I want to write today. I haven't really decided what to write about but since I wish to write today, write I will! And what have we here? A nice little title for this post, so let's proceed without further adieu or ado (be gone, you purists!).
I wonder if my life would be a tad better were I to behave with friends as I would with a baby. I don't mean, "Aren't you a darling now?" kind of baby-talk - I intend to dwell on a slightly more serious trail of thought :)
What if today, I wear my heart on my sleeve? What if I am an open book for all to read today? I smile when I want to, I frown when someone makes me frown and I say what I feel. Wouldn't that be an uncomplicated way of living our lives?
I don't think if what am going to say will hurt you, if I don't like something, I just say it! Out with it - end of story. After all, if we all just say what we think, we probably would end up hurting each other much less, don't you think? No disguises, no appearances tailored to fit a certain category of people...I am constant, no inner currents running through my head, I am not smiling because I have to and I am not covering up a flinch because I don't want to appear so sensitive; I am who I am.
Well, I am who I am and now I am hungry, so off to lunch where I begin to live as the new me (well, atleast for today!).
November 03, 2005
November 01, 2005
Deepavali...
"Om Shuklam Bharatharam Vishnum Shashivarnam Chaturbhujam..."The strains of Vishnu Sahasranamam begin the day for us. Deepavali begins at 4 am with my thatha waking up early morning, followed by mom and dad and the happy and busy bustle of the festival begins while my brother and I try to catch a few more precious winks before being woken up by my parents. After having gulped down our bed coffees without my thatha's knowledge, we sluggishly sleep walk outside in new clothes...
I wish I could wear a pattu pavadai today, I wish my mom would make me up early morning today, I wish I could hear the sounds of pattasu (crackers) outside so loud that I cannot hear what Vijay is saying on Sun TV...
The sight of crackers and sparklers wake us up and we rush outside, appa shouting behind us to wear slippers...L pounces on the sarams - the 100 walas, Lakshmi vedi and such while my mom and I am quite content with Kambi Mathapu (sparklers) and the milder variety, in general. The men of the family compete with one another in bursting crackers...is it really 5 in the morning?
I snooze the alarm for the third time as it frowns angrily and announces that the time is 7.50 AM. My dad's phone call reminds me that today is Deepavali. Our "Thalai Deepavali", and yet the day looks no different. I play Vishnu Sahasranamam in the hope that I can recreate a bit of the feeling that comes with being home on Deepavali. Other than that, the day is the same, the microwave beeps every now and then to remind us of our coffee getting cold...coffee...the mild aroma reminds me of our filter coffees at home...
And after the pattasu session begins a day of "Sun TV yil mudal muraiga..." (first time on Sun TV) trail of programmes. A sumptuous breakfast in front of the TV and the phone calls begin. Kausalya perimma, Arundathi, Amma's kovil friends, my friends...the list is endless and yet each phone call is yet another affirmation that love and celebration is in the air...
We drive to work and I can't stop thinking of home. My gmail shows me a bunch of ecards from friends and relatives and I see each one of them and reply to them. The day progresses slowly, the only signs of celebration are the few balloons left over from Halloween and I look at them and wonder when I can experience the luxury of being woken up early in the morning to celebrate with my family on Deepavali...
It's not just my family that I miss, it's the whole package - the spirit of cheer, happiness and giving- my mom gives a new saree, gifts and boxes of new sweets to Malliga, the ladies selling flowers outside the temple; everyone is smiling and colorful; the roads bear remnants of crackers burst enthusiastically by youngsters as if it is joining in the celebrations; ghee melts in my mouths as yet another sweet is thrust into my mouth by my mom; my dad fusses over me to dry my hair because he thinks I will catch a cold; I fight with my brother over what TV channel to watch...and the sounds and sights fill me with a sense of peace that I am yet to find here, today...
October 30, 2005
The Art of Boxing!
There! This picture just to clarify what I mean by "boxing"!I normally stay away from girly posts, just because I am not really a girly girl and often cannot identify with, "I need a break, I just have to go shopppin' today and unwind!" And yes, that is pronounced "Shopppin".
Anyway, this post is not about shopppin', it's about my penchant for boxes. I am hoping I shall find a kindred soul somewhere out there who will identify with the need to organize things into little or not so little boxes. So, this is how the story begins. I discovered that our local dollar store sells these really cute christmassy boxes and they come in different sizes too!
Again, let me reiterate at this point that I do love reading about Becky in Sophie Kinsella's shopaholic series but I am not and can never be one myself. Mostly, I think shopping is a chore like doing one's laundry (I really hate doing laundry). There's only so many cute dresses that I can look at and coo, with my hands on my cheeks, "That's so cute!".
But you will find me in a store rummaging through different sized boxes, finding the perfect one to store my bangles, my bindis and such trinkets. You will not find me cooing ofcourse, but you might detect a certain glint of indulgent pleasure lighting my face. Anyway, I did pick up a few more boxes this weekened and thought I should post some pics for those who are yet to appreciate the importance of "organizing with boxes!".
October 27, 2005
Of Distractions and Duties.
During one of my long chats with mom on the phone, I lamented about my need for more gray matter. I told her I felt dumb especially after sitting in a meeting where everyone had some interesting new idea to offer while I nodded my head in a knowing way and pretended that I was a 122 times smarter than I felt. My mom replied in that wise tone that moms tend to assume when they advise their dumb daughters,
"I think you are too distracted. You just got married. Not everyone in the meeting just got married".
While I pondered on the delightful possibility of a touch of logic in that declaration, my mom continued,
"You had LTCA, Tamil classes, your reception-party, blogging(!)...you just have too many irons in the fire. Maybe you need to concentrate on work now and not get distracted like this."
So, I sort of convinced myself that I was not actually born dumb, I also tried to sort out a few other questions in my head. So, let's first distinguish between what we are supposed to do, our duties and our distractions - I would assume, in Bits, my classes were what I, as a responsible student, should have attended and OASIS (our culfest) was what one could term a distraction. In Lex, LTCA was probably a distraction and my work was what I was meant to concentrate on. You get the picture? Now, if I rewind a bit and think of everything that has meant a lot to me, it all had to do with the distractions and not the main course (Its easier to categorize chapters of my life this way as main course and dessert - yes, very insightful of me, thank you).
I mean, the really enjoyable and sometimes really meaningful moments of life - what we call "defining" moments - were these so-called distractions. I remember the night outs during OASIS, not my classes. Maybe we live life, as k put it, for these brief breaks of adventures, the rest of life is just something that takes us to yet another "distraction" and each distraction enriches our lives more, makes it more memorable for us. But then, we need to give our daily routine its due credit. It's because these daily chores are such a bore, that we enjoy our adventures, our distractions so much so that we look forward to the next one. And this thought helps us live through our humdrum days, a spark that brightens our dull nights and makes us yearn for more.
So, here's my big thank you to all the distractions in my life. May I never have so few distractions that I actually concentrate all my energy into the daily routine of things!
"I think you are too distracted. You just got married. Not everyone in the meeting just got married".
While I pondered on the delightful possibility of a touch of logic in that declaration, my mom continued,
"You had LTCA, Tamil classes, your reception-party, blogging(!)...you just have too many irons in the fire. Maybe you need to concentrate on work now and not get distracted like this."
So, I sort of convinced myself that I was not actually born dumb, I also tried to sort out a few other questions in my head. So, let's first distinguish between what we are supposed to do, our duties and our distractions - I would assume, in Bits, my classes were what I, as a responsible student, should have attended and OASIS (our culfest) was what one could term a distraction. In Lex, LTCA was probably a distraction and my work was what I was meant to concentrate on. You get the picture? Now, if I rewind a bit and think of everything that has meant a lot to me, it all had to do with the distractions and not the main course (Its easier to categorize chapters of my life this way as main course and dessert - yes, very insightful of me, thank you).
I mean, the really enjoyable and sometimes really meaningful moments of life - what we call "defining" moments - were these so-called distractions. I remember the night outs during OASIS, not my classes. Maybe we live life, as k put it, for these brief breaks of adventures, the rest of life is just something that takes us to yet another "distraction" and each distraction enriches our lives more, makes it more memorable for us. But then, we need to give our daily routine its due credit. It's because these daily chores are such a bore, that we enjoy our adventures, our distractions so much so that we look forward to the next one. And this thought helps us live through our humdrum days, a spark that brightens our dull nights and makes us yearn for more.
So, here's my big thank you to all the distractions in my life. May I never have so few distractions that I actually concentrate all my energy into the daily routine of things!
October 24, 2005
More Monday Madness.
Monday came. Monday left. I have no idea what transpired in-between. The weekend continued to live today, inside my head. I continued to live in the past. And poor Monday drifted away unnoticed. You see, our sleepy little town has little to offer by way of entertainment on weekends. So, comparatively, last weekend absolutely rocked! We had the best get-together cum reception party! The kind that you think of, in bits and pieces on weekdays like today, and laugh to yourself while your office colleague tries to watch you unobtrusively with a kind of mild curiosity because you see he is also in a daze; it's Monday for him also!
Anyway, here are a bunch of random thoughts (just tell me, when are they not? I hate predictable adjectives!):
* The fun part of getting to know people better is the strange chemistry that it leads to sometimes. It's quite simple, really. Normally, we interact with people we move along with all the time in familiar patterns. We know person x behaves so and we behave accordingly. When we interact with people whom we don't meet on a regular basis, we (or I) don't have a planned reaction-response pattern leading to quite a few unpredictable interactions. I mean, it's not like I plan a response for other people, it just comes automatically. Anyway, this uncertainty makes the interaction pretty interesting, if you look at it objectively.
* People like to categorize other people, slot them into nice little boxes - "she is quite a serious girl", "he is very shy" and so on. Irrespective of whatever labelled box people put us (me?) in, I get tired of it after a while - bored of being a stereotype holding the torch for that category. At different times in my life, I have been categorized variously as being silly most of the times, serious always, and a recent addition to the list being that I get tensed at the drop of a coin (Come on, I am allowed a cliche' once in a while!) No matter what it is, I get bored of it pretty quickly and then try to jump categories without making it look artificial. I mean even a funny guy will someday tire of hearing his friend say, "Gosh, you crack me up, man!". Anyway, to my credit, at-least I have experimented with more than one labelled box and maybe will get to test few more stereotypes soon.
* People are fun.
* It's the cleaning afterwards that's not.
* I like people who are comfortable with other people having fun their own way. I mean, one person's fun might be another person's "Oh, that." but it's just nice if we can get together and be comfortable with each other's individual ways of having fun - something like I like to clean the kitchen and you like to clean the hall, let me not try to make you clean the kitchen - now, that's what I call a disgrace of an example (I really need to clean the kitchen and the hall now). What am I saying here? Will someone kindly explain? :)
* Sometimes, during a normal conversation with someone, let's drag k here (just because it's fun to pull his leg :)), I tend to make a statement, call it an observation, if you will, that is 95.8% true. So, k responds with "Oh, is this what you mean?" and proceeds to answer with whatever response he can muster while watching a given sports channel on TV. Now, after listening to his response, I realize that what he understood is not what I exactly wanted to convey (the remaining 4.2% of it, that is) but now, I am too bored to correct him and our conversational veracity stands at 95.8% now. Is that acceptable? (Do any of you remaining readers out there have any idea what am talking about? :)
I apologize profusely for this nonsense and wish you wouldn't look at me (or my blog - must we dwell on trivialities now?) in that really weird way.
Anyway, here are a bunch of random thoughts (just tell me, when are they not? I hate predictable adjectives!):
* The fun part of getting to know people better is the strange chemistry that it leads to sometimes. It's quite simple, really. Normally, we interact with people we move along with all the time in familiar patterns. We know person x behaves so and we behave accordingly. When we interact with people whom we don't meet on a regular basis, we (or I) don't have a planned reaction-response pattern leading to quite a few unpredictable interactions. I mean, it's not like I plan a response for other people, it just comes automatically. Anyway, this uncertainty makes the interaction pretty interesting, if you look at it objectively.
* People like to categorize other people, slot them into nice little boxes - "she is quite a serious girl", "he is very shy" and so on. Irrespective of whatever labelled box people put us (me?) in, I get tired of it after a while - bored of being a stereotype holding the torch for that category. At different times in my life, I have been categorized variously as being silly most of the times, serious always, and a recent addition to the list being that I get tensed at the drop of a coin (Come on, I am allowed a cliche' once in a while!) No matter what it is, I get bored of it pretty quickly and then try to jump categories without making it look artificial. I mean even a funny guy will someday tire of hearing his friend say, "Gosh, you crack me up, man!". Anyway, to my credit, at-least I have experimented with more than one labelled box and maybe will get to test few more stereotypes soon.
* People are fun.
* It's the cleaning afterwards that's not.
* I like people who are comfortable with other people having fun their own way. I mean, one person's fun might be another person's "Oh, that." but it's just nice if we can get together and be comfortable with each other's individual ways of having fun - something like I like to clean the kitchen and you like to clean the hall, let me not try to make you clean the kitchen - now, that's what I call a disgrace of an example (I really need to clean the kitchen and the hall now). What am I saying here? Will someone kindly explain? :)
* Sometimes, during a normal conversation with someone, let's drag k here (just because it's fun to pull his leg :)), I tend to make a statement, call it an observation, if you will, that is 95.8% true. So, k responds with "Oh, is this what you mean?" and proceeds to answer with whatever response he can muster while watching a given sports channel on TV. Now, after listening to his response, I realize that what he understood is not what I exactly wanted to convey (the remaining 4.2% of it, that is) but now, I am too bored to correct him and our conversational veracity stands at 95.8% now. Is that acceptable? (Do any of you remaining readers out there have any idea what am talking about? :)
I apologize profusely for this nonsense and wish you wouldn't look at me (or my blog - must we dwell on trivialities now?) in that really weird way.
October 20, 2005
Story tag time, folks!
Another story tag, thanks to Anupama, this one's quite interesting 'coz its a story building exercise! Read below, enjoy and discover if you have been tagged!
He thought it would be an ordinary journey. Standing behind the pillar he watched the train snort arrogantly into the station. With each snort he was reminded of his grandfather's words "You will fail in the city and return penniless"; with every heavenward whistle, he heard his cousin, "Don't worry. Come here and I will get you a job at the construction site." Now he had a 34-hour journey to prove one of them wrong, and he expected the excitement at the end of the journey. He looked at his ticket once again: compartment S9 berth 23.
