Its Mine

Crowded Bus

2012-01-15T10:00:00.002+05:30

“The bus is yet to start, it’s already full. I was just lucky to get a seat. Call it my luck, that I got a seat facing everybody in the bus. This meant total entertainment. I was scanning the bus for interesting faces.My eyes stopped when I noticed a pretty face. She wasn’t a beauty queen, but you could just feel some warmth in her face. Any guy would just fall for this girl. She had the window seat, hence was busy looking outside. Rishi, you should come in this bus often.”
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"When will this bus start? I am lucky today, to get a window seat. The aisle seats are so boring. Now I can just forget all my worries, and just observe people on the roads. Or I can just keep the window open, close my eyes and feel the air, which would start hitting my face, in sometime. Aah!!! There comes the driver, I hope he starts the bus soon."
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"Nice Tea. Now it’s time to get into the bus, and wage a war against traffic. Everybody thinks, we bus drivers have it easy. Nobody realizes how much stress we have to deal with, due to traffic. It’s the peak hour; it will take 2 hours to reach the last stop. I am already hungry, wonder what my wife has packed for lunch. If it’s not good enough, I’ll exchange it with Suma’s lunch. After all having a lady conductor in the bus has its advantages."
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"I think we should start in 2 minutes. I will finish the first round of giving out tickets. It seems there is going to be ticket checking after 2 stops. Ticket… Ticket… Why don’t you people bring any change? Are we running a bank here, that you will give us a Rs.500 note for a Rs.7 ticket and I will have the change. Move back, move back. Uncle, why are you standing here? Couldn’t you ask one of the young boys to give you a seat? Hello Sir, We know you are staring at a pretty face, but do you mind doing that standing. Uncle can take a seat here."
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"I gave up the seat for the old man. Not only did I lose the sight of the pretty girl, but I got pushed back and forth in the bus. What a crowded bus. Rishi, lesson to be learnt, never enter a crowded bus."

Eve-teasing and the likes

2012-01-13T10:00:00.001+05:30

Eve Teasing, this topic is being discussed a lot these days. I am not even going to put forth my point of view on whether dressing of a girl is the cause or not etc etc. All I want to do is vent out, the incidents in my life.

I was in school, we had to go to Majestic for a movie. We dint have car those days, so if 4 of us were to travel, it was either bus or auto. Auto was usually taken during the return journey. We got down from the bus, were walking towards the theatre. I was walking holding my mom’s hands. I saw her walking with elbow stretched outwards, wondered why. I felt a pinch, when I turned to see, I saw a man grinning at me. I turned my face and continued to walk. A few more pinches here and there, I understood, I had to use my hand in defense. Next time we went to Majestic, I knew I had hit a few men with my elbow, and some pretty hard too.

Another incident happened when I was in II PUC/ 12th std. I used to go to early morning classes. It was usual that my dad drop me to the class, not because I couldn’t walk, but I used to wake up late and my dad had to literally go in full speed on his Bajaj scooter so that I reached on time. One day, dad had to go and pick my brother from the railway station at that time, who was coming back from the trip. I go up early enough to walk in a peaceful pace. It was 6 in the morning, and Bangalore was definetly hot at that time, I had worn a salwar kameez, a jacket with a hood (definetly not the attractive kinds). I was walking at a fast pace, lest I get late for the class. I heard some guy talking. I ignored it initially, thought he was talking to someone. I then heard him, calling out to me. I was scared now. I turned back, and he was alone and was definetly calling me. I increased my pace, I could hear him coming faster towards me. I literally started running. It was a panic situation, and I dint know what to do. I thought I will pick a nearby stone and throw at him, that’s what I used to do, if a dog chased me. Luckily, I came near a house, where some guy was taking out his bike, and an elderly, may be middle aged was watering the plants. I ran to that house, and told the aunty that this guy is following me. Aunty told, her son to get the guy, but seeing me go to that house, and a guy starting the bike, the guy who was following me, ran away super fast. The lady pacified me, and told me if I wanted a drop somewhere, her son could drop me. After this, I was very skeptical to take favours from any stranger, and politely refused, and left to my classes. I somehow did not find the courage to tell my mom, I thought she would then be scared to send me alone everytime. After that, I was a little skeptical, but found the courage.

But till today, I am extremely careful when I walk alone, esp if the road is deserted.

When I was in Engineering, a boy, who was probably in school, whistled at me. I was totally pissed off. I told him, once more I see you do this, you will see my sandal on your face.

In buses, I have hit so many guys with my elbow, who have tried to act smart, poked a safety pin at some guys who are trying to literally fall on you, when there is space to lie down and sleep in the bus. I have seen old men, waiting to hit their graves, do such indecent acts, it only makes you cringe at such people.

There are many such incidents which have happened, which kind of makes you feel a little insecure. At the same time, when you see your dad, uncles, brothers, friends, husband respecting women, it makes you realize, you are not an item, your body is not something to be ashamed of. God has given you something special.

