It's a whole new world!

Heard of the phrase "kenathu thavala" (frog in a well), the frog's world is the well around it and it thinks there is no world beyond the well (somewhat like H.G.Well's The Country of the Blind). So, anyway, two frogs from Lexington set out to see the world last week (I wouldn't go as far as saying we didn't think there was a world beyong Lex but well, it's a whole new world out there :)


The first thing that struck me about Seattle is that the city is aged, the buildings, the huge trees and even the weather seemed to suggest a place that had aged. B~ told me Redmond was much younger (built after MSFT came up), to me Redmond seemed old too (maybe it was just the weather that day). So, anyway, we wandered about the wise old cities and I liked quite a few things about it:

• Let me begin with coffee because I think Seattle is to coffee is as Kentucky is to horses and KFC (tell any relative about Kentucky and you'll know what am talking about :) - There really is a coffee place every street! And not just Starbucks, there was this cute artsy coffee place (bottom row, first two photos from the left) that we went to at Pike Place in Seattle, then we had Seattle's Best Coffee and strangely enough, we didn't have coffee at Starbucks in Seattle. We did take a picture in front of the very first Starbucks (top left-most pic) though!


• Pike place is this really neat market place in Seattle, we went early morning immediately after our Canadian Visa appointment and people were just setting up their stalls, within half an hour, the entire place filled with rows and rows of fresh flowers, fruits, produce; it was fun just to walk around and watch the busy morning unfold in this place. We then wandered around to this candy shop which also happened to sell kites. The lady there asked me if I recently got married (she was so thrilled that she was right) and since we bought a bunch of kite stuff from there, she also gave us honey-roasted popcorn (bottom row, two pics to the right) on the house. I will vouch that it's the best popcorn that I have ever tasted in my life!

Our Visa Stamping Appointment...

was anything but what we expected. First we got kicked out because we carried sealed envelopes (our official transcripts), "Go to the back of the 8.30 line!", the burly guard roared (it was as if I was in school again, only that noone had screamed at me like that in school!). So anyway, we went to the back of the 8.30 line and started giggling because the whole episode was so weird. First they ask for official transcripts, then they ask us to open them (to be fair, we didn't open them all and that was our fault) and then he strikes through our visa appointment letter (quite traumatic for B~ who hates even the lightest pencil marks on his books :) we get thrown out, anyway we sobered up lest we should get thrown back to the 10 AM line (he actually threatened to do that) and then were let in. The guard must have felt bad for us because he said, "See that guy there?" (pointing to a confused looking chap hovering outside) "I sent him to the 10 AM line!" Joy. Poor chap.

The interview inside went smoothly for the most part but k has a different version of the interview. Anyway, the good thing is we got our visas stamped after all that. B~ commented that he hated talkative interviewers, he said, "Imagine if they go on yapping for 15 minutes and then say, 'that's all very good but your visa is rejected'" :) I did see one woman denied a visa (she was there for a H4 to H1 transfer)...

Sights and Eats...

We went around Vancouver, Whistler and Victoria and saw the usual places - Capilano Suspension Bridge, Granville Island, Butchart gardens, scenic drive to Whistler, biking in Stanley Park, Robson Street, BC ferries...Ikea(!) - all fun. We ate food ranging from greasy Indian dal and questionable vegetable-curry in a small, dark restaurant with one-man service (he was the waiter, cook and cashier!) to expensive Greek leafy wraps with lemon sauce! In Seattle we ate twice at Thai restaurants, King and I and Thai Ginger - the pad thai definitely had a whole lot more oil than here at Lex. We had pasta, icecream and coffee all for less than $10 each at Old Spaghetti place - beautiful decor with tinted glasses.

Worth remembering...


- that the suspension bridges make the tree stronger! Also that they would have to rebuild the bridges once every 4-5 years because of tree growth! That's a douglas fir that k and B~ are hugging in the picture above. We saw some that were more than 300 feet tall, older than us by atleast a couple of centuries and more than 20 feet in circumference! We actually bowed down to one of the Grandma douglas fir trees!

- At Butchart gardens, the flowers mainly stole the show but it was fascinating to watch the different varities of leaves and plants that surrounded them! (Note the second row in this picture-collage).

- On the way to Stanley Park, there was the cutest cupcake shop (bottom right most pic), I just had to eat one!

- Microsoft is everywhere, literally. It's hard to escape it when you live on the campus, MSFT somehow manages to enter most conversations, there is less of a home-work distinction there than here...

- So we heard quite a few quips about our "small town" life :) Ku~ asked if we still had only two roads (one for the University and one for Companies) or if they were building a third road. Driving in downtown Seattle was kind of...wild compared to Lex (you know the two roads that we usually drive on :)

As k put it, the trip gave us a chance to get a different perspective, to catch a glimpse of a different life style, to take a peek at a different work-culture, to catch up with friends, to raise eyebrows at the real-estate prices and all that good stuff...a nice little breather in all, frogs back to well now :)

Tip: Green implies there's an associated photo in the collages somewhere :)

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All about "I"

I am thinking about...
why I cant think of anything except what to think about when someone asks me what I am thinking about :(

I said...
it's always about me but people keep hearing "me" as "you".

I want to...
have a demanding career, retire;
keep my days full so I can hardly breathe, do nothing all day long;
aim higher, be satisfied with what I have;
give up and move on, hold on and stay rooted;
do everything, do nothing;

I wish...
i could remember our Acura's mileage (for heaven's sake, it's just one number!).

I hear...
voices I no longer want to hear, too loud and voices I want to hear, too soft.

I wonder...
if anyone's gonna actually read through this whole tag, except the people I tagged...actually even them :)

I regret...
at times, things that were just not meant to be.

I am...
quite silly except when I am not.

I dance...
better than k! :))

I sing...
to myself.

I cry...
when I am alone and wish someone were around with me to ask me why.

I am not always...
imagining rosy beginnings and fairy-tale endings, I just happen to be doing that most of the time and at other times :) (wipe that see-I-told-you smirk off your face, I am kidding!)

I make with my hands...
scrapbooks and good food :)

I write...
what I feel and what I cannot.

I confuse...
numbers and directions. Always.

I need...
a sanity check :)

And finally...
thanks to Kumari for getting back at me :) and to the rest of you for the 3.5 seconds that you spent reading this post. Be back with some cool photos from Seattle and Vancouver (now you know what the pics in my previous post meant) :)

I tag Kamal (because I want to see the look on his face when I demand to see the answer to this tag :p), Dinesh (because he would love to answer a tag like this) and Bus (so I can force him to write a new post).

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Clues, Plays and Such.

