Nourish-n-Cherish

http://NourishNCherish.Wordpress.com

2009-09-12T23:42:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-08T11:40:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-09-03T15:20:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-29T15:49:00.000-07:00

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 ?!

2009-08-27T15:24:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-26T17:08:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-08-25T16:53:00.001-07:00

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

2009-08-13T14:17:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-28T16:47:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-24T17:17:00.000-07:00

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.....

2009-07-23T17:01:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-07-22T22:01:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-20T17:28:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-14T20:30:00.001-07:00

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

2009-07-09T11:47:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-01T16:02:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-23T13:27:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-13T23:36:00.001-07:00

"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

2009-06-12T15:45:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-08T14:54:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-05-25T19:26:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-05-19T16:41:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-10T19:55:00.000-07:00

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.....

2009-05-04T11:46:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-23T22:14:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-17T15:05:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-12T20:47:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-04-04T13:19:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-04-01T11:24:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-30T21:36:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-03-28T20:27:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-03-18T14:55:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-14T22:46:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-03-13T13:41:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-11T15:26:00.000-07:00

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

2009-02-25T15:08:00.000-08:00

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?!

2009-02-19T13:36:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-02-13T14:30:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-02-05T17:40:00.000-08:00

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?

2009-01-29T21:13:00.000-08:00

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?

When America becomes Mine

2009-01-19T14:20:00.000-08:00

I noticed a number of times when I have been granted ownership of the vast landmass of America, including its culture, population, interests and quirks.

I find any objective questioning and/or reasoning can grant me ownership.

All I have to do is hang on to my mother's hand and question why on earth she is preparing Payasam for the n-th time, and she would say her voice dripping with incredulity - "In YOUR America, you may do it differently, but we make payasam when the son-in-law visits. "

"Yes....but this is technically part of the same visit, we just went out yesterday! Besides, do remember that I am very much an Indian citizen. Should I show you my passport?"

"I cannot serve food without sweets when the sons-in-law are here!" she would voice in a tone of finality, and go about gathering the ingredients anyway.

"There's another thing! Why do you have to serve? People can perfectly serve themselves!" I say to no one in particular. But since I now own all of America, why should I worry about who serves anybody else food?

When I am not visiting India, I can still feel rich anytime! All I have to do is call home. 70% of the time, It would be the occasion of some festival. We don't begrudge any of the 3500 Gods/Goddesses their birthdays, or anniversaries or the general tendency to want to keep awake through the night. There is of course a special sweet dish to mark every occasion, and all I have to do is ask the reason for that particular savoury on "X Jayanthi" or "Y Krittikai" and immediately America becomes mine!

In MY America, I don't have to do anything - except get to work early in the morning, slog through the day and jog back home for a back-to-back session with classes and children and the dishwashing and the cleaning and the cooking.

The Chilli Effect

2009-01-09T14:43:00.000-08:00

Green chillies always bear the brunt of a sore person's temper at the food table and rightfully so in my opinion. There are certain cooks and cook's assistants who cut all the vegetables and the chillies in exactly the same dimensions. While I like to see vegetables cut a certain way, there are certain types, especially chillies that I like to see stick out! It is also for this reason, that I don't take endearingly to the chilli hidden in the omelet or the oothappam. That to me is guerilla warfare.

When I am having lunch, you can visualize a person who stuffs food in the opening where usually the mouth resides. One day if my nose were to shift downwards, I would be in a sorry state indeed. I gape at the computer screen, and immerse myself in the mundane-surfing routine that my lunch time allows me to do.

So, you can safely assume that I am not on a chilli-weeding routine while tackling my lunch. I might catch a peek of the dangerous thing if I were expecting it, but the hiding in batter/egg variety freaks me out. One minute, I am stuffing the faithful mouth, and the next I am shooting up from my seat with the green from the chilli and the red from the taste coursing through my veins and bursting forth in pink spurts on my face. My nose inexplicably starts watering and so does my mouth. When the nose and mouth do that, the eye feels the compelling need to keep them company and before you know it, you have liquid leaking from all the open pores in the face. I feel my ears turn beetroot, my tongue refusing to quiet down, my hand reaches for the tissue - one for the eyes and another for the nose, because obviously once can't do for both.

I once read somewhere that drinking hot water quietens your tongue quickly. Nope - now you have the hot water and the burning to deal with! Sugar doesn't help either. And no, I don't think honey with warm water would help. What would? Time perhaps.

A Condensed Version Please!

2008-12-31T14:29:00.000-08:00

I would hereby like to thank James Band and the Nadaswaram party for the sore throat they have gifted me with - One that reminds me of the thumping music at the wedding every waking moment. Any attempts at 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' sound like 'Bray Bray Black ..' almost a month after the proceedings.

The wedding hall was filled with people - small talk filled the halls, and James Band and the nadaswaram were playing at full pitch whenever they got the opportunity to perform. People had to shout to make themselves heard to the person sitting right next to them. One would have thought that the effort would have kept people quiet. But it takes sterner stuff to get South Indians to keep quiet. As the sound of the talk increased, the nadaswaram crew made the band sound louder. Apparently, the duty of the band was to drown out the cacophony or any unceremonious sound.

Fact: The band itself may be construed for cacophony was evidently not thought about when the tradition was "made".

I have already mentioned about how the south indian wedding is high on the ritual factor - read, boring. Essentially, the average guest is left with the option of staring open mouthed at the wedding proceedings in Sanskrit, while the sastrigal & groom pound at the rituals. The groom mostly looks ready to flee given the slightest chance, while the priest is holding him back with an almost sadistic pleasure and gloats over the power he exercises over the couple.
It goes like this:

Om . blah blah blah blah blah blah-yae namaha
Om . blah blah blah blah blah blah-yae namaha
*Pour ghee into fire*
Om . blah blah blah blah blah blah-yae namaha
Om . blah blah blah blah blah blah-yae namaha
*Wash your fingers*
Om . blah blah blah blah blah blah-yae namaha
Om . blah blah blah blah blah blah-yae namaha
*Pour ghee into fire*
For 6 hours.
Not to mention the fierce fire we have going, in front of which the bride and groom sit. No fans are allowed for obvious reasons near the fire. Probably, that is the reason the groom sits with his chest bared and his transparent dhoti. But it beats me why the bride is seated near the same fire with the stuffiest of silks. These traditions had no mean point I tell you - either it was a bare-all or a wrap-all!

Malai Maatral
Description:The groom and bride, in those early days, were barely teenagers when they got married. The couple were carried by the maternal uncles to exchange garlands at one point. This was a chance for people who the maternal uncles were and the children probably enjoyed the break by throwing garlands at each other perched on their uncles shoulders.
Fact: This should probably be done away with, considering the couple is now in the prime of their youth, with glowing muscles and a couple of hours each day at the gym/dining table as the case may be, and the uncles are complaining more often about arthritis and moaning muscles themselves!

Kannoonjal
Description:The laddoo throwing is another part of the proceeedings that could be done away with. The purpose was originally intended to introduce the important lady-folk of the family. With 20 directly-related aunts and 35 indirectly-related aunts and 45 indirectly-direct-related aunts and 55 directly-indirect-related aunts, it was important to show who was who.
Fact: Now, this is no more than a laddoo squishing, bad bowling experience, not to mention the mess created by stamping one of the infernal things and spreading the joy!

Bullock-cart symbolism:
Sometime in the 6 hours on stage, one encounters a point when something like a stick is placed over the groom's head and the bride's head. What this symbolizes is this: just like a bullock cart can only be pulled when both the animals contribute equally, so too is marriage. Both the groom and the bride must shoulder their reponsibilities to carry on a smooth life.

The point being this: There are so many rituals, and non-stop chanting, that the symbolic ones, or the ones that bear meaning are either missed or glossed over. The "getti melam" could be used to identify the significant ones, if they didn't keep asking for a getti melam every 2 minutes.

Kattu Saadam:
Those days, restaurants were rare and almost non-existent between villages, and carrying food for the journey was important.
Fact: No offense to the food really - but this tradition is an absolute must to be done away with. Who wants to eat dried up idlis when you can stop at Saravana Bhavan for a steaming meal instead?! Why can't we wrap up the proceedings the previous day and get back to our lives?
Interesting aside:
We stopped for eating at a restaurant (since we needed to drink coffee and use the restrooms anyway!), and the younger generation was absolutely thrilled to find that in the melee of leaving, we had left the idlis & the rice behind - yippee! The fathers were privately happy too, but refrained from saying anything inappropriate, lest the mothers construed it as an offense to their own cooking! The looks thrown by the mothers to the children was clearly not one to mess with!

"What is wrong with idlis?" they demanded.
We chuckled saying - "Nothing, just glad they aren't here!"

We tucked into naan, paneer curry and 8 different types of Dosas at a suave restaurant, and left quite happily!

After so many weddings, there wasn't one person who was able to cogently explain the symbolism and meaning behind all the rituals. The ones who did attempt invariably love their voices too much and refuse to stop explaining! Soon, one's curiosity to understand the proceedings is fast overtaken by an urge to strangle the person "explaining"! Finally, my mother told me to look it up on the Internet - which I did, and found a whole world of satirical writings on the South Indian Wedding! (But this link gave a brief explanation) http://www.sawnet.org/weddings/tamil_vedic.html

Since, each tradition has morphed into a status symbol, the unnecessary expenditure has increased manifold. If we were to tabulate the necessary vs unnecessary expenditure, the unnecessary far outweighs the necessary! 3 day weddings are the norm - even though it is not a village where the families use this as a chance to make merry for a week!

By the way, what do we say to the colleague who asked: "So, you guys exchange vows is it?!"

Happy New Year!

Gods, Animals and the Wedding

2008-12-15T22:40:00.000-08:00

Chidambaram was cut off from the rains. The headlines for all of the previous week said nothing other than terrorist scares in airports and roads being washed off in the heavy rains. The venue of my brother's wedding, Chidambaram, was marooned people said. It turns out that the roads leading to Chidambaram were little more than mud roads that were coated with tar. The rains washed the tar with them, and tiny bridges had disintegrated.

We found out around 2-3 days before the wedding that Chidambaram was accessible after all. Yet, the source of my brother's apprehension had nothing to do with washed away roads, or the wedding itself.

He had been recently informed that his portraits were to be mounted in all prominent locations in Chidambaram. "WHAT? WHY?" my brother had demanded rather alarmingly, but he was brushed aside. This was to be grand wedding, and no embarrassment was to be spared! There were posters and billboards to spread his fame - replete with his degree, job title and office name. I can't quite explain how much fun we had at his expense on this account.

He tried everything from growing a moustache in the last minute to pleading with his fiancee to take the billboards down. The moustache achieved little apart from making his nieces assume it was a fake moustache and making him look like a badger with cat's whiskers.
And so, he was forced to shave and we arrived in Chidambaram bearing with us the man most wanted in the town by the looks of it. The billboards welcomed us all the way from the railway station. We helpfully pointed to the man in question everytime we stopped to ask somebody for directions while the groom squirmed in his pants!

The billboards were a little ghastly considering our family has never been anywhere close to fame. We revelled in the mundane and kept newspaper clippings in files accessible in the drawing room cabinets amidst a flurry of other papers, of the times when our names did appear in print. The less fortunate who blundered into the territory of how well the children of the house had done were treated to the frayed clippings along with a guided tour of the medals hanging in the showcase. But that was the extent of fame we had achieved. To see larger-than-life billboards with my brother's photograph on it was a bit overwhelming. One thing I hadn't noticed in earlier photographs was that the bride looked positively fat. Not that there was anything with being fat, just that I had had quite a hard time imagining her with the photographs and the various descriptions I'd received from everybody else - I was the only one in the family who had not seen her, and I was really eager to see her. When I did see her, there seemed a reel-real life disconnect on multiple levels. The photographs I had seen earlier looked nothing like the posters and the posters looked nothing like the bride in person.

I just had to reconcile the matter before I could immerse myself in the wedding. I mounted a mini investigation into the matter pronto. It turns out that the photographers of Chidambaram were quite bright. They had with them the latest tools of digital imaging and were waiting for an opportunity to showcase their talents. A perfect opportunity presented itself with the wedding posters. My sister-in-law had given a photograph in a salwar kameez. The photographer decided that the subject should have been dressed in a saree. Instead of taking the simplest route, namely asking for a photograph in saree, he morphed the image - he transplanted the face over the image of a person dressed in a saree. The saree clad woman's image he had taken was on the larger side and resulting image was what had greeted me
in the streets of Chidambaram - and that my folks is the advantage of having folks with digital imaging tools in a town like Chidambaram.

Now that the photograph mystery had been laid to rest, I devoted myself to the remaining aspects of the event management. One thing that I really liked was that there was a poster at the local bus station manned with an information desk - all our relatives could find directions to the wedding venue as soon as they descended from their buses. An elephant was to garland the groom on his arrival. I was half expecting a band - except that the only available band in town apparently refused to be up in the wee hours of the morning. The groom's nieces & nephew spent the entire 11 hour journey from our hometown to Chidambaram fantasizing about the elephant and the horse-drawn buggy that was to be used for the procession. The nieces confused the proceedings for a circus in their fertile minds, because
they asked if a clown would be available on the premises. I assured them there would - and what's more, the clown would be their favourite Uncle. My brother wasn't happy!

On arrival, they felt letdown when they were informed that it usually takes a week to bring an elephant from one of the nearby temples and because of the rains, this part of the proceedings had to be dropped.

