Archive...

I let the last year set on the horizon behind me, as I flew across the globe to another world altogether. 

I've had a great and very memorable year, a year with its own ups and downs. A year of smiles intertwined with frowns, but far away and in peace. 

The first thought that came to mind after landing on this part of the world is surprisingly a song

 "Seene mein jalan, aakhon mein toofaan sa kyon hai

  Is Shehar mein har shaks, pareshaan sa kyon hain"

Bad economy? Don't know. NY with all its losses still had christmas lights, 30 Rockefeller Plaza sported a fab tree, but this part of the world is glum.

I thought it was just a feeling, a concoction of my own mind, and then I met my accountant, who couldn't contain his joy as he spoke of New York, Central Park, Madison Square, and the one thing which we both fancied alike, the caricaturists' in New York. He didn't hesitate to switch from numbers and forms to the folder where he had archived his best memories of Manhattan. He smiled as he chanted the best things about the city, it's fast paced life and how people wouldn't forget to smile as they walked past you in a frenzied rush. I wanted to ask him, then why don't the people here smile at you, why do they only dash past you? Instead I wished aloud how great it would be if they replicated the Central Park concept in this city. He replied almost in the same breath, "you know they are trying to restore the area around the creek". I hope.

On the brighter side two people smiled at me today, one is an auto driver who wanted ten bucks more, and another one is the auto driver who charged me 100% more for another trip.

Lets just say in the last couple of days I have changed gears from near perfection to almost anarchy.

But when I think of the last year, I guess I couldn't have asked for more. It was like seeing an oasis, not a mirage, a real oasis.

I don't want to think about Mumbai or the Gaza strip, I don't want to remember the job cuts, the auto industry, the gas prices, the Exxon profits, Fannie and Freddie, Fritzl's of the world, Chinese milk and eggs, the Bush administration or the "hunk"administration that is to come. I run away from bureaucracy, red-tapism and auto drivers. Bad omen, all that.

I close my eyes and pray a small one - liner as I imagine the next year 

"Loka samastha sukhino bhavanthu"

And remember the smile from a little boy that I captured in my memory. He's just over one and a half years old, doesn't know a single word from the above mentioned important paragraph. He mumbles sweet nothings and smiles a million - dollar smile.

Thats the only note I hold in my mind in anticipation of tomorrow. No champagne, no celebration, no red carpet, no rich, no poor, no ritz, no glitz, no glamor, just a small smile, a prayer, and a wish that my friend who serves the Indian Navy makes it back safely after patrolling too close to Pakistani waters tomorrow.

And ya, most importantly, I'm not going to read the news until later tomorrow. Everything else can wait, the next moment and the year that follows is mine, to make another important memory, and later, archive. 

Thanks to Thanksgiving

My friend's son, who is 8, and I were having a discussion of sorts on the Turkey day, and he asked me "what is it that you are thankful for which starts with the letter "L"?" I wasn't very sure what answer he was expecting, without putting much thought to it, and lacking a better answer, I said "I'm thankful for my Life", I continued "How about you? What are you thankful for starting with the letter "L"?", he said "Oh I don't know, my Leg, maybe." 

I didn't expect great philosophy from an eight year old boy, but he did trigger the thought, how many times have you and I been thankful for this gift of life?

Before I get struck by Alzheimer's or Amnesia, I would like to record an event where my life was spared. That is what this post is about.

This happened when I was in my twelfth grade, when I was preparing for my Pre - Board exams. My sister was getting engaged in Kerala, and I could not make it because of my exams. Hence I was home alone, so to speak. My mom was slightly worried about leaving me alone and going to Kerala and hence she requested our neighbor-n - friend to send the Nanny who took care of

their kids to sleep over at our place for the duration that she was gone. Our neighbor- n - friend was kind enough to oblige.

I was glad that I didn't have to sleep alone for the few hours that I actually slept during the exams. (Yup, I was a 'last minute crammer', and I paid for it in full, by compromising my sleep).

Well, this was the first time that I had actually talked to the nanny. She was an elderly lady, I'm guessing in her late 50's, and was very friendly and talkative (what with the limited time I had at hand to cram in stuff for the exams). She asked me all about my family, my dad, what did he do? She told me about her family. Her dad and mom were no more, one of her brothers had also passed away. The only members of her family who were still around were her younger brother and herself. I sympathized with her for a bit and asked her where she would like to sleep. She happily lay down on the couch besides the table where I used to study. She kept gazing at my dad's picture for a while, and asked me questions. I answered them in short sentences (intermitted by my cramming).

I fell asleep on my book and then dragged myself to the bed and slept. I got up an hour or two after that only to discover that the nanny had not slept, in fact, she was wide awake and was sitting upright still gazing at my dad's photo. I asked her if she couldn't sleep because the place was new or because the couch was uncomfortable, she said "No, it's because in a couple of hours it would be time to send our neighbor - n - friend's kids to school." [I started rote learning stuff at full speed, because I had only a few more hours to go before the ordeal (exam)]. 

The nanny just dashed out of the house without saying bye. I was too busy to spare time for good manners (even after 12 + years of convent education, because when they asked me for formulas and chemical compositions in the next few hours I'd have to come up with really innovative out of the world stuff if I would have spared 2 minutes)  or to walk her to the door or to check if she safely reached my neighbor- n friend's house, hence I just continued cramming (Absolutely non-courteous ... I know).

That night the nanny came by, she looked perplexed. I felt guilty for not sparing enough time the night before (12+ years of convent education, it makes you feel guilty for a wrong- doing at the least). I started talking to her, asking her about her life, how much she liked Delhi on a scale of one to ten?, does she have any hobbies? about her childhood, she went on and told me she was single. A Keralite woman single, not a nun, thats unheard of. I asked her why she chose to stay single. (none of my business to know that, it came out in the sequence of pleasantries and I was shocked even as I realized I was asking her that). Well to my great comfort, she didn't look appalled at my audacity, and I was much relieved when she said she wasn't interested in getting married. ( In my mind : "hallelujah!! and please don't tell my mom that I asked you what I just did, she will get annoyed at my overly curious and extremely nosey question")

To my great surprise, she dashed out the same way in the wee hours of the morning again but this time I went after her and looked on to ensure that she made it safely to the neighbor-n-friend's place.

The next night she never showed up. I waited till it was really late, and then didn't think it wise to venture out. The next morning our neighbor - n - friend visited me very early in the morning and checked if he could borrow our padlock. I was perplexed, I asked him if the nanny was fine as I handed him the lock and keys, I told him she never showed up last night. Neighbor- n - friend gave me a troubled expression, and told me that the nanny wasn't well. The morning following the first night that she had slept over at my place, she came home saying she was very hungry and she ate a lot, when neighbor- n -friend expressed his concern at her over eating at her age, the nanny got angry and threw her plate away.

The morning following the second sleepover, when she reached the neighbor - n - friend's place she just picked up a knife and charged at him with no reason at all. He ducked the assault shoved her into the room and bolted it from outside. He stood by the door and asked her what was wrong. She never answered his question , she kept mouthing words that made no sense.

I didn't know how to react. I told him that she talked very casually to me on the two nights that she had given me company, but for the fact that she hardly slept.

I was rallying with the thought of her acting weird all through that day, that evening all of a sudden I heard a huge commotion, I looked out of the window and found the nanny being carried back inside the house. My curiosity got the better of me, and I rushed to the neighbor - n - friend's place to find out what the ruckus was all about. 

They had called a doctor to have a look at the nanny. The nanny was singing strange songs and looked lost and distant. She kicked and jolted her legs, and let out screams of pain. I learnt that she had jumped from the balcony of the room where she had been locked. I assumed that she might have hurt herself really badly in doing so, and the scene that followed was what I had witnessed from my window.

The doctor arrived, she threw a single glance at the nanny and said "I think she's suffering a mental trauma", The doctor examined her and tried to talk to the nanny. She announced that the nanny had a fractured hip and acute schizophrenia. 

She asked the neighbor - n -friend how he knew the lady, He told her that she was the nanny who looks after his kids. The doctor looked at him with wide - eyed bewilderment as if conveying with her eyes "are you out of your mind?"

She requested him to discharge her from her duties with immediate effect, ask her family to take custody of her and treat her for the fractured hip.

She went on to explain how dangerous the nanny could have been, had she attacked the kids. She asked if the nanny exhibited any exceptional behavior. Neighbor- n - friend, explained how she had suddenly developed a huge appetite and how she got aggressive when he cautioned her about over- eating. He also told her that she had tried to attack him with a knife and that's why he locked her up in self defense. I told the doctor that she had not been much of a restful sleeper the last couple of nights when she had been at my place.

