On moving and moving on...

This post has been a long time coming but glad to write now about it. The past couple of months have been eventful -- quitting IBM, preparing for interviews, arangetram, moving to Alpharetta (or should I say Alphapet? So many desis here, it could be Alwarpet ;) and leaving Lex and Lex, I guess, is the focus of this post now. The rest will find their way to this space sooner or later!

It's true that I was ready and I do mean, really ready to leave Lex after 11 years of making it my home. There were a multitude of reasons for my wanting to leave Lex but having said that, there are a number of reasons why Lex is, to reuse an overused adjective, pretty awesome! It's been a few weeks here and I still haven't found a library as attractive and close to home, or a Kroger that's 2 mins away! And I truly miss Joseph Beth, our defacto hang out place for the past several years now.

But a place is after all a place and it's the people really that matter. And people are what I miss most about Lex. It's not like I dropped by my friends' homes every other day but weekends usually found us in a friend's home or them in our home and it was...good, familiar, comfortable...like home. Even if some weeks all I did was talk to them on the phone, it was knowing that people who knew me for my quirks and craziness(es) were nearby should I need to see them. The wise folks online tell me it takes anywhere between a year to two years to call a place your home, sometimes never. A year seems far away now. I asked k if we should call a friend's contact here, you know, just to make new friends and he said, "It should just happen else it's artificial" :p

So weekends here find us in the mall (there is a carousal in the mall and a train, a real train for kids!) or Hotbreads (paav bhaji and veggie-puffs) or India plaza (yes, they have the latest Tamil movies) or in one of the umpteen Indian restaurants here, all of which are a stone's throw away. Fill friends in on this equation and we are set for life.

But.

It is harder to reach out to people and make friends as we grow older and for desis here with siblings back in India, that becomes a necessity. Friends are our family here, right? And with work being more challenging (and fun -- which translates to time consuming because you spend more time working for two solid reasons now!), I wonder when the whole forming-a-community here will work out. The moving is easy (k would disagree since he did all the work). It's the moving on that's harder. Perhaps, like k says, it will happen one day, naturally and without any special effort on my part. Who knows? Meanwhile, a glimpse of Alphapet :)

Need I say more?

Hotbreads!

Really neat restaurant where k and I had our rare couple-lunch-- Never enough thyme.

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On long weekends.

If you are in the US, you know that long weekends are a big deal. An extra holiday means a lot to 9-to-5ers. People start talking about it right at the beginning of the work week and conversations always include questions on "the long weekend plan". The plan, that's the next big deal. If you know me well, you also know that I love to plan -- for today, for tomorrow, for the next 5 years, for myself, for k, for r and so on. So, that's 2 things that I like -- an extra holiday and planning. Somehow, add it together and it doesn't always get me as excited as one would logically assume it would.

After more than a decade here, I am always a little bit apprehensive about long weekend planning. Do we drive 6 hours (Arrrrrrg!) and spend loads of money to get super tired at some nerve-wracking amusement park with scary rides? Or we can drive 7 hours (Arrrrrrrrrg!) and get even more tired after a day spent trekking and camping. Now, truth be told, I haven't done much of either and it's not that I am not a nature-type-of-girl (I guess I am not) but when I have a precious extra day, I don't want to plan business into it. I want to plan nothing for that day. Actually I'd rather "not plan" because in this day and age, "plan to do nothing" has its own connotations like no-technology, no-TV and more such nos that we impose on our selves to prove that we can be happier by taking fun stuff out of our lives -- its all about not being dependent, including being dependent on being happy, if that makes sense.

So usually, I feel a sense of being in a race when the long weekend approaches -- like I am lagging behind if all I want to do is sit at home and do nothing (which actually amounts to quite a bit if you have a 2 year old, so, you might as well head out, but that's another story) . For me, doing nothing is fun. Sure, traveling the world sounds like a great eat-pray-love kind of thing to do but usually am not in the mind frame for that! Sometimes, I just want to organize my house more, sometimes, I just want to watch a movie or act silly with r or my favorite (you know, do nothing) which gets like a C rating if say, traveling the world is A+. Add to this the fact that k is a traveling-the-world kind of guy and you can literally see me wishing the extra day away but for the fact that the day has so much potential :p

On a related note, I wonder why long weekends were never such a big deal (or come to think of it, even a deal) in India? Is that because we had many other exciting holidays to look forward to which weren't termed long weekend but in essence and were actually significant for a lot more reasons than just an extra day off? Or was it because I never had to work in India and hence have no recollection of workdays and time off work?

So go on, ask me. I don't have a plan for the long weekend. No, I won't drive. No, I don't want to walk 3 miles and climb 2 miles to see the most breathtaking waterfall there ever is in this universe. No, I don't want to not check FB and twitter (am sure there will be a day when I will impose these rules on my family, this weekend is not it!) I just want my extra day to be just that -- a sweet 24 hours where I don't have to do anything or nothing. I can be in the land of the peaches and the onions and smell the roses or not. Maybe I will open an account at our local library and check a to do or maybe we will continue watching 180 (which seems like a good Tamil movie so far). Or not.

(I guess I just need a break after the interviews and the arangetram and the move and the new job but I stand by what I said -- no long weekend plans! There, I said it.).

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About old thoughts.

I read somewhere that mostly our minds just go in circles spending a majority of its time focusing on already repeated thoughts and images. And those of you who know me know that this is indeed true for my mind. I have expressed the same few thoughts in several different ways and have probably come up with a few novel thoughts along the way. Few and far between. And of the thoughts that I often revisit, there is this one thought that often manifests itself into my mental space in the form of an image.

That of an old couple. What is wrong with this image, you ask. It shows that k and I would live to grow old and live to grow old together. All is well.

Now add a few accouterments to this image -- like a heavy grocery bag, snow fall and a walking stick (if you tend to be dramatic like me). Now, the color of the image changes significantly -- it's gone from pleasant pastel shades to a sort of undefined grey (if you are with my mental process still).