Let me be frank - South Indian weddings are higher on the ritual factor than the fun factor. In fact, the grumpier elders frowned on any sort of merry-making. There was a solemn ceremony at a nearby temple. Every available God was petitioned to bless the couple in long-winding sanskrit phrases and at the end of the whole event in the small temple, everyone looked ready to cry. We were determined however to lighten up the mood as much as possible. The moment the horse-drawn buggy was available, we went crazy at my brother's expense. To date, I have never seen a person look so embarrassed. He ascended the chariot looking extremely uncomfortable and tugged at his nieces and nephew for comfort. There was a band playing music. The music was even discernible once you cut out the noise. There was a jeep ahead with flashlights helpfully focussed on my brother, as though he needed any more attention in his life at the moment. To make matters worse, the traffic that was easing along were all
peeping through windows to take a good look at the subject. There were fireworks in front, and we were hoping that the firecrackers wouldn't frighten the horses. I voiced my concerns regarding this to my brother on his perch in the chariot, and his embarrassment quickly mingled with an acute sense of foreboding. To add to his misery, the nieces and nephews on the chariot were egging the horses to go faster. It would have made a dashing sight to see my brother galloping along swiftly through the dense streets of Chidambaram, making the cows move aside in a hurry and have the elephant race the horses.

But none of that happened, that would have made things finish too quickly. The horses walked on slowly and the motorised chariot at the back was set to move at the slowest speed possible.

Because of, or in spite of the band, I had an overwhelming desire to dance. The band had christened themselves James Band and performed aboard a tram. The band sometimes confused melody with volume, and we found ourselves yelling over all the din to talk to the person right next to you. However, the band did its best to bring about a festive atmosphere. I started to dance with my husband, and discovered something. All people, old and young, the serious and frolicky, the men and women everybody had an urge to dance. The moment my husband and I abandoned all reservations and started jigging on the streets, hordes of relatives joined in. Our reasoning was that, no matter how badly we danced we can't attract more attention to ourselves than the old bird atop the chariot with spotlights focussed on him and half a dozen brats for company! My mother, who was always a stickler for self-control herself swayed the crowds with her dance number and my father felt compelled to join in, once his sweetheart started dancing.

The only saving grace was that the entire camaraderie took place in a town where we were hitherto unknown. The preparations, the wedding atmosphere, the histrionics of the day before the wedding - something we will remember for a long time, and definitely not something we will let my brother forget in a tearing hurry!

The bride and groom were given the night to mull over the proceedings and prepare for the intense wedding ahead.

The maverick conforms!

2008-12-11T10:35:00.000-08:00

I attended my brother's wedding, and had a very good time. I have already been dubbed a black sheep by the rest of the extended family. While numerous maamis pointed out with displeasure that I was not following tradition, my close family was just glad to see that I didn't pack a pair of jeans in my wedding wardrobe, and were absolutely thrilled when I wore some bangles! It is all about setting expectations.

The day I did wear a saree, dozens of people took it upon themselves to impress upon me the graceful look a saree alone can give. One particular aunt declared while pinching my stomach lovingly - "See! How beautiful and graceful a saree is? It is the most decent of attires too!"

Our traditional wedding attire is a 9 yards saree. If ever there was a more confusing manner in which to drape oneself with 9 yards of stuffy silk, please let me know. I would like to see it. My sister and I wore the whole 9 yards for the wedding. Our cries that the girl is the only one who should be in a wedding attire were obviously ill-founded because we found the gasp emanating while voicing such a sentiment the loudest of all. This gasp knew no economic nor educational barriers. So we relented. We dressed like road rollers and steamed about the wedding hall. It took us all of twenty minutes to traverse twenty feet because after every 3-4 steps, some lady would take it upon herself to "rectify" the saree. They would tug at the pletes near the legs, pull near the hip and clasp the saree near the shoulder. Within minutes of the proceedings, my sister's saree had reached such a sorry state of affairs, that the only option open to her was to whisk my eldest aunt who was an expert at 9-yard-saree-tying to redo the effort.

Now for a bit of family background - my sister is the elder one between us. So, she gets to do the honours whenever a sister of the groom was called for. Since the 9 yard textile mill ream draped around her showed every indication of rolling itself back into a ream again in public, she went to the dressing room with my aunt. My brother, meanwhile, was looking quite harrassed during the proceedings and silently sent pleas for some company on the stage. I went up to the stage partly to give him company, and partly to save my own saree from the self certified 9-yard-saree-rectifiers. I must have looked quite happy chatting on the stage. Everytime I scanned the crowd from the pedestal, folks would mouth - "Where is your sister?" I would mouth something undecipherable and cock my head towards the dressing room. Immediately, they would shoot off like a bunch of rabbits. This got a bit boring after the 102nd time, and I decided to go the dressing room myself till my sister actually finished dressing.

I went in to find my great aunt looking very harrassed and upset. She was pushing past 90, and bustling around tying a 9-yard saree must have been an effort by itself. My sister and aunt immediately accosted me, and asked me how come the main event of the wedding was reached soo soon. The sister of the groom was mainly required for the 2 minute event when the groom ties the "thali" around the bride. The groom ties one knot, and the sister of the groom ties the remaining two. This event was usually preceded by an hour and a half of mantras and followed by another 2 hours. I explained to them that there were nowhere close to the thali event and my aunt could take her time and relax. Now remember, I mentioned all those people scuttling off like rabbits? All these people had taken it upon themselves to summon the sister of the groom. "Sister of the groom wanted!" they would announce loudly, and peek in to make sure things were going along smoothly. This had made my 90+ aunt extremely nervous and she was quite stressed that the wedding was being stalled because of the saree!

Finally, after half the folks had seen my sister standing like a passenger taken aside for checking at an airport terminal, with a 90 year old lady running around her, she was dressed and we ascended the stage together.

My mother glowed with pride - she had achieved the pinnacle of her dreams. Her maverick daughter had conformed! Her son's wedding was a success.

"How does one use the restroom in this?" I asked.

Sona-Mina-Tina

2008-11-20T13:50:00.000-08:00

My grandmother was a vivacious character for her time and age. The mother of nine children, each with their own character like the Navagraha gods - it must have been a humongous task holding the family together. Add to the mix, my grand-father, and you have a gripping sitcom that could run for decades.

My grand-parents lived in the village with their brood. It fell on my grand-mother's shoulders to procure provisions, feed the family, feed anybody who comes begging and feed the constant barrage of visitors (my grandfather was known for his generosity, and many a mendicant has eaten my grandma's cooking). Monthly once, she and her friends would undertake the journey to the city and buy provisions for the month ahead. Inventory management and reorder levels were second nature to these maami's.

Meenakshi Maami, Visalam Maami (my grandmother) and some other maami. (My father regales these stories to us, and I forgot the name of the third maami.) It can't be too difficult to guess - we South Indians like to think complexity stems from length and scoff at variety and modernity. So, you can pick Lakshmi maami or Jayam maami - both are equally probable. Let's pick Jayam Maami for the purpose of this story.

These maamis had all the zest and fervour that three hip girls in any bar of today would display. But, they carefully concealed it behind 9 yards of saree each. I can readily imagine the horror of equating my paati to a hip girl in a bar - but, I mean it in a very positive way.

Which other mother of nine would hurriedly finish her monthly purchases in a blurry hour or so, and go charging towards the Sona-Mina-Tina theatre complex for a back-to-back 3 movie marathon movie-watching adventure?! (Note: No movie was considered worth the money if it was shorter than 3 hours and 15 minutes!)
"Ayyo, Visalam, puli vaanganum" (We must buy tamarind)

"Parava illai Jayam - ennutta irukku, naan tharaen. Padam aarambichuduvan" (Oh come on Jayam, I'll give you some, the movie is going to start!)

Once in the theatre, they would watch a movie per theatre. An MGR movie in Sona followed by a Gemini movie in Mina and a Jaishankar movie in Tina.

The trio would then trump home with all the purchases where the kids would be waiting with their hearts a-flutter! You see, they would get to hear the stories from the three adventurous dames, who escaped into their fantasy world for all of a day! After lunch, the kids from Meenakshi Maami, Visalam Maami & Jayam Maami would gather around their mothers. I would like to imagine a setting like a village school sans desks and chairs. All the children looking up eagerly to hear the story.

Apparently, my grand-mother's brood being the largest, she got the honour of primary narrative lead. In loose translation, it would go like this:
Visalam: blah..blah..MGR came and he was just rescuing Saroja Devi, when that nasty fellow came!

Meenakshi: Oh .. that fellow! One day, I would like to capture him - what a rowdy element he is!

*The kids knew the choice adjectives must all refer to the most preferred villain of Tamil Cinema at the time - M.N.Nambiar*

Visalam: And then, MGR ran with his sword just before that horrible fellow touched Saroja Devi and started fighting him. He pushed him to the floor and ...

Jayam: Ayyo Visalam - he runs with the sword in the Gemini movie with K.R.Vijaya tied to the tree illayo? In this one, they fight over the upturned drums right?

Visalam, after a moment's contemplation, may or may not agree with Jayam maami's point, and proceed. Nambiar must have been the villain in all the three movies, and it must have been rather hard remembering the one in which he fought fist-to-fist, and the one where he put up a valiant sword-fight.

The resulting story essentially had all three movies tied haphazardly with various elements of drama and villainy suffused to form a murky liquid! Any director would have killed for the script - an entirely new movie would have arisen from the effort.

Yet, it was M.N.Nambiar who tied all these narrations together. The quintessential villain in over 1000 Tamil movies - he must have had a thousand curses directed at him every time he stepped onto the screen. It was hard imagining this man, who was the object of every maami's source of apprehension in those movies, was the pious Aiyappa devotee that all the Maami's approved off in real life.

A tribute to M.N.Nambiar - Tamilians would hardly have savoured the movie experience the same way without this personality!

The Tale of Three Fabrics

2008-11-11T10:36:00.000-08:00

** To be read in the context of Indian reverence of the Silk (Pattu) **

Cotton looked decidedly dull in his lumpy lack-lustre attire. He yearned for his moments of fame. In one of Cotton's more thwarted moments, he had defined fame as being photo-worthy at South Indian weddings for himself.

Cotton had learned from the moment he had sprouted that his life was to be plain. Cotton tried to take on vibrant colours and shocking patterns while weaving. Time passed- things changed and fashion trends favoured Cotton - cotton was fashionable! However, the more people wanted to wear Cotton in the hot plains of India, the more Cotton's obsession grew - he wanted to be accepted as wedding attire in South Indian Tamilian weddings.

Cotton cursed Silk and swore at it, to no avail.

He tried various angles of argument:

"I come from crop"

"I look brilliant"

"I make you as comfortable as it is possible to be when you are sitting in front of a huge fire in the 90 degree heat!" he wailed. But, he was dragged out - left to lament and comfort himself in the 90 degree heat.

Wool, meanwhile was definitely more revered in the colder regions, but could not match up to Silk either. "Very useful", everybody conceded, even the freshly fleeced sheep shiveringly acknowledged that wool was a fine material. T'was the age of the dawning cinema - Tinsel town had started shooting all the garish songs in the colder reaches of the mountainside. Suddenly, film crews floated to the coldest regions to shoot for songs featuring men and women dancing around trees. Wool looked on with yearning - his moment was fame was just there, he thought. The Bollywood film stars flocked to the cold wrapped in the best woollen with a hot cuppa tea in their hands. Every single strand in the sweaters of Hema Malini and Sharmila Tagore preened themselves when the camera cried - "One two & three!".

What should happen?! Oh the cruelty - the disdain of being discarded just before prancing in front of the camera in silk was too much for the woollen to bear.

"I am not going to keep you warm when you come running back and put me on again", thought the sweaters grumpily. A representation is what is needed wool decided. The Wool Positive Publicity Committee was set up and spent years trying to get people to see the sense behind seeing film stars dancing in front of mounds of snow with nothing but a thin silk saree. Things changed - soon, actresses did start appearing with warmer clothes, but they cut straight through wool, and went to trendy leather jackets.

And so, you can still hear wool whimpering about unfair treatment when you pass by. Wool's hidden desire was to attain fame through the camera. But its wishes were sadly ignored. Another grumpy fabric.

Silk meanwhile apparently had everything going for him. He had roads built for his comfort and transport. Royalty flocked to him. Not a single function - big or small went by without silk it seemed. Yet, silk was the unhappiest of all. All he yearned for, ever, was to be left alone.
There were those who had few silk clothes and brandished them for every function. The old silks would lie wanting nothing more to be left alone - right next to the crisp enthusiastic cotton or the woollen waiting for a glimpse of the outer world. But no, the humans would unfailingly parade the same silks around everytime. It mattered not that every memory of themselves would be in one of the same silks - it was silk and that was all. One could practically see the silk fibre yawning in the photographs.

So, it was that Silk remained unhappy too.

One day, the three unhappy fabrics opened up and talked in the almirah - a mix may change the mindset they said.

And that is the story behind the Cotton Silks & Cotton wool and the Silk wools! Every fabric had a little bit of their urge satisfied. People ventured to appear in Photographs with fabric other than silk for once.

John McCain won!

2008-11-06T11:35:00.000-08:00

It was a well fought race - both players had positives and negatives that were objectively weighed by the voter turn-out and the decision was clear. In the hot presidential election between John McCain Vs Obama, John Mc Cain won!

I don't know what the headlines are telling you these days - but this is the verdict.

Pink post-it notes belonged to Obama and yellow post-it notes belonged to McCain. The electoral base were the 3-4 year olds in my daughter's classroom (where else?!) They were being taught the process of voting and it served as an exercise in counting too. I asked my daughter who she voted for - she launched into a recap of the decisions behind her friends' choice of colours. They had evidently not taught them about ballot secrecy!

My daughter's friend chose pink because she was wearing a pink jacket. Most of the boys shied away from pink because they thought it was a girl's colour (Poor Obama - he might have been prepared to take on the tax laws and the health care system, but he didn't know that was coming!)