You are SPECIAL...

Unknown number

2012-01-12T10:30:00.000+05:30

He was plannning to call her today, again. It was 4th day in a row, she had avoided his call. He had no choice but to call her. He had got her number 10days back and he had called her since. After a few calls, she started ignoring him. He couldnt let her go. He had to call her. Just when he was wondering how to reach her, an idea flashed in his mind.

Her phone rang. It was an unknown number. She was in a fix, but finally decided to pick the call. As soon as he heard her sweet voice, he said, "Hello Madam. This is a call from XXXX phone services. You are our valued customer....."

Street chase

2012-01-09T10:30:00.000+05:30

Their eyes were red. Everybody could sense the anger. This was not a rare sight in the locality. Infact people were fed up with the gang wars. They wished somebody catch the two groups and punish them. A couple of them from the rival gang had entered the street and the whole group just chased them out. The loud noise had created such ruckuss. The children in the street were petrified to get out on the streets when the Street chase was on.

The groups did not believe in using any weapons. The physical strength was all they were proud of. The leaders of the 2 gangs were young and energetic. They weren’t too handsome, but powerful nevertheless, and the faces could make you cringe at times. One of them was as dark as the night, but had a white patch around his eye, making him noticeable among the group. He was made the leader. He made it clear, and marked the territory, nobody could dare enter their place.

The other leader wasn’t left behind. Though his skin dint show any difference from the rest, his eyes had a weird colour, and would make you shudder. It was as if, anybody could get hypnotized. He was very young when he became the self proclaimed leader of his gang. It was very difficult for anybody new to find a place in either of the gangs.

One early morning, the people were woken up by a big commotion. They peeped through the windows of their homes, there was bloodshed. Both the gangs were on top of each other, literally tearing each other apart. The corporator of the locality was informed, he called the right authorities. Finally 2 vans arrived on the street and somehow managed to get all of them in the vans.

As the vans departed, happy people were seen on the streets. “Finally, our Streets are free of the Dog menace”, somebody heard a man talking on phone.

Journey from Princess to a Queen

2012-01-07T11:28:00.002+05:30

Anagha, was the eldest child of her parents. Her mom dreamt of her daughter’s wedding since the day she was born. Every time she visited the jewellery shop, she would buy something for her daughter. When Anagha would disapprove of the ornament, her mom would just say, you are not wearing it now, it’s for your wedding. Anytime, Anagha said, “Mom, it’s a lovely saree”, her mom would never wear it. It would go in the suitcase labeled – Anagha’s Sarees. All the old clothes would be given off to the steel vessel vendor, and a kitchen utensil would be bought. But the kitchen would never see any of these new vessels, instead they would find a place in a carton labeled – Anagha’s Kitchen set. Though her mom dreamt of her daughter’s wedding, she never forced it on her. She let her daughter dream about her future. She let her daughter fly, explore the world, understand what’s good or bad for her.

Years passed by, and the time finally came when Anagha chose her life partner. The two of them were engaged and were to get married in 6 months time. While Anagha was excited and anxious about her new life, her mom was a similar state. Her dream was coming true. Her only daughter, her best friend would be married. The preparations had started 25 years back, now was the time to implement all the grand plans. There were only discussion at home was about the wedding. There were times when Anagha would get frustrated, as there was no other topic discussed at home. She understood, her mom wanted to make the wedding day a special day for Anagha. She dint want to leave out even a minute detail. Anagha even fought with her mom, that, she was stressing over this wedding, and health was taking a back seat. But there was nobody who could stop her mom’s excitement.

On the wedding day, Anagha’s mom looked at her, took her face in her palms, kissed her forehead, and quickly left the room, for her to get ready for the wedding. It was time, for the Kanyadaana. Both mother and daughter had decided, they wouldn’t cry. The priest asked Anagha to sit on her dad’s lap. For a few moments, she went back to her childhood, where she would run and sit on her dad’s lap, everytime mom came running behind her to punish her for the mischief. She would sleep in the bus, and dad would carry her on her shoulder and make her lie on the bed. She wouldn’t find place in the bus, dad would make her sit on her lap. A couple of days before the wedding, when her hands were full of henna, her dad made her drink the glass of water, and mom gave her the Kai Thuthu (feeding with her hands). She felt her life was running like a movie in front her. She realized, her parents life revolved around her. That day, would be the last she would sit on her dad’s lap, as his darling daughter.

As she sat, the priest, asked the groom to bring his hand forward with his palm open, then he asked her dad to hold her palm and keep it on the groom’s hand. Her mom was supposed to pour the water on the coconut, which these 3 hands held. The priest was residing the mantra. The gist of the whole thing was, the dad was giving away his daughter to the groom forever. She was no longer his daughter alone, but the groom’s partner for life. When Anagha heard this, her eyes filled up with tears, she dint want to shed any, as she had promised her mom. She just looked up to her mom, saw her in the same state, they both just smiled at each other. Then all of a sudden, she felt her dad’s hand was slipping away, and the only hand holding was her husband’s. Her dad had given her away.

