Going, going, gone!

Claiming that I suffer from a writer's block somehow makes me feel vain, like I am a writer or something. So I shall say that I have been hiding behind this beginner's mini-block-series, sort of a poor man's writer's block like so,
...hoping that the inspiration for my next story is just around the corner. Anyway, I got some time to myself after several months, so I devoured a bunch of desi chick lits and then managed to cough up a story. At least the mini-blocks are gone for now. Whew!

Here goes, enjoy the masala!

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Tag! You're it!

Tagging is this quirky thing that we bloggers do, isn't it? Now, why did I feel compelled to say that? Firstly, it makes us feel like we belong to this neat clique - we blog! Yeah! That sorta thing. Secondly, it sounds techy and cool, not as much as it used to but still it falls somewhere in the category of Web 2.0, wisdom of the crowds, folksonomy and all that.

I find tagging pretty challenging though. Sometimes tags rock, they are just what you wanted to say in your blog but didn't want to sound too conceited and self-involved; enter tags and you have a legitimate and humble reason to ramble on about yourself, not that am against rambling, oh no, that's what keeps the women-folk and some men-folk sane at times! But then, there are times when the tags are just lame. Then, I am not really sure what to do. I have to answer the tag for the aforementioned reasons that bloggers are cool and all that but then I just don't want to. And the sticky point there is, I have to tag 28 more people and make them experience the same discomfort!

Anyway, this tag by dear a~ was different in the sense, it was an entertaining brag-a-tag :p

The rules of the tag are: Post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. The posts have to relate to the 5 key words given (family, friend, yourself, your love, anything you like). Tag 5 other friends to do this meme. Try to tag at least 2 new acquaintances (if not, your current blog buddies will do) so that you get to know them each a little bit better.

I mean, come on! Who doesn't like to quote from their blog posts? (No, that's ok, don't bother nodding yes, the question was not meant for you :) So, I thought I would stumble upon precious memories, notes from self that would change my life, brilliant observations and such from my previous blog posts. Oh well, at least I had fun while I thought those thoughts believing them to be true!

The easy bit first, I tag:

* bus (mainly because he hardly says anything even semi-personal on his blog and hasn't written for a while!
* k - in a desperate attempt to revive his blog, which is taking its last few breaths...

Family:
Not a thought-provoking bit of prose or anything but at least it's funny!

Lost in translation

Friends:
My all time favorite. I guess I can say that (since nobody else will :p)

Harmony in disharmony

Yourself:
In a rare moment of honesty, I penned down some thoughts about myself...

Scribble, scribble...

Your love:
I could say something lofty or meaningful like I love dancing and I love to write, my life is meaningless without...but (am not really in that mood and...) nothing beats writing about the balancing dance we call marriage, a post about my love, clueless and lovable, as he always has been (Gosh! That's gotta be the sappiest thing I ever said on this blog, so not me!)

Did I do something wrong?!

Anything you like:
To dance, to write and to be merry :)

Shades of her.

Gosh! That almost felt like the oscars announcement to me. Such excitement and talk about RS!

Umm, apologies for the same.

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My life and associated trivialities.

Books...
I had a delicious three days off! For matrimonial purposes, Queen of dreams and Shopaholic & baby, what more could a girl ask for?! k has taken to giving me these really strange looks whenever I tell him that I finished a novel in a day; I bet, one of jealousy and associated evil thoughts! Just to prove a point, he finished Man, woman and child in a day, for the second time. But he doesn't know that (that it was his second time) 'coz he doesn't have the sort of memory that is needed to recollect and realize that a movie/book has already been viewed/read. In a way, that's pretty cool, I mean, delightful books will always remain delightful and surprising till the end. You can watch the same old Friends and Reba re-runs and laugh each time Chandler/Van says something funny. I laugh anyway but the fact that I already know the joke and the first laugh is over takes away some of the fun out of it.