Pushing his luggage under the seat, he sat close to the window. "Papa, when will you be back?" - his four year old daughter Munni asked innocently. He stared into those soft brown eyes of the motherless kid. He held her frail palms in his, through the window. "Munni, Papa will get you a nice gudiya from the city..Say tata," his sister spoke to the kid, to avoid an emotional outburst. In a minute, the train pulled forward, and Munni's little fingers parted from between his. "I need to go..", he thought, "I have to, at least for Munni's sake.."
And here goes my trail...
The humid summer breeze and the rattling train coaxed him into an uncomfortable state of drowsy consciousness. He dreamt that Munni ran away, the closer he ran to her, the farther she was, like a mirage. He woke up with a start and squinted at his watch.
"What is the time please?"
A smallish woman, a meek voice as if she was scared that her existence would annoy someone. Her only noticeable feature was her rather large, expressive eyes.
"4.30"
Something made him look at the woman again. He had stopped noticing women long back. Ever since Meenakshi passed away...
and now I tag,
Thennavan
Senthil
Parth to continue this story tree :) Read below the dotted line for rules!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Everything below the dashed line above should be copied and pasted with every accepted tag)
This is a Story Tree and is best nurtured as follows:
1. A blogger can add only 90-100 words (not more or less) at a time
2. All previous snippets of 90-100 words need to be copied before the new set of 90-100 words are appended.
3. Each entire snippet should be linked to the respective author (and not just the first sentence or so)
4. Characters, scenes, etc. can be introduced by an author
5. Bizarre twists, sci-fi, fantasy sequences are best avoided.
6. A tag must be accepted within 7 days else the branch is a dead branch
7. After appending 90-100, the Story Tree can be passed on to at most 3 bloggers.
8. If more than 1 branch leads to a blogger, s/he is free to choose any one of them but cannot mix the snippets of the individual branches.
9. The Story Tree is best left to grow than concluded
10. Please attach the image of the Story Tree below with each accepted tag (the link address can be copied and used).
He thought it would be an ordinary journey. Standing behind the pillar he watched the train snort arrogantly into the station. With each snort he was reminded of his grandfather's words "You will fail in the city and return penniless"; with every heavenward whistle, he heard his cousin, "Don't worry. Come here and I will get you a job at the construction site." Now he had a 34-hour journey to prove one of them wrong, and he expected the excitement at the end of the journey. He looked at his ticket once again: compartment S9 berth 23.
Pushing his luggage under the seat, he sat close to the window. "Papa, when will you be back?" - his four year old daughter Munni asked innocently. He stared into those soft brown eyes of the motherless kid. He held her frail palms in his, through the window. "Munni, Papa will get you a nice gudiya from the city..Say tata," his sister spoke to the kid, to avoid an emotional outburst. In a minute, the train pulled forward, and Munni's little fingers parted from between his. "I need to go..", he thought, "I have to, at least for Munni's sake.."
And here goes my trail...
The humid summer breeze and the rattling train coaxed him into an uncomfortable state of drowsy consciousness. He dreamt that Munni ran away, the closer he ran to her, the farther she was, like a mirage. He woke up with a start and squinted at his watch.
"What is the time please?"
A smallish woman, a meek voice as if she was scared that her existence would annoy someone. Her only noticeable feature was her rather large, expressive eyes.
"4.30"
Something made him look at the woman again. He had stopped noticing women long back. Ever since Meenakshi passed away...
and now I tag,
Thennavan
Senthil
Parth to continue this story tree :) Read below the dotted line for rules!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Everything below the dashed line above should be copied and pasted with every accepted tag)
This is a Story Tree and is best nurtured as follows:
1. A blogger can add only 90-100 words (not more or less) at a time
2. All previous snippets of 90-100 words need to be copied before the new set of 90-100 words are appended.
3. Each entire snippet should be linked to the respective author (and not just the first sentence or so)
4. Characters, scenes, etc. can be introduced by an author
5. Bizarre twists, sci-fi, fantasy sequences are best avoided.
6. A tag must be accepted within 7 days else the branch is a dead branch
7. After appending 90-100, the Story Tree can be passed on to at most 3 bloggers.
8. If more than 1 branch leads to a blogger, s/he is free to choose any one of them but cannot mix the snippets of the individual branches.
9. The Story Tree is best left to grow than concluded
10. Please attach the image of the Story Tree below with each accepted tag (the link address can be copied and used).
October 18, 2005
October 16, 2005
The dance of fertility!
A blur of twirling colors, the sound of anklets dancing in tune to garbha raas, shimmering bangles, dangling earrings and colorful dupataas compete for attention. I feel energy all around me, even in the exhausted smile of the woman who has been dancing for the past twenty five minutes non-stop; she is dressed in a beautiful black and white traditional garbha costume, siver bangles adorn her hands upto her elbow, long matching earrings and a silver choker necklace dazzle in the bright light - she smiles as she dances, not missing a beat, her hands and legs moving in perfect coordination...I watch her, mesmerized...
The garbha-dandiya programme was a feast for the eyes, I danced more than I imagined I would and it was not really that hard to follow. k, needless to say, had a blast. B, P & S danced away to glory too :) I learnt some interesting facts about Garbha - thanks to info from Bus:
"The Garbha Dance dance in western India is performed around a pot containing a lamp. The word "Garbha" by which the pot as well as the dance is known is etymologically close to the word Garbha meaning womb. In this context the lamp in the pot, symbolically represent life within a womb. This custom is also indicative of fertility worship."
and wiki's page on garbha says:
"Garba" comes from sanskrit word "Garbha Deep". the closest meaning of "Garbha" in English language is "inside", as inside of an earthen pot which people still use to store drinking water. The word "Deep" is diya, with a burning cotton wick in oil in an earthen small vessel. Women would put this "Garbha deep" in the center, as a symbol of Shakti/Goddess. And in rhythm to the prayers/bhajanas they dance in concentric circles while clapping, around the "Garbha Deep" or "Garabo". Though dandiya raas is also somewhat associated with garba, it originates from a totally different root. Dandiya raas was traditionally performed by men only...
That's my update for tonite...hope y'all there survive the Monday morning.
The garbha-dandiya programme was a feast for the eyes, I danced more than I imagined I would and it was not really that hard to follow. k, needless to say, had a blast. B, P & S danced away to glory too :) I learnt some interesting facts about Garbha - thanks to info from Bus:
"The Garbha Dance dance in western India is performed around a pot containing a lamp. The word "Garbha" by which the pot as well as the dance is known is etymologically close to the word Garbha meaning womb. In this context the lamp in the pot, symbolically represent life within a womb. This custom is also indicative of fertility worship."
and wiki's page on garbha says:
"Garba" comes from sanskrit word "Garbha Deep". the closest meaning of "Garbha" in English language is "inside", as inside of an earthen pot which people still use to store drinking water. The word "Deep" is diya, with a burning cotton wick in oil in an earthen small vessel. Women would put this "Garbha deep" in the center, as a symbol of Shakti/Goddess. And in rhythm to the prayers/bhajanas they dance in concentric circles while clapping, around the "Garbha Deep" or "Garabo". Though dandiya raas is also somewhat associated with garba, it originates from a totally different root. Dandiya raas was traditionally performed by men only...
That's my update for tonite...hope y'all there survive the Monday morning.
October 15, 2005
October 14, 2005
The Anatomy of a Fight
It's thirty minutes past my lunch time and a hungry stomach inspires weird thoughts - has to be something to do with the stomach-brain connection (don't tell me you haven't heard about this!). Anyway, I decided to ponder on the "Anatomy of a Fight" while my stomach growled in tune to my thoughts. The fight we shall discuss now is your typical girl-boy, hum-tum kind of fight.
So, one pensive night, P and I were discussing the birth, life, death and after-life of a simple honest-to-goodness fight between the Mr. and the Mrs. The simple logic behind why women fight is as simple as this - A woman will let off steam for issue x when issues that cropped up the previous week - y and z - have not yet been resolved. I mean you don't need a Masters degree in anything (except maybe Psychology) to understand that, do you? For the still-slow-on-the-uptake-men, let me explain with an example. The husband (boy friend, honey, cheechu or whatever appellation that you choose to bestow on your dear one - by the way, if cheechu is what you call him (or her?), you really should try reading the "Fat book of cute names") did not load the dishwasher on Monday. On Tuesday, the whole kitchen stinks with a pile of dirty dishes. You see, a woman is a very patient creation, kind of like a slow volcano. She will tolerate and be patient and go about her tasks as if everything were normal but you better handle her when she is dormant or well, good luck buddy. Anyway, On Wednesday, the pile remains and the woman cooks dinner, wipes the stove clean and tries to act as if everything is normal because she, being smart, knows that nagging is not cool at all. At this instant, enter the man, whistling a not-so-pleasant tune and he switches on the TV - let's say a nice sports channel is on and he settles himself on the couch - with a packet of chips and the laptop for company.
Several chemical, personal and emotional reactions occur at this very instant and the woman decides to break her little-noticed vow of silence. How dare he not set the table and set himself down in front of the TV? Has he no responsibilities? yada yada; you get the point?
Now, you, my astute reader, know as well as me that the real reason for her outburst is the pile of dirty issues, our old friend, issue x and not the TV, issue y.
Now, is this so hard to understand? As simple as y and z, leading to outcome of experiment with x being the catalyst. S'all a matter of simple chemistry :)
So, one pensive night, P and I were discussing the birth, life, death and after-life of a simple honest-to-goodness fight between the Mr. and the Mrs. The simple logic behind why women fight is as simple as this - A woman will let off steam for issue x when issues that cropped up the previous week - y and z - have not yet been resolved. I mean you don't need a Masters degree in anything (except maybe Psychology) to understand that, do you? For the still-slow-on-the-uptake-men, let me explain with an example. The husband (boy friend, honey, cheechu or whatever appellation that you choose to bestow on your dear one - by the way, if cheechu is what you call him (or her?), you really should try reading the "Fat book of cute names") did not load the dishwasher on Monday. On Tuesday, the whole kitchen stinks with a pile of dirty dishes. You see, a woman is a very patient creation, kind of like a slow volcano. She will tolerate and be patient and go about her tasks as if everything were normal but you better handle her when she is dormant or well, good luck buddy. Anyway, On Wednesday, the pile remains and the woman cooks dinner, wipes the stove clean and tries to act as if everything is normal because she, being smart, knows that nagging is not cool at all. At this instant, enter the man, whistling a not-so-pleasant tune and he switches on the TV - let's say a nice sports channel is on and he settles himself on the couch - with a packet of chips and the laptop for company.
Several chemical, personal and emotional reactions occur at this very instant and the woman decides to break her little-noticed vow of silence. How dare he not set the table and set himself down in front of the TV? Has he no responsibilities? yada yada; you get the point?
Now, you, my astute reader, know as well as me that the real reason for her outburst is the pile of dirty issues, our old friend, issue x and not the TV, issue y.
Now, is this so hard to understand? As simple as y and z, leading to outcome of experiment with x being the catalyst. S'all a matter of simple chemistry :)
October 11, 2005
Breezily yours!
Really, how do they do it?! Here I am washing my already cold hands, just waiting to rush out of the even colder restroom, when two of my colleagues walk in, laughing and talking. Well, to be accurate, one woman is a colleague and the other my boss's boss's boss. She (the big boss) makes eye contact with me as she waltzes in and I study my freezing fingers shyly, incapable of making even the most mind-numbing stupid conversation about the weather! The laughing and the talking stops for a few seconds when I stand still, having emitted nothing more than a mumbling sound - a feeble "hi" that came out more like a belated burp.
Not wanting to let go of the flow of her conversation, my breezy colleague, who, I must say looked quite breezy walking in casually (as if she were chatting with her teenage cousin), briskly picks up on the thread of the previous conversation about the weather, softball, recent releases - topics that I could have spoken coherently for at-least 15 minutes. And here I was rushing out while hoping I never ever run into my boss's boss's boss while in the restroom. The point to be noted here is that my colleague barely knew our big boss and still managed, for lack of a better adjective, a breezy conversation. Starting today, am going to learn to be breezy, cool and casual in all my conversational encounters with all women I barely know, professionally speaking ofcourse. Also men I barely know. Period.
Not wanting to let go of the flow of her conversation, my breezy colleague, who, I must say looked quite breezy walking in casually (as if she were chatting with her teenage cousin), briskly picks up on the thread of the previous conversation about the weather, softball, recent releases - topics that I could have spoken coherently for at-least 15 minutes. And here I was rushing out while hoping I never ever run into my boss's boss's boss while in the restroom. The point to be noted here is that my colleague barely knew our big boss and still managed, for lack of a better adjective, a breezy conversation. Starting today, am going to learn to be breezy, cool and casual in all my conversational encounters with all women I barely know, professionally speaking ofcourse. Also men I barely know. Period.
October 10, 2005
Purposeful thoughts from a clearheaded lady.
I know that's a really silly topic for this post, for any post for that matter but am tired of seeing confused thoughts and random feelings on blogs (such as mine) and I don't really like to refer to myself as a woman (or a maami or an aunty!), so lady I am! Men (Guys? Boys? somehow they all sound cool compared to women or girls) may scoff at posts such as these - little do they know the issues that haunt women-folk like us (lady-folk just sounds moronic)!
I think somewhere along the line, women have made a mistake about entering the workplace! No, I am certainly not for sitting at home and donning a glorified title of home-maker - I mean with dishwashers, vacuum cleaners and a hundred other facilities at home, maintaining a home is just not what it used to be. What am trying to say is while I sometimes find the need to establish clearly that a woman is an equal in a relationship, I wonder if we would have been better off just doing what we used to do centuries ago. Now that we have entered the workplace, we have a slew of new issues to tackle - the glass ceiling effect, child care, working-couple-family-management, balancing work and home - is it all worth it?
I do want to do something meaningful in life, something I can look back on after a 30 years and feel that I have achieved something but is a busy 9 - 5 career the only way to do it? I am not a big fan of part-time working either - all said and done, we miss out on important meetings, peer-programming experience and the nice juicy promotions and salary hikes - a part time working mom just does not get the importance that a full time salaried employee gets and with reason. So, that leaves us with another alternative - work from home, start a business, write a book, just do it from home, where you can still be doing what really matters - spending "quality time" (isn't this word over-rated?) with your children!
Monday mornings have a strange effect on me, so also Friday afternoons - maybe it's just me! Right now - I just have to get back to coding my client interface!
I think somewhere along the line, women have made a mistake about entering the workplace! No, I am certainly not for sitting at home and donning a glorified title of home-maker - I mean with dishwashers, vacuum cleaners and a hundred other facilities at home, maintaining a home is just not what it used to be. What am trying to say is while I sometimes find the need to establish clearly that a woman is an equal in a relationship, I wonder if we would have been better off just doing what we used to do centuries ago. Now that we have entered the workplace, we have a slew of new issues to tackle - the glass ceiling effect, child care, working-couple-family-management, balancing work and home - is it all worth it?