The doctor looked at me and said young lady be glad she didn't do you any harm or attack you while you were asleep.

My breath got stuck somewhere in the rib cage when I heard the Doctor say that. She said people with the mental condition that the nanny is suffering heard voices in their brain which asked them to behave in a particular fashion. They tend to follow whatever their "inner voice" says. (Thank you "inner voice" for sparing my life, even after me not being too courteous).

When neighbor - n - friend called the nanny's younger brother, he discovered, that the nanny's dad and older brother were Schizophrenic too. They eventually succumbed to the mental trauma and killed themselves. The nanny had shown signs of the trauma and had been briefly treated for it. (the real reason for her being single). When she showed signs of recovery, she was shipped off to an entirely new place in the hope that she will be cured of the mental condition given the new environment. Well fortunately or unfortunately the symptoms surfaced, and she was sent for treatment after this incident.

At that particular juncture I didn't know what to do or how to react. Now, many years from that day, amidst the celebration and the aroma of a well cooked turkey and other delicacies, when my little friend asked me what I was thankful for, this whole episode played in my mind.

I'm thankful for my life. I really am. I'm not the First Indian- American lady president of the United States of America, but life has been kind to me, for the most part. I would have missed out on a lot of exciting stuff including my sister's wedding if the nanny would have tried to stab and kill me in my sleep.  

I'm thankful for thanksgiving and the little boy who reminded me to be thankful, even if it was through arbitrary conversation. I'm thankful to life for all the great things it has thrown my way, including this snow flake of an anticipation to look forward to a very white Christmas.

Fingers Crossed!!!

I went to School in New Delhi, the political capital of India. My school crowd was principally composed of north Indians. I didn't bother much about the differences in race or religion until one fine day a student who had joined newly, and was by birth a north Indian, came and asked me after the morning ritual of roll- call, why my name was so strange.

 I was surprised, I had studied in the school for more than a decade, no one - students or teachers, had asked me that question. I asked her "what makes you think my name is strange?" She answered,"I don't know what your name means." I said "Rosa, is Latin for Rose. What else is strange?" She continues "Why do you have a middle name?" I explained to her that Christians, from the part of the country I belonged to, have a name by which they are called when they are baptized (and explained what Baptism is, at the risk of being called a religious fanatic studying in a convent school trying to convert a non-christian). I told her that the middle name was chosen by my parents, and then the last name is my family name. 

She stresses "exactly my point why isn't it less complex, why can't it just be a Shivani or a Neha or a Pooja" (all common names in my class). I said "Ya it would have been a lot more easier if we all looked similar too, like the mongoloids, the uninitiated can't make out who is who?" That was my attempt at humor, which was mistaken for arrogance, and resulted in a lost acquaintance. 

My dear long lost school friend, have you heard the name of the new president of USA who is an African-American for crying out loud, "Barack Obama", It is nowhere to be found in the confines of the English Dictionary, my name is light years away in complexity to that one.

After congratulating Obama on his victorious dash to the Oval Office, McCain said 'The American people have spoken, and they have spoken out loud'. I am filled with jubilation as I see the American people raise their voices to bring in this much awaited change. Now it's the duty of the President elect to make sure this voice for change reverberates throughout the planet. 

And I hope that at least, some twenty years from now when someone who doesn't belong to the creme De la creme of the Indian society, who is educated (not just literate) and is an educator, who has the confidence and the insight to lead the country, asks India for their vote, they forget if he or she is a Shivani, a Jasmeet, a Harish, a Palaniappan, a Yadav, a Sinha, a Trivedi, a Nair, a Tendulkar, a someone from some part of the country, and vote for him/ her with the same enthusiasm that the American people have shown in voting for change and creating history.

And I hope that years from now, everyone wakes up in a world free of terrorism and war. 

And I hope that years from now, everyone wakes up in a world where they do not have to worry about going hungry for another day.

And I hope that years from now, everyone wakes up in a world where people don't have to hope that their jobs are secure each morning, as they set out for work.

Hope is the fuel with which I inject my train of thoughts to the future, I hope we come out with a fuel as clean as hope for actual transportation. I keep my fingers crossed!!

And before I take the fast lane to tomorrow, I have one question I want to ask out loud "Where the hell is George W. Bush?" and when he comes to the forefront I gloat after saying,

"You're Fired".

About what?

There have been so many thoughts racing through my mind in the last couple of days, I'm really not sure what the subject should be. 

Thought 1: Recession

I have been hearing endlessly about the slowdown since I landed in New York in January this year. Each time the Federal Chairman gives a worried expression to the media, Wall Street starts sweating in their Italian designer suits, and then that sweat wave ripples across the rest of the world starting with the sun rise on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. My limited learning of Macroeconomics has enlightened me on 3 steps taken during the trough, (i) Rate cuts, (ii) Central Bank pumps back money, (iii) Central bank buys short term debt. I've seen Ben Bernanke backed by the US government (or vice versa) do all three in the course of three financial quarters. What makes me sweat in my jeans and T on Main Street is the economic analyst on news at 6 who says the economies across the world continue to swoon. Then where are the tax payers' dollars? Whom did we bail- out or (to go with a better marketing term) rescue? Is it because the big shots at AIG blew a whopping 440,000 at a resort after the bail out? Yup, please continue to get your manicures and pedicures, we promise to continue paying for them.

Thought 2: The US presidential election

I am head over heels in love with the Obama - Biden ticket, If I could vote, I would vote for them. Why do I love them? a) I like people who give me rationalizations instead of bull crap. b) I haven't seen Obama throwing mulch to deface another presidential candidate during his presidential campaign. c) I would like to see how Obama, who comes across as a very reasonable man, would pull the whole world out of this financial catastrophe. What scares me are words like Ulterior motives, terrorism, how he got there from food stamps to a 1.5 million home at Kenwood? I am a believer in the "everything is for good" motto, and in my mind I pray that no nation sees another 9/11 ever. As for McCain I would like to quote Biden's words lifted from his Vice- Presidential Debate: " John McCain has been dead wrong. I love him. As my mother would say, God love him, but he's been dead wrong on the fundamental issues relating to the conduct of the war. Barack Obama has been right. There are the facts."

Thought 3: I have a dream!

Each time I see Obama at his campaign, the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., reverberate in my mind. I have a dream. I want to see if King's dream is fulfilled. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Thought 4: I am bad at giving directions.

My husband would agree hands down to this statement. Somehow I am extremely challenged when it comes to this facet of existence. I cannot say "to the right" or "to the left", instead I use words and phrases like "here", "there", "that one", "that fly over", "this exit". Rest assured I will never steer a ship even if my whole life depended on it, cause instead of saying "iceberg ahead!" my words would be "iceberg over there", while the ship sinks and the desperate crew looks around to find what I meant by "over there".

Thought 5: I'm a Mac

I used to love PC's and I don't disregard them now. But my husband's Mac has sucked in my soul into itself. Why do I say that, I sometimes think to myself, how does this thing co-ordinate with me so finely. When I used PCs I used to get restless when it didn't respond at the spur of the moment. Use a Mac you'll know the difference instantaneously. I don't care if the whole world uses PCs and criticizes me for this, but hey - I'm a Mac and I don't care about being called a stereotype, or wearing glasses it's all about the user interface and the user experience.

Thought 6: Why do friends change?

I have a lot of friends whom I cherish. My husband asked me a very intriguing question one of these days, "Who is your best friend? Can you define what you mean by calling someone your best friend?". As I said I've had lots of friends and acquaintances till date, If you asked me while I was in school, college or my work place I'm sure at least one name would have popped up over the rest. Those people are still around, but where's that relationship now? I failed to find an answer. There's only one person who I cherish over the rest still. But when I bumped into that one, I found the same person but not the same friendship. I asked to myself why do friends change? 

These and a lot of other casual monologues race through my mind. My thought factory continues its process, it sometimes comes out with junk, sometimes with pearls of wisdom. So what should I pen down? and ...  About what?

The tale of retail...

I have to share this one. I am looking for something engaging, anything that keeps me out of the house and amidst people. I like meeting people. So I came up with a great idea, why not work with the retail industry for a bit. I get to meet a whole variety of people that way. I also have a genuine desire to learn how the retail industry goes about with its business.

Hence I thought of applying for an opportunity with an upscale retail chain. It serves a lot of purposes.

1) I get to go out of the house and meet people. I have not had too many encounters with people outside my community ever since I landed. 

2) I get to meet the people who shop at upscale outlets.

3) I get to see what's new and happening from what's sold on the floor.

