When I was 16...

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I happened to read some of my old autographs (is this concept extinct now among friends that part...because there is no real parting now?) and was amused by what dominated our lives when we were 16 -- thoughts and words and relationships that had seemed important then...

A few excerpts:

So, "I" start my autograph book with a quote: "To meet, to befriend and then to part  is always tough for the human heart"


A quote on the second page: "If we meet again, we shall smile, else this parting was well made"


So heavy and dramatic?

From my friends: almost all of them start with "Dear Mosa" -- my pet name in Bits...

"Wherever you go, whatever you  be, please keep in touch with me"


"I will always remember along other things, you knw, your kottals and of course, the way you eat sam in IC"


That hasn't changed much, k tells me I eat samosas in a ridiculous fashion even now!

"There are many more things I wanted to say but I cannot put them down on paper..."


"What do I write in your autograph? It is a very painful task for me to write your autograph because it means parting..."


"Though circumstances are going to separate us, I am sure that our friendship will hold us together..."


"Marry some body who loves you as much as...then...when you narrate your college stories to your grandchildren, don't forget to mention me" -- No, I don't know who that someone was...really.

"And nobody can match you in telling long stories about the kadalai of the day!"


A lot of them wishing me good luck with my university applications. That seems to have occupied a big chunk of our thoughts. A lot of advice about not worrying -- hmm.

I remember crying for days together, walking aimlessly in a red-eyed daze after leaving Bits. Who are these people now and if I meet them, will I recognize the person in them that wrote these words?

I really don't know. Perhaps, we can  pick up where we left off...that's what good friends are supposed to do, right?

Arranging the library is always a soul searching process for me one way or another. The photos or the words get me every time.

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About old thoughts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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About being back home...

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

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

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

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

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Conversation with thatha.

Of late, I have been thinking about my grandfather and grandmother -- how my life perhaps would have been different, richer if I had had the opportunity to interact with them. Whenever mom tells me a story about thatha, my mind conjures up images of a well-built, handsome, somewhat daunting man with a volatile temper and a demure, intelligent (not the bookish sense which I fear is the only kind that I possess) wife.

Colorful scenes from his past flow like cool satin (don't ask me why I thought of satin, that's just what came to my mind -- satin and silk waving kisses in a cool breeze) when I think of my thatha -- his life as a teacher in Colombo, his love for his mother, yet another colorful character...a rather portly lady who had great sense of humor, tremendous spiritual powers and a unique (in that time) fondness for her daughter-in-law, his photographic memory for books and details, his powerful, cursive handwriting...in all a lofty image of a lofty man (in the good sense) that I unfortunately never met.

I have this secret (hah!) wish to write a book about my maternal grandparents. Nope, it will never be a best seller but it will possibly be the most satisfying piece of writing that my pen has ever produced. Because it will let me put myself in their lives and be a part of it...

Most of the stories I found interesting occurred in a place I have never seen -- Colombo. They were stories of a life I have never been exposed to...when you lived under a hostile government that had declared that "Non-nationalists must quit!". My thatha earned well as a professor but only a part of the money reached his large family of a wife and 8 children. Mom says he was a master of the English language. Poems, quotations, words were a part of his regular conversations...I have never met a person in my life who could do that -- recall an appropriate text from a classic literary piece or a poem to quote at the right time! Mom says thatha did not leave behind money for his children but something a lot more precious -- the blessings and power of his prayers.

My paatti was as different from him as could be. She was an intelligent student who stopped studying past the fifth grade to get married. Thatha decided to marry her soon as he met her...brother! A lively, handsome young man who died young :( This brings to my mind the image of the first child that my grandparents lost -- Samanthaka mani. She was to be their most intelligent child if she hadn't passed away at the age of three. How weird that I feel sad for an aunt that I never met...an aunt I wish I had met, will maybe meet if not in this lifetime, in some other one?

So many stories, so many memories I try to make my own...where are you now, thatha? Are you reading this now? My silly little words struggling to convey what they set out to convey?

