massage what a thorough waste of time it is to frivolously indulge in creative writing!

On a serious note, I recently read several Indian authors, including Booker Prize winning authors and remain unimpressed. I realise it takes a long time for an occupation to mature, and it is slowly but surely getting to a point when people don't think of Engg & Medicine alone as viable careers.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I am sure my Biology teacher still remembers my gifts with the pencil. I am probably the benchmark in that teacher's mind, and let me tell you being a benchmark figure in anything is satisfying! I can readily imagine how many pupils would have been spared the agony of redoing their cockroach drawing, because all the teacher had to do was close their eyes and visualize the cockroach on MY page. Instantly, I could make people look like Michelangelos. How many people can live up to that boast?!

I seemed to have passed some of my varied talents in the field to my daughter. When the tummy was bulging and I was wondering which genes of mine I would like her to have, I am quite sure I hadn't asked for this one to come from me - but apparently it has. A while ago, my daughter proclaimed to her Aunt that she had drawn her a picture, and my sister being who she is demanded that the groaning masterpiece be scanned and sent to her. I complied - I mean nobody EVER wanted to see my pictures, and if somebody wants to see the offsprings, the proud parent can't be stopped! So, there it was sailing through the cables under the misty waters waiting to be revealed.

Here it is: it is a wrench giving it away free on the Internet like this, but one can't be selfish.

Quick as a whip, my sister's exuberant interpretation made it across.
There are fire-crackers on top...shows celebration time

There are hearts...shows that she loves us all

Two little faces with a mop of hair...shows the kids celebrating

A red dustbin...shows that you clean up after you celebrate.

All the colours ....shows how interesting and colourful life really is!!!

Modern art can be interpreted in multiple ways, but really I think she was way off!

1) The dustbins are cupcakes - you need food during a celebration!

2) There aren't only 2 happy faces, there is a sad one too stuck in the corner to make all sorts of people make up our world

3) And, the sun was drawn in two places - high up and below somewhere. That should symbolize the rising and setting of the sun! Just the same way that the celebration starts so too must it end.
While I was explaining this to the husband, the artist pops up in her classic tone, and says:

"Actually, those are not crackers - they are trees! "

"So, what is that thing on top of the trees?" I ask

"Those are fountains!" "Oh ... and the hearts say you love us right?" I ask pleading for her to endorse at least one intepretation of ours. She does no such thing and scoffs at me and declares - "Those are flowers - some are heart shaped, but there are trees, fountains and flowers with sad and happy faces!"

And, that is the artistic touch of the future! I think the whole family needs to attend some classes in Art.

Having said that, we sat down last night after dinner preparing Valentine Day Cards for all of my daughter's friends in her class. While I joked about how I did not classify the activity as important enough to rank high up in our list, I enjoyed it all the same. It made a nice change from the regular. She drew little pictures in every card and wrote out her name arduously. She particularly liked to draw Saturn for some vague reason, and I must say, it was one of her better attempts at drawing. (That is saying something!). So she drew Saturn on a couple of cards. I am not sure whether Cupid and Sani "Bhagawan" have any qualms, but if they did, my daughter just took a brave stab at attaining mythological peace.

More than the cards and the drawing, I like to think of Valentine's Day as a day of love - I am pleased to hear that similar sentiments are being voiced elsewhere too. Instead of marking a day for lovers, it is nice to mark a day of love for all your friends and family.

So, here it is: Happy Valentine's Day - may Love spread and eradicate the darkness of hatred!

I like being a sandwich!

I like being a sandwich!

The daughter had a chest phlegm and a cough. We heard vivid descriptions of her friend, drinking 3 coloured medicines everyday! She has red Tylenol in the morning, purple Tylenol in the evening and pink Tylenol at night. As a parent, I can intepret this to mean 3 different medications, possibly anti-biotics, for a bacterial infection, and further that the said friend was coughing like her. So, off to the Doctor's office she went.