Finally, they all got to count and decide the winner. Fourteen had chosen yellow and ten had chosen pink. So, it was decided that John Mc Cain won the presidential race.

Looking forward to a good tenure under Obama's leadership,

Yours truly.

A tribute to Michael Crichton

2008-11-06T11:33:00.000-08:00

I feel saddened by the death of Michael Crichton. Is it the selfish thought that I would not see another well-researched book intertwined with his fine imagination again? (well, after the one scheduled for release in May 09). It may well be the case.

Nevertheless, here is my tribute to a fertile mind - thank you for all those hours you transported me to another world - a high-paced, adventure filled world in which I would never belong , but one to which I can escape in the confines of my mind.

Happy Diwali

2008-10-27T16:16:00.000-07:00

Diwali is a time to be happy with friends and family. I am delighted to say that I had a fantastic Diwali. We spent the week-end in the refreshing company of friends who have come to mean family, and children whose innocence and love is like having a pick-me-up tonic (when the day starts at least!).

I am glad to inform my readers that I did not make any sweets or for that matter any savoury. In fact, we had a lovely lunch with rasam and koottu (And no - no payasam either). It is not that I do not like sweets or "karam" - I like them. I just cannot see the rationale behind sweating for days on end standing in front of the stove, with aching legs to boot.

So far, everybody without an exception has wished me a Happy Diwali, and asked me what I made. The pressure to "make" something for Diwali is beginning to show on my tired brow. I did what my family likes best on Diwali - I had our friends over, and we had a fantastic dinner. We had my daughter's friends over and enjoyed the company of the kids, dancing and playing with them. It just did not involve sweets.

But I learnt an important lesson this Diwali - "I did not make any sweets at home" is not a satisfactory answer. After every call, I hung up with the implied disappointment voiced over my lack of "motherliness/domesticity" for not producing a sweet factory. It is the right thing to do, even if one particularly does not enjoy it. It is the right thing to do even if it means undoing your loved ones efforts at the gym over the past few weeks.

I am glad to say this though: I made us all some memories that would bring a smile any day.
Here is wishing you all a very Happy Diwali!

Economic Upheavals

2008-10-22T12:59:00.000-07:00

The economic climate has been bad. Inflation is up and things are not looking good on the sensex fronts. When such trends play out for longer intervals in time, everybody feels the pressure.

Droning on about Economic ratios and sensex points means nothing to drive the point home. We (my sister and I) have explained the economic upheaval using the effects it has had on the life of my 12 year old nephew living in Dubai. Granted, he is not one of the impoverished, malnourished lads - but he has problems too.

Case 1 :Canteen money for breakfast

Once in a while, when he is a good boy and the moon rises in the morning, he gets 'canteen money'. This means he gets Dhs 5 to buy his breakfast from his school canteen instead of home food. He is usually very excited on these days. Till last year, he said, this would give him

2 mini pizzas - Dhs 2 @ 1 each

1 cutlet - Dhs 1

I juice- Dhs 1

Savings - Dhs 1

Then the juice became Dhs 1.50 , the cutlet became Dhs 1.50 and the savings were gone. He was upset but he could live with that. Recently, when he got the fiver, he started to wail ."Oh please increase my allowance. I can't eat with Dhs 5. The mini pizzas are Dhs 1.50 each and the school has reduced the cheese on it." Apparently, he has to either let go of the juice or the cutlet! He had Physical Education in the morning-so he would be "hungry and thirsty"!

Such opportunities present themselves merely to satisfy the sermonic yearnings every parent harbours. The parent can talk on about their pasts, and how handling money is a privilege that one must thank the Almighty for. Reminiscing is also allowed - one could talk about the number of "Priya" sweets a 10 paise fetched earlier, and talk fondly of the coin, now missing from circulation.

Once the preaching/pretending-to-listen ceremony was wrapped up with, a decision was reached to increase his canteen money to a princely sum of Dhs 7.

Case 2 : Birthday presents

Said nephew wanted to buy his best friend a birthday present - a Parker Pen. He window shopped, shortlisted the pen , noted the price- Dhs 20. That is 2 months worth of pocket money. So he saved up for 2 months , put his Dhs 20 in the wallet and asked to be escorted to the shop. And voila, the pen was now Dhs 24!! The poor guy was flabbergasted and said 'Amma - I can't buy the pen. The price went up and his birthday is next week. What to do? ".

Which God grants two admirable opportunities in a week to a parent?! The sermon was modified, delivered and wrapped up with the ceremonial extraction of promises for ongoing good behaviour.

He was given Dhs 4 for the pen.

Line Leaders & Gate Holders

2008-10-17T21:34:00.000-07:00

We had a parent teacher conference this morning. I learnt a bit more about their day than the information I pieced together based on her stories.

Reading between the lines, the class spends half their time moving between various places in the campus. The most often visited spot being the restroom. Apparently, they form a line to go from the class to the restroom and back. There are restroom breaks before and after the following activities:
1) Play time (twice a day)
2) Nap time (once a day)
3) Snack time (twice a day)

I try not to work out the number of minutes wasted in getting all brats lined up to go over the entire exercise, but cannot help admiring the teachers.

Now, all this talk about restrooms and forming lines leads somewhere - like as I would to bore you with the bowel movements of 3-4 year olds, the line-forming itself has an interesting story that I hear everyday.

Apparently, there are two coveted positions within the class:
1) Line Leader
2) Gate Holder

Line Leaders:
The Line Leader is assigned the task of standing in front of the line, and gets to "lead" the children to the restroom or playground. The days my daughter is conferred the honour is an important day in her life, and she regales her experiences with zest. I found out that the line leader is the first to follow the teachers wherever they go. The line leaders are decided on round robin policy.

Gate Holders:
There is a gate separating the playground and the remaining classrooms. The gate holder is the person entrusted with standing with their backs against the open gate to make sure the gate does not swing on anybody else. This post too is determined using the round robin policy.

I like the way these positions make children feel valued and treat their responsibility earnestly. Soon, she would grow up, and there would be competition for any sort of leadership position. Before that happens, I want to cherish this sweet wisdom of round-robin policies to give everyone a chance to lead.

Security & Me

2008-10-03T10:26:00.000-07:00

I appreciate security. I appreciate the notion that I can go about my business dealings in a secure, risk-free manner.

Nobody can access my Pre-tax savings. I have been accumulating reserves paycheck to paycheck. I sit like a mother hen and imagine it grow. Considering imagination is the only course of action open to me now, it is a pretty good occupation to indulge in. Nobody can access my Pre-tax savings, not even myself.

I have been slacking with reimbursements and claims. As I groggily started my day, I decided to attack all of the 'Pending' items on my to-do list. Transit claims, expense claims - the works.
I enter the site with determination. The site believes in security and so do I. It prompts me for a user id and password. Determination slowly turns to trepidation: This is where the trouble usually begins - each one asks for a different userid/password combination. I try to keep the passwords along the same lines, since there are atleast 8 different systems in the company I work in, dealing with different aspects of my life. The problem comes when each system requires me to change my passwords at varied intervals.

System 1 determines changing passwords once every 3 months is good enough, while system 3 wants it to be on a monthly basis. System 2, on the other hand, does not really care whether I change my password or not, as long as it is 32 characters long and has atleast 2 numerals irregularly spaced every 13 characters, and has atleast one special character to boot along with a rather simple requirement that the letters used cannot all be lower-case or upper-case. And it really only asks that you don't start the password with a capital letter.

I finally hit upon something - I appeased all the password Gods and dutifully complied with all the rules. I saved the passwords cryptically in my drafts folder. And for somebody to get to my drafts, they had to plunge into the very depths of my brain, and and use advanced data mining techniques for connections and links to mundane details in my life, before they could find the password.

I had the system under control. Till it was determined that keeping one's email for too long is risky business too, and implemented a 30 day rolling deletion policy on email. One fine day, my drafts which contained the goldmine of information was deleted, without a trace of retrieval!

So, here I am enjoying a perfect day mailing random system administrators about my imperfect memory, and requesting system resets. They comply and remind me: I must only remember not to use any of the last 8 passwords I have ever used on the site. Given that I don't remember any of the passwords, is there a way to tell me which are the 8 I previously used, I ask innocently.

The Birthday Chart

2008-09-25T12:03:00.000-07:00

The year 2001: I stood in the tiny telephone booth - I felt like a performing musician. I had one hand acting like a earplug to zone out the background noise. Only it wasn't the orchestra I was blocking out, it was the street noise. I must also mention that my "audience" comprised of one bored tea delivery boy waiting for the telephone booth owner to noisily slurp the last few drops of the steaming tea. I was palpably excited about making an overseas call to my fiance to wish him a Happy Birthday. I may have been a "very successful software engineer" in my parents eyes, but I was still a dutiful daughter to parents who shouted into the phone. I suppose in their minds, a louder tone somehow speeded up the conversation.

The call connected, and my heart raced, just a trifle slower than the meter. I wished my fiance a Happy Birthday, and asked him eagerly whether he wore the shirt and tie I had picked out for his birthday. I visualized a suavely dressed engineer with a smart creased shirt, and tie in sunny California. He semi-truthfully lied that he did. (He said he didn't wear the tie, but crumpled the shirt enough for it to pass off as less than formal. ) Years later, I found out that the shirt I had lovingly picked out for him was in a colour he did not particularly admire, and I also found out that the only time he will sport a tie is at our wedding! My loving-husband-gift-giving story had started off with a bang.

Year 2002: I did not yet have a car of my own. So, I hitch-hiked with my cousin and furtively bought a gift and kept it hidden for several weeks before springing it to him. I watched the gift gather dust on the leftmost corner of our closet well above the average human-bring's reach. I hadn't yet wisened up to "returning" something meant as a gift. But Time will take care of that.

Year 2003: This time, I decided to use my father's most trite advice. (The way to a man's heart is through his stomach.) Just a gift wouldn't do, a hand-made cake is what is needed I decided. So, I made a cake, and called our close friends and cut the cake. I was smart this time, and got him to return the gift I bought.

Year 2004: I managed to successfully glean any attention away from his birthday by being wholly pregnant and having my baby shower/seemandham etc the next day. He will be cutting a cake along with me for the baby shower wouldn't he?

Year 2005: By now, nobody has any expectations to either impress each other with gifts or home-made cakes or store bought cakes for that matter.

Year 2006: Health conscious was the word. No sweets we decided, and we had the birthday cake replaced with a brownie. (My daughter really wanted to eat brownies)

Year 2007: Here is a post linking his 'birthday celebration'. In short, we did everything but celebrate HIS birthday and landed up spending the afternoon with my daughter's classroom having decided to celebrate her birthday in class instead. Ah...sweet practicality! AS for the gift, it another story!

Year 2008: We mutually agreed that I would take him along and buy him something he likes. Mr. Practicality came swinging by, and while I took my little one to a class, he went and bought something on his own around the time of his birthday. I suppose the Gajjar Halwa from last week-end doesn't really count.

I don't like the idea of this post. If I were to graph it out, I'd probably be snorting in his general direction somewhere down the line. Ah well.... Hubby, you will always know the sounds emanate with love!

Happy Birthday Dear Husband!

I'd love an encore

2008-09-15T15:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we attended a Tamil Light Music concert by S.P.Balasubramanian and his troupe. Lead singers were SPB, Chitra, Sailaja and an emerging talent, Srikrishnan. I had multiple sound tracks going on within the auditorium. My daughter said she too knows how to sing, and sang - "I am a Kangaroo, and I don't live in the zoo..." to a backdrop of K.S.Chitra's national award winning rendition of "Paadariyen, Padippariyean". Luckily, I got my daughter's musical genius to stop manifesting itself too much. She stopped singing early enough to avoid an unceremonious armed bodyguard escort out of the auditorium of her disgraced parents cheered on by piqued fans. I hushed her into silence by promising her a complete concert dedicated to no musician but herself the moment we get home!

Chitra stole the show, in my opinion with her genius. Her unassuming self was so evident, and yet she swayed the whole audience with every single one of her performances. At some pitches, I felt my ears vibrating with joy, and she smiled through them all - she did not even seem to be straining herself. There was one person who loved her career - one could see it in her passion to sing. Her "Ovoru pookalumae solgiradhae" song which won her another national award, evokes an array of emotions in me every time, and this time too, I was left yearning for an encore of the number.

A new talent emerging in the South, Srikrishnan also performed last night. If ever there was an award for an image/voice disconnect, I would recommend Srikrishnan. Somewhere in the baggy suit that walked onto the stage was a nervous thin lad. He kept falling at people's feet asking for their blessings, and bending over forwards in deep bows. I sometimes felt a suspension thread from the ceiling was needed to pull him backwards just to remind him of the equilibrium involved in standing upright. And then, he sang.

He had a fantastic voice, and delivered difficult songs with great ease. His Tamil diction was pardonable, even likeable because of his voice. The only song where I could not bear it was "Kaalangalil aval vasantham".

When Chitra and Srikrishnan sang a medley starting off with Chitra calling for "Lord Krishna", her musical cries reached an all-time high and the auditorium watched awed. Krishna, Krishna Krishna - she called with devotion and piety dripping from her voice. It was sort of ironical to watch the puny Srikrishnan standing trembling beside her.

SPB as usual stunned the audience with his persona, his voice, his humour and his involvement of the crowd. His sister performed too, and though my friends did not seem to like her, I thought she was quite good too.

My husband likened it the concert to a good cup of coffee - you are left thirsting for just a little bit more, and the taste lingers on as you yearn. Though I am not much of a coffee lover myself, I agreed.

My Leave Saga

2008-09-10T16:19:00.000-07:00

The context : I need to take time off for my brother's wedding.