I do want to do something meaningful in life, something I can look back on after a 30 years and feel that I have achieved something but is a busy 9 - 5 career the only way to do it? I am not a big fan of part-time working either - all said and done, we miss out on important meetings, peer-programming experience and the nice juicy promotions and salary hikes - a part time working mom just does not get the importance that a full time salaried employee gets and with reason. So, that leaves us with another alternative - work from home, start a business, write a book, just do it from home, where you can still be doing what really matters - spending "quality time" (isn't this word over-rated?) with your children!
Monday mornings have a strange effect on me, so also Friday afternoons - maybe it's just me! Right now - I just have to get back to coding my client interface!
October 07, 2005
The bliss of familiarity, spirituality and such light Friday topics!
Getting married gives you a lot of food for thought. Right from the people you meet on your flight to India to little things that your in-laws or relatives slip out, carried away by the excitement of fleeting moments - they all become tiny bits of memories that I call upon during moments of pensive recollections.
Coming to one such instance that keeps popping up in the most irrelevant of circumstances, during our reception in Bombay, my in-laws were positively glowing. One reason for their pride was that three out of five people who came to greet us said that I looked like a Gujarathi bahu; to quote them - "She does not look like a South Indian at all!", "You brought home a Gujarathi bahu!". Firstly, why is this of any significance? And secondly, whatever its significance, it was making my in-laws really happy.
So, I wondered, why is it that we burden familiarity with so much more importance than it deserves credit for? We manage to wrap relief, comfort, even happiness all in that little bundle and when it unravels and it's blissful cloak falls apart, perhaps we discover that it's just what it is - plain old familiarity! I confess, I am guilty of leaning towards familiary, resisting small changes that probably meant no harm just because...well, this is what I know, have grown up with and this is what am comfortable with!
Anyway, somehow this trail of thought seemed to be connected in some way to the topic of spirituality - what we believe is God and spirituality, and I realized, I am inflexible when it comes to changing my established and definitely incomplete, inadequate(?) faith/belief system! I may not know to name the ten avatarams in the dasavatharam kept in my Golu, I may not know to recite the Vishnu Sahasranamam without consulting a book but what I know and believe in is still important to me and somehow I am uncomfortable with anything else and here's a very well written and thought provoking article on a similar vein that brought about this introspective revelation on a Friday!
Coming to one such instance that keeps popping up in the most irrelevant of circumstances, during our reception in Bombay, my in-laws were positively glowing. One reason for their pride was that three out of five people who came to greet us said that I looked like a Gujarathi bahu; to quote them - "She does not look like a South Indian at all!", "You brought home a Gujarathi bahu!". Firstly, why is this of any significance? And secondly, whatever its significance, it was making my in-laws really happy.
So, I wondered, why is it that we burden familiarity with so much more importance than it deserves credit for? We manage to wrap relief, comfort, even happiness all in that little bundle and when it unravels and it's blissful cloak falls apart, perhaps we discover that it's just what it is - plain old familiarity! I confess, I am guilty of leaning towards familiary, resisting small changes that probably meant no harm just because...well, this is what I know, have grown up with and this is what am comfortable with!
Anyway, somehow this trail of thought seemed to be connected in some way to the topic of spirituality - what we believe is God and spirituality, and I realized, I am inflexible when it comes to changing my established and definitely incomplete, inadequate(?) faith/belief system! I may not know to name the ten avatarams in the dasavatharam kept in my Golu, I may not know to recite the Vishnu Sahasranamam without consulting a book but what I know and believe in is still important to me and somehow I am uncomfortable with anything else and here's a very well written and thought provoking article on a similar vein that brought about this introspective revelation on a Friday!
October 05, 2005
On Traditions.
It's that time of the year again - golu padis have been dusted and brought out, golu bommais carefully unwrapped from yellowing and crumpled newspaper bits and gingerly brought down to the main hall where amidst sneezes, fights and discussions on what is the best way to arrange the cricket field wicket keeper or whether the chettichi should be to the right or left of the chettiar, the golu gets ready for public viewing. Things were pretty much the same in our case, except that we gingerly unwrapped Abroad-Packers' (Mylapore) carefully wrapped golu bommais from my suitcase and we couldn't manage a cricket team this time...maybe next year :) B & P, k and I ambitiously set about to arrange our golu padi last night and while k jumped about impatiently attempting to arrange as many big dolls as possible in the least amount of time, P and I decided to be smart about the process and we debated, carefully analyzed and reasoned out a place for each doll, deciding to go with symmetry and aesthetic pleasure rather than time-efficiency...ahem!
Nothing like waking up in the morning and sleepily greeting our cute golu bommais with a satisfied sigh at a job well done!
And here's a small collage of our wedding photos - thanks to my cousin Arundathi, who had 'em delivered to us in a CD the same day :)
October 02, 2005
Short Story and Set of Seven Tags answered - Whew!
Feeble attempt at answering RTD2's and Senthil's tag - my short story in 55 words - The Wish!
And before the story, here's the list of people I tag (whom I fear will not read this post till the end - I don't blame 'em :))
I tag:
A-noname-moose,
Anupama,
Kumari,
Lakshman (L) for the less-than-55-word short story...
Kamal
Pradnya
Bus
Phil
Sujan
for the seven's list (sorry, you have to read below for details)! Good luck answering 'em folks - too bad, you guys can't blame anything on jetlag :)
* * * And here's my 55 word short story.* * *
Another such feeble attempt - my response to Agnibarathi's tag!
Seven things you plan to do before you die:
1. Visit Srirangam - for Sri Ranganathar and Andal
2. Visit Guruvayurapan Kovil, Kanyakumari, Singapore
3. Improve my Tamil writing and reading skills!
4. Learn to play the keyboard
5. Write a book (that people will read :))
6. Learn atleast one style of dance (quite an aragorai now - bharatanatyam, swing and samba!)
7. Learn to swim (another aragorai area - can float and if lucky can manage a few butterfly strokes)
Seven things you can do (or am doing or have done!):
1. Cook edible food
2. Being independent (more work needed but getting there)
3. Yoga (just wait another week!)
4. Read regularly
5. Go to India atleast once a year (or for good :))
6. Keep myself mentally active, involved in something meaningful, useful, charitable...
7. Visited Kerala!
Seven things you say most:
1. Naan enna solla vandenna... (What I was going to say is...)
2. Chumma (Jus' like that)
3. What's up?
4. That's why I said... (mainly to k :))
5. Nariya vela iruku (have lotsa work to do)
6. Krishna...
7. Do you understand what am saying?
Seven things you can't do:
1. Bungee jumping
2. Sky diving
3. Staying silent (for a long time - Really! I like to talk :))
4. Saying no without making it awkward or uncomfortable
5. Bear a grudge silently (I usually confront the person)
6. Cook phulka rotis :))
7. Be the perfect homely wife!
Seven things that attract you to the opposite sex:
1. Humor, ability to enjoy small things and laugh easily...(manam vittu sirikardu)
2. Talent
3. Raw Energy
4. *Good looks and a healthy build (I mean let's be reasonable here!)
5. Flexibility - No must-haves, cannot-dos...
6. Eyes (difficult to describe - need a post for this!)
7. Good English!
Seven celebrity crushes:
1. SRK, SRK, SRK!
2. Jonty Rhodes
3. Vijay
4. Brad Pitt
5. Surya (in Gajini!)
6. Aftab Shivdasani (in the cadburys ad!)
7. Karthik (in Mouna Ragam), Arvind Swamy in Dalapati
And if any of these seem vague or silly to you, I blame it squarely on jet lag!
And before the story, here's the list of people I tag (whom I fear will not read this post till the end - I don't blame 'em :))
I tag:
A-noname-moose,
Anupama,
Kumari,
Lakshman (L) for the less-than-55-word short story...
Kamal
Pradnya
Bus
Phil
Sujan
for the seven's list (sorry, you have to read below for details)! Good luck answering 'em folks - too bad, you guys can't blame anything on jetlag :)
Another such feeble attempt - my response to Agnibarathi's tag!
Seven things you plan to do before you die:
1. Visit Srirangam - for Sri Ranganathar and Andal
2. Visit Guruvayurapan Kovil, Kanyakumari, Singapore
3. Improve my Tamil writing and reading skills!
4. Learn to play the keyboard
5. Write a book (that people will read :))
6. Learn atleast one style of dance (quite an aragorai now - bharatanatyam, swing and samba!)
7. Learn to swim (another aragorai area - can float and if lucky can manage a few butterfly strokes)
Seven things you can do (or am doing or have done!):
1. Cook edible food
2. Being independent (more work needed but getting there)
3. Yoga (just wait another week!)
4. Read regularly
5. Go to India atleast once a year (or for good :))
6. Keep myself mentally active, involved in something meaningful, useful, charitable...
7. Visited Kerala!
Seven things you say most:
1. Naan enna solla vandenna... (What I was going to say is...)
2. Chumma (Jus' like that)
3. What's up?
4. That's why I said... (mainly to k :))
5. Nariya vela iruku (have lotsa work to do)
6. Krishna...
7. Do you understand what am saying?
Seven things you can't do:
1. Bungee jumping
2. Sky diving
3. Staying silent (for a long time - Really! I like to talk :))
4. Saying no without making it awkward or uncomfortable
5. Bear a grudge silently (I usually confront the person)
6. Cook phulka rotis :))
7. Be the perfect homely wife!
Seven things that attract you to the opposite sex:
1. Humor, ability to enjoy small things and laugh easily...(manam vittu sirikardu)
2. Talent
3. Raw Energy
4. *Good looks and a healthy build (I mean let's be reasonable here!)
5. Flexibility - No must-haves, cannot-dos...
6. Eyes (difficult to describe - need a post for this!)
7. Good English!
Seven celebrity crushes:
1. SRK, SRK, SRK!
2. Jonty Rhodes
3. Vijay
4. Brad Pitt
5. Surya (in Gajini!)
6. Aftab Shivdasani (in the cadburys ad!)
7. Karthik (in Mouna Ragam), Arvind Swamy in Dalapati
And if any of these seem vague or silly to you, I blame it squarely on jet lag!
September 30, 2005
Prologue to a bunch of wedding tales!
Ahh...simple pleasures of life, putting your pen to paper or fingers to your keyboard and writing a new post! It takes a trip to India to make you miss things you take for granted here. Few other...what I call..."small freedoms" like eating when you want to eat, dressing in crumpled pajamas during the day, ordering your fiance (now husband) to do some work around the house - all a big no-no in India, irrespective of whether you stay at your place or your in-law's place (I can't wait to post about this particular experience!).
Am kind of bursting to write about a whole new range of hitherto un-approached topics, maybe I should just sit down and write a novel that I will force my close friends and k to read once a month. Anyway, here goes some crazy list of thoughts, observations and anecdotes -
*** It's not fun to make phulka rotis in your in-law's place when your husband is guffawing away to glory at a hardly funny joke on the Great Indian Laughter Challenge on TV. It does not matter that I am just making the small round thingies while my mom-in-law is actually making the phulkas. Life's just unfair. For instance, why couldn't my dad ask k to make idlis when he was at Madras?
*** Relatives try to feed the bride and the groom approximately 3.5 times more than they can digest. Maybe they can't stand the fact that the bride and the groom are slim and fit and they want 'em to be really round and fat? Also, it doesn't matter even if it's basundhi - there's only so much of it that you can eat!
*** Speaking even smatterings of the spoken tongue in a land earns you brownie points that you cannot earn with a well-written five-page essay in English!
*** I had a most interesting conversation with an uncle for a couple of hours without realising that his son was considered a prospective match for me a few years back. His son is now married to a Romanian. He said, "Now, I know what I missed". That made me quite happy for some reason.
*** No matter how many times you have sworn to yourself that you will not let the makeup lady dab, douse and drown you in makeup like in your cousin Sheetal's marriage, she will manage to make you look like a white terror with red lipstick. The consolation is that k had so much makeup on, we made quite a ghostly pair in the reception!
*** It's cool to have a movie star like Crazy Mohan turn up at your wedding and having people whisper and point excitedly at him. I mean someone else just stole my thunder for a few moments, but still...it's just cool :)
*** One of my many realizations after this trip - I cannot live in Bombay (except if we can afford a flat at Nariman point and have a cook, chauffeur and a maid (you can stop laughing now. Thank you.)
*** Although every young couple fears that wily vaguely related uncle with a caustic tongue and a sarcastic tone to match, these are the people who add color to a wedding. They are the ones that create memorable impressions worth recounting! Oh boy, I can't wait to post about the villain of our wedding - our very own local Pran. Somehow, these characters gain more distinct expressions, gestures, mannerisms and the story gets more punch as we repeat it for yet another awed audience!
Many more posts to come and a few tags to be answered, until then, this is your finally no-longer-single lady signing off :)
Am kind of bursting to write about a whole new range of hitherto un-approached topics, maybe I should just sit down and write a novel that I will force my close friends and k to read once a month. Anyway, here goes some crazy list of thoughts, observations and anecdotes -
*** It's not fun to make phulka rotis in your in-law's place when your husband is guffawing away to glory at a hardly funny joke on the Great Indian Laughter Challenge on TV. It does not matter that I am just making the small round thingies while my mom-in-law is actually making the phulkas. Life's just unfair. For instance, why couldn't my dad ask k to make idlis when he was at Madras?
*** Relatives try to feed the bride and the groom approximately 3.5 times more than they can digest. Maybe they can't stand the fact that the bride and the groom are slim and fit and they want 'em to be really round and fat? Also, it doesn't matter even if it's basundhi - there's only so much of it that you can eat!
*** Speaking even smatterings of the spoken tongue in a land earns you brownie points that you cannot earn with a well-written five-page essay in English!
*** I had a most interesting conversation with an uncle for a couple of hours without realising that his son was considered a prospective match for me a few years back. His son is now married to a Romanian. He said, "Now, I know what I missed". That made me quite happy for some reason.
*** No matter how many times you have sworn to yourself that you will not let the makeup lady dab, douse and drown you in makeup like in your cousin Sheetal's marriage, she will manage to make you look like a white terror with red lipstick. The consolation is that k had so much makeup on, we made quite a ghostly pair in the reception!
*** It's cool to have a movie star like Crazy Mohan turn up at your wedding and having people whisper and point excitedly at him. I mean someone else just stole my thunder for a few moments, but still...it's just cool :)
*** One of my many realizations after this trip - I cannot live in Bombay (except if we can afford a flat at Nariman point and have a cook, chauffeur and a maid (you can stop laughing now. Thank you.)