I set out to write down a make-believe conversation between you and me but it turned out to be something else. The make-believe world is powerful, isn't it? No wonder children amuse themselves endlessly in their make-believe worlds -- where dreams come true, where it's possible to experience what real-life fails to deliver...and this is my make-believe world, thatha. Not entirely. But, at times like this, when real life fades, this world is what keeps me going.

Here is what I read last from your letters to my mom,

"...In other words, I am preparing for my "Last journey",

"Our little systems have their day
They have their day and cease to be
They are but broken lights of thee
But thou my lord, are more than they"

In memoriam (Tennyson)

Reply soon..."

Yes...reply soon, thatha...

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2007 Dec - 2009 Feb

I haven't written anything substantial here or on pen and paper for a long time. I shamelessly blame it on the baby :)

For now, I want to write because I feel homesick and hopefully writing would help alleviate some of it. k's sis, p~ left today to India for good and that makes me homesick for 2 reasons - that she left and that she left to India for good, something that I have started thinking about the past few months.

I remember when p~ came to the US in Dec of 2007. She was so homesick, she cried most of the time she spent with us. k and I spent a week or so in Kansas and while we had a blast, she was not her usual enthusiastic self. I remember an incident at Buca-di-beppo at Kansas city. The waiter there entertained us with some jokes. I laughed and turned to look at p~, who was on the phone with people back home, crying! That image stuck in my mind.

And now, p~ has made so many friends at KU that she cried once again, this time because she was leaving her new friends in the US behind. And much to k's amusement, they are all Tam friends! She has seen more recent Tam movies than I have!

Seeing her leave made me realize that 2 years flew by in a jiffy. She is a different person for her experience; And me? I am not sure if I have changed much. I am still in Lex doing pretty much the same things I did back then. But for my chakarakatti and 15 extra pounds, I am pretty much the same. I felt bad that she had to leave her friends behind and go back to India but I also envied her that. That she had managed to make so many friends in so short a time - she has this air about her that makes you want to confide everything to her, and then wait for her response. Unselfish and un-selfcentered - not many people I know are like that.

I wonder if I would be able to leave everything behind and start a new life in India. What would I miss most about Lex? Hard to say now. k says we are some how bound to UK. I met him at the university, we settled down near it and by a strange twist of events, I even had my baby at UK, something that was not planned at all. Maybe he is right, maybe this is our destiny and we will remain bound to this place for life.

Who knows what the future can bring...

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Happy Republic Day!

Thought this would be an appropriate post today:

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/india/papers/Return_to_India.pdf

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Nayagan and everything Tam.

We watched Nayagan today on K TV. This time, I managed not to cry at all. The last time I saw the movie was about 7 years back. k and I were good friends back then and I managed to convince k and his roommate, Swami to watch Nayagan with me. Although Swami's mother-tongue was Tamil, he was a typical Bombayite like k - meaning, he began all his sentences with, "Abe saale...". So, anyway, we started watching it and all of us became quite involved with the movie (Of course, such is the nature of Nayagan).

There was this really touching scene in the movie where Kamal Hassan asks to see his grandson for the first time and his daughter refuses and Kamal Hassan tries to deal with the denial, hide his tears while hoping his daughter would change her mind and he would catch a glimpse of his grandson. I watched this scene and started crying silently. k and Swami were caught up in the scene and one of them turned to share something about the scene with me. Once they realized I was crying, the intense emotional scene was soon forgotten and I became the target of their attention. Not that they were nice and they consoled me or anything. They mainly made fun of me. And that was when I realized I would never ever watch this movie again with people who do not get as seriously involved in it as I do.

And today, I forgot all about that resolution and watched the movie with k. After the very same scene, he suddenly looked at me and said, "Wait! Isn't this the same scene for which you started crying that day? Ha haaaa!"

And the moment was lost all over again.

I swear, I will not watch Nayagan a third time with k. And if I ever do, it will only be because I know he is going to cry seeing the same scene again!

Anyway, he agreed that it was indeed a good movie and that mollified me a bit. This whole discussion reminds me of another incident.