"Good Evening Honey! How are you?"
"I'm fine!"
"So, do you have any little brothers and sisters", asked the Doctor by way of making conversation, and probably checking to see if they were any more minions waiting to be treated.
"No...just me"
"But, you know I have a little sister - she is 3 and half in India. And I have another sister - but she is 5 and a half" (My nieces, and yes, the "half" components of their age are very important. )

"So, she comes home and regales the conversation, and says - "I am in the middle, like a sandwich!"
I join in and tell her, I am in the middle too. I have an elder sister and a younger brother, so I am a sandwich too!

"Yeah! I like being a sandwich!!" we yelp and the doctor rests easy in her knowledge of my four and half year old's 3.5 and 5.5. year old sisters from a different continent and we are happy being the middle layer of a sandwich - it is a complex world!

PS: And all, this conversation has made me hungry. I think I will go and make myself half a sandwich (the half is very important!)

What do future anthropologists do?

Anthropologists are forever finding evidence on some tablet or inside some godforsaken cave, telling us all about life in the era. I mean when we see caves full of paintings showing tigers being strung with a sleek bow and arrow, we know that the cavemen weren't launching supersonic jets, followed by rockets to the moon and just dumbing themselves down in the paintings! They really were slaying tigers with sophisticated weapons of their time such as bows and arrows. Then, as time went on, people discovered the funny thing that starts with an 'h', that essentially is between drawing and script writing, and used that to depict what was going on. Mythology grew from a combination of bad paintings and imaginative minds. There was some record-keeping albeit one left more to imagination than to facts, but something!

The clay tablets yielded slowly to the tree bark, and the cryptic grew more descriptive. The three barks became parchment rolls and then the Chinese saved the day by coming up with paper. So far so good - you see paper, you can figure out what is written there. You see a tree bark with a sign engraved
Z *big heart sign* X, and can figure out that Z loves or loved X, and was daft enough to proclaim love on a tree bark, after probably getting his or her hand chiseled a couple of times with the rough stone used to engrave their undying love. But, we still know what happened, so long as the bark survives, we know that Z and X were in love at some point.

The printing press and full blown books were a blessing. Suddenly, everything you needed to know about any nook and corner of the world was available in some book somewhere. Great! Then, you did not even need books to get information, all you needed was access to the net. E-reading became cool. Now as we move on towards paperless functioning, a most disturbing thought just struck me, and I do not wish to be taken frivolously here. I am as serious as a rabbit running from a fox on a wintry night can be.

What if future historians are like me? It could very well happen that one gene triumphs in the coming generations and that gene is my technology retarded gene, couldn't it? It is not that I can't operate technology - I just can't keep pace. By the time, I figure out how to use the remote to change the setting on one contraption, the remote changes, or worse the contraption is gone! Let me think of some gramophone records that my father prided himself on - in fact, I reluctantly got him to get rid of the foghorn after decades, knowing that we could never listen to another gramophone record again, and the space is better used in conserving the tape recorder for the next 2 decades, before it too meets the same fate?!

So, some songs that were only there in the gramophone records no longer exists, same for some songs on tape too. You get the picture. Now, with the internet, and the blogosphere, most news and creative writing as moved to the e-medium. What if future generations are unable to retrieve these great gems of the era- voltages may change, servers change, the electronic medium destroys just as soon as it creates!

Well, I suppose the graffiti on the world heritage sites would still tell us who loves who, but what if future archaeologists only get the Harry Potter books, and believe life was that - they have no method of knowing it was a fantasy world?!

I haven't even started on the Modern Art phenomenon yet. If those were the paintings left for interpretation, I can barely imagine what it would come out as.
Pray tell me what you can make out of this?http://www.milesmodernart.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/modern-art-41108-24x48-w.jpg


I can almost hear you sigh that if these are the kind of gems of writing the future is missing, they are better off without it! But I stand by my notion that 50 years from now, when there is no paper, record retrieval will be all the more difficult, and a blip in Earth's history - 500 years later, that era might well be a dark one

PS: Ahhhh..hieroglyphics that is the "h-word"
PS1: How curious it is that I typed this blog out, and then couldn't connect to the net to publish it, and had to snuggle up to the husband to help me?

See what I mean and what I fear for?