And this is the image that I keep circling back to in my head, every now and then. And the thought that goes with that image is that, I don't want to be that person. No really, I have no issues growing old (I believe, I have aged pretty well so far and plan to continue on the good beginning). My issue is with the loneliness and helplessness that I associate with that image (No doubt you pictured a happily chatting couple maybe pulling a grocery cart instead of carrying the heavy bag but stay with my image, will you? Makes my story telling a bit easier). So, my problem with this story is that I don't want to be the protagonist (Yes, k can be the protagonist when he makes up a story and when he puts that in a blog of his own!) here -- that old woman with aging hands, struggling to carry the grocery bag, hating the winter that she hasn't acclimatized to (in the past umm...40 years) and wishing she were in a warm, familiar place instead like...you guessed it, Madras (Oh! You didn't? Ok, catch up with my archives and then come back here for story time!)

Yes, I agree there are several glaring loopholes with my grey image -- grocery shopping will all be done online by that time (as k was kind enough to point out), we might be enjoying the snowfall inside the house in front of a fireplace and possibly with family/kids instead of standing in front of Kroger. All that good stuff. But, that's not my image. Mine is that of husband and wife who often say, "We thought about moving back to India, we just never did. And then, the kids got old. And then, it was too late." I don't want to say that when I am 70.

So, what's stopping me now? For one, the lack of a concrete vision and plan. What do we do after we move to India? Where do we work? Where do we live? For better or worse, my dad is responsible for instilling a constant need to plan and map pros and cons and I continue to do that, all the time. So, why haven't I mapped this out? I guess life gets in the way. Initially, you are a student (FOB, if you will) caught in the excitement of America, then you focus on getting that job with that big company and then it's marriage, house, kids. All big stuff. Good stuff. But then, this old thought swirls in front of you, reminds you of what you have forgotten in the moment (which might be a good thing after all) and exits. It keeps this up until you finally decide to focus on it and do something about it. So, what have I done about it? Thought thoughts :) Thinking is a good thing, isn't it?

And then there's the whole people business. Even on regular days, I like to know that people besides me exist in the background. And since I work from home most of the time, this means, I really like having a nanny at home and the fact that maami comes home to cook twice a week. I miss the general bustle of conversation that is ever present if you live in India. I guess it's something as simple as just hearing people around me. Hardly a reason to wrap up and go. But go figure my mind!

Anyway, more thoughts about this later. For now, I do entertain the mental image and think of ways I can fix it. Who knows? Maybe even if we were in India, the image would probably not change -- our kids would probably have come to the US anyway...but I still can't imagine us living in India without people. And someone "people" seems to be the missing ingredient in my flawed picture anyway. Will update if the mental picture decides to change to that of a healthy old couple walking briskly along the Florida beaches, a vast expanse of blue for company and a golden retriever running behind faithfully ;) Somehow, my mind is not up to conjuring that image as often as it does the other grey image :)

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Happy Deepavali!

It's that time of the year again. For the past 10 years, deepavali for me usually means:

1. Emails/chats and more recently Facebook status updates about how everyone here is missing Deepavali in India -- the TV programmes, firecrackers, sweets, people...why did waking up early then seem like a difficult thing to do? Isn't not waking up or being woken up on Deepavali an infinitely more difficult feeling to experience?

2. Less than 50°F outside (This year, it's even colder -- it's 39°F outside) -- can't head out without layers...can still recall the cool, misty dawns of those days when the men folk would head out to burst the big crackers while I stayed behind happy with my fire sparklers, no Lakshmi vedi for me!

3. ISD calls from India and to India wishing each other a happy Deepavali...tinny voices over a wire attempting to share a significant moment of togetherness over miles and miles of distance...

4. Waiting for the work day to end so one can at least celebrate Deepavali the few precious free hours one gets after 5 PM -- How is it that Deepavali always falls on a work day?

5. Or in more recent work-from home-times, staring at my screen, willing the bugs away, sitting in my PJs on the couch with Jaya TV on mute -- wondering about warmer times and distant places...

6. Hurriedly dressing up and heading to the temple in the evening so at least one little bit of the day's tradition is intact -- Happy Deepavali God, stay warm!

7. (And finally)Weekend celebrations -- A get-together after Deepavali to talk about simpler times and a younger us...

Happy Deepavali to you all. May the day and the years ahead be filled with happy moments and togetherness!

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About being back home...

Yesterday r~ and I went for a walk in the evening and while she chatted on about the sky and the moon and Avaiyar paati in the moon, I hugged myself bracing against the already chilly air and I guess against the winter to follow. The neatly lined cookie-cutter houses looked orderly, well-maintained yet distant. And that's the thing about this country. You can see the chandelier on inside the houses and the table already set for an early dinner but it's as if the house is bereft of conversation and sounds and people! An evening walk at this time in Madras would mean a friendly hi from at least our watchman and the few maamis rushing to the Krishnar temple right outside our house there...

I had this similar feeling of loneliness when I sat staring at the five huge suitcases that had to be unpacked. Suitcases filled with bits and pieces of home that I hoped would fill my house here with the same scents and colors that I had left  behind in India. We have been busy socially the one weekend that we have spent since we came back, thanks to Navaratri Golu but what now? It's as if this indescribable aura is all around us, when r~ says "Ellayum Indiala irukaa" or mentions people back home or when k is away for an evening, this aura pervades our house, shooting questions at me, "Is it really worth all the trouble?" But then, I could just be consumed by a sense of nostalgia and homesickness and attributing every small annoyance to the fact that this is not India. I would probably be fine in a few weeks when things have fallen back into a predictable routine here...I just don't know yet. All I know is, the evening when k had a bowling game was well on its way to being a pretty boring evening for me until I decided I needed to head out of the house and search for some people to talk to! So, I did that. Packed r~ in her cute blue sweater and went to drop by the Indian family's house that's just a few houses away from mine. After spending an hour there catching up with that maami, I felt better and headed back home feeling not so distraught.