4) It has been a dream to learn more about retail cause it fascinates me. It can be another case of "the grass is greener from the other side", but nonetheless worth a shot.

5) Also since the place is just walking distance away from where I stay I get a little exercise.

So all the forces seemed to add up and it started looking like an opportunity.

I go to the office anticipating a great deal of action and questions about the retail industry. I, in turn was ready with my set of questions on how it runs, how do they choose reliable wholesalers / manufacturers, how do they decide what the customer likes, and what should be on the shelves, how do they manage shelf space, what are the logistics involved, how does the pricing / commission for each shelf work, what happens to products that do not get sold even after a price reduction / sale. These and many more were the questions I wanted to ask. I knew I wouldn't get a reply to all the questions but whatever little I come to know would account for some amount of learning.

Round 1:

Mr. XYZ comes up to me introduces himself and asks for my name and what I was doing previously. I answer the question, he says I like your personality, I think you can go upstairs to room **** for round 2.

Round 2:

A questionnaire on honesty and shop lifting, not something I was in the mood for. How could an employer be so naive. It was a questionnaire even I could manipulate leave alone petty thieves and shop lifters. Here's something that you could laugh at for a bit the first question is:

1) I have shoplifted in the last 6 months.

    - True - False

I have not done that so I marked false. How about someone who's done that? Does the retailer think they'll answer honestly? May be if we live in Utopia.

I struggle to keep myself from laughing or getting frustrated with how insecure the recruiters are. I want to be perfectly fair to them and think that the questionnaire was a result of innumerable bitter experiences in the past. But I think they should rephrase the questions to get into the person's psyche and not be so obvious. An eleven or twelve year old could trick them on that questionnaire.

Well after taking a good amount of time, I finish the questionnaire.

Round 3:

The final round. This time it's a lady, I tell her that my job used to involve drawing media plans, she looks at me in awe. Now will I ever want to take that job after that. She says "you can join today if you give me the number of anyone who knows you in the vicinity excluding family of course."

I totally lost interest by then. There was no fight or struggle in earning the damn role. I did not even get to ask questions about the retail industry. Boy, I wish I stayed near Manhattan. I need people who totally make me fight (not physically, in which case i'll never get any job ) and earn my brownie.

Well, I told them I could not give them any contact numbers without checking with the people concerned. I took their number and walked back home with an iota of knowledge augmented by the interview; there is a huge shoplifting problem in upscale retail houses. Also I learnt about a new method of stealing, changing price tags on objects to save some money. Believe it or not I deduced it from the questionnaire.

Well it sure can ignite ideas in honest people.

Thats about my brief stint with upscale retail. 

The way back was quite eventful too. On my way back I came across a bunch of school girls, the conversation was as follows:

School Girl : Hi

Me : Hi 

School Girl : You look all "businessy"

Me : Well :)

I walked away with a new adjective. I was quick to learn it cause this is the generation that's going to edit the wikipedia, which will probably be the single most revered and refered source of information soon, I better look contemporary with my vocabulary that day.

Then as I turned the loop I heard fire engine alarms, I assumed they were on the main road,  guessing the direction from where the sounds came. Turns out, the fire engines and me reached the spot at the same time. I smelled smoke - filled smokey air, and saw smokey hot firemen in action as they tried to put down the fire on the second floor of a building two blocks away from my apartment.

Life is back to normal now, I'm lazy, dreamy and tell - tale-y as usual. 

House...

Dr. Gregory House is a huge favorite of mine. Borrowing and customizing from the McDonald's ad - "I want to shake the hands of the genius who created the character". He is a megalomaniac, I absolutely love the way Hugh Laurie gives life and form to Gregory House M.D.. I am now of the belief that there is in fact a genius called Dr. House who heads the department of Diagnostics at the Princeton - Plainsboro teaching hospital in New Jersey. For a crew to create a character that people start believing really exist, I guess that must be a milestone of creative genius any movie/ tv show producer would strive to reach (apart from TRP's ofcourse).

I love the wit and the fast pace. There is an instance when someone says to House "Ya I've heard your name" House's immediate retort is "It's also a noun". I was stumped.I laughed for a while, I missed the next wise crack from him cause I was still laughing for this one.

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Well the word "House" as a noun is of interest to me as well. Over the years I have come to learn that this noun is associated with a spectrum of meanings. The term is subjective, and not limited to just the concrete, wood and glass that goes into it's making.

My mom bought three houses during her tenure, but only the last one does she call Home. Surprising how these two synonyms have a gulf of difference in their meaning. 

To almost all of us it is an investment; statistics say that approximately 60%  of a person's fortune is accounted for by the real estate they own. I assume the house people live in will be at least a miniature portion of the real estate they own. Hence I safely assume that the house is a part of their financial fortune. 

If there was ever a graph to see how the meaning of the term "house" varied with income levels, I would love to see what people closer to origin on the the two axis would say, and compare it to the remarks of those on the other extreme of the graph.

 I'm also curious to see the Venn Diagram which states for what portion of the people it is home (h), for whom it is pure investment (i) and for what percentage of people is it home and investment (h intersection i).

The thought crossed my mind after Ike. I couldn't find an answer to the following questions:

1) Why didn't people evacuate their houses even when authorities warned them of certain death in case they stayed back?

2) Did they think the house was indestructible? Or was it some unshakeable faith in their home that made them think they'll be safe?

3) Did they prefer to die in their home, than take refuge elsewhere? Is a home more precious than your life?

4) Were they plain lazy or plain crazy?

Whatever be the case it would be devastating to know that your home / house was destroyed after all that you've dreamed of / paid for in it. One million people were left homeless in Haiti after Ike swept through the island. I can only imagine the pain they undergo seeing only wreckage where once their house stood.

Let me jump to another level and think about a much larger picture, the Earth. Men of wisdom have said "Mahatmanam tu Vasudha ev Kutumbakam", an interesting phrase in Sanskrit which means "for the great the whole earth is their family". The Human race and all living forms are a family, and our home is the Earth. We are born here, we live, learn, dream and make our dreams come true here. 

Then regarding the majority of us who consider their House an investment, by the standard of having the whole Earth for our house, we should consider investing more time, money and fortune into this huge chunk of real estate. Well I am not one to judge, I'm sure we all do our part. Except for the pollution bit about which we all complain but do nothing, and wait for another member of our extended family (kutumbakam) to come up with a solution, or at least do moral policing. 

Coming back to my Mom - she thinks her 3rd house is her Home because she says this is the hearth my Dad and herself had pictured in their younger days. My mom only wanted one promise from me, never sell this house. I play the words in my mind again and think she meant do not consider this just another house and sell it. Well I won't, because it is the home of their dreams where their memories and mine will live happily ever after. 

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Today at 8:00 pm EST the new season of House premieres. Another hour of action from Hugh Laurie, where he limps around the whole place stabbing people's egos and feeding his own, while he cures the most complex and subtle diseases, and leaves millions of us breathless in anticipation of what's next. I don't know about others but I'll be glued to the idiot box for sure. :), well I'll breathe during commercials .. duh!!!

In a New York second...

I once got an email, a forward to be precise which talked about the essence of time. The last sentence in the email was "If you want to know the importance of a milli second, ask an Olympian who lost the race by a millisecond."

It did not ring a bell at that point. Who cared. All I was worried about was that I come back from the library at about 8:00 p.m.,because after that the hostel warden wouldn't let us in, and hit the bed by 10:00 p.m., because after that the lights were not supposed to be on. 

                                    ******************************************

I have been watching some telecasted Olympics events', to be more precise the track games, gymnastics, tennis and water cube events. 

Track races, because I want to see the winners and their performance and review it against any report of drug abuse which will be published later towards the the time of the final medal count. I am curious, I want to find out if drugs can really result in victory.

Gymnastics, because the Chinese are performing brilliantly. I join the millions of other people who've been debating if the performers are really 16 or older. The Chinese gymnasts look too young for their age. Is it the gymnastics that makes them look younger, or will their true age be revealed and contested towards the time of the final events or way after that? I wait and watch. No questions about the performance though, I know very little about the technical details and difficulty levels, but through my 'lay person eyes' the performance has been an art of immense beauty, proving the extents to which the human body could be bent and flexed. Overall great show!!!

Tennis, I want to see the intelligence and prowess of Nadal, and what has kept Federer on top for the last 5  Wimbledon years. I happened to see a couple of matches and I see why the critics have been naming Federer the 'Best Tennis Player ever', and how Nadal's mastery over the game has helped him scale to the peak. I saw Serena in action too. I just let loose my imagination and placed myself running on that same tennis court. I could see myself running all over it without being able to figure out what would be my next move. I would be too busy being defensive instead of attacking the attacker the way the Williams sisters do...