Had fun making up clues for K’s birthday-gifts-treasure-hunt. It’s almost a kind of tradition now with us, where I make up these weird, complicated, sometimes downright silly clues for him to go hunting for birthday gifts.

Last year, I recall he had quite a day of fun solving clues. This year was even better (for me ;) I was initially disappointed when he solved the first few clues in a flash (I didn’t realize he would guess the Da Vinci mirror trick so soon).


But, I had my revenge especially with the LEET clue, here goes the clue for those of you who would like to get tortured too:


\-/37 4|\|()7[-]312 8eye127[-]|)4\-/ 61ph7 4VVaeye75 @ |)4|\|\/11_1_3 - ^^\-/ $1$7312 31_1_3|\|

Hint: I’ll give you the first word: \-/37 is YET. It’s all about pattern recognition, symbols and a solid imagination (ever played joining the dots as a kid?)

I finally finished obsessing over the scrap book that I was making for his birthday and gave it to him. He made all the appropriate gestures to indicate his pleasure at receiving it (I don't really know if guys dig scrapbooks and stuff like that!). And this time my cake came out not-so-sad-looking! Thanks to egg substitute and the right amounts of ingredients (you wise people were right in warning me not to mess with the Science of Cake Baking :).

Anyway, if you live around the Lexington area :), you should check out the Pioneer Playhouse in Danville, Kentucky (where else? :). It's a quaint indoor/outdoor play house and I have watched a couple of plays there (under the stars, just as advertised in the brochure) and they have been nice old-fashioned comedies or dramas. We went this Saturday to watch "My Sister Eileen" and it was fun! K and I were probably the youngest members of the audience (if you don't count the few kids that managed to laugh louder than K)!

Which reminds me, The Lexington Shakespeare Festival is coming up soon. Be there or be square or whatever geometric shape that doesn't appeal to you :p

So be back with more stories from:

and

Gosh! I hope I took all my forms and remember all their names!

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Stuff I don't "get".

It's that time again. Filling up online forms that generate PDFs that cannot be edited, re-filling said forms re-generating said PDFs, spending more than what you would for a decent lunch on passport-size photos which should have your face covering at least half of the whole photo, noting down the exact dates of entry and exit into the United States (5 trips so far for me - if you manage to decipher the vaguely reddish, smudged stamps of entry on your passport, I shall declare you Master and Lord).

Anyway, I finally got tired of my ignorance on aforementioned subjects and decided to educate myself to the minimal extent permissible. So, here goes a totally lost person's (I refuse to use the word, dummy) attempt to embrace what she does not wish to - the dreaded world of visa forms and indecipherable acronyms.

OK firstly - what is a passport?

Oh boy! You are way behind. Please peruse Visa Documents 101 before you come to this post!

1. What is a visa?

An official authorization appended to a passport, permitting entry into and travel within a particular country or region.

2. What is an I-94?

A USCIS Form I-94 (Arrival-Departure Record) or Form I-95 (Crewman's Landing Permit) shows the date you arrived in the United States and the "Admitted Until" date, the date when your authorized period of stay expires.

3. What is an H1-B? (Sigh...don't we even qualify for a "Who"?)

An H1-B is an alien coming temporarily to perform services in a specialty occupation. (Alien :()

4. What is an LCA?

H-1B status requires a sponsoring U.S. employer. The employer must file a labor condition application (LCA) with the Department of Labor attesting to several items, including payment of prevailing wages for the position, and the working conditions offered. The employer must then file the certified LCA with a Form I-129 petition plus accompanying fee of $130.

This is a two-page form that contains information about the employer. By completing and signing the form, the employer is agreeing to pay the higher of the two wages, that the employment of this individual will not adversely affect the conditions of other workers and that there is no strike for their occupation at the workplace. Recently, Congress determined that employers must attest that they will offer H1B visa holders the same benefits as their other workers. This includes health, life, medical, retirement, stock options and bonuses.

Forms used: ETA 9035

5. What is an I-129?

Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker – US Employers may use this form to petition USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services) for an alien to come to the U.S. temporarily to perform services or labor, or to receive training.

After the Department of Labor accepts the LCA, then your employer can file your H1B visa petition. BCIS Form I-129 (Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services or BCIS).

6. What is an I-797?

An approval notice (Form I-797) is issued to the petitioner. The Form I-797 shows dates of validity for the foreign worker to work in H1B status for the petitioner.

7. What is a Visa stamp (H1-b stamping)?

A visa stamp is used solely for permission to enter or reenter the U.S. The visa stamp does not control how long a visitor may remain in the U.S. That is, a visa stamp is used only to cross borders. The visa stamp authorizes the visitor to enter the U.S. to engage in a particular activity using a specific visa type (e.g., J-1, H-1B, F-2, etc.).

You need form DS-156 (Non-immigrant visa application form) and DS-157 (Yay! Only guys need to fill up this form :).

Don't congratulate yourself yet. Once you emerge out of this slew of forms, a mutated version in the form of a green monster awaits, which we fondly call, "The Green Card" (which is not very green actually). Here's a quick description of the process:

1. Are you eligible for permanent residency? If you are a studied-at-top-indian-college-completed-masters-now-working candidate, mostly you are under category EB3.

2. The U.S. employer complete a labor certification request (Form ETA 750) for the applicant, and submit it to the Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration.

3. Third, CIS must approve an immigrant visa petition, Form I-140, Petition for Alien Worker, for the person wishing to immigrate to the United States.

4. Fourth, the State Department must give the applicant an immigrant visa number, even if the applicant is already in the United States.

5. Fifth, if the applicant is already in the United States, he or she must apply to adjust to permanent resident status after a visa number becomes available.

Forms: I-94, LCA, I-129, I-797, LCR, I-140, DS-156, DS-157
Acronyms: USCIS, BCIS, INS, LCA, LCR

If your head swirls a tad, if the alphabets in your cereal soup seem to read BCIS and INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service), if you see flashes of green whereever your head turns, if you've already started revising the 120 or so questions that a person must know the answers to before becoming a US citizen in your sleep, yup, you've definitely caught the "Green Card Fever" :)

References:
http://www.h1base.com/page.asp?id=49
http://www.uscis.gov/
http://www.uscis.gov/graphics/services/residency/employment.htm

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Camping.

Scratch. Scratch.

Must be a wild cat or something. It was a little after 3 AM.

Scratch. Scratch. Louder this time followed by a definitely human cry, "Help!"

I tried to locate the zipped door of our tent and opened it frantically.

V~ stood outside holding an umbrella in the pouring rain, shivering. He must have caught the look of panic on my face or maybe he realized he shouldn't have exactly said, "Help!", anyway, he added, "Our tent collapsed in the rain. But no problem, I just need a car key so we can sleep in the car, you guys go back to sleep!"