I feel like k and I are picking up on small things to fight about because we are still fighting to settle back in this country after a supremely satisfying vacation in India. And as my dad predicted, r~ bravely adapted to the country change and is busy running about doing what she considers is her business for the day :) Although, I can tell she realizes more than she lets on -- she acts so excited and happy when people drop by home here, I can tell she wants the attention she had back...

So while I deal with the change and I guess myself, expect similar themed posts and feel free to speak your mind!

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Nose piercing, technology and r2i -- in other words, random!

So let's see, where do I start? I'll begin by talking about my latest obsession -- my nose piercing. I was so excited to get my nose pierced. It seemed like something daring and different and it still does seem that way except that I have a little bump the size of my nose ring right next to it! And yesterday, the lady at the gym started at it as she spoke. Arrrg. This actually reminded me of that episode in Friends where Chandler says he couldn't date that woman because she has a gunk of mascara sitting at the corner of her eye :p Anyway, I have two options -- ditch the nose ring or patiently wait out the bump on my nose. Not happy about either option.

Edited: So last night, I went to that piercing lady to ask if my nose was going to vanish under a big bubble. So, the impression I had of the lady was this: that she was hep and looked cool with all those weird piercings (too many for me but still...), she was efficient with the piercing and said, "If you have any trouble at all, call me, I am Kari" and I thought, "Gee! What a nice lady! And cool too!" Yesterday though, I came back with a different opinion of her. She saw me come in and the smile literally vanished from her face (probably because she knew I wasn't a paying customer -- just a "return visit customer"), she tried her best to appear disinterested in my...nose and my questions. She didn't smile except in the end to say, "Have a nice day!" and there was no, "Contact me if your nose vanishes..." kind of promises. k said the moment she saw my face, she sat down heavily on her chair (as if she wouldn't budge even if I sprouted a second nose!) So I came out thinking, "How did I ever think this woman was friendly and stylish?" Even her piercings seemed ugly. I guess external beauty really does depend on what goes below the radar. Anyway, I don't recommend Bleed Blue for this very reason -- pretty miserable after sales care.

I really didn't want to discuss my nose piercing in this post but at least it got me to write something. I am feeling sort of restless these days and I feel like I should do something really cliched like ditch facebook for a month or stay off the laptop the whole weekend or something like that. But, I bet that's what people said when cell phones were the rage and really it sort of blended into mainstream culture pretty easily. Maybe that's what will happen with social networking sites too. Everywhere I look, I see, "Catch me on youtube, twitter, fb, check our my blog blah blah". I had an interesting discussion with a friend the other day and she said she didn't really have a facebook account and didn't care for one and that got me thinking. She had her reasons of course -- privacy, waste of time etc. Nothing new there but still, I went ahead and made most of r~'s photos private on fb. I didn't go so far as deleting my account but I felt I had taken a step towards...towards something. I don't really know what that's a step toward! The other day, we went for a walk and k was staring at his new android OS cell phone for most of the walk. When he eventually showed me what he was staring at, I was hooked in too (it was an app that could identify a star if you pointed your cellphone at a star in the sky!) but still a walk is something pristine and peaceful and calming...a device in the mix ruins it! I feel like r~ is missing out on some basic experiences and growing up just like today's iBabies. Instead of listening to her grandma sing thamizh paatu or her thatha tell her stories, she is growing up (with me singing out of tune Tamil songs but also) listening to Nila, Nila on her Tamil DVDs and watching "Ennamma thozhi" on youtube.

The other day, I watched two 5-6 year olds spend a couple of hours sitting on the couch in front of a video game instead of out playing in the sun! I don't really know if r2i is the solution for helping a child grow up with a wholesome mix of things but I am not getting very far here with the desi experience. I try my best though with what I have -- I religiously speak to her in Tamil at home, restrict how much TV she watches (nothing except her baby DVDs and only for drinking her choco milk -- yes, she is that picky with her milk!), make sure she sees me or k light the vilakku and pray everyday but I feel she misses out on people-experience. Perhaps we miss out on it too. I am not a big fan of the huge combined family drama but staying in close proximity to her grandparents is something more beneficial than what she has here. And things that we struggle for here -- like teaching an Indian language or Indian culture will come naturally if we actually lived in India (instead of faking it :)

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Philately and stuff.

We all dabbled at philately when we were kids. A few years later, the stamp books were forgotten and we switched to the next hobby. I never though "adults" indulged much in hobbies at that time. Hobbies was something kids did for fun. Some times it turned out to be a life long passion and I would picture the intelligent looking gentleman in glasses and a brown beard showing off his exotic stamp collection to admiring oohs and aahs but I didn't think the normal folks did much hobby-wise -- they were too busy leading lives.

So, recently k told me about a book he had read on retirement (Yes, he has been obsessed with that for quite some time now) and he said the basic advice in the book was sure, retire early, go for that world tour and sign up for that salsa class but have a fall back -- something you are passionate about and have been doing on a regular basis, something you can continue to do even after you retire so you don't start feeling depressed with the void that the lack of a regular work routine creates and the kids have gone to colleges, so there is no day to day "busy-ness" to keep your mind occupied. I wondered if this is a desi phenomenon, the result of not having completely integrated into the culture and life here? Would this be the same if I retired in India? Somehow, I think with the people and the sounds and the general life there, one would not have to worry about a stifling, suffocating loneliness post retirement. I am guessing one wouldn't have to worry about driving to the grocery store in the middle of winter and navigating the store with a walking stick either. Kids do leave the nest there too but a middle income couple after retirement can afford to get some tasks done at least with paid help and mostly, the grocery store will have an in home delivery method that doesn't cost an arm and a leg (The last I knew, it was still free). Even if I do retire in Chennai (let's assume) and say my kids are elsewhere, the maid and the regular folks still come home and I still have basic human contact even on the days I feel too tired to visit someone's house. Here, perhaps I would live in a city where I have similar retired friends and unless we make an attempt to drive by their place and spend time with them, it's possible an entire day passes with no real people talking and no one for company but electronic devices and the hum of the AC and refrigerator. I guess, I am just painting an overly bleak picture but every time I see old people struggling in Kroger to carry and manage their bags, I wonder if I am heading there by choosing to live in this country (not that I have made that decision already...I dwell in hypotheticals, you must know that by now!)