Swimming, you guessed it, because of the legendary brand called Michael Phelps. Here is where the email about the millisecond made sense for the first time. Is it sheer genius, is it excellent swimming tactics, is it speed, is it some hidden energy, is it all this and more? What makes Phelps strike gold each time. Is he some Demi God, some progeny of Zeus that has the power to conquer water? 

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The essence of time, that goes into the making of a hero. Time moulds, slow or fast. Time changes people, places, races. Success or failure comes and goes with time. Thats when I heard about this funny sounding unit of time " the New York second".

My preliminary understanding of the term is a unit of time shorter than the actual second, resultant of a pace set up by the frenzy people in New York live in. Expecting the unexpected with every move. Why not any other place? There are so many other cities, there are people who work day in and day out. Why not any other place in any other country? Is time the most precious commodity only in a New Yorker's life? Or is it that New Yorkers  have realized the extreme importance of that dimensionally small unit of time which is big in it's magnitude of impact. 

Everything changes for better or for worse in a 'New York second'. Life changes into a winning spree rewarding you with gold at every juncture, or a series of losses within "New York seconds".

Expect more out of life every "New York Second", & well, Keep Smiling :)

R K Narayan's Malgudi Days...

As a child, the only option I had when it came to watching TV was Doordarshan, India's National Channel. It was funny how the channel limited the scope of programs that could be viewed. 

Anyways thats not my point, I want to talk about something entirely different.

It has been raining in New York for the past couple of days. Accompanied by the downpour is a spectacular show of thunder and lightening. It made me crave for Indian monsoon. The decade old beautiful memory of the way rainwater streamed down the parapets onto my extended arms, while my mom, scared of thunder and lightening, coaxed me to retreat into the safety of the rainproof indoors, flashed in my mind.

To me thunder and lightening were the result of the legendary Tansen singing Raag Deepak to set up flames while his student sang Megha Malhaar Raag to douse the fire with music that burst open heaven's floodgates. There was the music and beat from the showers and the thunder, and the beautiful scent from the soil, as it gorged down rainwater, which overwhelmed one's senses.

All this coupled with a warm cup of cardamom - flavored tea, some pakoras or bhajjis, and a book to read. Thats how R K Narayan's Malgudi Days came to mind. 

Malgudi Days was one of the serials that I liked on DD. Swami or "Chami" as his grandma used to call the character, was played by Manjunath, who immortalized this little boy from Malgudi and etched him among the beautiful memories I have of my childhood.

To me Malgudi was a place where kids had fun, where they could run around and play, they were scared as I was of my educators,  but in the end everything was for good. 

It also reminded me of Indian writing in English. I love the concept, especially when I see a beautifully written regional story draped in a foreign language with a beauty and fluorescence that embraces you with it's every word. I remember reading short stories by M T Vasudevan Nair,Uroob and Thoppil Muhammad Basheer in Malayalam, though it was not my forte. I took days to read and understand the stories, the purpose was to live amongst the many colors in the pictures they painted and the characters they sketched. Sadly when I started working I grew impatient and tried reading translations instead, thats how I added Kuttyedathi to my collection. 

The breeze that preceded the showers blew life into that page in memory where I used to listen to the rhythm of the rain falling outside as I grabbed a book and retreated into the colorful world painted by my favorite Indian authors. There amidst rain drops, Megha Malhaar, fresh green shades, colorful memories and refreshing scents was a calm that no materialism could shake.

I love New York and it's many hues, but the rains in New York remind me of a mystical Malgudi somewhere. Guess the child inside wants to escape and stay unbound even amidst concrete strictures.

tribute to Prof. Randy Pausch

I'm sad Randy Pausch died.

I only know him through his video and his book, but I'm sad.

I'm sure so are the millions of others in whom he continues to instill the dream of fulfilling their dreams through his "Last Lecture".

for those of you who still haven't seen / heard it click here

get inspired.

:)

June 26th/27th - time zone dependent...

Yesterday was a very eventful day. Today continues to be exciting.

First and foremost it was my Ex-Roomie's Birthday. I forgot about it, but made sure I was, at least, the last one to wish her. This is where EST (in context of the US of A) came to my rescue. Though it was already midnight of 26th in India, it was afternoon of the 26th for me. (So this is why people thank God for everything, the rotation of the Earth being one of them). Hence I took advantage of the time difference and managed to scrape through Sidney Sheldon style.

I can be titled an "insensitive pig" in this context, because I remember fairly well, that for my birthday last year my dearest (ex) roomie had taken the trouble of buying a chocolate truffle cake (my favorite), waking me up at 00:00 hrs, and singing "Happy Birthday" for me, even as I thought the whole world including my mom had forgotten that I'm turning one year older.

This made me think of my roomie for a bit. (And this is not because she bought me my favorite cake for my birthday)I have not, till date, seen a person who is so understanding. She's the only one who looked at broken ribs and accidents in the eye, and was brave enough to ride pillion with me, a horrible(, horrible-r, horrible-st)  two-wheeler rider. It always seemed to me that she's perfectly at peace with herself and others because she never cribbed about other people* (*bad bosses are excluded from "people", because everyone except for kiss-asses complain about them). She made sure her public relations were to the point, nobody has said anything bad about her in my living memory . Though I lost it at times for my own reasons, she was always composed,(she's not a yogi, my constant usage of 'calm' 'peace' n 'composed' might make one wonder she was). These and many other good qualities made her the best roomie I ever had. God Bless Her Forever!!

Secondly, Bill Gates is stepping down. I am a huge fan of Mac and Steve Jobs, but Bill Gates is an exemplary. Most of us are firm believers in the generations old "graduating and making it big" formula. We do not have the courage to drop out from ordinary schools, leave alone Harvard. To believe in an idea and some "chips" (and never quit believing) and change the landscape of technology altogether, that was legendary. My salutations!!!

Thirdly, Mrs. Sabhnani, thats an extremely bad show. From where I look at you (with the glasses I borrow from the media world- over), this was in very very bad-taste. I'm sure if you really loved your kids like you stated in court, you would have known and done much better.

Next, Dark Knight being dedicated to Heath Ledger. When a trailer of the movie played a couple of days back, I told my husband they might dedicate the movie to the great actor. My husband read the news article this morning and asked me where did you read it before, "you were right", they did dedicate it to Ledger and special effects technician Convey Wicliffe,  (who was killed in a stunt accident) will also be 'remembered'. Trust my husband is fully aware that this is the general practice, and was just reaffirming what he knew. My good intention was to immortalize the "you were right".

Lastly, the lock on my main door got stuck on 26th June 2008, 1500 hrs EST, we had to figure out a way to get it fixed. If we complained to the regular maintenance personnel it will not get fixed before 600 hrs EST on Saturday, which is when I head out to Philadelphia for an eventful weekend with family. So we had to con the emergency services personnel into believing that our whole life was dependent on the well being of the lock. 

Nature, Gas prices, Lucifer's army and my husband's boss, I request you to be conducive to my small wish and leave us alone this weekend, kindly concentrate your energies somewhere else. All of you vile forces, go away, little rose rim wants to play.

Imagination (Un)limited. 1

Looks like it is the celebrity visit week in dreamland. Yesterday's  dream was even peppier, and this one, I wish comes true.

I am working in Japan, at a site owned by TATA industries (Globalized even in my dreams). I take a bullet train to work daily and I sit in the same last row everyday. One day as I walked in I saw a couple of new faces. I walked past them nonchalantly. The train started moving, soon after an older gentleman lifted his phone-like device up and called out my name. I looked in his direction, he said my mom just sent a message to call her back.

The bullet train was owned by TATA group, and they were running a test trial to receive all the messages on a single server and dispense it from there. Hence that phone- like device was the server. All the messages sent to the train were coming to the phone- like server which the gentleman had, so did my Mom's message.

I got curious, I wanted to learn how it functioned and what were the benefits of installing such a system on the train. I asked the elderly gentleman, he told me one of them was that even if you are in a no coverage zombie- zone you'll stay connected because of this device. I also wanted to know if this could be of marketing value, once the train was used for commercial travel to the new sci-fi shopping mall that we were building. I asked him a lot of questions with child-like curiosity, he patiently listened and answered. Somewhere in the conversation we also talked about India's double digit inflation. He started with "Inflation is good and bad, it also affects shareholder value." I said "increase in Whole sale Price Index and good, are you an owner who gets all products and services free and/or some special subsidized rate, we both laughed at the fairy tale win-win".