She turned back, saw tears in her dad’s eyes for the first time in her life. But she sensed that he wasn’t really sad, he just held her cheeks in his palm and then kissed her on her forehead. All of a sudden, she saw her brother shaking hands with her and her husband. He was sad, but he was happy too, he too had tears in his eyes. She saw all her uncles, aunts, cousins come and wish her. She had controlled her tears, but could sense the mixed feelings everybody had.

The priest called the couple for more rituals to be followed. The emotional moment had passed. Everybody got back to work, taking care of guests, inviting people for lunch, giving gifts to the guests. The rituals continued and after the lunch, Anagha was to be sent to her husband’s house. Her parents now placed her hands in the hands of her in-laws and husband, stating, she would be their daughter now. Anagha was again fighting her tears. “How could they?” she thought. “How can they tell them, I am their daughter? I will never be anybody’s daughter except my parents” she was angry. But in a moment she realized, what it meant. The priest was telling Anagha, “From now, you have 2 sets of parents. One of your own, one of your husbands, treat them equally”.

After all the rituals, she was sent to her room to relax and change, and get ready for the reception in the evening. She went to the room, looked at the mirror, she could no longer hold her tears. She broke down. She cried to heart’s content. Her aunt came in the room. She was shocked to see her cry. After consoling a little bit, Anagha got a hold on herself. She hugged her aunt, her mom’s sister, just like her mom. “Take care of mom” she said. Her aunt could relate to the feelings, for she too had gone through the emotions, years back. She smiled and said “Don’t worry, all of us will”. Just then Anagha’s mom entered the room, she ran into her mom’s arms, and both hugged each other as if, the world was going to end.

Finally, when it was time for Anagha to go with her husband, her parents told her husband “She is our princess, but we are sure, you will treat her like a Queen”

The Blades

2011-12-03T18:00:00.000+05:30

The blades were too sharp, enough to cut open a person, if nearby. If the machine was to be used, it needed both their approvals. They were partners in crime. Strangely, they usually contradicted when they had to use the machine.

That night, there was a chill in the air. Everybody could feel it. He wanted to use the machine. She was completely against it. After a big tiff, he won the argument. He switched it on.

All she could do was look at the ceiling, and see it rotate. After a few minutes, she snuggled into a blanket, hugged him tight and slept peacefully. The Fan, with sharp blades, ran in full speed that night.

Lalitha Aunty

2011-11-30T22:00:00.000+05:30

It was not a unusual ritual in our house, to get curd from the our neighbor, Lalitha aunty, so that we could set it for the next day. But this was rare. Something regular was, when she would come to our house, with a small bowl and ask my mother.

"Sunita, can I have a cup of sugar. I was about to make tea, and I just realized, there is no sugar."
"Sure Lalitha. Anything else, while you are here?"

"Actually, I had just boiled the milk and kept it aside and Bunty spilt the whole thing by mistake. I have sent him to the shop, to get some milk. If you can give me a glass of milk too, I can have my tea and then carry on with my chores"

My mom would smile, go to the kitchen, and in 5 minutes come back with a tray. It would have the bowl of sugar, glass of milk; along with it would be 2 cups of tea and a few biscuits.

"Lalitha, have some tea and biscuits, why do you want to go home and have tea alone", mom would offer. Lalitha aunty would give a sheepish smile and gulp down the cup of tea and leave the house thanking mom. I never understood why mom had to offer her tea, and give her the ingredients too. I would tease her, that she could include a spoonful of tea powder too.

It wasn’t just about tea. I can’t recall a single item in the kitchen, which Lalitha aunty hadn’t borrowed from us. I don’t want to take the credit away, but anytime, Lalitha aunty went shopping, she would get me chocolates. Every time she prepared something new, which was rare of course, she would invite me home, for tasting the dish. Bunty Bhaiyya and I would relish the dish. She would even pack it for mom and dad.

Few years later, I heard my parents talking about an apartment complex coming up in our neighborhood. I didn’t bother to enquire more about it. And, one fine day, we saw Lalitha aunty, Bunty Bhaiyya and uncle loading their belongings in a truck. Uncle came and shook hands with my dad, and just ruffled my hair a bit. Bunty Bhaiyya gave me his football. Finally Lalitha aunty came near my mom, both the ladies were wiping each other’s tears, hugged each other. Lalitha aunty gave my mom, a box, she did Namaste to dad, and she came up to me and said "Take care beta, we will miss you". I don’t know what prompted me say it, but words just fell out of my mouth and I said "We will miss you too aunty".

Couple of hours later, we were having lunch, when mom got me a laddoo, "this is from Lalitha aunty" she said. I realized how much I am going to miss the delicacies she prepared.

