Perception

Swayamwar-Part2

2011-09-06T22:53:00.000-07:00

If you haven't read Part1 then this story would make no sense to you.

Rajkumari kept looking at her toes as mantris described each charming prince. Her heart was pounding to hear just one name- Prithviraj. Each time with each next prince her heart fluttered a little bit and yet after 9 princes Prithviraj’s name was not announced. Rajkumari started wondering whether Prithviraj had even arrived or decided to attend. Finally the 10th prince was announced.

Suno suno lokvasiyo (listen all you great warriors)! Standing in front of you is the ambitious, most graceful, humble ruler of Magadh. Known for conquering the world he stands 6 feet tall. His praja (people) call him their savior, his enemies call him raw fear. Dressed in white and adorned by pearls- Raja Prithviraj.

Rajkumari immediately raised her eyes and in that instant met Prithviraj’s eyes. Ah! She said. He gave her the brightest smile in the world. She wasn’t supposed to look, but yet she did. For that moment the entire court paused. It was him and her. She was pulled out of this charm by the sound of a drum indicating the commencement of the competition. Prithviraj turned around and started walking towards the stadium. He was strong built and walked tall. Dressed in white he spilled aura around himself. Rajkumari kept staring at him. Hoping against hope for that one last look. Just as he was about to enter the arena, he turned and smiled at her again. She knew it then, that it would be him or no one. This was what her heart said, but being the individual she was, she immediately warned her heart and asked it to be practical. It wasn’t about the grace, nor the charm. It wasn’t about what her resources had told her. She wanted to know for herself if Prithviraj was intellectually compatible and how emotionally involved he would be. A man who won so many wars, who achieved so many victories, would he be able to bend his ego once in a while? Would he be able to discuss strategies and accept if she gave him a better solution that what he had? Would he accept her going on a war instead of going Sati? So many questions, but how could and would she get the answers to them. She had to think of something quickly, very quickly before the final ceremony. She kept thinking of some solution, but none came to her mind. Suddenly Rajkumari heard Dwarka’s voice, who was telling her for a while to walk to the arena throne. She got up and slowly walked toward the viewing area. The seating area was located very high and allowed viewing of entire area. The audience was cheering, the place sparking with energy. The first two princes engaged in a chariot race. The winner would continue to progress to the next round. Loser would leave the arena. The competition was about speed, skill of handling animals, balance and concentration. The prince would need a good pair of horses, most trusted ones. He would spend time going to the stable, taking care of these animals and winning their trust. It was one of the skils Rajkumari was looking for as well. The competition between first two princes went straight forward, winner was clear. Such went the other players, till Prithviraj arrived. His chariot was strong built. White horses tied to the golden chariot. He looked like Arjuna from Mahabharata standing in his chariot. Confidence sparked around him. Rajkumar Hiram was next to him on a chariot of black horses. He looked equally graceful but it was in the previous race that he had ruthlessly pushed the other prince out of his tracks. These kinds of things were common at Swayamwar. Rajkumari watched impatiently as the signal for race was given. Prithviraj’s horses quickly gained the lead. As they reached the midpoint of the track, suddenly Rajkumar Hiram’s chariot sped and dashed against Prithviraj’s causing Prithviraj to lose his balance for a moment. Suddenly Prithviraj turned to look at Hiram. His expression was changed to that of anger. His horses seem to understand his language and immediately changed tracks. Rajkumari shifted in her chair restless. It was in that moment she saw him put his right hand on his sword. She gasped. She knew what he was about to do and feared it might disqualify him. His horses didn’t need much control, it seemed like they understood the slightest nudge he gave them. Again Hiram’s chariot approached from the right and was about to dash against Prithviraj’s chariot, at that very moment Prithviraj slowed down and Hiram raced completely out of the track. It took him ten minutes to get back on the track and back in the race; in the meantime Prithviraj had gained enough ground and crossed over the finish line. Rajkumari gave a sigh of relief. But her mind raced. Why did Prithviraj hold his sword? Could he kill to win this competition? Was it winning that mattered to him or was it the anger against injustice and cheating? In either case she needed to know more about him. How would she? The next competition was that of focus and concentration, skill with bow and arrow.

To be continued...

Swayamwar

2011-08-24T17:24:00.000-07:00

For the longest time I have wanted to write these little fictional stories, these stories I would think of either while travelling on bus or just walking down the block. I would take the time to even write them on the word doc and then would delete the document without saving. This is so stupid, I would say to myself. No one is going to like this or even read this. But then today I decided, well what the heck. Let me just list out this one story and see how it goes. Like I said in my earlier post, I have too many cobwebs to clean around this blog :). So let me take you on another journey, something different from our day to day lives and yet a part of it. Let’s travel to the good old days of maharaja’s and rajputs. Of kingdoms and wars. Of bravery, strategy, romance and victory. Excited?

Rajkumari Shrutkirti was sitting in front of the mirror admiring herself while all around dasis were giggling and making fun of her. Dwarka was lovingly teing her plait while Menaka was putting payal on her feet. The latest design from Sriman Kevat, who claimed this was the same payal ordered by Rajkumari Mandavi of Bundi. Rajkumari Shrutkirti admired her feet, the beautiful payal with artistic design adorned her lovely feet and shined against her milk white skin. The pearls attached to the payal made it even more beautiful. She stomped her feet lightly on the ground and little sounds made all the dasis around laugh. This was a big day for Rajkumari Shrutkirti. It was her Swayamwar. She has dreamt over and over of this day. Painted pictures of various rajkumar’s were laid out in front of her. These she had received 1 month ago. Being the youngest and the only daughter of Raja Mansingh, she had the right to choose, rather she had wickedly achieved it by displaying crocodile tears and weaving stories around “Banno ki shaadi songs”. Mansingh has given in and sent messengers/riders to neighboring kingdoms (near and far) requesting painted pictures of grooms interested in the Swayamwar. The paintings were of all shapes and kinds, some ridiculously good to be true and some looked as if the kingdom may be on the verge of losing its last possible painter. Rajkumari, however relied very less on these paintings and more on the inside information she obtained via her appointed ally’s in various divisions of the kingdom. There was the finance minister who informed of wealth and health of various kingdoms. The head of all natya, gayan and kala (music and arts) who informed of the latest architectural improvements or activities around various kingdoms. The war strategist who spoke to the bravery and skills in various victories. So overall she had a pretty good idea and had shortlisted the top 5 potential princes she would consider. Ofcourse there would be day long contests among the princes to prove their skills (archery, swordfighting, hunting and what not). But Rajkumari hardly cared about those. She was more interested in finding the right diamond in the mix, one who would be politically powerful and emotionally compatible. Prithviraj, that was the one she had in mind. One who has conquered many kingdoms, showed mercy to even his worst enemies, spent time listening to the pleas of his people even at 2.00 am in the morning. He was the one , she knew it. So when the day of Swayamwar arrived, she wanted to look her best. From head to toe she was decorated in gold. She picked white, that was her color. White beautiful saree and gold jewelry to match it- the kamabandh (waist band), arm band, beautiful pearl earrings, pearl nose ring. She had heard, Prithviraj was fond of pearls. He had adorned his own crown with pearls. So pearls were for her.

Finally Raja Mansingh entered the room and stood there. Dasis quickly disappeared without a sound. Mansingh walked up to his daughter and held her face in both his hands. Beautiful! He exclaimed. How will this kingdom ever remain the same without you? It’s time Rajkumari, lets walk to the mandal (open hall). Though her eyes were filled with tears, inwardly she smiled. It was the day she would finally meet Prithviraj. She quietly walked with her father and sat on the throne next to him. Her eyes fixed on her feet. Princes from states far and near had come to attend the swayamwar. Talks of Rajkumari’s beauty was spread far and wide. Rajkumari only hoped Prithviraj would be there. She knew she wasn’t supposed to look up, but bold as she was, she did. There was queue of princes and she could only see that far. Each prince was supposed to step forward, one of his assistant (mantri ) would describe his valor and he would step aside for the next prince.

Woah! This is turning out to be a really long post. How about you tell me how you like it and then we continue with the rest of Swayamwar? :)

Estate Sale- Everything must go!

2011-08-22T15:15:00.000-07:00

I have gone into the shell, in hiding from the world. I have wandered, explored new places. I have learnt, taught and returned. In the meantime my blog sat here gathering dust. Now I have the massive work of cleaning up cobwebs, sweeping, polishing and making it current. I may or may not succeed in this effort but I’ll try.

Where do I start- ah yes something that reminded me of blogging, of sharing- Garage Sale!

Oh yes, the good old sign “9 AM to 12 PM- this Friday- come one- come all”. This has been my latest addiction. I wander to Garage Sales or to be more specific Estate Sales. The difference between the 2:

Garage Sale: Lot of times stuff that families don’t want, or rather think they don’t want. It occupies space, has very less emotional value and can be sold or traded.

Estate Sale: The person owning the estate has passed away, next generation remaining is getting rid of the stuff- of everything- memories, material stuff, the house itself. Everything has to go!

I know it kinda sounds sad. Why go to an estate sale you may ask? I wandered to one of those about a month ago and found it fascinating. Journey with me, will you?

Estate Sale! Come one- come all! 9 AM to 5 PM. Antiques, Glassware, Expensive stuff. Everything must go!

I note down the address and detour to the Estate Sale. Couple of estate sale professionals are at the door. A pleasant lady with a counter (to collect cash/card) is in the garage. They all have pleasant smiles. They all welcome me in. I take the first step in the house. House or Home, I think. I think of things I associate with a home. Smells that’s unique to the home. This one doesn’t have any. Just of dust and closed doors. Of cobwebs and old furniture. I step inside. There is staircase going down and one going up. I think for a bit on which one to take. People are flocking, some running upstairs, some downstairs. As they run, the wooden staircase makes a creaking sound. I think back to my own home, the creaks, and the sounds. I know them all. Did the person who lived here know them too?

I randomly pick going upstairs; the stairs lead to an open hall. The room is lit with light. There are curtains on the window, the self-created kind. Very artistic. Someone in this family knew sewing very well. Just as I begin to admire the curtain, someone pushes past me and pulls on to one curtain. In a harsh voice the lady asks, “Is this for sale?, how much?”. My expression changes to that of pain. Pleasant lady answers “Yes ma’am, everything is for sale”. I didn’t want to buy the curtains, but just the sheer act of not stopping to admire the curtain, treating it like any other stuff pains me. I move on.

There is jewelry laid out on the table, everything tagged with a price. I immediately touch the ring on my little finger with my thumb:

The ring on the right hand little finger with the green stone: Mum said always wear it. It will keep you smart. I smile at myself, it didn’t really.

The ring on my index finger, it pearl: It will keep you calm Mum had said. I started to believe it did. Years passed and I kept it. Now its sealed to my finger.

Chain: The first piece of jewelry mum made for me, when I was a kid.

I watch the jewelry laid out on the table. There is a ring in a blue jewelry box. Was it an engagement ring? Maybe wedding ring? Someone stops by and picks up the ring box. Is this real?, she asks. Yes, says the pleasant lady. How much? She asks. Let me check, says the pleasant lady. Never mind, she says. I don’t like the design anyways, she says. I walk away.

I wander into the kitchen. She is here, I can feel her, I can sense her. The spice rack in the corner is filled with spices. The crystal bowls are arranged, clean in corner. Cake makers are a plenty, worn out, used far too many times. She loved cooking. I touch the spice rack, an old piece with 25 glass spice containers, beautiful. Wooden box holding them. Hung on the wall, just on the right spot. I touch it and dust sticks to my fingers. I look and smile. I want this one, I tell one of the estate sale professionals. Can you help me remove it from the wall? I ask. Yes, ma’am, let me get it for you. The guy holds the rack and pulls on it. My eyes widen in shock. He breaks the wood hook holding the rack and hands the rack to me. Here you go ma’am. I hold it as if it were a baby, hug the rack and growl at the professional. I walk away.

Angry and hurt I walk into the bedroom. Why am I angry? What’s bothering me, I ask myself. No answer. I look at the queen size bed, wooden frame, ancient looking, beautiful. Across it is a dresser and mirror. Beautiful. There is jewelry box, wooden, empty on the dresser. There is brush on the dresser. I walk to the dresser and look at myself in the mirror holding the spice rack. I see a faint shadow behind me. I turn, there is just bright light, no one there. I touch the jewelry box. Engraved is a design on the top. Little wooden drawers to keep beautiful jewelry. I love it. Its beautiful I say out loud, not to anyone in particular. I look at the brush, it’s pretty, silver and has one hair, white, long, stuck in the needles. I touch the hair and hear loud noise of kids. Lady and 4 kids. Kids climb the bed and start jumping. I pick the jewelry box and leave.

I don’t feel like checking out any other rooms. I go downstairs, there is a nice cozy wooden rocking chair. A knitted shawl hanging on one of its arms. Settled next to it is a huge basket with lots of wool and needles. There are patterns and works in progress. I stop by to look at the basket. Pleasant lady approaches, smiles at me and says “Take all for just $5”. I look up at her and smile. I will, I say. I ask her to set it aside for me. I walk into the garage and immediately smile. There is a santa-big porcelain structure, decorations, large chritmas tree, beautiful decorations to hang on the tree. Yes, I say to myself. This was a house of memories, of turkey dinners, of get-togethers, of graduation, of first car rides, of proms, of dreams..this is a home.

I take all the stuff I picked to the counter and pay. I walk away and just as I get to my car, I turn to look. I see the house spick and span. I see the flowers blooming, I see kids playing. I see it all, I see the home it was. I see the home it will be.

2010 is gone? Already?

2011-01-13T20:05:00.000-08:00

It’s weird, I visited many blogs and yet very few which talk about 2010. I don’t know if you agree or not but 2010 was just ridiculously fast, it was really in a hurry and didn’t even wait for a single breath. This made me curious as to what all happened during 2010, I surfed the net and found tons of events, so I shortlisted them from what I remembered happened during 2010.

1. Earthquake devastates Haiti
Surprised at how many natural calamities strike earth each year, we are really testing the tolerance limit of our planet, aren’t we? It’s high time we drop some irrelevant research and invest in finding planets we can move people to, that would certainly make earth happy.

2. BP Oil Rig explodes off Louisiana gulf coast
All I remember was reading and watching this news for several days, especially the picture of leaking oil and felt bad for the poor fish, they must hate us. I can imagine them discussing:
Shark: Grrrr we have been too tolerant, the next time I swim by the coast to watch little kids building sand castles (sooo cute), I am totally throwing up some fish guts on someone

Pufferfish: (puffing away) What is that black stuff and what do humans do with it, its just causing me to puff even more

Shoal of herring: Cool, lets imitate this black thing and confuse the predators. I kind of like this stuff, though its making me sick now.

Though I am making fun of this event, it was kind of sad.

3. Supreme Court overturns ban on direct corporate spending on elections
Always wondered how politicians here could manage to run such great advertisements and campaigns on television where as in India you would find some people hanging out of a rickshaw with loudspeakers during all odd times of days and advertising:
“Jeet hogi jhadu ki, vote ki nishani jhadu”

4. Rescue of Chilean Miners
The first Chilean miner rescued was exciting but watching all 33, every single one of them. Don’t get me wrong I was completely impressed at technology. But really 24 hours of watching chilean miner arriving one after another was really boring, meaning after first few rescued guys I was pretty sure, rest would arrive quite safely. But hubby dear wanted to see the entire thing, apparently it’s kind of historic.

5. Toyota Recall
Changed my attitude towards Toyota, wonder if I would buy that car now. Possibly every part of that car could potentially be recalled.

6. Ash Cloud from Iceland Volcano Shuts Down European Air Travel
Lots and lots of people were stuck at the airport and it was quite a nuisance. But somewhere I really wanted to see the whole ash thing.

7. The 2010 Winter Olympics are held in Vancouver and Whistler, Canada.
This was the first time I thought I truly enjoyed and watched Winter Olympics. Maybe being so near to Canada was one of the reasons. Btw, I watched it on tv not in person.

8. XIX Commonwealth Games, were held in Delhi, India, from 3 to 14 October 2010
After all the caos and nonsense finally the Commonwealth games took place and in the end it all wasn’t so bad. Just like all events, we created a lot of negative advertising for the event.

That was glimpse of 2010, the year went fast and I think 2011 is moving even faster.

So what do you think will happen in 2011:
- Islands shifting, new emerging
- China finally taking over the world
- US economy getting back on its feet
- Mystical creature spotted somewhere
- We find life on some planet
- Planes travel faster than ever (in 3hrs to India)

Edited (thought of one more list entry)

- Device will be built combining all possible technologies (kinect, iphone so on). This device will recognise you, change into a phone, computer, tv (changes size), will recognize your emotion and talk to you.

This is a random list and not much thought is given when building it. Feel free to chip in and add.

Cooking and Recipes

2010-12-31T13:23:00.000-08:00

Every week I search on internet for recipes. Am I a good cook, do I like cooking? Well, no and no to both. I am an ok cook but a fervent eater, who loves new recipes and in general eating yummy food, be it traditional homemade or all fancy culinary stuff. So I visit all these traditional recipe sites and then go to my kitchen and pretend that I am participating in Top Chef or something. Trust me for a person like me who has to find some means to motivate and go to kitchen, this works. Just this week, I tried making tortellini pasta. Nope not from scratch, you get these tortellini pasta packets in Costco. Ok ok that’s not much of cooking, but still is something , no? I love pasta and atleast once a week we have it.

I keep a pot of boiling water, how much water, well I have this big pot, I simply fill it up and put it on the stove. There is no logic, no thought. I feel it would hold one packet of tortellini pasta and that’s it. Then I put a pan on another stove, this is for the sauce. And a third pot to blanche the tomatoes. About 6-7 tomatoes. That’s how many I would need to some sort of sauce to show up on the plate. Now in most of the Indian cooking, there is gravy. We like a lot of gravy, and spices, so when cooking pasta I try to recreate the same experience, only using Italian ingredients. I let both pots with water come to boil, for the pasta pot I add some salt (again, how much you ask?, tilt the salt holder and think of not pouring too much, that’s how much :)) and to the tomato pot, I just drop the tomatoes and turn off the burner.

Oops forgot about the pan, its red hot and I need to start putting stuff in it. So I reduce the heat, turn the burner to like 1 or really low. I cut some shallots about 3-4 (if they are small). Then I squish about 4 cloves of garlic, yep love garlic. Why squish? I think the taste stays intact and I hate removing skins and all neatly. And there is a kind of pleasure you would get, to keep the knife horizontal on the garlic clove and stomp it with your fist. Then hold the tail end of the garlic and the skin just comes off. And somewhere you feel a pride of saving few seconds of tedious clove peeling:). Now turn the pan stove to medium, put some olive oil. How much? Till you don’t feel guilty, the moment oops this is a little too much comes to mind, stop that very instant. Immediately you will feel, ahh that looks okie. Put in the garlic cloves and watch them turn brown. Add the shallots and let them turn soft, slightly golden. In the meantime drain the water from the tomatoes. Take 6 mushrooms, any type and cut them into pieces, any size you like. They shrink so don’t think too much. You don’t need to be precise or neat either, be fast though. As soon as the shallots turn golden, you would want to drop these in the pan. So drop them in the pan. Turn gas to high and let them cook well, shrink in size. Drain the water from the tomato pot. Now the tomatoes will still be steaming hot, so add some cold water. And then take each tomato, peel the skin and cut them. The juices will come out on the cutting board and there would only be enough space to cut 2 at a time. So start cutting the tomatoes when you see the mushrooms are almost done.

Now if you are me, you have forgotten about the tortellini pasta which is cooking and its when the water steams off and falls creating a sizzling noise, will you know the pasta was cooking. So go to the pasta, dig one of them with a fork. If it looks cooked that’s good. Just turn off the gas. I don’t like to drain the water then, just coz the pasta sticks together. Go back to the cutting board and add the tomatoes to the pan. Remember all the skin you peeled, cut that too. Add it to the pan. Now the spices, if you have any cooking wine or any wine at all, just add a little bit to the pan. It removes all the nice flavors that were stuck to the pan and the alcohol cooks away. Open a can of black olives, cut in half and add them. Add parsley, italain seasonsing (you get this at fredmeyer or any store really), add 1 spoon honey (this is the exotic ingredient I like to add), add basil, salt, pepper. Now 2 more spices I add from time to time are fresh cut dill and red chili powder (just to give it a degree of hot taste). Add about 2-3 spoons of low fat sour cream. This gives you the gravy. Add salt and taste. If it’s good for you, it’s good for anyone :). Drain the water from tortellini, add them to the sauce, mix well and serve.

Well I think I did well in this top chef episode, do you? Have a great time tyring some new recipes and eat some great food during 2011.

Secret-Always hard to keep

2010-12-17T19:38:00.000-08:00

When you are told to keep a secret what do you do? Do you have this urge of telling the first person you see, whether you know the person or not? Do you share it with your mom who explains how it’s absolutely disastrous to share a secret and then goes on and on about how it’s a sin you told her, now that she too has to keep it a secret? Do you tell your hubby, who if like mine totally finds it uninteresting and lame. Dude it’s a secret, get it. Someone somewhere doesn’t want it to be shared with anyone. Itsss aaa secretttt shhhh. But well, that’s what men do, don’t they? They don’t have secrets, there are no boundaries of what to say or not say when having conversations. Keep our wife, family and kids topics out and there will be no secrets. Also, when you can talk hours and hours about politics, money market and cricket, why would you need any other complicated topics which lead to secrets.

So what do I do when someone tells me to hear them out and then just shut up? Not a word to anyone. Not even a single syllable. Well, I feel as if I have a knot in my stomach. Now if the person had never told me explicitly that it's a secret, I wouldn’t care less. But now after pointing out not to tell, how do I seriously not tell? Don’t get me wrong, I am not the kind of friend who would go share secrets, but this is just an urge of telling someone. Just a little bit you know. And like all good women, I have managed to kill, stab and poke this urge out of my system everytime. But then what’s the harm if you share it with your mom who is like seven seas away and has no remote connection to this so called person whatsoever right?

Ma: (after sharing pleasantries) What else, I hate these long pauses you know…there is so much going on here and I am holding the phone all the time. Bai, tum kal aaogi na (Ma talking simultaneously to the maid servant)

Me: So remembers that person at my office (let’s call him Obi-Wan Kenobi). Why this name is another story for some other time. Obi-Wan told me about blah and blah and didn’t want me to tell anyone.

Ma: What is this? Why did you tell me? Now what do I do with this? You know when it's told not to tell you should not tell. Now how weird will I feel when talking to Geeta masi, Sita masi, Bai and those women who meet me everyday when taking evening walks.

Me: WHAT? Why should they care? And how does this relate in any way to them Ma?

Ma: Well, how did it relate to me?

Me: Ma, you are my mom and I can share stuff with you about a person you remotely know. Doesn’t mean you should go tell half the world about it.

Ma: Half the world, you call this half the world. I am not even telling Sangita masi (our neighbor), Bai II (our other less favorite bai), some mrs x, mrs y, mrs z (women I don’t even know). And they too don’t know this person and don’t say this to anyone but I don’t think they would even visit USA. And don’t mention this to anyone because they certainly think they will.

Me: (What kind of weird information is that, why would I tell someone this) But still you don’t need to tell them. I should have never told you. I take my words back, you never heard about it.

Ma: I maybe old but I am not so old that you just tell me to forget something and I forget. This is a good lesson for you, now you will remember not to tell anyone.

Me: Ofcourse it’s a lesson, but I don’t need to learn it the hard way, do I? Ma, can you just forget this entire topic, pleaaaaaaaase.

Ma: I cannot just forget. Ok maybe just Sangita masi (who by the way would definitely tell half the world)

Me: O dear god. How do I convince you not to say a word to anyone? Where is dad, maybe I should just tell him this.

Ma: What do you mean tell dad, what has he to do with this. (Other phone rings) Hold on now, I need to clear this with you.

Background chatter- Ma talking to someone
Ah Sangita, tell tell. Yes yes, I know her. Your sister’s husband’s cousin right? Yes yes, tell. Oh, getting married, when? Such good news. Not a news? Why? Oh, they haven’t told anyone yet? I see, ofcourse ofcourse. No no, I won’t mention. But what a nice news, ahh sorry not news. Ok ok, talk to you some other time.

Ma: (totally exicited) Listen listen Sangita had just called so and so is getting married. How nice no?

Me: Didn’t Sangita tell you, its not NEWS and don’t share?

Ma: Ofcourse she did, but I bet she is already calling half the world and who are you going to tell, you don’t even know these people.

Me: And about what I said earlier?

Ma: You? What did you say? Yeah, you did tell me some lame story, but it was totally boring. I don’t even remember it now. And I have ten thousand things to do. Call me tomorrow ok?

Me: Ok (yay!)

And just like that she forgot and kept my secret a secret. How nice it is, when you can share something with someone who you know would absolutely forget it after listening hehehe.

Elevator ride

2010-10-21T17:14:00.000-07:00

Every day I get into the elevator at work at the lowest level, garage if you may. There is hardly one other person or no one who takes the elevator from there. I get off at level 3. So basically its not a very long ride, just parking 1, parking 2, ground, 1st and 2nd. Yet everyday when I get into the elevator, I hope it doesn’t stop anywhere before the 3rd floor. Why is that you ask? Well, its just uncomfortable,

Bunch of strangers, who are not really strangers since they work at the same company as you and you often see them once in like 6 months maybe. They get into the elevator.

Every stop the elevator makes, it challenges the weight bearing and space capacity of the elevator. Even if there is no more space, there is at least one person trying to squeeze in.

There is at least one person riding the elevator who is bathed in coffee. Don’t get me wrong, I do like coffee but not so much as to sit in a bath tub filled with coffee so I smell of it all day long.

Everyone waits in awkward silence. Not knowing or understanding what to do. Some stare at the roof, some at their shoes, some just keep moving 2 paces here and there, some keep pulling up their handbags or backpacks, some keenly stare at their car keys and some pretend to love the music they are listening to.

You have to be nice to people, they work in the same building as you do and though you may never run into them again, you never know right?. It could be another awkward ride to the 18th floor or something some other day.

Then there are those who ought to bring food or soda or vitamin water or tea or coffee or eat noodles (no kidding) while in the elevator. Don’t ask why, its as if this whole 2 min or less elevator ride is just too much time to waste, so I better eat. Or I maybe taking this elevator ride to the draught stricken 23rd floor, I ought to carry food.

And then there are those chatty ones. Those nice, smiling, i-am-so-happy-too-bad-your-life-sucks kinda people, who need to talk to you. Like:

Stranger1 (very chirpy): Hiiii, morning, how are you doing today? (this dude obviously has his adrenaline soaring up, what is he so happy about?)