Not that I am jealous of others who have a lot of leave at their disposal (specifically my siblings who both seem to have picked countries where leave is abundant!), but here is my leave saga. Patience is a virtue. Though people who have been witness to my outbursts of anger scarcely believe this when I say it, patience is a skill I have acquired, and use it rather sparingly. I lay waiting like the Ibex hunters in the snowy Himalayan ranges. Apparently, in the snowy stretches of the Himalayas, over 18000 feet above sea level, the sure footed Ibex graze. Slaying an Ibex requires more patience than skill. It was this strategy I used. One wrong foot, and my entire wedding presence could be in jeopardy.

You see, for the past week, my mind has been in a restless uproar. How do I get leave to attend this wedding? Even if, for a moment, we don't delve into the depressing depths of leave disparities between the developed nations of the world, I was walking tight rope here. I had tight deliverables and low leave balance.

I also think this a right spot to cite statistics regarding leave, just to make you people realise how tough life is(Source: a friend's blog whose source is an article she read in Via magazine)
Japanese have an average of 17.5 days per year. The French who gave us the word 'Leisure' - get 36 days and take 94 percent of them. In England one gets 24 days vacation time. Dubai gets 30 days with a paid ticket to their exotic destinations, and food coupons to dine in, and resort packages to stay in while on vacation. (Okay, I exaggerate, but I am allowed to do that!) US get 10-15 days off, and what's more, on average people only take 11 days of that.

So I am justifiably piqued (in my opinion of course!) I digress. Let me get back to the saga of my leave. Like a child promised a candy for good behaviour, I did my best with a smiling face, and my entire being worked tirelessly towards the service of the organization. I ignored slights, and brushed off the hard times I had to endure. I delivered projects ahead of time, I waited for my boss to be in a good mood before springing the request on him. I was rewarded - aah, sweet manna of heaven! I got oral approval for leave. When I commence the New Year, it would be to a new beginning with zero leave balance. (But one does not dwell on the depressing, they dwell on the happy thought that there is a vacation to look forward to!)

And with that, I would like to give the signal to all concerned to go ahead with your plans. May the wedding preparations begin!

Education for Life

2008-09-05T17:05:00.000-07:00

I read an article in the Times comparing the number of school days for children in the USA against the number of school days in other countries such as Korea, Japan, china, India, Australia etc. No surprises there - US ranks amongst the lowest in the world. Now thanks to the fuel escalation problems, a few schools are contemplating the move of reducing the week to have more hours per school day for 4 days, and reduce the totals number of school days from 5 to 4 per week. I am not sure I could stop with just outlining a few problems with this approach, but I'll try not to ramble on...

1) Regardless of the number of hours spent in school, children are still left with one whole day apart from the week-end twiddling their thumbs and thinking of "recreational activities". I have my serious doubts whether the studious teenagers would dedicate their unsupervised time and energy to finishing up their homework or additional research.

Holiday Homework
Every vacation, we left school with the familiar brown coloured sheets detailing our holiday homework. The holidays would start, and the holiday homework would find itself buried in my room and mind. In my mind, it would raise its head every now and then reminding me about the unfinished work as the holidays went slipping by. My intentions were good, but there was just not enough time! I had to pick berries, gather materials for our toy-house construction, cycle all over campus, read Enid Blytons and cook up adventures in my mind to solve. Before you knew it, it was the last week, and I was scrambling to complete my holiday homework. Countries may be different, but I am guessing children universally would dilly-dally till the last moment to do any work. I very much doubt that children would spend Friday toiling over their schoolwork while their parents are at work. My guess is it would still be done only on Sunday night afer giving considerable strain to parental nerves!

2) The parents would have to arrange for care for the children on this day. Companies are not giving us 4 day work weeks, they would still expect employees to be present on Fridays.

3) This point is the most jarring one. In a separate study comparing vacation times among US, Britain, Australia, France and Japan, US ranked the lowest. The number of Paid time off in the USA seems to be close to the lowest in the developed world!

I am uncomfortable with this. I thought Education and schooling was meant to prepare you for life! This model teaches children to expect a lackadaisical 4 day work week, and then when they start working - BAM! We strap them to their jobs and whip without a vacation!

2008-08-28T13:25:00.000-07:00

I found this amusing piece of news today:

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2008/8/27/wb-files-suit-over-hari-puttar-film-title-in-india

A Bollywood movie titled "Hari Puttar" is scheduled for release. Puttar, as in 'Son' in Punjabi, and Hari - the usual Hari. Guess what Warner Bros is suing about? It sounds like Harry Potter!

Heights of CP

2008-08-22T13:11:00.000-07:00

I sat back and watched with a supreme sense of satisfaction. It seems like just talking about the lack of medals for India was enough to get us not one, but three medals!

I know the perfect solution to more Olympic medals. We need to talk more - ha ha!
PS: CP means Cheap Publicity!
PS1: I am very sad that the Olympics is coming to an end. It seems like 2 weeks of a treat flew past. Two weeks where we marvelled the endurance and performance of athletes regardless of their origin. Two weeks of human beings at their competitive best.

Next week, things will be back to normal again. The memory of the Games fading from our midst like a smudged water-color painting. The once firm contours blending into each other - still beautiful, but not as striking when we think back about the Olympics and smile.

2008-08-18T11:18:00.001-07:00

Anand's Comment on the Olympic post warranted a separate blog entry by itself. So, I've posted his comment as an article.

Anand says:

Let us take swimming for instance. You need great swimming pools, researchers who understand fluid dynamics, companies that excel in fluid dynamics and continuously push their R&D to develop better swim suits, private companies that are willing to fund swimmers during their training and great universities that are willing to hire such swimmers into their program and nurture them so when they are in their mid 20s - they have a post swimming career in place.This is a heady concoction - which is available may be in the G7 countries of the world. Of course, I was surprised to see Coventry is Zimbabwean [of course she spent her last 6 years in Auburn.Cavic is Serbian only for olympics. He is a thoroughbred Californian. The other great swimmers from the non G7 countries seem to have gone to Ann-Arbor or Cal.Basically at this level of competition where the difference between #1 and #10 is less than half a second - infrastructure is EVERYTHING. I can extend this argument to Track and Field as well. San Jose Mercury News carried a story about why Jamaicans rule in Track and Field - it went back nearly 40 years to SJSU. Their athletic program took nearly 30 years to start yielding results. Of course a lot of the research support I mention is now available to those athletes too, who also train a lot in the US.If anything, I am totally convinced that to be anywhere near the top in any of these competitions, you better have the entire infrastructure to support you. When would India grow enough to create such support? Not anytime soon I think. If someone spent $200m to build a fantastic T&F center or a swim center - imagine the ruckus it would create right now. Only when the basic needs of the common man are met, can and will India think of esoteric acts such as excelling in sports come into being.Yes, there are random acts of individual brilliance that bring medals to much smaller countries - which will happen in India too. But as a system that generates medal winning athletes olympics after olympics - I would be very surprised if I saw it happen in our lifetime.

Anand further pointed us to an article written by Amit Verma

http://indiauncut.com/iublog/article/india-doesnt-need-olympic-pride/

The silence of the Moon

2008-08-16T23:53:00.000-07:00

It was a long day. There were a number of interesting events today, but I'm here to report none of that. I sat in the car, in silence. I knew the lack of conversation was all my daughter needed to fall asleep. She had had a tiring day too, and had been extra active for the past 6 hours. I glanced across at my husband holding the steering wheel, and then looked out the window. It was either the full moon, or close to the full moon.

I felt strange, sitting there watching the trees go by, the cars whiz past. The clouds moved - dark gray clouds, but it wasn't supposed to rain. How much one relies on the weather forecast, I thought idly. It was beautiful to watch the moon peer in and out of the gray clouds. Just as I thought some clouds were moving fast enough to eclipse the whole moon, the moon would slip out again. I watched the moon looking for a smile when it emerged. But all I saw was the bright moon with the same dark spots. I wondered about how we overload our thoughts and yearn for other things to change. Just because I wanted to find a smile is not going to change the moon's contours to be a smile. The moon is the moon - reflecting sunlight, moving around the earth and awarding a peaceful moment to anyone willing the take the time to notice it.

I just sat and watched the moon slip in and out of the clouds the whole way home. I am trying to find the word for my feeling - but then I realise I cannot describe it. I couldn't remember the last time I spent time just looking at the moon. Is peaceful the word? I am not sure, but it felt good. I watched as my husband stopped at the traffic signal - my daughter had slept.

I loved the for 7.2 miles in the silence of the moon.

A Leap Yearly Affair

2008-08-12T13:39:00.000-07:00

It happens every leap year without fail. There is a sinking feeling, a feeling of great shame. As the second most populous nation in the world marches into the Olympic arena along with every other countries (some hitherto unheard of), the Indian in me cowers. I know of the feeble attempt we will manage, and feel terribly sorry to see the tiny contingent who has made it to the Games.

What do we lack?

Political will for sure. The making of Sports as an industry for another. Sports have to be made enticing enough to want to make people pursue them as a career. The prime-time in the life of an athlete is a short span, and if the industry surrounding this spurt does not sustain such talented individuals, few people would make the choice. There have to be careers for those who excel - as trainers, as team co-ordinators, as people who can be given the responsility to contributing to decisions in ways that touch not just their lives, but those of others who have the honor of representing the country. Cricket has achieved that, and I think it should be the same for other arenas too.

My husband and I were chatting about this, and one viable option would be to have a roadmap to win 5 medals in the next Olympics, and then make a career path for aspiring athletes. Make the infrastructure ready and available, hone skills and inspire people to succeed.

It is not difficult to achieve once the commitment is made, just difficult to overcome the reluctance to commit.

Aah ... Camping

2008-07-28T13:36:00.000-07:00

We had been camping last week-end - a bunch of moms from Kee's class thought of it, and all-in-all eight families went camping. IT was only for a night, but it was enough to have me reeling for days. I am just recovering!

The camp grounds were far enough from civilization but close enough to the wilderness for us to get a sense of rugged adventure. From the top, we could actually see the city lights glittering at night, and I must say it made a melancholy sight to be sitting there in the tent peering out at the city lights down below. The tent itself is a masterpiece - a small package, that, when erected properly rooms a family of three or four with ease and relative comfort. We had the foresight of 'selecting' our tent site on a slope that had a 11.3 degree inclination and I must say we enjoyed the night slipping down the grade and getting back up grumpily and hauling ourselves back up again - sleeping bag, pillow, torch, night light, cell-phone, Kee and all. And try all of this on a full stomach and aching limbs, and I've sketched out comfort for you. Oh yeah - it was great fun - I spent half the night giggling as we picked ourselves up and 'moved north'.

I see some eyebrows raised when they read 'full stomach!' - you see, we were a bunch of Indian families. While we may have forgotten some things like nightlamps and flash lights, do you think we forgot food? We had food fit for a king and his army - ordered from a fancy restaurant and brought to the summit with heating trays and candles. A complete Indian meal with Shrikand for dessert. If we couldn't do justice to it, it was because we had too much tea, cookies and brownies for snacks! And of course, we had a HEARTY breakfast the next day - samosas with bread, butter croissants - all in the name of feeding our kids.

Speaking of the kids, they had a blast - running around, hiking (three year old kids actually did 1.5 mile round trip hikes, can you believe it?), 'rock climbing' and of course falling and getting hurt. Our campsite was on a gradient as previously mentioned, and every second minute a child was toppling over. I found it quite amusing to note the varying reactions to a fall. Girls generally seemed to summon folks from neighbouring camps with first -aid kits for all their din, while most boys brushed themselves off and just toppled over again with no second thoughts! There was a tap at the site, and every once in a while a harried parent would be seen shaking their heads in disbelief, wringing their hands and pulling an unwilling child from the tap.

The highlight of the trip were the racoons - they are food lovers, and come scanvenging for food near campsites. They don't have fear of any kind towards humans, and quite a few times the whole populace was grimacing with wild gestures, only to see the racoon get more and more convinced that this was the place for a wholesome meal! (I actually have a pic of everybody shooing the racoons, and it really looks comical )

Eight kids and their families on a hillside with a raccoon to boot - that's what I call a fun vacation!

The Cine's got them all!

2008-07-15T13:55:00.000-07:00

All things Strange and Wonderful

All things Wise and Foolish

All things Bright and Beautiful

The Cine's got them all!

I went to a cinema theatre last week. Those who know me know that it is an event worth blogging about. Somehow, the cinema theatre has never appealed to me. I have always left the theatre with a headache (Dolby/fantastic sound systems, too many speakers) and blurry eyes with the humongous images that always seem too close for my liking! The Indian theatres had the added disadvantage of letting a tiny bit of urine smell 'waft' in through the opened doors after intervals. All in all, never enjoyed the theatre as much as curling up at home and watching the scenes I like and skipping the ones I don't. I have the dubious reputation of watching whole 3 hour feature films in less than 15 minutes ( I hate violent scenes, I don't like fights, I don't care too much for most of the songs, and would rather fast forward an unnecessarily maudlin scene - That leaves the titles, which I don't watch anyway!)

Anyway, we made an event out of the movie outing, and made sure my daughter did not take a nap in the afternoon, so she would fall asleep soon, and set out after an early dinner. As we were walking towards the theatre explaining the many virtues of popcorn to my daughter so she gets excited about the experience, what should happen, but she tripped and fell. Luckily, she hardly got hurt.

My daughter is a sweet-heart but a fall just jolts her! She cried and exercised her vocal chords considerably. I went and asked the theatre manager (TM) for ice and a band-aid. Guess what?

She donned one of those falsely sweet tones - "You know...I really would like to give you one, but, yeah, we aren't allowed to do that"

Me aghast: Why? It's just some ice and band-aid!

TM: Yeah, I know, but we aren't allowed to do that.

Me: May I know why?