A week went by, I don’t know about mom, but I surely missed aunty, now, there was nobody to come and ask for sugar or milk or anything. My mom lost a company to have her evening tea.

It’s been 3 years now, since Bunty Bhaiyya and family left. There is a huge apartment complex, around 50 houses in it. I just hope there will be atleast one family like Lalitha aunty’s who would live in these houses.

Food for ??

2011-11-28T22:00:00.001+05:30

"Sir, I need to go home by 8.00 PM, my wife would be waiting",Rakesh was telling Satish on phone.

"Ok, just leave the dinner on the dining table, I will heat it up and eat" Satish was giving instructions to his cook Rakesh.

Time : 8.30 PM
Venue: Rakesh’s house

"Daring, the dinner is delicious. I love the Rice, Daal and the mango pickle", he was praising his wife.
"Come on, you cook much better than I do. Satish Sir gets to eat variety of food everyday. You have to cook one day for me too", Rakesh dint know if it was a compliment, or the wife was taunting him

Time : 12:00 AM
Venue: Satish’s house

The door opened, Satish was exhausted. He went to his room directly, threw his bag on the table, and fell on his face, on the bed.

Time: 2:00 AM
Venue: Satish's house

A group of cockroaches were celebrating. The dining table had food, enough to last them the whole month.

Ashtaavadhaanam

2011-11-26T13:30:00.004+05:30

Ashtaavadhaanam: when I got this mail first, I had no clue what this was about. Some talk show is what I thought. But then I was curious, this mail was from kannada and the Sanskrit forum in our company.

Probably its something interesting, I thought.

2 days before the program, G asked me at lunch, you want to attend this program?

I had no clue about it, so I asked him, what it was all about. He was not too sure about it, but gave a gist. It seemed interesting and different. I said why not? Let’s attend.

This part is from the mail we received explaining what Ashtaavadhanam is all about.
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A test of poetic genius, a demo of memory and intellect together reaching the peak, a true intellectual marvel, that’s the art of Ashtavadhana. The wiki link says, Avadhana was cultivated by Telugu speaking community. That info is incomplete, since the earliest available treatises on avadhaana kale are in Kannada. There will be 8 questioners asking the Avadhani to do 8 different things. In turns he should answer all of them.

Nishiddhakshari - On a given subject and within the given meter Avadhani should compose a verse letter by letter. After each letter, the questioner restricts the next letter.

Samasya – A stray sentence which could be foul or obscene will be posed as a problem by the questioner. The Avadhani should make it proper by adding letters/words before and after the line.

Dattapadi – The questioner gives some words and gives an unrelated subject. Avadhani should use those words and compose a verse on the subject.

Varnana – The questioner asks Avadhani to explain a subject or a situation. Avadhani should compose a verse explaining that in the given meter.

Ganita – A su-do-ku table of 5 rows and 5 columns. The questioner gives a number in the beginning. Avadhani should fill the matrix with a number each time the questioner asks for it. At the end the su-do-ku should have been solved.

Chitrakavya – There are certain letter patterns in the verse composition of all Indian languages. In the given pattern the Avadhani should compose a verse on the given subject.

Kavya Pathanam – The questioner pulls out verses from the plethora of a particular language’s literature. The Avadhani should locate the verses.

Aprastuta Prasangam – This guy shoots some off-topic questions to the Avadhani every now and then, throughout the Avadhana. Avadhani should tolerate this and answer this guy.

All this has to be done without referring to any kind of notes, without using pen and paper and within the rules of grammar & composition.
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Initially, it seemed really difficult to understand what was going on. Yes we studied Sanskrit in school, I don’t remember much, except for some very basic stuff or less. Yes we had a chapter in hallegannada (old kannada), but its entirely different from the modern kannada, so difficult to understand, unless you have spent some time with the language. Yes, we have studied about Chandass (meter in poems). Infact, we used to have an exercise in school to determine which which Chandass a stanza in the poem belonged too, and I used to love doing it. Now all I remember is there were laghu-gurus, but nothing more than that. All this made it seem difficult to understand the show.

Shataavadhani Dr.R.Ganesh, what a Genius this guy is!!!

At first, when I dint know what the title meant, thought it’s a part of his name. Later when I realized, I could only laugh at myself.

It’s simpler to keep the audience hooked on to, when they understand the language. Its simpler, when they know whats going on, on the stage. Here even though most of them knew kannada, and some knew Sanskrit, it was difficult to decipher the old-kannada verses. Dr.Ganesh, explained his complex verses in such simplicity, that you couldn’t stop your hands from clapping, or just wonder, what – how?

One thing, which most of them could relate to was the 5x5 Sudoku matrix, which had to sum up to 111. I am wondering, how he calculated the location of a particular number, or a number of a location. Is there some formula to figure it out? Even if there is, how on earth can he place them, without even looking at the matrix once?