Stranger2: Hi (lazily,obviously I am not interested in what nonsense you have to say. Rude but dude please its 9 am and I just woke up)

Me: Ahem, yeah huh hi

Stranger1: The weather today is quite nice, isn’t it?

Stranger2: Hmm (Like I care, dude take a hint)

Me: Yeah, its good (when will this damm elevator stop, I need to get out NOW)

Stranger1: Tully’s downstairs, good coffee. Did you try?

Stranger2: I don’t drink coffee

Me: I guess (thinking, obviously you would know, you had 20 cups probably) and smiling (Coz my floor arrived)

There are those who wear weird tight cycling shots, cycling helmet and enter the elevator all sweating. I mean I respect the fact that mr cycling dude cares about the environment and his own health. But those tight shorts, really? And why do they come in such fancy bright colors.

And then those who enter the elevator as a group (do they actually wait for their buddies before entering the elevator), coz they just start talking, loudly and laughing. This make me curl in a ball and roll out of the elevator.

Well there are so many more types I come across everyday and think how uncomfortable the elevator ride is really. I pretend daily to be no one , don’t exist, don’t look at me, I am not here kind of person when entering and leaving the elevator. Do you feel the same or its some weird chronic condition I have?

Monkey huh!

2010-10-17T21:47:00.000-07:00

Commonwealth games brought a lot of attention to India, good or bad it was publicity. Especially for some of our politicians. I came across this video today and couldnt stop laughing. I had to share it with all of you.

Is it so hard to say.. umm can you repeat that question for me again, I didnt get it?

I ask myself

2010-09-25T20:05:00.001-07:00

As I am walking ahead in this journey of life, sometimes I pause just a little, turn around and observe the course of actions that have happened. We all do this perhaps, more as we grow older. Thinking of if things could be different, or if they would be what would they be like.

Silly days of school and friends you thought back then would be friends for life, but now you dont know where they are and what they do.

Your definition of career, when you first understood what career meant and how it shaped into something totally different

Those good old times when your heart would flutter at slightest smile.

Why does life become serious as we grow? Why do we not feel the excitement in stupidest of things? What is it that we need to hold on to, to keep that child alive in us?

Guess who is visiting from India?

2010-07-06T12:47:00.000-07:00

My home these days is filled with people. Typical scenes you would instantly notice at home now are hot tea/coffee brewing multiple times during the day, and never ending gossips replacing the usual quite and tv volume. It feels like a mini India. Indian politics and cricket conversations happen to be the main theme of conversations. Any ideas why? You all may have already guessed it, Mom dear is here :). She and her questions keep me smiling all day. I wish I could trap this time and then travel back whenever I want.

I have been busy just absorbing all the gossips, energy that I haven’t really had the time to write. But then its one of those things, you visit your blog to read your blogging world’s friends posts and there you find a comment sitting starring at you. One of your blogging friend pings you to ask how you have been and why not writing? Thanks Neeraja for still wanting to read my posts.

So over the long weekend we drove 900 miles to visit this one place. Place is not important, what’s important is the journey to get there. Mommy was sitting in the front passenger seat and I was driving. Our conversations were hilarious or so I think, would love to know what you all think:

Ma: “Slow slow slow” what is wrong with this people. Areyyy, look how fast that truck wala is driving, are there no rules here?

Me: Ma, shhh they are driving at 60 miles/hr and that’s the speed limit here. Truck wala is driving perfectly fine. Calm down now

Ma: What! you think we don’t drive at 60 kms in India, we do that ok. And if truck wala is driving properly why are you not, look at your speed must be really high, that lights wala police will come and catch you, you see now. And why drive so close to the truck, go to that first lane and drive there, see no cars there.

Me: Ma I cant magically just change lanes no? I need to watch the traffic. And 60 miles/hr is more than 60 kms. Anywho why are you paying attention to the traffic, look at the beautiful scenery around, see the lake, the trees.

Ma: Yeah yeah, that only I am seeing since last 2 hours, when will we get to that place you told us. Same road you are driving since last 2 hours. Have you missed a turn or something and why is that women not talking (by women she meant the gps)

Me: We are on the freeway, the roads would all look the same only Ma. And the women talks when there road is about to change. If we have to keep going straight why should she tell us again and again?

Ma: And why does she have this weird accent. Can she translate, like hindi or something? “Kuch der main aap right le lo, 400th Exit”

Me: Hahhahaha, hindi eh? Ok I will let the Garmin company know hahahah. (We then took exit onto an internal scenic road and Ma saw a deer)

Ma: Look look, deer (totally excited). Stop stop lets take some photos, I need to tell everyone I saw a deer. Arey stop no. Poor deer she has no forest only left maybe so she is coming on the road.

Me: I cannot stop Ma, there is traffic behind, we can’t take pictures like this and you can still tell everyone why do you need photo for that. All this land is protected, its national forest Ma. Deer’s have enough land, in fact they are nuisance sometimes. This deer may simply be crossing the road.

Ma: How did they build this road? When did they build? We are climbing uphill but see how the slope is not at all steep, no? How do they do this? In India, I went to Matheran, full time I was praying in that ghat. I thought this is it, if the driver does one mistake I am making it to heaven today.

Me: It’s engineering Ma. They apply everything they learn here.

Ma: Ok ok, now change this CD, no other songs you have this only you are playing. And while you do that let me read some pothi (holy book)

Me: Yes sir!

And while I changed the CD I smiled, will photos really trap all these memories I thought?

I find nothing

2010-04-11T13:06:00.001-07:00

I keep looking.....

….wandering

….thinking

…wishing

…hoping

….holding

….snatching

But find nothing.

Memories are fading and I am trying to hold on..

2010-04-01T21:54:00.000-07:00

And I stop writing, just like that. I stopped visiting the site as well. It was like I shut myself down completely. Is this a phase everyone goes through while blogging? Then what brings us all back to writing, is it knowing there will always be some reader out there in this vast web universe who would read and relate, an unknown friend. Maybe yes, or maybe throwing my thoughts out there makes me calm. How many times do you find or meet people who are ready to listen, not say anything, not argue, not suggest, just listen. Blog is one such person.

It has been raining for past few days, reminding me of Mumbai rains almost every day. Sometimes when I am at a traffic light, I just close my eyes and try to remember. Remember the smell of wet mud, remember the cool breeze, remember the chai wala pouring cutting chai. I remember people running out of the station holding newspaper, bags over their head trying to escape the rain. But Mumbai rains, when they poured they just poured. Remember taking a rikshaw home, hard plastic tied to the rikshaw doors which never really stayed in place and didn’t provide any protection from the rain. Remember standing at the door of the train, droplets of wind and rain touching my face. Remember listening to the rain as I slept. I still remember..

But the memories are fading and I am trying to hold on…

Where o where will the new year take me?

2010-01-10T18:18:00.000-08:00

January is the most exciting time of the year (new year begins and such), but trust me it vanishes in no time. By the time I think of resolutions its already March and then I wonder if its even worth coming up with any resolutions at all. So each year I basically think of re-living the year as I did last year, but guess what nothing stays the same.

Last year was full of new things:

-Working at 2 different companies, learning 2 completely different roles (nope and they did not suck)

-Travelling to India (first time after 2 years- what amazing experience I tell ya)

-Volunteering

-Revisiting art

Not bad eh?

So about this whole visiting India thing, I did not put too much thought or ask too many people about experiences of visiting India. I wanted to experience it all first hand. What I did think about all the time was eating Pani Puri, yes, what else?

As you all know from my previous post as soon as I landed I had my cousin's engagement to attend. Imagine attending a family function without even having time to go to the parlor. No kidding! I was kinda apprehensive about meeting (the mob) so many relatives in one place, yes my family and their friends can easily fit into an auditorium. So I reach on Saturday night and Sunday is the engagement. I dont sleep ofcourse, which means dark circles around my eyes. I look in the mirror and go ufff now what. Maa dear has done some planning so saree and stuff is ready. I get ready and we head to the engagement.

As soon as I step in the hall, its like this whole world starring at me. Aunts, Uncles, Grandma, Cousins, Uncles uncle, Aunts sisters Bahu, Masi's friends first cousin. OMG, the entire freaking world is there. I try to stay calm on the surface put a fake smile and count till 20 or maybe 50 in both ascending and descending order.

One aunt comes straight running at me (no really, it was running at me) and hugs me as if she had planned she would crush my bones the moment she saw me. My soul lets out a small wail, but I smile.

Aunt: "oh my gawd, you havent changed at all, no weight gain, you must be going to gym and all that no?"

Me: smiling ...trying to speak but would i get a chance?

Aunt: "yeah poor child (with almost fake tears in her eyes) no servants there, you must be doing everything, dishes, laundry, cooking, cleaning, something they say farming like...aa..

Me: Lawn mowing

Aunt: Yeah yeah that only, all that you must be doing, no doubt you are not gaining any weight. Have you seen XYZ's daugters, first cousins wife?

Me: Huh? Actually auntiji, I just got here last night, and I really cant tell who you are talking about.

Aunt: Now come on, dont act like a foreign return, you know her very well. And dont tell me about just landed last night and all, during dandia who stayed up all night. That time you never spoke of jetlag haa?

Me: Errr.. yeah oh (smiling) no no I am fine

Aunt: Oye idhar aao (calling the waiter) grabbing about 5 kababs and handing me one. You look so pale, come on eat now, these are very nice.

Me: (not wanting to eat, nor wanting to stay there) o so nice of you, i think Ma is calling me, i need to get there before she comes here. I'll just be back ok.

Aunt: (not listening and enjoying the kababas, starts talking to some other aunt)

Folks that's just one interaction, there were several more on similar lines. In one hour I felt drained and wondered why they dont allow us to carry guns, even darts would be fine.

I'll add some more of these horror stories over the weekend...

Rural India- love it

2009-12-13T23:11:00.000-08:00

I visited Goa recently, it still remains one of my fav destinations in India. Goa has too many childhood memories attached and each time I visit Goa it rekindles those memories. I managed to click some pictures inspite of the crazy schedule of visiting 100 temples with Ma dear (I can't wait to tell you all about it). But for now let the pictures tell the tale:

Mumbai- 2.5 years later

2009-12-01T05:39:00.000-08:00

Different people told me different experiences upon visiting India- sounds, smells, food, pollution, population and so on. Well, for me 2.5 yrs later Mumbai still looks and feels the same. As soon as the plane landed I had thousands of thoughts flying through my brain, the 18 hrs travel exhaustion was completely replaced by enthusiam. Mumbai welcomed me with familiar smells and sounds. The smell of several kinds of foods, oils, smell of burning plastic, high humidity and of sounds- loads of people all talking at the same time, cars honking, hawkers calling, birds screeching….its all just the same…its home.

I walked out of the airport and saw atleast 200 people waiting there to receive someone. I smiled to myself. Meeting parents was a complete different experience, usually I would walk to them and touch their feet but as soon as I saw them, I ran and hugged them.

What has changed?
-Traffic has grown a thousand fold. Distances have remained the same but the travel time has immensely increased inspite of all the multiple flyovers and road widening done. Average time: Dadar to Chembur 2 hours. No kidding.

-The traffic and pollution seems to take a toll on the common man. Walking around, in newly constructed malls, I find more people snap at each other. Annoyed.

-Driving has gone crazy. It’s like a crazy car race, with the one who can dodge multiple vehicles and people wins. People simply cross the highways and roads without looking on either side. Btw, I actually saw 2 people on a bike carrying a goat.

So today I wanted to cross off riding my two-wheeler and I did, I had to relearn some basics.

-About 100 people will be walking in the middle of the road and you have to dodge them, not to mention the cats, dogs even some lazy pigeons who obviously think they own the road

-If you run into someone pretend as if the other person is at fault. “Dikhta nahi kya, thik se chalo na” and move on after some bickering

-Don’t worry if you meet a neighbor, acquaintance, friend or anyone who talks to you. Just park in the middle of the road and starting talking. If someone honks just indicate them to drive ahead “Bhaiya thoda baju se nikal jao”

-Btw, helmet fine is Rs 500, so unless you have enough time on hand to start a discussion about Mumbai Police bravery with the cop don’t try to leave without a helmet.

-Catch up on all missed opportunities to honk. In US, I fear that honking may scare the person ahead who may eventually drive in reverse and damage my car. Here you can honk at leisure, at people, animals, or simply at no one.

-And you really don’t need to travel all the way to Disneyland or any other park, simply ride through the potholes. You will find about 10 on each street.

That’s the tale of bike riding. More stuff coming up.

Mom's Enthusiasm

2009-11-17T19:00:00.000-08:00

Seriously its like one week more and I get on the flight to India. I am lucky to work in one of the tallest buildings in Seattle, with big glass windows. Today as I stood looking out at the sky, the sun peeked out (trust me it’s a very rare event these days) and lit up the whole city. The fall colors glittered, ice clad Mt Rainier looked like a huge diamond and just then an airplane flew across the sky, reminding me of soon…soon the journey begins. Each passing day is making Mom dear excited. For those who have followed this blog know the special bond I share with Mom. For those who haven’t you are in for some story now. So yesterday as usual I call Mom, nothing special, just the routine evening call, what I did get however is a pulse of her intense enthusiasm. That women sure does know how to live and breathe each moment as it goes. This is how the call went:

Me: (Ma picks up the phone in half a ring) Hello Ma, what are you doing?

Ma: (speaks instantly and rather breathlessly) Ha ya, I have been waiting for your call. I wanted to share some news, there is a change in our itinerary, see we travel on the 5th , but before that you need to attend a function and that reduces one day, so we should actually travel on the 4th or wait may be even 3rd. Yeah 3rd would give us more time.

Me: Ma, maaa, maaaaaaaa will you slow down please. I am not following you. What’s this about, which itinerary, who decided, where are we going?

Ma: Uffff, see you don’t have time no? So we only decided where to go and we only created the itinerary. But then this function came up, so we decided we should change the itinerary. Did I tell you about this function?

Me: Who is we? And where are we going? Whose function? No you haven’t told me about the function yet, neither about this so called itinerary or where we will go. Please don’t tell me you created itinerary for travel within Mumbai (trying to lighten the mood and curb the excitement a bit)

Ma: Me means see there is me, your dad, your brother, (some far off) aunt then there is another aunt, uncle..and some more people. We all decided. We all are going no that's why.Last Sunday we all met to decide the itinerary. What Mumbai? You think there is time for that…see on 5th we must go or rather on 4th, I need to call your aunt to finalize. Oh and the function yeah your cousin is getting engaged…so there is that. She wants you to come stay at her place one day before the engagement and then another day gone. Bai (our maid) Baiiii clean there, don’t you see that spot, clear there first.

Me: Maaa why are you talking to Bai now? What M is getting engaged? This is hugeeeeeeee. I am so excited. I have to go shopping with her for her engagement, yeah and I will go stay at her place. Ma I can’t believe it, this is such great news. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?

Ma: Wait now, I have 100 things on my mind and you want me to remember and tell you each one. Girls na, any event you tell them all they think of is shopping. Where is time for that, but who will think that and then you ask why make itinerary. And we’ll see about staying at her place. After years you are coming and you want to go here and there. Stay at home first.

Me: But Maaa...

Ma: No maaa, nothing doing. You must have become skinny I know, first you come here rest and eat properly. At the function everyone will say you look thin and I don’t want that.

Me: Ma I am not skinny,I don't know who told you that or why you feel that way. And how will I become fat in 2 days and 1 day at M’s place isn’t a big deal, please Maa

Ma: What you girls want to do…do. Don’t ask me….Bai where are you going now, ok come in the evening

Me: Ma about this itinerary thing, can you wait till I reach and then we’ll decide?

Ma: Now listen girl, nothing doing, there are several changes to be made in the itinerary, I don’t even know by time you reach whether your aunts and me will come to any conclusion.

Me (laughing noiselessly): Ok ok Ma you decide, now you better hurry and call aunt

Ma: Yeah yeah, look at the time, you just ask me so many things and then time just flies….now I have 100 things to do…ok call tomorrow….Bai o Bai (and her voice fades as she keep the phone)

It has been years since my Mom stopped me from going for sleepover at my sister’s place and when she yelled at me (ofcourse fake yelling) I simply loved it. I couldn’t really reduce her enthusiasm even by a bit and wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. Btw, I still don’t know what the itinerary’s for.

Long awaited trip to India

2009-11-06T16:14:00.001-08:00

What's with time these days? I mean day light time saving is one thing but personally I feel there just isnt enough time. This was a crazy week at work, I even wrote a draft here but didnt get around to post it. Well the good thing about time flying is 25th Nov is arriving sooner and this is the first time I actually am flying home for thanksgiving. Yes folks you guessed it right, I am taking the long awaited vacation to India. Apart from buying gifts and wondering about thousand things, there are few questions that keep appearing in my mind no matter what, I thought I would share it here and know if any of you felt the same way before going to India:

1. Would the roads and people look different?

2. Will I find all my cousins have grown older, greying ?

3. How about parents, do I run and hug them at the airport or simply stand still and let the thought that I am here and this is now sink in?

4. Will I manage to slow time and do all that I want to?

5. Will I be able to drive my 2-wheeler there like I did or will I be scared?

6. How will I react to the thousands of questions and curious inquiries of neighbors, relatives, friends and acquantainces. Will I long for my personal space or embrace the attention?

7. Will my brain constantly go into the loop of justifying the struggle I'll see daily- long queues, anxious train commuters, kids running aimlessly on streets vs porsche cars on broad roads, ample space and opportunities here?

And the most haunting questions of all- will my heart still break into million pieces when I bid goodbye to the land I came from?

P.S: I was simply happy to see your comment here Secondsight, I think I would rather not attempt to drive a vehicle while I am there :)

This blog is gathering some dust now!

2009-10-24T12:38:00.000-07:00

Aug, that's when I last wrote. 2 months and nothing. Between fighting flu, trying to actively participate with a non-profit and work, I am struggling with time to sit calmly and pen my thoughts. But I terribly miss my blogging friends and I havent heard from you all in while. So here' what I am going to do, whether I have a story to tell or not I am going to write atleast once a week, so we all stay in touch, ok?
Now about this new non-profit work, I was introduced to Ekal Seattle by one of my friends, a small non-profit that works with a mission to build one school per village. I attended their meetings just with an open curious mind, the more I met them, the more I liked their work and the people involved. Its a small team maybe 8 to 10 folks, very down to earth and nice people. Each one of them is extremely busy and yet they carve out time to work for Ekal, with only one thought of giving back. Giving back to those not as lucky as we are, to the country we came from and to the people we owe.

In past month we organized 2 events- Tango Workshop and Bowling Night, one more event is coming up the Art Workshop. I have a little secret to share with you all, I am a hobby painter :). Next Wed you will find me in action, teaching Warli painting (a form of tribal art) in Redmond, WA. If anyone is interested please feel free to join. For details contact: contact@ekalseattle.org

I'll definitely keep you all posted with how it went. But the reason I post this here is to share the satisfaction one can get out of voluntering, sharing and helping others. Its a good feeling. So if you are in Seattle and want to volunteer, feel free to contact me at perceptionblog@live.com

Ponder

2009-08-28T13:44:00.001-07:00

The work is kinda slow today (oops I probably jinxed it) well that gives me a chance to quickly jot down my thoughts and most of all touch base with all you folks out there. So how’s everybody doing?

Summer is slowly slipping away and the subtle cold winds in the evenings remind me of chilly winters. But well, why think of it when its not in sight right? Working in Seattle has been quite some experience for me, for one it feels like the elite FORT area in Mumbai. Everyone’s very well dressed, except me ofcourse. I continue to wear a sloppy pair of jeans and t-shirt, many times salwar kurta and find myself standing out in the crowd. I can feel the eyes on my back when I get into the elevator especially on days I wear kurta. But frankly I am not the only one, I have seen some others who like me wear Indian attire, not in the company I work for but I have seen some on the bus. Then is the ride back to Bellevue, that kinda of quite too, everyone has their head dug either in a book, are in deep sleep or are listening to music. You may find someone get in the bus, asking driving when to get off and completely lost. There maybe 5 others who know about the place this person is trying to get to, yet no one offers help. Which is strange to me. However, this experience contradicts the one you may come across when you travel to downtown, university district and such areas within Seattle. I once got on a bus to go to downtown, near university. Ofcourse this was the first time I was travelling in that direction or to the destination, so I asked the driver, then with a scared rabbit face I sat as near to the exit as possible. I strained my ears to hear what the bus driver announced. The bus was filling up with people and this scared me even more, after a while the exit door was out of site. But between the stop I go on the bus and the next one, I had nearly 4 people ask me where I was trying to get to. One guy told me he is responsible for me getting off at the destination. I was surprised and quite happy. These people kept looking at me at each stop and nodded, showed they were concerned and kept the promise of helping me find the destination. Next day as I took the 550 to Bellevue I realized how indifferent everyone was. Have you experienced something like this? Is there a reason for this behavior? While you think and ponder, I will check if avalanche of work has come in :)

To Go or Not to Go- Pratibha Kamerkar

2009-08-05T21:16:00.000-07:00

Our marriage was a quick one- chaat magni paat biha. Ashok got vacation approval only for few days, it wasn’t closer to December so he wasn’t able to combine the long weekends with his vacation. Within a few days of his arrival we were married, actually almost in a hurry and then he flew back. It was only then that the real rituals started-post marriage: visa, immigration and most of all constant reminders of "jaldi jaldi apne ghar jaana" (go to "your" home soon now) from closer relatives….all this only for few months. Even before I could think about their nagging suddenly I was on a plane and landed here, in our new rented apartment in US.

I had insisted on buying some high heels sandals, but as soon as I landed the extreme cold and slippery tiles in the airport both hit me. Nonetheless US was like a fantasy world. Beautiful broad roads, tall sparkling buildings, speedy expensive cars…..everything so perfect..just like a painting. No crowd, no smoke and no dust.

And my home..home was a single family rented apartment…wall to wall carpet. Big kitchen, big bedroom and everything included-washing machine, dishwasher, microwave, cooking range, oven. Everything was just perfect!

The very next day after I reached US, Ashok rejoined office. That evening I dressed up, got ready and was waiting anxiously for him to come home. I thought, he would definitely say, "Let me show you our new city, lets go out". But when Ashok got home, he was extremely tired, "Oh, dinner's not ready yet, come on now lets eat quickly, I am so hungry"-says Pratibha Kamerkar

"What? Dinner at 6.00 pm?" she wondered. But in this fantasy picture perfect place, this was the norm. Here you would find seashores but no butte wala bhaiya neither the sound of chana-kurmura-shengdana lo….There was beautiful greenery everywhere, at every corner there was a flowering plant but no sign of bhel puri.

Back home newly married couple would hold hands and go for a walk to a closeby park, chit chat, eat bhel, kulfi and come home. But here this did not seem possible.

No one would come to drop off bottle of milk in the morning. No bai will come to clean vessels. If I go out to buy vegetables, I wouldn’t recognize any vegetables in the mall. If I wanted a cup of milk or sugar I couldn’t go next door and ask. Milk would be purchased in a cardboard carton, which would then go directly in to the fridge, just like that. For nothing would you go to anybody nor would anybody come visit you, cause there werent any real neighbours here. All this suddenly zoomed in-says Pratibha Kamerkar

These were some of the very first experiences of a girl from a very small town in India. One who was used to eating food served in a steel plate, drinking water from a glass made of steel, sitting on the floor to eat together with her family. One who didn’t even know an electric stove existed. She experienced pitch silence through out the day. Every neighbor's door closed. She could hear sound of the cars leaving and entering garages,but that was about it, for most parts it was pin drop silence.

Back home, she lived in a big joint family, someone or the other would be constantly talking, Gandma would always be reading some stotra loudly, Mom would always be nagging the servant. In the morning Dad would loudly ask for his tiffin, next door Lata would call out Pratibha's name and Pratibha would run to the balcony. Lata would always be on time to reach college. There was just a wall separating Pratibha and Lata's home which she could easily hop across; and most importantly back home there were thick friends. For Pratibha who grew up in such an environment this was similar to a lonely cage…ofcourse made of gold. Neither was she familiar with the country nor the customs. Neither could she go out nor was there enough work at home to kill time. Moreover the climate seemed extremely weird. Stingy cold winds, lush, thick, big, dark trees everywhere and to add to that cloudy skies. It was all new to Pratibha, who had never seen a day go by without the sun shinning bright in the sky. And here during winter there would be days without any sign of sun. She was unfamiliar with this, with the surrounding, she tried to relate to all of it but yet there was nothing she could relate to.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a glimpse of the first experience of Pratibha Kamerkar who migrated to US around 1950. She talks more about not being able to call her family due to the high phone charge and if at all they did manage to call home after saying "Everything is fine, I am happy here", she would start choking on her tears. The only means of communication with her family was through letters.

What did I feel after reading her experience? Did I relate to it? Did you relate to it?

And America's Got Talent

2009-08-04T21:42:00.000-07:00

Anyone watching the show? Any comments to share. While the tag from Neeraja is still pending, I wanted to throw some words together and build a quick post. After hearing constantly about the heat wave on news, Seattle has returned to its normal cloudy,almost raining, slightly cold self.

So about AGT, I have been watching the show this season, there is this one dance group (Indians)who danced on Jai Ho! It was fabulous, i loved it. And I am hoping to see more performances. Today there were 12 teams participating and all extremely talented but of those I simply adored these-One 14 yr old awesome singer, a group of guys dancing while wearing skates (yep skates)and an hilarious 75 year old Grandma Lee who creates the perfect comedy.

One other things I want to share with you all is the latest book that I am reading- For here or to go. Its in regional language and is basically a collection of interviews. Interviews of the first Indian immigrants who came to work in US. It gives an insight into what was the reasoning behind those who stayed here and why did some return back home. I have to sit down and write, share about what I feel after reading each interview. Each interview pushes you to think, ponder, sometimes tears just come to my eyes without knowing and sometimes I choke trying to not cry out loud. Sometimes it makes me proud reading stories of those brave people who didnt give up, who came here to test the strength in their wings and who flew to great heights. More about this book and the interviews coming up soon...

Bus Ride- Yesterday

2009-07-25T13:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I got on to the bus, as usual nodded to the grumpy driver, who by the way wishes me goodmorning these days and moved on to find a window seat. Across from my seat I saw a pump guy getting all cozy and ready to sleep. Well it was around 7.45 am and not everyone needs to be all fresh and energetic. May be he was up late night, may be the weather is just right for the nap and may be I should stop thinking about why he wants to sleep and mind my own business. The very pregnant nice lady came and sat next to me. We often ride together, I chit chat with here and that makes the time go by soon. She says her baby is unusually active in the morning, kicking and bumping. I look from the plump man to her plump tummy.