And so coming back to the question of hobbies...I guess the book states that if we pursue a hobby of our choice and invest time in it, make connections, find like minded people, that will keep us going through retirement. And perhaps if a week has passed without a call from the kids, it still won't be that bad because we still have basic human contact and we can still spend time with people we like doing the things we like.

Is that why k has taken to running, I wonder? Me? I am going to stick to books and dancing for now. Hopefully they will tide me through our lonely retirement but who knows, maybe I will be in India by then and just wishing for some quiet and peace asking myself why it feels like I am working even when I am supposed to be leading a leisurely, retired life!

Edited: I meant to pen this earlier but got distracted with other thoughts. I think the support system for desis in this country makes it harder to follow up on and be passionate about our hobbies. Given our Indian style of parenting where the kids are not exactly tucked in by 8.30 PM and you  have the rest of the night to relax, even finding little chunks of time where you can concentrate on your hobby becomes a challenge. And for every such chunk of time you find to focus on your hobby, it also means time away from your spouse whom you think you might not recognize in a crowd(:p) thanks to hardly any time spent talking/alone with him. The few free moments we get are spent discussing the baby or house chores. It's hard for a couple to find that one single hobby to spend time on together. Add it all together and you basically have chopped away at your quality time with your spouse for the sake of your hobby. So Saturday mornings find me alone with the baby when he is running or him alone with the baby when I am dancing and that's the price we pay for our hobbies. Somehow, I think it will be easier if we had close family we could leave our child with for those few hours or at least close family we can hang out with, with the baby, because the loneliest part of taking care of a child is the lack of adult company -- we all know that! And yes, we can hire a baby-sitter but I am not sold on the merits of that idea (yet). Where does all this leave us? With a happy toddler and zero date nights and our somewhat ignored hobbies :-)

Ok, I know this is a random post but managing toddlers means having no time to nicely organize your thoughts in little compartments and then express them (Time kidacha eduthuko illati aduvum illa!) -- so do expect more randomness from me.

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The road to independence.

Sometimes, I think I am in the wrong place. I suppose I could attribute this to my laziness too but I won't do that. Instead, I'll proceed assuming I am right.

"This" is a place that values independence and privacy. That's great, extremely cool especially when you want to tune out the blah..blahs of well-meaning people who want to improve your lives. But then, unlike k, I never really had much of a problem with "well meaning advice" from folks. I like to ask people for their opinions and even if they happen to offer it when I didn't ask for it, it's not too much of a big deal (Unless of course, you are living with me and forcing me to follow your advice which doesn't happen often anyway).

But, "this" is also a place where they expect you to drive alone to the grocery store when it's freezing outside and you are an octogenarian! Ok, I admit. India also is not full of youngsters rushing out to do the shopping for their aging grandparents. But, at least in India, you can afford it (Yes, there are poor people in India, really really poor people but this post is not about them) and it's not so cold (Ok fine, silly point, I can move to Florida but I won't, so there!)

"This" is a place where a mom drives her few weeks old baby alone for a doctor's appointment (No comforting grandma in the backseat regaling the child with stories of "When your mom was little..." or cute Tamil baby songs). The baby is probably screaming in the back facing car-seat and the mom has no option but to drive. There are moms that do that here and look competent and unfrazzled. Not me! I don't think I have it in me to take Radhika alone to a doc's appointment (at least when she was little and she would do those scary, purple-faced, breathless cries!)

And then there are the small things -- the devil of the matter! The whole DIY culture! I just am not a part of it! I find it hard to take the trash outside -- no, not because I am lazy but because it's icy outside, the trash is heavy and it has to be lifted outside to dump. Not an easy task for a muscle-challenged woman like me! Then, there are the regular household maintenance stuff -- a leaky faucet, an un-mowed lawn, an un-caulked hole leaking cold air, a broken storm door; a million small worries that can't be fixed by me! Yes, I can take a wood-working course and I can learn to repair the faucet but it's tedious and tiresome and I just don't have the energy to learn that and then attempt to fix it or even to nag k for the nth time get it done. I can call Benjamin Franklin each time to fix the flush but that costs a nice $150!

And then there are the weird unknown places to drive to -- for doctor's appointments, for your children's classes, for stuff to buy! I am not a big fan of driving but I manage pretty decently somehow except when one of these adventure routes crop up and then I have lost all ability to navigate and drive! Add a baby in this mix and I am one lost and dependent woman. I mean, I can't just park by the side when I am driving on New Circle road and wave down the nearest dude to ask for directions while Rads sits happily talking to herself in the back-seat (Ha haa!), can I? Seriously, where are the affordable auto rickshaws when you need them? (Yes admittedly, they do take their shares of U-turns and Rs.200 over the meter but they take you where you need to go and in the end that's all matters.)

It's like the more I make myself independent -- learn to drive, learn to drive with Rads (Yes, big difference!), learn to hang a photo frame(!), the more they creep up all around me and the more dependent I seem to become!

So, I'll say it. I like being an independent woman in some respects. That's a highly qualified declaration. If being an independent woman here means to seal your garage so your bedroom right above it doesn't feel like it's in Iceland then no, I really don't want to be that woman spending 3 hours with pink foam, sticking it patiently to the garage shutter (which incidentally is what k did). If being independent means wearing rugged overalls and roaming around with a heavy hammer and a set of 18 different screws, nope, not me. I know where the turn-off valve is for our water supply and there ends my knowledge of faucet problems!

I can give birth, take care of baby, code, cook, clean the house, dance and write but there ends my level of independence. In that respect, I suppose I am a traditional Indian woman, aren't I? The million other things that this place expects an independent woman to do, I can't or really just don't want to. So, am I just a h4 visa :p?