TM: Yeah....for the risk of being sued

Me: *Laughing inwardly* Believe me, I have neither the time nor the inclination to sue over some band-aid and few blocks of ice!

TM: Yeah - I know, but I really can't

Me: Yeah...okay (What?! "Yeah" does get to you after a while!)

Anyway! I spent the first half an hour of the movie trying to soothe her, and put her to sleep. Well - no points for guessing what happened next. Turns out, only the first half hour of the movie was supposed to be watch-able by even less stringent standards than my watchability guidelines outlined above. So, I came home with a child who had body pain because of the fall, a bad head-ache and blurry eyes to boot. Not to mention a hoarse throat with the rather vehement criticism on the way back!

Sigh - I remember why I don't like theatres!

In memory of Raga

2008-06-16T11:06:00.000-07:00

In every child's life, there are few teachers who make a true, lasting impression. In my life, the person who tops the list is Raga (Mr.G.Raghavan) Raga was one of the few teachers who could make children love a relatively tough subject like Mathematics! Weekly once, 1 half of one class would be dedicated to story-telling. He would take a story, and elongate it over weeks, while having children wait eagerly in pin-drop silence for the next point in the story. He had mastered what took ages for television to figure out. He would stop the story at a critical juncture, and have the class waiting for the remaining part of the story the whole week! What better method to have a child wait for Maths classes? He had such compelling story-telling abilities that entire generations of students were spell-bound with his stories.

It takes special ability to teach children, and most of all make every child feel important and valued. He was gentle, kind and no matter how good or bad you were at the subject, you never felt unwanted in his class. That is what separates a good teacher from a stellar one. At a boarding school, a teacher metamorphs into a surrogate parent, and as housemaster and Prep School head, he was the father figure to hundreds of children as they struggled to settle in to boarding school for the first time.

Raghavan uncle and my father started life at Lawrence School, Lovedale as bachelors sharing a single bedroom apartment. Over the span of three decades, life moved on, they had children, and we all grew up together. Monsoon vacations in the pouring rain, playing board games and listening to the whooshing sound of the rain, and of course my father and him rattling on in the back-ground. Vacations, school years, leaving with a glistening teardrop as they dropped children off in college, marrying them off, and finally both of them retired as grand-parents from the school.

I visited him a few months ago. The image was shocking. I had never known Raga to fall ill - 'Sunny' is the word that best describes him. He had survived one bout of cancer, and he looked pale and thin. He started talking, and I could hear the same old Raghavan uncle again. As he carried my toddler daughter, he said - "My god! This is Kutti Saumya, Mr Balasubramanian - I feel like I am in my thirties again carrying her as a toddler."

I still remember one incident - I was all of seven years old. I had come to write the Entrance exam for Lawrence. There was a column for my father's name, and I had confidently filled out - "Mr.K.Balasubramanian (Late)".

Mr. Raghavan was supervising the test. He called me aside, and asked me why I had written "(Late)" near my father's name. I explained to him that everytime one wrote their father's name, one must write '(Late)' (Both my maternal and paternal grand-fathers were no more then, and everytime I saw my parents write their father's name, they had always added '(Late)'!) He then laughed heartily, and explained that you append '(Late)' to a person's name only when they are no more. My father and he had their laughs about this incident for years. Decades later, I still laugh everytime I recollect this incident.

Yesterday, Mr.G.Raghavan lost a battle to cancer. It is with the heaviest of hearts that I append "(Late)" to Mr.G. Raghavan's name. This time, I am doing it correctly, just as he lovingly explained to me all those years ago - but it doesn't feel right. He lives on in the hearts of thousands of children, and will never really die.

Ideal workspot

2008-06-12T13:46:00.000-07:00

What are your expectations of an ideal work-spot/ professional environment?
Top criteria for me would include:
Challenging work (Just the right amount too!)
Ownership
Good Team
Good Manager
Flexibility
Proximity to home (The last two for work/life balance)

Business Ventures

2008-06-09T16:59:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up, my father kept on harping on three business ventures:

1) Seven Star Saree Center

2) Anand cycle mart

3) Bama tuition center

Seven Star Saree Center:This venture originated in the endless love of Indian women for clothes. His plan was to have sarees from 7 major brands in the store (Garden Vareli, Calico .... I forget the remaining brands) He spent endless hours designing the showroom (the showroom design and his ideal house design somehow merged in the designs, and I am sure had it put to paper would have looked like a five star hotel that doubled up for a shop or a house!)

State of project: Somehow the sizzle for this died down, but not without running its course of a decade worth of "planning".

Anand cycle mart:This venture was planned because of the high expectations set by my brother with respect to his academic ambitions as a boy. He drew far greater pleasure in tinkering with his cycle than in sitting with a textbook! Actually, my brother is a gadget-junkie, and used to fiddle around with anything new. I still tease him that he must have started concentrating on the academic front only when he realised that his income as a cycle mechanic is not going to pay for all his fancy gadgets!

State of project: Thankfully, this business venture plan was put to rest in a few years time, when my brother became a chartered accountant.

Bama Tuition Center:

(Creative title origin: first 2 letters from Mother and father's first name)

State of project: I regret to inform you that this venture even now sporadically raises its head in our home, but by and large the frequency has come down from everyday to every month or so.

I have my share of business ventures too!I wanted to start a potato supply business when I worked at Infosys. The seeds of thought were planted in the fact that almost evey dish at the Infy canteen had a generous serving of potatoes! Masala dosa, aloo poori, potato bonda - you name it, and there would be some portion of it containing potatoes!

State of project: Abandoned when I moved away from the Infy Bangalore campus

Tea Stall at BART:This, I know, is a sure shot! You see, 80% of BART commuters in the Fremont line are desis. Please tell me who would hesitate to buy a few bondas/bajjis in the way home after a tiring day and journey!

State of Project: Current, meaning discussions still rampant

I am sure everyone has some crazy escape mechanism to think of when evaluating one's own life. Let's hear all your fantasies.

A new pair of Jeans

2008-05-23T12:01:00.000-07:00

To the rest who did not know! I am wearing a new pair of jeans.

Though new clothes don't exactly require an occasion anymore, I am still a little girl when it comes to wearing new clothes. I love them. When we were growing up, new clothes were worn only on festivals, birthdays etc. I remember my birthday falling close to Diwali, and both occasions being satisfied with one set of clothes. To this date, I exhibit a certain reluctance to release new clothes without an occasion.

Regardless, I wore a new pair of jeans without any occasion, and as I was running towards the station, some friendly stranger called me, and told me I looked really good in my jeans. "Thanks!" I beamed, before realising how on earth she knew. For one thing, there is little way of telling whether a pair of jeans are new, they all look the same. Could it be the glow on my face?! I had run a little ahead before it struck me - I must have forgotten to remove one of those infernal tags! I had removed three of them, but had forgotten the fourth.

So, there it is for the rest of the world who did not know - I wore a new pair of jeans today! Glad to have got that of my chest :)

I pat your back, you pat my back

2008-05-09T12:52:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer:This post is not aimed at any set of individuals or corporations. It is months of diligent observation culminating in this highly unscientific post that many can identify with, and yet nobody can quote.

Primates have been known to use this technique. This technique has undergone Darwinism, and is perfected by few in work environments and offices across the world. I'm fuzzy on the specifics, but most scientific findings are fuzzy on some level, and just define fuzzy better, so here is my theory.

People with a high talk to work ratio indulge in this technique for survival. In general "talk to work" ratio is also related to "talk to volume" ratio. The louder you are and the more indignant you sound, the more convincing you sound. In a cubicle farm, a marginal achiever with a high talk to work ratio, and a voice that has a high bass quotient can be viewed in different ways. For people with the MBWA (Management by Walking Around) syndrome, it is a sure strategy to pull attention towards oneself.

People who fit into this elite bucket, congregate in groups every once in a while to pat each others backs. This associative behaviour is required for a sense of belonging, and a sense of fortification on one's stand and technique verification. While in the gathering, one also has the opportunity to gather irrelevant points of problem areas in other teams. This hitherto irrelevant information can then be wielded to one's own advantage in another gathering.

Such behaviour finds itself being rewarded because the higher echelons of said organization themselves would have indulged in this to get ahead of the breed. A candid self appraisal should let one know whether any of the techniques need to be perfected if one wishes to surge ahead.

Once ahead, one would think the club member would shift allegiance to the next higher level group, but this is a technique that needs constant practice. So much like a pregnant waistline, the sphere of influence expands. In order to do this, one must spend time in multiple circles patting each other's backs, talking more, talking louder and achieving less. This only means the Talk to work ratio just got higher, while still maintaining a knowledgeable aura.

Good leaders are charismatic speakers - I rest my case.

Run Away!

2008-05-09T11:39:00.000-07:00

"Amma - why isn't appa home yet" asked my daughter while we were reading her bedtime story last night. I answered her saying her father was held up at work. When she persisted, I explained that her father had a bug, and that was why he was late.

"Then he should run away right? Ms Chato said if you see a bug, you must run away! Is it a snake or a small bug?" (Ms Chato is her teacher)

I did not explain that running away from a bug in a software engineering department is not going to bring you any accolades in your career.

I laughed, and enjoyed the sweet fragrance of innocence that the scent of childhood bears.

Perspective

2008-04-29T10:59:00.000-07:00

I had the strong urge to not cry - I could feel the pressure of the welled up tears against the blood vessels surrounding my eyes. There was a lump in my throat that had no business being there. I suddenly wished for the familiar confines of my bedroom where I could let my tears flow on unbridled by the demands of maintaining a public facade. My mind raced and stood still at the same time. I thanked God, my stars or destiny (whatever name you could call it) for the life that I am enjoying compared to those I had identified with in the mystical world of fiction in the last few days.

I was reading 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' by Khaled Hosseini. I could see it was difficult writing this book - the author uses two voices throughout the book - that of Mariam and Laila. Using two voices, and maintaining the tempo through out the book is a daunting task, but one well accomplished by Khaled. I felt like the luckiest woman alive for the life I am leading. For my loved ones, some of whom may be separated by more than a thousand miles, but all connected through the feeling of unity, of sharing some things in the past/present together.

"You like big words Laila, don't you? Let me give you one - Perspective" says Rasheed in the book. That statement said it all. My little worries, minor irritants - both human and otherwise seem fine.

Olympic Torch

2008-04-09T10:31:00.000-07:00

Morning:

Today I get to witness the Olympic torch relay in San Francisco! I am so excited seeing the crowds milling on the street with flags, and the crowded trains. There are loads of buses carrying police forces from nearby Richmond and Oakland areas. I feel slightly disturbed by the protests - to me, the Olympics is the human unifying spirit, and should not be marred by anything political. I already feel slightly dumb at not having brought my camera - but, my friend has, and I am sure we can take some pictures. I feel this is the closest I have ever gotten to anything "Olympic", and I am filled with a strange sense of excitement.

Hope the event passes smoothly!

Afternoon:
I went out with my friends - I was so excited. The streets were milling with people - protests in different hues and flavours! Some people got up in the morning, and put on their protest hats, and began randomly protesting. I think they just forgot that the protest was against the Olympic torch. A majority of the protests could be classified against China, pro-Tibet, pro-Human rights etc. But there were some protests to 'End the war in Iraq', 'Darfur' and 'Free Burma'! Free Burma from whom?! This protest took the cake though : a bunch of stark naked guys turned up, apparently calling for legalizing nudity in an Olympic Torch relay ceremony!

Of course, by the time I post this, you all would have known that San Francisco city officials changed the route, and actually had the torch bused to another route, and had the relay pass the torch every fblock or so. The closing ceremony was cancelled citing the protests, and the whole episode was all-in-all a dampener!
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/09/MNDS102IIM.DTL&tsp=1
The olympic torch hid behind the police, and was safely moved by bus from one point to another, and only made it out in the open to streets heavily armed with police as spectators, and did not even mark the event with a closing ceremony - this for the only run in the North American continent.

Evening:
Hard to describe my feelings since I did not get to see the torch - a once in a lifetime experience for sure, and was snatched away from the thousands of people waiting patiently for the torch to appear!

Another week-end went by:

2008-04-07T15:22:00.000-07:00

Another week-end went by:
I felt strangely tranquil this week-end, an inner peace if you could call it that.
It could be any or a combination of all these things that contributed to that particular feeling:
1) I was excited because of the new dish I was preparing - I tried making vegetarian lasagna. Everytime I try something new, I behave like a child looking forward to cutting their birthday cake - eager and enthusiastic.

2) It may be because the cleaners came and rummaged through the house, and left it looking squeaky clean! The immense satisfaction I feel looking at a clean house, when I haven't passed out doing the cleaning, cannot be compared to any material pleasure in the world. I am not the only one - my daughter was so thrilled with the "cleaner uncle" around - a trip to Disneyland could not have made her happier.

3) I had a shelf which I was thinking of disposing, thanks to the closet overhaul the dear husband did with the closet organizer - the cleaners took it to their apartment to use. Boy, did that feel good?!

4) The trees in my backyard have now started sprouting flowers, and I even saw the first green apricots appear. Have I told you about this squirrel? He appears frequently in the epics of the cat and the squirrel enacted in our home at regular intervals. He is also overfed! The first time I moved into our home, I watched on idly as this little guy tottered on the fence, and ran up the fruit trees. Slowly, the bloodbath started. The greedy one, did not spare a single fruit. We were competing to lay our hands on fruit before he got to it. I am determined this time: that squirrel needs to go on a diet. I am taking all the apricots and freezing them this year! He can content himself with the plums in my backyard, not the apricots!

5) Spring meant that I could get up late on Sunday, and go to the park for a run, and play in the park in the middle of the day!

Aah....lethargy! How I miss you!