Lots of regular riders get on the bus, most of them with headphones on. The bus moves to the next stop, the same old lady who asks the same old question to the grumpy driver gets on the bus. Now my friends let me tell you about this old lady, this old lady asks the same question to the driver daily- Whether the bus will go to the destination she wants to reach? And this she does everyday, I think in a way she tries to irritate the grumpy driver. First she either pretends or maybe really does not hear his answer. Then she sits right across him (in the elder folks seat) and asks him "Are you sure this bus goes there?" . Ha! The grumpy driver turns to her and tells her he drives the same route daily, stressing on the word DAILY. She thanks him- Thank you son, peacefully closes her eyes and enjoys the ride. Those who have noticed this, smile whenever she gets on the bus.

Well as the bus reaches the 3rd stop, the plump guy I told you folks about starts snoring. Yep, loud and clear. He also has an unusal snore pattern: "Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....psssssssssstttttt" ending with a whistle. I try to reason with myself, well its normal for people to snore, stop listening, dont even look in that direction, ok spell Mississippi, talk to pregnant lady. But in spite I laugh, now laughing these days is risky,why you ask? Let me tell you how vulnerable these pregnant ladies are to laughter, the preggo lady looks at me with her eyebrows up, questioning sort of why I laugh. I turn my head and look at the plump snoring guy, that's it for her. She goes into a fit of laughter, too hard to stop or control. She keeps holding her tummy and keeps laughing. I pray she doesnt go into labor. Just then the snoring pattern of the plump guy changes to "Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrr Psssstttttttttttttttttt". While I think if there is a way to distract the preggo lady from looking or hearing the snore man,suddenly a south indian song starts playing loudly. Everyone looks around, the guy listening to music is asleep, doesnt know the music is on loudspeaker mode now.

What starts as an exchange of smiles, turn into full roar laughter and this time the grumpy driver joins in. The guy sitting next to the music player, wakes him up, who screams. Screams???? Why??? Not sure why. This leads to another round of laughter and wakes the snoring man. Who instantly joins the laughter club completely unaware of his snoring attribute.

Sometimes laughing with strangers makes the bus ride worth it!

There is lots to share :)

2009-07-21T18:36:00.001-07:00

So I have been travelling across the bridge for past few months. Did you know its a whole new world there? For those who live downtown know what I mean. I have lotsa and lotsa of tales to share, bus journeys, people, the beautiful view of Mt.Rainier on a sunny day and work place stories. For most part, Seattle downtown reminds me of Mumbai. Lot of people walking on streets daily (maybe less than Mumbai) but yet so many more than the suburbs. Each day I catch the bus to downtown and share the ride with a grumpy bus driver, who by the way drives truly well and reaches downtown in a matter of 20 mins. Recently I discovered his true nature aint grumpy, but more about that later. Then there is the very pregnant lady, whom I really admire for her motivation to go to work daily. Then there is the guy who play louds music and gets yelled at. The other guy whose ringtone is a religious tune.

There is so much I experience daily on this bus ride, now I need to sit down and jot a proper post for all you friends. Coming up soon!

Monster went poof!

2009-05-30T11:38:00.000-07:00

First of all, u guys rock for your patience. Second of all, whoooo-hoooo to all those who visited my blog in spite of no updates (ok I know this is same as point 1). Third of all, this could be a rather long post so buckle up!

So folks news is I checked off one more adventure from my "things-close-enough-to-adventure-list" over the Memorial day weekend. I went Jet-Ski, I know I know, it ain't even a real adventure. But if you are like me, who believes, that any deep water source be it lake, river or sea bears sharks and anaconda, well it becomes a different story!

Now this goes back to when I was 4 or (ahem! maybe 8) and my bro was watching this horrible shark movie marathon. You all know that one- JAWS. And I tagged along pretending to be brave. That's when this thought got rooted, same reason why I would never jump into deep pool to swim and neither do I ever swim underwater. Ok fine, I'll say it, I don’t even swim one lap that well. And then there was that anaconda movie, a huge slimy snake swallowing a human and then throwing up! Now who thinks that's funny? But well the point is I had to check off the jet-ski from the list and there is only so much one can do at Lake Chelan. A place close by 3 hrs drive. So I and J hopped on the Jet Ski. To begin with, I was terrified. And to make it worst, I had watched the movie latest Terminator in theatre and the machine snakes stayed in my brain. So while J skied away wind swishing, eyes watering to the middle of the lake. I recited every possible stotra I knew. I also thought of all the things I wanted to do if I never made it back to the shore. Especially about the inheritance of this blog and my potted plants. Often my high-pitched screams of "Jao, Jao"(meaning Go away, Go away) left the other Jet-skiers confused. I wonder why I used the National language, but well that's another story. The instructor had told us to stay 100 feet away from other jet ski's, so as soon as they came to my sight as a tiny spot I would start screaming. My sound would simply bounce against the wind and go down my throat. Also, any boat in sight would seem like a Titanic to me, no kidding! And I was quite sure this Titanic would sink near our Jet Ski and cause some horrendous waves.

But yet between all this fear, there was something exciting about riding a Jet-Ski, which made adrenaline flow through my veins. I was scared, hell yeah and yet some part of me was enjoying the weather, the sun, crystal clear lake and the view of the land from the middle of the lake.

Finally J put me in the drivers seat, this was my one chance to truly check off the adventure. I had to gather up the courage, run over those anacondas, punch the sharks in the face (ahem, using my foot) and thoroughly enjoy. So I started off at a speed of 2 miles/hr and watched some paddle boats going past me. Smirks on the faces of all those people paddling away. Hmph! I wondered if someone drapped tiny floats around ants and put them in water would they swim faster than my jet ski, hell ya! So I debated with self for a while and finally pumped gas in the Yamaha without looking at the speedometer. J was quite high on adrenaline and screamed and whooooooo-hoooooooooed. Suddenly one by one the shark, anaconda monsters started vanishing. The boats all around reduced to a manageable size from the humongous Titanic ships. While I screwed up a couple of times by coming a abrupt halt and turning the handle all the way to left or right causing the jet ski to go a full circle right at the same spot, it was all fun. J was quite prepared to swim to shore. I wasn’t, who wants to swim in chilly glacier water, I don’t. But again, if I were to fall and drown in the lake, I better not regret dying there, right? So I stabbed my monsters and skied away!

So now that I shared some of my monsters, how about you tell me yours? Come on, everyone has their monsters-some fear the dark, some fear the ghosts (don’t even get me started on that), some fear heights. How about u?

Swine flu!

2009-05-08T14:54:00.000-07:00

So 2 weeks without post, I know you all must be wondering what’s up right? Oh come on, ok well may be you didn’t wonder, but I kinda live in my own world where I believe all that exists in world is good. OMG, I seriously have lost it, literally scribbling some utter rubbish and trust me if not for the spelling check thing, this sentence would have sounded totally different. Last 2 weeks there is been lot happening around Swine Flu and Layoffs. Either people are dead, ill or jobless. Ok kidding. But seriously there were emails flying all around about swine flu and masks, one person constantly kept enquiring about a pig mask. Well that said there were parents calling from India and there were enquiries, suggestions, orders and such.

Ma: That disease some flu flu, in papers it says, its all over US. People are dying left and right. You better not go to work. And I have avoided asking you this Hey Ram…do you’ll eat pig?

Me: Ma please! No ones dying, some schools are closed but that’s just precaution, if it was so bad office would have been shut. And no one gets the swine flu by eating pork (Oops there we go)

Ma: NO ONE GETS BY EATING PORK. So now you give up all dharma, karma. Eat cow also, who is there to see. No one is watching so you kids can do whatever you want, Ram Ram…Krishna..Vishnu (and then she goes on a God name recital marathon)

Me: MAAAA, no we don’t eat pork. I am just saying, the disease doesn’t spread that way.

Ma: (Breathing now relaxed)You better stick to vegetarian food. Sangita was telling me about masks, what masks they wear, is it like doctors, nurses?

Me: Who is Sangita? And I haven’t seen anyone wearing masks, but I saw emails, hilarious kinds of masks, I will email bro. He can show you the email.

Ma: Sangita..you don’t know Sangita, she is our bai…like since 6 months and you don’t know. Which world are you in, so many times I told you, I know you call me when you are almost asleep and I am only talking here. So all this time you didn’t know her, now at least you know na? Send that email and send all that swine flu information, here papers write all stories but no real facts.

Me: Ok ok…..telll Sangita I said hi (Gosh!)

Ma: And why are so many people fired, what will all those people do. I remember the good old days, people got a job and would stay there till they retired. Now there are these all horror stories, people change job so many times, you young kids get bored and then change job, complain complain, now see what happened

Me: Ma, this has nothing to do with job hopping. It’s a economy thing. Why do you bother Ma? What’s happening in Saas Bahu serial these days?

Ma: Don’t even ask, I have stopped watching Tulsi serial, so many times characters change, but then I see it now and then. Economy, everything is becoming so expensive and then there is that…what is that…all people removed from jobs. That is why pray everyday, do namasmaran.

Me: (Oh please don’t get started on that now) Ok well, I need to get some sleep now. I will pray and not eat non-veg and yes do yoga and whatever else you say

Ma: Ok Ok I will go tell Sangita there are no masks in US, where she heard it from I will ask. That other building Rajni aunty’s son is in US, her maid told her it seems. Should tell her do some namasmaran rather than talking all this.

Me: Ok byee…(Oh man, sorry Sangita)

Ma: Aaccha, take care, bhaji wali has come…nahi nahi yeh kidhar hai tazi bhaji..dekho kaise dikhti hai ekdum mari hui….aaj kal kuch bhi leke aati ho…kya 10 roopaiya joodi….itna mehenga…nahi nahi…..

And there is went talking to the bhaji wali, I still hung on to the phone listening to their conversation. Sometimes I wish there were bhaji walis here too :)

2-Wheeler tales

2009-04-22T15:31:00.000-07:00

“Aakhe hai ya button, dikhai nahi deta kya?” –the first time I ever got almost close to running over someone on my kinetic (kinu), this is what I heard. This inspite of the fact that the said person was leisurely walking on the main road (cant really blame him, footpaths where pouring with vegetable/fruit vendors, dogs, a cow in front of a temple and ofcourse more than needed pedestrians). He also had completely ignored my kinu honking which was masked by the honking of several other cars, a kachara gaadi and ofcoure the hurrrrs from the watermelon bullock cart guy. I almost lost balance, kinu wheels skid and was red in the face upon hearing this.
My reaction- Aapko sunai nahi diya, yeh main road hai ke footpath, pata nahi kaha kaha se aate hai?

This wasn’t the only annoying and painful experience of riding a bike on the streets of Mumbai, there are several memories. None of which ever stopped me from dressing like a terrorist (covering my face, foreheard and head with a scarf and goggles) and heading out every single day on my bike. Remember how you in your car, bus got stuck in the traffic and I would squeeze through the gap between the footpath and main road and go about merrily on my bike. Yep kinu had its advantages. But it also meant frustrations and interactions with particular types of bikers.

Cycle heroes: These always found ways to match up to my bike speed. How? By hanging on to buses, autos or sometimes even bullock carts and not even taking the effort of pedaling. Often a reason of me unable to overtake them and always trying to avoid running over them. I always imagined the bus would come to an abrupt halt and the cycle hero to go right into the bus (tom and jerry istyle), but alas never got a chance to witness it :(

Then there were the quadruple riders: Now these always had to ride as a family of four. Chunnu, Munnu, Mummy and Papa, all on the bike. Chunnu would stand in front and almost always was of the height that his hair would fly into Papa’s nose and eyes, causing Papa to lose balance, change track unwarned and sometimes break unnecessarily. Every time I saw this category going up a flyover and me trailing, I would fear them skiing in reverse downhill and dragging me with them. Thank God that never happened, though it meant Papa to change gears multiple times trying to ensure that the bike continues going uphill at an ant pace and me watching all cars and bikes zoom past. Hmph!

How about the extreme bikers?: Now these kinds are like 3-4 bikers who ride at ultimate speed just cutting through traffic, you find them taking odd routes, ogling at girls and often with a bandana on forehead. I have seen them taking the foothpath route too, just to get past the traffic. Its annoying to watch them break all rules of traffic, while you are stuck there. The little voice in my head would always tell me to take the footpath route, break all rules but then again that needs some courage and cool bribing qualities that I completely lack.

Then there are the duo’s: These almost always ride side to side, not on a deserted road, not on a street rather in broad daylight and on the main road. Somehow they have some interesting topic going on and the two bikers have to chat with each other while riding parallel. And if you try and honk, trust me the kind of reaction you get will be –“Kya hai madam, dikhta nahi baat chalu hai?” Huh! Ok ok, how about I take another route, because I just forgot you OWN THE ROAD.

Btw I have seen these duo’s separate and I have watched the frustration, the reason was a cow sitting right in the middle of the road. What fun, aint it?

Apart from this there are dhoti pundits riding their scooter, while if not all, most of their dhoti is flying in air, giving them a batman like look. Ahem!

To add to all the chaos that already existed on the roads, the police introduced “Helmet compulsory” rule. Which meant almost all the 2-wheeler public were riding ridiculously coz they couldn’t see which car is next to them, thanks to the helmet. But that deserves a separate post coz I understood their pain. Nonetheless, 2-wheleer in Mumbai was a blessing, easiest and fastest means to reach said destination. I miss you –Kinu!

Sometimes weekends simply rock!

2009-04-13T15:03:00.000-07:00

They gather around the Windows Mobile, three of them, buzzing like bees and start discussing the movie options, which just for record -no one agrees on even after discussing several options. So here's how it might look like for a stranger- A weekend page from my life:

Az: Hey, look look I found one, this one seems awesome, we should watch this? (then goes about again searching something else on WM)

D: What’s it about?

Ad: What do you mean what's it about? It’s about, like that one actress is like murdered by this person and we don’t know till the end who is it (rambles on about the story line, recites the climax and everything included)

D: Ok, looks like murder mystery, works, we should check out the imdb rating (D aint satisfied by the movie description of Ad, he rather start the movie and fast forward it to watch what its like to ensure its worth watching)

Az: (Everyone again buzzes around WM) Scroll, scroll, ok here here, I found it, rating looks good.Hey but look at this one, its like a romance comedy, what do you guys think? (then goes about again searching something else on WM)

D: No ways! (D apparently can’t focus on romance drama movies and will jump, scream, yell and create complete chaos and trust me you don't want that)

D: Hey how is our match going? Man last match NZ-India totally sucked.

Upon hearing this Az is all on high alert and starts searching the match scores while Az and D buzz around WM.

Fact of life, when men talk of cricket that’s it. Need I say more?

All this while I, G and Am are sitting on couch and watching, waiting for the movie decision to be made.

G: Guys, guys listen up, I can’t stand blood and brain eating type movies, find something else. You don’t want me screaming all through the movie. (Ahem, let me enlighten you all, for any movie this will happen irrespective of which kind)

Me: I am totally cool with it. (Usually blood, killing and such doesn’t get to me, with D around there aren’t any other kinds that we could watch)

Am: Does anyone want tea, coffee,icecream? (Am is the sweetest, like G says Paavaam)

Ad: The laptop speakers kinda suck, but if it works for you guys we could watch 13b? (Like that would stop us)

Am: Yeah yeah 13b is good (As usual she goes on to provide her sincere feedback, and goes on to explain how there aren't really any ugly faced ghosts in the movie)

Me: Its horror, no way, I am not watching horror (Now I am chicken when it comes to horror movies, yeah I know blood and brain eating doesn’t scare me but ghosts do, how lame is that?)

G: Who is the actor? (Most of her movie decisions revolve around songs, music and actor ofcourse!)Az and D scrolling the WM. (Totally ignoring us)

Ad: R. Madhavan!!!

G: Oh wow, R. Madhavan then I can watch that one.

Me: Hmph! This Raghavan na, why does he need to act in horrors?

G: Madhavaaan, madhavaan not Raghavan (This wasnt the only time she corrected me, through out the movie I ended up calling him Raghavan and G correcting me :))

So there we were 3 crazy couples sitting very close to the laptop with almost zero volume, trying to hear dialogues and concentrating to watch the movie. And believe me, I still was scared.

D: What the hell is this movie, so lame, I mean 3 women watching a ghost serial and they can’t figure out till the end of the movie that it’s the ghost serial which runs only in their home, how stupid?

Am: They don’t want to. They just watch the serial no, they don’t analyze it. (Now Am had a soft corner for this movie, dunno why, so all through she was trying to defend it)

D: Well they could atleast get the tv out of the apartment and check if it still works?

Am: But they don’t want to. They want to keep the tv inside the house.

Az: (Btw the argument and such, Az was the one sitting closest to the laptop and would occasionally put one ear to the speaker reciting the dialogues, in a very fast monotonous style)….Errr bhabhi ko phone karo, argue maat karo, phone karo, chalo hume udhar jaana hoga, jo serial mein dekha woh hoga (and such, trust me it was quite funny, to hear these dialogues without any expressions)

Suddenly G burst into a fit of laughter, some joke she figured in her mind and just abruptly started laughing. That was it for us. Everyone roared with laughter for no reason at all. I was very adamant on watching the movie, so after a lot of shhhsssing, folks settled only to find another reason to laugh again. This went on pretty much till late in the night.

Sometimes weekends are just worth it! I mean they obviously always are but well I guess this song puts across my point in a much better way.

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Just like that an hour passed by!

2009-04-03T12:07:00.000-07:00

Waiting at a bus stop:

I wait and the red BEST bus just zooms past. I watch the bus wheels blow up dust in air and the entire bus rocks through a ditch in the road. I observe 12 different faces, hands , legs, chappals, shoes, college bags, hair styles (oily, colored, bald head) just dangling at the door of the bus. Two people, one of them almost holding on to a back seat window and the other at the rod on the entry, giggling and cheerfully chatting while hanging (most of the body) in midair. I heave as I look at the passing bus, hoping the next one arrives in time and praying it’s less crowded. A little girl walks up to me with a bunch of bright yellow flowers, some petals of the flowers are faded to brownish yellow due to dust settling on them as the bus zoomed past. She asks, almost requests, then commands and nags me to buy them. While she pursues me to buy the flowers, she continues to flash her radiant smile at me. Salesmanship at its best. I realize I can’t break her heart so I buy one bright yellow flower and put it in my purse. My purse, hanging from my shoulder has a flower head poking out. She runs to her next customer while I wait for the bus. I watch a vegetable vendor walk by, calling out “Bhendi ghya, Vangi gya, taaji taaji bhaji ghya” (Buy Ladyfinger, Eggplant, buy fresh veggies). A kid runs from the building opposite the bus stop. He is running after a cricket ball that’s been hit by his friend hard enough to reach the main road. He athletically dodges the cars, rickshaws and scooters. One of our neighbors walks in my direction, the same one I waved bye as I headed to the office. She stops and chats of how crowded the buses and streets are, how her son seems to be constantly arguing these days (teenager ofcourse), how load shedding is just not fair, how the other neighbor next door fired Kamla bai (the maid) and how her next parlor appointment is due. Suddenly realizing she is running late to get to wherever she had to get to (which might be nowhere), she hurriedly leaves. I hear a kind of gunshot or maybe a fire work or is it a siren of a mill? And suddenly flock of pigeons fly in sky. Even between all the noise of cars, chattering, honks, shop keepers, kids screaming, crying, playing I hear the sound of their wings and look up. The blue sky background makes it a perfect picture which I take a moment to admire and then I look at my watch. Just like that an hour passed by.

Waiting at a red light:

Booksellers, flower sellers, balloon sellers, fruit sellers, all of them run to my car, one after another, each one has his/her sales strategy and persistence. There are those who approach with a cloth to clean the windshield, I nod to them, a serious no. Someone starts honking, everyone joins in. In the car on my right someone is playing a blaring latest Punjabi hit song, on my left in another car someone playing a blaring hip hop English one. I try to turn up the radio volume. The light turns green yet no one moves, 2 cars are stuck in the lane change kinda fight (you first or me first). The book, flower, balloon, fruit sellers gather around the cars, people start getting out of the cars and walking to watch what’s happening. There are those who are cracking jokes, those who are giving unwanted, unasked advice, those who are merely watching to kill time and those who are utterly annoyed. Some street dog tries to cross the road and someone from a Double Decker BEST bus throws left over bread at him. The dog stops to eat, no one passing by minds it. I hear a cop blow a whistle somewhere. I look at my watch and just like that an hour passed by.

Waiting at a clinic:

Me: Hello is Dr Desai in?
Front Desk+Nurse+Lab person (Same person playing multiple roles, let’s call him FDR): Chattering away on phone, totally ignoring me.
Me: Hello, Mr….Mr….sun rahe hai? Dr Desai is here or what?
FDR: Looks around as if some housefly buzzed by, picks up a file and just walks away.
Me: Well, I’ll just wait here (Sit next in line, after around 15 patients, all of whom are in pain and making weird sounds)
FDR (calling out loud): Yashodabai, Kon hai Yashodabai? Next, hai, Yashodabai.
Me: Looking around, someone runs to FDR, some man, so certainly not Yashodabai
FDR: Nahi nahi, aap nahi ja sakte (no no, you can't go first), Yashodabai is first, even if she left we have to wait for another 5 mins.
Me: (walks to the FDR) Hello I have an appointment with Dr Desai, can I go meet him now, its almost 10 mins past my appointment?
FDR: (Chewing on his mawa or pan) Kya chahiye, sab ka appointment hai, line mein baitho (What do you want? Everyone has an appointment, go sit in the waiting queue)
Me: I just want to submit these reports to him, can I leave the files and papers with someone?
FDR: Hmmmm, you can but no guarantee ok? That nurse (points at a nurse who is busy chatting with other 3 nurses) works with Dr Desai, lekin aadha time idhar udhar gossip she does (but half the time she gossips here and there) You can leave the file with her but if she gives it to someone, its gone. I can help you but I am so busy you see. I haven’t even had a cup of tea since morning.
Me: (Yeah right, you are extremely busy, I see that) I really need to get to work, and I have to get these papers to Dr Desai today. Can you help me, please?
FDR: Arey madem, please kaay? Ek cup chaha dya ki zhala. (Why you saying please madam, just give me a cup of tea and consider your work done)
Me: (Oh! Why didn’t I think of this earlier) Ok lets go to the canteen, I’ll buy you a cup of tea and batata vada too.
FDR: (Smiling happily) Ho chala…ek min…(Yeah works for me)....calls out Yashodabai….Yashodabai…(an old lady arrives)…bai kuthe hota tumhi? (Where were you?) Then FDR helps her go see the doctor and comes back in a blink.
FDR: Chala madam (Lets go)
Me: As I walk with him to the canteen, he nods and chats with several nurses, doctors, regular patients. This dude knows a lot of people I guess, quite resourceful. I buy him a cup of tea (cutting chai) and he completely refuses the batata vada. He then walks out of the room and calls someone by the name Hari.
FDR: Hari yeh baas (Hari, come sit down)

An old man in his 70’s slowly walks in the canteen and sits down, broom in one hand. FDR demands another empty glass from the waiter and pours half of tea from his cup in it. He then hands this cup to Hari. Hari smiles, his wrinkly face shining at the site of tea, wipes his sweat and thirstily sips the tea. FDR puts forth his hand for my file. I hand him the file and look at my watch and just like that an hour passed by.

Chat with GGadre on a Friday afternoon

2009-03-27T14:36:00.000-07:00

I know the “Waiting” post is pending and I will get to it but before that just a while ago I and GGadre shared some conversation on chat and I just had to post it here. Why you ask? Coz one its hilarious and two remember you signed up for some nonsensical rant which might appear here from time to time. So here’s our mindless chat on a Friday afternoon:

Me: Jagjit Singh ka concert hai in seattle. Dekha kya?

GGadre: maaro usko pakadke (now let me tell you, GGadre is quite passionate about music and some of the following chat may not be advised to age group under 18)

Me: why re? hhehehe

GGadre: dhakka de do stage se (Yep she gets too expressive about such topics, don’t blame her :))

Me: whyeeeeee?

GGadre: goli se uda do saale ko (Yeah, this is almost off limits, but btw me and her its just our usual rant strategy, express till the other person gets the point and stops asking whyyyyyyy)

Me: whyyyyyyyyyy?

GGadre: just for the heck of it, dimaaagh mein baiththa hain @@#@!#!

Me: hehehe like Anoop Jalota (now this is part where we come together, combine our stress and lash it out on few select individuals, some days its artists, musicians, neighbors and today unfortunately its gazal singers, no offense really, its just the mood of the day)

GGadre: hahahahhahaahahah

Me: or was he (as usual I am quite unsure of who we are going to lash)

GGadre: Anoop jalota, "aisi laagi lagan"

Me: chandi jaisa rang hai tera -woh kon tha be? Hehehe (like I said, I am still evaluating our stress buster individual)

GGadre: "meera ho gayi magan"

Me: yeah yeah hahahah

GGadre: abbe woh Pankaj Udhas hain (Now when it comes to music and musicians, GGadre knows what she’s talking, quite unlike me)

Me: Oh!

GGadre: udhas gaaata rehta hain…bore !@!#@#

Me:Pankaj… woh bhi kaisa udas hai

GGadre: dimaagh mein dance karta hain woh bhangda

Me: Wht was tht his song? Gosh!

GGadre: ...Namak isq ka (Yeah, we usually digress to different topics, music and singers, which have no relation whatsoever to the person/people in question)

Me: btw Jagjit Singh is more abt pina and pilana. All songs are like- mujhe hosh mein nahi aana type. Very good for politicians.

GGadre: politiciaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnns
hahahhahahahahhahahahahhahahahahhahahahahhahahahahhahahahahhahahahahhahahahahhahahahahhahahahahhahahahahhahahahahhaha...uda do unko

Me: Pankaj Udas alomst has 1 pg dedicated on wiki. God!
And now I know his bro is Manhar Udas
It seems his older brother Manhar Udhas achieved some success as a Hindi playback singer in Bollywood movies.
Which song he sang man? i dont know a single one
oh i got his famous song PU's. Its -chitthi aayi hai aayi hai chitti aayi hai
hahaahaha

GGadre: nooooooooooooooooooo that is pankaj udhaas, aunteshwari (Sometimes its important to include the abbreviations along with the full name)

Me: yeah in wiki

GGadre: you dont knwo anything (Me expression: Hmph!)

Me: yeah yeah PU. i dunno MUs song. Btw PU has received Padma Shri?

GGadre: nice

Me: hahahaha. I want one too. Yeah kya hai. Next who some cricketer is getting one right?

Ganga: shoot tem all blooody man! (Woah! I know, like I indicated not appropriate for 18yr and less)

And with this we digressed in to the realms of other singers and singing competition and such. For the fans of PU, this isn’t really any stance, just a way of lashing out our stress :) ,next time it may be Amitabh Bachaan he he..
Btw, have a g8 weekend!

Waiting!