The chitrakavya was amazing too. With 4 simple lines, he created a picture of mridangam.

Even the person who gave him the challenge(pruchaka), was equally good, since, he too has to have one ready, to prove that its possible, and the challenge is not given just like that.

Nishiddhakshari: The person was spontaneous and tried to restrict the Avadhaani in so many ways. It is definetly not one way. If the Avadhaani is able to create a beautiful poem, the credit should also go to this questioner, since it’s his restrictions/conditions which allow the avadhaani to come up with such amazing lines. This is more of a action-reaction event.

As the Dattapadi and Samasya Pruchakas mentioned, they took time to think about the challenge, come up with a poem, with the right meter, and read it out. But, for the Avadhaani its definitely challenging to create totally different poems, adhering to the conditions.

The person who did the Kavya Pathanam, had an amazing voice. I could listen to him sing the poems for more time. Wish our kannada/sanskrit teachers in school sang the poems this way and taught us. It would have been a pleasure then.

Last, but definetly not the least the person who distracted the avadhaani with the comments and questions, in a hilarious way, yet in a thought provoking manner was super entertaining. I am sure, nobody had any kind of difficulty in understanding what the conversations were about.

On the whole, this was an eye-opener for me, as to how rich a language can be. How, when we follow certain rules of the language, can create master pieces. It was a humbling experience, to everybody present there.

I had studied Sanskrit in school, and kannada too. As time went on, I havent read much in kannada. Sometimes I do read the magazines which have been subscribed at home. But, to appreciate, such performances, to enjoy such grandeur, we need to know much more. More the knowledge of a language, better can be the appreciation.

I wouldn’t say, I am going to start reading novels and poems in kannada from tomorrow. But atleast, I want to make it a point to read the magazines regularly. And as I feel comfortable move to proses, and may be someday, I will be able to come to a stage where I can read poetry, and go into the depths of it.

Trip to Muzhappilangad Drive-in Beach and Bekal Fort - Part 2

2011-09-22T21:30:00.000+05:30

Part 1 here

After doubts and delay, we left from Bangalore at 4.30 on Saturday. 15 mins and we got stuck in traffic. By the time we reached NICE road, and then to Mysore Road, I really don’t know what happened. It was too sunny and I had dozed off. But I am sure, there was nothing interesting. Around 6.45 PM we had crossed Srirangapatna, we were at a fork which went to towards Ranganthithu, KRS etc. We took a tea break here. While we were contemplating which route to take to Hunsur. One of the villagers there suggested we go thru the Ranganathittu Road to Hunsur, it would save us 15km, compared to the one via Mysore. Greedy people we were and took his suggestions. 10 mins drive and we were in for a roller coaster ride. The roads were so pathetic, oh wait!! Where were the roads? It was just muddy path. All along we thought if only we had gone thru Mysore, we would have reached faster. If not faster, atleast smoother. Well once we reached the main road, we hoped to get on to better roads. Let’s say we were destined not to travel on good roads.

Wait a minute, did I even mention where we were heading to. We were going near Kannur (in Kerala). The actual name is Muzhappilangad Drive-in Beach.

So, let’s get back to the treacherous travel. We went in the road towards Madikeri. There is one deviation, where you take right for Madikeri and go straight to Kannur. At this point, we assumed going straight would lead us to Kannur via a place called GoniKoppa. This as per our plan, made on the fly, was the dinner destination.We reached there around, 9.30 PM. What were we thinking, was this Bangalore to expect people to be roaming around this time. All restaurants, were closed, except a few very shady ones. We see a couple of bakerys open. We enquired in one of them, he told us to check out one hotel, and we found out, that was closed. We rushed back, to this bakery. He was just getting the shutters down. The moment he saw our car make a screeching halt, opened the doors for us. We ate cream buns, dilkhush, bought MTR badam milk, bought a few packets of chips, chakkali, water bottles, fried peanuts, daal, 3 packs of plain buns. Looking at the amount of food we bought, he gave us 2 big bananas for free saying, you will need it on the way. He must have thought we were hungry for a lifetime.

Our destination was 80kms from this place. The road was still in bad condition, when the ghat section began. The roads were smooth, like butter. We were so relieved and thought this was the end of the bad roads. We stopped at a particular place for a break, had badam milk, the night was so bright, since it was full moon day. If only we had taken our tent along, we could have just had a gala time in the middle of the road. After the refreshing break, we were back on the roads. Then we came across a fork, one towards Kannur and the other Thalassery. Our place was 7-8km from Thalassery, so we took that turn and went towards the place.

All of us were pretty excited; we would be on the beach in 15-20 mins. But, the hotel, in which we were supposed to stay was on the beach, so definelty not easy to spot. We called up the owner to find out directions. All he knew was Malayalam. We knew, English, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Marathi, no Malayalam.