Directions and dreams...
While I wouldn't care for that kind of selective memory loss, I suppose I suffer from one of those memory losses anyway - the inability to remember roads/directions and by extension any attributes associated with what we call, "Local Geography". I mean, I really do make an effort. I watch pretty carefully when k drives to weird places but I just can't get the map to stay put in my head! But 10, I believe, is the magic number. If I have driven to a place ten times, that'll do the trick! Gaaah, I wish I could have my own limo and driver; Ok fine, a good car and a driver, like in India (minus the traffic jams and stuff). So cool. Day dreaming is fun. Actually, I might as well wish for a nice desi canteen, actually any canteen that serves veggie food also (just anything hot) at our work place, one of the disadvantages of working in a small university town is that the office is not considered big enough to have all those sweet things other bigger offices get - on campus gym, day care, multi-cuisine canteens - like in MSFT, God! I envy them! Imagine hot samosas with tangy chutney and a hot cuppa coffee at tea time!

Cooking and cuisine...
The past long weekend, I also had a chance to ruminate on my cooking skills. I used to like to cook and experiment, especially experiment and try mixing spices and strange ingredients to known dishes just to see what it would morph into it. Umm, ok so that doesn't sound so appetizing, but it's real fun, you should try it sometime. Add cashews to cabbage curry or cinnamon to your rasam and also remember to establish the well known rule of woman empowerment - "No complaints at the dining table about fresh food that is cooked that day" - I guess, it's kind of ok to complain about left overs, somehow that's not as bad as spending a good chunk of time toiling and sweating in the kitchen (more like 30-40 mins tossing stuff while on the phone but still...) and then having the guinea...I mean person sitting in front of you tell you, "I think the coconut did not get crushed fully...". So anyway, I don't know what happened, but after the preG visit (Duh! Keep up, willya?), I have lost the fascination I used to have for cooking. As a result we have been frequenting just about any restaurant in and around the Lex area...just in case you are too, here are a few tips:

** Vindaloo is not one of the dishes you should try out at Tandoor

** Green curry used to and still rocks at Bangkok house

** Drunken noodles might have fish sauce or not, am never able to figure that out at Iching, get a different waiter each time! Lo Mein is a safer option if you are a vegetarian.

** One restaurant, I won't mention which, served us nice, juicy melted plastic with out vegetable patia (Oops! Didn't mean to give it away...) and when we pointed it out, we were served four hot gulab jamoons with a heavy dose of apologies. Oh well, I suppose all that hot jaggery sauce will melt the plastic, no harm done.

** I like dahi wada in Curry house...hmm, but I also like it everywhere else :p

** If you order carry out for less than five bucks at Masala, take cash with you! There was this one time when k and I were starving and ordered samosas and realized we didn't have cash! We could have asked that guy to make it a non-carry out but then that's just plain awkward.

** Still haven't come across anything yummier than Ravioli de portabello at Olive Garden. Their salad rocks too.

** At Joe Bolognas, the generous mayo served on their garden vegetable pizza is so sinfully delicious, you'll forget that you are eating something that's not exactly good for you :p

Chic (lit)...
I have come to the conclusion that I am the only desi woman-software-engineer that comes dressed to work like a day off at home aka bum! Everytime I catch myself in the office mirror, I tell myself I should be err...better dressed if not exactly "chic"! And reading books about Becky Brandon (Sophie Kinsella Shopaholic series) only makes me feel more ignorant and dull. Would be fun to spend loads of dough on the latest Gucci, Prada yada yada out there and turn a few heads, know what I mean? Somehow I have this sneaking suspicion that if I were a working woman in India, I would dress better... ;)

Girl friends...
I wonder if wives have this secret desire to make their husbands their girl friends, at least part-time. I guess, when we don't have access to a girl-friend, school chum, best-girl-buddy for a long time to chat, discuss guys (that was in college but you get the point)...and all that nice stuff with, we turn to our better halves to fill that void in our lives. Maybe I just made that up, that void bit, but it kind of makes sense. Of course the husbands don't take kindly to such suggestions ("Let's have a spa day together", "Let's do our eye brows together" or even, "Let's get matching new hair styles"...), but would be nice if they tuned in to our inner selves, explored their feminine sides and indulged us once in a while...ok, that was a lot of nonsense, but face it, you can dig out the little sliver of truth buried in it, cantcha?!

Such is my life. I am beginning to think the three days off and all that free time kind of messed with my head... :)

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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 ipod story.

I am now in possession of a brand new enough-to-sleep-in memory-equipped ipod. And how it came about in my hands is an interesting story. Like everything else related to India, this ipod by virtue of staying in India assumed the Indian character-trait of making every process a bit more colorful and interesting than it originally was designed to be!