2009-03-24T17:22:00.000-07:00

Scene 1: Waiting for response

Me asking: Are you waiting to get coffee?
Person responds: Well no, hmmm maybe I should. What do you think? Or wait, maybe high caffeine soft drink. OMG so many choices. I think I should get the orange one, but the blue one looks so good, look look there is a ginger one. Oh damm! I’ll just go for the coffee.

Scene 2: Waiting for parking

Reverse lights of car flickering, looks like I have a parking spot
Reverse light flickering…..flickering……flickering…car in reverse mode now….reverse…reverse..stop….again ahead. (Me:yawns, go away already) Car again in reverse….reverse…reverse (Me: looking in rear view mirror, annoyed face, 2 oh no 3 cars behind. Get out you!) Car stop…ahead…ahead..stop. Person gets out and leaves.
Me expression: Hmph!

Scene 3: Waiting-room in a clinic

Me: looking around, blaberring to self: just need a refill, refill, a refill la la la la. Someone sneezes…loudly (Me: whos it, whos it, such a loud sneeze, ewww no handkerchief,ewwww). Old lady sitting next to me smiles, pregnant women sitting opposite, moving hand on her tummy and seems to be chatting, front desk person gets up. (Me: call me, call me, me me me me). Front desk person sits down without calling anyone. Someone snores( Me: whos it,whos it, whos snoring, last chair, person dozing, yawns) Front desk person gets up and sits again. (Me: mumbling whats with this sit ups, go to the restroom if u want to)Pregnant women looking around panicked (Me: O man, not good, not good, someone help her, is she ok?) Front desk person gets up, looks at pregnant women, sits down. (Me looking at watch: 1 and half hr gone, phewwww)

Me asking front desk: hello, what about my refill?
Front desk person: Oh you just need a refill prescription?
Me: Yeah that’s what I said like an hr earlier and that’s what I wrote on that paper
FDP: Oh sorry about that, I don’t read those, just hand them to the doc
Me: So what abt the refill?
FDP: Hold on, I’ll just get it
Me thinking of some song: boomro boomro sham rang boomro. Man sneezes loudly again, pregnant women panicks. Me: Boomro boomro sham rang boomro
FDP returns with refill prescription

Post coming up: Contrast this with waiting in queues in India :)

Chronicles of Ma

2009-03-19T15:43:00.000-07:00

It looks like my blog is missing some humour, I scrolled through few earlier posts and the mood around here is growing serious. After talking of Mumbai I tried to think of something hilarious that happened during this week and then remembered SecondSight’s pretty please. So Chronicles of Ma it is, nothing more is ever funnier than discussion between Ma and me. So yday I called Ma, the usual daily call, the usual random talks of increase in the price of veggies, growing pollution, hopeless maids, growing population of cockroaches, steaming hot tea and such. But the highlight was ayurvedic and homeopathic medicines.

Ma: So you saw na that Pushkar Churan, good it is. Everyday eat one spoon full. Spoon must be full. And don’t complain. These young girls, will always argue, never listen.

Me: Ma, Ma, Maaaaa listen no, what you keep talking. Yeah I saw that, one in the red box na?

Ma: Red box, what red box, you must have put it away. You don’t even remember the name, its Pushkar churan. Pooo…shaaaa…kaar

Me (trying to not giggle): Yeah yeah correct, I have it here; no I didn’t put it away. Who makes this stuff? It’s like some company I don’t know and there is no expiry on this.

Ma: Expiry, you want expiry. It’s Ayurvedic, it’s like Haldi, nothing happens to it. You can keep it as long and there is no need to keep it as long if you take it every day. Now girl listen to me, you are going to take one spoon full everyday ok? No arguments

Me: OK Ma, I will. How are things going in India? Ma economy is so bad here; things just seem to be falling apart.

Ma: That is why you must pray daily. Do you recite Ramraksha strotra, Lakshmi stotra, Ganpati stotra, Hanuman stotra, Kuldevi stotra, Gajanan Maharaj stotra daily?

Me: What Ma, I only have an hour in a morning to get ready and go to work and I don’t think there is enough time to recite them.

Ma: Always argue, always. Ganpati is God of knowledge, don’t you need intelligene, buddi and wit to do your work, Ramraksha will protect you from all evil, Lakshmi is for salary, then don’t complain salary cut and this and that and Hanuman, well that’s for strength and also for protecting in addition to Ramraksha and Gajanan Maharaj is for a guru, every person should have a guru. And never forget Kuldevi, always pray to her. And then you complain economy and all. Every day you should pray, do namasmaran. Do you forget to watch all those serials and eat and breathe?

Me: Ma breathing is a natural process, how would I forget it, I don’t even do it consciously. And to survive one has to eat and serials Ma, that’s my lifeline, I can’t give up on those. You don’t know how Big Bang Theory works on stress.

Ma: Big Bang cheeee, what a name. At least some Indianized serials with culture and tradition you watch. Big Bang? What is that? Must be something weird. This young generation God help them. And about economy and job cuts they will go on and on. We have seen so many rainy days, all storm and rainy. And no luxuries like you all. We never complained and now this generation acts as if world is going to end only. Just thinking of tomorrow always, running running, no stopping, no standing and breathing. Then they want all success and money and everything and all that fast. And you remember that aunty (some aunts name I didn’t even remember), her dad’s cousins-sisters-son. He had lost a limb, but didn’t give up, didn’t have a big car or big house or anything but he lived for good 80 yrs and lived a happy life, even without one limb. And you young people will cry and complain, bad economy bad economy. And what about day after tomorrow, that’s going to come and you are still stuck on tomorrow and worries of tomorrow. Rama Rama!

Me (overwhelmed by the lecture and yet trying to gain ground): Ma Big Ban is a comedy. Anywho, now got to go to bed ok. Will call you tomorrow.

Ma:Ok ok, I also have lots of work now, full time talking to you and wasting time, you eat that Pushkar Churna and recite some stotras, timepass you do. Now before going to bed recite. And don’t read book in dim light, and wake up early- early to bed, early to rise. And think of good things. This maid everything wrong she does, they need to be always spoon fed. I have to only do everything.

Me: Ma , Maaaaaaaaa ok ok ok ok. Maid, new one? (Phone cuts) Wasn’t I still talking?

As I kept the phone I realized how simply she could make my worries seem stupid. There are always bigger problems out there but somehow its always the perception that matters. In this big world, all problems frankly are just tiny, its every individual who looks at them through a magnifier.

Mumbai meri jaan!

2009-03-14T12:05:00.000-07:00

Has it ever happened to you that you bought a book and after reading a few pages (as few as first 2) fell in love with it? As if the book gripped you and wouldn’t let go, as if you knew this was something you were looking to read in a while, but couldn’t find anywhere. I brought Shantaram recently and that's what it feels like. I prefer not to directly pull text from a book but rather interpret it in my own words, in turn sharing what I feel about it. But the text in this book is so precise, so much on spot that I wouldn’t find better words.

I was born in Bombay (later named Mumbai). Every person has a different perception of the city- Bombay. There will be those who find it arrogant, those who find it magical, those who find it loathed with greed and some others who find it a city of dreams. For someone who is born in this city, I would say it’s a bit of all. Does this city have a soul of its own you ask? Yes, it’s a soul of 13,662,885 people combined. It’s the soul of a little girl who waits by the side of the road for light to turn red, when it does she runs to your cab and knocks on the window, shining her marvelous smile and puts on a grave act and yet it’s the soul of the same girl who runs back to a bunch of kids on the footpath when the light turns green, laughing, playing and simply happy- that sheer happiness which you keep looking at from the back window of the cab, till only a speck remains. It’s the soul of the hawker you haggle with whenever you purchase the veggies and it’s the soul of the same hawker who ensures to greet you everyday, even when you are in a hurry to get to work and don't notice. It’s the soul of those hands that hold you to get in the train compartment which has no space even for one foot to step in, protect you from a fall and it’s the same soul of the hands that push you ruthlessly when you reach the desired station to get out. It’s the soul of little kids who hold their grandparents hands and walk to school and it’s the soul of young teenagers, people in 20s-30s-40s who walk their parents, grandparents to the park in the evening. It’s the soul of the "chakki wala" who is bathed in white grinding all the grains to flour who smiles at you when go to get the "atta" (flour), showing his teeth which merge with the color of his skin, eyes, eyebrows, hair, eyelashes-all white and it’s the soul of the maid who realizes you are late to school/work and packs your lunch,puts it in your purse. Its the soul of Diwali, Ganpati, Eid, Holi,Chritmas,Navratri,Gudi Padwa,MakarSankranti,Pongal and its the soul of Shraddh (ceremony after death), Shanti.

You can either lose yourself or find yourself in Mumbai. You will be cheated, robbed, betrayed and yet loved, protected, cherished here. You will hate it for the crowd that crushes, pushes and squishes you everyday and yet love it for the hellos, nods and smiles you'll receive everyday. The stranger in you will disappear, the ambition in you will rise, the energy in you will push you to the extreme and the joy in you will survive. So friends today I post text straight from Shantaram, this one is for Mumbai- Mumbai meri jaan.
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"The first thing I noticed about Bombay, on the first day, was the smell of the different air. I could smell it before I saw or heard anything of India, even as I walked along the umbilical corridor that connected the plane to the airport. I was excited and delighted by it, in that first Bombay Minute, escaped from prison and new to the wide world , but I didn’t and couldn’t recognize it. I know now that it’s the sweet, sweating smell of hope, which is opposite of hate; and it’s the sour, stifled smell of greed, which is the opposite of love. It’s the smell of gods, demons, empires, and civilizations in resurrection and decay. It’s the blue skin smell of the sea, no matter where you are in the Island city, and the blood-metal smell of machines. It smells of the stir and sleep and waste of sixty billion animals, more than half of them humans and rats. It smells of heartbreak, and the struggle to live, and of crucial failures and loves that produce our courage. It smells of ten thousand restaurants, five thousand temples. Shrines, churches and mosques, and of hundred bazaars devoted exclusively to perfumes, spices, incense and freshly cut flower. Someone called it the worst good smell in the world. But whenever I return to Bombay, now, its my first sense of the city- that smell, above all things-that welcomes me and tells me I've come home.

The next thing I noticed was the heat. I stood in airport queues, not five minutes from the conditioned air of the plane, and my clothes clung to sudden sweat. My heart thumped under the command of the new climate. Each breath was an angry little victory. I came to know that it never stops, the jungle sweat, because heat that makes it, night and day, is wet heat. The choking humidity makes amphibians of us all, in Bombay breathing water in air; you learn to live with it, and you learn to like it, or you leave.

Then there were the people. Assamese, Jats, and Punjabis; people from Rajasthan, Bengal, and Tamil Nadu; from Pushkar, Cochin, and Konarak;warrior caste, Brahmin, and untouchable; Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Parsee, Jain, Animist; fair skin and dark, green eyes and golden brown and black; every face and form of that extravagant variety, that incomparable beauty, India".
------------------

I miss you-Mumbai! Miss you India!

Chitter Chatter and a cup of hot tea

2009-03-08T14:32:00.000-07:00

Pst pst… went to Safeway yday and saw the same old lady, so I turned, looked the other way and ran. She was ranting sure, but not about eggs this time.

Did you watch India vs errr umm what was that NZ? Think it was NZ, maybe, who cares right, as long as India is one side playing. No I didn’t watch the match either but then there was hubby glued to the laptop watching it and choiceless glimpses when crowd screamed "India India" resulted in we following the match in bits and parts. Sachin's 150 was the highlight for we. He still rocks. Then the match grew boring, he retired hurt yawns yawns!

Lost was good, Heroes sucked. And yday it snowed, I mean what the hell is going on. Isnt it spring already?

If by now the post hasn’t made you wrinkle your noses and nod in agreement, there is that damm time saving thing. We and hubby stayed up till 2 and then the time just jumped to 3.15 or something like that, we just time travelled ahead. I mean really, what's the reason to screw with time I ask? Just about when our body clock adjusts to the actual one, they go through this day light saving thingi and then eveything changes. Now I cant stop thinking that we'll have 1 hour less to sleep. Ok Ok maybe not but still sob sob!

5 bananas at home are rotting. Why am I telling you this you ask? Coz if we could celebrate holi, I may have found use for them ;).

(Dazing away) the good old times of filling water ballons with oil paint colors or some color which bro said wouldnt go for 3 days and throwing on helpless pedestrians from the building terrance.

Times of red, orange, green colors and trying to get rid of them coz tomorrow was school day.

Waking up early and going to cousins place, knocking on door asking for her to come out, ignoring her Ma's talks of no colors at home and painting sis dears face with bright orange.

Dodging the ballon attacks on way back home, looking angrily at the bulding and searcing for culprits in the windows. Swearing under the breath and yet smiling at self

(Flash!- back to reality) Ahem any recipes for bananas with brown spots all over. If Ma reads this post, she would call and give pravachan for over an hr explaining how ripen bananas are ok and should eat them. Btw spoke to Ma after 1 week yday, some voltage thingi burned the modem down. Now chat with Ma after a week totally deserves a separate post. Will tell y'all if you say pretty please he he or just demand and we shall post "Chronicles of Ma". Btw, she suspects latest Bai may have something to do with the voltage thingi which apparently affected the entire area not just our home. Rolling eyes!!

Btw, have you tried playing the new 3D PRINCE, oh its awesome. Like tv we and hubby are into games, online, 3D, kill them all kinds :)

I know I know, this wasn’t like my usual posts, but well on a Sunday nothing better than just chitter chatter and a cup of hot tea, isnt it?;)

And why isn't Sunday followed by a Saturday I ask or who cares what the title is?

2009-03-01T10:54:00.001-08:00

This week started with well, tired me. Yeah that's right, the usual chirpy self me was feeling extremely tired come Monday and reason being (according to hubby dear) chatting in my sleep which clearly indicated my brain not resting. Of course I completely rejected this notion. Me and talking, huh? Look, I know my sibling wakes up and walks in his sleep and I always had g8 fun teasing him about all this (sorry bro) but me talking, that's utterly impossible. Mostly coz its scary. God alone knows what kind of thoughts dwell in the deeps of my brain and imagine those just involuntarily being exposed. There will be talks of killing those on planet helium, and of planet earth being dominated by animals (I always wondered what would it would be like to be on the other side of the glass), meaning we being those animals caged in zoo and animals being us (like the age of apes or whatever that was). There will be massacre of politicians, thugs and terrorist. There will be cities of fairies, Disney characters and such.

That said I realize I do not have any control on chattering away in my dreams. Do you? If so, does it scare you? Is it coz we all have ghosts stored somewhere in our closets or are you just protecting your spirit (the subconscious mind in its purest form-the "you" only you want to keep for yourself and might not want to share ). Or is it just the fact that we for once are not in complete control?

White Eggs and Brown Eggs are the same

2009-02-20T16:52:00.000-08:00

Its Friday and a post day. No I don’t care if I cant think of anything real to share, I am just going to throw some words here, add a bit of masala and say served! This week was fulto tv week, what? How? Coz we watched 2 movies- both every morning in bits as our breakfast tv bit. By we I mean “me”. Yup I need to, have to watch something while I sip tea early morning, it’s a breakfast ritual accompanied by the tea ritual. How can you not I ask? Then we watched Lost, House , Heroes and Big Bang. I know I know Big Bang’s not coming back till March snif snif! So we watched Season 1 all over again, of the luminous gold fish and such. At work, we had some crazy crazy people we dealt with. Don’t ask, please don’t ask. Shhh! Ok only coz you asked, there was this one dude who believed that 2 different people, living in different states, with different names, addresses, phone numbers are the same people. Yep I tried to explain, saying look look this and that and this is different and dude say o well I think they are same to same. Freak!

And yday I went to Safeway, closer to home no, so I walk. Literally wanted to buy every 2nd thing I saw but didn’t. Sob Sob! Bought the regular groceries and chips and titbits and ran to the express lane, its supposed to be faster. However there was this old lady who was helping the guy at the counter to fill customer purchased goods in the bags. She must be in her 80’s, and constantly blabbering "I tell ya, there is no difference between brown eggs and white" she said to someone who looked like a zombie. Anywho, she stopped every customer to tell them this. Explained to them how once upon a time (very very long time ago I believe) her grandmother had a farm and hens. During Depression the hen gave brown eggs (Yeah I know, how would the hens know)but well the story goes-which no one purchased so oldie had to sell the hens. She repeated the story to me, I out of courtesy said “She would definitely have made more money now”. Gone! Oldie made me step out of line

Old lady: Strange look

Me: Sweet smile

Old lady: (very softly, voice low, eyeing everyone around) Yeah its all about what the hens eat I tell ya

Me:(Duh!) Hmmm yeah true, true (There are times when I feel like slapping myself to present)

Old lady: “You know with all these computers….technology… and blue…brown…green eggs and the kinda amount they charge everyone?”

Me:”umm I’m not sure but guess its just a few cents more……green eggs?”

Old lady: “FEW CENTS??????” “In this economy…..everyone losing job and all….I have to fill bags you see…and I am old. Have you seen an ostrich egg?”

Me: Errrr “Ok gotta go” (That was quick, good now just stick to it)

Old lady: “You know there’s all this fraud going on these days and you can never trust computers…….I have lots of kids who work with computers and they’ve told me nothing is safe.”

Me: “Yeah…..I know……gotta go” (What’s your point? Lotsa Kids?)

Old lady: "So keep your card and cheque and all hidden, safe somewhere and don’t throw that bill like that?”

Me: “Ok, Thank you. Have a great day!” (Started to leave)

Old lady: “So see you tomorrow okie, oh wait wait Did I tell you brown eggs and white are actually the same?”

Me: Grrrrr! (O God, not again please please)

Me: Byeees

Old lady completely ignores me and to the next customer in line: “So did I tell you brown eggs and white are the same?”

Oh man, I think I am some kind of freak magnet, what else can be the reason for such people to start a conversation with me. After that conversation I didnt want to think, cook or eat eggs.

A special day

2009-02-17T21:02:00.000-08:00

We usually don't blog twice in a day, rather this is the first time. But sometimes when there is high energy around me, I tend to think of words and compose posts in mind. Today is one such day, its a special day for a dear friend of ours. Its a day of:

New beginnings..hope..faith...dreams...future...thoughts...horizon...and above all of love.

This one is for A and M- for their journey together. So all you nice people there, join me in wishing A & M happiness forever..

Parsing the purse

2009-02-17T16:52:00.000-08:00

I used to love sitting next to Ma as she cleaned her purse. There were always those special old things she had forgotten to throw away. Often she had a chocolate hid in some pocket and completely forgotten about it. Though the chocolate would be days old and sort of shapeless, I would still grab and eat it :). There would be bills, old crumpled notes, holy books, dead spider, medicines and ginger tugged somewhere in a ziplock bag. Dad would often scold Ma for keeping all those things stuffed in her bag while I laughed at their conversation. She would explain how each of those things were important for different reasons like how the ginger came handy if someone were to fall ill. Wonder how? I wondered how she could store the whole world in that purse. Today as I sat eating lunch alone, I saw a women cleaning her purse and it reminded me of the good old times.

The last time I cleaned my purse (which was a while ago shhh!) I found the following items:

1. A chewing gum wrapped in the silver wrapper (after being chewed to death)
2. 10 Rs note (nearly brought a tear to my eye, I think I would fill buckets if it were 25 paisa coin) sniff sniff!
3. BEST bus ticket (long back I used to collect these, still cling on to them)
4. Vicks VapoRub, Vicks Inhaler, Vicks Cough drops (These looked if not years, months old eeks!)
5. Eyeliner, Lipstick, Ponds powder dabba (gosh who put that in my purse, never liked Ponds), cold cream, toothbrush (what, why? Thank god I didn’t have a tongue cleaner too), ear buds.
6. Two headphones (one old , one current- don’t ask why)
7. Lotsa bills- I never say no to the person at the counter when she asks if I want a bill, just grab it and dump in the purse.
8. A diary - never used
9. Hair pins, safety pins- Why do I need those for?
10. Some old newspaper, greeting cards, notes to self (interesting read)
11. Keys, some in use, some loose ones- don’t know which lock they belonged to
12. Calculator- My precious, hate when someone takes it
13. Handkerchief- found 5, never carry one and never find one when I need it
14. Pencil cells, Pens (atleast a dozen)
15. And yeah money- a few dollars here and there hidden away. Cancerian told ya!
16. Hey bhagwan so many photos of gods, ganpati, sai baba (all given by Ma)

Now I am feeling all nostalgic. So tell me when was the last time you cleaned your purse? What did you find?

A real reward

2009-02-14T16:45:00.000-08:00

Isnt it an awesome feeling when you know people actually like what you write? I received 2 awards this week, from Neeraja and Sumi. Both inspire me for different reasons:

Neeraja: Thanks for always finding new topics to challenge my brain. You put things in such different perspective. Not only the posts but even the comments that everyone and you share are good food for thought

Sumi: Your paintings inspire the creativity in me. These arent just paintings these are thoughts and ideas so well put forth by means of colors

The award prompted me to go back to when I started this blog, it has been over a year woah! And God my writing sucked back then :). I wanted to think of something really witty and put a smile on every visitors face but then I thought of sharing my blog journey with all of you. So here are some of my fav from the past. Hope atleast one of them makes you smile. And well if they suck you can share that in your comments which probably will not make it to the audience :) Just kidding have fun.

Oh and yeah before that, I have to, need to forward this award. I would love to share it with all the visitors who stop by, it’s a pleasure to make you folks smile. And ofcourse to my blogosphere buddies:

Erika: Love your style of writing and commitment of posting everyday. Especially the TTDNSTs.

Mrs Gadre: Like the simplicity so come on now write more.

Second sight, first: Awesome writing, always fresh, always inspiring.

So here we go, the old ones:

Tring Tring India Calling

The black cat seems to follow me

I blame the housefly

Played possum and died, poor Madam Fly

True Lies

Bai Famine

Group Health Next Door

Who doesn’t fear the driving test?

How many Michael Phelps did you meet this week?

Shuttle Tales

2009-02-06T16:58:00.000-08:00

So let’s see, what did I do this week? Watched “Taken” and went into the “I hate all men” mode. I mean the helplessness of those”taken” women just drove me crazy. Go go watch the movie and then we’ll discuss. And And yeah And I met this Desi- the Americanized Desi. I dunno what to call these types. I have met a lot of desis here, who doesn’t? Every other group at my work place has a couple of Desis, along with Chinkis (no offence, just find “chinki” cute over Asians or Chinese) and I am surprised at how some of them don’t have a trace of borrowed accent. Call it borrowed, faked or pretentious. I have met Desis in their late 40’s who still have the sweet South Indian accent and I simply love to talk to them. Feels like back home, reminds me of good old neighbor – Iyer uncle. Still his image in the white shirt and white lungi flashes in front of my eyes. I always admired his impeccable English. If I concentrate, I can still remember the Sai baba bhajan he sang, though the memory is fading now. Sigh! So when I meet such Desis, I simply admire how they have managed to stay untouched, their simplicity is still evident. And then once in a while you come across someone whom you would punch in the face if no one were looking. I met one such dude yesterday. Let call this type “The Other”

I had a meeting to attend in another building, so took the famous shuttle which travels half way around the world. I usually don’t mind travelling in it, if there aren’t too many people I start talking with the driver. It’s fun you know. But well, yesterday wasn’t one of those days. As I walked out of my building, I saw this guy waiting there. Had a coffee cup in a hand and was reading newspaper. As soon as I walked out the door, he simply looked at me, annoyed. As if I had done something. Then he started pacing really fast, almost went to the next building. And just then the shuttle arrived, shoot! Dude ran from the other end as if it were a marathon, got ahead of me and started pulling on the shuttle van door. I stood a few paces behind and watched, I was sure in a matter of mins he would break the handle. But well, the driver (a cute Chinki) opened the door knob. Btw, her opening the knob and him trying to break down the door, I guess his temper level quadrupled. Till then he had not opened his mouth to say a thing. The Chinki opened the front window and told him to “Now try now”. Annoyed he tried and the door opened. The first comment that came out of his mouth was “Jesus Christ”. And this friends was with a real heavy American accent which totally seemed fake. Maybe he was born here I told myself. But then it didn’t seem that way. He entered the car angrily muttering something, this time in Hindi and boy no accent. I got in after him and sat in the seat behind. I couldn’t reach the door from there and asked him if he could shut it. He didn’t turn to look at me, his nose was dug in the newspaper and he blabbered something, then said “She’ll do it” (with heavy accent again). But the door wasn’t automated so the Chinki told him “They have to close”. That’s where it all began:

The Other: Looks around and exclaims, who?

Chinki: They (Well, she meant you, but you know how it is with grammer, can’t blame anyone)

The Other: There is no they here, do you mean me or she?

Chinki: Yes, Yes she

The Other: Turns to me, cold eyes. “Close the door”

Me: What? Errr, how do I reach it, I already fastened the seat belt.

The Other: Again nose dug in the newspaper, doesn’t look at me. “Just do it”

Me: Completely annoyed, looks at Chinki, who seems equally annoyed

Chinki: Pointing to The Other. “Uscuxe me, she close door”

The Other: Annoyed. “Jesus Christ, this totally sucks”

Me: Trying to control my laughter (Sometimes I really can’t control when to laugh and when not to, I usually need a person by me to pinch the sense into me)

The shuttle starts on its merry ride. The route is (dunno whether it’s green, blue, orange, purple or what), Bldg 34-24-29-4-7-51-42-44-OTC-1. And Chinki has to take that route, no shortcuts, has to go to all those building, whether anyone is waiting or not.

Chinki goes to 24. The Other mumbles under his breath. Chinki goes to 29. The Other exclaims out loud “Jesus Christ”. I put hands on my mouth and choke on laughter. Chinki goes to 4.

The Other: Just go to OTC. Jesus Christ, what the h... (doesn’t say the word) is wrong with you?

Chinki: Either cant hear or cant understand, so doesn’t care or respond

Me: Silent Laughs!!

Chinki goes to 7

The Other: Jesus Christ! Stop Stop now!

Chinki: Panic’s and stops, turns around “Ok? Not Ok?”

The Other: Just drive to OTC. No one is waiting in those buildings.

Chinki: Confused look and exclaims “He can’t. Told me go all building. See this”. Hands The Other a paper with instructions and starts driving

The Other: Calls someone. “Yes. Shuttle Service. No. Option 1. No I don’t want a shuttle. Operator. OOPERATOR. Jesus Christ! NO NO NO. Shuttle, I meant Shuttle”. Hangs up.

Guess he was trying to reach the Shuttle Services, he he he!

Chinki finally got to building 44, the building I wanted to get to yay yay!

Chinki opened door knob and said out loud “She open door”. This time The Other understood. Opened the door spilling all the coffee and exclaiming “Jesus Christ”. I got out laughing loud, didn’t care whether he heard or not. Chinki however did join me in the laughter. Guess the journey to OTC was going to be a lot of angry looks and talks. On the other hand I thoroughly enjoyed my ride!