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Movies and Misc. Musings.

Finally saw "Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na", couple of dialogues that I thought were pretty realistic:

"I have never seen Jai this involved, this into someone, as if the outside world doesn't exist, he has eyes only for this one person...just that I haven't seen Jai like this..."

"Aditi, Jai was always like this, the only difference is that, earlier it was you, now it's Meghna..."

Surprising and yet realistic how Aditi doesn't realize this fact until it was some other girl, just not her, who was the focus of all his attention...

"I always drop you home Jai. You got a girl-friend, so you forgot your friend?"

Pretty clichéd yet also believable. Definitely something a girl would say to her best friend who is a boy.

"Tomorrow, I'll spend all day with you, just Jai and Aditi..."

"Jai, you spend time with me because you want to, not because you have to...."

Or something to that effect which also was the right dialogue in the right place.

Anyway, I had fun watching the movie. These sort of college movies never get old, I guess. People of all ages relate to it and kind of relive their own college days...and Imran Khan is incredibly cute, reminds me of Aamir Khan in QSQT. Sigh! Can't believe there was a time when I watched DDLJ 7 times in the theatre!

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Ever noticed how American kids are far more outspoken than Indian kids the same age? And American teenagers, at least most of the ones I have seen are able to carry on an interesting conversation with strangers, break the ice and sail right through while Indian teenagers the same age seem more reserved? Maybe it's just me. Anyway, one question that 4-5 year old kids always ask when I am at the airport (this time, they asked my mom), "What's that red thing on your face?" "Does it never go?" There was this one time where I happened to have a bindi with me and I put it on this kid that was playing with me and she had an initial panic attack that it was permanent :) but then proceeded to enjoy the fact that she could remove and place it at will!

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People keep saying working when you have a baby at home is a balancing act. I think working while pregnant is also a kind of balancing act. The one thing that managers will always mention in every meeting with you is "You have only n weeks to go". Yes, it sounds like a pretty innocuous observation but the thing is, this simple observation starts from the time you tell your manager that you are pregnant. So over the course of 8 months, I have heard this observation about 16 times - "You are gone by September, right? That's just like 5 months more, right?", "We better plan your work...you might need to go earlier", "You will be gone pretty soon, so, we need to have a hand-off meeting, you have only 4 months, right?"...so you can imagine, by this time, I so do not want to hear when my vacation starts especially when am working my a** off and putting in after-work hours!

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The other day k spent a long moment looking like he was in deep rumination, he finally said, "You know, I don't mind taking 6 months off if you want to go to work earlier..."

And then it was my turn to give my trademark evil laugh and say, "Fat chance, buddy!" :p

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Blue winter crib-fest, oh! and about being rich.

We are experiencing miserable weather. The kind that makes you want to break the damned alarm clock, pound it into a mush and go deeper into the comforter. I lead a pretty normal life, so I did none of those things, got up on the wrong side of the bed, got ready and came to work. So, I sat staring at my monitor, having finished checking my gmail, my blog comments, the daily dilbert cartoon, my horoscope for the day, witty saying by unknown famous person of the day, the first few links in reddit, headlines of the most read articles in the New York Times and then I wondered about right and wrong, good and bad and such thoughts that only a gloomy, wintery day like this could inspire.

I reached a few conclusions in life.

1. Oatmeal sucks. I know I claimed it was a super food to my mom, made her switch to oatmeal for breakfast and proudly declare that I eat oatmeal for breakfast to people who enquired about my breakfast - well, there are not really that many that enquire but I tell them all the same. But the dirty little secret that I am privy to is the fact that I completely, honestly HATE oatmeal. It tastes like nothing. And if you add a bunch of stuff to it to make it better, it only comes off tasting even more awful. And that is the truth.
   
   
2. Tiffin time sucks next. You know, around 5 - 5.30 PM after you have driven home from work, that time. That time is what I miss most about India. No jasmine-like idlis with molagai podi, no hot crispy bread upma, no rava kesari, no hot chola with bread, no nothing. It's the same - toast and jam or on other days even chips and salsa and thank God, a cup of coffee or tea. I really wish I had better tiffin options. Yeah, you can stop giving me that look "Cook!", I just don't have the energy to cook anything remotely edible at the end of a long day! No, I don't want cold fruits and ready-made processed crap. I want hot food! Is that too much to ask? Apparently it is...

Ok, that concludes the crib-fest for today. Stupid weather. I am switching to one of those fancy companies on the West coast that has like 4 different canteens on campus serving HOT food, not cold salad but real, hot food. Plus, the weather has got to be better than this. Or better still, I'll go back to Madras. I guess I can't do that either, k promised we could shift to Madras only if I (not him) became super rich.

Any ideas? Let's see...(since I am in the mood for bulleted lists)

1. I could write a novel like Rowling did, sitting in a cafe or was it a train and imagining super-fantastic characters,
   
   
2. Or maybe I'll write one of those natural-living-green books but then I'd have to eat oatmeal everyday and not yummy crispy-creme donuts...


3. I could work real hard and become rich, does that still work?


4. I got it! I need a life event! I keep reading about life-changing events that umm...changed people's lives forever, again. I mean, Lisa Jewell, my new favorite author, got kicked off her job, that was a life event. And then her friend challenged her to write the first three chapters of her novel, she did, sent it to ten publishers and forgot about it. And one of them called back! And she became a famous author. Like that. But, I really would not like to be fired. I like my job (All the people I know say that, I guess it's a sorta ego thing, maybe you don't want the other person thinking "Poor old so and so, look at her stuck with her job", or maybe they really like their jobs, I mean, I can't complain about my job - I fought with my dad to switch from Bio to CompSci. Except some days I think, "What am I doing stuck in a little cubicle with my hands freezing in spite of the wristies when the sun is shining golden bright outside and so on...you get my point?).
   