It was a funny conversation between G and the hotel owner.

G: Chetta, we near ******* shop.
Owner: ** Iron bridge
Rest of us in the car : Hey, this is the bridge

G: Chetta, Iron Bridge crossed.
Owner: ** Toll booth ** canara bank------ left
G: Ok chetta, 10 mins
Rest of us: Laughing at the conversation

Person 1: Is that the toll booth
Me: That looks like a toll booth
“There”, all of us screamed.

Finally we saw the toll booth.

G: Chetta, Canara Bank ethra km?
Person 1: 1km
Person 2: ½ km
Person 3- signaling its right around the corner

All of us in the car had a confused expression, but we knew it’s on the right side. Finally after a km, we saw the “Canara Bank ATM”, and saw a small lane going to the left. We took the turn. It was as if we entered a village. It felt awesome with the cool breeze. As we neared, we could hear the ocean roar. We spotted our hotel, parked the car and ran towards the ocean. What a great sight. We are on one side and the other side is the vast ocean, nothing else, no trees, no rocks, and no obstacles, all you can see is water. Since it was full moon, and it was around 1.30 AM, there was high tide. All of us stood there speechless for a couple of minutes, then decided to call it a night. We checked in, and in our rooms opened the balcony door, to find the ocean facing us. Only this time, there were a few coconut trees, in between, which just added to the view. At 2.00 AM, we gave a thought of giving our bodies some rest.

Day 2: There was no alarm required the next day. I woke up around 6.00 AM, realized where we were, and rushed to the balcony to see the beautiful view. They had a nice seating arrangement in the balcony. I spent half an hour gazing at the ocean.

I saw people driving cars on the beach, that early.
An old couple walking hand in hand.
Boats which were in the ocean for fishing. In the half an hour it had moved places.
All this while, I saw a man sitting on a bench near the beach, probably he was also enjoying the view as much as I did.

It wasn’t too sunny; the pleasant view was so soothing.

I went back and slept, since everybody else was sleeping. After an hour, I couldn’t sleep anymore, I woke up G and both of us sat in the balcony looking at the ocean. The hotel guy came to take orders for breakfast. We ordered appams and kadla curry, and tea.

We had the yummy breakfast and tea, and were waiting to rush into the ocean. We changed to water clothes, and then off we went into the ocean. The waves hitting us hard, pushing us away from water, throwing us on the beach, pulling us in, all these were just amazing. It’s not that we haven’t visited beaches, but each time you go, its fun, infact everytime you enjoy the most. We played, volley ball, throw ball in the water. We came to the beach and played, sometime just sat on the beach, so that the waves would touch you and go. At times the huge waves would just lift you and turn you around.

We were hungry, had some water and chakklis sitting on the bench, and clicked some funny pics. After 2 hours of ocean fun, we finally decided to wash up and take some rest. The sun was getting on our head by now.

After a refreshing bath, I was again in the balcony, with G. He was trying to take some pics, while I was writing something in my diary. Around 2, all of us were extremely hungry, we headed for lunch.

It was not totally Kerala style, but yes, coconut oil was used. We had rice, daal, sambar, papad, since we were veggies, we had beans sabzi, non-veggies had fish curry in their menu. The water play in the morning had made us extremely hungry. We probably overate. Once the lunch was done, we decided to go for a walk. It was a pleasant afternoon.

Since we dint want to wet ourselves, we walked on the road adjacent to the beach. After a while, all of 4 of us, sat on the reef built on the beach. Again took some pics, then sat there for a while, doing nothing. The ocean was weird though. At times the waves would go so high, we would think it will hit the reef, but they would go back 100m from where we sat, and at times when we least expected the waves would come very close to where we sat.

The beach was getting crowded slowly. Since this is one of the only drive-in beaches, you can see so many cars, bikes, scooty, Honda active, even cycles on the beach. This is probably the only place where the vehicles are more in number on the beach, than the road. It was time we got our car, to kiss the ocean.

And there we were on the beach, zooming parallel to the ocean, all eyes were on our car – reason (here). Everybody took turns to drive on the beach. There was a point where a small stream was joining the ocean. Initially, we dint know if we could cross that, I volunteered to cross that to check the depth, it was not even ankle deep, we drove the car past this, till the end of the beach. As usual took some customary pics, been there seen that kinds. After an hour of this time pass, it was just 4.30, lot of time for sunset. We just roamed around in the car, for sometime. There wasn’t anything interesting. We went back to our room and in the balcony played UNO for some time. Time for sunset was nearing, and there was just one thing missing. The Sun.