Many years back, when k was still a novice at everything Tamil, I used to tell him that I could not marry him unless he was familiar with "Mouna Ragam". I was very excited when k sat down to watch the movie and I made sure he caught all the nuances in the movie. And since then, whenever the topic of Tamil movies comes up, k goes, "Whaaa? You haven't seen Mouna Ragam, how dare you exist?" and so on. Serves me right for wanting to share Mouna Ragam with him :p

The other association that he makes with Tamil folks is "Thayir sadam". He makes this ridiculous gesture of slurping gooey rice from his hands all the way to his elbow as if to say we eat thayir sadam like that! Jeez! How can someone not like thayir sadam? Beats me! A year back, we had gone to Atlanta to visit my maama. k, my cousin and I were shopping and we decided to take a to-go for dinner. We were at this amazing desi store called "Shayona" and k got really excited seeing home made kachori, samosas, chola etc in the store. So, he picked up a bunch of "tiffin" items and looked at my cousin and said, "Cool! Let's have this for dinner!" She gave him a weird look and said, "Saadam?" The concept of wrapping up a nice dinner with thayir sadam is lost time and again on poor k. But after the Atlanta incident, he remembers that "Tams" don't do dinner without their beloved thachi mammam :p

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Murphy baby,

Edited: Thanks to Rushu's comment, finally found the picture:

Murphy baby (Source:  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=364681406908569&set=a.323079557735421.80608.100001001383459&type=3&theater)

Edited: Thanks to Shanmugapriya, here is a nice picture of Murphy baby!

Below is a tiny photo on the left of the radio:



Photo courtesy: Santhosh

Do any of you remember the phrase, "Murphy baby"? I vaguely remember seeing a black and white photo of this really cute, chubby kid on advertisements. My memory is probably served more by my mom's descriptions of the baby rather than faded images that I saw in my childhood. My mom said the baby was the advertising mascot for Indian radio.

So, do any one of you happen to remember how the baby looked? I looked on google and couldn't find one and for some reason I feel like looking at a picture of this baby.

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What this is not about.

My birth story
I thought of writing a birth story. As one of my friends put it, Radhu's birth was eventful enough to talk about it for quite sometime. But then, somewhere between midnight feedings and diaper changes I lost the enthusiasm to write about it. I did note down a pretty extensive story in my diary though. When Radhu is 16 and talking back at me, I plan to show her the diary entry, just like Marie (Arrgg, it's finally happened. I am planning to be like Marie of all people!):

Ray -"No"

Marie - "Oh the agony...when I carried you for nine months..."

Ray - "Ok mom, not that story again. I'll do it")

So anyway, I didn't write the birth story here. So, this post is not about that.

Drishti
Just like in any TamBram family, as soon as an auspicious event occurs, there is extensive discussion about drishti (nazar) and even more elaborate ways to circumvent it. For instance, inviting a 100 people to your new house for the house warming ceremony, these people being likely drishti candidates. Now, what defines a drishti candidate (i,e a drishti putter)?

A drishti putter is someone who is likely to see your fine new house and go, "Gosh! Look at their biiiiig house! It's so neat and shiny! Wish I had one like this" and then lo and behold! The east entrance of the house crumbles down because of a rare species of malfunctionaing termites. You get the point. So coming back to the discussion, a new house owner wishing to avoid drishti should invite the most likely 100 drishti putters (it's kind of like the flu vaccine, you select the most probable strains!) and then offer good food to them to avoid their drishti. Yup, we TamBrams sure know how to beat the "casters" of the evil eye!

I wanted to note down my thoughts on drishti but then I was so overwhelmed by the amount of rules and regulations for avoiding drishti for new baby and mom that I forgot to note them down here. (To be fair, my mom has been pretty lax about imposing them on me which is sweet of her...just in case she reads this post :p)

So this post is not about drishti.

Homesickness
What do you call it when you are homesick at home? That's what I have been having intermittently for the past several weeks. And I blame it on my house guests. My dad initially flew in for a week, followed by my brother for 10 days and then my sis-in-law for 10 days. And everytime they leave, I feel homesick all over again. I even considered going to Madras for a couple of months. Being a new mom puts certain things in perspective or way out of perspective. Which is pretty much how being a normal person is but anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah, perspective. So you a new mom and you start thinking about how much quality time the grandparents are missing back in India and then you start thinking about moving back to India for good and then your husband goes like, "Whaa? Is this some weird manifestation of baby blues that has my wife suggesting sudden life changes?"