14 Things you didn't know- And that's a tag!

2009-01-30T21:15:00.001-08:00

Have you done something-mowed a lawn, poured a cup of tea, crossed a road, street, junction, seen a train passing by steaming fumes, been to a art museum stood watching a picture, picked a fallen handkerchief, touched a book on a shelf and it felt as if you have done it before. Not something similar, not some done it past but as if you have done this (Exact this) before. Seen it somewhere. Past life? In a dream? Maybe you saw this now, this future?

Ok that didn't make sense, did it? Well something I always wonder so thought should share. Now back to what I really want to say.Does any of you know how the "tag" thing in the blog world work? Don't look at me as if I am retarded, I am just new to the blogging world. I travel a lot of blogs during my free time and have often read about some random xyz blogging about some pqr tagging them. Since no one tag me, I decided to tag myself, hopefully I some of my tagged blogg will enjoy this as much as me.

So here we go. Call it 15 Things you didnt know about me. The rule is "For every answer for the following question you have to do a google/live image search and pick a picture on the first page with minimal explanation". And Minimal means the first one, even if it makes no sense. Ok then here we go:

Your favorite place:

Home sweet home, always was, always will be.

Your favorite food:

Oops that actually makes me feel sorry for the fish. But if you ask me meat, veggies or fish, I would always choose fish.

Your favorite color combination:

The best color combination ever. I couldnt choose one color over the other,love all colors.

Your favorite pet:

This one is so totally random, but well the tag states minimal search. Lucky was the name of my pet a pomeranian and now that I think of it, she would actually do this.

Your favorite drink:

Fresh Lime Soda. Especially on a hot summer day in Mumbai.

A place you'd like to travel to:

If i could I would check out this place "Heaven". So many people including me desire to go there errr I mean say in a couple hundred years or so. I dont want to be disappointed with what I see then. Headsup is always good you see.

Your favorite tv show:

No other series has been so engaging. I sit chewing my nails through the entire show and fear some day I might just end up eating my fingers.

Your worst fear:

Fear death. Death of a loved one. I dont know how I will ever handle it.

The first thing you'll buy if you get $1,000,000:

Can't help it, I am a Cancerian. I will hide some in pillow, under bed, in books and put rest in a bank.

What or who you want to be in next life:

Definitely a wizard! I want to be able to do magic, time travel, be invisible and all that. Fight demons, trolls and the rest. I can't associate with a witch, witch makes me think of bad, ugly and evil, dunno why. But wizard makes me think of someone wise, someone like Dumbledore.

If you had to punch someone who would that be?

I think right now I could choose a bunch. But if it has to be one, then a terrorist, give me any terrorist, any is fine. Just ensure he is like properly tied and blindfolded and all that.

What would you do on a rainy day?

Sit by the window and sip a cup of hot tea. But well in Seattle we dont have much of a choice, it rains pretty much everyday. At that rate all I would do is sit by the window and sip tea.

If you could time travel, where would you be now?

Straight from heart- India. More precisely Bombay!

One thing that has fascinated you lately:

One laptop per child! And then India's 10$ laptop I am eager to see what the future holds!

Gosh that took some pretty good time but was so much fun and will be more fun to know a little more of the tagged person.

Here we go , Erika, Mrs Gadre, Sumi and you yes you anonymous.Come on folks I know you would enjoy it. Ok Ok I promise I'll take a tag when you send one sheesh! Moreover the best part is you get to tag others.

P.S Now this one's for Neeraja, tagged you are!

Another chapter

2009-01-23T15:16:00.001-08:00

Do you still remember the day of Semester results? Sem result day I always felt as if there were a tight knot in my stomach. I couldn’t ever eat in the morning and if you know me, you know I cannot leave home without breakfast, morning tea is a ritual. Every step I took towards the university made me want to run home. And then there was this whole thing, where everyone you meet is either biting their nails, throwing up or lost is some eternal thought. There were also those who would constantly talk and ask over and over again “I think I did well in DB, do you think I did well?” But I am scared; everything was out of the textbooks. I mean really how could they do that to us? I really, really don't want a KT, less score would screw my class for the year. On campus interviews are coming up, life just sucks man, I hate the result day.

And remember how you would try putting up a brave face and tell the person it would be just fine. Only a couple of hours and the results would be out. While deep down you would pray that either the time stops or just jumps to future when everything’s over. And then the results would be out. Some would jump with joy, some would just sit quite, and some would be really sad. At one point or the other I have experienced one of the above. And also felt as if it was one of the stressful moments ever. But yesterday changed my perception all together. Yesterday was the day of layoffs here. 1400 people slashed. I got the news in the morning and as I prepared to go to work all those result-day fears came back. Just this time they were stronger and scarier.

Why does life keep getting complicated as we grow older? I mean now the result-day fear feels like a joke to me. I knew and kept telling myself that like all, this will pass too. But yet the moment was there and had to be faced. A lot of people were let go and some more will be over the next 18 months. I couldn't get the thought out of my mind- what will those people do, the stress, the loss, what if that person was the sole earner, what about the mortgage and so on. I know its kinda silly to keep thinking of this, I also know that nothing stays, that time heals and such but yet I think helplessly, you know what I mean, right?

So well, life doesn’t get any easier and isn’t meant to. Remember how parents, grandparents, all elders talked about –lessons of life. Yep, these are it. The only peace I found was talking to parents, inlaws coz somewhere it felt as if they have seen it all, been there-done that. I just added one more chapter to the “lessons of life”. How about you? Did you add any over the last few years?

Marketing Campaign

2009-01-14T16:17:00.000-08:00

Where have we been? Friday came and went by and yet no post. No I am not drowning under a pile of work; it just called- being lazy. So how about we catch up on what’s going on these days starting with me visiting one of our neighbors, who has a fish tank and three cute,fat Gold fishes. No really they are pretty fat. And as soon as I walked to the tank they crowded together to see me. I kinda think they were gossiping. For a moment when I looked at them, I was concerned they may grow too big to fit the tank in a couple of months, upon asking neighbor convinced me these fish never outgrow the tank. I mean it seems Goldfish are like that.

At work there was this weird email. Has it ever happened to you that you email someone and the reply is an automated one saying “Sorry to inform you Mr So and So passed away on Nov-11- 08”? I received this one. And it felt weird not creepy just weird. I didn’t know the person, it was just another marketing campaign and several responses came through. But this one was so weird. If there is change in someones job title, company I usually mark this in database or inform the coordinator to do so. But for this person I didn’t know what I should say. I mean its really weird. I didn’t even delete the email from my inbox – it just stayed there and the thought stayed in my mind.

Talking of weird responses, I received several other weird responses to the campaign. I learnt people could have some interesting job titles like- gangster, mother-sister-wife-daughter, still thinking, I used to work as a Software Engineer but now counting sheep’s etc. No really I am not kidding.

Also learnt some people come up with creative answers for a simple survey question such as –

Are you an IT Professional?
-Yes, I am a Nurse
-Of course, I teach my son computers
-IT? ? Can you please email me what that means

Not to mention their names I have come across, Dollar Man, Mr Fadoo, Swamichandran Viveshwaran Trimbekshwaram Thimmappa Govindappa (And yes that is one name). How the hell am I to fit this in database, there is a character limit you see, its programmed that way, the IT dude will kill himself if I send him a request to accommodate this. Anywho there was also one other Ali-Mohammed-Hasan-Hamez (don’t ask me what’s the first and last name).

Ok listen got to get back to work now, you all well no? Cya will post soon!

Coz we are just bored!

2009-01-02T15:36:00.001-08:00

It’s 3.14 pm here on the 2nd of Jan 09 and not a soul in office, at least not in my team, not on my floor. We thinks it’s kinda creepy and scary. We are reading Dresden Files-Death Masks and not fun reading it in an empty office. We can hear the sound of air vents and gushing air time and again, kinda of lame sound compared to Ramsey films background music. So where the hell is everyone? Half the crowd left for home after lunch and the other half never came in today. So here we are left with IPod (even 222 songs seem so less during such boring times), a scary novel, internet (only savior) and lots of soft drinks. This obviously gives us a reason to blog. So what were we up to on New Year’s Eve:

1. We ate at 7 pm and slept at 7.30 pm. What? How? When you have a splitting headache, dripping nose, throbbing throat and hubby with similar symptoms, you can sure come and talk to us about it.

2. We went to library today to get some books and while trying to pull some 5 of our books from the shelf, dropped a huge pile down, with 2 little books falling on a little toddler’s head. Surprisingly the kiddo looked up burped and as if he had found new treasure got hold of those books. Why you ask us? Toddler other than burping and some other ridiculous sounds can’t utter a word, let alone read. This act my friend was for the new treasure he could tear down and destroy. We simply didn’t have the heart to pull the books away from the said toddler and stop this devilish act, so we kept all other books back on the rack and walked to the librarian. “Some books have fallen down, guess the toddler has them”. Librarian panicked and ran, while we left the library with a smirk on our face and couple of good books.

3. We dreamt of bhel this morning. Yep bhel in a leaf cone. We woke up all annoyed, hmph!

4. We watched “Taare Zaamen Par” finally yesterday. Sniff and tears all through the movie. I know kinda lame to watch it so late but again was waiting for someone to upload good quality movie. After TZP felt nostalgic and hence watched “Rang De Basanti”.

5. A few seconds ago, phone in next office rang, loudly, extremely loudly. We didn’t budge. Had to find out if there’s anybody around. A sleepy soul emerged from floor above, asked who’s phone and muttered something annoyed, we hid our face and giggled. Sadistic Pleasure :)

Ok now back to Dresden Files!

Hope 09

2009-01-01T20:54:00.001-08:00

Every year brings new hope, new wishes, new resolutions. Whether we believe in resolutions or not, when new year comes around at least once we think of resolution, some state it, some write it down. Some like me don’t think of any resolution, they just hope. For 09 I hope:

1. This year brings happiness to one and all in this world, by happiness I mean no more 9/11's, no more massacre at Taj, Hilton (ok so there wasn't a Hilton, but how many venues,events and dates should we keep in mind), no more Iraq wars. I hope this world becomes a much better place to live this year.
2. I hope everyone who desires a job, gets one. I hope the recession just passes by without affecting any families or lives.
3. I hope everyone thinks of "go green" and saving nature. Planting more trees, smoking less, just contributing in some way to save nature.
4. I hope there is more empathy around.

With this I hope all of you have a blast this year. Think of what you always wanted to do and haven't tried, be it singing, painting, learning a new language or simply bungee jumping and do it! Wish you all a very happy and prosperous 09.

It's pretty, it's pure, its' white

2008-12-28T19:55:00.000-08:00

Yep you guessed it right, its snow. Had never seen so much snow in my life. Last year it snowed alright but was just a tiny bit of snow for a while and then it was gone. This time around however its been magic. I realized I don’t miss sun as much when it snows, everything looks so bright even at night. Watching the snow flakes come down reminds me of magical tales, Narnia, Santa Claus and Christmas. Everything's bathed in snow, the roof, the trees, the wind even the fence has snow and its simply beautiful. I tried to click some pictures but what you see and feel can't really be captured, it has to be seen to feel its magic.

I wonder why snow is white, why not blue or pink or purple? Is it the reason we associate all good with white? If the sky looks blue, my brain would accept the blue flakes, wouldn’t it? But it shines and falls silver.

That said, snow can be nasty. It turns into ice making it impossible for driver to keep their cars in their control. I saw a lot of worry, annoyance and smirks on the faces of drivers behind the wheels during past few weeks. Car skid, circled 360 degrees and even came to a stop right in the middle of intersection. I was all happy watching people make snowman/snow women (he he,don’t ask), kids playing in snow and all that. But then the weather turned worst, weathermen predicted storm and compared it to the blackout storm which I thank god had not witness. For person like me watching such news can be quite stressful I tell ya. There were talks, news and emails about blackout not for few hours rather for days. Suddenly the dependence on electricity all zoomed in to me. No electricity means chilled icy water, no microwave, no heater, gosh no internet (god please give me a merciful death!). Wouldn’t my life come to a standstill? Jas rather seemed prepared. He had heard stories and wanted to be equipped for the worst. So we headed to Fred Meyer. There were so many people buying so much, that I winced. Their trolleys overflowing. Candles, Firewood, lots of food (really lots), torches, even portable stove. I totally freaked out. Everything I saw in those aisles I just wanted to buy, what if it gets too bad, too cold. What if this was it, Seattle under snow for all I know. I didn’t want to die without eating my favourite candy, muffin, the list goes on. Its all about food isn't it? Well Jas simply gave me a stern look and explained we weren't going to die and there is no reason to be all dramatic. Hmph! But we did get firewood and fire starters. I was all happy that we could still warm even during the possible blackout. But let me tell ya my friends, lighting firewood is a tricky thing. One has to know how to set it on fire. And believe you me it isn't easy, not until you learn the trick. Other than Holi (Festival of colors) in India, I had never tried to light a fire really. Oh yeah there were a couple of other times, I did watch people light fire but that was such a long time ago. Back in Goa at my GrandPa's house we had this large, very large, big black pot. This pot was large enough to boil water for four baths. This was when I must be around 10 yrs old and we didn’t have a heater in Grandpa's village house. No it wasn't the stone age. I remember watching Grandpa light fire at the first light of sun to boil water, and me sitting close by to remain warm. I never really tried to learn. I also remember Mum and other women in the house lighting fire to cook food. We were one of the few houses in our village that had electricity, gas stove and water pump but still for some reason Mum and my aunts cooked food on the chul (the wood fire stove), just for the authentic taste. And of course it was just for a few days, back in Mumbai everything would be modernized.

Well the point is, I never really paid attention to learn how to light a fire. And when it came to lighting firewood after several tries I was left with lots of smoke and just a little part of the firewood turned black.Grr!. After a lot of trial and errors we came up with a few steps to light the firewood and I thought I should share:

1. Never try to light one log- What was I thinking when I tried that, for almost 2 hours, trust me doesn’t work. You end up inhaling a lot of smoke.
2. Place two logs one above the other with fire starters in between- Yep this is the basic, and yeah confirm they aren't going to fall off, almost twice the burning upper log fell in my lap hmph!
3. Use candle to light the fire starter- Matchsticks aren't that useful so go with the candle and please don’t try pouring oil,aftershave, spraying deodorant or air freshener. Yup tried all that and doesn’t work. Don’t look at me like that, ok that's stupid I know but I was just reinventing the wheel, trying to light fire without reading or knowing much.
4. Blowing air helps- But again don’t stick your head in the fireplace and blow air on the firewood, gosh that’s crazy unless you want to find out how funny you look when your face is covered with black charcoal-ash. Use a book to fan some air into the firewood, it will catching roaring fire once you stop.

Finally don’t keep playing with the wood and fire all the time. Enjoy the warmth and fire, its amazing. Get a cup of hot tea, coffee, a good book and sit by the fireplace reading, listening to music or just chatting.

Twitching Eye

2008-12-16T17:12:00.000-08:00

For past 2 days I have a twitch in my eye. Bizarre, isn't it? It's that annoying involuntary fluttering of eyelid. And it's annoying much. I have tried 10 different things trust me:

1. Reading a book with one eye closed, wish had that pirate eye patch- Doesn’t work; you end up with a watery eye and wouldn’t have understood a word of what you read.

2. Tried splashing cold (Extreme cold water) on the eye, numbing it to death (heck its minus 7 degrees here) and there I was trying to give my eye some shock treatment- Doesn’t work; your hand becomes numb, there is involuntary shivering of body added to the involuntary twitching of eyelid. And that stays for good 20 mins.

3. Extensively googled and read up on twitching eye and came across some very horrifying diseases of which I believe my symptoms match none- Yet again, completely useless; There was something about basal ganglion(the part of brain that's responsible for controlling muscles). I knew it had to do something with my brain, that one part of my body which insists on living independently. Some researcher in one of the sites I googled states it may be a hereditary problem. Thank god my Ma doesn't know this scientist. Ma believes depending on which eye twitches something bad or good would happen in future. How? Don't ask me and please don't dare ask her. Any who I absolutely can't remember which one is the good eye and which one is the bad eye twitch. They also mention that the eye twitch can be stress related too, heck yes, I had to watch 6 episodes of "Kyle XY" over the weekend which I couldn’t , wouldn't that be termed as stress?. The point I want to make here is- Don’t search for answers on the net, you won’t find any, rather you will end up reading tip on latest fashion, how to keep your skin glowing in winter and shopping deals at best.

4. Tried poking my finger into my eye when I wasn't aware: How, I wasn't aware? Don't ask me, like I said my brain works quite independently- This also doesn’t work, I ended up poking the wrong eye, don't know how. I was focusing too much on the eye-being-unaware-thing. The twitch fades and reappears with a new vengeance, so don’t try stabbing, poking and such. Any please please don’t try applying mascara. I managed to turn the eye black trying to do so. Ahem!

5. Eye drops some pages suggested- Now that's one thing I am scared of, last time I used it I was blinded for half a day. Forget it. You will have to visit a Doctor for prescription who will look at you as if you are a moron. No one goes to the doctor for an eye twitch. You may believe you have some horrible terrible disease with the symptom of an eye twitch, but the doctor will simply send you home.

So after a lot of pondering, I came up with my own theory. Genius aint i? The theory is-Distraction. Yep that's it. Find a really soft chocolate cup cake with a good amount of chocolate cream icing. Prepare your mind not to count the calories, think about how yummm it looks. As soon as I got my eye on the cup cake, the twitch disappeared he…he..he. I relished the cup cake and promised myself satisfying my guilt that I would stay away from sweets and ice creams for two days, ok may be a week, ok ok 12 days. Gosh!

Anywho if you guys know some awesome remedies for eye twitch do share!

I want one!

2008-12-11T16:37:00.001-08:00

Can you think of a title for this one? I cant

2008-11-21T16:14:00.000-08:00

Friday, wasn’t it a day of hair oiling back in India? I remember Ma telling me not to oil my hair on Saturday coz it was reserved for God Hanuman. There was something about him taking a oil bath on Saturdays and such. I don’t remember how that connected to not oiling my hair. Though I think she never strongly believed in it and hence wasn’t too pushy about not doing that. I also remember the long queue to the temple where people stood with oil and leaf mala to give Hanumanji oil bath. Often times the floor of the temple would be oily and slippery. I remember those little black things at the bottom of the oil vessel they handed at the store never actually fell on Hanumanji and how I always spent a few more minutes to ensure those always fell on Hanumanji. This annoyed most people behind me in the queue waiting their turn. Then came the part where you circled Hanumanji’s idol 7 times. Yes 7, not more, not less. So you keep count ok? There would be around 3 or 4 people circling Hanumanji at a time and each one reciting their own shloka, loudly enough for everyone to forget what they were reciting and start over again. Often times I either lost track of the sholka or the number of rounds completed. Unless Ma pulled me saying I started with her and we are done. Well the shloka reciting and round tracking wasn’t the only challenging part. Ensuring that your salwaar doesn’t get messy since the floor would be quite oily would be another one on the list of challenges. But the most and trust me when I say the most challenging part would be to- not slip and fall down. At one time I saw a women slip straight heading for a young college kid who also slipped dragging this other women to a dramatic fall. Me and my sis were behind them and gosh that scene was one funny picture. I don’t mean not to sympathize with them but people, people if you try walking at like some super speed, you have to carefully watch each step, don’t ya? Unless you know skating or something. The young college kid intelligently made his way straight out of the temple. Whereas the ladies ended up loudly blaming each other and the entire queue came to a halt. But even then going to temple on Saturdays was a ritual we never missed or at least tried not to.

Whenever Ma tagged along she found at least 20 people she would stop and talk to, grrrr. All the auntijis would then start the trickiest quiz. The quiz would involve some challenging questions which you try to answer with best either a yes or no. Each time the level growing tougher, question demanding more and more details. The aim was to collect as much information as possible, no harm intended. Question of the new stuff some neighbor purchased and information of how the 5th servant of some neighbour’s cousin from Vikroli quit would be provided without asking. Also there would be some critical evidence these auntijis would have such as how the women who fell, this wasn’t the first time she fell. Gosh now how does one manage to assimilate so much info I ask? Is there a stupid, stupider, stupidest kinda thing? Anywho this and lots of unwanted noise would then fall on my ears and I think my brain had tuned itself to filter this noise. But now that I think of it, the trips to temple were always fun. There would be nice vada prasad (the south Indian vada). Lots of people around, bells ringing when someone entered the temple, some dude who would ring the bell really loudly and people would look at him angrily and chant their stotra more loudly. The bhatji who seemed to be constantly in some kinda of hurry, managing his dhoti, reciting stotra and hinting people by mere looks and hand movement of where to keep the coconut, where to put the mala etc. And every now and then some dude would step to break a coconut into 2 halves and put coconut water on Hanumanji, thereby adding to the slippery floor.

Yet beyond all this, was the faith people carried with them. If you sat in the temple for a while, you would often see some youngster helping an old aunty (in her 70’s) who never missed her visit to the temple on Saturdays and never missed the 7 rounds around Hanumanji. Some stranger, a tenth grader would go around the temple distributing sweets coz he got admission in a great school. Just sitting there in the temple one could observe so much, isn’t it?

Bake a Cake

2008-11-14T17:39:00.001-08:00

This morning there was this big packet of candies in our office kitchen. I saw it when I went to get some water and told myself I would have one, just one after lunch. After lunch I went to the kitchen and it was all gone. Now who can eat so many candies at once? Has someone hid it in their office? I was so annoyed hmph! Lesson learnt- When you see a candy, grab it and eat it. I am so ready for the weekend I tell ya. Just to sleep in a little, not worry about work. And even more ready for holidays. This month and next, wow it’s like 2 long weekends, one this month and one next. So my resolution (Call it early new year resolution) is to experiment one new recipe every week, preferably on a Thursday or a Friday. Thursday to just get into the mood of weekend or Friday to actually celebrate the weekend. While I experiment and try out the new recipe, Jas adds perfection by tasting (now that’s a risk, isn’t it?) and adding any spices needed. Like he says, cooking is no art, just a science. You get the recipe and follow it perfectly nothing should go wrong. Well ahem! So this Thursday we tried Chicken Marsala. The first time I tasted it at Cheesecake factory, I simply loved it. When I looked up some blogs and website, realized its one of the easiest recipes. Am comparing this with rigorous Indian cooking involving grating and grinding coconut and all. So well all I needed was Marsala wine and patience. Voila! Yumm! Don’t believe me, try searching Chicken Marsala and you will find tons of simple recipes. What? Did you think I was turning my blog to some recipe blog? But since you all are so nice and are here reading my blog, I’ll share the link. Go ahead, try it and enjoy. And if any of you know some cool recipe link, please share. One thing I really want to learn is how to bake a cake. In India, there isn’t a huge tradition of baking cakes. My mum never baked one. I never learnt to bake one. Well, she did make some yummy Diwali sweets and I dream to learn them one day. But well, never a cake. Now being a beginner I would like to try out some simple cake, like mix and put in oven types. But I go to the store and look at these tons of packets, there is a dilemma of choice. So many brands, so many options, what to choose, which one? Oops its 5.37 pm gotta go. All you nice people enjoy the weekend cook some nice food and share some cake baking tutorials :)

What do you want to be when you grow up?

2008-11-07T15:03:00.001-08:00

And it’s another Friday, time for another post. I don’t know when Friday became the day to blog for me. I guess it’s the happy feeling of weekend that motivates me to blog. Everyone around seems so cheerful and happy, just glad that it’s a weekend. I don’t have any gossipy gossip to share this week, so pardon me if this post seems utterly random. This morning started with watching a baby hippo video and god it made me so happy, yeah that’s how crazy I am. It’s been raining for 2 days straight and I am jubilant about it, even made ginger tea the other day. Seems just like July in Mumbai. When it used to rain in Mumbai I would run to the balcony to remove all the clothes put outside to dry. In that one moment I would look at the sky and forget the dry clothes, put out my hand and try collecting rain drops in my palm. Until Ma would yell “This girl doesn’t do one thing told to her”. Then I would run taking clothes from balcony to living room, dropping them on the sofa, while Ma would look angrily at the floor coz my feet would have wet the living room too. And then sitting by the window in train when it rained, oh how cool was that? I loved the wind on my face. Here it’s too cold to open the window hmph!

This morning my colleagues son came in office. He was screaming “Dad I want to be a fire fighter”. That got me thinking of all that I wanted to be as a child:

1. Wanted to be a doctor: Well yeah, until I realized they cut open stomach and such. I couldn’t imagine blood oozing and well just being around sick people didn’t make it all that exciting. Also my little brain would have squished due to all the trauma of studying those books.
2. Architect: I don't know what I liked about that profession. I just liked the huge drawing boards and sketching images. Until I realized how much math goes into building a one storey building and knowledge of sand and such errrr well I wasn’t so fond of it all.
3. Clown: I just loved that one character at the circus and decided that or the lion trainer, that’s it. That’s what I want to be. Until I saw the movie “Mera naam joker” or “Ek hota Vidushak”. Though I think, deep down am still a clown but putting up the act, nope not in my capacity.
4. Pilot: Oh man having wings, always wanted that. It was cool in those days, when women pilots were few. But the fact that I won’t see much land made me depressed. Skies don’t have trees, mountains, rivers, waterfalls hmph! And moreover I don’t take the whole take-off and landing too well ahemm. So that was dumped too.
5. Soldier: I was the one in my class to sing the national athem as loudly as I could. Stories of soldiers motivated me. I considered their attire was cool. But guess dodging bullet needs some completely different set of skills. One, I suck at running and two I am not sure I could ever shoot a human or any living thing for that matter.

Guess I still have a little streak of all these professions in me. I always was the medicine kit person for my family and loved giving a crocin or a cough syrup to anyone who asked. I still can’t tolerate a frame which is slightly misaligned. I still like to crack ridiculous jokes and make people laugh. Flying kite still feels like freedom. And finally, I am still a patriot, will always be.

Any of you wanted to join some profession you didn’t?

Trick or Treat!!