*** Although every young couple fears that wily vaguely related uncle with a caustic tongue and a sarcastic tone to match, these are the people who add color to a wedding. They are the ones that create memorable impressions worth recounting! Oh boy, I can't wait to post about the villain of our wedding - our very own local Pran. Somehow, these characters gain more distinct expressions, gestures, mannerisms and the story gets more punch as we repeat it for yet another awed audience!
Many more posts to come and a few tags to be answered, until then, this is your finally no-longer-single lady signing off :)
September 02, 2005
World, Women, PMJs and related issues of vital nonsense.
So, I've been doing a lot of deep thinking lately, actually, not really. I have been doing very little thinking of significance lately and those few thoughts have contributed to this eclectic post.
Firstly, what is the world coming to really (I mean for the female kind just in case you have lost context)? Yesterday P~ and I had a nice dinner at S~ and K~'s place and we were on our way up to see their new stereo system when I turned back towards the dining table on a sudden impulse. I noticed two dishes with tasty curd rice and grapes in one and paav bhaji in another and they were left open (uncovered) and I asked, "Shouldn't we first cover these dishes and put it in?"
That, in itself is bad. I don't want to become one of those dainty, preppy ladies with color coordinated dresses to match their home decor! You know the kind that say, "Ahem, Can you please leave your slippers out before you step in?"
(- Sure, they have mud cakes and assorted gooey mess sticking to the bottom, So, I will do just that. Also, should I also have a quick shower and then step into your heavenly abode?)
I don't mind being dainty but the rest is just not me :) Anyway, as soon as the words left my mouth, P~ moved involuntarily towards the dishes to cover them up. That's twice as bad. What has happened to the women of today? Modern, career women like P~ and I should not be moving involuntarily towards the kitchen at a guest's house to cover dishes, clean them, dry them with small, white hand towels with teddy bears on them :( To our credit, we both did drop a bit of icecream on to the carpet there (by mistake!) and did not really care much about it.
Another quirky incident was at a Thai place that we had gone to for lunch. The lady there knows us well (this is not to say that I do not cook at home - I do and I maintain that even if you do point out that she knows my first name (almost), city of birth, my fiance, the Company I work for...and such trivia about me). Anyway, a friend blurted out to her that I was going to India and all that and she immediately pointed to my pregnant colleague standing with me and then at me and said, "Ohhh, lamya (she has a problem with the r), next your turn, next year you come with baby girl to eat here, no?"
Now, that's a nice embarassing little conversation there. I grinned widely and pretended to have a mouth full of fortune cookie bits and then attempted a quick feminine giggle (that was a disaster but that's a whole new story there). So, anyway, since the lady at the Thai place has already started thinking of a baby girl in my family, I thought I should too.
So, I pinged k (on chat) and here's a quick transcript:
me: So, have you thought of a name yet?
k: uh huh (means he doesn't really care, normally).
me: I don't like the name Kamal much
k: yeah, me too (I doubted that was a sincere answer but he probably did not want to make me jittery before marriage and that folks is PMJ (pre-marital jitters.)
me: L~ says Kamalan sounds better, rounder (is that a word?)...
k: uh huh.
me: That'll be a nice knock knock joke!
-Knock, Knock
-Who's there?
-Kamalan
-Kamal and who?
k: Bye (Quite frigidly, now that I think about it!)
Sagnik's headlines seems to be having a really adverse effect on my joke telling ability - many apologies, Sagnik! Anyway, around now, am supposed to be affected by the PMJ syndrome, so, kindly excuse me while I jitter about a bit for a day before I fly home :)
Firstly, what is the world coming to really (I mean for the female kind just in case you have lost context)? Yesterday P~ and I had a nice dinner at S~ and K~'s place and we were on our way up to see their new stereo system when I turned back towards the dining table on a sudden impulse. I noticed two dishes with tasty curd rice and grapes in one and paav bhaji in another and they were left open (uncovered) and I asked, "Shouldn't we first cover these dishes and put it in?"
That, in itself is bad. I don't want to become one of those dainty, preppy ladies with color coordinated dresses to match their home decor! You know the kind that say, "Ahem, Can you please leave your slippers out before you step in?"
(- Sure, they have mud cakes and assorted gooey mess sticking to the bottom, So, I will do just that. Also, should I also have a quick shower and then step into your heavenly abode?)
I don't mind being dainty but the rest is just not me :) Anyway, as soon as the words left my mouth, P~ moved involuntarily towards the dishes to cover them up. That's twice as bad. What has happened to the women of today? Modern, career women like P~ and I should not be moving involuntarily towards the kitchen at a guest's house to cover dishes, clean them, dry them with small, white hand towels with teddy bears on them :( To our credit, we both did drop a bit of icecream on to the carpet there (by mistake!) and did not really care much about it.
Another quirky incident was at a Thai place that we had gone to for lunch. The lady there knows us well (this is not to say that I do not cook at home - I do and I maintain that even if you do point out that she knows my first name (almost), city of birth, my fiance, the Company I work for...and such trivia about me). Anyway, a friend blurted out to her that I was going to India and all that and she immediately pointed to my pregnant colleague standing with me and then at me and said, "Ohhh, lamya (she has a problem with the r), next your turn, next year you come with baby girl to eat here, no?"
Now, that's a nice embarassing little conversation there. I grinned widely and pretended to have a mouth full of fortune cookie bits and then attempted a quick feminine giggle (that was a disaster but that's a whole new story there). So, anyway, since the lady at the Thai place has already started thinking of a baby girl in my family, I thought I should too.
So, I pinged k (on chat) and here's a quick transcript:
me: So, have you thought of a name yet?
k: uh huh (means he doesn't really care, normally).
me: I don't like the name Kamal much
k: yeah, me too (I doubted that was a sincere answer but he probably did not want to make me jittery before marriage and that folks is PMJ (pre-marital jitters.)
me: L~ says Kamalan sounds better, rounder (is that a word?)...
k: uh huh.
me: That'll be a nice knock knock joke!
-Knock, Knock
-Who's there?
-Kamalan
-Kamal and who?
k: Bye (Quite frigidly, now that I think about it!)
Sagnik's headlines seems to be having a really adverse effect on my joke telling ability - many apologies, Sagnik! Anyway, around now, am supposed to be affected by the PMJ syndrome, so, kindly excuse me while I jitter about a bit for a day before I fly home :)
August 31, 2005
From behind the curtains...
All set for the journey (by flight and other emotional ones), you would think.
You would also be totally wrong.
Nothing and I mean nothing (why do people do that? I mean repeat the very same word twice with just an and in between - I just did that for emphasis and it's quite silly, really!) prepares you for the tension, clashes, the occassional episodes providing comic relief (in the form of a vaidehi maami or Rajesh maama), constant ISD calls demanding immediate responses to questions that you have no clue what the answer is - How many men and women compose the guest party that is arriving from Bombay? - I have no clue, sorry, neither does k (and they are his relatives!). My dad being the patient, slow moving, mellow person that he is will obviously wait for 24 hours for an answer. Ha! Right, he would! About as much probability of that as me waking up at 7 every morning!
Also, those-about-to-take-the-leap, beware! The number of silver articles and must-buy not-at-all-useful items will be exceeded only by the number of sarees and veshtis that have to be bought!
Even deciding on the songs that the light music people will play on the day of the reception has become more of a chore and less of a fun-task with demands pouring in for old and new Hindi and Tamil songs from my bro (L), k, his sister and my mom! Try cutting down a list of 100 songs down to 30 at the sametime satisfying everyone!
And then there is the unlimited, unspecified set of rules that will be quoted about who has to buy what and when. The groom's side has to buy this and that only but not anything else and the bride's side has to buy n number of sarees and n+1/x number of other random articles and so on and so forth. One of my relatives refused a saree because it had a blackish tinge to it and black is a no-no color for marriage!
...and in-spite of all this, I can't deny that there are many moments of sudden delight, longer moments of happy expectations and idle hours of rosy musings...interspersed with several hours of pure analytical problem-solving!
And that concludes a quick outpour of thoughts from a bride-to-be.
You would also be totally wrong.
Nothing and I mean nothing (why do people do that? I mean repeat the very same word twice with just an and in between - I just did that for emphasis and it's quite silly, really!) prepares you for the tension, clashes, the occassional episodes providing comic relief (in the form of a vaidehi maami or Rajesh maama), constant ISD calls demanding immediate responses to questions that you have no clue what the answer is - How many men and women compose the guest party that is arriving from Bombay? - I have no clue, sorry, neither does k (and they are his relatives!). My dad being the patient, slow moving, mellow person that he is will obviously wait for 24 hours for an answer. Ha! Right, he would! About as much probability of that as me waking up at 7 every morning!
Also, those-about-to-take-the-leap, beware! The number of silver articles and must-buy not-at-all-useful items will be exceeded only by the number of sarees and veshtis that have to be bought!
Even deciding on the songs that the light music people will play on the day of the reception has become more of a chore and less of a fun-task with demands pouring in for old and new Hindi and Tamil songs from my bro (L), k, his sister and my mom! Try cutting down a list of 100 songs down to 30 at the sametime satisfying everyone!
And then there is the unlimited, unspecified set of rules that will be quoted about who has to buy what and when. The groom's side has to buy this and that only but not anything else and the bride's side has to buy n number of sarees and n+1/x number of other random articles and so on and so forth. One of my relatives refused a saree because it had a blackish tinge to it and black is a no-no color for marriage!
...and in-spite of all this, I can't deny that there are many moments of sudden delight, longer moments of happy expectations and idle hours of rosy musings...interspersed with several hours of pure analytical problem-solving!
And that concludes a quick outpour of thoughts from a bride-to-be.
August 30, 2005
What's that again?
Tell me again, how many lies does it take to make a marriage happen?
I am beginning to think 1000 is not the number. I am at 0 now but am beginning to think maybe that I should be less of a prude and increment the counter up, up and up to eventually get rid of my Miss status! :)
I am beginning to think 1000 is not the number. I am at 0 now but am beginning to think maybe that I should be less of a prude and increment the counter up, up and up to eventually get rid of my Miss status! :)
August 23, 2005
Same day 5 years back (minus a 11 days)...
A quick diversion: Take a look at the Bitsian BLOB awards idea (thanks to Rathish)!
August 12th came and left and I forgot all about the day when I stepped into Lexington airport carrying among other suitcases, a heavily bandaged suitcase with some of its contents - a blue parachute coconut oil bottle, a couple of stainless steel ladles, a few heavy networking books - peeping outside for the world to see.
"You got a dirty old luggage from India and that's why it tore! I suppose you want to fill in a complaint form now?"
Those were pretty much the exact words spoken by the lady at the Atlanta airport when I showed her my suitcase which was very clearly torn by a sharp instrument all along its sides. I remember an old American airport attendee helping me out (bless his soul) - he helped tape my suitcase with a heavy duty plastic cover. The two Indian boys who were talking to me until then had to leave because it was time for their connecting flights. After the suitcase episode, I used my $10 calling card that USIS gave me during the orientation, punched in the numbers given in the instructions behind the calling card and told my parents in a breaking voice that I was fine and had reached Atlanta.
After the phone call, I had a sudden urge to cry for many reasons but did not. I did not know how to get to the terminal from which to board my connecting flight to Lexington. Hari, a bitsian senior recognized me and waved to me much to my relief - my guardian angel must have sent a familiar face - he must have noticed the expression on my face because he asked, "Shall I come and drop you at your terminal? Are you ok?" I said I will manage, thanked him and my lucky stars and stumbled into the train with my hand luggage.
I caught sight of another bitsian, m~, at the waiting lounge and he bought a hot cup of cappucino for me which I gratefully gulped down. He introduced me to his sister and her husband and their little kid which did a great job of lifting my spirits.
At Lexington airport, two guys had come for my pick up - s~ and s~v. They lifted my almost unmanageable suitcases and put it in the trunk of the car. I struggled with my seat belt and looked through the windows at the tall buildings and the well maintained roads. They dropped me at apartment D 202 and both my roommates were not in. I sat in the sofa and stared at the creamish walls of the empty room.
I had reached Lexington.
That night, a tall, lanky, bespectacled chap curiously counted the books in the huge pile behind which I sat silently unloading my remaining suitcases and said, "I know this girl has come here to study!"
Jotted down these lines after reading a series of related posts (and a related movie - Swades) IBH's, phil's and solilowkey's.
August 22, 2005
Coo-chi-coo!
I've been a bit busy the past few days as a result of which my simple yet profound thoughts did not find their way into yet another rose tinted post.
Ha! Sure sounds good, wish it were true, "Oh, I have been so busy, I really do not find the time to blog!", with a little toss of my head - sure sounds good in my head :) The only thing I have been busy with is cleaning the refrigerator and the carpet - there is something to be said about the after-effects of cleaning, everytime I open the fridge now and a tiny glint from a polished surface inside winks at me, I feel a little glow around me - a pat for a job well accomplished (or atleast accomplished).
I do ramble on, what I am wondering now is about the concept of a couple, you know like boyfriend-girlfriend, fiance-fiancee (kindly add the necessary apostrophes), husband-wife - you get my drift, am sure. I have seen certain common characteristics among these so called couples (with exceptions, as is always the case) - once the word is out that they are a couple now, they go out of their way (or so it seems to me) to prove that, that is indeed the case. I am not against hand holding, whispering sweet nothings, casting loving glances at boy(!) yada yada, but as an onlooker (for lack of a better word), it's sometimes either awkward, unnatural or just plain boring for me! I know am doing a good job of shooting off my mouth here but as a third person, it's just more interesting for me to watch a healthy argument, a little bit of teasing, leg-pulling, even tiffs between the boy and the girl. It makes the whole relationship look more realistic.
Of course, my opinion here (yes, it is an opinion) is as a guest, a politely interested party who is privy to the chemistry between the boy and the girl, maybe if I were to be the girl involved I would be all mushy too (although my friends claim that is certainly not the case - whew!) but since I am pretty confident that such is not the case, I can say all I want here :))
Anyway, bickering or cooing , I guess the dynamics of a couple are way too complicated to be analyzed in a single post, nevertheless, I shall continue to post :)
(...and Coo-chi-coo is what we called the umm...terms of endearments used by such couples back in Bits - that's your trivia for the day - who says blogs aren't enlightening?!)
Ha! Sure sounds good, wish it were true, "Oh, I have been so busy, I really do not find the time to blog!", with a little toss of my head - sure sounds good in my head :) The only thing I have been busy with is cleaning the refrigerator and the carpet - there is something to be said about the after-effects of cleaning, everytime I open the fridge now and a tiny glint from a polished surface inside winks at me, I feel a little glow around me - a pat for a job well accomplished (or atleast accomplished).