!!!

Anyway, our camping trip was fun, the rain made it more "adventurous" as our local Tarzan claimed. Few observations/thoughts/random musings follow:

• We are possibly the only bunch of people that cooked Suda suda alu + onion curry with lotsa green chillies, channa + tomatoes + masala + lotsa chilies curry with gravy (thanks to Sb~) for a "light" dinner at our campsite. And to add variety, we had sev puri and bhel puri in the morning (thanks to p&b) and sandwiches and hot coffee the next morning.
  
  Making each cup of coffee was a kind of elaborate procedure (devised by k), first he would mix milk, coffee and sugar in a plastic cup and place it in the microwave, set it to 2 minutes, approximately 1.5 minutes he would come back and notice that the plastic cup has lost its delicate balance and the coffee is now getting directly heated in the microwave and then we would proceed to step 2 - the cleaning stage. In this stage, a few other unfortunate souls will join him to clean the microwave plate which is now swimming in a rich almost-coffeeish liquid. Then k would fill in another plastic cup with milk, coffee and sugar and this time make sure it is placed exactly in the center and standing straight inside the microwave. And viola, a hot cup of coffee is ready in exactly 4.5 minutes!


• P~b rocked with the grill! He managed to make 3 tortillas/minute, he made a total of 24 tortillas for the twelve of us. His grilled potatoes (I helped, I helped! Yay!) were a big hit too!


• Black bears were a popular conversation topic at the campsite. Although we couldn’t reach a consensus on 1) whether we should play dead 2) make a lot of noise 3) run away 4) attack, if a black bear drops by.


• K and ANM were absolutely fascinated by the whole fire bit. They had the most fun buying the logs of fire, adding coal, coal starter, lighting it up and giving the camp fire company until it died. ANM’s word of the day, “ember” was a big hit at our campsite.


• I was glad that I was not the only one that prayed at night when we saw one lightning after another flash outside our tent. Oh and the gentle pitter-patter of rain drops can sound so much louder when you are sleeping inside a tent in the middle of nowhere. It was a scary but thrilling experience, distant and then not-so-distant sounds of thunder, flashes of lightening, a slightly leaking tent and me. Well, there were seven other people in the tent, but you get my point.


• We had several interesting discussions/arguments inspired by let’s say nature…one of which was, are the guys who got a campsite allocated right outside the rest rooms lucky or not? Since the restrooms were really clean and smelled great, we decided they were lucky. P~ and I decided guys were luckier than girls when it came down to basics. While we drove to the restroom from the campsite twice a day, they just picked a tree and they were all set.


• ANM decided at 1.30 AM Saturday night that it was way too scary to drive back alone in the night. I totally agree. We discussed what we would do if we were left alone in the dark, I figured I would just knock (err...scratch?) at the nearest tent, asking for help (and get shot for it probably)!


• I heard the sound of waves splashing against the shore, after a really long time.


• 6 cups of rice is too much when you are also making 24 tortillas and alu curry and chickpeas curry with lotsa green chillies. Yes, it’s a lot even if you are having a second serving of rice with butter milk and manga thokku pickle.

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Me and My Christmas tree.

My ex-boss once told us a story about his christmas tree. He said he had an argument with his wife about his christmas tree - where do they place it? In the living area or the front room? He wanted it in the living area so they could all see the nicely decorated christmas tree when they were relaxing with the family. His wife wanted the tree in the front room so that people outside would see the brightly lit christmas tree sitting in the tastefully decorated front room, through the window.

"I don't care if you can see the tree through the window, I want to enjoy the view when am at home!"

Fair enough. But I see his wife's point too. The right thing to do here is to put it in the family room but then there are some things we do because we feel compelled to do so even though they may not work to our best interests. Women tend to be affected more than men by this society-syndrome.

I remember this other time, when one of my office colleagues said, "My neighbour bought a new Lexus, you know? So, the pressure is quite high on me! But, we are a single-earning-member family and my wife understands that we cannot afford to match our neighbour, you know what I mean?"

Yup, I do. I try to do things because they make sense for me but sometimes I end up (not) saying/doing things influenced by what others say. And much as I try, I know am affected by the society-syndrome more than k. After all, haven't we all learnt long back that "Man is a social animal"? They just forgot to add, "Woman take that to a whole new level." :)

If I do anything that falls outside what society deems as "normal, appropriate" with an approving nod of her (this society that I talk about is definitely feminine, believe me!) head, my mom objects with "What would Vaishali maami say?" Her little society initially did not give her nod of approval for a Gujarathi son-in-law. She (society) extended a warning finger and shook her head sadly, much to my consternation. But somehow, over time, she brought me into her embrace and mom said, "You know that pretty girl Anju who lived in 2nd street? She married a Punjabi and he takes such good care of her!" Yup. Nod of approval. Took time but she did nod.

Anyway, I digress. What I wanted to say was, maybe sometimes, it's good to take a stand back and think of what it is that "we" really need, just us, not the family next door, not the Doctor couple that saw our house and said, "Oh, that's a good starter home!" (maybe for you uncle, it's a good finish home for me :), not whether Vaishali aunty would approve, not whether others can see the christmas tree from outside...

For now, I want to see the christmas tree, with it's twinkling lights and starry decorations, with colors winking at me and angels flying around...I want to see the tree when I sit cuddled on my sofa in my finish-home...just me and my christmas tree :)

Photo from: http://lee.org/blog/archives/2006/01/05/my-christmas-tree-is-famous/

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Almost Yum!

Have you watched the Rachael Ray 30 minute cooking shows on Food Network? Blank look? No, have more useful things to do? Well, I don’t :), so I watched it and was so impressed with one of the desserts that she whipped up ;) that I thought I’d try it too!

Ingredients: Brown Sugar, peaches, butter, vanilla ice cream.

That’s all. Simple ingredients and a simple recipe...well, I did spend a few minutes wondering whether to buy the light brown brown-sugar or the dark brown brown-sugar, I settled for the light brown one, it looked better :)

The dessert came out pretty well, unlike my other sun-tv Sunday samaiyal attempts. All I had to go was melt 3 spoonfuls of butter, add ¼ cup of brown sugar to it and stir it till it melts, cut pecans into little pieces and fry them in the mixture. Then the fun bit, To one scoop of vanilla icecream, add the fried pecans and a little bit of the syrup left behind on the pan and you are done! It tasted heavenly although I didn’t set the pan on fire with a little cooking wine and add three layers of whipped cream to the icecream (which is what she did on TV).