He said " No I diversify, I don't like putting all my eggs in one basket. I see a challenge in every industry, as if it were a puzzle only I could solve. I recently delivered the One lakh car, it has been a dream to produce an affordable car for the Indian Middle Class. You must have heard about it."

Curiosity changed gears, became wide eyed bewilderment. The man behind it all, Mr. Tata himself, I did not know how to react, him discussing childish economics and technology with me??? I looked around and found people staring at us, listening to what he had to say. Holy Crap!!!! I asked him "Can you give me a letter which says I met you and asked you some questions, you can add "intelligent" as the adjective for the questions".  "My ex-boss has a letter from you which he keeps as a souvenir I would love to have one too." 

Mr. Tata hand writes the letter and extends it to me. I reach out my hand to take it from him, when my "dearest, ever-loving, sugar and spice and everything nice" husband shook me out of the bullet train in Japan and I fell with a thud onto my queen-size mattress in New York without saying Bye to Mr. Tata. What a happy ending....

I could have asked Mr. Tata to adopt me... well there goes, my economics, marketing, japanese technology and sci-fi mall.

But I loved the Mr. Tata of my dreams, he looked as majestic and refined in my dreams as I see him in the newspaper photos, online images and news clippings. I could see (or imagine) the person was him, but not make out who he is before he talked to me about what he does, Dreams are strange...

If this trend of celebrity encounters continues in my dreams, Wish to see Larry Page & Sergey Brin next.

Imagination (Un)limited.

I had the strangest of dreams yesterday. So strange I'm still wondering why I had it? 

If you are someone from Malludom you might understand the cast of characters, for the others,the names Mohan Lal and Mamooty need to be replaced by two extremely popular contemporary movie stars, in their 40's/50's (talking about their screen age) who are still cast as young college goers flirting around with chicks who could be approximately their children's age.

The names used are not in reference to actual people or their characters, trust dreams are still allowed to be unbridled and not goaded. Pure dream and coincidence, everything that follows.

The dream goes as follows:

I'm taking my mom, my two aunts, a 6 or 7 year old boy (I have no clue who he is, any resemblance to someone living or dead is purely coincidental) to meet an actress (again can't figure out who), Mamooty and Mohan Lal, in that order. All the characters of great fame are supposedly acquaintances.

We get into our car, and reach the actress's sprawling mansion, I meet her and her toddler, my family talks to her as if they have known each other forever, the boy is playing with the toddler. After the niceties, and just as I am about to ask if we could move on to our next stop which is Mamooty's house, Mohal Lal drops in at the actress's place. In my dream the two M's are jealous of each other, and hence mentioning one to the other isn't going to be taken pleasantly. Just as Mohan Lal reaches the welcoming open door and I'm rushing in to tell my gang not to mention about our next stop to the approaching visitor, my aunt spills out the beans and asks if it's time for us to leave, and asks me to call Mamooty and let him know we'll be there in a few minutes. Mohan Lal is sadnsurprised that we are visiting Mamooty first, I'm under the shock waves of an OMG moment, they are both good friends of mine and I didn't want to give an impression that I like one over the other.

Mohan Lal being the sporty kind says he will join the gang and visit him with us, I breathe out a sigh of relief.I'm helping the actress secure her mansion before leaving, because she's coming too. From the corner of my eye I could spot suspicious characters lurking around her house, which made me double check the locks and bolts. We hop on to the back of Mohan Lal's car. I tell him that I need to pick up gifts for both Mamooty and him and would need to go to a gift retailer first. He takes us there and hides behind a curtain to protect himself from fans and paparazzi. I do not approve of any gifts at the outlet since nothing is to my taste or theirs. I spot Mohan Lal at the billing counter he has already purchased a cheap looking yellow shirt which he thinks Mamooty would like(I didnot). I decide to look up for another shop near Mamooty's place and get him something.

Mohan Lal drops us at the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) Bus Stop. I am taken aback, Mohan Lal says he will be joining us in a bit after parking the car. We wait at the bus-stop, fully aware that there's only one bus in every two hours to his house, after a long and tiring wait, the bus arrives, my aunt goes and checks out the feasibility of us getting into the bus, she says it will be difficult there's a crowd of men standing by the door, to get past them to the emptier and vacant side would be a struggle.

 I ran the scenario of waiting for the next bus and how crowded that too would be and planned on boarding the bus. By then the Bus was already in motion, my aunt ran after it yelling "wait for me"(in english- to a conductor and driver on a KSRTC Bus). The little boy tugged on to my arm, I reached the entrance to the bus, and saw men who pushed against each other, their lungis were folded way above their knees. I could either jostle in through them and cringe as they rubbed their crotches against me or wait for the next bus, I decided to crawl in, that way I'll be below their knees and way below and safe from their crotches and best of all be there before it gets too dark. Their lungis mushroomed over me. The boy followed me into the bus, but once I got in, I was not able to locate my gang. The dream ends causing me discomfit.

I thought about this dream I had and deduced the following:

1) I watch too many malayalam movies (especially these days because I have a lot of leisure,and looking for good stories which I could appreciate), I should reduce the count.

2) Who was the little boy? Who was the actress?

3) The two great Ms of Malludom, are they really jealous of each other?

4) Yellow shirt, Mallu men of today, I hope have better tastes, than gifting each other shirts the color of banana chips fried in coconut oil.

5) Even my dreams are haunted by KSRTC buses and Bus stops.

6) In my mind KSRTC buses are boarded by people who wanted to go from A to B who look for seats and sit down, and by men who wear folded lungis, push and shove by the door, and wait to rub their crotch against women who really have no other intention but to board the bus.

7) Was this a women's liberation dream, women accompanying me, Men all bad and jealous, and a little boy who tugged to my arm to protect him? Old style Kerala women's liberation which is not really about women or liberation?

8) Wouldn't it have hurt the ego's of the men of malludom when a house-wife like my aunt speaks to a KSRTC driver in English, I'm sure they will make fun of her until she forgets the alphabet and avenge themselves, how could she use a language that their lungi clad selves haven't mastered yet?

9) When I finally struggle against a man's-world, break the glass ceiling (ha ha ha) and make it into the bus, no one from my gang (of women) were there to see me gloating.

10) Why does the dream end in discomfit? What embarrasses me, the fact that I made it, the fact that I didn't see my people, or the fact that the crotches of malludom were stunned at my insolence, and the fact that I made it through should give them another reason to call me an arrogant bitch.

Good and bad are in all of us, but we rely on the "Lucifer principle" and blame evil on someone else. Not all men are bad and and just crotches with faces and not all women are good.

Like I said we all can find the Lucifer in others but not in ourselves.

As for the dream, I'm going to check if someone is bold enough to buy the story, Imagination (Un)limited is the name of my "dream factory", pun intended.

 

All for the love of gold...

If you ever travel to South India, Kerala in particular, you cannot help but notice the fondness women there have for gold(and coconut oil). 

My family was once invited to the inauguration of a retail outlet. Most of the businesses in Kerala which are 'for the people, by the people,of the people,' are proprietorships/family owned businesses. The one I am referring to is on the same lines, and retails clothing (brands or otherwise) and jewelry. 

We went in with our strategy in place, the invasion was divided into two battles. Stage one would be the clothing section. Since the products were relatively cheaper there was a larger chance of missing out on the good stuff than at the jewelry store where women spent a couple of milliseconds more considering and deciding which piece to pocket. Hence we could sweep through the clothes section in a couple of hours and then take the jewelry section by its horns.

My aunt and I jostled through the crowd that rummaged through the clothing section, hoarding whatever pleased the eye. The competition was on, whoever got to the design first had a greater possibility of owning the piece. We competed against people who spoke different dialects/ accents of English, Malayalam, Hindi (& rare instances of Kannada) making our way to the prize. 

The next battle was at the jewelry store, and a bird's eye view of the crowd indicated it was not going to be easy. We managed to swoop down to the counter and have a look at a few designs, but the jostling women that enveloped me made me wonder aloud "what is with women and gold jewelry, why do they like it so much?" I was loud enough for the ladies next to me to hear, they smiled and played chinese whispers conveying my message to the next friend (fiend in the jewelry battle). I could make out that my radical question had reached the extremities of the hall, because the manager on the floor caught up with the giggling ladies who looked in my direction, he heard their version of my comment, and without wasting a single moment in thinking about the intelligent and enlightening question, gave me the evil eye. The rest is history.. (which means it cannot be disclosed to mankind how soon we chose what we didn't want,paid for it and picked speed)

Advertising has certainly played it's part in accentuating interest in this jewelry outlet, but what of my grandma's contemporaries who were overpowering us in the battle for the prettiest piece. My grandma and her friends are as fond of gold jewelry as the rest of them tugging at necklaces and bangles, the chunkier the piece the fiercer it gets.