My sweet uncle bought a bunch of these ipods as gifts to take to India to distribute to my cousins and relatives. He had one extra and thought it might be a nice gift for my bro, ~L. L, being his lazy, wd-rather-not-move-an-inch self, politely refused. I had given him a neat ipod shuffle ages ago and he is very very particular about the songs he listens to, so much so that he adds the same song multiple times in his shuffle so it plays more. My uncle insisted and finally ~L said yes and this is where the journey begins.

From California, US -> Chennai

My uncle left the ipod with my mom and dad and asked ~L to pick it up when he visits them in Chennai. ~L lives in Bombay.

From Chennai -> Bombay

~L miraculously remembered to pick up the ipod the next time he visited Chennai.

From Bombay1 -> Bombay2

Enter RS. So, a few weeks back mom mentioned that the ipod was lying unopened with ~L. "What?!" exclaimed k! "160GB ipod and lying unopened?!". Self joined in exclamations.

Mom said without much excitement, "Yes, just like the perfume boxes you gave me, they lie neatly in the bureau, I haven't even opened the box", such pride in her last statement. Jeez! Coming back to the ipod, we immediately called ~L.

"Yeah, it's there. Haven't opened it."

Repeat exclamations by k and me. I think I heard ~L yawn, "Too boring to transfer all my songs to the new ipod."

"I need it. I need it."

"Yawn. Ok."

So, now the next question was, how should he send it. ~L wouldn't dream of actually posting the thing to us. Too much work! Enter ~P, k's sis. Fortunately, she was in Bombay at that time for her vacation, planning to return back early January.

"Send it through ~P."

"Ok. Gotta go."

He agreed. A miracle.

Several weeks later, having missed ~P several times, ~L decided to make his job easier. He dropped the ipod with k's uncle who lives close to his workplace in Nariman point.

A day before she left, ~P picked the ipod from her uncle's place. Whew!

Bombay -> Lawrence, Kansas

~P reached Lawrence and was duly troubled by k and me to send the ipod asap! We can't wait a second longer!

Lawrence -> Lexington

And now, it lies happily in our home. Unused, but at least with us. Such bliss.

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A pongal story.

Once upon a time Varuna Bhagawan and Vayu Bhagawan decided to go to God and ask him for a long vacation. They were bored with their work. So they went to God and said, "We work everyday and think we deserve a vacation". God thought about it for sometime. Anyway Kaliyugam has to end soon, perhaps Vayu and Varuna Bhagawan will help end Kaliyugam by taking their vacation now. And so he said, "Ok, you both can take a 10 year vacation." From that day, Varuna Bhagawan stopped forming clouds and creating rain and Vayu Bhagawan stopped creating air and winds. As a result, earth became dry and hard. Crops stopped growing. As God watched, one farmer continued plowing his land, day after day. So, God approached him and said, "Everywhere the earth is parched and crops have stopped growing. So, why do you continue to plow? I am curious." The farmer replied, "Today, there is no rain and wind and the earth is dry. But, what if it starts to rain tomorrow? What if the earth becomes rich and moist again? Then, I should still remember how to do my duty, to plow and raise crops!" And thus even God learnt a lesson from the farmer, to always do one's duty, no matter what.

Thenkachi Swaminathan narrated this simple, sweet pongal-story on Sun TV yesterday :)


Kanu outside our house, bet this was the first time my mom kept kanu while trying to keep her hands from freezing completely! Kanu in the winter rocks!

Happy pongal to all of you!

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On Organic, going green and all that good stuff

Couldn't resist posting about Clorox buying Burt's bees. For sometime now, I have been a fan of burt's bees products. Their website is clean, lists ingredients and even mentions the % to which a product is natural. I have used their products and the really nice thing is I have been able to recognize the ingredient list in their products - I mean, who wants to discover after ten years of shampoo use that sodium-lauryl-suphate is dangerous? I think one of the problems is the complicated chemical names that the consumer cannot recognize easily, add to it labelling like "Natural", "xyz-free (for eg: formaldehyde)" and the whole process gets more confusing. If I buy a nail polish that is formaldehyde-free, does that mean it has no other harmful ingredients?