And then I thought, since my dessert attempt was a big hit, I’ll try baking a cake. So, I bought two boxes of Betty Crocker’s cake mix, lemon and chocolate, a cup of chocolate frosting and a tin of condensed milk (which was to be my egg-substitute) and I wore my apron (that’s a must, you can’t bake if you don’t wear the apron).

But then, I decided to alter the measure of ingredients to suit my mood, and so I added 1/4th a cup of oil instead of 1/2, I added 4 spoons of condensed milk and a little bit of yoghurt instead of eggs and then added the cake mix to this and used the hand mixer to beat it (Can I say “to beat it” although I didn’t add eggs?). For some reason, I missed the 11/2 cups of water, I just didn’t see it in the recipe the first time I read it. When the cake came out, it looked a bit sad, instead of being all fluffy and happy, it kind of sat depressed in the center. Also when they say extra-moist lemon cake mix, they mean extra moist because the filling in the center of my cake was really moist.

So, anyway, my second experiment was not as good as my first but I shall still put on a brave front and cook more exciting, new err…experimental stuff (In my defense, I also tried an angel hair pasta with my very own tomato based sauce and it came out really good!)

Anyway, Until my next experiment, eat healthy ye' all :)

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Economics and Shopping and Patio furniture!

Shopping. Do you know how to say that? You have to stress on the "p" and forget the "g", so, it reads more like "shopppppin"! Now that we know how to pronounce it, we can proceed to the story of why I hate shopping for patio furniture. I'll tell you why:

1. Either the furniture explodes
2. Or they are sold out
3. Or they only are available fully assembled

Anyway, the story with our old patio furniture was that it had kind of exploded on us, I mean literally exploded into little pieces. They tell us glass expands in summer. Duh! As if we didn't know that! Still, we bought a patio table with a glass top which promptly expanded and burst. One night we had a nice, blue tinted patio set sitting outside peacefully, the next afternoon it lay in small bits in our back yard. So, we took pictures and took the chairs and the table frame and asked Lowes for an exchange. I think the guy at Lowes was kind of shocked to see the pictures and gladly gave our money back.

This time we went to Lowes looking for a patio set that wouldn't explode and we saw the cutest swing set sitting there. It was love at first sight but before we could do our little family-happy-dance, we made out the word SOLD in bold written across the canopy. So, we asked one of the Lowes employees when the next batch would arrive. "Umm...I don't know but I can tell you if the Lowes at Richmond carries these. These pieces are selling like hot cakes." We were disappointed but willing to fight it out and so we waited for him.

"The Lowes at Richmond carries four of these!"

Yipppee. So, we rushed to the Richmond Lowes, a replica of the Lowes at Nicholasville and there it was, our cute little swing set, swinging gently in the wind. So, we rushed inside the store to pick up our packaged swing set before they also sold like hot cakes and we didn't find any. We went straight to customer service and dragged a guy who looked knowledgeable aside, "We can't find any of the cute swing sets!"

"Umm...yeah, these come assembled. We recently sold a bunch of them. You can rent a truck and take them as they are!"

"Oh..."

"Yeah, it's like $19 for an hour and a half...if you rent a truck, that is..."

Yeah, we got that.

So, I put on my best i-am-a-lost-but-cute-puppy-look and turned to k.

"No."

"But I really like the swing set."

"If you look at economically, it's a bad deal."

Huh? The way I am looking at it now, it sounds like a cute deal to me and quite economical at $69. I really have to improve my lost-puppy look.

"But this is perfect, I can make tea for us and you can read your fin magazines while sitting in the swing..."

I imagined making tea in a nice, hand painted tea pot (Bed, Bath & Beyond has really cute ones) and serving them in matching little cups and saucers (we got a set for our wedding reception and they are really cute although the cups are really small, each holds about 4 spoonfuls of tea)...I broke out of my reverie at his emphatic no.

"No. We can't spend 1/3rd of the cost on shipping, it's just not wise."

So, I turned to the wise Lowes man, "So, how much do you charge for shipping?"

"Umm...it's really a better idea to get a truck..."

"And if you ship it?"

"It costs $60 ma'am."

Now, that's "economical". $60 shipping for $69 swing set.

And so, I walked out of Lowes hating shopppin and economics and patios in general. Maybe if we buy a new sofa set also, I can convince k to rent a truck...or maybe, as one of our office colleagues suggested, we can buy a truck. That's $30,000 for a $69 swing set but hey, we save on shipping and we can always transport mulch, that's what he tells us :)

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Catch My Point?

Some days, nothing interesting seems to be happening, so we go in search of the out-of-the-ordinary. So, that's what I did today and I found this:

http://www.towelday.kojv.net/

So, maybe I should just carry a towel tomorrow because after all, A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have! He is one of my favorite authors which reminds me I have to buy the Hitchhiker's collection some day.

Have you ever come across the phrase, crossing the rubicon? I hadn't until today and strangely, while reading a technical article on javascript. Since I had decided to spend the day in such critical pursuits, I looked it up:

Crossing the Rubicon: Irrevocably commit to a course of action, make a fateful and final decision.

And then I looked up a few more phrases I had come across recently and since I have nothing else to write about, I am posting them here, hoping you find them as exciting as I did (yippeeee!):

Occam's Razor: the simplest of two or more competing theories is preferable.

A self-fulfilling prophesy: a prediction that, in being made, actually causes itself to become true.

A self-authorizing language (sound familiar?): "That is, if you’re smart enough to read it, you’re permitted to know what is being said."

On to lighter stuff, one lady at the University actually showed me what this phrase meant (tip for maximum effect - hold the hand straight up while walking away as the person is talking to you! - atleast that's how she did it):

Talk to the hand: contemptuous and urbanized way of saying that no one is listening.

Water Under The Bridge: used to refer to something that is over and gone and so not worth thinking any more about.

One of my friends kept using this and finally, I had to look it up (I didn't tell him that I nodded all those times without knowing exactly what it meant, though :)
Moot point: A debatable question, an issue open to argument; also, an irrelevant question, a matter of no importance.

Another one of those phrases that cropped up at work when someone said, "Am winging it here..." and the phrase went over my head as it filled with colorful images of birds and blue skies:
Wing it: To improvise.

Here's one that sometimes applies to me literally and figuratively
Bad Hair Day: a day when everything seems to go wrong.

And here's what you, the reader and I, the writer will exchange now at having successfully completed (reading/writing) this post:
High Five: A gesture of greeting, elation, or victory in which one person slaps an upraised palm against that of another person.

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Just like that!

I have to, have to finish reading Da Vinci Code a second time before tomorrow because we are going to see the movie tomorrow and I am only on page 40!

*~*~*
Visits to the dentist are turning out to be fun nowadays. This time the dentist asked us how long we were married and then he said, "Oh just six months, so, you guys actually like each other still? That will change soon!" And then we both grinned while silently panicking inside. Atleast I did.