It was so cloudy, so difficult to spot the sun. Around, 5.45PM, we could spot the sun, we took some of our eatables to the beach, to enjoy the sunset. As our luck had it, there was no sun to be seen, so sunset was out of question. In the meanwhile, all of started discussing, about axis of earth, summer, winter, and from nowhere, we started discussing tinkle stories, even shared a few suppandi stories. We sat there until, our eatables got over and mosquitoes started feasting on us. We had another long walk on the beach. You can say it was romantic. By this time, all of us were tired, even though we dint do much that day. We went to take some rest. G had slight fever. He had tablets and slept. I was in the balcony, trying to draw something, in half an hour or so, I got bored and my eyes were dropping, so I did the best thing, went and slept.

Around 9.30 we were ready for dinner, had Kerala parothas, tomato curry, gobi Manchurian, rice, daal, curd. WE dint eat much, since our snack time made sure tummies were full. We sat in the porch, discussing the route to go back, since the route we came in was horrible, and we dint want to take that. We checked with another group who were getting back from somewhere, if they went to Bekal Fort. They dint, but went to some nearby fort it seemed. We wanted to go to Bekal Fort next day, so decided on the route based on that. Went for a short walk again in the beach, sat on the bench for a few minutes and decided to get back to the room.

We told the receptionist to make our bill, in the night, as we dint want to spend too much time on that next morning. For 2 nights, including food and the numerous times we had Tea, it was 5.5k for all of us.
Rs.1000 per room/per night

We went to sleep at 11, hoping, we would start early the next day.
One last night, one last glance at the ocean from the balcony, and off to dreamland

Trip to Muzhappilangad Drive-in Beach and Bekal Fort - Part 1

2011-09-20T21:30:00.000+05:30

Drive in Beach…
Seems fun...
But its rainy season
So what, that’s the fun
Alright, what else
Bekal Fort is close by
What’s that?
You remember the movie Bombay. The song “Uyire” (Tamil) “Tu hi re” (Hindi), was shot here...
Oh that one...quite scenic… Are we going there too?
Yeah...
Super. I am in
And so were another couple.
Thus started our journey in the afternoon/rather early evening on Saturday (Aug 12).

Spa for...

2011-09-16T14:00:00.001+05:30

“Let’s take a gold package. It has wash for every month.” Sagar said.
“Yeah but don’t you think silver is enough. Why do we need the spa for a wash every month? Silver package has wash every 2 months” Nita was trying to negotiate.

“Yes dear, but they do body polish too, once in 2 month in the gold package, and the platinum one. Just imagine, how good it would be” Sagar was trying to show the brochure to his wife.
“Okay, you go and get it done”.
Nita left the brochures on the table and went to the kitchen. Sagar went in the car to Auto-Spa.
He gave the keys to the attendant. “Please take care of my baby”, he said and left from the place.

As he was returning home, Raghu uncle met him, “Sagar, where is your car?” “It’s in the spa uncle, getting pampered”, Sagar winked.

Geometry box

2011-09-11T15:52:00.003+05:30

Vandana was getting late to school. It was her first day at high school. She was waiting for her mom to give her the lunch bag and the geometry box she had asked for. Kamalamma was working as a house maid, she couldn’t afford much to send Vandana to a private school. She was a smart girl, she wrote several exams and got her scholarship in one of the best schools in the town.

“Did you get me the new geometry box?” Vandana asked her mom with hope.
“You have strived so much my dear, wont I get you one” Kamalamma went to the trunk, which was kept in the corner.

She opened it and took out a small bag and in that was a small package. Kamalamma opened it, and out came a shiny geometry box. She gave it to Vandana and wished her luck.

“Amma, this is so beautiful. Where did you get it from” Vandana’s eyes twinkled looking at the box.

“This was given by one of my owners when you were born. I used to work in one of the richest houses in town, at that time. When you were born, the lady of the house came to visit us. She gave this to me and said, that I should provide you good education.” Kamalamma was wiping her tears.

“That’s so kind of her. Can I go and meet her sometime to thank her for this thoughtful gift?” Vandana wanted to express her gratitude.

“I don’t think so dear. They don’t stay here anymore.” Kamalamma wiped off her tears.
“Now, aren’t you getting late for school. Off you go” she shooed Vandana out of the house with a smiling face.

Kamalamma took out something else, from the package. It was a photo of a pretty lady. After a few minutes of silence she spoke “Madam, your daughter has turned out to be a fine girl, also, she is as pretty as you are”

Friends

2011-09-07T20:39:00.000+05:30

“Lets go that posh restaurant for her party” Amit was trying to convince the other 2 guys.

Amrita, was back after her higher studies, she had agreed to meet her buddies at a place of their choice. Sagar, Karthik, Amit and Amrita were inseparables in college. As life would have it, after graduation, they went ahead with their respective jobs and studies. They were constant touch with each other, and after 2 years, were going to meet that day.

At 8.00 PM sharp, Amrita, dressed in a sleek figure hugging knee length dress, was waiting outside the restaurant. The 3 guys came in a few minutes. She was pleasantly surprised seeing them dressed appropriately for the restaurant, instead of Jeans and some t-shirt with graphics.