2008-10-31T17:01:00.000-07:00

Sounds of little footsteps and laughter can be heard in the corridor since morning. My back is to the door and everytime I turn to see who is giggling, no one seems to be there. Around 3 pm this happened repeatedly. Finally tried hiding by my office door and suddenly a fairy, pirate and rabbit ran across my office corridor giggling. I slowly stepped out and tried walking noiselessly in the direction they ran. Suddenly I was poked by a fake knife and its hmm what is this? “Trick or Treat” said a 3 yr old, and I think he was a shark. I wonder what’s a fake knife to do with his costume? I looked at his dad who was beaming with pride. I had to sit on my knees to talk to this shark. Seems he wanted a candy no matter what. I had none, so I had to go steal some from next door. As soon as I handed this kiddo candies his face beamed. Boy this little one had collected quite some candies. I walked back to my office and turned on some Shankar Mahadevan songs. Then came a puppet, he asked me what I was listening to and to turn up the volume. Surprisingly he liked Shankar’s “Taare Zaamen Par”. “Cool” he said and handed me a candy. Funny, sometimes how little things can surprise me, totally unexpected. Last year, Halloween had come and gone and I hadn’t noticed. This year it’s what can I say, it’s different. I walked over to Jas’s office and there were so many kids and parents. Parents looked tired and kids looked super energetic after eating all the candy I guess. I saw an alligator, several butterflies, robot, vampires, and tortoise (hmm he was too fast though), also saw a dog wearing a hotdog costume. It was super fun. They have decorated the entire buildings with creative halloween decoration, every office has a basket of candies sitting outside. Among others there were twins in Dalmatian costumes, they were absolutely identical, I guess had their parents not dressed one of them in blue and other in grey jeans, it would be impossible to guess who’s who. A rabbit got scared of a fake spider and burst into tears, I couldn't stop laughing watching that. Whereas a lion almost squished the fake spider. I wonder if costumes reflect people’s personalities, even kids for that matter. I saw a mechanic with tools, this little mechanic dropped a basket full of candies not coz he didn’t want the candies but rather he wanted to check how the chipped basket could be fixed. Dunno why the alligator was crying, I remembered “Magarmach ke aasu” hehehe I know mean isn’t it?

I wonder if I were to dress for Halloween what would I wear. Maybe leave my hair open, put lots of kajal in and around my eyes, put a big rather a huge red bindi on my forehead and carry a trishul. Howz that for a designer Halloween costume? O ya and I would wear a odissi style saree. Also, a rudrash mala around my neck and rudrash earrings. In fact nothing like a kathakali costume. Next time I go to india I got to get one. So what are you guys up to this week? Any Halloween plans?

Politics Vs Politics

2008-10-17T15:44:00.000-07:00

And I was thinking November-December means vacation time. Historically that maybe true but for some reason amount of incoming work is no way depicting it. For two weeks or so I was absolutely relaxing, I even got a book to read at work and today suddenly there has been an avalanche of user research study requests. My reaction to all this, all I said was woah, is this fun of what? I hate sitting idle, especially during times as these, when all you can read online is about recession and elections. Talking of elections, in India I wasn’t ever attracted to the subject. I hardly heard about ShivSena or BJP other than when dad or other elders discussed. The bandhs, rasta rokho activities sure did bother me but not so much that I could educate myself on the mysteries of politics. Here however people don’t openely speak as much of politics. I learnt quite early that it’s not as polite to ask political opinion of someone. This made politics mysterious and hence attractive. I watched the political debate the other day. This was the 2nd of such debates we watched. I don’t have much right to say which candidate is better than the other considering I don’t know much of their previous work record. But I do have an opinion of who came across as genuine, wasn’t just interested in pointing the other guys mistake and accepted rather than avoiding the current economic condition. I’ll tell ya, but only if you ask.

But this post isn’t really about these candidates; it’s about the difference in way politics is conducted in different countries. I don’t remember a single such debate between politicians in India. And I can’t really imagine how Lalu and Balasaheb would debate. Anywho, maybe soon times will change, educated people will be able to fight and get into the system to correct it. Maybe then we’ll get a chance to listen to some real promises. Yeah such dreams of mine! For now I am waiting for our short little vacation to Texas. New place, new environment, new energy. On another note, I requested a Marathi novel at KCLS library and guess what? They had a copy and I got it yesterday.

For now, ciao, take care and laugh lots.

Ghost moderating comments

2008-10-09T13:51:00.001-07:00

The weather with no care or concern for me or my health has changed yet again leaving me sneezing, coughing and irritated. So here I am at work starring at the computer and wondering what to do which won’t involve humans. I notice I am scarring them away,no one wants to attend meetings with an infection carrier in the room. So I turn to blogging. As I lazily logged on my blogger site, I found two comments smiling at me (on my previous post). The only thing other than Dasera greetings that has cheered me today. I quickly hit on the publish comment button and guess what happened? Only one comment got published and the other disappeared from the face of the google publisher. Darn it! I was all gr@#$#. I mean seriously I already have a list of reasons tempting me to move to word press. I scratched my brain trying to remember what name or sign of the fellow blogger who commented. All I could recollect was it started with a “p” something along the line of purvi, purva, purv, pvur, paavam gosh! All I can do is curse google and apologize to the stranger. And cough violently on the google webpage while my colleague watched and aweeed me. What, I was just hoping to pass on the infection to the webpage. After pondering for a while about the blogger, I decided to stay put here.To move to another blogging site would be to find a new home, research, check the vastu shastra and all that. And well, this blogger has been my home for quite some time now. Agree it has its flaws but then home is home right?

On another note, someone is trying to sell a used dustbin on one of our DL’s. This dude seems to be moving out of US and has listed everything barring his clothes for sale. The advertisement was posted a week or two back on the distribution list and travelled through thousands or more inboxes. Now really, is this some culture effect(seller is Indian) or it’s just an individual nature thing? As I scrolled down the list of things for sale, I couldn’t help but laugh reading the items namely kid’s potty seat and dust bin. Dude has even clicked pictures and put them on Picasa. If that wasn’t enough after a week’s patience, the guy published this ad again claiming- “Price Reduced”. I mean, I understand the economy is slowing; things are really bad around here but again are they as bad? Worth pondering!

As for all you nice readers, wish you a happy dasera, eat well, enjoy life, stay healthy and well keep laughing.

Reminds me of Tum Tum- the 8 seater rickshaw

2008-10-03T17:02:00.001-07:00

Yawny Friday! You would say that too if you had to work this weekend like I do. So for me this week has been never ending. It started on a Monday and is progressing into yet another Monday sigh! I am suddenly noticing a lot of “Enjoy the weekend”, “Happy Friday” etc at the end of emails people are sending Grrrrr! On another note, I ran into this video of Tata Nano and simply couldn’t stop laughing watching the car.The wheels look so tiny and the fact that they have only 3 bolts makes me kinda uncomfortable. Back in India if it was a 2 seater, one could easily find 3 people merrily riding on it. Sometimes entire family of 4 would be on a scooter. Typical scene would be a little boy standing in front and a little girl in mum’s lap. A good example is the “Tum Tum”. Extremely noisy 8 people carrier. More so like a rikshaw. I have travelled in a Tum Tum only once I believe, thank god. I think it was near Pune or maybe Vidarbha I don’t remember now. What I clearly do remember is choosing a door seat coz I considered it best rather than getting squished in between people. You see Tum Tum is the last place I want to die. Anywho, I was squished against the door and I believe there were atleast 20 people in that Tum Tum if not more. I also occasionally saw a leg or a hand when I tried to look out the window. These must the people hanging on to the Tum Tum and enjoying the wind. Also I distinctly recollect getting suffocated and experiencing odors which can easily be traded for poisonous gas. I survived that journey. But I wonder if Nano would turn into modern day’s Tum Tum. And the pretty little, fragile looking car be able to take it. On a Ganpati Visharjan day when the eldest uncle in the family commands all the kids to cramp up in the car? Or someone orders all the women to get in their car with little ones? Well, we’ll just see what happens of Nano as time goes by.

On another note, did you read about the public smoking ban? Is that true? I mean if its on BBC it has to be real, right? In India my office was at a walkable distance from home. I made it a point to walk daily to my office and back. It took almost half an hour or 45 mins but still faster than driving to work or even taking a cab. Mornings usually I had no issue walking to work. Roads would be relatively empty (if I left home at 8) and it seemed as if the city is still kinda gearing up for the day. But in the evening, walking along with hordes of people and cars just added stress. I recollect the number of people who smoked in the crowd back then. Sometimes I would end up walking behind someone who would be smoking and I would have no choice but continue to walk that way till I reached home. I felt like a smoker. I would curse, grate my teeth, even say things loudly like “Kidhar se aa raha hai yeh smoke?” but would be talking to walls. Even if this ban is implemented in half of the crowded areas, I am sure thousands of non smokers will be pleased. On the other hand, I wonder what’ll happen to the poor pan valas. They won’t make much money selling meetha pan, will they?

Let pictures tell the tale!

2008-09-02T15:36:00.000-07:00

I went backcountry camping last weekend, yay yay! Though I could write post after post describing the experience, I rather not, let the pictures tell the tale.

While the hike was moderate,the trails weren't one of those well maintained trails,reminded me of Grandpa's house in Goa

After hiking for a couple of hours I reached this bridge and then a lot more such bridges

As I huffed and puffed our way up the mountain, heard the sound of water. The happy, jumping sound of streams. Seem like they were playing hide and seek through the trails

Here's the Talamus Lake view, absolutely amazing, isnt it?

I searched for campsites for a while and settled for this one closer to the lake.
As I continued the expedition around the lake, clicking some more pictures I wondered what is it that attracts me to these places. Is it nostalgia for a simpler life? Perhaps finding myself, just connecting with nature. Or is it the stillness, the peace?

We struggled to cook while being surrounded by the crazy Chipmunks. Beware of these thieves, they look cute but can run away with all your food!

I wasnt sure whether I was still dreaming or awake when I saw the lake in the morning. This will be one of my most memorable hikes ever!

P.S Sorry about the poor formatting, google doesnt have a easier way of doing it and I suck at html.

“How does one become a butterfly?" she asked. "You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar”

2008-08-29T16:00:00.000-07:00

Crazy week, especially last two days. I had this user research study I was working on. Knew it the moment I heard about it that it was designed to fail. What do you do when you know things are to go wrong? Do you sulk? Complain. Blame others. Maybe even magically try to feel optimistic about things turning around. For this one, that’s what I did, fake optimism. Well guess what, sometimes it works. All you need to do is tell yourself during the worst time that next turn is good to be the end of this bumpy ride. We closed the study today, it wasn’t a 100% success but it dint fail either. In the end, noone was jubilant but none were upset either.

As I sit at my desk and look at the stats of this study, it reminds me of the class Robotics. My curiosity got me to take up the class. I wanted to know why no girl ever enrolled for that class. Robotics was pretty famous as the elective for brightest. It was a scoring subject as long as you understood it. I wondered what it would take for me to understand it. It was the final semester and no one would want to risk their grades. Only a fool wants below a first class or worst a KT in the final sem. Last semester is a weird time I tell ya. Time, when you are curious to step in the outside world. Time when you are glad those classes, those grades and assignments are over and yet the time when you know you would miss it all. So well, I could choose to not take up the class and wonder all my life what it would be like if I did. Or I could take up the class and either regret it all my life or tough it out. I did just what I did for this study. I choose the risk. I wasn't one of the brightest. I wasn’t sure I could make it through. All I thought then and now was – if I don’t try this now, I would never know what it’s like. And I sailed through. As much as I would hate to take up a class in robotics now, I am glad I know how a robot moves its arms and does all the magic he can. It sure was a stressful time but worth it I bet. So was this study, designed to fail and yet didn’t. Sometimes all it takes is a little faith and ambition to try.

I haven’t experienced as much life to comment. But there’s one thing I learnt from my dad, he never says so much in words but always makes this clear. If you give up something it’s going to bother you more than anyone else, for a long, very long time.

So now on to the next adventure, wonder how back country camping is like? Guess I'll just find out over the next weekend.

P.S A sobering thought: what if, at this very moment, I am living up to my full potential?

Timeless times...

2008-08-22T12:55:00.000-07:00

There are these times, when all I can think of is a string of words. Do they make any sense? Well I never promised this blog would make any sense,did I?

Sentences and such..Discussions through mornings. Music playing, liked, loud not so wanted. Cards on the table, yes it’s a pair, no, not yet, maybe next time. Spices and flavors. Complaints from neighbors. Rain and sun. Late mornings, lazy evenings. Sipping tea, tasting wine. Planning no plans. Driving no vans. Speed, speed, no stop sign. Movies and shopping. Stretch out your feet, look up the sky, butterfly, yes that butterfly. Meaningless fights. Silly jokes, silly times. Laughter just too much laughter. And then the goodbyes.

Those timeless times...

2008-08-15T16:25:00.000-07:00

Sheesh I am in this song wrap.And am so totally singing it. Singing it at work,singing in kitchen, bathroom, while watering plants (no they aint dying just by listening me singing-nope not yet).

I watched Umarao Jaan yesterday. It started with listening to some song on YouTube and then I just had to go watch the entire movie. Saw it over tea and then dinner. Jas was totally hyper (like that’s something new); he doesn’t like sarcastic, sad real life stories. He’s been asking this one question - What pleasure do you get out of watching such movies where 80% (or did he say 90%) of the time some or the other women is crying? I just reasoned,miss the Hindi soaps na(a 1000 year old woman living on. "Ba” was she or is she?) which Ma loves to watch. After watching the movie I had to call Ma and tell her stuff. Especially coz Jas just can’t stand the pauses and drama I add during story telling. Ma on the other hand was totally mesmerized. She hasn’t watched the movie yet and wanted to know whether it was shot before Aishwarya and Abhishek declared marriage or later. Don’t I miss those meaningless Cine Magazines sometimes?

So I told her the story and such:

Umrao Jaan Ada, what now? No its Ada, yes I know that's not the name of the movie but it’s like that no actually, in real. This Umrao no, she sings and dances all too well. Yeah the costumes were good, the makeup also, why you focusing on that? I am telling you the story no. So this Umrao is not Umrao she is actually Ameeran. Not Gareeban, Aaameeeran. Lil girl, but is kidnapped and then taken to Lucknow to Shabana. No, I don’t remember Shabana’s name. So I reaaaaally like the song Ab ke Janam. I like it just like that, nothing to do with you. But you listen no, this Umrao falls in love with Nawab Sultan. Its Nawab Sultan, no I am not wrong, they use both together, its the first name (Nawaab+Sultan).Ok ok, no Amitabh wouldn’t look good, he would look too old in the movie. Good they didn’t choose him. Hellooo, helloooooo.

Gosh! Ma still can’t stand a word against Amitabh. But this time she dint really bang the phone, it’s like someone out there knows and understands her feelings so the line just went dead. I never ended up telling her the entire story. But just chatting with her about this reminded me of good old days, when I returned home from a theatre and recited her entire movie story with dialogues and acting. She was always ready to listen, always with the same level of interest and enthu. Some relations never change, hence Agle Janam Mohe....if you know what I mean.

P.S: Next week, Friends arrive at Seattle = noise, laughter, poker and nonsensical chatter all the time).

Gold in Olympics 2008

2008-08-10T23:15:00.000-07:00

OMG OMG, we struck gold!!!!! Our own very first "individual gold medal" won by Abhinav Bindra at the Olympics in China. I am overwhelmed with pride. Want to do bhangda right now. And now on I vote shooting. Enough of cricket and cricket and more cricket. I mean I didn’t even know this dude Abhinav could shoot let alone the 10m air rifle. I am so celebrating. Can you believe eveyone of my friends on gtalk are offline. I just need to call everyone right now and share the moment of pride. Or even better, I am just going to spam people with this news.

Trust me, if you meet me tomorrow, whether you know me or don't, prepare to hear about the gold from Beijing.

"Sare Jahan Se Accha Hindosita Humara" :)

To self: Brain tag- 2008 the year of first individual gold to India by Abhinav Bindra.

Edited to add: OMG another buzz about this dude Akhil Kumar. Did you know about him? Me nither. Cool no?

A little story for all

2008-08-08T15:26:00.000-07:00

Today has been all cold and rainy, like any other cold day here.Just that it’s been sunshine for too long, long enough for me to believe it might just stay. I drove to work today listening to “Tejonidhi loh gol”, bliss!! Stopped at a red light, can’t avoid looking at the person in the car next to me, can I? Anywhoo, there was this old lady in that car looking straight at the red light, and suddenly she dozed off. Yeah that’s right, at the steering wheel, she just slept. Woke up in a second, looked in the mirror to check her lipstick, acted just normal. The light turned green and I wondered if she was headed to the freeway. Hopefully not!

Two potted plants (my pets) which survived the bitter winter, one of them seems to be happy and is sprouting flowers. As I was looking at them yesterday, I remembered our balcony plants back in India. Mum would put potted plants in every spot possible so that we don’t enter the balcony or for that matter any balcony in the house. Her own little garden she calls it. I could never understand the pleasure she achieves in attracting mosquitoes, some other little insects which hover around green and a grasshopper at one time. While these thoughts circled my brain,a big fat honeybee started hovering on a little yellow bud. Bliss again! Ok Ma, know how it feels now, yeah and also know how many times I have said this. Yeah yeah I would know when I grew up and stuff.

Today I spoke to a best friend from India. The one whom I send senseless, annoying emails. Ranting, frustrations and more. She however, religiously replies to them with some completely unrelated topics and thoughts. Isn’t it wonderful to just have such friends? In one of her such emails is a little story, probably we all were read such stories as kids, but doesn’t harm to revisit them once in a while, does it? So here’s a conversation between two characters in the story:

The story itself is set in the pre-independence period.

A British forest Officer is talking to one of the local Indian Tribal man assisting and supervising the Khedda operations. He notices that the elephants, which have been domesticated earlier, are used to pull out the newly captured elephants from the Khedda pit. He also notices that the huge / heavy tusker is tied to a tree with a relatively thin iron chain. So he asks, “That elephant is huge, don’t you think you should chain it properly? Those chains are very thin. That tusker can break those chains by yanking and pulling really hard repeatedly".

The Khedda man replies, “When we capture baby elephants, we chain them. Initially they tug at the chains and pull hard and try to free themselves. Gradually, the frequency and intensity of the 'pull' decreases. One fine day they simply stop trying. Once they stop trying we don’t change the chains. The elephant is now growing up. It can break those chains with a couple of good pulls. You know it and I know it. But the elephant himself doesn’t know that".

This week’s thought: Keep trying. You will never realize how strong you are unless you try to break the chains. The day you stop trying is the day you are actually chained.

P.S: Thanks Sowjanya for listening always!

Random e-mails

2008-08-01T17:40:00.000-07:00

There are days when random things happen at a rapid rate. Today was one such day, don’t I love such days? Somehow they manage to keep me happy. While work was exciting with meetings and such, I managed to listen to some of my favorite songs today. The Ipod managed to play the right songs. I stepped out of office for a meeting, much hoping that there won’t be any sun (you learn to set your expectations in Seattle, you see). But well, not always. Back in India, whenever the sky turned cloudy and wind started to bang our windows, I just had to go get a “butta” from the bhaiya near our home. Today was one such day here, of course with some sun. While all this is part of the usual routine so are the tons of emails which arrive in my inbox through our Indian Group. Usually it's some random about a garage sale, event, shared accommodation etc. Today for some reason it was sort of hilarious. Here are some of the emails, which made me choke due to laughing (slap your self if you don’t find this funny, maybe you are just sleeping)

1. Recently there was a murder-suicide incident in an apartment complex near our office. Some crazy freak guy shot his ex-wife and shot himself in broad day light. So here's the actual piece, someone emails this news article link to the group. Can you guess what would be a reply on this? I am sure no one can. A dude replies with concern- “Where they Indians?”

P.S: Article contained all the details (no one shot was an Indian, while several calls were made to 911)

2. Another hilarious email was by a dude asking for lawyer information. This guy managed to get a speeding ticket for jet skiing. So I guess a traffic police (jet ski police huh?) caught him and gave him a speeding ticket. Now as if this wasn’t funny enough, the dude sends out email to all asking for lawyer information to counter the ticket. In case you find yourself in a similar situation and don’t know what to do, some expert has replied – the jet ski speeding ticket doesn’t affect the driving record. Yeah duh!!!

3. If this hasn’t made you laugh there were tons of other emails, ridiculous in nature. I guess it’s just the Friday mood. A debate over the business week article “Trade talks broke down July 29 as India and China refused to bow to U.S. demands on agricultural subsidies” was one such. Suddenly there were too many people who grew up in poor villages replying. Someone believed that Indians and Chinese can eat every bit of wheat & rice surplus in the western world and can still feel hungry and emailed such. Just this statement made me laugh so much I tell ya. Indians will remain Indians wherever they go. Of course I am proud being one. Like Chetan Bhagat said “There is something cool about saying - I come from the land of a billion sparks.”

4. While the arguments and concerns about the agricultural subsidies were enough to spark patriotism, another mail informed the launch of Tata’s Air Powered Car launch. Impressed am I or what? I want one!!!!!

Now that I am hooked on to the group, find me sharing more stories and such. Funny or not funny, I still shall share.

Do dead people watch us?

2008-07-23T21:46:00.000-07:00

I wandered blogs, newspapers and articles in hope that I would find something interesting to read. But alas! So I just thought of creating a post and mostly blabbering. So excuse me if this doesn't make any sense to you. Did anything ever? So what was I saying again, yeah today on the msn home page is an article about a mad woman writing a mad book. The book goes by the name "Do Dead People Watch Us?" I know, I know completely valid question. But if you read her nonsensical interview, you probably will slap yourself twice before throwing up. Kuch bhi bolti hai pagal. She claims to talk with the dead. I think the talking-with-the-dead syndrome is more like a symptom of a retarded brain condition. Moreover, this woman also claims to know what happens to us when we die. Did I say again that she may be God in disguise. Grrrrr. As if the craziness of talking to ghosts wasn’t enough, she writes a book and is interviewed to discuss about it. What have I been doing so long I ask myself? Where did the killer instinct of I can do it too go.

That's how I got this brave idea of writing a brilliant book. Ofcourse the interviews, autographs and fame would follow. But before all that, I need to come up with an idea. So here are my 5 brilliant ideas. Personally, I believe all five of them are a hit, but I think audience vote plays a very important role here. Here is your chance blaudience, to vote for the best book. Top 5 ideas:

1. Who lives on planet Pluto?
2. I met the Mermaids
3. Thoughts of a mosquito
4. The 55th alien I spoke to
5. The dreams of a buffalo

Jokes apart. Really, do dead people watch us? I'll tell ya what I think, when you tell me what ya think. So you, yeah you there, better look around to check if a dead is watching you.

New hair cut

2008-07-15T16:41:00.000-07:00

I got fedup with my hairstyle. So this Sunday I decided to chop and get a makeover (in a way). Found a hair salon with some discount going on and headed to it. Can you believe it charges same for men or women hair cut? I mean what skill does one need to cut men’s hair. Fact apart that whether you cut one inch more or less they don’t care much. So I reached the salon and was pointed to this Chinese women to cut my hair. I told her Madhuri Dixit style, shoulder length, layers. Not that it would make me look any good as Madhuri, but well everyone aspires of good things in life. Her first response was, sorry I can’t cut such long hair. Whaatttt? It's not even upto my waist, it’s a good 3 inch less. I had no choice but to allow her to chop off as much as she would be comfortable with. The other reason was of course my head felt light, my brain doesn’t weigh that much you see, it was all hair.

So next day, I walk into office. How many of you have experienced looks people give after: a brand new hair cut, or after removing braces, or first time you got your eyebrows done or (for men) I don’t know maybe chopped off beard or something.

I enter my office and my colleague simply decides to ignore my latest haircut. Dude! I just got a haircut and u don’t seem to care here. No I didn’t say that out loud, but his expression showed he didn’t seem to notice. Next I walk in to my managers office (Monday meeting, yawns!). Managers look: What you got a haircut now? Whatever. And he moves on to the usual doldrums. While he is focusing on work, I wonder whether my hairstyle is all that bad. Well who cares, works for me. Poor taste hmph! Then I go to our scrum, a group meeting of 10 people, hoping someone would notice. I enter the room late, lil bit shy. Sit besides a girl (whom i meet daily) and have to literally tell her, you know what I got a haircut. Yeah you did! She exclaims. It looks nice. Sometimes you just have to get people to validate, you see. While this was the end of the story for most parts. Evening brought new surprises. I took bus home. And usually same bunch of people travel by that bus everyday. The old guy who gets in a stop after me looked at me and raised his eyebrows. At least the oldie recognized me, or maybe his specs were irritating him. Well I prefer to believe the earlier than the latter. Then climbed in the women with her daughter and guess what. The little girl screamed, mum see no aunty got haircut (of course in her mother tongue which thank god was Marathi). I waved back to the girl and her mum. I was surprised at how weird it is, that strangers notice things which people who meet you daily may not.

My take on this one, if you haven’t tried a haircut in ages, it time for a change. Trust me, it feels awesome, just the change and the freshness it brings along.

Edited to add: Today was a day of me having mood to wear traditional Indian outfit at work. Result being, everyone at work seem to notice the outfit ANDDDDD the haircut yay yay!!

In mood to rhyme or not rhyme

2008-07-02T22:21:00.000-07:00

Walks and Roads
Memories and Souls
Victories and Tears
Passions and Empires
Wisdom and Grays
Times and Fames
Crowds and Trains
Dreams and Shades
Shocks and Tales
Wishes and Whales
Sorrows and Shame
Prayers and ….

Rhyme that for me, will ya?

Who doesn't fear the driving test

2008-06-28T23:04:00.001-07:00

Yeah the scary episode of driving test is now behind me and I can happily say, I have survived the worst. Not only survived, have come out of it with golden numbers. Yep, 90/100, alright may not be real golden but not bad when you are sweating and shivering in your car seat during the test. The fear of this test was quite deep set. I had heard stories of how, instructors are evil Dracula's,ready to kill with a fail stamp on every slightest mistake.

As I walked towards the driving center, I noticed a old man (stern face) instructing another man to turn on the left indicator, then the right. Looking at him, I thought, looks like an extremely irritated oldie. You know na, like some oldies who for no reason are irritated at the world. So praying that he doesn’t turn out to be my instructor I went to check in. I was given this note to be put on my dashboard and wait in the car. I did as told. And guess who walks up to my car, the same oldie. I almost banged my head on the steering wheel, when I heard his voice. And here's how it went:

Instructor: Hello, my name is Jerry (or Tom). I am your instructor for the day.

Me: (All trying to be nice ,smiling) Hello, nice to meet you. I am S..

Instructor: (Didn’t care about my name or the hello and still the stern face) I am now going to check whether your vehicle is in good shape. Turn on the right indicator and then the left. Push the brake pedals for me to check the brake lights.

Me: (Yeah right! It’s a new car, it should be in a good shape. I didn’t bang into some car before I got here, ofcourse the indicators work and which fool would drive on freeways without brakes working) Yes sir (still trying to be nice) Here goes, left indicator, works doesn't it? (ouch, wrong question, shut up girl and focus)

Instructor (sits in the car): Now I am going to test your braking skills. I am going to ask you to keep your foot on the accelerator pedal and when I say stop you should brake as soon as possible. Okie?