*~*~*
"How Opal got kissed..." reminded me of my College days. Of course, no similarity between my College days and what happened in the book but still, a teenager narrating her College traumas and high points reminded me of Bits and my teenage life in general. So, on a whim, I wrote a campus love story, just like that. It's not a great story or anything but just something that left me satisfied once I finished it. Don't ask me why. Some of you bitsians out there might recognize the setting ;)

*~*~*
Scrapbooking is fun. I have always wanted to try it out and I am finally making my own scrapbook now! Yay! I kind of lost it in the n aisles dedicated just to scrapbooking at the local Michaels store. I wanted to buy everything in those aisles!

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The Art of Gifting.

Remember the times when our friends used to make elaborate plans to hide our birthday gifts from us? When they used to arrange treasure hunts leading from under the trash can to behind the television in another friend's place? When we used to unwrap layers and layers of newspapers to unravel a gift which turned out to be a brick and then the real gift would be given to make up for the sheepish grins on our faces? Remember the art of gifting? Scented sheets of paper, lace and ribbons, verses and silly limericks, photo collages and greeting cards? Remember the gleeful, excited expressions on their faces as they would tell us how they fooled us, how they hid the cake from us, how they let us believe that they were playing volleyball when they actually shopped for our gifts?

No? I do. From Bits-Pilani to UK, the fun part of birthdays was finding, guessing and opening these gifts. I enjoy gifting as much as I enjoy receiving them. I like matching wits with the person I am giving the gift to, surprising them with a gift, watching them take really bad guesses at what the gift could be.

In Bits, for one of my birthdays, my friends had made up an elaborate schedule of my day's activities with a clock showing the time for each one of them, and the activities mainly included me kadalai-pottufying with the guys I was currently being teased with! My mom happened to read the card years later and although she seemed amused, it was embarrassing all the same! For each one of our friends birthdays, we would excitedly discuss what all we could kottify on the greeting cards, what gifts we would buy for them and how we would pull their legs...


I guess as we grow up, we no longer find the time to indulge in such trivialities and its quite impractical to expect every birthday gift to be unique and worth remembering...Me? I still enjoy gifting, I wish gifts would be more than professionally gift-wrapped boxes hurriedly bought and prepared an hour before the birthday party (I have done that many times :) I wish...I wish many more things :) but for now, I am happy for the rare, thoughtful gifts that I receive and give, the ones that speak to me because of the time and effort that has gone into making them...

Here's hoping we never become so busy that we forget the Art of Gifting.

Quick aside, I just finished "How Opal Mehta got kissed, got wild and got a life!" - witty, funny, charming and even satirical in some places. Me likes!

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Kamal's Karmic Kafe!

Did you get your good karma for the day?!

Hmm, nope, definitely need something more fancy like "I'm lovin' it!". It's got to be a jingle. OK, that comes later. First, let's cover the basics.

What is kamal's karmic kafe?

A place to hangout - coffee, snacks, exotic Indian cuisine, free hand reading by our residing karmic expert, browsing, soothing Indian music, a peaceful decor, in all a place to create good karma.

What's on the menu?

We don't serve dosas, vadas or gobi manchurian, no Sire, none of the usual stuff. We serve daal bhati, Rajasthani kachori, pani puri, bhel puri bambayya ishtyle (you can even request the waiter to talk to you in bambayya) and anything Indian-vegetarian and edible that falls under the category of "exotic".

So k and I brain-stormed a bit (I vaguely remember having a conversation about this with our Lex "measuredly-impatient" poet :) and we thought of a gypsy-Indian "expert" who would read hands for free and predict the future with reasonable accuracy :) Pleasant music (no bhangras or fast beats), a few "selected", "relaxing" books that are deigned suitable by the kafe's staff so you can relax on the barcalounger and read them, board games, chess boards (no Risk or Pictionary), pastel shades ("Rajasthani decor!", k chimes), un-hurried waiters and a general feeling of drifting about in good karma and peace. You get the picture?

If you don't, take a look here!

We will of course have signs that read,

• "Remember to talk in hushed tones lest you should disturb the good vibrations."


• "If you are rude, you will be charged a 55% tip so we can dispel the bad karma you created!"


• "Children are welcome and are possibly the only customers who are allowed to create high decibel chatter."


• Oh, also, we don't count calories!


• Please be kind, we have one laptop, don't hog internet time!

We are exotic, so we will ahem...tend towards expensive but we make up for the price by all the goodness we plan to create ;)

So, what do you think? Will you want to be at KKKs? Lil' bro tells me that acronym is taken, so let's call it 3Ks for now :)

(Note: An idle mind is a bad-but-creative-ideas workshop)

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You see what I see?

Let's just face it. We are all just selfish. Maybe not at all times, but we have been at sometime or the other and we will be in the future (to give us some credit, most of it is with us not even aware of it). If you don't agree, check with your best friend. Because no one else will tell you to your face that you have been selfish :)

And why not ask yourself? Because your "self" holds the same point of view as you. You are both watching the world from the same vantage point, a place that comfortably supports your assumptions, actions and conclusions.

If we had been bestowed with the ability to consider a situation from everyone's point of view, we would probably never be able to reach a conclusion because they would all conflict with each other. And so here we are, stuck in our single points of view, surrounded by close ones who also see through similar points of view and we have nice little conflicts, differences of opinions and such.

Also, as flawed as we human beings are made, we tend to narrow our points of view and adjust it based on our own emotional attachments and prejudices. That's why my mom thinks I am never wrong when I tell her I had an argument with someone :) So, as I get older and climb the long ladder of wisdom (man, I still can't see the top!), I realize the world or even my little world with little people around me (yes, that's how I visualize it in my head, a small circle around me and tiny people standing around me - like a Lex-Lilliput :) will never see things the way I do, the parameters that zoom in and fade out parts of their view have different priorities attached to them and so, my little world and I just can't see the same things the same way!

What's all this long winded story about really? Just a reminder to myself to not expect people to see as I see - my skewed representation of the world :), and even if I can't help but expect, then to just accept the difference.

Photo from http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/exh_gfx_en/ART20905.html

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Why RS hates documents.

So normally I am in a pretty unfrazzled, peaceful state, sort of like a calm Vesuvius. I look dreamily at people and things around me and in general am filled with love for the world and its inhabitants and then a few things come along, quite small if you consider their place in the whole scheme of things, and then I am calm no more!

What, you ask, are these seemingly innocent but actually vile and devilish contraptions that make my goodness vanish? I will tell you - they are called documents. I have a certain dislike for filing documents, filing taxes, filing for my H1-B, preparing my documents in order for travel to India, and although I may start with a mild dislike, it soon escalates into a bubbling, swirling ocean of hate and ill-will to the whole world in general!