So, that's that. I'll probably be doing the same thing ten years down the lane and asking you for ideas even then. You'll stick by, won't you?

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Aiyayayaya!

I think I heard this phrase in Hatari (the cute movie with the elephant...) ages ago and I can't find a word that better describes the past five months of my life. k's parents stayed with us the first three months, my mom joined them the last month of their stay and stayed another two months and my dad joined her the last week! He stayed for a whopping five days with us before he left with mom and we managed to arrange their sashtiabdapoorthy too :)


Some key observations, notes to self about the previous generation during US visits (call them preG):

* If you think preG is going to take a look at your life style and go, "Whoaaa! You guys rock!", you are mistaken. Totally. Understand that they have been living a particular way the past 50-60 years of their lives, there's nooo way they would take a look at you and say, "Geee! Wish we could live like that!" Nope, the house and the car don't do the trick :p

* preG thinks we are a Bhakasura generation, judging us, among other things, by the size of our coffee mugs.

My dad - "Idhu ennadu ivolo perusa? Soup bowl madiri?"
Me - "That's ma's coffee bowl..."
Mom (immediately pipes is) - "They make me have coffee in this big, fat mug, I didn't have a choice!"
My dad - "I am going to courier a dozen ever-silver tumbler-dabara sets as soon as I reach Madras!"

* Dads, especially TamBram ones like to spend. Letting daughters spend in front of them is a NO-NO! In walmart, after half-an-hour of quick shopping for chocolates, pens and other gifts for relatives and friends, we stood at the checkout line and...

My dad - "I will pay. I know my Master card works outside India."
Me - "No"
My dad - Repeat
Me - "No"
Finally, I start snatching the credit card away from him and he pulls it from me. By then the checkout person has finished arranging the items neatly in bags. k looks embarrassed, my mom used to similar situations stands patiently and watches. k tries to mumble a plausible explanation to the counter guy, "Umm, they are fighting over who has to pay". The counter guy seems un-amused. So, anyway, the moral is that just because you earn, don't assume your dad will let you spend. He is the bread-winner of the family. Period.

* Moms don't like dishwashers. They dislike our cookware even more.

Mom - "Ramya, you could have at least bought a few decent stainless steel cooking utensils!"
Me - "I have them, ma"
Mom - "No, I have to use the same vessel to make tea and more kuzhambu"
Me - "We have several others..."
Mom - "But they are in the dishwasher. That is why I said, the dishwasher is useless, you anyway have to rinse, then why load the dishes in again?"

The other day, I took my mom to Williams-Sonoma at the mall.

Mom - "Ohh! There is the vessel I have been asking for to make tea for 1-2 people!"
Me - "It costs $125"
Mom - "Idhukku thaan naan sonnen, India evlovo better, pesama India vanduru!"

* The concept of BPO. This is unique to our family, I guess.

Me - "Appa, I will bake a cake for your birthday..."
My dad - "Why, we can buy it from outside..."
Me - "Illa, I can bake decently, I like to bake..."
My dad - "Have you heard about the concept of business process outsourcing? When you can get others to do it quickly and efficiently, why put in your energy and time to do it? As it is you are so thin..."

Which brings me to another of preG's favourite topic. About how I need to gain weight.

After showing my dad my Salanga Pujai dance DVD, my dad says, "Now I know why you are so underweight. Reduce your dance classes, eat more, you need to gain weight..."

My mom - "That's why she had that pain in her foot, because she is so thin..."

Unfortunately, I sneezed then...so, both of them chime in, "See, you need to put on weight. 110 pounds is a joke! Then you won't sneeze so often!"

* Landlines are essential.

Mom - "Why can't you have a land line?"
Me - "We have 2 cell phones and we work at the same office..."
Mom - "Still, you should have a land line, so we can reach you there also..."
Me - "But I carry my cell with me at all times..."
Mom - "You should have a landline."

So yes, landlines are essential.

And so on, if I can write a booklet about my parents, I can write a mega-serial about my in-laws stay but I'll reserve that for later. Our house has been a whirlwind of activity the past five months. And now it's back to just us and our not-so-great utensils that we will use to cook what we can after the five-month break.

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The Art of Entertaining.

I miss the simple world. Where people said what they meant and meant what they said. Where words stood true to their meaning. Where things were black or white...

I was watching Shree 420 with my family (Finally I have enough people at home to count as a solid family, somehow 2 just didn't cut it) and the simple scenes and clean humor brought back a kind of old world charm to life. Where people could laugh at Charlie-Chaplin style routines and dialogues were simple yet powerful and could evoke merriment without double-entendres and...loudness. I enjoyed seeing the "Do aane ka theen-theen aane ka do" dialogue for the umpteenth time.

Anyway what I miss are not just surreal moments on screen; I miss the life our parents describe. Where people would sit on the thinnai and talk, when people had the time to do it. The time to not be so self-absorbed. My mom says my thatha often said, "Oorar kozhandaiya ooti valatha, thann kozhanda thaana valarum", I wonder if people still believe in that adage? It seems to me, we have a dull and defined formula we have imprisoned ourselves with - Study, get a job, car, then the American dream house and then kids-daycare-job-India-trips... later, we will probably find ourselves right where we left...wondering if there should have been more to "life"?

My parents often used to talk of times when my patti used to cook for the whole town. My thatha had this habit of bringing home unexpected guests for dinner and while my thatha and his friends talked into the night, my patti would somehow manage to make dinner for the household (which was big to begin with - my thatha's sister and her kids stayed with my thatha, patti and their three kids) and the additional guests. Sometimes they didn't have enough to cook that night, but they somehow managed to cook and feed good food to the family and guests. And this was daily routine. This art of entertaining.

It seems to me, we are losing this art. While adding levels of convenience to our own routines (Can you please call before you come? How about a potluck? Can we get together weekend instead of weekday? I doubt I'll have time to cook on Monday!), we have lost the spontaneity and I guess...simple happiness that comes from sharing, from putting in a heart-felt effort to please someone expecting nothing in return.