But after six weeks postpartum, I gave up the idea (at least for the time being). So, I couldn't really write about an India trip.

Baby Talk
Ever been in one of those mildly embarassing situations where the parents of a baby excitedly tell us "Oh you should see him doing this, it's so funny..." and then they prompt the baby with all the sweet talk they can muster. The baby of course does its own thing. He gives them a blank look and refuses to do the cute antic he was supposed to do. Even worse, he acts like he did not even begin to understand the request. I am waiting for the time when that's going to happen to k and me. I always told myself I should remember not to do that but am pretty sure I am going to do it. I could write something about funny baby stuff like that but I keep forgetting what else I had to say. All thoughts keep getting entangled with a steady flow of drowsiness.

So that's all the stuff that I did not write here. Until I have some coherent thoughts that I can pen down, this is what my blog is going to be about. Little nothings :)

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Happy Days, Bits Pilani

Ok, I'll come clean. I am one of those weird people who googles names of old college mates once in a while, just for the heck of it. Not just the names of guys I had a crush on or best friends, even those that I secretly wanted to be like in college, those I had a fallout with, the studs (as we called them in Bits), the freaks, even the nobodys. I guess I am just curious at times to know how their lives turned out, after all these years.

And once in a while, along comes a movie like Happy Days and I feel nostalgic again, pull out my old photo albums, autograph books (how sad to see them die a slow death now that we can boast of always staying "connected" - I just realized am hardly in touch with the people in these fading photos who shared some of the most enjoyable years of my life!) and read the words I had read so often many years back (teary-eyed the first few weeks after leaving Bits).

Oasis (Cultural festival) and Apogee (Academic/movie festival) were the times I enjoyed the most. After coming back to Meera Bhawan, my wingies and I would talk endlessly about the actual events and of course about boys! There were times when we would rush to get seats in the campus cinema hall next to the fun guys. The unlucky ones among us got stuck next to the not-so-fun guys or girls :p. And then back in the bhawan we would get ragged for sitting next to so-and-so. Sounds so silly when I say it now but then it was a big deal!

And Tripping! Tripping, bitsian lingo for teasing you with a boy (girl), was fun especially when you got tripped with the right guy ;) My favourite tripping routine was to substitute names of my friends in famous movie songs and sing it loudly when they were in "kadalai" mode.

Ragging was fun at Bits, for girls at least! There was this one senior dude who made it a point to catch all the pretty girls multiple times until one of them fell in love with him (or at least that's what I thought his persistent efforts indicated)! My number was 3, which wasn't so bad considering he had ragged the two prettiest girls on campus 7 and 5 times respectively (When you are 16 you remember stuff like this for a long time) :p Then, there was this time DAV school seniors at Bits "caught" me for a ragging session and they were being nice and all but I was homesick I guess and I started crying and that made them really uncomfortable. So, they took me to Connaught (Bits hangout area - restaurants and such) and treated me to a strawberry milk shake and cracked jokes to make me laugh and accompanied me back to Meera bhawan since it was getting dark, which was all very sweet of them.

The other incident I remember well is going to Shankar Bhawan to get ragged! Bits had this weird custom where freshees got to go to one of the guys' bhawans to get ragged, eat a really good lunch with some amazing icecream and come back to Meera Bhawan to share those stories. So anyway, I remember that one of my well-meaning Meera Bhawan seniors called me the previous night and said, "Mosa, just wanted to warn you that you better be prepared for tomorrow. you are the only Illad girl going to Shankar Bhawan and those guys are all Illads but they are really nice guys..." (Illad = Tamil students, from "illada..."). I was pretty scared by the time I got to Shankar Bhawan with a few other girls. Those guys did turn out to be nice guys, although a bit intimidating at first. There were the usual questions about why girls don't get into IIT often if they are just as smart as guys and so on. And then at the end of the ragging session, they asked me to rate them on a scale of 1-10 :p I made the mistake of rating one guy 10 mainly because he didn't ask me too many questions and seemed the quiet, studious not-scary senior types. By the time I walked out of Shankar bhawan (and several months following that day), those guys would shout "10 pointer" whenever I passed through the Bhawan.