You give me a "You're weird" look and wait for me to proceed. So, let me go ahead and prove you right. So, I set upon the simple task of scanning my passport and other documents for some visa related stuff. The rules insist that I scan ALL the blank pages in my passport and I do, dutifully, patiently, I might even have whistled a little tune as I swapped the paper out of the fax machine, with panache. And I scan 30 pages and return back to my desk where I anticipate that I will say a little "ta-dah!" when I receive the scanned documents. I don't say "ta-dah" though because the first page of my passport came out like this - a general black blob.

So I still manage to smile at it as if the fax machine was just playing a little trick on me and scroll down to my picture in the passport and am shocked to see a scary-chandramukhi version of me, digitally morphed and ugli-fied (yes, I make up ugly words when am angry)

I can imagine the poor lawyer who takes a look at my photo and drops the sub she holds in her hand, in alarm, and down goes the onion, tomato and all!

So then I ask wise hubby dear who seems to have somehow mastered the art of filing documents (he is positively filled with glee when its tax time) and he says, "Huh? You didn't scan them in color?"

Yes, of course, silly me, I should have known all along, scan the damn document in color, as if I had asked him, "duh, what is 10 times 10?" And so I take the silly expression on my face and my silly self back to my sorry cube to do the whole thing AGAIN!

And that, ladies and gentleman is why I hate documents. I rest my case.

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The perfect moment.

Have you experienced the perfect moment? Maybe not with the perfect person or while in a perfect relationship, but still perfect? I think fate, destiny, big guy up there, whatever you would like to call it, has painted a perfect moment with every two people in existence. Probability determines if their perfect moment will occur or not (Yes, I am reading God's Debris now :) So take you and the girl who sat next to you in tenth grade, whom you had a tiny bit of crush on but now are not aware of her existence at most times, I bet He charted out a perfect moment between both of you, just that it never happened and so, she is right now driving her minivan to Walmart while chiding her four-year old about his eating manners while you are sitting with your Mac on your lap and reading this post :)

Sometimes though, the perfect moment does occur and you suddenly get a glimpse into the person talking to you, a shadow of hidden sensitivity, romantic musings peeping out from heavy curtains, a child-like innocence about him that you had failed to notice earlier...perhaps, it drizzles outside, mellow and friendly, perhaps the setting rays of the sun make his eyes look almost golden-brown and you hadn't looked into them closely enough, perhaps what he is saying makes more sense to you than what anyone else has ever said to you in a while or perhaps you both share a smile because you find the same insignificant incidents funny...

Maybe the person plays no significant role in your life now or perhaps the relationship is all but forgotten, buried among several others that have taken precedence, but you know that the moment passed, you both shared it and it was perfect. You would not want to change a thing about it.

So, I tried to think of my perfect moments (because there are a whole bunch of imperfect moments in my life now, most of them concerning our car) and I came up with - a telephone conversation that lasted almost four hours well into the night - a talk that covered old friends and new ones, crushes and college stories, the past and the future; yet another long girly telephone conversation, I was probably fifteen then(finally my mom made me disconnect the call), the perfect compliment given to me in an auditorium as I rushed past with a thanks, hardly registering it then (well, more of a perfect moment for me); an email that answered a question that had seemed very important to me back then; a smile shared in the dark blue light thrown by the movie screen at a joke that I cannot recall now; an inspiration, a wink, a few words...

And I know even if these have passed and may never happen in quite the same way again, many more are yet to happen, waiting to surprise me (and until the car gets its catalytic converter and other parts that I cannot name, these are the kind of random posts you are going to get from me :)

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Strike!

So, we finally got a carrom board, after talking about it for ages. (k thought the one at the local Indian store was not good enough! - talk about being picky), we finally bought the board at a moving sale (it's from Chicago, the lady said, so it's got to be better quality, k figured :).


This weekend was quite lazy. We didn't do much except eat at Airport food mart again, eat Paav Bhaji (thanks to B~&P~), watch "Being Cyrus" and play carrom. It turns out all dads are champion carrom players - my dad, P's dad, atleast now we know what we will play when they are here and it's raining outside.

k got so excited about the carrom board, the last I heard, he was discussing with someone about the possibilities of packing the board off to our campsite (our first camping trip, sometime in June), earlier today P~ was asking about taking the microwave to our campsite, I don't mind carrying my laptop there...you know, just roughing it out and all that, yup, we believe in a sense of "true" adventure - breathe in the fresh pine-scented air, play dead when bears come out after our food, make fire by rubbing sticks together and have a hot cup of microwaved coffee in the morning :)

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Shall we dance?

We all know that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, so I wonder what the way to a woman's heart is (yes, even I don't know the answer)...I can take a reasonable guess though, I think it's just words. Yup, that's got to be it. The way to a woman's heart is through words.

And not commonplace, lifeless, cliched words, I mean romantic, dangerous, whimsical words, the kind that plays with danger, that caress you, that sing you a lullaby, that slap you, that shock you, that suffocate you with their strong embrace - words that speak to you, words that emote. Yup, see, simple as that.

Say the right words to me and it's like I have music in my head and there's nothing I can do but dance with them, hand in hand, swaying to the rhythm...the kind that echo in my head, that I repeat to myself wonderingly when I am alone with my fancies...

Probably the reason why a well-written book delights, or a well-written script touches our hearts...

Oh and I wrote another story. What?! You haven't even gone past the first paragraph? Shame on you!

So, that's my random post for today. For some reason am reminded of a line that aarti had quoted sometime back from the book, "The Kite Runner" (powerful book, that) - For you, a thousand times over..., and once again, am swept off my feet, by nothing more than just words.

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Go fly a kite again!

Today was a disaster. We went home for lunch today and I was busy talking to my mom about the Rehman show and my story (yes, I force her also to read my stories :) on the phone, when k got all jealous (I bet he just wanted to grab some attention!) and dropped a bowl full of my beetroot curry down. It smashed into little pieces and I almost wept for my beetroot curry - it even had grated coconut :(







And then dad got all worried that we would hurt ourselves by walking over the smashed bits ("You have to clean the kitchen floor with a wet cloth. Be careful."). After eating, I tried to balance my plate on the rising pile of dishes in the sink, while washing my free hand under the tap and suddenly, the plate lost balance and a small wave of dirty sink water splashed on me. I had to change and then hurry back to work.