I do ramble on, what I am wondering now is about the concept of a couple, you know like boyfriend-girlfriend, fiance-fiancee (kindly add the necessary apostrophes), husband-wife - you get my drift, am sure. I have seen certain common characteristics among these so called couples (with exceptions, as is always the case) - once the word is out that they are a couple now, they go out of their way (or so it seems to me) to prove that, that is indeed the case. I am not against hand holding, whispering sweet nothings, casting loving glances at boy(!) yada yada, but as an onlooker (for lack of a better word), it's sometimes either awkward, unnatural or just plain boring for me! I know am doing a good job of shooting off my mouth here but as a third person, it's just more interesting for me to watch a healthy argument, a little bit of teasing, leg-pulling, even tiffs between the boy and the girl. It makes the whole relationship look more realistic.
Of course, my opinion here (yes, it is an opinion) is as a guest, a politely interested party who is privy to the chemistry between the boy and the girl, maybe if I were to be the girl involved I would be all mushy too (although my friends claim that is certainly not the case - whew!) but since I am pretty confident that such is not the case, I can say all I want here :))
Anyway, bickering or cooing , I guess the dynamics of a couple are way too complicated to be analyzed in a single post, nevertheless, I shall continue to post :)
(...and Coo-chi-coo is what we called the umm...terms of endearments used by such couples back in Bits - that's your trivia for the day - who says blogs aren't enlightening?!)
August 18, 2005
Swades.
I believe It's hard to make a movie without glitches and Swades is no exception but when you leave the theatre (or in my case, switch off the TV at 12 in the night) with a tiny lump in your throat and a general feeling of goodness and wistfulness, I guess that means that the director has delivered his goods well.Swades - a movie targeted at the NRI crowd, or so they claim, but is Indian all the way. I assumed Swades would be a movie about your typical NRI who would return back for reasons that are likely to present themselves in your life and mine but this movie is not that applicable to your typical NRI. SRK returns to a village back in India where even electricity is not a given, where the village post office master does not know what "Internet" is, where privacy is valued less and there are hardly any strangers and what is predominant is a general naivete that we associate with village life.
But, mixed with all this ignorance is the feeling of being in India; Ashutosh Gowarikar does a good job of capturing the simple beauty of village life - innocence, small pleasures of life, little kids running behind buses, a general feeling of communion if you will...intangibilities that remind us of home, subtle and intense at the same time...
SRK is charming and cute, your regular NRI return ;) that any girl can go ga-ga over and Gayatri Joshi has done justice to her role, underplaying it but leaving behind an impression - a mischievous smile, a controlled but passionate speech, sadness and love - she is comfortable with herself and her gestures are realistic and adorable. The scenes with SRK and Gayatri Joshi - the school scene where she asks him to name the five major rivers in India and he awkwardly mumbles the wrong answers, when he does his little piroutte after she turns down a prospective groom - made me smile. Kishori Ballal as Kaveri amma is perfect - genial, motherly, wise and almost angelic.The songs are definitely hummable (A.R.Rahman) and the title song (especially when seen and heard on Independence Day :) ) does it's job :) - the scenes and the melody leave behind a touch of melancholy and nostalgia...
August 17, 2005
A(muse)!
Who doesn't like to receive scented letters with little silk ribbons tied around them, proclaiming undying love, hugs and kisses? And how many years has it been since a friendly postman rang his cycle bell and handed over one such letter to me, winking mischievously? Hmm...that would be 26 years.Sometimes, what we call progress is not all about progress, it's also a loss of what was precious albeit quaint. Packets of bits and bytes can never hope to replace the essence of an old fashioned letter - what we smell from it is more than the light fragrance of a perfume...it's the essence of time, effort and thoughts spent in writing by hand what one holds close to one's heart and what one can never hope to speak out aloud...but only pour out in black and white, beside a dim bedside lamp and a window overlooking a starry night sky...
So, here's one such letter, not old-fashioned by any stretch of imagination but a letter all the same, made up of bits and bytes and my muse to tie it together :)
August 14, 2005
Home.
Edited my post after reading IBH's post - follow this link :)
Also, for a good cause...
* आज, बहुत दिनों के बाद, मुझे हिन्दी मे लिख्न्ने की इच्छा हुई। कुछ पल के लिए, मेरे मन में मेंरी हिन्दी अध्यापिका की आवाज़ - व्याकरण, स्त्रीलिंग-पुल्लिंग, कबीरदास के दोहें - हिन्दी की मधुर धुन गून्ज उठी... |
** தமிழிலும் எழுத மனம் ஆசை படுகிறது...என் எண்ணங்களை பல வண்ணங்களில் அலங்கரிக்க என் கை துடிக்கிறது. ஏன் இந்த திடீர் ஆசை? |
Maybe a single language, like a single hue does little justice to the variety of colors splashed in our minds...Is that why silence sometimes convey what words cannot? |
Wikipedia says India speaks atleast 30 different languages and more than 2000 dialects...to the land of variety, emotions, contrasts and traditions, to the only place that resonates with "home", to India.
* Today, after many days, I wished to write in Hindi. For a few moments, in my mind, I heard my Hindi teacher's voice - grammar, masculine and feminine genders, the dohas of kabir das - the dulcet sounds of Hindi resounded in my ears
** I also wish to write in Tamil. My hands tremble to color my thoughts in several hues. Why this sudden desire?
August 13, 2005
About IMILs, IBs and IJs.
With all due respect, I have a bone to pick with our creator. I do have a challenging and reasonable set of questions composed (or so I have convinced myself), ready to spring it on Him at Pearly Gates. My latest source of irritation and anxiety (I say latest because there have been several in the past, each consuming all my emotional energy at that point of time) is the overly glorified concept of being an Indian Bahu (IB for short).
Shy, demure, blushing easily, eyes cast down stealing loving, admiring glances at her soul mate, her master, her purpose for existence - her husband, excelling in culinary skills like all other such IBs, the epitome of sacrifice, docility and gentleness, a daughter to her in-laws, adept at keeping the house (or home - she is supposed to bring about that transformation, from house to home!) clean and beautiful...and several other such far-fetched fantasies.
I possess none of these traits (ah, I see that you being the perceptive reader that you are have concluded as much based on my past posts). I can cook edible and recognizable food items (if I am in the mental state to do so), I can keep the house as clean as it will be with a once-in-a-month quick sweep of the vacuum cleaner and with occasional (I prefer to be vague here than be embarrassed) dusting sessions, I am as much a daughter to my in-laws as my husband will be a son to my parents (ah, let's see 'em sneak out of this one - 'em obviously referring to the enviable IJs - Indian Jamais) and demure, shy, docile??? OK, we know we are talking about my anti-thesis.
Now, if I think of the plight of IMIL (Indian Mother-in-law), I am not too thrilled about her prospects either, I mean let's assume I am your typical IMIL, just for the sake of argument, I have spent a lifetime bringing up this worthless son of mine and here comes a pretty little thing and she has my son wrapped around her little finger (Now, why am I sounding more and more like one of those mega serials maamis :( ?)
A funny conversation took place this morning between a would-be IMIL and an IB.
IMIL : How are you?
IB : Good, good, good (too much gushing), how are you? (in a more restrained tone)
IMIL : Good
and after the initial customary greetings,
IMIL : So, can you make rotis?
IB : ?!!! I like paav bhajis aunty, I will have them if you will cook for me, IJ says you make awesome paav bhajis.
IMIL :(sportively laughs - whew!) Sure, I will make whatever you want! But I'll teach you how to make roti.
IB : Sure, we will also teach IJ! (Now I know she thinks am the worst IB there ever is :((()
So, in conclusion (yes, there is a point to all this drivel), why has such a grave injustice been done to the IMILs and IBs of the world (err...of India)? Why can't I be a happy, worry-free IJ :( ?
Question number n has been added to the pearly gates list of yours truly.
Shy, demure, blushing easily, eyes cast down stealing loving, admiring glances at her soul mate, her master, her purpose for existence - her husband, excelling in culinary skills like all other such IBs, the epitome of sacrifice, docility and gentleness, a daughter to her in-laws, adept at keeping the house (or home - she is supposed to bring about that transformation, from house to home!) clean and beautiful...and several other such far-fetched fantasies.
I possess none of these traits (ah, I see that you being the perceptive reader that you are have concluded as much based on my past posts). I can cook edible and recognizable food items (if I am in the mental state to do so), I can keep the house as clean as it will be with a once-in-a-month quick sweep of the vacuum cleaner and with occasional (I prefer to be vague here than be embarrassed) dusting sessions, I am as much a daughter to my in-laws as my husband will be a son to my parents (ah, let's see 'em sneak out of this one - 'em obviously referring to the enviable IJs - Indian Jamais) and demure, shy, docile??? OK, we know we are talking about my anti-thesis.
Now, if I think of the plight of IMIL (Indian Mother-in-law), I am not too thrilled about her prospects either, I mean let's assume I am your typical IMIL, just for the sake of argument, I have spent a lifetime bringing up this worthless son of mine and here comes a pretty little thing and she has my son wrapped around her little finger (Now, why am I sounding more and more like one of those mega serials maamis :( ?)
A funny conversation took place this morning between a would-be IMIL and an IB.
IMIL : How are you?
IB : Good, good, good (too much gushing), how are you? (in a more restrained tone)
IMIL : Good
and after the initial customary greetings,
IMIL : So, can you make rotis?
IB : ?!!! I like paav bhajis aunty, I will have them if you will cook for me, IJ says you make awesome paav bhajis.
IMIL :(sportively laughs - whew!) Sure, I will make whatever you want! But I'll teach you how to make roti.
IB : Sure, we will also teach IJ! (Now I know she thinks am the worst IB there ever is :((()
So, in conclusion (yes, there is a point to all this drivel), why has such a grave injustice been done to the IMILs and IBs of the world (err...of India)? Why can't I be a happy, worry-free IJ :( ?
Question number n has been added to the pearly gates list of yours truly.
August 11, 2005
'tis all about Love...
Love, the kind that whimpers and withers when he as much as glances at another woman - all consuming, demanding, unrelenting;
Love, that whispers and soothes, pacifies and caresses, when a small frown even dreams of touching her face;
Love, that blossoms and yearns, unspoken yet unshackled, buried deep within his heart, unknown to her;
Love, that bonds, tying them together in a knot so strong, neither can break free, even if they wish to;
Love, that shines and glimmers, for a few tantalizing moments, ephemeral and tantalizing, making each wonder;
Love, that wipes her tears patiently and kindly, that embraces when she needs its warmth and watches from a distance if she so desires;
I can neither grasp the feeling in its entirety nor stay unaffected, the one feeling that touches every soul yet leaves behind a million confusing thoughts...love, of many faces and forms...
Yes, I agree, definitely sappy. Will do better next time :)
And thanks to phil for this song :)
Love, that whispers and soothes, pacifies and caresses, when a small frown even dreams of touching her face;
Love, that blossoms and yearns, unspoken yet unshackled, buried deep within his heart, unknown to her;
Love, that bonds, tying them together in a knot so strong, neither can break free, even if they wish to;
Love, that shines and glimmers, for a few tantalizing moments, ephemeral and tantalizing, making each wonder;
Love, that wipes her tears patiently and kindly, that embraces when she needs its warmth and watches from a distance if she so desires;
I can neither grasp the feeling in its entirety nor stay unaffected, the one feeling that touches every soul yet leaves behind a million confusing thoughts...love, of many faces and forms...
Yes, I agree, definitely sappy. Will do better next time :)
And thanks to phil for this song :)
August 10, 2005
In the silence of the night...
In the cold comfort of darkness, when nobody can judge and right and wrong merge into the same shade of black, when my thoughts surround me, reverberating in the silence of the night, I hear the voice of a young girl, a voice full of hope and verve, joie de vivre in the unlikeliest of places, in the unlikeliest of times - holocaust, Holland - 1942.
It's a long time since I cried after reading a book. I did last night after reading The diary of a young girl. I kept thinking of Anne...this was not like reading any novel where I may feel happy, sad, excited for the characters in the story but after a few minutes, I do realize that the characters are just that - characters given life by the author's colorful imagination, made concrete and realistic by my own imagination - they are not real. But reading this diary was different...a young girl all of thirteen years who shared her most intimate thoughts with her diary and with us, not knowing what fate had in store for her...hell modified as a concentration camp on earth; I couldn't help but feel an indescribable rage against the people responsible, against the injustice of it all...
I wish she had lived to talk about it, to realize her dream of becoming a writer, a great writer...
I wish so many things...and in the semiconscious state between wakefullness and sleep, I thought of many other things, not all of which made sense...
If Anne had been alive now, she would be around 75 years old, would she have been so famous had she lived to tell her story? And a silly little thought popped in my head, if Anne were reborn, then who was she reborn as...could it be me? I brushed the thought aside and thought of the flaw of creation itself...Why would God create us, bestow us with lives that ended, sometimes so unexpectedly? Was he so unhappy with us that he is making us live our unpredictable lives with the constant fear that what we cherish might become a mere memory?
I chided myself for such thoughts but the mysticism of the night and my own confused thoughts prodded on relentlessly...
Take Anne for instance, would she have become so famous had she been alive? Do we only realize what we possess when we lose it? Why can't I just take all I love, everything and everyone I hold dear to a safe haven where noone can lay a finger on them? Silly thoughts, morbid thoughts and the tears hardly dried.
What, after all, is the purpose of life? What are our lives worth - yours and mine? Here now and gone in an instant...will you think of me after I am gone?
It's a long time since I cried after reading a book. I did last night after reading The diary of a young girl. I kept thinking of Anne...this was not like reading any novel where I may feel happy, sad, excited for the characters in the story but after a few minutes, I do realize that the characters are just that - characters given life by the author's colorful imagination, made concrete and realistic by my own imagination - they are not real. But reading this diary was different...a young girl all of thirteen years who shared her most intimate thoughts with her diary and with us, not knowing what fate had in store for her...hell modified as a concentration camp on earth; I couldn't help but feel an indescribable rage against the people responsible, against the injustice of it all...
I wish she had lived to talk about it, to realize her dream of becoming a writer, a great writer...
I wish so many things...and in the semiconscious state between wakefullness and sleep, I thought of many other things, not all of which made sense...
If Anne had been alive now, she would be around 75 years old, would she have been so famous had she lived to tell her story? And a silly little thought popped in my head, if Anne were reborn, then who was she reborn as...could it be me? I brushed the thought aside and thought of the flaw of creation itself...Why would God create us, bestow us with lives that ended, sometimes so unexpectedly? Was he so unhappy with us that he is making us live our unpredictable lives with the constant fear that what we cherish might become a mere memory?