And then there is the whole ethical issue. The product might be safe to use but may not exactly be doing good to our fellow-species. Leather is reasonably safe to use but I for one would try to avoid buying leather products where possible for obvious reasons.

And then there is nature. A product with the slogan "No animal testing" need not necessarily be good for our environment. It just means there is no lab where animals were tested with the product. It might still be made using petrochemical derivatives that are not bio-degradable and will not be for the next billion years!

And then there is GMO, cloning, irradiation and other processes that our good old food goes through in the name of "decontamination" (who would think frozen corn could be genetically modified?!) and how they are not required to be labeled such.

And so on and so forth. Sometimes the old ways are really the ways to go (such as our old friend, soap, who will go a long way with us :). Actually, let me rephrase that, old, time-tested ways rock, almost all the time (Blech, I sound like someone who hasn't read Who moved my Cheese, I did read it - it just does not apply in this case :p)!

Anyways, interesting how the big bad boys are at least trying to clean up their acts. There is some hope, after all.

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Information, Time and Us.

I used to wonder why old(er) people, the general category of uncles, aunts, parents, in-laws and others, began conversations with "In those days...". I used to think that that was such a non-starter. Because "those days" were relevant to the people who talked about them, not the teenager who is listening to them half-heartedly, stifling a yawn. I wonder if I am making the transition from the latter to the former. At least in the sense that I want to begin my conversations with "In those days..."

Anyway, the thing with those days is, to put it simply, "time". It seems the sepia-tinted photographs of yesterday represented people who had time at their disposal. And to seek information, they went to institutions like the public library, relied on word-of-mouth and mostly advice from elders and wise men. Those days when people would have laughed if you told them "books" might become obsolete (books, not ebooks, just plain good old books). The days when time-management was not a science learnt from books or blogs but an art that women and men learned and passed on from one generation to another. I guess the difference I am trying to point out is for instance, waiting for your patti to finish her chores so she settle down to your favorite story-telling time versus downloading AmarChitrakatha from the internet and reading it to your kid right now because he wants to hear it now - the anticipation that fills the wait-time makes all the difference, doesn't it? Perhaps that is not feasible because we live here and patti in India , to me it is again a question of time and how much of it we are willing to spend on ourselves and on others...something that this generation of self-help (American?) books keep quoting - "Spend time pampering yourself", "Relax and spend time just the way you want it"...And in this indulgence is lost a much greater time that you think...

Fast forward a few decades and you reach "my school days" when I did not check email, did not know what SMS meant, orkut/myspace/facebook did not exist and instant-messaging was definitely not a buzz-word and greeting cards were not synonymous with hallmark. And then in Bits-Pilani, we were told we could use "Pine" and whoa! We could actually write electronic letters to each other. And that's what we did. Our emails were long and had a beginning, middle and end, somewhat like a letter.

Fast-forward a few more years and now I see kids that are always "logged in". Every morning, they check their cellphone for SMSs, missed-calls, voice-mails, next their preferred social community scraps or whatever the fad-word is that kids these days use to indicate incoming messages :p and then they log on to msn/yahoo/aol - actually I think they stay logged on through out the night - they just check for IMs they might have perhaps missed and then emails, RSS feeds, reddit/digg and so on. If the parents are lucky, the kids might have sneaked in a good-morning and actually made eye-to-eye contact...

And really, I am no better. Perhaps I don't scrap (see how this is also a verb now?) on social communities 25 times a day but I am definitely a product of this generation of people overloaded with bits and bytes of information wherever they go (But a slightly older product and hence capable of standing at a vantage point and looking behind at a day when people were not so information-obsessed). While we are considered fortunate to have so much information so easily accessible (Imagine how much easier it is to locate a pizza hut and order a pizza - google even makes the call for you...well, come to think of it, it was probably more fun to stop and ask someone for directions and maybe discover parts of your city you had never seen before, but those are indulgences for people of a different time. Not us. We need information. Yesterday.), we also see situations where people have to actually make a resolution to stay off the internet. I remember an article talking about email becoming obsolete and then I remember reading about this guy who wanted to see how long he could exist without hitting google. Now, we have made the switch to "existing" without information, not just information as a way to make our existence more comfortable.

After making you read through five fat paragraphs about information overload, I am going to claim that I didn't really intend to write about IO.