After all, what is defined as happiness I guess is just the ability to lose oneself in a process...to be so involved that our senses are engrossed in that one thought and rhythm, like cooking. What better than the colors, texture, little measurements and aroma of our kitchens to create the zen that we read about in magazines?!

What if the whole point of the meeting is to entertain, to attempt to bring a little bit of joy to someone else, to kick back and settle down to the comfortable sounds of laughter and good humour. Not with an agenda - not for a baby-shower, reception or a "planned" event in a "planned" life. Just a get together to meet.

What if we meet just once and forget to look at the time? If it's late, it is and maybe we just don't care? Maybe we don't have an agenda planned for the next day, maybe we just eat ice cream and settle down for another movie? And maybe we just relax in good company...

To talk. Of simple things. To eat. To laugh. To entertain. That's it. Nothing more. Nothing less.

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Words of wisdom

and how I never learn!

Remember how the hallowed "they" always told us,

"Don't talk to strangers",

"Don't fall in love" and

"If you do fall in love, make sure it's with someone who is so similar to you, people should assume he is your twin brother! Same religion, same caste, same color, same nationality, same creed..." (what does creed mean anyway?) and then "they" also said,

(with a huge sigh) "If not, at least make sure he is compatible w.r.t geographic proximity - South Indian in my case (or Madrasi for the Bombay folks)!"

But then what did we do?

We went ahead and did just the opposite. Not intentional, I assure you. We fell in love with a, Gasp! "different" guy! We also married him! Shudder! And he is not a South Indian! Swooooon!

Ok fine. That's done. We turn to the next page cautiously with a mighty resolve to follow the few remaining wise words that they might have to offer to us:

"Don't invite your in-laws or parents to stay with you in the US during winter. They will get bored out of their minds and you will run into a dry non-creative patch where you will be unable to entertain them with your antics any longer and you will run out of places (or $$$) to take them to!"

So, you would think by now, we have realized the importance of said words and we will religiously follow them? Naaaaaah. We are the same, surprisingly, we never changed! And so, we invite in-laws to stay leading well into the snowy season!



Guiltily turning to the next page, we read...


"Whatever you do, make sure you don't mix and match people from two households; much as you expect that to be a happy confusion, it will be more of a households joining hands to point out what can be improved in you and your spouse's lifestyle!"



And that is when, we decided to become smarter. No, we didn't exactly follow the last bit of advice with the huge warning sign (reminds me of the "How to...for dummies" series); we did actually end up inviting parent and in-laws to stay with us, in the US, in winter, at the same time! So, how exactly did we become smarter?

We stopped leafing through said book.

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Can this be any more random?!

It's one of those days - dark, wet and muggy, the kind of day that Voldemort would probably choose to make an appearance. But, today is also the kind of day that can inspire a tragic short story to come to life - I can see it already - it would have all the elements of a compelling love story and just when the reader is silently praying that the lovers unite, an unexpected twist...umm, also torrential rains, add a few strikes of lightening to that! And in the end, not one of those sordid unexplained accidents or deaths, this would be realistic - a tragedy unexpected but real, like the tears that would fall from every pair of eyes that read the tale! Ah...if only I could weave such a colorful tale!

On second thoughts, I'll pass. Way too much effort on a day like this howmuchever it might attempt to inspire. Ever notice how some parts of our lives are favorites for story tellers? Like train journeys, haunted houses, village feuds, broken marriages, affairs...no one ever writes short stories about software engineers and computers, doctors yes, engineers...naah. I asked an oncologist who happens to be in my dance class if ER, House, Scrubs are realistic or way exaggerated to make for interesting viewing and she said, parts of it are real, the trauma, patients and injuries and the fantastic love stories and affairs that go with it are pretty much what do you call it....masala :) Come to think of it, there is one movie made about us folks, Office Space! When I saw it several years back, I couldn't relate much to it, I need to watch it again to see if experience in this field has changed my perspective enough for me to crack up (like my colleagues do) while watching the movie.

Since I have come this far with my random jumble of thoughts, I might as well add another unrelated insight. Is it just me or are Indian American teenage+ girls super funny? I mean, in a nice way. Somehow I don't remember Indian girls in their teens and early twenties being so light-hearted and seriously funny! Or perhaps, this is still a culture that is different from my own and like anything new, it attracts and flaunts its positives initially. The girls who learn dancing with me somehow comment on the most random things and make the sort of observations that I would have never imagined - like Chandler (in F.R.I.E.N.D.S) does - and I often end up...giggling with them. Last class, we were umm...."disciplined" by our teacher,

"Girls, really! Who started this giggling session?!"

Long pause.

I hesistantly reply, "Aalll of us" - notice the stress on the "All"? All my rusty school-time defenses rose to the rescue :p

"Ok, at least that's the right answer. So anyway, concentrate now!"

Woohoo - escape!

There's this other medical student in class who loves to give me a hard time,

"Are we going to be wearing this costume for Sunday?"

"Jeeez! Ramya, you get a D grade in dance and in costumes too!"

And the other time my teacher gave me her old pair of salangai, she says, "What now, you are like her favorite student or something?!"

And so I said, "In any case, you rock, you are the most advanced student in this class! AS for short, so I'll call you ASSSSSSSSSSSSSS!"

*giggles* Apologies but you see this is what cultural shock does to you!

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A journey with many stops...

So, our predominantly singles gang in Lex has now jumped teams and most of our members now fall in the to-be/just/recently married category. For someone who has lived here for the past 7 years, this is another of those changes that I initially need to make adjustments to accommodate, and then adjust and finally assimilate. I remember a comment I heard recently that the real friendships are forged during your College days (For some reason, this reminds me of "Musthapha Musthapha..." from Kadhal Desam - I saw it in Bits and loved the experience - a bunch of us lit candles although it was forbidden, threw paper bits, it was riot!) but I have gained some meaningful experience and hopefully a few long-lasting relationships after Bits...In terms of social life and relationships, living in America has been quite an interesting journey for me.