I guess the love for jewelry can be traced back to the history of mankind, or womankind to be precise. It means adorning themselves to some, to others it means being the best among the adorned, while there are others who think that a person's stature is directly proportional to the amount of expensive stones n metals on their persona.

To me its just something that complements the attire, only when you are supposed to look dressy.

Then the pivotal question is "what was I doing at the inauguration of a clothing and jewelry outlet?"

Like I said the chemistry between glitter, glamor and women goes way back... it's much beyond my comprehension to say the least.

Of humans and their ingenuity...

Gas prices are high, everyone is complaining about them. Lately we have come to express ourselves and react to bad news by sending funny forwards. Thats how this picture ended up in my mail box.

I was amused by human ingenuity. Even humor can precipitate invention. In my mind there was a huge clang! 

We have people designing space ships, satellites, robots that can collect (or try to) soil from martian surface, why can't they design a car that could run on alternate sources of energy.

I'm not talking about hybrids, I'm talking of a completely different cleaner car using an alternate form of energy. Driving should be like rain making, a win-win cycle wherein everything balances out, citrus paribus. (I am aware of the floods in Iowa and droughts in different parts of the world, which is definitely not a win-win, I'm ruling out exceptions and extremities ).

Say like in the picture, the vehicle ran on wind energy, or Solar energy.

I switched from the mail box and scrolled down the business news page and found that Honda has come up with a car that runs on a Hydrogen cell,the exhaust fumes being H2O. Water vapor. Am I dreaming, Man that was fast!!! you can read more about it here.

I realize that there will be CO2 emissions from this engine as well and also that the production of Hydrogen is expensive, but I'm sure they'll perfect it and sell something worthwhile and easily accessible to the masses soon.

About the car running on Solar Power, I wouldn't be surprised if someone runs out of the bathtub one of these days, with a eureka!!!, grabbing the design as a beacon to be handed over to generations to come.

Meanwhile in the developing nations, they will fight about the politics and economics of such cars, as the ozone layer continues to yawn at them in boredom. People will compete to bring out cheaper versions of the clean car, more economics and politics. Jobs will be outsourced, commotion resulting from that, more economics and politics.

Well I do hope some fearless mind comes out with a breakthrough sooner than later.

The Arctic Ice has melted faster this year, scientists say that snow-less summers are not too far away, and there are others who campaign about coming and seeing the ocean before they evaporate in a billion years.

Wish I am on the space probe from planet 'alphabetagamma' that comes to collect soil from the Earth to find out if life existed on the planet once. Far fetched but not impossible right?It might bring me a sense of deja vu if the robotic arms dig anywhere close to the places where I shop now. 

I'm super thrilled, I'm going to put on my sunscreen with SPF 45 and look for a new sunscreen with all possible chemical combinations that protects me from even harsher UV rays, and look up the newest science fiction.

{Talk about hypocrisy: chemical combinations, the production of which could degrade the environment and books which will require chopping off trees.}

The Love Guru...

BBC reports that hindus in the US are upset about the movie Love Guru. I know it is supposedly a comedy, apart from that I have no clue as to what the movie is about, but the title captured my attention.

Almost all the people I know have been in a relationship with the opposite sex at least once in their earthly sojourn. Some come out with flying colors and live happily ever after, others have a successful relationship for some days to a couple of years and then break up, and there are others I know who fail at the very threshold. 

Is there a formula that could be replicated to have a successful platonic relationship?

Who am I kidding? If there was a formula we would all have lived happily ever after. But then there are a lot of books on the subject about practices that could work. The fact that there are so many of them in the market suggests that people buy them religiously and stock them. I suppose in an hour of need they just open chapter (???) and read what to do to handle situation- ###, trust in the solution given, and apply it praying to the author in their minds. Do they have a book for cheating husbands and "snakes", enabling them to juggle between the legal and the sly courtships. I should certainly check out, because most men/ women seem to be successfully handling that.

For the most part the secret is finding the right person, once you get the right person I guess everything falls into place.

Who is the right person? You never know, hence the trial and error method of courtship. Well what if the right person lives on another continent altogether? I guess thats why we have match.com, eharmony and the likes of them... Cupid is smart enough to find his way across continents.

This makes me think of the "arranged marriage" system in India, wherein the parents, siblings, uncles, aunts, cousins, relatives,second cousins, friends, neighbors, community members, third cousins, and third cousins' cousins and may be someone who would have seen you just as you were born, who remember you pooped in your diaper when they met you once and nothing more find your ideal match for you. I am shocked that sometimes the system works, at others it crashes miserably ruining lives and desperately shaking up families. It's not rare to find a report in Indian newspapers on a bride killed /committing suicide, as a result of the atrocities inflicted on her. 

Is there a "love guru/ relationship pundit" who could fix that? Marriage counselors, I have heard. They work as well or better than the books because of the personal involvement element in the process of reconciliation. I doubt how many rural Indian women have the option of using a counselor's services, or even have access to one. It's only a very small part of India that gifts their brides glittering diamonds, the rest still go to bed sad and angry .

Well lets get back to the comedy upsetting the Indians, we all hope they do find a middle ground. We Indians take everything very seriously, lets see if the "love guru" tickles some Indian ribs.

There is God, and then there are people who love God....

I did my MBA in Cochin, for the uninitiated it is a small town in Kerala, India. On my way to the college from the railway station is St. Anthony's Church. Out there I always see people, some teary- eyed, some grateful, lighting candles and praying. 

I decided to go and pray there. (Again to the uninitiated, I am a believer). So there I was amidst teary- eyed, trouble-worn people and others, with my list. Those were the pre - Dan Brown days of my life, not that I doubt my faith now, but somewhere in my mind sits the 'Da Vinci Code'.

Well I sat there praying and opened my eyes to people who rolled themselves to the altar, or dragged themselves on their knees to the altar, tears flowing down their cheeks. People had much bigger problems than my trifles, I said in my mind, please listen to their prayer. 

Why did I talk about this instance, I wonder in what form should God manifest himself. People have a wide variety of different problems, Is God the solution, the catalyst that enhances the solution making process, an acquaintance you would like to share the burden with, someone who would not rat you out in a time of need,or someone who "sees the truth but waits"?Is the solution to our problems His/Her method of manifestation?

In India religion is huge, we take to different modes of worship, but what is common is an unshakeable, often fanatic belief in God.

For us, we have god-like religious leaders, who galvanize our path to a good and peaceful living, the other end of that path is the entrance to God's villa.

Then there are movie stars who become larger than life and people are willing to put themselves  through the same rigors in 'worshipping' them as they would to get to their God.

There are also the great cricketers,when we talk of gods they cannot be counted as people off the A-list, they are on and right on among the top two on the popularity charts, the other fave being some movie star.

There are employers who are pursued with the same fellowship as to God. If you watch any bollywood movie of the 1980's you would find a humble, honest, lowly, under paid but satisfied hero (or his dad) reverberating the famous "Sahab aap mere Bhagwaan hai, aapne mujhe naukri di, mujhe zindagi di"dialogue.(translation for the hindi challenged: sahab is often used in the context of an employer, someone given due respect, I'll translate it as Sir; so the statement would be"Sir you are my God, you gave me a job, you gave me my life"). Well, reaffirms our belief in employers being equated to the "giver- of- all".

Then there are the "rich and famous" god-like gods. Also there are the tangible ones, money and  political power could make one if not a god, a demi-god, or at the least, (borrowing Arundhati Roy's award-winning title here) "a god of small things".

Amidst all these Big and small, semi and demi-gods, there are people like me who believe in a power which looks over us, who seems billions of miles away even when right next to us, whom nobody has seen but all have felt.

There is God, and then there are people who love God..

 

C for ... :)

When people ask me how is life different after getting married, I usually don't get the right words, right phrases, or even a right monosyllable to explain what the difference is.

The truth is, for some people it feels the same, for others it feels like moving to Mars, for me it has been moving to a "plutoid". Life changes, for better or for worse.

I learnt a lot of new "C - words" after I got married. I had often come across these words in other peoples' lives or as passive observations, but active involvement, that was a first. 

Let's start with a tangible "C- word".

Cupboards: It can range from demarcating my area of the Cupboard to 'the one on the right is yours the one on the left is mine'. The notion is regarded with great respect generally violations of any form are indicated and corrected in due course. Before the wedding it was something my Mom occasionally tidied for me, after observing that no good was coming of the vocabulary that was being used to coax me into maintaining order in my life, in my room, in my closet.