I wanted to write about patience and time. Patience in a world that is constantly filling your thoughts and being - patience to actually open a scented letter wrapped in silk, filled with words written painstakingly, slowly by a human hand. Patience to write such a letter to a loved one. To take the time to think and write. Not type and then think about it. I wonder how different it would be to live in that sepia world of our old photos, to rise with the sun and have the time to serve hot coffee to your husband, just the way he likes it, and to savor the smell and moments of significant nothings, precious moments spent together before he buried his nose in the morning newspaper and I guess, at that moment, I would have sighed and walked back to the kitchen waiting for the other women in the house to rise and share "information" with me - limited but first-class information, like my first-class coffee...

First-class because I hear it from a human being. It might be prejudiced, incorrect, incomplete...but it is personal.

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Investing in Happiness.

My mom and I were having a late night discussion on happiness after watching Transformers (How is this relevant? It just is; movie-induced stupor sometimes brings out the subliminal into focus and trust me, there is more truth in that than meets the eye ;) So anyway, as we talked I realized how much of her happiness she has invested in others. I guess, to a certain extent, that holds true for all of us, doesn't it?

It's like we divide our big pool of happy thoughts and feelings and make little bundles of it that we hand out to people to manage. And once we have done that whether we feel completely at bliss is no longer in our control. It's the people who hold our little bundles that control our happiness and in extreme cases, we lead lives determined by these people, even a moment of happiness or the lack of it is not in our hands...

I guess it is unrealistic, humanly impossible to expect to control our happiness completely. Part of what makes life interesting is the unexpected events that occur in our lives, the unpredictable actions of people around us and our own imperfect selves and how our lives are intertwined. A healthy mishmash of all this and we have those surprising, lump-in-the-throat, touching moments that take our breath away...but sometimes we lose track of how much we have invested in others, how many of those packets of joy we have handed out to others, possibly even to those who don't deserve to hold them...the challenge is to hand them out cautiously and take back what should rightly only belong to us...

Yada yada. Too heavy for a post-christmas post :)

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to y'all!

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My christmas gift to myself!

Got mahself zis new pen!, would hardly do justice to it unless I put it to paper and so...

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To-do list.

So, I made this long list of things to do because chores were piling up and mainly because my vacation started yesterday - k says it's a difficult time for him when I am sitting at home doing nothing! Hmm...and I always thought I'd be a dainty darlin' house wife :p

Anyway, I made a neat list on the magnetic pad on our fridge.


k came home for lunch and saw the list and added his 2 cents to it :)

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On being awkward.

It's not like I have a penchant for being awkward. It just happens. I have come to the conclusion that this is how God intended me to be, awkward at times, able to converse decently enough at other times thereby showcasing my average intelligence. I am more eloquent when it comes to writing (really, if you have heard me talk, you would agree too), but then scrambling for post-it notes in the middle of a dull conversation just to scribble something intelligent on it seems a bit extreme to me. Plus these kinds of situations have the potential to make a passably awkward person seem like way out there! You know what I mean?

Dull conversation.

"Yes, yes, it is quite cold these days...blah blah"

Brilliant flash of words.

and then, rush, scramble, scribble-scribble and produced with a flourish, a yellow post-it note with an intelligent repartee scribbled on it - doesn't seem to be the solution to the issue.

I particularly excel at being odd especially during introductions. At the Indian store,

"Hiiiii Ramya!"

"Hi so-and-so, this is my mom. Ma, this breathlessly-happy person is so-and-so"

And then I smile. Breathless maami smiles too. Mom can't stop smiling. And the floor cracks and I fall through an endless magic pipe which takes me to the end of the world!

I wish. All that happens in the time that I imagined all that crap is that we are still doing the smiling rounds. And then mom makes a brilliant opening,

"Neenga Madrasla enga irukeenga?"

Whew! That should do the rounds at least for the next few minutes.

"Neenga?"

"Oh Mylaporeaaa?"

"Enga atha ponnu kooda anga thaan irukaa"

And so on. Meanwhile I zone off and imagine I published a novel! Gosh, that would be like a dream come true. But then, what if the book sold just one copy? Hmm...I could ask my friends and family to buy a copy, that would make it 20-25 copies maybe...need to sell at least 75 more...

I look up to see breathless maami watching me intently. So, I do the routine thing. I smile.