10 Things

2008-04-03T13:55:00.000-07:00

Archana tagged me, I hemmed and hawed, because I did not want to answer the question. I was happy just letting life lilt along. But, I did tell her that I would answer her tag, so here I go.
Ten things I want to do in the next 10 years -- hmm. There is no priority here, just mentioned as I think of them.
1) I want to read more varied works - lots of books spanning different subject areas.

2) I want to learn Carnatic music. I may not have the best voice in the world, but I love it, and there is no harm in trying.

3) I want to learn swimming very well. It has been my dream since childhood, and I finally managed to fit myself into a swim-suit - though, the way I wear one is probably the most unsexy way any swimsuit can be worn. Regardless, I love swimming, and want to get better at it.

4) I want to be a person who is able to embrace myself for who I am. This has more to do with building a sense of overall achievement in all spheres of life. Sometimes, I tend to fall into the drag of a uni-dimensional lifestyle, and lose out on the big picture.

5) I want to undertake at least 1 academic course in the United States

6) I want to be able to spend more time in my daughter's activities - ideally, I would like to volunteer at her school for one afternoon every week. What better way to understand her world? This is a totally new ballgame for me, and I need to understand her world. Right now, this seems like a long shot, but I am hoping that I can eventually do that.

7) I definitely have to find a way to understand the economics of different things, and also how they tie into a cohesive whole. I know bits and pieces about the stock market, about interest rates, about forex reserves and exchange rates. I still don't understand the ripple effects that one produces on another.

8) I want to be a good parent - I want to be a friend, guide and disciplinarian all rolled into one. I find this an especially daunting task, since the world my daughter is growing up in, is very different from the world I grew up in. Point #6 maybe a sub-task of this one in that sense.

9) I want to excel in my profession.

10) I want to be able to do all of the above!

When I started out with 10 things, I found myself thinking really hard to come up with a list of 9 really! Anyhow, thanks Archana!

The Colourful House - By the daughter of the colour blind father

2008-03-25T12:10:00.000-07:00

I like how furniture can set the tone of the home. I love the way you can transform a dull home to a vibrant place with the right colors and the right furniture. Furniture complements a house. Everytime I walk into Ikea, the interior designer in me springs to life, and my mind buzzes with possibilities.

Here is my pet peeve - the interior of my parents beautiful home never looks good in my eyes because of the ghastly furniture. Bookshelves littering the house, each one a different colour, dimension and size! Unnecessary tables, that once served their purpose.

I sound harsh, you may think, but what house boasts of a green dining table, with a pink stool near a maroon fridge? Which house boasts of 3 sky blue almirahs, sharing the wall with a yellow shelf (70 by 30) and a parrot green shelf (65 by 40)? Oh, and I did forget to mention the bright blue tiny almirah with a white archaic typewriter on it!

The furniture was not always like this - our house did have stately furniture at one time. The furniture grew old, as it is expected to after 30 years. The sheen was gone. One day my father called in a handyman and handed him our dining table, and asked him to relaminate it. "What colour sir?" asked the man innocently, and my father assured him that he left it to his fine
judgement, and any colour was okay with him. The handyman left with a sense of satisfaction - he liked green, but none of his customers seemed to have an eye for green table-tops. Secondly, the table wasn't going to live in HIS house - and that my friends is the story behind the green table-top!

One would think that this bad experience would have shaken his trust in humanity, and subsequent furniture transactions would be handled with more care. This is where you under-estimate my father. He may be a whiz-kid with stocks, never once making the same
error in reading the balance sheet, but when it comes to furniture, "Egregious" is the word I would choose.

He had our house painted, and while at it had another idea - why not paint the pale shelves? He asked the painter about the colours he had remaining. "From the painting of this house sir?", he asked, his face dripping with innocence. My father was taken in by this simple soul who was willing to give away paint that he had remaining from other jobs. He flushed, and told him to use any paint he may have remaining.

The painter and the aforesaid handy-man were thick pals no doubt, and the handy-man had probably thrown a drink on the house at the local pub that he had gotten rid of his green laminate. The painter not to be out-done used his bright pink paint on the stool, parrot green on one shelf, bright yellow on the other shelf, bright blue on the small almirah. Word is that the local drunkards had a party unheard of in the parallels of Uppilipalayam town Panchayat - it was all on the house, paid for by the painter.

This is how the house looked after the dining table and paint jobs:

The sky-blue colour cupboards have another story. Appalled at the uncanny choice of colours by the benign painter, my father decided to normalize the equations by painting the remaining almirahs the same colour (his favourite colour: sky blue)
So, that's how our house looks now.

Now, please tell me your impressions of this house's furniture, and join me in my appeal to have the book shelves replaced with woodwork for Phase 1.

India Trip: Food

2008-03-13T17:10:00.000-07:00

I know why Indians are a religious lot. I know why we pride ourselves on being a secular nation. We love food. We have many festivals, all of them involving a special culinary adventure. I have heard various statements relating to food in my life, and some award winning statements bring a smile to my face everytime without fail.
1) Oriyas eat a lot of sweets, but nobody gets Diabetes.
2) Parattas without ghee is like a king without a crown.
3) Any food made as an offering to God, if consumed does not result in weight gain.

The third statement explains why we first offer everything to God, and then eat. Any undesirable effect the food may possess is negated when it is taken with God's blessings. I have an aunt (bless her), who came to stay with us for a while. This was the period when my mother was posted in a different place, and having this Aunt around was helpful in many ways. When she left for her hometown, we waved her good-bye wearing pants two sizes larger, and had gone in for a sturdier vehicle to support our weight. We attributed the new vehicle to a better financial position, and did not try to tick off God by saying the extra weight from his offerings caused the previous vehicle to break down under the strain of the extra fat!

Back to my India trip: We dedicated one evening to the delights of Delhi - we crammed in Moomos (steamed vegetable rice cake - nope not vegetable idli, this one had spring vegetables stuffed in maida flour. I shall try making this one, and post the recipe soon), and Pani Puri followed by a round of parattas fit for a crown wearing king. We then crammed ourselves into the car with a driver who was slightly intoxicated with the food, and drove home using the safety rules outlined in the previous post.

By the end of the trip, my tongue was begging for respite. I love the flavours of good food, and had many a good meal at the hands of friends and relatives - Thank you all, now will you please help me stand up?

Traffic (absolutely) Rules in Delhi!

2008-03-05T11:23:00.000-08:00

We had been to India for a glorious vacation. This time we travelled a lot apart from the customary visits to relatives. We had been to Delhi, Agra and Jaipur in the first week. During my stay in Delhi, we travelled a lot by car, and it gave me a chance to observe the traffic.
Here are some traffic rules you might find useful in Delhi.

1) When you have trouble deciding whether you want to turn right or left, switch on the emergency blinker. This will warn other vehicles on the road, that you may turn right or left, and the onus to keep safe shifts to the other vehicles on the road. I find this most helpful, since both sides blink when the emergency blinker is on.

2) Stopping at red lights is considered belittling, and your driving capabilities are scoffed at by other drivers. While driving through red lights, it is prudent to sound your horn.

3) There are atmost three signals in a radius of 25 km where you really need to stop at red lights, and any localite could enlighten you about which ones to stop at for a red light. At such signals, please do not make yourself an object of ridicule by stopping before the line. When you do stop, you need to stop almost midway through the signal - that alone gives you the power to surge ahead before the light turns green.

4) Parking is a right - you may park alongside the curb (not cool!), or in the middle of the road, sideways perferably hindering other traffic. It does not matter as long it is not a very busy road. If it is a very busy road, the only risk you run is getting shouted at more vehemently. There was a time when I found a camel drawn carriage parked sideways on the National Highway. Many times, I found lorries parked diagonally across the road, since that was the most convenient method to unload the goods at the back. Traffic found a way of needling along despite this.

5) While it is useful for the car driver to have a clear view of the road, it is more useful for the vehicle to transport as many people as possible from point A to B. I saw various instances where there were 5 adults sitting in the front seat of a car. Unfortunately, I did not have time to count the number of children. I am assuming the gear change is achieved using a complex rhythm that involves nudging the correct individuals for gear shift. Push Bunty for gear 3, pull Bablee for reverse gear etc.

6) Roads are built for the convenience of the users. Rules are an unnecessary hinderance. For example, if there is a divider on the road built with the intention of having the left side for traffic flowing east, and the other side for west flowing traffic, it does not mean that east flowing traffic has to use the left half and the west flowing traffic has to use the right half. Since the right half is more appealing, all traffic can use the right half, leaving the left half free for parking vegetable vendor carts, and chaat carts.

7) Animals on the roads are not restricted to dogs, buffaloes and cows. Camels and elephants are a common enough sight. So much so that my daughter started asking to see tigers on the road! I couldn't help laughing at her question when we showed her the Delhi zoo as we passed it. Her mind buzzed for a fraction of a second and quipped "Why?"

8) Rear view mirrors are meant to be folded in, lest they get damaged by other vehicles on the road. You can use other mechanisms such as asking folks in your car to look out, or simply turn your head in all directions everytime you want to make a turn.

A pat on the back to my brother and brother-in-law who drove us all around safely in Delhi. It is far more difficult than we imagine!

Life comes a full circle

2008-02-07T12:11:00.000-08:00

I made my mother take leave one day. My mother worked in a school that required her to sprint to the train, and then hop, skip and jump onto a rickety bus. Cold, mist, rain - she weathered it all every day for 18 years to give me this life, and I am eternally grateful to her. Taking leave was a privilege she rarely indulged in - she saved all her leave for when we fell ill, she fell ill, or for a family function.

I made her apply for leave when nobody was ill, and nobody was visiting. Here's why: I used to go to school, and we had a maid who would bring me hot lunch in the afternoon. I was okay with the arrangement. After all, I liked the maid, and I liked my friends with whom I sat on the grass while eating. But here is the thing - for all my friends, their mother brought their lunch. So, I yearned to see my mother bring me lunch. I actually dreamt of seeing her walking down the long, winding road that we could see from the hilltop in our school. She did one day - she took leave and brought me lunch. I can still envision the scene - she wore a purple saree with pink flowers(Amma - that katthiripoo saree Appa bought from Calico) the pallu hanging clumsily of her shoulder over the sweater. A gold medal wouldn't have made me happier that day. I boasted to all my friends that my mom brought me lunch!

I took my daughter to the saloon, and gave her a haircut. Her hair required no special handling now - all you had to do was draw her hair back, and clip on a hairpin. For the past month, every other day in the evening; she tells me how nicely I comb her hair. Her father manages she assures me, but she feels her hair is "flooppy" at the end of the exercise.

"Can you comb my hair for school one day?" she asks. I answer I can if she gets up before I leave. That seldom happens.

Another favourite question of hers is if I could drop her in School one day. In her little mind, she probably has the probability calculated, and figures if her hair can't be combed, getting dropped in school is an even farther shot, and doesn't even bother asking this question as much.

Today, I indulged in both - combed her hair AND dropped her off in school. I could see the pride in her eyes, as she walked into the classroom, and beamed. "My mommy came today", she announced, and introduced me to all her friends.

As I went round and round the parking lot looking for a place to park my car at the public transit terminal, it felt totally worth it. I loved spending the morning with her - life does come a full cirle!

Pink nail polish is good for health

2008-01-28T10:51:00.000-08:00

For those of you who wear nail polish, I would like you all to start wearing pink nail polish. There are rich health benefits to pink nail polish. To those of you who don't wear nail polish, I suggest starting off with pink nail polish. All non-pink nail related problems could disappear, and your nails could once again come to the pink of your youth and prime.

Okay...Okay I am coming to the story. My daughter and I went strolling through the aisles aimlessly one rainy day. She walks up to the cosmetic section, and picks up pink nail polish. I asked her why she needs nail polish in the first place. Her face had a serious expression while she explains:

Amma, I need this pink nail polish because it is good for health!

Everytime I pick up vegetables, fruits or any produce, she asks me why. I explain that I am buying it because it is good for health. I guess she thought it was a use-it-for-all-occasions type of statement - sigh!

2008-01-25T16:59:00.001-08:00

There was a group called 'Pessimism'
They used a term: 'deadlines'.

There was another group called 'Optimism'
They used terms: 'achieve-lines' or 'goal-lines'.

Guess the happier group (there is something in a name don't you think?!)
Deadlines sound so ominous for something you are trying to achieve in a regular work-day.

What is a widget?

2008-01-22T12:27:00.001-08:00

A widget is an application you can easily stick to your own blog page - it is a small window that has been programmed to show you what you want. Check out the Dilbert widget on my blog. The dilbert widget is free for downloading now, and is available in various sizes from http://widget.dilbert.com

How cool is that?!

Has anyone eaten Durian?

2008-01-15T15:00:00.000-08:00

Durian: The King of Fruits

I spent the whole day with my nose puckered up to avoid the strong stench emanating from my neighbouring cubicle. To me the smell (or stench!) was over-bearing. A close enough description would be: When one takes heavy antibiotics, and also take B-complex tablets along with it, this stench seems to be there in one's pee! In one word: unpleasant!

My colleagues told me it was Durian flavoured wafers that gave that smell. They tried hard to sell durian cookies to me - if you can just shut the smell out, and eat it, it will be lovely. One or to adventurous ones tried it, and endorsed their claims of it being very tasty. But my nose (I have had reason to comment on the length of my dear bulb on several occasions, so I shall refrain) is just too sharp for that sort of thing. I wiki-ed Durian, and found it looks like a jackfruit, and is supposed to taste great.

Interesting piece of info that I could not cross-verify anywhere: apparently eating durian in Thailand in Public is banned, though Thailand is a major exporter of Durian - all thanks to its distinctive odour!

If anyone does try Durian despite the smell, do let me know how it tastes.