Ok, now for the pleasant stuff. These are some of the pictures that we (k, b & p) took at the Georgetown Kite Festival. It was a totally splendid day - good weather, good food, entertainment - dances, music, kites. We almost didn't want to leave early to catch the Rehman concert. If you live nearby, it's something that you shouldn't be missing. It's fun every year :)








There was this kid at the kitefest who danced throughout the cultural programmes, she seemed more enthusiastic than the dancers on stage. p~ thought she had music in her head :) k, as usual, became one with the kites and had to be disentangled eventually and gotten back to solid ground.

If there's one thing that I will miss if I ever leave Lexington, it's Georgetown Kite Festival (make that two - and The Shakespeare Festival, make that three...and...oh never mind!)

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Cleveland Tyagaraja Aradhana 2006.

I realized the past weekend that RTP stands for more than Research Triangle Park, Ragam-Thanam-Pallavi. So did k, he beat me to this post though :)

April 14, 12:30 AM"Where is my blue spring tshirt? The one I wear when I feel springy?"
"I don't know. Should I iron my saree?"
"I don't know. I left my tshirt right here!" ("here" being a small square next to one of the legs of the bed frame").

April 14, 1:00 AM - "Sign here." (he hurriedly points to some random location on the tax form)
"Where? It says here 'Signature of the applicant'. Shouldn't I sign the 'Signature of the spouse' section?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Do you have to ask so many questions now? Because we decided to file separately, so you are the applicant, not the spouse!"
"Hmph" (I do the "sign with a flourish" and "toss paper aside" bit, trying to look offended and not so ignorant)

April 14, 1:30 AM - "Did you pack your perfume bottle?"
"I'll just use yours."
"No, pack yours. People identify smells in this country. Remember the other day, the lady at the mall found out that you are wearing Lavendar whatever perfume?"
"You pack it. I am busy"

***
April 14, 4.45 PM (D-day, I am at work and k has gone to pick up S~) - "Hello, where are you? I am done with my code deliveries."
"S~ is making pizzas."
"Yeah, I know, but I thought you said we had to leave by 4.30 PM SHARP?"
(muffled shout in the background) "Ok, I gotta go. I am disturbing his concentration"

April 14, 5.20 PM - "Hello, where are you?"
"On Main street. S~ finally finished making the pizzas for the trip!"

April 14, 7.30 PM - We finally start driving to Cleveland from Cincinatti (we picked up Sb~ at Cincinatti) after gobbling up S~'s pizzas. That's four of us in the car - S~ (the meticulous pizza maker), k (the guy who has heard the word "Carnatic" the least number of times in his life), Sb~ (Mr.I-am-just-a-talented-kid - besides playing the Mirudangam, he pretty much just ate and slept in this trip) and yours truly (wondering what she is doing with this weird bunch of people).

April 15, 1.00 AM - (at Comfort Inn help desk) "We were told that we will get a welcome package with the tickets to the concert tomorrow..."
"Here is your key...we got no welcome package. Maybe we'll get some tomorrow"
We all attack the new problem with a buzz of excitement, "What? No welcome package?"
"But, it has the meal tickets!"
"And the concert tickets!"
"And the meal tickets"

Ok, problem not solved but having completed our excited buzz, we go upstairs to our room.

One single bed.

Four people.

And we are supposed to be special patrons or something, we bought the patron package deal for our Cleveland Tyagaraja Aradhana Trip (we did get a nice packet of gems since we were "patrons").

Back to help desk. S~ calls the coordinator and hangs up pretty soon and tells us, "Seems, we were already "informed" that they were short of rooms in the Comfort Inn and we should have chosen the Ramada Inn deal."

Drive to Ramada Inn, twenty minutes by car.

April 15, 1.45 AM - Second excited buzz of conversation about who will wake up first.
"I take the longest to have a bath, so I need to wake up last" (now, where is the logic in that?!)
Me - "I take the shortest bath. I need to wake up as late as possible."

"You can have a quick bath early in the morning, before all of us and start getting dressed up, see?"

I no see nothing, dude.

"Hmm...since you take a short bath, you need to go last so that we don't get stuck at the last minute with a long-bath-taker guy in the restroom"

There! Beaten by cold-blooded logic.

"We need to get up at 6 AM SHARP!"

***
April 15, 7.00 AM - "Its 7 AM, abbe yaar wake up."

S~'s pleasant voice greets us good morning.

I need coffee.

April 15, 8.15 AM - Sb~ "I had my breakfast. I am going to the concert hall. See you guys."

"Huh?"

April 15, 8.45 AM - We reach the concert hall.

Initial Impressions - Packed with people. Stalls selling carnatic music CDs, S.Ve.Shekhar drama DVDs, Crazy Mohan drama DVDs, Cho's DVDs. Banners announcing RMKV silk saress, Land Marvel luxury time-shared cottages, S.Ve.Shekhar comedy serial coming soon, Jaya TV. The glint of silk everywhere you look, jewels, trendy and gaudy, kids dressed in pattu-pavadais, organizers running about (one ran into the hall carrying a case of starbucks coffee cups - wonder which artist demanded a "sooda sooda oru cup kaapi" :) Was absolutely pleasant to hear bits of Tamil everywhere we went!

S~, k and I walk inside the auditorium and its packed. Every seat is taken by a human or a sweater. Let me explain the sweater-resevation-system to you.

Almost a quarter of the seats in the hall was "reserved" by sweaters, some of the more imaginative reservation tools were hand kerchiefs, towels, angavasthrams and shawls. We settled back, against the walls at the back, tried to look nonchalant and squinted at the stage.

Man!

If I thought I saw colors outside the auditorium, I was mistaken, the entire stage was filled in a soft yellowish glow, rows and rows of silk-saree clad mamees and silk-dhoti clad mamas sat on the stage. The mamas on the left were tuning their respective instruments and the maamis talking to each other and laughing. And in the center, sat...we held our breaths (atleast I did)...Smt.Sudha Raghunathan! She looked amazing in a maroon, gold bordered pattu saree and thick jasmine flowers (we guessed it was plastic and confirmed it that evening, but still... :) adorning her long plait. Among the other big names were Umayalpuram K.Sivaraman, Flute Ramani, Neyveli Santhanagopalan (vocal), Aruna Sayeeram (vocal), Srimushnam Raja Rao (mridangam), Mannargudi Easwaran (mirdangam), Thiruvarur Vaithyanathan (mridangam), Vellore Ramabadhran (mirdangam), Papanasam Ashok ramani (vocal).

I acted like one of those giggly-excited teenage girls who would say, "Oh my God, it's Shah Rukh Khan! I am about to faint". I, being more mature and all, said, "Look, there's Sudha Raghunathan!" and pointed one long index finger straight at her.

S~ seemed highly amused at my gushing. I repeated myself, to k this time and he shrugged his shoulders, "Oh, okay, cool."