Cooking: As per my Grandma and my Mom, culinary skills are acquired in order to please the spouse, the best way to a man's heart is through the stomach (well, this is wisdom passed on from one generation to the next). It has always been difficult for me to live by time tables, but marriage has changed that element. Now I start preparing dinner by 6 p.m., and the planning for that starts way ahead. Everything needs to be looked into, the cuisine, baked, steamed or fried, nutrition, has the menu been repeated too many times in the week, most importantly, will he like it? Before marriage, kitchen was mom's-zone and I used to wonder if cooking was an art or a science, Art because whatever my mom cooked looked beautiful and was tastefully prepared, Science because of the exactitude of ingredients, methodical treatment, and meticulous attention paid in every step of the experiment.

Cleaning: My husband is a firm believer in being organized, the cleaner the desktop,the table, the carpet, the bed, the room, the drawing room, the house, the surroundings, the better he feels. Devotion to each other is a very key factor in a marriage going a long way, and I show my devotion by complying to the cleanliness norms instituted by the new administration. Before marriage, I used to leave everything to the elements, the wind should sweep the dust in the room to a corner from where it could be easily collected, the rain cleaned my two-wheeler, the windows should be open to let in fresh air and recycle the damp, smelly, Carbon- Monoxide-y, stuffy indoors, important papers and currency used to remain in jeans pockets and go to the washing machine, I practically reinvented "money laundering" and gave it a new meaning, and whatever was currently unimportant could be put in the trash to be consumed by Fire, or better still, in some friend's car.

Cash: Well suddenly the concept of sharing looks interesting, "what is mine is yours" becomes the new motto. Before, Mom was an ATM, and any form of disagreement to the allowance norms set by my sister and me was sinful. Between my sibling and me everything had to be equal, for mom it was a choice between egalitarianism or chaos and catastrophe, additional money could be earned by winning bets.

Caring: Coughs, colds, sneezes look like major ailments now, "Honey should I get you some tylenol", "is it hurting really bad?", and these were my statements even at midnight. Before, the coolest thing that pops out of our mouth was "I don't care". Well only now I have come to realize the literal meaning of the third word in the cool phrase.

These are a few among the "C- words" that I learnt post marriage. Mom was right, we do have to grow up some day. Her words of wisdom make more sense now, I see a lot of important concepts have already surfaced from the sermons she used to deliver.

Life does change after marriage, like I said for the better or for worse. Things seem different, or you want to see them differently. Expect change. I'm trying to keep up the momentum and change with changing times, changing concepts and changing meanings.

After Marriage, I have learnt another important "C-word", C for companion, a companion you are going to have, preferably for your whole life.

The Best Way Out Is Always Through - Robert Frost

I love Robert Frost, He is crystal clear in the way he expresses his thought.

You should look up his poems if you want to find some interesting thoughts, thoughts that we often think, he has penned it down beautifully. I'm sure we all have read the most famous stanza by Frost,

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

  But I have promises to keep,

  And miles to go before I sleep,

  And miles to go before I sleep.

It's amusing how all these great writers come up with one-liners before the rest of us can think of the best way to phrase the thought. But they make a point most of the time.

 I'm sure a lot of people have said the thought mentioned in the subject in their minds, to their kids, to their siblings, to their cousin, to their friends. Also we ourselves must have hesitantly and/or after putting a lot of thought to it, practiced it when faced with a difficult situation.

I'm a believer of the thought, but in my mind this idea is phrased as follows "there's no other way around". I have to convince myself to go through it, after I check out every other possible route. 

But it takes a great deal of understanding and courage to take the "through"- way. The sooner we start practicing the thought I guess the lesser we struggle or waste what precious little time we have looking for shortcuts, which seem like quick-fixes but often lead to wider problems, than the "through"- way.

Another problem most of us including me face is admitting we were wrong. As I have mentioned in a post before about 'being a leader', diplomatic fearless expression is important. Thanks to whoever invented diplomacy, choosing the right words to acknowledge the wrong seems like the best solution sometimes. 

But once the wrong is committed, it would also be in our best interest to correct it within our human capacity. Whoever chooses not to correct what can be fixed, will most definitely feel like a "looser".

We will be surprised to see that once we take the "through" way, there's no mental baggage, there's no loss of energy from looking for alternatives, and we can get to fixing the wrong, if any, sooner.

Everyone does not have the courage to put such things to practice, may be it is the "through" way that has helped the great thinkers to get to the thought beautifully before us all.

Let me pause here, I want to apply the thought, before I get lost again...

I'll sum it up with another meaningful one from Frost, I think it's the "through" way that he's hinting at again here:

"I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - 

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

6 degrees of separation

"Six degrees of separation is the theory that anyone on the planet can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances that  has no more than five intermediaries. The theory was first proposed in 1929 by the Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy in a short story called 'Chains'." (courtesy- whatis.techtarget.com)

Why do I say that, well anyone who leaves a country and settles where I stay is related to me by the 6th degree at least. Or so I have noticed in a lot of conversations that I have had. 

This makes me think, will I be at the sixth degree with Will Smith? Yippie... I love this theory... I love Marconi and all the people who contributed to the 'Small World' theory.... I love you guys.

Then again I wonder, if I am related to a Chinese, a Portuguese, someone from Nairobi, someone from Japan, someone from Australia, I have connections I say.

So then I know the Nobel prize winners and the people off to outer space.. Wow!!

Then I would also know someone in Somalia, someone in a jail in Vietnam, someone who's suffering in Thailand and in India. I also know someone who died of war in Iraq, Iran and Palestine. I know people who died of a bomb blast somewhere in Colombo.

I have second thoughts about the theory, I cannot keep myself equally excited about knowing Hugh Laurie and someone dying of hunger and starvation somewhere.

Now I know why they called the theory '6 degrees of separation' and not '6 degrees of bonding'.

Beer is cheaper than gasoline,Drink don't drive

I found this interesting.... Also made me think why do people love liquor of any kind?

It has been an ingredient in having fun, it is a must for socializing, it is important when we watch a game, you can make more friends and business associates with its help, does it make you look "cool" and "classy", may be.

So I decided to board the liquor bus to fun land. Lets put it in a more logical and understandable format.

Experiment: Is Liquor fun?

Aim: To Identify the results of having beer, on the body, mind and soul of a curious 20 something.

Ingredients: Someone to get you the beer, any occasion to have some beer, some time to enjoy and savor it (in our case observe the result of consumption), a refrigerator to chill it some more and the most important ingredient YOU.

Method: Obtain Beer by hook or crook,for instance crash into beer party's, go get it yourself, ask someone to get it for you (which happened in my case), borrow it from a benevolent friend (Oh come on, use your creativity and get one). Chill it further if required (the cooler the better). Savour the divine drink on a hot day for better results, or by the beach (again everyone has the freedom to be creative, In my case I was with my family). Wait for any noticeable change small or big. If nothing can be observed, get another chilled one.

Observation: 

1) Increase in Volume

2) Freedom of speech

3) Freedom of movement

4) Dancing to the silliest music

5) Laughing to the silliest jokes

6) Johnny Bravo becomes ideal match /ugly betty is beautiful

7) Unstoppable laughter or crying noticed after the subject has had one too many.

8) An urge to feel the wind in your hair.

9) Nobody scares you, not even ghosts.

10) In case of first timers an urge for throwing up is also noticed.

11) Growth of a new body part, the beer belly.

12) Prolonged usage can cause addiction.

Results: 

It can increase the fun factor in a controlled environment. Drink responsibly for better results.

All the strictures apart, I enjoyed it the first time around because it was chilled, but I still could not decide why it should become a favorite. 

Now I like Coconut rum better... :)

Cheers!!!!

Being a leader...

It has several meanings. The meanings change with age also I guess. 

My first tryst with the term was when I was a squad leader in class 3. I didn't know what it meant, It was my class teacher who gave me the role. She saw my eyes wide open, more because I was jinxed with the idea; was it because I had done well in test, because all the rest of the leaders she had named got good marks, or was it because I was exceptionally quiet in class and she wanted the rest of the class to behave in a similar fashion. Of all the reasons I could find out exceptionally cute did not fit the bill. Why do I say that, lets put it this way I was not the cutest in the Squad. It did dawn on me several years down the line, that teachers might have just randomly picked someone, because choosing a leader must be the last but not the least on their lists. Some of us wrote down names of people who talked between classes, well do not remember why, but I never did unless I was asked to.