I chided myself for such thoughts but the mysticism of the night and my own confused thoughts prodded on relentlessly...
Take Anne for instance, would she have become so famous had she been alive? Do we only realize what we possess when we lose it? Why can't I just take all I love, everything and everyone I hold dear to a safe haven where noone can lay a finger on them? Silly thoughts, morbid thoughts and the tears hardly dried.
What, after all, is the purpose of life? What are our lives worth - yours and mine? Here now and gone in an instant...will you think of me after I am gone?
August 08, 2005
Missed Moments...
Not of moments that fill our reminscences, but of moments that were meant to be special but slipped away from us even as we stood with our eyes wide open, moved but not attempting to move, to grab that which could have been...a precious moment now diminished to a chimera, perhaps a lost friend, a soul mate who never did become one, love fading in the blink of an eye, a meaningful silence relegated to nothingness, perhaps a smirk where a smile should have been?...that which was meant to be but could not be.
As I trod along the well worn path that we call life, for an instant I think of a person, a moment, an event that could have meant much more to me than it does now and I still think of it because hidden in a nook of my heart is a small voice that reminds me at these instants that the magic that was to be was lost because I did nothing to make it concrete, to guide it to perfection - I probably let the fleeting moment pass and pass it did with just a wisp to remind me of what could have been...
I think of a friend I had in School - a sweet, gentle thing with a smile that always brightened my day...ages back and her memory lingers behind to remind me perhaps that we were meant to be friends for life? I think of friends who have come and gone, mere guests dropping in and straying away and wonder if I should have held on, if I should have said something more...if we were meant to be exchanging stories of our lives, clasping hands together, discussing our days on a lazy Saturday morning with a steaming mug of coffee and a phone cradled on our necks...perhaps, I remained silent and so did (s)he and perhaps as I think of them, they think of me too...?
We laughed, we talked and we failed to hear the clock as it chimed out to us, but when it was time to part, as the decisions of our lives seperated us from each other, I remained silent and so did (s)he...Missed moments that are mere moments now because I stood rooted to the spot grinning back at them as they waved their goodbyes and stepped out of my life, maybe if I had stepped out then, I shall have more than a missed moment to recollect?
As I trod along the well worn path that we call life, for an instant I think of a person, a moment, an event that could have meant much more to me than it does now and I still think of it because hidden in a nook of my heart is a small voice that reminds me at these instants that the magic that was to be was lost because I did nothing to make it concrete, to guide it to perfection - I probably let the fleeting moment pass and pass it did with just a wisp to remind me of what could have been...
I think of a friend I had in School - a sweet, gentle thing with a smile that always brightened my day...ages back and her memory lingers behind to remind me perhaps that we were meant to be friends for life? I think of friends who have come and gone, mere guests dropping in and straying away and wonder if I should have held on, if I should have said something more...if we were meant to be exchanging stories of our lives, clasping hands together, discussing our days on a lazy Saturday morning with a steaming mug of coffee and a phone cradled on our necks...perhaps, I remained silent and so did (s)he and perhaps as I think of them, they think of me too...?
We laughed, we talked and we failed to hear the clock as it chimed out to us, but when it was time to part, as the decisions of our lives seperated us from each other, I remained silent and so did (s)he...Missed moments that are mere moments now because I stood rooted to the spot grinning back at them as they waved their goodbyes and stepped out of my life, maybe if I had stepped out then, I shall have more than a missed moment to recollect?
August 07, 2005
The ship that never sails...
Let's see if the significance of the day will help me melt my writer's block ;)
Wise men of today suggest yoga, calisthenics, exercise, hobbies, even fengshui as a means to relax, to diminish the sharp edge, the restlessness, the worries that seem to suffocate us at times...and I have one of my own remedies to add - a day spent with friends. While my friends range from those who just drop in once in a while for a quick coffee to those who would listen to my very boring rants about my life and the trivialities that seem to rock it, for hours together, all of them end up cheering me up and leaving me in good humor and a general feeling of well being.
Talking is therapeutic, atleast for women and some men, and the lazy, relaxed, sometimes even meaningless chit chat that I indulge in with friends is something even the thought of which conjures up a relaxing, soothing image - a luxury that the responsibilities of life often don't give us time for. While some find solace in solitude, I find solace in the company of friends...there's something about the hum of a comfortable conversation interspersed with quick bursts of spontaneous laughter that puts my mind at ease...and long after the sun sets, the freshness and friendliness of the day lingers behind long enough to brighten up yet another day.
Meaningless worries and yet he listened;
Jokes that hardly amused and still he laughed;
A comforting arm when I most needed it;
An understanding smile that wiped my tears;
I can write a hundred lines and yet do little justice,
to convey the magic that friendship is,
From a grateful friend to another,
Thanks for being my friend.
Wise men of today suggest yoga, calisthenics, exercise, hobbies, even fengshui as a means to relax, to diminish the sharp edge, the restlessness, the worries that seem to suffocate us at times...and I have one of my own remedies to add - a day spent with friends. While my friends range from those who just drop in once in a while for a quick coffee to those who would listen to my very boring rants about my life and the trivialities that seem to rock it, for hours together, all of them end up cheering me up and leaving me in good humor and a general feeling of well being.
Talking is therapeutic, atleast for women and some men, and the lazy, relaxed, sometimes even meaningless chit chat that I indulge in with friends is something even the thought of which conjures up a relaxing, soothing image - a luxury that the responsibilities of life often don't give us time for. While some find solace in solitude, I find solace in the company of friends...there's something about the hum of a comfortable conversation interspersed with quick bursts of spontaneous laughter that puts my mind at ease...and long after the sun sets, the freshness and friendliness of the day lingers behind long enough to brighten up yet another day.
Meaningless worries and yet he listened;Jokes that hardly amused and still he laughed;
A comforting arm when I most needed it;
An understanding smile that wiped my tears;
I can write a hundred lines and yet do little justice,
to convey the magic that friendship is,
From a grateful friend to another,
Thanks for being my friend.
August 05, 2005
Vetti Vela!
The latest website to join my list of most admired web endeavours is the Wiki, the first being Google (of course!).
Yesterday, inorder to complete my daily dose of vetti vela, I looked up Lexington in Wiki and learnt some fascinating new facts about my city (My City is always Madras but for the purpose of this discussion, let's call Lex my city), one of those being that a peanut butter factory in Lexington produces the largest quantity of peanut butter in the world! Then I looked up some more stuff and somehow landed up with this wiki for Madras Bashai and this one is hilarious especially the places where they seriously quote (I almost imagined a TV News-reader style monotone and a poker face) the meanings of the words "Isthukinu" and "Keesiduven"!
Then I switched back to Google (those guys are Gods!) and it said Google could answer commonly asked questions, so, I tried,
"Population of India" and there it was, the first line of the search results proudly declaring "1,080,264,388"
I tried currency conversion next and typed "50 USD in Lira" and that worked. I did not have much luck with currency exchange rate for Indian Rupees though, my search string "50 USD in RS" did not give me the answer in the first line, neither did "50 USD in Rupees", so, I added the magic word -
"50 USD in Indian Rupees"
and sure enough, there it was - "50 U.S. dollars = 2 173.9414 Indian rupees"!
Yes, am sure all of you are bubbling to thank me for this treasure house of information, you are most welcome :)
Yesterday, inorder to complete my daily dose of vetti vela, I looked up Lexington in Wiki and learnt some fascinating new facts about my city (My City is always Madras but for the purpose of this discussion, let's call Lex my city), one of those being that a peanut butter factory in Lexington produces the largest quantity of peanut butter in the world! Then I looked up some more stuff and somehow landed up with this wiki for Madras Bashai and this one is hilarious especially the places where they seriously quote (I almost imagined a TV News-reader style monotone and a poker face) the meanings of the words "Isthukinu" and "Keesiduven"!
Then I switched back to Google (those guys are Gods!) and it said Google could answer commonly asked questions, so, I tried,
"Population of India" and there it was, the first line of the search results proudly declaring "1,080,264,388"
I tried currency conversion next and typed "50 USD in Lira" and that worked. I did not have much luck with currency exchange rate for Indian Rupees though, my search string "50 USD in RS" did not give me the answer in the first line, neither did "50 USD in Rupees", so, I added the magic word -
"50 USD in Indian Rupees"
and sure enough, there it was - "50 U.S. dollars = 2 173.9414 Indian rupees"!
Yes, am sure all of you are bubbling to thank me for this treasure house of information, you are most welcome :)
August 03, 2005
NRI babble.
We all love to talk about it, don't we? The same old question - If we go back to India for good, which city would we pick? There's the immediate answer that software engineers normally give, "Bangalore, of course!" but then I have been hearing increasingly disturbing comments on life at B'lore from friends (including IBH's post)...unmanageable traffic, maximum population of two-wheelers(!), pollution problems et.al. So, then we discuss Delhi and Poona briefly and decide one is too north and the other also too far away from home, then I greedily eye our own Singara Chennai, hoping a late but powerful entry would do the trick but the ignorant claim it's too hot! I mean come on, what's a little heat compared to living in Chennai? (well, not exactly little but still...)
And so the conversation goes, the question often is not whether we will shift to India and when we will do it but always the place just because it's more fun to fight over our preferences on where to live I guess. Bus (yes, that's his Bitsian name!) finally put an end to this conversation by deciding that we will live where our career takes us, the better the job satisfaction and the job and ofcourse the $$$ (or Rs.Rs.Rs...), the better the place...well, that's one way of looking at it, but for now, it's just more fun to point at a city in India and wonder how life there would be...our kids going to dance class together at KalaKshetra in Madras or all of us eating pizzas on a Saturday at Infy, B'lore, taking a crowded sweaty train in Mumbai (shudder...this reminds me of what one of my friends said about Bombay - if you are really rich, I mean reaaallly rich in Bombay and say buy a sea facing 2500 sq.ft house with a nice little garden - I hear this is impossible - and a mercedes there, in all probability you will get a call the next morning from some underworld Don! Bombay is a no-no for me because of this scary little story!...which also reminds me, I asked one of my friends what was so great about Bombay and he replied, "Well, we can have all the chats we want from the road side bhaiyas, even with distilled water if you so wish and then we have the queen's necklace" - well, now, why didn't he tell me that earlier? :))
...yes, I know it's highly improbable that all of us here will settle down at the same place in India or will send our kids to the same dance school (I guess we send the boys to the Karate class? Maybe just some early IIT coaching classes :))?) but it's my imagination and I can take it wherever I want :)
And so the conversation goes, the question often is not whether we will shift to India and when we will do it but always the place just because it's more fun to fight over our preferences on where to live I guess. Bus (yes, that's his Bitsian name!) finally put an end to this conversation by deciding that we will live where our career takes us, the better the job satisfaction and the job and ofcourse the $$$ (or Rs.Rs.Rs...), the better the place...well, that's one way of looking at it, but for now, it's just more fun to point at a city in India and wonder how life there would be...our kids going to dance class together at KalaKshetra in Madras or all of us eating pizzas on a Saturday at Infy, B'lore, taking a crowded sweaty train in Mumbai (shudder...this reminds me of what one of my friends said about Bombay - if you are really rich, I mean reaaallly rich in Bombay and say buy a sea facing 2500 sq.ft house with a nice little garden - I hear this is impossible - and a mercedes there, in all probability you will get a call the next morning from some underworld Don! Bombay is a no-no for me because of this scary little story!...which also reminds me, I asked one of my friends what was so great about Bombay and he replied, "Well, we can have all the chats we want from the road side bhaiyas, even with distilled water if you so wish and then we have the queen's necklace" - well, now, why didn't he tell me that earlier? :))
...yes, I know it's highly improbable that all of us here will settle down at the same place in India or will send our kids to the same dance school (I guess we send the boys to the Karate class? Maybe just some early IIT coaching classes :))?) but it's my imagination and I can take it wherever I want :)
July 29, 2005
A little bit of everything :)
The air conditioner in our office conked out today morning and I couldn't be happier about it. Without the constant hum of the AC, everything seems more...real, believe it or not. I almost feel like I am a bank employee working in Madras - I hear all the familiar sounds associated with it - table fans, people talking, a sultry feel all around me, the clickity clacks of keyboards, I hear everything more clearly and somehow, I feel better about it all :)
For those not able to keep up with my n blog updates, here's a gist - am writing a non-short story, well, not exactly a mega serial type story but a long one nevertheless...I wish I could write like Shobha Narayanan or Amulya Maladi, the way they weave food, spices and smells into their novels without breaking the flow of their narration, oh well, if wishes were horses...!
I saw b & p's marriage video recently and it was a pleasant experience. You should see the genuine smiles and the almost palpable, childlike excitement that adorns the faces of the maamis and mamas who come to bless the newly wedded couple...whether it is singing during the oonjal ceremony or watching the kasi yatra or wishing them during the reception, it's obvious that they are present fully, if you know what I mean, they are not thinking of the stinging smoke, the elaborate rituals, the never-ending queue assembled to wish the couple, the confused and loud mantrams, squeals of laughter, loud chatter that make it difficult for one to even hear one's own voice and every other inconvenience that completes the beautiful picture of a wedding...they are there because they care and that's what matters to them...and to us!
For those not able to keep up with my n blog updates, here's a gist - am writing a non-short story, well, not exactly a mega serial type story but a long one nevertheless...I wish I could write like Shobha Narayanan or Amulya Maladi, the way they weave food, spices and smells into their novels without breaking the flow of their narration, oh well, if wishes were horses...!
I saw b & p's marriage video recently and it was a pleasant experience. You should see the genuine smiles and the almost palpable, childlike excitement that adorns the faces of the maamis and mamas who come to bless the newly wedded couple...whether it is singing during the oonjal ceremony or watching the kasi yatra or wishing them during the reception, it's obvious that they are present fully, if you know what I mean, they are not thinking of the stinging smoke, the elaborate rituals, the never-ending queue assembled to wish the couple, the confused and loud mantrams, squeals of laughter, loud chatter that make it difficult for one to even hear one's own voice and every other inconvenience that completes the beautiful picture of a wedding...they are there because they care and that's what matters to them...and to us!
July 25, 2005
Myriad Colors of Silk!