"Enna Ramya?"

Hmm, that didn't work. I assume an intelligent mulling look and quickly study my reflection in the glass door. Nah, that just looks like I am constipated.

My mom helpfully chips in, "Neengalum enga veetuku varanum!"

Oh, ok. We were apparently in the middle of "Enga veetuku kandipa varanum" routine.

So, I don't get it. I actually like social get-togethers (In fact I like it much more than bowling or skiing or the zillion other things that k is crazy about). And I am definitely not bored when I am discussing something interesting with the very same maami. I actually like talking to her. The problem is with the more regular, mundane conversations - introductions, casual hi-byes, overly polite invitations that both of us don't plan to keep up - that sort of thing. That's when I zone out and act all weird.

The more odd situations happen at work. Somehow cross-cultural conversations take on more vibrant colors than regular desi conversations. The other day, I walked over to a~'s cube to discuss a boring bug. I reached a~'s cube and found a~ and r~ guffawing loudly at some joke. I didn't hear the beginning of the joke (I bet it was one of those jokes that I won't "get" even if I was there from the beginning). So now do I kinda' slither back to my cube pretending I never walked over? Wait for the loud joke to end and then interrupt with my bug? Or do I hang out, acting all nonchalant - "Yeah, I don't laugh at silly jokes", maybe I can join in and laugh and it won't sound so fake?

I didn't do any of these though. I just stood there. I didn't even twiddle my thumb. Just stood there. Now you would think this is enough to put an end to the loud joke. But no! They start discussing Ipod nano. I rack my brains trying to come up with tit-bits I might have read about the ipod-nana....nope, nothing. Blank. Just ipod? Anything about Apple? Jeez! I am incapable of constructing impromptu bits of logical conversation! So anyway, an eternity later, the other guy left and I stopped trying to think of something to quote from Steve Job's commencement speech at Stanford.

For the next time, I am planning to go armed with a classic knock-knock joke. That ought to work.

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Bharathidasan's poem...

கூடத்திலே மனப்பாடத்திலே - விழி
கூடி கிடந்திடும் ஆணழகை,
ஓடை குளிர் மலர் பார்வயினால் - அவள்
உண்ணதலைப்படும் நேரத்திலே,
பாடம் படித்து நிமிர்ந்தவனின் விழி - தனில்
பட்டுத் தெறித்தது மானின் விழி,
ஆடை திருத்தி நின்றாள் அவள்தான் - இவன்
ஆயிரம் ஏடுகள் புரட்டுகின்றான!

He sits in the court-yard
down-cast eyes engrossed in study;
She arrives, a flower in a cool stream,
casting her gaze upon the handsome vision,
overwhelmed by a desire to imbibe the moment;
Rising from his notes,
his glance falls upon doe-like eyes;
Startled, her bashful hands guard her slipping veil,
as a thousand pages flutter past!

Having a resident Tamil expert enables me to go crazy with my translations! My mom remembered the last four lines and the first line of this poem by Bharathidasan. She said her Tamil Professor's words still echo in her head :) And to make up for my lack of originality (w.r.t writing poems), I attempt to translate what I admire in the original...

Some of the allusions and charm in the original Tamil poem have been altered because of the translation. Apologies for the same.

Note: The Tamil font here is best viewed in Internet Explorer. Personally prefer Firefox but not sure how to get Quillpad and FF to join hands!

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Mr. and Mrs. Iyer

What is it about the wild and the unpredictable that inspires a kind of wonder? Is it an illusion that movies attempt to create just because, well...it is different, curiously romantic perhaps or is life worth-while because of these strange, inexplicable moments created by a different class of men in a different set of situations? Consider the dependable husband who works nine to five and takes his wife out maybe on a Saturday to a movie, his attempt at the art of "romancing" - his character is often discarded as the mundane, the ho-hum role in a movie worth five minutes of screen time. That's understandable I guess because this poor guy's character is so common in life. Every second or third man probably does that. But then, consider the rash and undependable college chap who sports a never-shaven-before chin at all times and now you have a character worth focusing on (or at least used to be before that too became routine)!