Another incident I remember vividly was getting caught with s~ by my school (DAV) seniors. I can't say I was entirely displeased considering I thought s~ was cute :p So, when the seniors gave him 2 options - propose to a cow or write a romantic poem and propose to the freshee, I was amused. I knew s~ was good at English but producing a poem on demand was tough for anyone. Anyway, s~ made a quick decision, plucked a blade of grass (it could have been a weed actually) and got down to his knees and recited this really sweet poem (Ok fine, it was kind of cliched but hey, try writing one on demand in a few seconds!). I think sometime in my third year, I asked s~ if he still remembered the ragging incident and he said he did and actually wrote that poem down for me, which for some girly, sentimental reason, I still save in my treasure box. Actually, it's in k's treasure box and he isn't exactly thrilled that I store my "proposal poem" (below) there :)


There were the tie-ups, breakups, misunderstandings that's typical of college life and I think we ended up being in two different gangs over the course of 4 years. There was this one time when someone spread the rumour that I was going "psenti" (steady) with a guy and several people offered congratulations before I could tell them nothing of that sort actually happened. The funny thing was one of the girls who helped spread the rumour eventually married the guy. Talk about coincidences!

You know how in movies, there are always these friends of main guy/girl who make it their business to advise guy/girl about their lives, I had a couple of those advice sessions too - "Mosa, you shouldn't do this..." blah blah. Which at that point I took a bit too seriously. In retrospect I had the most fun when I was just doing that - being myself! I know better now but that's what college experience is about, I guess. Sweet and sour. Oh! Did I ever mention my blog name is based on my Bitsian name, mosakutti ?!

Bits campus is beautiful, almost out of a movie but I never did get a chance to see Jaipur though. My parents were reluctant to begin with and the warden told them it was not a great idea, she would not approve of the trip but my parents could go ahead and give their approval in which case she won't stand in their way! And there was this guy in the group who suggested that he would talk to the warden in an oldish male voice claiming to be one of the girls' dads. We finally dumped the plan :p

I was in DOPY (Dept of Photography) for a year and then in Art & Deco but never managed to gel with the gang there. Always wanted to be a part of PTM (Pilani Tamil Mandram) and wanted to transfer to Comp Sci/Info Sys...at that time, it was a big deal. I was pretty focused on switching my branch to Comp Sci. Never did happen though.

Half the fun of the Bits experience was in the long train journeys. I think of those GT/TN train journeys sometimes when I am searching for short story ideas...I assumed some dude like SRK would hold my hand (just like in...you guessed it, DDLJ!) and pull me into the train. It did happen. Only the dude was a middle aged, pot-bellied sardarji (God bless him) who gave me a lecture on how educated youngsters these days don't have any common sense and that I should have gotten on to the train on time instead of running to get onto a moving train. In my defense, I did manage to step on to the train but one of my friends decided to use me as a lever to push herself on to the moving train :p

Sigh. Memories, memories. Like quicksand. You are in another life when you eventually pull out of it...

All in good fun.

Remaining stories through photos :)

Bhawan's nites (above) were fun. This is when guys get to invite girls as guests to their bhawan and vice versa. Usually a fun-filled night with cultural programs and great food!

I loved sam and chai at insti cafeteria. Especially after cutting classes. One of the bhaias captured in our group photo above.

Many a memorable moment spent at Meera bhawan mess (above).

Ahem...group studies at Ref Li (reference library on campus)!

Crazy times in Meera bhawan (above)!

Gosh! I can't remember where we took this photo...somewhere close to campus, we had taken our cycles for a day trip there...

Yeah, the DDLJ craze still held strong those days :p

Another Bhawan's night group photo...sarees for a change :)

Holi @ Meera Bhawan

Dancing with the stars...

Sky (where most of the ragging sessions happened) with my first gang...

And here's the song that started it all for me :)

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A journey with many stops...

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


GOLU @ my apartment.

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


Guess who managed to graduate!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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