For some reason today, I thought of DAV ("My" erstwhile School); actually it's a pretty winding trail of thoughts and hence this random post. Out of the blue, I thought of Jyothika and Surya, probably because my mom recently told me about Jyothika's wedding saree, alleged to have 54000 computer generated colors worth an exorbitant* amount to match that claim. Apparently, the salesman at RMKV silks (the latest big silk saree store in Madras, to the best of my limited knowledge) tried to sell this saree to my mom :) So anyway, my thoughts then wandered on to a scene from Khaka Khaka where there's this School going girl being teased by rowdy guys from the corner liquor store and this girl for reasons best known to her (and the director) is wearing a white skirt, part of her School uniform that would have probably fit her correctly three years earlier! Anyway, the white skirt then reminded me of my DAV School uniform on Saturdays, white shirt and white (long) skirt and several unrelated thoughts which incidentally is not the subject of this post (am beginning to wonder if there is one)! But I have uploaded these nice little pictures, so let me say something related :)
There's something to be said about silk sarees - gaudy or trendy, monotoned or double shaded, with thick golden borders or delicate single-lined borders, parrot green and shocking orange or all the shades of the panjavarna kili...they all dazzle and glimmer, sparkle and shimmer, add a touch of glamour and familiarity to marriages made in heaven :)
July 21, 2005
Affairs and Accidents, in blurry pictures...
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, an affair to remember...I loved the book and now I am positively depressed that I need to cease existing in the mystical, magical, mysterious (adjectives do little justice to Potter's magic) Hogwarts castle and I find myself back in the muggle world. 2 long years for the 7th book and until then, well, atleast I have the movie to look forward to in November...
Keeping track of this many families sagas is difficult enough for the reader, I wonder how the writer (Vikram Seth) managed it with such ease and eloquence - history, poetry, romance, religion, law, music, politics - you name it and it will weave its way into A Suitable Boy, the longest published English novel. I am still struggling with a family tree for this novel...another of those books that leave behind a strange tugging of the heart that one cannot ignore (I couldn't)...just wait for it to dim away with time...
Cyrano De Bergerac, played at the Lexington Shakespeare Festival left behind tender feelings and rosy romanticism...the picture I have here is from Roxanne, a modern and well made Steve Martin movie adaptated from the play.
As you like it that we watched a week earlier was a treat too, more fun and songs and a little less romance but delightful all the same :) The disaster of a photo by the side was an impulse on my part to capture the moment!
Finally, this picture taken just after a near miss accident! Am not sure if I can blame the rain or the slightly old tires or the fact that we forgot to turn on the anti skid mechanism...we were merging on a ramp and we skidded all the way to a railing on the right and in an attempt to correct this, we skidded all the way to the left, the nose of our car jutting well into the freeway...A waffle and two coffees later, we stopped trembling enough to drive! This picture just because I have an inkling that He (sitting happily here) had given us a hand, somehow...Amen.
July 19, 2005
Love, as dictated by my pen.
Ah, the joy of putting pen on paper - it's like running into an old friend unexpectedly, the conversation often turns out to be pleasant and ...unpredictable! And, so it is with this experiment, I command not what my hand decides to scribble, it is the pen I hold that dictates what my thoughts are to be, coloring them as it paints a picture, mere wisps of outlines seen only to the discerning eye to begin with but more defined as the ink begins to dry...
Trailing epithets that demand to be associated with the lazy eyes - dreamy, beguiling... :)
From my archives, more for relevance than anything spectacular - A slight lifting of the corners of the mouth, an almost imperceptible smoothening of the crinkles of the forehead, perhaps a dimple that winks at us from one cheek…a small wave rising from the lips, touching upon every feature of the face, gently coaxing the eyes to speak, to evoke, creating magic for the one who receives it…a smile.
My surrender complete.
July 18, 2005
Loud and Clear, unpopularly yours.
Baby steps towards Audioblogging, thanks to the blogger folks and lazy geek :)
Yes, I know, but that's my voice and I have made peace with that fact!
* * *
It's official, confirmed, stamped and sealed. My theory of ordinality (as defined by me) along with P~'s theory of the unpopulars leads me to believe that I shall remain an insignificant speck in this universe from now on, with no hope of recovery :)
A short summary of P's theory would be the popularity scale in decreasing order shown here:
Well, atleast am not the married guy :))
Yes, I know, but that's my voice and I have made peace with that fact!
It's official, confirmed, stamped and sealed. My theory of ordinality (as defined by me) along with P~'s theory of the unpopulars leads me to believe that I shall remain an insignificant speck in this universe from now on, with no hope of recovery :)
A short summary of P's theory would be the popularity scale in decreasing order shown here:
- Single girl
- Married girl ~ Single guy
- Married guy
Well, atleast am not the married guy :))
July 14, 2005
Brace yourself for this one!
A cavitron, India, a farm house in Texas & a wedding - what do they have in common? Nothing. A visit to the dentist and you get all of this and more!
I stared at the ominous looking dark clouds and the angry showers that fell in quick, sharp bursts and I knew they were trying to warn me before I stepped into the clinic - proud in the knowledge that I had successfully postponed my dental appointment by a full six months(!) and a bit apprehensive all the same.
"Reema?"
Close enough, better than the battering my last name is subjected to, anyway.
I stood up and smiled, hoping my freshly brushed and flossed teeth would gleam away any doubts that the hygienist would have about them. I had spent a full five minutes at work, brushing and flossing carefully before driving over to the clinic. So what if I missed a few flosses here and there, the past few weeks, months? A good final brush and floss and my teeth ought to be as good as new, or so I thought.
"Tsk, tsk...I do see a lot of tartar deposits here and here and..."
I stared at the small masked face of the hygienist and wished she would stop tsking.
"Do you floss daily?"
I was used to this trick question by now. I nodded enthusiastically.
"Hmm...well, maybe a year is a long time and you just need to come sooner for your cleaning. Well, you do have a lot of tissue and that perhaps makes flossing harder...."
Ah, there it was, an escape route and I jumped on it with an appropriately forlorn expression, "Yes, the hygienist who saw me earlier seemed to think the same"
"Really? Well, let's see for ourselves..."
And before I could object (not that I would have anyway), she produced a floss kit out of thin air and proceeded to floss on my teeth, "Hmm, I see no problem at all...unless you floss daily, you will have these periodontal problems and ..."
I listened to the familiar lecture and tried to smile as she plodded thoughtfully, some more inside my mouth.
"Now, the cavitron...you know what it is"
She almost giggled an evil giggle and I joined her, well knowing what I was getting myself into. The cavitron - an apparatus from hell, it attacks all your senses at once, making you almost wish that you had flossed everyday! At this juncture, let me mention that I have a bone to pick with Indian dentists - they did not ask me to floss, just brush, brush everyday and I did, being the obedient girl I was and now, there is this sudden intrusion, a three hundred second daily intrusion on my time to floss, floss, floss and I object! Well, in any case, we moved on to non-dental issues - the usual "Where do you work?", "Oh, Masters in Computer Science? Really?" among others questions whose responses were greeted with more than necessary enthusiasm and surprise.
"Oh, you are from India...you know, my brother had to stay there for 6 weeks for an assignment"
I noticed the usage of "had to" and said, "Oh, that must have driven him crazy!"
"Yeah, you know what shocked him the most? The punishments given for stealing..."
"huh?"
"yeah, you cut both hands right? Isnt that your punishment for stealing?"
"huh? huh? huh?"
You see, that was the best I could do considering that I had the wretched cavitron and another nasty tube in my mouth. I did however manage to convey my incredulity with raised eyebrows.
She continued, "Oh, that's not what you do? Maybe it was not India, let's see..."
She named a few places and then laughed and said "Oh, trust me to spread these silly rumours!"
Yes, trust you to do that.
Noticing that I was not very pleased with the whole cutting hands business, she continued, "My brother has a farm house in Texas with cows and all..."
I wasn't sure how to react to this revelation and I just gave my now familiar, raised eyebrows expression. Our conversation went on to other things and she asked me about my single status and was thrilled (once again!) to note that there was a wedding in the near future, and in India (believe it or not!).
I stammered whatever came to my mind, numb and strangely soporific partly due to my smarting gums and partly because of the annoying hiss of the cavitron and my goosepimples! I just gave her a tired smile in response to her many questions. After our refreshing conversation, it was time for the dentist to see me.
"Hmm...did you wear braces?"
"Yes, many years ago? When I was 16..."
He smiled, "Many years? And what are you now? 19, 20?"
And even before I could grin stupidly and blush and say thanks, he said, "You will need a full periodontal examination though and you should consider wearing braces again, you know, your teeth seems to be growing at all angles..."
and 
:(
I stared at the ominous looking dark clouds and the angry showers that fell in quick, sharp bursts and I knew they were trying to warn me before I stepped into the clinic - proud in the knowledge that I had successfully postponed my dental appointment by a full six months(!) and a bit apprehensive all the same.
"Reema?"
Close enough, better than the battering my last name is subjected to, anyway.
I stood up and smiled, hoping my freshly brushed and flossed teeth would gleam away any doubts that the hygienist would have about them. I had spent a full five minutes at work, brushing and flossing carefully before driving over to the clinic. So what if I missed a few flosses here and there, the past few weeks, months? A good final brush and floss and my teeth ought to be as good as new, or so I thought.
"Tsk, tsk...I do see a lot of tartar deposits here and here and..."
I stared at the small masked face of the hygienist and wished she would stop tsking.
"Do you floss daily?"
I was used to this trick question by now. I nodded enthusiastically.
"Hmm...well, maybe a year is a long time and you just need to come sooner for your cleaning. Well, you do have a lot of tissue and that perhaps makes flossing harder...."
Ah, there it was, an escape route and I jumped on it with an appropriately forlorn expression, "Yes, the hygienist who saw me earlier seemed to think the same"
"Really? Well, let's see for ourselves..."
And before I could object (not that I would have anyway), she produced a floss kit out of thin air and proceeded to floss on my teeth, "Hmm, I see no problem at all...unless you floss daily, you will have these periodontal problems and ..."
I listened to the familiar lecture and tried to smile as she plodded thoughtfully, some more inside my mouth.
"Now, the cavitron...you know what it is"
She almost giggled an evil giggle and I joined her, well knowing what I was getting myself into. The cavitron - an apparatus from hell, it attacks all your senses at once, making you almost wish that you had flossed everyday! At this juncture, let me mention that I have a bone to pick with Indian dentists - they did not ask me to floss, just brush, brush everyday and I did, being the obedient girl I was and now, there is this sudden intrusion, a three hundred second daily intrusion on my time to floss, floss, floss and I object! Well, in any case, we moved on to non-dental issues - the usual "Where do you work?", "Oh, Masters in Computer Science? Really?" among others questions whose responses were greeted with more than necessary enthusiasm and surprise.
"Oh, you are from India...you know, my brother had to stay there for 6 weeks for an assignment"
I noticed the usage of "had to" and said, "Oh, that must have driven him crazy!"
"Yeah, you know what shocked him the most? The punishments given for stealing..."
"huh?"
"yeah, you cut both hands right? Isnt that your punishment for stealing?"
"huh? huh? huh?"
You see, that was the best I could do considering that I had the wretched cavitron and another nasty tube in my mouth. I did however manage to convey my incredulity with raised eyebrows.
She continued, "Oh, that's not what you do? Maybe it was not India, let's see..."
She named a few places and then laughed and said "Oh, trust me to spread these silly rumours!"
Yes, trust you to do that.
Noticing that I was not very pleased with the whole cutting hands business, she continued, "My brother has a farm house in Texas with cows and all..."
I wasn't sure how to react to this revelation and I just gave my now familiar, raised eyebrows expression. Our conversation went on to other things and she asked me about my single status and was thrilled (once again!) to note that there was a wedding in the near future, and in India (believe it or not!).
I stammered whatever came to my mind, numb and strangely soporific partly due to my smarting gums and partly because of the annoying hiss of the cavitron and my goosepimples! I just gave her a tired smile in response to her many questions. After our refreshing conversation, it was time for the dentist to see me.
"Hmm...did you wear braces?"
"Yes, many years ago? When I was 16..."
He smiled, "Many years? And what are you now? 19, 20?"
And even before I could grin stupidly and blush and say thanks, he said, "You will need a full periodontal examination though and you should consider wearing braces again, you know, your teeth seems to be growing at all angles..."
and 
:(
July 13, 2005
Meera Bhawan, Gatecalls...and a lot of nonsense.
Sagnik's post reminded me of Meera Bhawan (girls hostel at Bits) and in particular the gates of MB that closed exactly at 11 PM. We had to be in before that or we had to write our names down along with the names of the other culprits in a small book just outside the gates...somehow, I felt the need to talk more than anything else exactly at 10.50 PM and several animated conversations would begin exactly at 11 PM and the chouki would start closing the gates and we would run inside the gates just before they closed...if only I could go back to being a silly teenager rushing back to MB gates, fighting over who would sit next to the cute guy during Apogee movies, wondering if x~ would give me a gatecall or would he give a gatecall to the girl whose shade of nailpolish I hated even more than her and other such mind boggling trivialities and eventualities.
Gatecalls refer to the silly business of guys having to stand outside MB (they were not allowed inside MB, ofcourse) and asking the chouki to announce the name of the girl they wanted to visit - the chouki mostly mis-pronounced the names and the speaker made the remaining part of the name indistinct with the result that a bunch of girls with similar sounding names would quickly touch up their makeup, change into something "not so fancy" and would come running outside and all but one lucky girl would walk back in disappointed and swearing never to give the guy she thought was giving her a gatecall, a gatecall!
Well...I cannot be a teenager but I can be silly still and I can certainly write silly stuff, so here goes...
An ode to you, O hallowed gates of Meera Bhawan!
you welcomed me with open arms as I walked in with hesitant steps,
you demanded my presence well before the strike of midnight, everynight,
you hid me away from cruel boys giving gate calls to all others but me,
you consoled me when heartless girls talked outside, endlessly on lonely nights,
you greeted me with a smile as I walked into your arms smiling some days,
precious minutes and hours wasted carefully in idle talk about adolescent fancies,
Ah, for the gates of Meera Bhawab, I yearn, for my sweet haven, I yearn...
And to end this misery, I yearn :))
Seriously, did you actually spend time reading this nonsense? :)
Gatecalls refer to the silly business of guys having to stand outside MB (they were not allowed inside MB, ofcourse) and asking the chouki to announce the name of the girl they wanted to visit - the chouki mostly mis-pronounced the names and the speaker made the remaining part of the name indistinct with the result that a bunch of girls with similar sounding names would quickly touch up their makeup, change into something "not so fancy" and would come running outside and all but one lucky girl would walk back in disappointed and swearing never to give the guy she thought was giving her a gatecall, a gatecall!
Well...I cannot be a teenager but I can be silly still and I can certainly write silly stuff, so here goes...