Anyway, I decided to capture one of the seats that had been reserved by the sweater reservation system and told the startled looking uncle in the next seat (who seemed ready to pounce on me), "Just until they come back".

The Pancharatna keertanas started with Jagada and ended with Endharo Mahanubhavulu and even for a carnatic music novice like me, it sounded great. Sb~ played the mirudangam for one of the keertanas (he said he was pretty nervous playing next to the maestros but I think he did a good job, as usual).

After the keerthanas, the individual singing began. A bespectacled, precocious looking girl of about eleven, in a bright blue pattu pavada won the prize for her rendition. I was pretty amazed by how much control she had over her voice. Many more kids and teenagers sang after her. I was kind of dis-oriented when I walked outside the auditorium and I would find those very teenagers that sang the complicated ragas inside, talking with a heavy accent, "I was like...she was like...and then I was like..." (you know what I mean? It was like they were two different people, inside the auditorium and outside).

The Aradhana committee provided free breakfast and lunch for us - chakara pongal, upma and delicious pickle (I liked the pickle the best) for breakfast, bisibela bath, some bondas, curd rice and pickle and a few more items I cannot recall. We ate outside the Cleveland State University student center. The student center was quite different from UK's - decorated with flags (in photo) and with glass doors all around - very bright and cheerful. We posed for snaps next to the tulips outside the auditorium, one maami who sashayed past us in a silk saree looked at us (ahem...me) and said, "Oh, that's a nice pose!" and then Sb~ says to k, "Now, why didn't someone tell us that when we posed for a photo here?"

After lunch, S~ stayed back for more individual singing sessions while the rest of us came back to Ramada Inn for a short nap, which eventually turned out to be long. We woke up at 4.30PM, and left to Starbucks for coffee (posed for a desi-ishtyle snap outside starbucks :).

***

April 15, 7.00 PM - The biggie that day was the Sudha Raghunathan concert at 7 PM. We planned to reach an hour early and reached at 7 PM SHARP. We stood at our now familiar spot against the wall (even the lone sweater-reserved seat now was taken by the owner of the sweater). We stood fidgeting for a few minutes and decided to go to the balcony to see if we could get a better view or better seat (or any seat).

We didn't find any seats but we did find a friendly aunty there who kept smiling at us. We continued fidgeting there for a few minutes as we heard the announcement that Sudha Raghunathan was going to start singing soon.

Suddenly the aunty turned towards me and said, "You know you can sit on the stage, don't you?"

"What?"

"You can sit on the stage! This is a once in a life time opportunity!"

"We can? It is?"

"Yes, come on! Didn't you hear the announcement? They are letting people from the audience onto the stage! You are all youngsters, go on to the stage!"

I hesitated a bit but decided to "go for it" (as the aunty put it)! We went to backstage and were ushered on to the stage and finally landed up a few feet away from Sudha Raghunathan! Imagine that (I have a video of her singing in-between many heads blocking her, will upload that soon)!

After an amazing four hour concert (this inspite of the fact that she had a back spasm and was not feeling well), after singing Chinna Chiru Kiliye (audience request - the only song that I recognized) she ended by smiling (God! She has a charming smile!) at the audience and saying, "All I request is that you be just you, the way you were today. That is all that an artist needs!".

k was totally bowled over by her voice. He came all flushed off the stage and exclaimed that it was one of the best concerts EVER!

We had dinner at Comfort Inn (arranged by the Aradhana Committee), we sat on the floor because there were no chairs free (inspite of us being "patrons" and all that) and an uncle told us, "Please be careful...the carpet you see..."

Oh well, I can't complain since I had puliyodarai, avial, two spoons of a mixed vegetable curry, curd rice and the same delicious pickle. The guys apparently thought the food was too less and so we made a trip to Dennys to complete our dinner.

Oh and I wore a saree to the Sudha Raghunathan concert, blue (same color as her saree...*blush*).

***

April 16, 9.00 AM - We had a nice, leisurely breakfast at Ramada Inn (cornflakes, orange juice, coffee, muffins) and went about an hour late to the Ranjani and Gayatri concert. The highlight of their programme was the Marathi Abhang that they sang, it was amazing and the audience gave them a standing ovation.

After the raffle prizes were announced (they were giving away a sitar, an autographed mirudangam, a gaudy necklace and a dinner with an artist ticket, I think - we didn't win any though), we had lunch and set out to The Shiva Vishnu Temple at Greater Cleveland.

A few hours of driving, general song sessions, story-exchanges and a whole bunch of nonsense talk later, we stopped at Udipi at Columbus for what we thought would be a "light snack". It turned out to be a heavy dinner (especially for S~ and Sb~) at the end of which we ended up taking short walks outside Udipi to digest some of the food we ate :) We took a bunch of snaps there and S~ absolutely refused to be photographed (yes, the yellow envelope is him).


Sb~ sang more songs on the way back while I managed to narrate a few stories, k and S~ provided much entertainment with their antics (S~ with his nervous excitement and constant urging, "Chalo Bhe, lets run" and k sauntering behind as slowly as he can).

April 16, 9.00 PM - We dropped Sb~ at Cincinatti, k demanded a cup of coffee again! We left to Lexington at around 9.30 PM where S~ regaled us with some more of his stories. We dropped him at his place at around 11.00 PM and reached home at 11.15 PM (We had planned - I had atleast - to reach home at 4 PM SHARP).

And that concludes my essay for "Please describe how you spent your weekend in 2500 words or less." - 5 marks :)

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Happy New Year!

In between my flurry of last minute activities (taxes, packing, cooking), I managed to catch a preview of the special programmes on Sun TV for Tamil New Year's day - interview with Shobana Ravi, Surya and Jo, Vikram, Friends and Kadhal movies and I am going to miss it all, sitting at work, working with Ajax (no not the cleaning stuff, the javascript stuff) :(

These are the days, I really want to be back home with family, eating mysore pakh and watching Surya fill the screen with his charm. Last time, I made a fuss, recorded the whole programme (I actually came back home for lunch to switch the video cassette) but never watched it. I remember that K.R.Vijaya was saying something that sounded highly profound on the TV. For the whole week, k kept pointing to the three unwatched video cassettes lying by the corner and snickering. In my defense, it's just not that much fun to watch a recorded show. I want to catch the programmes, live (ok, I know it's live in India and I get the recorded programme here, but that's live enough for me), Ratna stores and Aachi masala advertisements and all!

I know I am going to be distracted at work tomorrow.

Sigh.

Anyway, plan to write about the Cleveland Tyagaraja Aradhana once I get back. Till then, இனிய புத்தாண்டு நல்வாழ்துக்கள் (Wish you a very Happy New Year)!

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