2008-01-10T13:37:00.000-08:00

"Hey! How are you?" I hear a genuinely surprised voice. A familiar face comes into focus, and my bleary mind finally places the face as one of the commuters I used to see everyday on the public transit. I remember talking to her once or twice, but the details of the conversations are blotched out. Gone. Erased. Clean slate.

My expression has turned from a dazed one into a smile that shows vague recognition, as I reply - "Good...how are you? I haven't see you in a long time!"

I can feel my nerves rattle like a toy held over the head of a giggling 4 month old, as she remembers how far my workspot is from the transit terminal, the name of my office, and even my daughter. She fondly asks after my daughter, and I am still trying to get her name! How I wish my brain had a search functionality that could access archived areas of the "past" database.

I remember she has children, and ask vague questions about their well-being. I hope she doesn't sense my desperation, but I am sure she does. I hastily take leave, still wracking my brain. It starts with an 'N' - I start down the path of listing all the names I know starting with 'N' and cross them out with plausible explanations. I know this will nag me till the next time a similar incident happens, and I start out with another alphabet.

I read somewhere that names can be remembered if you wish to remember it. But here is the thing: I seldom ask anyone's name with the intention of not remembering it. I want to remember it, I can't.

Any pointers to help me would be greatly appreciated.

Disneyland: A trip to the magical kingdom

2008-01-02T15:01:00.000-08:00

Every time I go to Disneyland, I become a small girl again. This time was more magical than ever. You see this time I truly had a little princess with me.

One of the things I find about Disneyland is that we can never be dressed right for the place. To elaborate further, this time my sleigh(read: bulky stroller) was loaded with woollen like it was truly travelling to and from the North Pole. We had gone when the low temperature in Bay area was hovering around 0 degrees celcius. So, we dressed in layers, took along additional jackets and coats that would have put an eskimo watching a polar bear in the cold to shame. Guess what? The day was so fine, we were hot in t-shirts and jeans! So, I spent a wonderful day in a wonderful land with a huge bag containing jackets strung across my back! This...when I had the foresight to check the weather prior to the trip, and the temperature indicated a low of 3 degrees celcius on the aforesaid day - sigh!

The last time I went was August of 2005, and we spent the majority of the day skulking around in the shade, and fanning ourselves with the disney map because the temperature hovered around 90 degrees fahrenheit! We got active only by 6p.m. and rushed from corner to corner after that.

While I always enjoyed the music at Disneyland, this time it was more meaningful because my daughter was singing all these songs at home, and for the first time I knew all the songs being sung! I gaped at the parade, and loudly sighed everytime I saw a character I knew my daughter would recognize. Kee was so excited with all the activity in the morning, that she fell into a deep slumber just as the parade started. The parade went like this:
" Oh .. see snow white. Oh no....kunju please get up. Oh..mickey mouse. Oh no...please get up"
I admire myself for mentioning said phrases for every set in the parade tirelessly much to the chagrin of folks around me. At one point, I thought the parade was going to stop, and Mickey would come by and say, "Don't worry - she can see me in the evening, can't she?!"

I even tried to pluck her eyelids open, but she wouldn't budge. I call myself a dutiful mother because I wriggled through the crowds, and found her a spot on the dustbin where she could see the 6 p.m. parade from - then I stopped whining about her missing the parade.

To beat the crowd weaving out after the fireworks, we left before the fireworks, and asked a Disney employee how to get to our parking lot. She helpfully pointed us in exactly the opposite direction, and we ran and jumped into the trolley - daughter, stroller, bag of jackets, old parents and all. We realised what happened after reaching the destination, and doubled back to the park entrance. Now, we ran towards the right direction, this time without opening out the stroller. I don't know why we did not think of opening the stroller, but my husband ran carrying the bulky stroller folded and held most uncomfortably. I shall have to save this for another blog, but there is no comfortable way to carry a stroller and a car seat!

I ran behind him carrying the following:
1) My 3 year old daughter who was in splits laughing. I don't know why she found my predicament so amusing, maybe it felt like a bumpy safari - I would never know, but I couldn't help laughing with her too!
2) A huge bag weighing around about the same as my daughter with the jackets for protecting us against the cold on my back. I must mention I was sweating profusely with all the running!
3) A camera
4) A handbag

I was running at a pretty decent pace. That explains why people were staring at me like I was an ostrich taking weight training and sprinting to an extreme!

Disney managed to spin its magic as always, and we reluctantly plucked ourselves away from the magical kingdom to the real world in the right trolley towards the right parking lot in splits of laughter that had other tired folks jealous.

Happy New Year!

2007-12-31T08:50:00.000-08:00

Wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year!

I know I say this every year, but 2007 has flown past (Well, I say - the past year has flown past)

Looking forward to an interesting 2008!

Rant

2007-12-21T14:07:00.001-08:00

What is it about Western clothes that I find boring?

Less than vibrant colours surely
Lack of prints
The racks and racks of the same thing neatly folded, or hung

If I go looking for a top, there are 4 racks with 5 different shades, same cut different sizes.

I miss the prints. I miss the radiant colours. I miss the agony of not knowing which print looks better than the other one. I feel bad for those millions of shoppers I see thronging the mall not knowing the variety they are missing everyday.

Dubai - A reminiscence!

2007-12-10T12:54:00.000-08:00

I am very reluctantly back in the US after the most invigorating holiday I've taken in perhaps a whole decade. I visited my family in Dubai. While there, I could not help admiring the thought and planning that goes into making an inhospitable desert a place you would want to live in. The city has large expanses of greenery in state maintained parks, lots of trees and given that it is winter now, does not feel like a desert.

Just to give you a broad background of UAE. Seven emirates make up the UAE:

Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah, Fujairah, Umm Al Quwain and Ajman. The emirates unite and elect a Prime Minister and President primarily for Foreign Affairs, but within the UAE, each of these Emirates is ruled by their respective Sheikhs. There is an election to the council, but the election of the PM and President is based on the Economic wealth of the Emirate. Therefore, currently the Abu Dhabi ruler is the PM and the Dubai ruler is the President (or vice-versa!)

There are some things that I must mention with respect to Dubai. I can't classify them as anything other than musings:

1) The buildings are all nice looking. Most of them by themselves look good, but collectively they don't gel all the time. For example I saw cases where there was a Hawa mahal-like palace near a very swanky looking modern building. It was like Noor Jahan linking hands with Madonna - bad analogy, but you get the picture.

2) The tunnels or bypass roads have both sides of the walls lined with tiles. These tiles somehow give an illusion of driving through a rather large bathroom corridor, but that's just me!

3) Dubai is one of the few cities in the Middle East where purdah (i.e. the portion covering the face) is banned in Government offices. The women you see clad in robes do so of their own accord in this city.

4) The Arab nationals wear a spotless, clean WHITE robe. I was amazed to see not one of them had a crease or a speck of dirt on them. Apparently, my sister had the same doubt, and she asked somebody who works in an Arab family how they manage that. The lady confessed it is a full-time occupation just to clean the robes and maintain it at that sterling white at all times. If you ask me, you could pay a maid a month's salary just for that! I was also wondering why the men wore white robes, while the women wore black robes in a desert.

5) Dubai is undergoing growth pangs like any other city that has tripled its population in the last 5 years. The metro railway is under construction, and the city has been dug up through all major roads. The vision is to promote suburban areas, and encourage people to commute to Dubai for work. While this is being implemented, roads are clogged and parking is a nightmare.

6) Citation required here: Apparently, when the temperature hits 50 C, all construction workers need to be given the day off. Officially, the temperature had gone up to 49.2, but not 50 quite yet :)

Just a pic of a signboard!

Highlights of my trip (not necessarily in the order mentioned below)
Desert Safari
Jet Skiing
Ibn Batuta Mall
Al Ain trip
Khor Fakkan
Shopping
Al Sooq Al Rasheed

The Ibn Batuta Mall:

The mall is built on a sprawling 1.6 million sq ft space with parking for 4000 cars available. The mall is themed after 6 different countries: China ,India ,Persia ,Egypt ,Tunisia , Andalusia. Walking proved enjoyable in the mall, but after a couple of hours we discovered we had only covered 4 countries, so we beat the retreat passing up the mall areas looking like the other countries.

Al Ain & Khor Fakkan:

The trip to both places involved driving through towns built around an oasis. The beauty of the place if definitely unlike any other I've seen, spotted with Arabian architecture (like huge lanterns, pots in the middle of the road!) The beach water is inviting and warm, and all of us had quite a time. It was at Khor Fakkan that we went jet-skiing for the first time. I remember it like it was yesterday - the sea breeze, the salt water spray, and then getting hit by another scooter, and tumbling head first into the Arabian Sea!

Desert Safari:

Here is the one of the gems on the crown of my visit. This was so amazing that I fear I cannot do justice with mere words and a badly taken video. The drive through the dunes was in a regular 4 wheel drive vehicle. Right before we hit the sand, the driver coolly deflated the tires, and my brother helpfully explained that this was to increase the surface area of contact to avoid toppling over the dunes during fast turns - gulp! Thankfully, we had my sister in the car who isn't frightfully fond of automobiles. She would rather take a horse buggy than a car to get from point A to B, so you can imagine how she was on the safari! That made life simple for me: I just swallowed my apprehension and put on a brave face to keep her alive.

While on the safari, you have to trust the ability of the driver. If not, you just cannot enjoy the ride. The jeeps keep together in a large convoy, and space themselves enough so that if the car ahead of them skids, it does not crash into the next one. We got chatting with our driver Salim, a young Pakistani national who does this everyday for a living. He explained that there are 3 dunes that are slightly taller than the rest. So, their job is to follow these larger dunes, and turn right once you cross the third dune. As usual, I had to ask him what happens if we turn left?

Ans: You are doomed to die, and will be devoured by vultures by sunset the next day, if your troop doesn't realise you are missing. But of course they would realise, and you would be rescued via helicopter, as a family was 2 weeks ago at 1 a.m. five hours into their ordeal. I explained to him that I have a three year old waiting for me to come home that night, so let's turn right at the dune.

"Yes Ma'am" , he earnestly replied. Every time the tires turned left to avoid a rock or something, I yelped- "Right Salim, Right!"

What happens when a sandstorm comes along, and the height of the dunes change? Apparently, they survey and study the landscape again, before opening the route out to tourists. While on the trip, I had to admire the tenacity of the generations of humans who lived and prospered in the Arabian desert with nothing but the stars to guide them.

We watched the sun set over the dunes, and then moved to a desert camp with henna stalls, drinks and a Belly Dancer! This belly dancer was hugely talented, and controlled not ony her movements and her body, but also the crowd with her breath. The Arabian music was scintillating, and the Lebanese dancer's movements made it an exhilarating experience. It didn't help my bachelor brother that he was watching this belly dance with his two married sisters - but hey, he invited us over didn't he?!

Al Sooq Al Rasheed:

Arabic has a soft spot for Q - pronounced as 'KH'. I found it quite amusing that English has so few words in Q, while every sign post has at least one word starting or ending with 'Q'. I digress : this Sooq is the famous gold bazaar. The gold bazaar was brimming with people, and here is the thing: not a single store had metal shutters for protection! Gold shopping in Dubai is an experience by itself. I am not very fond of jewellery - or so I thought till I saw the patterns. You can imagine what would happen when a person who likes gold goes there.

Shopping is a pleasant mix of shopping in India and in the US. It was only when was I packing up to leave did I realise that I had shopped quite a bit!

A vacation with loved ones would have been fun if it had been in Alps or Ranganathan Street in Madras or a quaint village near Trichy. Nevertheless, I was immensely glad I took a vacation in Dubai. All I have to do is think back, and I smile instantly - now, that's what I call a good vacation!

Happy Diwali!

2007-11-08T14:21:00.000-08:00

The legend goes that Diwali is celebrated to honour the return of Rama with his wife Sita (after vanquishing Ravana) to Ayodhya. The legend also states that Rama after vanquishing Ravana refused to take Sita back as his wife, and she was upset and cleansed herself in fire, emerging unscathed to prove she was pure. Evidently when they got back to Ayodhya, they weren't on the best of the terms. We celebrate Diwali anyway.

Another legend goes that Sita gave birth to 2 sons Lava and Kusha, and something happened in the form of a row, and Mother Earth swallowed Sita yet again.

As a human race, we tend to not speak evil of the dead. I can well imagine how Rama became Lord Rama over time, giving us yet another excuse to eat and make merry.

Well ... I don't know how or when Diwali started. I do know that it was one of my favourite festivals. I grew up in a residential school, and most holidays were not declared holidays in our school. Diwali was. (Well...what would you do with 750 children on campus if there were declared holidays for Mahaveer Jayanthi etc? ) It was also one of the opportunities to wear new clothes, and attend the Diwali puja in School. 10th and 12th grade students wore sarees and dhotis, and I can't tell you how wonderful the whole scene looked.

Diwali is here again. Celebrations have been pushed to the week-end for those of us who don't have declared holidays on Diwali.

Happy Diwali Folks!

Burglar Alarms

2007-10-31T13:05:00.000-07:00

I have a car remote that has a mind of its own. It decides when it wants to work. I went grocery shopping the other day. Not my favorite kind I assure you.

The grocers had a store-full of stuff I needed, or rather my house-keeping has fallen on bad days. All on a sudden I was spotting a trend to anything I wanted to make. I would suggest a dish, and then realise one tiny but important ingredient is missing. So, I would happily switch to another dish without batting an eyelid. When that happens thrice the same day, the mind's eye discerns a trip to the grocers. I don't know how my car senses my mood, but it seemed reluctant to go along as well.

I digress..but the point of the matter is, I came back with bags hanging from very limb (also 1 bag per finger on the hand) and attempted to open the car, and it wouldn't budge. I tried from every angle, and it refused to emit the necessary rays. Another sigh, and I finally opened the car manually.