Me: (Is he joking or something? In a real crisis, no one is going to scream stop. And what if someone hits my car from behind, what if I am driving at 60 and some accident occurs right in front. Guess this is some trick from the late 40's) Ofcourse sir and do as he says.

Instructor: (Extremely stern face) I will now be testing your driving skills. You should be well aware, that if you don’t perform you will have to reappear. I will not try to distract or confuse you. You should drive as told. Do you have any questions?

Me: (He already spoke about re-test. God he is so going to fail me. Should I ask a couple of questions like: what if I don’t catch you accent, will you repeat the instruction? What if I miss a turn coz I didn’t understand you accent? What if I run over a squirrel or a raccoon or something, does that count as a violation? And you look old and stressed, what if you suddenly feel dizzy and I need to stop call 911, do I still fail, even if I save your life?) Yes sir, I completely understand if I under perform I will have to reappear. I have no questions. Shall we begin? (Oh God! sounded confident or overconfident, he is so going to fail me)

Instructor: Ok then, does you car have a AC. Does it work? I would like you to ON it.

Me: (Definitely this oldie is feeling dizzy, maybe he will crash even before I back out of the parking lot.) Yes sir, here we go. Nice weather outside, isnt it?

Instructor: (Doesn’t care about the weather or my question, still stern face) Back out of the parking lot and drive as I tell.

And then it was left turns, parallel parking, parking at the curb (up hill, down hill), backing along a curb downhill and some other stupid things which we never use in practical driving.

Finally Tom (or Jerry whatever his name was) told me to park. I parked and I was amazed at how much my hands were shaking. Man! I have been driving for almost 5 years now and I shiver during a stupid test. I looked at Tom and he was writing something on a piece of paper. I was praying constantly,don’t fail me god, promise wont drive rash, promise wont even think of driving at 100, not even once. Ok maybe sometimes, just to know how it feels when the speed indicator shows 100. Okie fine, never. Tom looked at me and actually asked as if he were listening: Are you saying something, do you have any questions?

Nope Sir, nothing at all. And that's when his face changed from the always stern to a smiling (didn’t I remember my grandpa!) wrinkled face. You did well young lady. You have passed the test with a score of 90 he said. Thank god! I was beaming with happiness. And started chattering, "I think I didn’t back up well, I could have parallel parked well too. Most of all the curb thing, I think I really sucked at that." His face stern again, Though u did well, I would like to tell you a few things.

He told me flaws in my driving. Parallel parking was well, assure that there is enough gap between the front and back car, so they can drive out easily. While backing downhill curb, assure you keep driving straight and close to the curb. Now take this paper and go get you license.

I just looked at his wrinkled stern face and thought how does he manage to be like that. I saw him get out of the car with some difficulty (maybe knees hurt) and walk away. And silently, I thanked him.

Thrilled am I or what, GOT MY US DRIVERS LICENSE TODAY!

Happiness is..

2008-06-26T17:12:00.000-07:00

When you go to Cheesecake factory and study the menu for more than 30 minutes to figure out, those one or two things you would like the most. When, finally you order a dish which contains lots of cheese and add a thick strawberry smoothie with it. When you know you have had so much that another bite could make you throw up everything and yet you order a to-go cheesecake. When you decide to eat it at 12 in the night, still sure that your stomach won’t really agree. When you sigh at 12 coz, well you can’t eat the Cheesecake now. Happiness is when you wake up in the morning still thinking of the cheesecake and know it’s there and also know there is someone you can share it with….

Happiness: What can I say; it has different meaning for different people :)

Mumbai rains remind me of..

2008-06-09T17:35:00.000-07:00

I must have written, saved and deleted at least 4-5 possible posts in the past few weeks. I blame the ridiculously changed weather for the same. I mean a week back sun was beaming, was it even a week back or more? And now it’s back to rains…yeah it’s just like India in June only a lot colder. I loved India rains, though it would get all muddy.I loved standing by the window, watching rain sipping tea. Watching someone’s umbrella fly away. Kids returning home from school, holding their bags on their head to protect themselves and still pushing each other in puddle. Women still arguing about the vegetable prices, holding a bag of vegetables in one hand, balancing the purse in the other and holding umbrella in an awkward, uncomfortable tilted neck position. Yet on a rainy day Saturday, there would be queue outside Hanuman temple. People waiting in a long queue with oil and leaf garlands. Oil almost diluted and turning to water due to drops of water the little vessel collected till it entered the temple. Mumbai rains remind me of people hanging at the train compartment door, taking cool breeze on their face. It also reminds me of huge waves at Hajiali and clouds roaring in the background. Mumbai rain reminds me of travelling in a double decker bus and watching the water level rise. Mumbai rains remind me of kids making little boats of paper and placing them in muddy water stream running by the street. Mumbai rains remind me of mum drying my hair with her saree pallu. Mumbai rain reminds me of eating hot bhajiya while trying not to get wet, standing under the little shelter of the bhajiya gadi. Mumbai rains remind me of Dadar Phul bazaar. Mumbai rains remind me…

I dare to fly....

2008-05-23T14:24:00.000-07:00

So here is some piece of news for all of you. I quit my job. Yup, I did like 1 week back. And today I move on. I hate the last day @ office, where you meet all those whom you worked with and each one has a question in their mind and on their face. Where, why, when, how? Gladly my exit interview was like a 2 min thing, and there wasn’t a lot of probing. I will certainly miss all the nice people I work with. We all went to lunch today and as I looked around,I tried to capture all the good moments. These are the first Americans I worked with. I learnt the jokes, slang and first facts about working with Americans here. I will certainly miss them all.

I do feel absolutely light, just like good old school days when you appear for the very last exam and are returning home. But at the same time I have butterflies fluttering in my stomach. I spread my wings and pretty much swing them. Are they still strong for the flight? Will I survive in the bigger skies? Though it’s scary, I am so ready for it. Different people to meet, more friends to make, tougher tasks to handle and yeah experience to gain. Wish me luck guys, coz I dare to fly…..

That's weird

2008-04-16T16:57:00.000-07:00

Lots has happened in a week’s time. Last Saturday was a miraculously bright day. Sun was glazing and everything just looked so bright and pretty. We took the opportunity of visiting “Museum of Flight” Remember playing with toys, cars, some trucks as a kid? I felt exactly the same way; just the size of my playground and the planes had extravagantly increased. I was thrilled to be inside “President’s Plane”. I did want to sit in his chair, but it was strongly marked “Do not sit in this chair”. When the president is on board this plane goes by the name “Air Force One”. I just thought it was cool to name it that way. The one plane which I loved was a 737 / 747, I hardly know the difference. The reason I loved it is coz it goes by the Baby Boeing. Isn’t that cute? An ex-air force pilot gave us a tour of the museum and told us all about the airplanes. I was completely distracted with all the hanging and sitting airplanes, which were in different sizes and shapes. Wish could fly in some of them, wouldn’t that be awesome? We saw a plane which was used for some war purpose; it had a little missile like thing sitting on it. The missile was called ‘drone’. It’s kind of an unmanned little plane, used to spy. I didn’t know they had those back then. I just kept looking at the drone and wondering, what if one could fly in that one. So all in all it was a good way of spending a sunny day.

On another note, I was reading news a few mins ago and I came across this. Isn’t it ridiculous? Now I don’t want to make any comment here, but I am not too happy with people walking out of a function. And what is wrong with the journalist’s isn’t there better news than this one? That made me drop the Times of India for a bit and I turned to CNN and look what I find there. I think it’s some piece of news, now how many times do we get to hear a rebellion like this. Its sounds like, tell me who is the beneficiary of your life insurance policy or I’ll take your life to find that out. And in other news, a volcano which was tight lipped for 400 years, woke up and screamed at Colombia. 400 yrs. By the way, anyone heard or read any more news on the two faced girl. Did she speak?

No other news has been this funny offlate

2008-03-26T14:28:00.000-07:00

I started writing this post on a totally different topic while cnn page was opening in another window updating me with some current news. I got distracted and went on to read the news which left me laughing till I guess I started turning red and scared my co-worker. The news is on the front page of CNN about a toddler who fell in a 45 feet well. The 2 year old girl spent 27 hours trapped inside the well. So here is the entire article and what went through my mind:

AGRA, India (CNN) -- A two-year-old girl was rescued Wednesday after spending 27 hours trapped inside a narrow well outside the Indian capital of New Delhi. Don’t we have better news that this one which could have been reported as a front page article. And does Agra need any more popularity then it already has due to Taj.

Two-year-old Vandana was trapped in a well near New Delhi for more than a day.
She fell 45 feet into the uncovered well while playing Tuesday night in a village near Agra, a northern Indian city outside New Delhi. Was she playing with her invisible friend? Was no one around? And which kind of games is played near an uncovered bore well.

The girl was taken by ambulance to a hospital to be checked out, according to District Magistrate Mukesh Kumar Meshram. Checked out? What does that mean?
"The girl is normal, according to the doctors, and there is a possibility (she is) suffering from dehydration," Meshram said. At first I thought the well actually had some water, so this statement got me confused since it says she dehydrated. So I went huh? Geez duh! She survived the fall? She has wings or something?

CNN's partner network CNN-IBN reported Vandana's parents were by her side at the hospital. What else does one expect? She is a miracle child now, who wants to lose out on that kind of popularity.

Her mother was kept away from the well because of rescuers feared she would become emotional and upset the child, but her father was constantly talking to her to keep her conscious, authorities said. The video actually states that her mother was praying. I wonder, didn’t her father’s voice echo in the well. So it would sound like…Stay awake…aaaaaaaaawake…aaaaaaawaaaaake. How did he talk to her? And what does one mean by mother becoming emotional, would she jump in the well as well.

India's army was called in to help, and rescuers dug a parallel well to tunnel into where Vandana was trapped. Now does the Indian army do this kinda stuff too. Who is guarding our borders in that case? And parallel well to rescue the toddler. Whose idea is this whole thing?

Officials said the girl frequently asked for fruits and sweets, which was sent to her with the help of a rope. Woah!! I am sure the girl must be like wow my only chance to get all that I want. So every now and then she would be like, throw candies, throw cake, throw mango. I wonder what I would do if I were in that well. I would be like how about a laptop and a cell phone. Don’t they have wireless connection down here? How about a McDonalds burger this time. No no just get me a burrito. What you guys would rescue me in an hour. Nooooooooooooooo!

Oxygen was also pumped inside the well through tubes to prevent any suffocation, CNN-IBN reported. It was the sixth time a child had fallen into an open pit or uncovered well in India over the past two years. Wow we actually going to make a record in this one.

And if all this hasn’t made you laugh go watch the video, the little girl is swarmed by army guys, do we need to crowd so much. Would the sky fall down if 10 of those people don’t appear in the video? Finally, what a news!!!

Notorious Squirrel On The Block

2008-03-23T14:41:00.000-07:00

Spring seems to be knocking at the door. Even 2 out of my 4 dying pet pots seem to have made it through the winter. Jas still continues to persist that they all look dead, but fortunately there are enough leaves on two of the plants to prove that they continue to live and breath. I feel sad for the other 2 who couldn’t make it through the winter and still keep hoping that somehow they will bounce back to life. I still am feeding them with plant food and water. What really annoys me is the mischievous squirrel who is digging all my pots. Earlier last week I returned from work, to find mud all over my doorstep. I scrutinized the area and found weird step marks leading to a broken branch, which seemed to have acted like a stairway to the huge tree. I looked up the tree, nahh nothing there. Two days ago I reached home to find the same crime scene. But this time around I could catch the glimpse of a bushy tail on the branch and the notorious squirrel nibbling on something. I keenly looked at her and she was peering back at me. This same squirrel can be noted in our backyard and can be heard pounding on our chimney. You can ask me how do I know it’s the same squirrel? I have noted 3 distinct marks on her forehead, and each time I look at her annoyed she bows her head to show me those marks reconfirming my belief. I have thought about trapping her, scarring her even poisoning her. No I am not against cute animals. But this one has got on my nerves due to her continuous mischief’s. Digging around the backyard, digging pots, spreading mud all around our doorstep brrrr. On another note, I was thinking of ways and methods of controlling temper. You would ask, why am I thinking on these lines. Naturally like any other normal human there are days and times when I lose it. I often find myself evaluating the means and methods of bringing the red color of my ears (due to anger) back to normal.So here are some proven remedies:

I would give 10 points to knitting: Be I in a happy, annoyed, sad or jubilant mood, knitting seems to be an activity which demands 100% of my attention. I started knitting a sweater a few months back. Once I moved here, though I brought the half woven sweater with me, I completely forgot that it existed and that I still have to finish it. Now with some guidance, I have restarted the sweater making. Believe me, its one of the good old tricks to manage temper. The more complicated the design, the more focus it needs resulting in making you forget everything else. Well this is the first sweater I am knitting and so far its coming along well :)

I avoid cooking or cleaning or reading during bad mood phases. Cooking itself is quite challenging skill which I feel I have only partially acquired and am still learning. Hence cooking in an annoyed mood for me results in spoiling the dish, which in effect builds up the rotten mood. Cleaning makes me feel quite depressed. Washing dishes on the other hand is a pretty good stress buster. So a 9 points to dish washing, only if you don’t use a dishwasher. Reading makes me feel depressed, I try to associate everything bad that’s happening in the book with me. Silly isn’t it?

Taking a warm water bath definitely deserves if not 9 at least 8 points. Though I would ponder on the topic at hand for a while in the shower, soon the combined effect of steam, fragrance of soap and shampoo plus warm water works well on soothing the spoilt mood. In no time a hundred topics such as the extravagant dress of some lady I saw in the mall today or neighbors garden or the shoe stand comes to my mind.

And the last one is exercising, for me its thread-mill while listening to Ipod. Else walking about 1.2 miles outside. Since walking out doesn’t happen frequently due to the cold wind blowing I opt for walking on the thread mill. Initially I find myself working my temper on the thread-mill and soon as the sweat trickles down I realize I actually am enjoying the exercise and the music. A definite 10 points for this one.

Any more tips on shrugging off a bad day? Soothing the one ticking nerve in the brain? What do you do when you are simply annoyed?

Desktop background and mood swings

2008-03-18T19:42:00.000-07:00

Every week I change my desktop background, most of the pictures I set as background are animal's pictures like dogs, puppies, cats etc. I just changed my desktop background a minute back and started wondering what goes into the decision making of choosing the picture. For last two weeks it had been a little kitten , sitting in a room with not too much light, kinda grayish and looking at the floor, or rather looking at a little ant by her foot. She looked as if she was pondering, thinking attentively, focusing. When I look back at those 2 weeks with respect to work, that was exactly the state I was in. Focusing, pondering to find solutions and thinking. Before that it was another kitten (cute this one) lying on her back, eyes closed, paws by her face. It seemed as if she just wanted to keep her eyes shut and act ignorant. I wonder if that was the state of my mind then. Just keep my eyes shut tight and say this will pass too :). Ok I know I don't discuss work issues here but doesn't mean I can't. Everyone loves work place gossips, don't you all agree. So those of you, who don't agree, act real and listen. Back to the desktop background, before the 'act dead' cat it was a stupid faced dog. One which has hair all over its face, golden colored, so much hair that you can hardly see his eyes or nose or mouth. This one had like a small pony on its head so one could see his eyes. But this made the dog look extremely silly. Moreover it was a face close-up picture hehe. All in all, the dog looked grumpy and seemed to be starring at whoever looked at him. Was I in a grumpy mood then? And before the dog it was a lion, sitting across my screen and looking at my telephone. That was probably when I had just joined the job. I guess I was trying to be brave. Each time I looked at the lion I guess somewhere I felt brave. Soon the lion turned to a rabbit and guess that reflected me too. I was totally scared being in a new industry, a new country and a new career. Now when I look back at the order of the pictures, I can’t stop smiling. Something’s do reflect our moods, knowingly or unknowingly. Do you know of any such things you associate with your mood swings?

Pipal tree near my home

2008-03-08T22:10:00.001-08:00

There is this huge old tree near our house. Its one of those where you have to bend your neck right back so much that it hurts and thats when you are able to see the huge branches and shimmering leaves. When I stand beneath it and look up, I can see streaks of sunrays filtering through its thick leaves, as if only the purest of the rays are showering on me. The trunk of this tree is so huge that I probably will not be able to catch my fingers if I put my hands around it. I don’t intend to either. Though I am totally mesmerized by the hugeness of this tree, I find it creepy. There are these weeds, thick fat weeds growing around the huge trunk of the tree. And worst, its not just the base, the weeds go right up to the sky. And these weeds maintain their shape and weight right up to the top. And well that not that, there are leaves growing too. At least ¼ th of the trunk is covered by these heart shaped leaves. I wonder whether how does this old huge tree tolerate this. Doesn’t it feel like shrugging off these weeds and leaves. Or do these weeds and leaves act as a blanket, protecting it from the fierce cold. Which means they are dwelling in some sort of symbiotic relationship. You protect me and I feed you. But each time I pass this tree I think of the good old story of a Pipal Tree. The one which hosts ghosts, my mum always told me these scary stories and convinced me so much that I still seem to believe them sometimes. Errr okie many times. So a pipal tree is a dwelling of ghosts and according to my mum they hang upside down from the branches of this tree. Well these are different from bats, so don’t even try mentioning something like that to my mum. Anyways, these ghosts live there as one big happy family. Mum said its not good to stand under this ghost dwelling tree, because some how these ghosts find the neck and shoulder of every human attractive, so they jump on to the neck and follow home. How, don’t ask me? I don’t remember a single horror movie of Ramsay which didn’t feature the famous pipal tree. In fact, to make it look real there would be this white smoke surrounding the tree and some sort of light thrown from behind the tree. But what makes me smile when I see this tree, is its evergreen nature. Its not an evergreen tree but due to the green weeds and ever more darker green leaves over its body, it looks alive. So while during winter all other trees are playing dead, this giant is enjoying looking green. Since observing this I have a renewed interest in this humongous tree. I don’t miss looking at it even once when I pass it and the weeds don’t seem to bother me anymore..

Group Health next door!

2008-02-29T15:51:00.001-08:00

I have to tell you about this. I don’t remember if I have mentioned earlier, but our company shares the same building as Group Health Medical Centre. There is a Hear Centre, See Centre, Behavioral Centre, Psychologist. This doesn’t mean that there are patients walking in and out of the building all the time. Yet occasionally there are weird people one might bump into, either in the elevator or in the lobby. These are mostly harmless people. There hasn’t been a single harmful or aggressive episode or event in the building, I have to mention this so as to get it out of way and out of your minds.

I have travelled to my office on the 3rd floor sharing the elevator ride with old couples. I find oldies and kids very similar. They both have soft skins. They both do not have most of their teeth. Invariably I have found both the kinds smiling a lot. Today in the elevator there was a old couple. They smiled at me and suddenly the old man said. "Do you know we share the same ancestors?" I was like WHATT. I thought he was talking about Chimpanzees or Monkeys. I thought maybe he just came from the Behavioral Centre, so best ignore him. If possible try and recite Ram Raksha Stotra. But well then he went on to say "Your ancestors travelled from Africa to India. And ours travelled from Africa to Europe and then to here. That makes us related in some way". I was almost walking away from them, but this sentence made me turn around and face them. "Huh? Well ok" I said and smiled. His wife smiled back at me. Then he goes, "That’s the reason you have good big eyes just like we do". I burst out laughing at this. He kind of made a grumpy face. So I replied, "Well Sir yours are blue and mine are black". It was as if he just wanted me to comment on his knowledge and kind gesture or something. It made him feel satisfied. He put his arm around his wife’s shoulder and took baby steps towards the exit while smiling at me.

At 12.00 pm today, I saw another old couple. The woman was dragging a small cylinder on a little trolley which she was pulling. I just caught a glimpse, so I quickly took fast steps to see what she is using it for. It was an oxygen cylinder. She had an oxygen supplying cable running to her nose. She still smiled at me; I felt awkward and called myself “stupid” at least 4 times because I had run to see what it was.

I also remember one time this old woman had walked into the lobby and spread out her hands as if they were wings and kept going round and round in slow motion. She was trying to locate some address.Weird eh? There are a couple of youngsters who come with their parents, teenagers really. In hip hop clothes and sort of disoriented looks. This bunch does give me creeps. There was one such kid who had not tied his shoe lace and kept flipping it over and over. It was like he needed something to distract him constantly. His mother was calmly standing along the wall of the elevator, eyes closed. I felt she was praying.

Then this other time, there was a young couple, both with weird hair. The guy's were really long, where as the girl’s were really short and spiky. The moment the girl entered the elevator, she dramatically hugged the guy. I kind of folded myself and stood in a corner, biting on my own nails. When we reached level 1 and the elevator door opened, they both exclaimed, "We did it! This elevator ride wasn’t scary". I looked around standing in the elevator while they walked out, wondering what could be wrong with this elevator and why a ride from level 3 to level 1 could be so scary. I never got the answer but whenever I am alone in the elevator I still wonder about it.

There was also another old couple one time, the hubby was arguing with his wife that he doesn’t need new glasses and she kept telling him how he certainly does because he looks sooooooooooo old in the current ones. They were headed to the See Center. Heheheh. This couple must be in their 80’s. But the nice part with all this is, you always come across someone who shares a quick smile, chats a bit and that makes you feel a part of this society. Sometimes you find home away from home.

Bai Famine!!

2008-02-20T23:35:00.000-08:00

I need to burp out this sales call issue which seem to be hovering in my brain. I totally understand the pressure of sales targets and all the so called cold sales callers go through to achieve them. I totally sympathize with them but then again the calls I receive, they are unforgivably barbaric. The point is these merciless cold callers seem to somehow manage to obtain the number and blast a series of calls trying to sell anything right from office supplies to financial products to some stupid directories, was it nail clipper last time? Oh don't ask, it could be anything on the face of this planet. And the worst part is they try to con you. Yeah I said CON!! The same caller calls us 5 times a day trying to sell the same product, changing his accent, tone, style sometimes he even tries to cough or sneeze or choke creating a different tone and voice. Ridiculous, isn’t it? But well the deal we have at my office is not to be rude to anyone who calls; it's like a karma issue I guess. So I try to calm myself by counting from 1 to 10 and trying not to focus on anything the salesmen is saying by focusing on replying to my emails.

On another note, I was thinking about maids in India, who doesn't think about them when you are trapped in a bai famine country. I declared Bai's whether its Sitabai, Savitribai, Moushi or Simply Plain Bai as one of the most valued assets when we moved to US. I remember at least 10 Bai's if not less who were employed by my mum. Their interviews were conducted solely by my Ma and the sessions were quite grueling. Grueling for me I say, neither for my Ma nor for the Bai but definitely for me. The most important decision making factor would be the salary and our Bai Candidate would simply turn out to be a no show on the very first day if it weren't for industry standard salary which meant same or more than her other employers or our neighbours. Ma would try to evaluate her on various parameters as in whether she would steal, cleanliness, argue, ask for raise, gossip with neighbors (meaning definitely tell us about them but not tell them about us) and of course how many times she would WFH (Dandi marne as we call in Marathi). So each one of the 10 Bai's have left a memory which makes me smile.

Savitribai (Not Phule, just our maid) used to constantly eat mawa or tambaku (tobacco), which meant visiting the bathroom to spit a thousand times while she did all the chores. Though she claimed to have cleaned the bathroom daily, the stains of her incessantly tambaku eating reflected on the walls of the bathroom. Savitribai was fired the day my dad logged a complaint to Ma.

Then came Moushi, I don't even know why I called her Moushi. She was definitely the award winner Bai. Why?? Coz in a few days of employment she managed to terrify my mother. I believe she had some sort of schizophrenic personality (disorder). She used to talk to herself while she did zhaadu in bedroom. Initially it began by mumbling to herself but then later she was talking full volume. She was fired for the doubt of stealing my Ma's wrist watch (which has been one of Ma's all time favorite firing strategies).

And yeah how can I forget Kamla Bai, she was the one who always managed to flood the passage between kitchen and bedroom where we put clothes on wires for drying. How? Simple, never used to wring them. Get the clothes fresh out of a bucket of water and throw them on the wire. Water would drip till the entire passage was flooded. Ma, fired her went one day when Ma slipped in that passage and barely managed to grab the door before she could fall with a thud.

Kamla Bai left the job soon after that unable to cope with the constant nagging. Another unique character was Luckshumi (Laxmi really!! But that's how she took pride in calling herself). Luckshumi bai had a thing about tv serial especially the Saas Bahu ones. Ask her about any serial, the characters (not real names but serial names), their costumes, accents. Instantly she would turn into that character herself and mimic the character. It was quite disturbing to watch her perform I tell you. But anyways she was some character. She believed she had sinned in her previous life and hence ended up being a Bai else she would definitely be in the league of krishmas and kareenas of Bollywood. Most of the time I would find her day dreaming. She quit hoping to join Bollywood.

Then came Vimla Bai, she was a narimukti person. While all Bai’s before her had complained of being beaten up by drunken husbands. She on the other hand used to come home and inform that she managed to give two punches to her husband for getting drunk. I have a feeling she knew karate. Her husband Ramu washed all the cars in building. Was an extremely skinny guy. I don’t remember why she quit or guess she is still there.

Does all this mean its better not to have a Bai? Ofcourse not. I still remember Sunita, Anita and Sulekha who were so good at their jobs. Knew what we liked to eat, knew that the collars of shirts need to be brushed, the ironed clothes need to kept carefully and who somehow never felt like Bai’s. Really all I need is this Bai Famine time to end...can Bai's be outsourced here??

True Lies

2008-02-02T21:44:00.000-08:00

I was thinking about all the stories I either heard or read in my childhood. How I believed them and thought such things existed. It makes me laugh now, yeah laugh about all those silly stories I believed in. And for ages kids have been listening to the same stories and continue to believe in them. Take the tortoise and the hare story for instance. I mean how on earth can a tortoise win a race with an hare.

When I was a kid (Ahem! says the kid in me) my parents brought a tortoise home. He was the most boring pet ever. Every time anyone went close to him, he would simply curl in the shell and stay there still, not moving, seemed dead to me. I used to move the shell round and round at an alarming speed, hoping he would get dizzy and at least poke his feet or head out. But No Sir! He would enjoy the rollercoaster ride and stay there inside his shell. There was no playing, no hiding, no enthusiasm or energy. I would see him walking across the living room when I left for school in the morning and find him at the same spot when I returned. Trying to cross the miles of living room. Slow and steady ha!! The distance covered would be few cms at the most. Coz for anyone who walked past him and for any footsteps meters away from him, would be like some earthquake for this soul and then he would stay hidden in his shell for hours, till he was convinced that the natural calamity has deceased.

And then this story of tortoise and hare. How?? I would ask Ma, how could the tortoise ever win any race. She would reply "Thats coz he slept". I bet even if the hare slept for a decade, he would still win.