GOLU @ my apartment.

In 2000 (the year I came to the US), I had no idea that I would be sharing a one-bedroom apartment with a 30 year old woman from Hyderabad who had spent several years living in N.India and then Canada and had an almost fanatical urge to keep everything squeaky clean (let's call her R~), a 20 year old from Hyderabad and a 22 (25?) year old from Madras. So the 4 of us managed to co-exist in that apartment for about a month when R~ decided she had had enough of us and she would prefer the apartment to herself. So, we packed our few belongings as R~ scrubbed the kitchen floor and we shifted (one of my many moves as a student) to a 1BR apartment in another block. Life was all hunky-dory. The 3 of us decorated the apartment, unpacked as much as we could (I kept most of my Indian dresses and winter wear in my humongous "India-suitcase") due to the limited closet space. I learnt to cook (still remember the first dish I made -a pulav with peas, three spoons turmeric and less salt, k taught me to make maggi and tea!), kept my first Golu, and was thrilled about it. My gang was predominantly Telugu-speaking and I picked up the language fast and even watched a couple of movies (Murari?, Manasantha Nuvve...). And wished I could also watch Tamil movies at times. Unfortunately the small Tamil gang at that time was pretty closed, under-grad friends who didn't seem like they were accepting new members :p

Never thought I would learn to even stand upright on skates!

Several exciting, stressful, happy - trips, fights, confessions, talks, moves later, I became friends with a Marathi/Hindi gang. Around this time I shared an apartment for a short time with a memorable room-mate, a 65 year old Bengali lady who stored a huge fish in her fridge everyday - it was always there, stored above the vegetable tray - I stopped storing anything other than milk in the fridge, I also stopped cooking at home. How I came to stay with her is an interesting story, about my not having an apartment and being declined temporary accommodation from all the senior Indian girls in the apartment complex :p Anyway, by then, I had moved away from my earlier gang, just a general drifting-apart in some cases, conscious moving-away in others and I began to fit in with my new gang. I wished I could speak/see/hear some Tamil though. Finally, k probably bored of my constant complaints suggested that I start a Tamil Cultural Assoc (at that time the Indian Students Association frowned upon regional movie screenings and any thing presented in a language other than Hindi/English), around that time I remember meeting D~ (my first impression of him was "Gosh, this guy is critical of everything in Lex!" - he found it strange that we did not have dinner in big groups and sometimes ate alone, he mentioned it about three times the first time I took him to Walmart and I thought he was a strange sort of guy! D~, by the time you get to reading this post, it would be pretty old anyway, so am hoping this will kinda slip by unnoticed :p), so anyway, I had my first real conversation with D~ about starting a Tamil Cultural Assoc and the rest as they say is history (Yeah, yeah, I like to gloat! So what?). Finally I had my beloved mother-tongue all around me and I reveled in her embrace!


During my trip to Arizona (for some reason, I had an impulse to try out pigtails :p)

Around 2003, I had a good mix of Hindi and Tamil speaking friends and then a Gujarathi (Yes, I insist on the "H") room-mate. More drifting-apart, fights, make-ups, messy birthday parties and impulsive road trips later, I now find myself in a predominantly Tamil-speaking mini-community. The surprising outcome of organizing cultural events is that I got to know the mamas and maamis in Lex and in some strange, comforting way they filled a gap in my life - I still missed my parents and relatives back home, but now I have people to remind me of them, to ask me where I purchased the pattu podava I am wearing, was it one of my marriage sarees? Someone to say, not unlike relatives back in India - "You should drop by more often, we are at home only, come and join us for dinner sometime..."

My very first car, my cute '93 Camry which I lost in an accident :(

Talking about relationships, I enjoyed working with the professors @ UK, I remember having interesting discussions, academic and otherwise with my professors - my Math TA prof, my Statistics-TA prof, my advisor. And I cannot forget the day when the wretched lady in my department insisted that I had forged my professor's signature on my defense slip and perhaps, I would never be allowed to get a degree. In retrospect, I think I shouldn't have cried and depended on my advisor to sort it out, I should have handled it myself. But, he was an angel that day, who convinced her that I was a good student who deserved her degree :p God bless him (although he made me edit my project report 11 times - each time the proposal would be smudged with red lines - "Dangling participle", "Active, not passive!", "Wrong use of the word 'example'", "The density of red on this page is too high for me to continue!").


Guess who managed to graduate!

Anyway, coming back to Tamil, k's complete sentences in Tamil surprise me every now and then. All my years at Lex, I yearned to experience my mother-tongue and finally it had come true. k says I tend to exaggerate when I tell him how all my life, I have wanted to learn and be near Tamil, as if "she" were a real person, a friend I sorely missed...I don't think he believes my story that I cried for weeks together when we shifted to Bangalore from Madras in the 80s, I sense his mild skepticism when I tell him, 5 years later no-one was happier than I when we shifted back to Madras; I insisted on taking Tamil as my third language in-spite of 5 years of Kannada and Hindi and I actually did pretty well (thanks to my mom's help with essays on Bharathiyaar) :)

So, believe it or not, I know "exactly" what the phrase below means...perhaps I needed to be away to realize how much I missed it...Bharathantyam and living-in-Madras are other example s of this same feeling (Not only am I repetitive, so are my feelings!) but that's a whole new post!

"தமிழுக்கு அமுதென்று பேர், இந்த தமிழ் எங்கள் தமிழ் இன்பம் உயிருக்கு நேர்..."

Talk about digressing! I started writing about marriages and friends and landed up in languages! Gosh, I can think of a million other things to write about my student life here but it's lunch time and am starved! Anyway, I discovered some old photos and thought I would add some visual touches to my disconnected reminiscence.

Life...can be strange at times. Memories too. But, in a comfortable sort of way.

Fall in Lex (when we were still students @ UK)...a season when our sleepy little town explodes in colors!

p.s - apologies for the spelling mistakes in Tamil.

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