Then later when I was older say a class 11 or class 12 student, leadership meant a different thing altogether. I thought complaining about something thats wrong with the system was also a part of leadership. To me fearless expression of what one thought came as a freebee with the package. Lets just say I learnt later in life that the concept is diplomatic fearless expression, and it is an integral duty of leadership; not a freebee. The person who was key in correcting my notion is etched in indelible ink on the "honorary- in - my - life" page in my memory of people.

In college it meant popularity, and in college it was further polished, and college was the formative part in describing leadership to me. I learnt it from the leaders, so to say. Each time they did something out of the ordinary my heart said "bravo!!". But since I had not mastered the art of diplomatic fearless expression yet, I stuck to the rut road which was always tread by a lot of people before me. "The road less travelled" was for people who had already started practicing the art of diplomatic fearless expression, I could not make out head or tail of the subject, to me fearless was the word in bold.

I often heard people say they wanted to be seen leading the Mob, not one with it. I wondered if someone could lead a Mob without being a part of it. Also the statement "If you are not part of the solution, you are a part of the problem" stuck to me for some time. Do people who want to stand apart and out of the Mob have the solution without being a part of the problem and learning it? At work leadership meant this to me, the one with a better solution had a better chance of being the leader, given an ideal situation. (I am taking out ass kissing, politics in its worldly connotation, favoritism and prejudices out of the picture)

I often think of a leader in terms of fauna. Say Lions, I see the leader as Mufasa of the "Lion King" Or Bambi's dad the "Prince". 

Or a lot of other Fairy tale Kings and leaders. 

No surprise that my happy place is Disneyland. 

What is leadership? I guess I learn as I see more.

 

My Grandmother...

There are a few people in life who are extremely brilliant, I believe my grandmother was one of them. She had an amazing memory. She could tell all her grandchildren's birthdays, she remembered all the incidents in her life. I am not sure till what age she went to school, but she could recite the poems she had learnt in her childhood even when she was eighty. She was an amazing manager of funds, or so I think, because cost cutting was always a priority for her.

But when it came to her relationship with other people I always thought she could do better. In her books what she was doing was right, well to others, it wasn't all that appealing. Why do I say so? Here's an example, whenever our hired help was back from buying groceries, Grandma would make sure she counted the number of fish she got. Well most of us found it slightly discomforting that she should soil her hands with fish scales and rummage through the groceries to accomplish the feat. The lady who got the groceries thought Grandma didn't trust her. My grandma's explanation was that she wanted to find out how many fishes she got for the same amount of money week after week. She used fish as her dipstick to measure inflation in the economy. Well right and wrong are relative terms I guess.

She spoke to me rather briefly, she would ask me to bring her the newspaper, her glasses, occasionally she asked me to put her cataract medication for her. I stuck around for sometime to find out if she was interested in having a conversation, seldom did I succeed.

I liked having conversations with her, because I wanted to find out more about how people lived, what did they do, how were things when she was young. On one occasion I got lucky, she gave me some glimpses of her childhood. I learnt that she liked swimming, her parents were into agriculture and the produce was directly sold by the cultivator in the market. She and her siblings used to sell what they grew in the market. I couldn't find out if she was fond of her parents, how was the relationship between her and her siblings, how did she meet my grandpa and how was it living with him? She was secretive, this increased my curiosity.

We were not the best of friends, she and I, but I admired her.I knew she had had tough times, and now it was her turn to relax and have things her way. I hardly intervened, or better, I did not exist on her list.

I was employed some distance away from my grandmother's house, say a day's journey by train. I used to go and visit her whenever I needed a break, well I'm not sure how far she waited for me to come or liked to see me, but I would like to believe she felt the same as me. 

One fine Sunday afternoon, when I was about to take a nap, my cousin called me, and said that my grandma was no more, she passed away a few minutes ago. She died a peaceful death, when all her kids were around her, and almost all her grandchildren were there too. I wasn't.

I did not cry, I was slightly shocked. I did not know how to react, because I didn't know if she ever loved me. Well, I decided to go and pay her my respect nonetheless. I hopped on into the next train, my friend helped me get a seat, but I still could not decide if she wanted me by her side.

When I reached home I saw her lying covered in white roses and lilies.I was not sure if she approved of it, because she scolded us when we plucked flowers from the garden. She looked emaciated. All who were around looked sad. May be all of us felt the void.

I did not cry, we reached the ancestral church, finally the yard. 

Then just as she was being lowered into the earth, a thought ran across my mind, was she angry with me, did I wrong her in some way? Could not pin point anything, but this was my last chance. In my mind I spoke to her, I told her I was sorry, do not know what I had done wrong but I did say sorry, just then a small drop of tear broke loose from my eye, it ran down my face and dropped to the ground, beside her. 

There's a void where she used to be, it has been there for a few years. Last Sunday I got a call, my aunt said there will be a mass commemorating her. 

I decided not to go.

what if God had a phone?

Where did I get this thought... one blue day, I was sitting around with my usual pessimistic outlook towards life, I was in Chennai and the first place that came to mind was the Santhome Cathedral. I took my little two wheeled friend, and went there to vent all the wrong that has happened to me.

I was sitting in one of the last couple of rows and wondering, how I wish You had a phone Lord, I am bugged and seems like you are the only one I can talk to about it currently. Then I imagined me talking to Him, saying these are the lists of problems I have at hand. I think You dealt me a bad hand, why is everyone else having a ball and me, I'm having a tough time....

And I thought, then God will answer the problems like an expert consultant, and I get to solve them as per the Master Plan.

Then I started pondering about the logistics of the game, was I being silly, God's number will be the busiest in the world the never reachable one. There will be a whole directory for the numbers you can contact Him on, cause one number will not suffice, every living breathing creature would want to talk to Him, even the atheist, cause they would like to make sure this is not scam.

Also God being the good one would like to make all the service providers happy, so He will have to have a connection from every one. Then He'll be busy He'll have to delegate our problems, have more angels to take care of the problem solving department, even our guardian angels will have to multi task...

Extremely tough logistics....

Then I realized the folly of my Human mind, I tried to enclose God into the physical material space.Even without the above imagined scenario, He's been taking care of me, and answering my every query...I smiled... 

Just then another person walked by and took a seat further ahead, I wondered if that person was thinking the same.

I figured ... no, the shortest distance between God and us is prayer, and I'm sure other people are not as lame as me. They would have figured all this a long while ago and so they directly get to the discussion...

Did God show me a solution for my blues that day, yes... I believe in God, so I say my problem was solved by divine intervention, for those of you who require more time to believe in such things/ do not believe in such things, I'll use the term often used by you guys, My problems were solved by pure "coincidence"...

Even though I had thought all this, the next time I felt sad, I again mused to myself, 

I wish U had a phone number, I feel like texting U and talking to U... :)

Equation : Life + a Little meaning

I often wonder, what to pursue?

what's the "purpose",and the "soul"

what is life, and what does it mean?

Is the world what it looks like, or more than what's seen?

To pursue the desire of a good heart,

and what if the "purpose" is my art?

The "soul" I think should be serene,

when goodness alone would hold the rein.

About the world, I know not if its true

It seems an artist, a dame pure like the dew,

Said "she trusted" man will be humane,

They killed her, her story ended in disdain..

But to the question, "what is life?"

what is the meaning of this mortal strife,

I still look for a plausible answer,

I feel I want to some rationale adhere.

A little kindness in small things and big,

A little prayer for someone sick,

A little gratefulness for all your "gifts",

Life sure has meaning, doesn't it?

the after life

I, like a lot of other people in the world, wonder what happens after people die...

I recently heard someone say that the light and tunnel thing that people who were recovered from the near death experience talk about, is a result of the chemical reactions in the brain just as it shuts operations... hmm so the light is also an endeavor of our thinking machine...

So how about the soul, does it lurk around? May be someone's peeping over my shoulder even as I type... now thats slightly scary... 

What happens to us after we die? The body gets completely destroyed and enters nature's food chain... how about the soul will it be recycled?

Or does it even exist??? I would like to believe it does...I also think I'm Old-school... Doesn't mean that i'll call someone who comes in with a new invention, a witch... but to me that feels more soothing.... keeps me from believing that I'm just an organism.... 

So then may be some of them do lurk around.... I'm abandoning the chain of thoughts here cause this means someone might be peeping at what I'm typing right now.... thats not a very exciting idea to live with... 

So is the soul laundered and powdered with a cloud of powder puff before it's reinforced into a new baby.... Or is a completely new one manufactured n installed? 

like a lot of other stuff that I think about, this chain of thought can also be elongated far far away and out of the milky way... Is that where they go? or even further.... pure lunacy I know..

See ya around soon... (when I'm a little less lost)... :)