An ode to you, O hallowed gates of Meera Bhawan!
you welcomed me with open arms as I walked in with hesitant steps,
you demanded my presence well before the strike of midnight, everynight,
you hid me away from cruel boys giving gate calls to all others but me,
you consoled me when heartless girls talked outside, endlessly on lonely nights,
you greeted me with a smile as I walked into your arms smiling some days,
precious minutes and hours wasted carefully in idle talk about adolescent fancies,
Ah, for the gates of Meera Bhawab, I yearn, for my sweet haven, I yearn...
And to end this misery, I yearn :))
Seriously, did you actually spend time reading this nonsense? :)
July 11, 2005
Philosophy reflected by The Mirror of Erised.
Harry sits forlornly, staring at the reflection of his parents and himself, in the Mirror of Erised and Dumbledore's voice of wisdom explains, "Ah, I see you have found the Mirror of Erised...in this mirror, you will see your deepest desires, the one thing that will make you the happiest...the man who looks at this mirror and sees himself as he is, is perhaps the happiest man there is..."
Or something to that effect. And for a few moments, I disengaged myself from the bewitching world of Harry Potter and wondered what I would see, were I to be standing in front of the Mirror of Erised.
A hundred fleeting images, a blur of quickly concocted happily-ever-afters and deeply pondered over desires and yearning surge forth and I strain to identify a clear image. I see none, the sad fact being that I do not know what will make me as happy as I can ever hope to be.
My mom tells me sometimes we make the mistake of praying for some things for us - a particular life, a particular soul mate, a number of very particular somethings, and sometimes the strength of our prayers or perhaps some unseen consciousness, some unseen power grants us those wishes and then we wonder if we could have asked for something different, something better? She tells me He knows what is best for us and perhaps when we pray, we just let him decide what is best for us...the fickle mind that I have, I find it hard to follow this little bit of advice.
Still curious though, will the Mirror of Erised show me what will make me happiest when I myself am unaware of what will make me so? Perhaps, we don't need mirrors to teach us about happiness, perhaps we look deeper within ourselves and the answers will dawn on us someday...
Or something to that effect. And for a few moments, I disengaged myself from the bewitching world of Harry Potter and wondered what I would see, were I to be standing in front of the Mirror of Erised.
A hundred fleeting images, a blur of quickly concocted happily-ever-afters and deeply pondered over desires and yearning surge forth and I strain to identify a clear image. I see none, the sad fact being that I do not know what will make me as happy as I can ever hope to be.
My mom tells me sometimes we make the mistake of praying for some things for us - a particular life, a particular soul mate, a number of very particular somethings, and sometimes the strength of our prayers or perhaps some unseen consciousness, some unseen power grants us those wishes and then we wonder if we could have asked for something different, something better? She tells me He knows what is best for us and perhaps when we pray, we just let him decide what is best for us...the fickle mind that I have, I find it hard to follow this little bit of advice.
Still curious though, will the Mirror of Erised show me what will make me happiest when I myself am unaware of what will make me so? Perhaps, we don't need mirrors to teach us about happiness, perhaps we look deeper within ourselves and the answers will dawn on us someday...
July 08, 2005
Little somethings.
So many little lessons to learn and so little time...life's like that!
A couple of kids came to visit us today at work and kind of made our day. They were all shy and smiling, genuinely happy to see us and glowing in all their innocence. I couldn't help smiling back and feeling the warmth that they seemed to surround themselves with. I just can't place my finger on it, it's the same with some people - then enter a room all happy and smiling and suddenly everything around you seems to be smiling back at you, a certain happiness flows all around and you feel...well, happy :)
***
As if this were not enough, I have started to steal now! Been planning to for a long time anyway :) My apologies for spelling mistakes and translation mistakes, those I can claim to be my own. Remember those moments on the silver screen that you always carry with you? Those few lines in the novel that you can quote in the middle of the night? The lyrics of that one song that you can't stop humming, that means something special to you? It's just about all these things that have become a part of me - stolen (from movies and novels and poems) impressions :) (trust me to make it sound all dramatic and go overboard!)
***
Am on page 952 in The Suitable Boy; I wondered if I would ever cross a 500 and if I would remember all the parallel yet related stories that Vikram Seth traces in his novel but now I suspect I shall feel sad when I finish the book, that Latha, Mrs.Rupa Mehra and Pran among all the others will no longer be my side when I want them to be :( Maybe, I will draw a family tree and post it here!
***
I swear I heard whispers near the fountain yesterday at work, and I thought of Moaning Myrtle! Harry Potter has begun to cast his spell on me much before July 16th, I see...
***
I am really looking forward to As you like it, this Saturday. If you are in Lexington, you really ought to be here - open air, friendly crowd, lovely weather, fennel cakes, delightful theatre, bonhomie and all that kinda thing - can you ask for more?
***
An excerpt from this week's India Abroad newspaper (don't you just love reading newspapers, not online for a change?): "...The United Hindu Dharma and Vedic Identity, and Hindu, Bindu and Sindhu: Issues in Global Hindu Dharma."
Huh?
***
OK, they are all not little lessons but they certainly are little somethings that mean a lot to me.
A couple of kids came to visit us today at work and kind of made our day. They were all shy and smiling, genuinely happy to see us and glowing in all their innocence. I couldn't help smiling back and feeling the warmth that they seemed to surround themselves with. I just can't place my finger on it, it's the same with some people - then enter a room all happy and smiling and suddenly everything around you seems to be smiling back at you, a certain happiness flows all around and you feel...well, happy :)
As if this were not enough, I have started to steal now! Been planning to for a long time anyway :) My apologies for spelling mistakes and translation mistakes, those I can claim to be my own. Remember those moments on the silver screen that you always carry with you? Those few lines in the novel that you can quote in the middle of the night? The lyrics of that one song that you can't stop humming, that means something special to you? It's just about all these things that have become a part of me - stolen (from movies and novels and poems) impressions :) (trust me to make it sound all dramatic and go overboard!)
Am on page 952 in The Suitable Boy; I wondered if I would ever cross a 500 and if I would remember all the parallel yet related stories that Vikram Seth traces in his novel but now I suspect I shall feel sad when I finish the book, that Latha, Mrs.Rupa Mehra and Pran among all the others will no longer be my side when I want them to be :( Maybe, I will draw a family tree and post it here!
I swear I heard whispers near the fountain yesterday at work, and I thought of Moaning Myrtle! Harry Potter has begun to cast his spell on me much before July 16th, I see...
I am really looking forward to As you like it, this Saturday. If you are in Lexington, you really ought to be here - open air, friendly crowd, lovely weather, fennel cakes, delightful theatre, bonhomie and all that kinda thing - can you ask for more?
An excerpt from this week's India Abroad newspaper (don't you just love reading newspapers, not online for a change?): "...The United Hindu Dharma and Vedic Identity, and Hindu, Bindu and Sindhu: Issues in Global Hindu Dharma."
Huh?
OK, they are all not little lessons but they certainly are little somethings that mean a lot to me.
July 06, 2005
The concept of comfort zones and men.
Based on recent observations, I have come to (yet another) a conclusion about guys - to those of you who conform to the generalization, I will not say, "Hah! See, I toldya!" and to those who don't, I will not say, "Surely you jest!" Having established ground rules, here we go. Guys, especially those in a relationship, are comfortable within established comfort zones. By comfortable, I mean mentally undisturbed, at peace, like when they watch the nth rerun of a test match between India and England and they know that India will lose. By established, I mean established by them with, dare I say, limited information! Let's look at a few examples that will impress upon you what I divined a few days back.
Ms: "Duh, I don't know how to get to Tates Creek Road, can you navigate please?"
(First, let me firmly state that I do know how to go to Tates Creek Road and I do not go "Duh" for anything!)
Mr: "Sure honey, ofcourse I am here to help you."
The Mr as you can see is complacent and secretly pleased that his services are essential and he is even more thrilled that her direction-sense is non-existent. All is well in his little world.
This little example explains the relatively simple concept of comfort zones. Every guy builds up a safe little comfort zone around him, based on his assessment of the girl in question. There are certain areas where he is comfortable if the girl is more proficient than him and these areas commonly are a subset of what I represent in the little comfort-zone-ellipsis on the right. The area outside the ellipsis is usually a subset of what the guy assumes he knows better than the girl at all points in time and space. For example, in my 26 years of pretty unsignificant existence, I have not come across a guy who can admit that his girl friend, wife, any girl for that matter, drives better than him - please refer to diagram once again (I sense seemingly logical explanations being mulled over now before being thrown at me - "That's coz girls are just bad drivers!" and similarly worded mis-conceptions to which I will not say, "Yeah, right!").
As you can see, driving, cars and directions are subjects that we (women) should not dream of excelling in. Oh, but we can be great at responding to flowery pink greeting cards with appropriate thank you notes hand written in cursive writing. Also, we can be famous for knitting, stitching, interior design and cooking and our men would hold their head high in pride. But, start sneaking into the x-box, PS2 arena and they become all jittery and nervous :)
Anyway, a few days back, one such guy, let's call him k, who conforms to the comfort zone principle, and I were having a good conversation and I, unthinkingly suggested, "Why don't you call 411 directory assistance? You can get xyz's phone number from them".
Big pause. k looked blankly at me as if I had just said the unthinkable.
"411 huh? really? that thing works? I was thinking about it anyway, might as well give it a try..."
And several other indications that would convey one the impression that he definitely knew about directory assistance ever since the birth of directory and of assistance, short of suggesting that he had actually coined the two words.
RS rests her case :-)
Ms: "Duh, I don't know how to get to Tates Creek Road, can you navigate please?"
(First, let me firmly state that I do know how to go to Tates Creek Road and I do not go "Duh" for anything!)
Mr: "Sure honey, ofcourse I am here to help you."
The Mr as you can see is complacent and secretly pleased that his services are essential and he is even more thrilled that her direction-sense is non-existent. All is well in his little world.
This little example explains the relatively simple concept of comfort zones. Every guy builds up a safe little comfort zone around him, based on his assessment of the girl in question. There are certain areas where he is comfortable if the girl is more proficient than him and these areas commonly are a subset of what I represent in the little comfort-zone-ellipsis on the right. The area outside the ellipsis is usually a subset of what the guy assumes he knows better than the girl at all points in time and space. For example, in my 26 years of pretty unsignificant existence, I have not come across a guy who can admit that his girl friend, wife, any girl for that matter, drives better than him - please refer to diagram once again (I sense seemingly logical explanations being mulled over now before being thrown at me - "That's coz girls are just bad drivers!" and similarly worded mis-conceptions to which I will not say, "Yeah, right!").
As you can see, driving, cars and directions are subjects that we (women) should not dream of excelling in. Oh, but we can be great at responding to flowery pink greeting cards with appropriate thank you notes hand written in cursive writing. Also, we can be famous for knitting, stitching, interior design and cooking and our men would hold their head high in pride. But, start sneaking into the x-box, PS2 arena and they become all jittery and nervous :)
Anyway, a few days back, one such guy, let's call him k, who conforms to the comfort zone principle, and I were having a good conversation and I, unthinkingly suggested, "Why don't you call 411 directory assistance? You can get xyz's phone number from them".
Big pause. k looked blankly at me as if I had just said the unthinkable.
"411 huh? really? that thing works? I was thinking about it anyway, might as well give it a try..."
And several other indications that would convey one the impression that he definitely knew about directory assistance ever since the birth of directory and of assistance, short of suggesting that he had actually coined the two words.
RS rests her case :-)
July 03, 2005
The timeless magic of thachi mammam (curd rice)!
It’s high time I put this post up. There are certain non-believers-who-shall-not-be-named and their understudies who ought to read this post and change their dogmatic assertions that go against my theory, the veracity of which has been established several times.
My theory states: All shall eat thayir sadam and all that do not realize or want to realize the panacean effects of thayir sadam shall be made to do so and shall rot in a thayir-sadam-less hell :-)
Imagine - A marriage hall, elai sapadu, splashes of glimmering pattu jarigai on sarees and the glint of jewellery, the good-natured hustle of long lines of relatives and friends towards, and the fragrance wafting from, the dining hall – the delicious aroma of vengaya sambhar, punctuated by touches of urulai kizhangu curry and kaara rasam, creamy avial inviting us with lemony kootu and crispy apalams and just when you think you can indulge your senses no more and feast no more, along marches the stainless steel bucket of thayir sadam carrying with it a smell so delectable your palate begs you for an encore, after which you can smack your lips in pleasure and slowly roll out of the dining hall.
Thayir sadam is a fussy girl – she wants it all – not only does she demand to taste almost sinfully heavenly, she insists on looking good enough to eat! Complexion like a fair damsel, purple grapes for eyes curiously looking at you, itsy bitsy green chillies adding a shocking taste to her conversation and a tangy flavour - her witty sense of humour and one similarity you cannot miss – both are characteristically unpredictable!
Rain or shine, any time is good enough for thayir sadam for me. You know how you (atleast some of you and me) cannot dream of having bread instead of rice for dinner or tea instead of coffee in the mornings? Well, hand me a plate of thayir sadam and oorgai any time and I promise to eat it with relish, for what I revel in is not just the thayir sadam but the feeling of home it carries with it.
My theory states: All shall eat thayir sadam and all that do not realize or want to realize the panacean effects of thayir sadam shall be made to do so and shall rot in a thayir-sadam-less hell :-)
Imagine - A marriage hall, elai sapadu, splashes of glimmering pattu jarigai on sarees and the glint of jewellery, the good-natured hustle of long lines of relatives and friends towards, and the fragrance wafting from, the dining hall – the delicious aroma of vengaya sambhar, punctuated by touches of urulai kizhangu curry and kaara rasam, creamy avial inviting us with lemony kootu and crispy apalams and just when you think you can indulge your senses no more and feast no more, along marches the stainless steel bucket of thayir sadam carrying with it a smell so delectable your palate begs you for an encore, after which you can smack your lips in pleasure and slowly roll out of the dining hall.
Thayir sadam is a fussy girl – she wants it all – not only does she demand to taste almost sinfully heavenly, she insists on looking good enough to eat! Complexion like a fair damsel, purple grapes for eyes curiously looking at you, itsy bitsy green chillies adding a shocking taste to her conversation and a tangy flavour - her witty sense of humour and one similarity you cannot miss – both are characteristically unpredictable!
Rain or shine, any time is good enough for thayir sadam for me. You know how you (atleast some of you and me) cannot dream of having bread instead of rice for dinner or tea instead of coffee in the mornings? Well, hand me a plate of thayir sadam and oorgai any time and I promise to eat it with relish, for what I revel in is not just the thayir sadam but the feeling of home it carries with it.
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