It was totally unresponsive to my remote, and when I opened it manually, it screamed and shrieked and shook violently. Well...not really, the car alarm went off, but the screaming, shrieking and shaking pretty much summed up my reactions in the parking lot. I finally cajoled it into staying quiet, but it whimpered.

"Blip Blip" it said every 2 minutes and started the alarm again.

I attempted to show it my face, and say -
"See, this is me, you idiot! You see me everyday! Stop wailing!"

When the nerves are wracked, it takes a while to reset the burglar alarm, and by the time I had figured out how to do it, cops from San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego were piling into their cars. I exaggerate but you get the drift.

A month ago, my dear friend's car was stolen from his community. The same model as the one I was pleading and cajoling with. Apparently, that car went without a squeak! Why did that car not go crazy? Or maybe the car thief knew exactly how to turn the burglar alarm off before the sirens wailed.

SIGH! Remind me why burglar alarms are there again?!

Surprise !!

2007-10-15T16:33:00.000-07:00

Keeping surprises and I have a certain .. well, "relationship". I can't keep them. Its spiteful, the way they insist on tumbling out of my mouth the moment I try to keep one.

This time, 'Determined' was the word. Not one slip of the tongue - even if it means less communication at home. These surprises have played with me long enough for me to take some stern action.

I know my shortcomings, and consequently NEVER plan surprise b'day parties - I'd probably be asking the b'day boy/girl the menu. I decided to start small - a surprise birthday gift would do. I went online, and decided to buy my husband some books for his birthday. We both use the same Amazon account, and I figured the books would come soon enough.

I ordered the gifts, and came home every evening looking for the parcel from Amazon. The birthday came and went, but there was no sign of the books.

A week later, and still nothing.

How long can a sane person keep a surprise?! Left with no choice, I called my husband, and asked how long Amazon delivery usually takes. He told me what I already knew - max a week.

"Why?" he asked
"Oh .. umm nothing..I ... er ... just wanted to know. My friend asked me - so I ..er.. told her I'll ask you" *How LAME?*

You can imagine the strain on my nervous system by now. I was twitching and fidgeting with every doorbell. I could take this no more - a person needs peace. This just wouldn't do! So, I checked Amazon, and the site confirmed that I had cancelled my order.

What the >$#$#)%? I never cancelled the order. I have been looking forward to those books so much now - my head was reaching bursting point.

So, I called the old husband again, and put on my interrogative hat. For those of you who are new to interrogative techniques, let me assist you:

First the gentle prodding:
Me: Honey... Do you have anything to say about Amazon?
He: It's a great site isn't it? I saw something you might like. Just click on..

I cut the conv. short - I was piqued and desperate to get to the bottom of the matter. I also adopted the curt tone for added measure
Me: No....I mean, did you do anything with an Amazon order 15 days ago?
He: No...why would I do anything with an Amazon order? Hey...just check out what I am showing you...

An edgier tone is warranted. It helps if you also clear your throat once or twice to signal how dire the situation is
Me: *Clears throat*. REALLY! Did you or did you not cancel an order 15 days ago? I'd ordered 2 books
He: Oh...was it you who ordered those? I thought I had added them to the shopping cart by mistake and cancelled them

Cool as a cucumber!

All these days my nerves on end, and this cutlet went and cancelled the order without a squeak!

"Why would you do that?" I shrieked. "I bought them to surprise you for your birthday!"

"Oh" - Is that a response, I ask you. Is that a response?

NO MORE SURPRISES!

The Shopping Cliche

2007-10-11T16:09:00.001-07:00

I love shopping, and it is not one of my husband's favourite activities.

When I say I love shopping, I am not an obsessive shopper, who shops 8 hours at a stretch, or demagnetizes the credit card with use. Every once in a while I love to stroll through the aisles, just looking at the interesting things out there, browsing if you may - but not necessarily online.

When something attracts my attention I alert the better half to take note. All I have to do is say is:
"Isn't this nice"

I can reel the reminder of the conversation in my sleep:
"Yes, it is....Why don't you buy it?" he quips.
"I only said it was nice, I never said I wanted to buy it!"
"Well, if you don't want to buy it, why bother telling me?"
"Because I thought of sharing my obs."

Oh well....I never learn, and he never learns. I may be generalising here, but when women shop and say something is nice, it is not always with the desire to acquire the article. There are times when the intention is to buy, but THAT, you can sense in the tone and eyes. (In such situations, regardless of what you say, we buy the article.)

Here is my theory with shopping: you have to browse around to see what you like enough to buy.
Here is my better half's theory: you have to browse around only when you know you like something well enough to buy.

My question is: how do you know you like something enough to buy, unless you spend some time aimlessly looking around?

Year 3: Birthday #1 Account

2007-09-26T13:55:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

Ref: Year 3: Birthday #1 Account

Keerthana's first 3rd birthday party was celebrated with great pomp and splendor on her father's birthday yesterday. She did not exactly steal his thunder, but yeah....she cut the cake, wore a lovely dress, a crown and beamed as she cut the cake with her 22 3 ft friends watching with a look that combines all of the above emotions:

Anticipation, joy, enthusiasm and a weeny bit of jostling to get a good view of the cake!

Yesterday, I went along to her school, and just observed her class for a few minutes. I had taken leave yesterday because

(a) It was my dear husband's birthday
(b) I had leave that was overflowing
(c) I was sick of all the tamasha at work and just wanted a day off
(d) I really wanted to meet Keena's friends at school.

Her teacher casually mentioned that if I wanted, I could celebrate Keerthana's birthday at school. So, we had a birthday party with 22 avatars in her classroom yesterday evening at 3:00 p.m. Her father could have attended the function, but he had an important customer call. So, the guy whose birthday it really was, did not get a chance at the cake. But Keena performed admirably and glowed in all attention and finery.

The children were all standing around the table, each one trying to poke a finger into the cake (Luckily I had not yet opened it) Their teacher (bless them both) came and told them

" Children ... Please don't touch the cake. Can everyone stand with their hands tied behind? Thank you!"

Lo and behold: All eager 3 year olds stood with their hands tied behind themselves!

The cake was served and all the little ones sat and ate them while I chatted with them all. A number of them said they were Keerthana's friends.

Towards the end of the party, a Barney song was sung (lead by me and sung by all the pre-schoolers)

A word of thanks to Monsier Thaatha who assisted in buying the party items at short notice and Madame Paati who quickly put the goodie bags together.

If you need any further details, please get in touch with me.

PS: You may call her and wish her a happy birthday starting from 25th Sept through Nov 16th for the Financial Year 2007.
Reference blog: http://nourish-n-cherish.blogspot.com/2005/10/here-cake-there-cake.html

Suing God

2007-09-19T12:24:00.000-07:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20827350/

Senator sues God. The news item states it is an attempt to show how frivolous the lawsuit culture is.

So, God is summoned to the witness stand, and you just feel a cool breeze. The judge is leaning towards declaring contempt of court for filaure to appear, and a huge voice thunders from above

"GOD IS OMNIPRESENT. YOU MAY PROCEED"

Well....okay. Please take an oath in the name of God

ON WHAT?

The Bible

If it is on one of the books written on me, shouldn't you bring all the titles: Geeta, Koran and anything remotely religious?

You have to swear on God

I am God.....what use would an oath on myself do?

You would die if you lie

I don't live and I don't die. I am God

Well... are you refusing to take the oath ??

At this point thunder strikes the courtroom, and God is held to task.

Did you make thunder?

Yes that was me spattering in exasperation.

And so it goes ..

Did you know

2007-09-17T10:01:00.001-07:00

Did you know that
(a) The gas-station 76 was named after the fact the Brits got kicked out of the US in 1776?
(b) Route 66 used to run from Chicago to LA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_66)

Black days

2007-09-17T09:56:00.000-07:00

Dec 6th, Sep 11th, Aug 6th have all become dark days in our lives thanks to the thoughtless actions harming thousands of people. Yet, the wars we wag that have daily death tolls nearing Dec 6th and Sep 11th are unheeded.

History...please enlighten us to learn from you!

Another milestone

2007-09-10T11:11:00.000-07:00

Another milestone in the life of her first-born.

She started school. She seems to be enjoying it. The mother was having difficulty leaving her daughter to cope in the unfamiliar classroom.

As she took the 3 mile drive home, she was disoriented. She stopped at green lights, got honked at by peevish office-goers heading grumpily to work after the long week-end. In her defense, visibility was poor. (The visibility factor was later clarified by her husband as being clouded by tears, not fog as she wanted to believe.)

Here is wishing her daughter the best for the exciting life that lies ahead - school stories, new friends, a lifetime of learning.

I think this is the rough schedule for the day:

8:30-9:00: settling in time. They can play with the puzzles and toys while settling in.
9:00 - 9:30: some songs I think
9:30-9:45: snack time.
9:45-11:45: rigorous work! They have S.M.A.R.T (simple math, art & reading time) I think they also sing songs and dance at this time.
11:45 - 12:05: lunch time. They have to eat on their own
12:05 - 1:30: nap time. they have to take out their sheets, sleep and clean up after themselves.
1:30 - 2:30: they play in the playground outside. There is a silly train, slides, bicycles, sand box and swings
2:30 - 3:30: another round of S.M.A.R.T before heading back home. BTW, each of these activities have a restroom break in between. So, you can imagine how much actually gets done during the day!

Any comments may be sent without inhibitions to her mail_id. I am hoping that with the amount of money we are dishing out, she will learn to read eventually!

Defending choices

2007-08-14T11:42:00.000-07:00

Here is a pet peeve of mine. People make choices - what irks me is the justification for these choices. When there is a choice, a person takes what works for them better - period.

You could be a person who analyzes everything to death or be someone who makes a choice rather quickly, and lets life unfold. Whatever it maybe, I don't like the approach of : "I take the high road because I am smarter"

Some choices turn out to be smart ones, some don't. The important thing is to feel comfortable with the choice when the option to choose is given to you.

I was reading this morning about parenting, and again got me thinking. Guess what? I am not an ideal mother. I am irritable, I sometimes take shortcuts with my child's food (soup is enough I declare - but that's only because I don't have the energy that day to get her to eat spinach and rice!). But overall, I am okay. My child and I enjoy each other's company - well....let's leave it there shall we? Did I make a highly intelligent choice when I initiated my daughter into reading? No! I just did what I enjoyed doing, and did it with her. Consequently, she started liking books. Instead of saying this, I could ramble on about the research that proves reading makes the brain more stimulating - guess what? I just alienated myself! Sometimes, we all make choices that may not prove to be ideal.

I hate the way parents obsess about the colds their children catch from other kids, the share and play mentality, the gentle approach - the swim class, the dance class. I may take my daughter to dance and swim classes in the future, and if she likes it, and sticks to it long enough, why not? But if at that point, you catch me talking about what a wise choice I made with the swim and dance classes - do me a favour and stop me will you? This sort of thing is infectious and the more I meet mothers, the better the chances are that I start talking like this!

Eateries

2007-08-13T14:43:00.000-07:00

I headed home from work with such a determined mind that day, that I was going out for dinner. This happens often, but what else I had made my mind about was the fact I was not going to set foot in the kitchen that lovely Friday evening! Dinner plans were made, and we set out amidst certain excitement that comes with getting your child to stop cycling outside, and wearing something nice.

We arrived at the haute restaurant and waited for an hour outside clutching out tickets in our hands, waiting for our turn with the menus. We finally went in and sat, and when the waiter busied himself with notepad and pen to take down our orders, we gave him the first order of the evening. A special order - nothing on the menu.

A boiled egg we asked with as much nonchalance as we could muster. The sure footed waiter faltered, he stammered for a response, and said - "a-a b-boiled egg?" Yes, we beamed. I stepped in and comforted him with the assurance that I would be ordering something from the menu. "We love your food", we told him before he broke out sobbing. I could see the pride in his restaurant shattered in his eyes.

You can take my daughter to the fanciest restaurant with the most fantastic menus, but of late, what satisfies her immensely is a boiled egg. We all ate our favourite dishes, and handed a special tip to our waiter who had gone through considerable difficulty obtaining the boiled egg from the seasoned chef.

Everytime I step into Coldstone Creamery, and order a small plain vanilla icecream, I go through a similar experience. Don't blame them - check this out!

http://www.coldstonecreamery.com/icecream/original_creations.html

No one but J.K.Rowling...

2007-08-01T12:46:00.000-07:00

My husband and I talk minimally these days. No, we are not having a row. We are on perfectly good terms.

I finished the 7th Harry Potter book and he hasn't.

Given my abyssmal track record of keeping secrets, we have mutually agreed to not talk (about it) till he finishes. But talk about it till he finishes became difficult because he is curious, and asks leading questions and before I know it...another oops moment!

So, dear hubby and I love each other, and don't talk to each other! No one but J.K.Rowling could have done that!

BTW, hubby dear, you do realise we get insecure if we aren't exercising the jabbering old mouth - so before we become really insecure, READ THE BOOK!

PS: This is also my 100th post.

Summer Reading List

2007-07-19T08:41:00.000-07:00

Brainwaves (husband and co-blogger on our group blog came up with a comprehensive reading list based on KQED's summer list) I thought I will include a link to his post on this blog, so that readers of this blog can get the list too.

Summer reading list. Bring on your suggestions:

Looking at KQED's suggested list, some of the things stand out on first glance:
Blink
The Assault on Reason, Al Gore
The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai
Finding an Angel to Fund Your Business, Joseph Bell

For the comprehensive list given by Brainwaves, please visit:

http://am-kicking.blogspot.com/2007/07/summer-reading-list.html

In general, if you have any suggestions for good books, please suggest. I am bit stuck with books such as Nemo goes to School, Thomas & Friends Nursery Rhymes etc :)