And what was that crap about Thumbelina – the little girl. I mean literally a person of the size of a thumb. Wouldn’t she be squished while her mum tried to dab some powder on her face? I used to keep asking Ma size of thumb means whose thumb, your, mine? And she meets this mouse. So I would ask again, “Ma, the mouse didn’t eat her?” No!! Huh?

Then came the Fox and the sour grapes. Yeah right!! If only a fox could think so much. And the moral of the story was “Its easy to despise what you cannot get” Huh?? “Ma, what does that mean?” So if I don’t get a first rank and say that its too hard to get the rank, is it ok Ma?” "No its no ok. You shouldn't do that”. Why not? The fox did it. I could never understand whether the story conveyed “resentment” or to the fact that “someone who after losing denies the intention of winning altogether”. Too confusing.

Then there was the crocodile and the monkey tale where the crocodile wants the monkey’s heart and the monkey convinces him that its back on the tree. I mean really, what crap. Crocodile I believe is a predator and which monkey on earth would agree to sit on his back. Ridiculous! Moreover which crocodile would let its prey get away once its caught. But coming back to the truth- I loved these stories and I believed them and their morals. But I wonder if I would tell them to my kids and whether they would be as applicable then. Probably they would know too many facts, too much exposure and will just not agree with fantasies.

On another completely different note, rice sambar and fried eggplant make an awesome combination. Don’t worry I wont turn this blog into a recipe blog ever!!

Played possum and died, poor Madam Fly!!

2008-01-30T22:55:00.000-08:00

So people remember Madam Fly? That big fat lady fly, who was merrily swishing across my home. She has befallen a tragic death yesterday sigh!!! Let's us all take a moment here and maintain silence for our Madam Fly. WHAT? Who Madam Fly? You don't know any such fly. What are you doing even reading my blog? Go read this first.

Okie okie now back to the story of tragic death. So yesterday after a healthy dinner, I retired to my bedroom. I wish I could add some awesome music, some creepy background music to this story, bollywood istyle. I was on my laptops, focused on beating someone's "Crazy Taxi Score" on Facebook suddenly I experienced a swish in front of my nose. Right then I knew that Madam Fly had taken the liberty of entering my bedroom. How dare she? I mean really, how dare she. The moment she saw me annoyed and found me engrossed in some task, she started swaying and swishing and teasing. All right people, I know she always needs all the attention when she is around. Its a natural behavior of flies. But shouldn't she know by now, with all the temper and @$#%%## I say that I completely hate her.

There is nothing I like about her, those transparent wings, bulgy black eyes, 5 crooked feet (ok may be 4 not 5, I mean really who cares) and those germs she carries. But I knew the right thing to do was to ignore her. So I tried to breathe like 3 times and got back to the game. That’s me, I can do that. But how long could I remain that way. In just a few seconds I on all alert. If I notice some insect and I dislike it, I simply squish it. Tragic, but clean death. But in case of Madam Fly it wasn’t the same reaction. Reason being, she was a humungous fly and an athlete at the same time. This meant running behind her, using guerilla warfare techniques and smashing her at the right moment. I was all over the place. Yelling, eewwww’s and yuckssss which no matter how dead Madam Fly would be, she would hear it. Then there was throwing my slippers in mid air trying to aim at Madam Fly. There were slippers flying all over the bedroom.

Eventually after a lot of jumping on bed, climbing on walls, dragging like a soldier on floor, I took charge and committed the murder. I may seem to people like a brutal murder, but guys I can hardly kill a tiny worm and this was a jumbo fly for God sakes. I requested again tried to ignore her and was convinced that it was the only way to deal with her. The moment I did that, she suddenly came flying around and sat on my lap. Eewww, I know ewww, but guys my reaction or rather reflex since I was in a killer mode to beat the Crazy Taxi Score, was to hit her. And guess what? She hopped and fell dead, right there in my lap. “Mar gayi” ha ha ha ha, exactly my reaction. I took a tissue to wrap her and throw her in the dustbin. What did you all think, I would cremate her or something? But the moment I brought a tissue, she flipped over and zoomed away. Huh?? Yeah people, she was playing possum.

Playing plain dead. Can you believe this? Acting dead so that she can freak me out.

She flashed her wings right in front of my nose and I am sure I could hear some laughter there. I decided it was enough. I just got back to my work that very moment and allowed her to enjoy her moment of victory. She was zooming around the room, corner to corner at an amazing speed. Poor ignorant being. She had no idea of the warm mist humidifier ON in the room. While she was all flashy about what she had achieved and flying, she flew over the warm mist. And there and then it happened. She fell right on the humidifier –dead. I am sure for her it must be like a volcano suddenly erupting from the floor, it was a natural calamity. Who could avoid that? Frankly if you ask me, I think it must have been a heart attack. Yeah really, considering her weight and ecstasy at cheating me…she just couldn’t handle it guys.

Kids....Geeks...Freaks!!!

2008-01-28T21:35:00.000-08:00

I mean what the hell is wrong with today’s kids? No, its not the crazy me talking again. No Sir, not this time. Look at this girl. She is what 2 years old. TWO SMALL, TINY LITTLE YEARS!! And she knows the WORLD MAP. Are kids turning into robots or something. OMG, were all those freaky movies true. I hoped and believed that as long as I live they will never come true. Those movies about Androids,Arnold Schwarzenegger's, weren't those imagination of some zombies. Shouldn't she be out there on a beach building a sand castle rather than pointing Hawaii on the World Map. She even knows where Philippines is, I mean what's wrong with her, they eat dogs there man. I heard some news about kids being able to solve puzzles, equations, math @ speed of light or something. What about the good old calculator days? Do these kids even know that a device goes by that name. The one device to which our generation hung with their life. Ok, ok not generation, me. Yeah, you would know if you were to appear that freaking robotics paper with all those fancy shamancy diagrams which made no sense to a normal human brain. Look all you nice people I had to google the actor Arnolds surname coz I couldn't spell it straight. Am I abnormal? With kids like these, learning the world map eventually avenues then streets, hi-tech products such as GPS will become extinct.I loveeee the GPS man. I mean imagine you are trying to figure out a particular location and struggling to understand what that women voice from the GPS is trying to say. You are driving at the speed of 80 miles/hr and constantly moving eyes sometimes to look at the road and sometimes to look at the map. That's exactly when your child who is still sitting in the baby seat,can hardly utter a few words, points out precisely the location on the map. Would you call it miracle or what or just speed up and drive into the nearest car. As if all these things weren’t enough, I came across this another Asian kid, what some 3 yr old , she solves a Rubik cube in 116 seconds. WHAT THE FUCK?? 116 seconds. I am hardly able to get same color on one face of the damm cube till date. Forget solving that utterly mind numbing puzzle. I mean is this child kidding or what? Doesn’t she know what the purpose of a rubik is. You are supposed to kill at least about 4 hours with that darn thing. And never ever in your life are you supposed to solve it. Such mind blowing, outstanding achievements are left for heroes in films such as “In pursuit of Happiness” or to Rajnikanth. How else will a normal person like me believe in miracles and hope for good. I was just about to conclude that there is yet one stream untouched, which these horrifying kids have not explored. But I am yet again wrong. Look at this 3 year old girl . I mean is she abnormal or what? I couldn’t even differentiate the braying of a donkey from the barking of a dog when I was her age. I mean she can PLAY all that. And she even enjoys it? People trust me, something is seriously wrong. Is the world coming to an end? Evolution? Ok ok I shall stop boring all of you here, before you all kill yourself here's another one… What?? You feel this is an abrupt end to the post. My brain is all confused after watching all those videos plus I couldn't think of a ending man, just watch the damm video and stop cribbing.

I blame the housefly!!

2008-01-24T21:19:00.000-08:00

Tissues, cough syrup, ibuprofen, antibiotics, warm water, more warm water these are the things around which my life has been revolving this week. I know you people are not interested in stories of a running nose, but well I am sick and I need to get it out on someone. What better place than a blog?? And why do you think I started blogging, if not for this?

It all started on Sunday. Its like once in a year this kind of cold hits you and you are clueless. You cant stop it, no matter what you do. So there it was, cold right in my face. I was rooted to bed, tugged in a blanket and sedated by pills. That’s when I saw her, zooming around. I thought of smacking her right in her face yesterday, since she was flying very close to the floor.

Then I thought she is too fat, even to carry her own weight. I mean I love pets. I have domesticated lots of animals in my childhood parrots, pigeons, dogs, cats even tortoise. But a housefly is the last thing I would like to have on my pet list. Madam fly has been in my house for 8 days now. 8 goddamm days. I wonder how she managed to break into my house in the first place. I agree she doesn’t misbehave, which means she doesn’t buzz around my ears, doesn’t tease me and doesn’t zoom close to my face. But that doesn’t make her all that friendly and does not motivate me to adopt her. Not when I suspect she is the one who has been spreading the germs around my home.

I find Madam fly swaying meticulously carrying a basket of germs. It feel as if she is spreading them all over my home. I can picture it, the germs are pretty flowers for her and she sways and spread them around. I have politely opened the door and asked her to leave. She sways merrily right up to the door and then as if in an act to insult me zooms right inside the house, I can imagine her laughing at those times. I called her bitch once and the next moment saw her sitting on my bread slice watching her newly painted nails. Seriously people, what does it take to murder a house fly? Guns, hand grenade WHAT!! No matter what plans I devise she escapes them. Swishes through my hands, takes steep turns, flies right from the ground like a rocket to my nose tip and vanishes. Its impossible to locate her hiding. And day by day I find her putting on more weight. Snif Snif!! I blame her for this, this cold.

Madam Fly you better start packing your bags because the day I recover I will find you… and it will not be pretty.

Chicken Soup and more..

2008-01-21T20:39:00.000-08:00

I often go to eat either Chinese or Thai food. Two cuisines which I guess similar to Indian food (spicy). All you need to do is when the waiter/waitress (well both look same sometimes) come to take the order, tell them to make it realllllllly spicy. Emphazine on the multiple "lllllll". Its important to explain to them that their scale of 1 to 5 sucks, and if they try and put in more of whichever sauce they put, it will help. Most of the times I either receive blank stares or rude replies. Sometimes they even pull the menus from my hands as if I ran out of the ticking time given to me for ordering my dinner. What is the hurry with them, I wonder? I mean if they are waiting at the table you better give them the order that min or else. Feel like asking sometimes, kya kar kya loge aap agar main order na du? Most of the time I am focused on listening to i bling your fhood okhay?? Once I hear that, I know the waiter at least understood the order, so I wont starve or be kicked out. Another major issue is trying to show them American Express card, forget showing even asking if they accept it, feels like a crime. Always hear them totally pissed off and saying angrily Noh Ahmerikhan Espress, only Vizza and Masssterr. Yeah right!! I invariably take too long to order the food I want to eat, also I always end up asking the waiter how is this made or how would this taste. First the guy stares at me, its too difficult to tell where he is looking. Small eyes, round face you know. There is a clear question mark on his face. Kung Pao Cheekhan, its its spyhee and chweet. There you go, so well is it sweet or is it spicy? Yeah yeah spyhee, why do they always repeat what we say? And never, never even try and ask them if a particular thing is veg or non veg. Its like asking for veg food in a Chinese restaurant is banned. I tried once and was totally screamed at. Yeah Yeah Bhej this is bhej, egg okhay?? No egg okhay?? No egg no phood. My hungry stomach kept kicking me from inside asking me to shut up. I calmed myself by looking around and telling self that I was lucky at least the waiter came to take the order. At one time I ordered for lunch special and some sort of soup was served. Truthfully, the soup smelled like toilet eewww. You never know what they can serve at these places. While in India we are worried about Ajinomoto and side effects, here I am not even sure if the chicken is truly chicken or something else. No matter how good the restaurants is, I always find myself digging through the fried rice and confirming that the pieces scattered meat are really chicken. But yet, my poor souls starve for these cuisines and I find ourselves relishing on the food. Sometimes I find these narrow eyed people really very innocent and cute. I love the food, yeah I love it, served hot, I grab the spoon but as I put the spoon in my mouth, I remember the plain dal rice with a dulop of ghee from back home….do I still remember that aroma, do I ?

Addicted to Heroes!!

2008-01-18T21:01:00.000-08:00

If you all were wondering what happened to me and blogging? I am alive and no I wont stop boring you all. I have quite a bit of crap to post here, but well these days I am hooked on to Heroes!!! One of the most entrancing serials I have seen in years now. Do you remember those times...times of

..He-Man and the Masters of the Universe...Skeletor...Castle Grayskull..."I have the powerrrr"
..The Cadbury's ad, kya swaad zindagi ka. That girl running out on to a cricket field.
..Vikram and Betaal on Saturday afternoons
..Captain Planet - Captain Planet, he's our hero Gonna take pollution down to zero...
..Tail-spin.... Balooo..
..Chandrakanta and the villian with ridiculous moustache (yakuuuuu), Krur Singh
...Flop show, yeah Jaspal Bhatti
...Falguni Pathak (Yaad piya ki aane lagi or something and the puppets)
.....The sound of Mahabhaaaaaaaaaaaraaaaat as I tried to open my eyes on Sundays
....Looney Tunes
..... And yeah the Giant Robot- Johnny Sokko and the Giant Robot. Where in, a little boy controlled the robo with his watch and the robo had all these amazing gadgets...anyone..anyone at all remembers?
.....Alif Laila, Alif Laila, Alif Laiiiiiiiiila
....Reading Tinkle...waiting for Tinkle Digest to come out in May or holidays
.....Supandi, Kalia the crow,Shambhu Shikari,That fat king....what was his name?? And didnt Shambhu have a wife?

Sigh!!! Thats all my memory has stored. Does anyone remember any more?

Tring Tring : India Calling

2008-01-09T11:54:00.000-08:00

We religiously call our parents (i.e my in laws and my parents) daily. For last few weeks I have been terribly missing those high pitched, all instructional conversations. I feel totally undisciplined, like a kid whose parents have gone on a vacation for a whole week and before leaving told him/her how to and how not to behave. The kid nods with his face hanging and agrees undoubtedly, wickedly dreaming of the moment when his parents would leave. So while I was thinking of what is it, that I have been missing for 2 weeks now, I thought of the conversations. Here they are one sided, I am sure you will be able to analyze the other persons response/questions.

1. Me: Hello, hellowwwwww can u hear me….ok ok don't speak when I am speaking, you override my words Ma, helllowwww again…(ohh god I am screaming). What would my neighbors think? Who cares? Ma shhhh listen..Ok you can hear me now. Remind yourself to stick to this pitch for the rest of the conversation. Do you want to go through the test cycle again? So just stick with the pitch.

2. Always and I seriously mean always remind the person that your and his/her time zones differ: Ma,how would I go to work now…I just came back..yeah yeah I know you know, it's still yesterday here no Ma. Hmmmm, Ma I got it, I know you have all these tons of things to do today, don't run me through the list no.Ohh okie which servant are you talking to, listen Ma...errr….ok I will hold…stop talking to 3 people at the same time Ma. Is dad going to office..wait….WAIT Ma…. I wanted..uh huh..okie holding..yeah still holding…MOM ITS 11.30pm…ohhh okie who died? That's serial no Ma..ITS NOT EVEN REAL..my job is real no Ma and I don't want my manager to fire me….no I don't always complain…which bhaji wali…which aunt..what are you saying…

3. Prepare for unsolicited lengthy advice for EVERYTHING: Ma I cooked that bhaji 15 times now…Jas likes it this way only…what??why??Olive oil is good. No it doesn't kill. Who told you that? Humus is made of chickpeas. Why not? It tastes good. Yeah take less time to prepare. No that's not the reason I make it. No, I don't want to run laundry daily. No, I haven't washed the bedsheets this month. What jhadu?? I use vacuum cleaner. No there are no floors…yawns!! Mommy I told you before....carpets…why?? We need no carpets..its cold no here. Ok when you come you will see. Ok I will tell dad. I will tell that aunt. Ok I will call aunts sisters cousin sons brother. Ok I will wish him for his new born. What? They don't live here no Ma..that's California Ma this is Seattle…Ma its miles away…distance is in miles here no….no Ma I don't know the kms…no I can't drive there on weekends…ok I will call her.

4. Being in shape is your worry, don't even try to turn your Mom/Dad into your personal trainer: Yes Ma..errr…I don't have that much time no Ma. What? Ma its freaking cold at 5.00am. No I don't get up before 12 on Saturdays. Hmmm. No, marriage hasn't changed that. Yeah he sleeps till 1.00. No, it’s not bad. Okhay Ma I will do yoga…yeah Ma everyday..yeah he will too. Ma I know how to do shravasan, vajrasan, mrugasan or whichever asan, no Ma please don't tell me how to do them. I really know it Ma. Ma I went to yoga classes for 2 years no. Okhay, I know you know it better. Okhay, yeah I am listening. Yeah I know it's important. No Ma, nonveg apparently does not have any co-relation to weight Ma (Self: You freak, now face the music). Okhay I will reduce non veg intake. Okhay Ma.

5. Don't discuss CLIMATE: Yeah it’s still cold here no Ma. What muflar? No we have hoods.Ma hoods cover ears. No, it doesn't look funny?? Hellllowwwwww…hello…can you hear me?? (Oh god why did I change the pitch scale) Ok yeah yeah stop it…I can hear you now…no nothing is happening to me…I am ok..yeah Jas is ok too. What?? I didn't tell you he slept. Ok I didn't tell you he is awake either. OK sorry.

6. And seriously keep away from Tarla Dalal or any such recipe episodes: No Ma I don't want to know your 55th version of that vegetable. Tell me the one daddy likes. Which recipe book? No I never looked at that. Ok I lost it. I shifted house Ma, I don't know where it is. Ma tell me the recipe. Errr ok you told me to learn to cook. Yeah. Ma I had exams…okhay not all the time. Forget it Ma, I will look up the recipe online. Hellowwww, hello ma…MAA…Which serial??? Okie. Will call you tomorrow. Hello, hello….Looks like she hung up on me again. Whushhhh whts the time. Its 1 am Oh god.

Doesn't end here, does it?

Conscience: Arent you going to call ur father in law?

Me: Yawns!! More Yaws!!! It's 1 already. Can I call them tomorrow? I am totally drained? Its fair…yeah it’s totally fair.

Conscience: Then why call to choose your mum first?

Me: OKIE!!! I will call.

I guess the conversations with In-laws should be another post? What say? But anyways what are you thinking right now??

Me, I am just thinking: There's days you miss home and there's days you miss home

The black cat seems to follow me…

2008-01-07T14:45:00.000-08:00

A couple of days back I was trying to explore Windows Vista which we have recently incorporated. Having found nothing new or exciting to learn I was on the verge of giving up and totally stamp it as a loser when I came across “Gadgets”. The numbers of free gadgets available are quite impressive. No doubt most of them are useless but they do make your desktop look handsome.

So while I was feverishly downloading the gadgets one by one, I came across this watch gadget which is a black cat. It’s called a “Kit- Cat Klock” and has this huge clock inscribed in its belly. Its eyes and tail seems to sway in a complete synchrony. A terrible smile is pasted on its face. And as compared to its body, its eyes seem to be popping out, making it look out of proportion. It seems stoned. But I liked it for its weirdness, apart from the fact that I like cats. Of course I like cats that look normal and cute.

So while it was sitting there and merrily swaying its tails and hovering its eyes in synchrony, I wondered whether the idea of downloading a black cat seemed all that good. Someone mentioned “Oh!! A black cat, that’s 7 years of bad luck”. Oops I thought, well who wants that. Of course shani in my kundali was supposed to have moved on and wouldn’t appear for a long time again. So now what was this new method of obtaining bad luck? In any case, I couldn’t allow the thought to keep banging its knuckles on my brain so I religiously removed the gadget. Gone is the cat, and gone is the bad luck with it. Easy, aint it? I thought of how my mum was all worked up when someone told her that shani maharaj has chosen my kundali for a comfortable stay for 7 years. Woah!! She came up with a list of things I would have to do from that day onwards till the very last day when Shani Maharaj would be pleased and would decide to move on. Happy as he would be since I would act as a perfect host, he would bless me with lots of good luck and good health. For those who don’t know what Shani means, here is the Wiki definition of it:

Shani (Sanskrit Śani शनि) is one of the Navagraha which are the nine primary celestial beings in Hindu astrology (that is, Vedic astrology), Shani is embodied in the planet Saturn. Shani is the Lord of Saturday; the word Shani also denotes the seventh day or Saturday in most Indian languages.
Shani is actually a demi-god and is a son of Surya(the Hindu Sun God) and his wife Chhaya. It is said that when he opened his eyes as a baby for the very first time, the sun went into an eclipse, which clearly denotes the impact of Shani on astrological charts (horoscope).

Now that you know what Shani means, would you even try and challenge him or my mother? Of course I didn’t dare, so there was going to Hanuman temple on Saturday with oil and leaf garland, no non veg food on Saturday, chatting of mantras.

While I considered discussing with my mum about this whole idea, I thought of the thousand other things she could think of and had chosen not to. At least she didn’t want me to wear black clothes on Saturday or light a lamp near peepal tree at night (that’s scary) or offer black grams to a buffalo (now who came up with that) or offer ladoos to crow (ofcourse they would be pleased and will appear every Saturday) or offer jaggery to monkeys (where would I find one in Mumbai baring the multiple humans acting like one around). Did I get distracted from the theme of this post?

Coming back to where we started, so well I had deleted the black cat and bamm!! Gone was the ill luck. Now at peace, I was living my life as ever. And then one fine day, after a week when Chritmas and all holidays were gone by and time for everyone who went on an extended holiday came to an end, a colleague came back from Thailand. And he was kind enough to have considered everyone in office and brought a gift for EVERYONE!! So round he went from person to person distributing gifts and I was all hoooo haaa over the cute little weird stuff toys he gave everyone. And then he gave me my stuff toy which was, guess what “A BLACK CAT”. A freaking black cat again. Ohh dear!! So there she was sitting in my palm and smiling at me, while I wondered what do I do now. I hung her near my table not thinking about the cat. Next day we went to buy a shower caddie and guess what guys, the only one I liked was a cat. I say what the heck? I will get a cat one if I like one. So cat caddie arrives with us home and is now hanging from our shower. Yesterday I went to Jas’s office and guess what, one of his Egyptian colleague brought him a gift from Egypt which is now sitting on his table.Well, you guys would have to find it in the mess of innumerable papers and pens and food and a partly eaten or broken stress buster. By the way guess what the gift is- ITS AN IDOL OF AN EGPYTION GOD. It had a head of a cat and body of a human. Though her feet feel like paws. Woah!!

I looked up on Wiki about a black cat only to find:

Historically, black cats were symbolically associated with witchcraft and evil. In Hebrew and Babylonian folklore, cats are compared to serpents, coiled on a hearth. The cat was worshipped in Egypt and to kill one was considered a capital crime. When an Egyptian family's cat died, the cat was mummified and the family went into mourning. Romans, also, considered the cat sacred and introduced the animal into Europe. In Europe, apart in Italy or Spain, a black cat crossing one's path is considered good luck; however they were also seen by the church as associated with witches. Black cats (and sometimes, other animals of the same color, or even white cats) were sometimes suspected of being the familiars of witches. By the 17th Century, however, the cat began to be associated with witchcraft and its luck turned from good to bad in many areas around the world. The black cat was still usually seen as good luck; however, in the USA and parts of Europe (e.g. Spain), which saw witch hunts, the association with witches caused them to be considered as bad luck.

While I read this, I was beaming with happiness.

Well I guess, a cat is a cat, white or black. And whether it gets good luck or bad is up to you. So our cats will continue to be with us and of course bring lotsa luck!! But can’t be ignored the fact that the black cat seems to be following us around, isn’t it?

Root Canal neverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!

2007-11-03T12:54:00.001-07:00

No seriously...have u been through a root canal everrr. I remember the day when as a kid my mum took me to a dentist, sitting out in the waiting room i wondered wht's going on inside. I wasn't sure if there was carpentry, construction or metal works going inside that room. My mum had to undergo a dental treatment and i was simply accompanying her, perhaps she wanted to give me a feel of the place. So the wait itself got me very interested. I was looking at all the pictures in the waiting room of most ridiculous witches or ugly men who had the worst gums and teeth in this world. I looked at the various people around the room and each one had a different expression. The person whose turn was next was holding a huge ice wrapped in a handkerchief on his cheek and looked as if some one has punched him so hard on his cheek, the thought made me smile a bit. My mum made these huge eyes hinting I should behave. Fast forward to the 20th century and me going to the dentist after 10 years or more…..woaaaaahhh the waiting room feels like a nice cozy place. A silent AC running, books stacked on a shelf on various topics, ugly posters replaced by various toothpaste, floss advertisement. Dental insurance ad on one side. "A smile is worth millions don’t lose it" ,such saying on the other side. I never ever regarded my set of teeth to be valued so much…. The expression on most of the patients faces was relaxed, one guy was whistling, other singing the song playing on the cd player in the waiting room and some simply enjoying the old cricket match running mute on the television set in the waiting room. Things have changed I tell myself oh yes they have. The Dr called me in and looked at my tooth “ Oh you need a root canal” I nearly fainted, “Whaaaaaaat?” No way, I have taken too much care of my teeth and its my wisdom tooth I don’t even eat with tht one. “Oh no, its not that one, it’s the one before that, but the wisdom tooth has to go as well, I mean its useless and it would decay, the sooner u get it off the better". I wondered why doesn’t the guy say get a denture, managing teeth is too much of a job. I am not convinced so he says fine lets get an xray…wow tooth xray…now tht gives me a chance to escape, xrays normally take a day to come out right…but no he rotates a part of this magical chair on which I am sitting and click, “Here, look at this one right here, its gone bad and thats ur wisdom tooth its grown flat and is pushing all the other molars?” I look at him surprised, I never knew so much was going on in my mouth. “How bad is it going to hurt doctor?” “ Hurt, what are you talking abt with the cutting edge technology root canal is painless” I didn’t believe him. So as an artist who would show the collection of his paintings he started showing me the latest equipments “ This chair, its from Germany, it bends, rotates, swings etc etc. Look at this paddle her when u press it the water spring appears, the suction pump is run by a sensor so no mess here and he went on and on with all the details telling me the prices, quality and model nos. By the end of the session I was almost an expert in dentistry equipments but I still had my fear and doubts. He said one shot in ur gum and u wont feel a thing I promise. So first he used a spray and once he sprayed it on my gum it went so numb tht I didn’t even feel the injection wow!!! Though I had gripped the chair as if some one is putting a saw in my mouth..trust me I was amazed by the painless surgery. I still don’t like going to a dentist but well the fear doesn’t exist any more. Technology has definitely made life less painful, at least root canal less painful though the price which you pay for it i quite painful...i paid a huge bill for this painless tooth surgery..