Or consider the pensive, intelligent wild-life photographer who falls in love with a traditional Tamil Brahmin girl in Mr. & Mrs. Iyer. Now, we have a story! And what a story it is! The tangible chemistry that fills the space around them leaves me mesmerized each time I watch the movie. I watched the movie a second time today and it reminded me of Bridges of Madison County (a woman quite contended to be a wife to a husband who loves her the best he can, the only way he knows to love her and enter the "mystery-man" who she can relate to in a way she knows she never can with her husband - now, there's something that doesn't happen often in life or does it?)...what is it with wild life photographers anyway that make them so special? All the travel makes them perceptive, sensitive, intelligent in an irresistible sort of way(?). In movies at least.

The scene in the train when Rahul Bose leans towards Konkana Sen and she stutters and speaks incoherently while trying to mask her own feelings is so real...I can almost feel what she feels at that moment.

"Menakshi..."

"That's not the way my name is pronounced, you know?"

"How is it pronounced dear?", with a smile to kill.

"Meenakshi. Meen in Tamil means fish..."

"M e e n a k s h i...", there can be beauty and tenderness even in the way a person says your name. And Rahul Bose says it the way a lover would to his beloved. A wistful sigh, a whispered melody, unsaid dreams, in that one word.

"I have that lens in my bag...fish eye lens"

and we understand the turbulence, the conflicts Meenakshi experiences just by catching a glimpse of her eyes. Words cannot match what she emotes. Each time I watch that scene, I hold my breath wanting them to say something, anything at all, to hug tightly, to weep on each other's shoulders...

Or the other train sequence where he describes his next photography assignment to Meenakshi and she asks worriedly,

"Will you be alone?"

He watches her closely and asks, "Why do you want to know that?"

And she looks away unable to admit what she feels for him. A few minutes of conversation later, she asks the same question and he says,

"Alone. Unless you come with me..."

It takes a strong woman not to agree to go with him, that moment...(and somehow if she had agreed to go with him, the essence of the scene would have been lost).

Or the scene in the forest,

"The caretaker told me you had packed and left..."

And he asks calmly, "And did you believe him?"

Now, that's romance. Classic. Subtle. Powerful.

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The I-dont-know-why...look

Having your in-laws stay with you and working at the same office makes for some interesting situations. So, for the past few days, k has been working pretty late into the night. Every evening k's mom makes hot tea for all of us and "bete ka raah dekhkhe" she waits for us to return back home. And she is pretty disappointed that her poor lil' son does not get to drink his evening tea. I understand now where k gets his "I-prefer-to-be-served-while-staring-at-favorite-spot-from-couch" attitude.

Anyway, in the afternoons she has super-thin rotis, daal and subji waiting for us. Past few days I have been driving home alone for lunch (There is no way I am going to eye a subway when I have this kind of food waiting at home :p). And today too, I drove back alone and after lunch, we packed a hearty meal for k.

After I reached work, k's dad called up to remind me about their India ticket booking. And then he asked, "Did Kamal have his lunch?"

I walked over to k's cube and saw that he was with his manager, no doubt discussing the numerous bugs in k's code (To be fair, he is a much better programmer than I am but for the purposes of this narration, it's more fun to assume otherwise :p).

So anyway, I change my mind and am about to walk away when the evil-me in my head (rubbing hands in glee) tells me to go ahead anyway and interrupt their discussion. So, I walk over and k acts all I-don't-know-why-my-wife-interrupts-me-when-am-busy-at-work and ignores me. So, I clear my throat and go, "Hey Kamal"

His manager stops talking and they both stare at me. I get the feeling k is getting ready to throw his "Do-I-know-you?" look, call it intuition but am pretty sure I got that right, considering that I have now been exposed to almost all of his "looks", you know the ones that go all hyphenated...So, k and his manager both give me the "Duh, don't you see this video bug is far more crucial in the grand scope of things?!" look.

And then I say,

"Your dad called me to remind you to have your lunch."

And I look pointedly for a second at k's perfectly packed lunch bag and then walk back with a flourish to my cube, but not before I catch his manager grinning at k and k's face just beginning to turn all flushed and sheepish (surely in the realization that he should perhaps not ignore his wife the next time she interrupts him. Especially not with a "I-don't-know-why...etc" look :)

What fun. Work rocks, sometimes.

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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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Lost in translation.

k's mom: "Why does your mother call me mummy?"
RS: "She does?"
k's mom: "Yeah, mummy, mummy, that's how she calls me"
Just then, my mom enters the kitchen and says, "Oh maami already made tea"

I have an aha moment and I attempt to resolve confusion. After hearing my explanation,

k's dad: "So younger people can call older people maama and maami?"
RS: "Yes, also older people"
k's dad to k: "So younger people can call older people mama and maami. Like we say kaaka and kaaki"
k: "No" (he usually refrains from playing 20 questions with his parents and my mom. He goes back to staring at his favorite-vacant-spot-on-the-wall from the couch)
RS: "Also older people..."
k's dad: "So everyone can call everyone maama and mami?"
k's mom: "Whose maama?"
RS: "Not everyone..."
Meanwhile, k's mom and dad laugh at their joke, "Whose maama?" (Kiske maama?)
k's mom: "So, if Deepak kaka and Mahesh kaka are in the same room, we would have to say Maama, maama, maama"

K's mom and dad giggle again.

(I am reminded of a very similar conversation earlier that week,
k: "Ramya's patti..."
k's mom: "Patti?"
k: "Means grandmother..."
k's mom: "So it is patti and patta?"
k (looks confused): "I think so...no, wait a minute"
And after fifteen minutes we resolved that confusion.)

(Yet another conversation transpired like this:

RS to mom: "Amma nee kathala oatmeal saapdu..."
k's mom: "Teri mummy ko abhi oatmeal chahiye?"
RS: "Subah ko oatmeal khayegi"
My mom: "Adhu awkwarda irukum"
RS: "Yen?"
My mom (shaking her head): "Subha veetla edukku naan oatmeal sapadnum?"
k's mom: "Teri mummy ko oatmeal nahi chahiye?"
RS: "No oatmeal for anyone!")

Back to the current vernacular topic of discussion, I wait for them to stop laughing and then explain again,
"Younger kids and older people can call older people maama and maami"
k's dad: "Ohh, like uncle and aunty"
RS: "Exactly!"

A day later, we were getting ready to leave the house and k's mom had to call my mom; she hesitated for a few moments, cleared her throat and said, "Maaaami!"

And that moment is when k decided to stop-staring-at-vacant-spot-on-wall and take a few pics :)

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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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Weird post.

I feel weird. No, I mean I know I am weird (Gee, thanks!) but I feel weird today. You know the way you feel alone even in a crowd sometimes? Or the uneasy feeling in the stomach and heavy head when you drive to work having slept less than 7 hours the previous night? A kind of lonely stressed-need-zen feeling. As if not many people in this world have the time or inclination to actually "relate" to you and really, they don't care. Whatever is so important to you receives maybe a small nod of acknowledgment or a tiny pat from others, if you are lucky. Fair enough, everyone has their own life to lead. But isn't life mainly about men and women, about fights and laughter, tears and hugs? I somehow am not able to distance myself and my goals from the people around me.

I do care.

I just don't get the argument about "not caring what people think", how can I not care when the basis of my existence is these lives around me? What pleasure will an artist receive if he performs to an empty theater? How can applause and words of praise be separated from the sense of gratification he feels? Seriously, it's like turning back triumphantly after a strike and noticing that there is no one in the bowling alley to give you a high five. Remember that old saying about great minds that discuss ideas, ordinary minds, events and small minds, people? What if there were no other people, of what use are the ideas? ( Hmm, maybe the person who said it had something simple in mind like "Don't gossip" when he said "people" :p)

I wonder if I should experiment with a new "me", you know just glide along, tra-la-la...and be at peace, alone or in a crowd, just doing what I want to do, for myself. The new "I" would not be all emotional and dependent (reminds me of "How to lose a guy..." - clingy, needy, what was the third one? Whiny?) on people. I suppose, "I" would then like to ski down a mountain just for the thrill of it and I will possibly hang a photo of that on my wall just for myself (I don't really like to ski but what the hell, this is the new "I"), be chill when a friend forgets my birthday or another hasn't talked to me for ages, wouldn't really care if I haven't had a heart-to-heart talk in ages...

Blech. The new "Me/I" sucks.

Sigh. Some people are beyond repair.

Meanwhile, thank God for the blessed lady (arrived by courier from India yesterday!) who has come to stay with me - she gets to hear my retarded thoughts for now and you all also, many thanks for your patience :)

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