“Not bad, you guys” she smiled and hugged them.
“You too” responded Sagar

Amrita smiled and gestured that they should now get in, lest their table be given to someone else. Amit and Karthik hit Sagar on the head “Is that how you compliment a girl?” He just shrugged.

As they took their seats, Amrita realized the guys were trying to be formal in behavior. She was missing out the fun she had with these guys, and decided, if they weren’t going to act normal, then she knew how to get them on track.

The waitress came to their table to take the order.

“Drinks anybody” Amrita offered, “It’s ok guys, I have no problems. I have the money”, she winked.
“One red wine, please” Amit ordered.
“I’ll go for a bloody Mary” Karthik decided
“Champagne, for me” Sagar was the last to decide.

“And for you ma’m”, the waitress turned towards Amrita.
“Get me a diet Cola for now” Amrita closed the drinks menu

As they were discussing the current affairs in their lives, their order started to appear on the table.

Amrita gave one look at all of them, called the waitress and said, “Please get a Shampagne glass”.

The 3 gave her a shocked look. “You started drinking?” “From when?”
By then the waitress came with a Shampagne glass.

“Guys, it’s and empty glass” Amrita showed them. But what she did next was totally shocking for all the three. She poured her diet cola into the glass.

“What are you doing Ammu” Amit tried to stop her. “This is a 5-star, they have a decorum”

“Come on guys!!! I love to drink in fancy glasses. The one she give me a diet cola was like a water glass, I loved the shampagne glass and this is how I will drink it”
“You know, you are insulting our drink” Sagar said, all 3 started at him and then they started laughing loudly. It was a similar laugh, which Ammu shared with her friends, on a roadside restaurant.

She knew, the ice was broken and she had her buddies back.

wjo's that

2011-08-28T22:11:00.002+05:30

“But amma, why can’t I come with you”, Kaushik was pestering his mom.

“We are going to get the groceries, in the scooter, and it will be difficult for all of us to come back on that. Anyway your sister will be at home with you. We will get you hot potato buns. Alright” Mom was convincing Kaushik.

He reluctantly agreed. The Potato buns did the magic.
After 15 mins, he went to his sister’s room. Since it was getting dark, she was closing the windows.

“Why are you closing the windows?” Kaushik asked innocently.
“You don’t want to know. Come lets go out of the room”
“But why did you close it?”
“You will get scared Kaushik, come lets go”
“Why will get scared. I am a big boy now”
“Fine, you won’t listen to me. Will you?”
“Naah. You tell me”
“Ok… do you see that white light out there? That’s Mohini”
“What? Who is Mohini? ”

“You dumbo, last week, do you remember, I was watching a horror movie, a lady was roaming around in white saree, in the dark, with her long hairs open, with no eyeballs”

“Yeah, I was scared and mom scolded you for watching it and switched off the TV”

“Excatly, since we switched it off, she has come here to meet us.” “Look, the white is nearing the window. Can you feel the chill air?”
Kaushik was extremely terrified now.

“Akka, will it come inside and take me away. I don’t want to leave you guys and go with her. She is very scary” Kaushik was on the verge of crying. She couldn’t control and started laughing.
This actually scared Kaushik even more. “Don’t worry idiot. There is nothing called Mohini. That was on TV, just a story. I was just trying to scare you” she said.

“What? now you are lying to me” Kaushik insisted.
“No re baba, see I was closing the windows, so that mosquitoes don’t come in. That was the right opportunity to fool you” she tried convincing him.

“So what’s thing white thing?” he questioned
“Tubelight” she shrugged her shoulders.
“You are calling me a tubelight?” He was angry with her now.

“Come here and see” she opened the window and the tubelight was right in front of the window.“Our window glass is translucent, so you cannot see clearly what’s on the other side. I just made up a story” She was happy that she convinced him.
“Mummy” he started crying.
“Oh my God, if mummy comes to know, I’ll be dead. You are my darling brother no… I will never scare you again. Please don’t tell mummy… Please Please Please” she pleaded him.
“Fine, but if you try to scare me again. I will tell her” He blackmailed her “Ok fine. I won’t”.

As they were about to close the window again, the bell rang and both jumped out of shock.

Trip to Shivanasamudra

2011-08-18T20:01:00.000+05:30

Most of the times, we plan a lot, and end up not going anywhere. Last Friday evening, as we were heading back home, I just said “Why don’t we go to Shivanasamudra tomorrow?”, “Not a bad idea” G said. I was already super excited. The last time I visited the place was a decade back. We decided to hit the bed early, but then there was a HP movie on TV, and I dint want to miss it. Anyway, we had decided, if we could wake up by 6 we will go, else cancel the plan.

Saturday:

5.00 AM: Alarm rang. I woke up G and asked him, if we are going. He said no. I was disappointed and slept again.
5.30 AM: G wakes me up and says, go and get ready. I was super happy. Initially we argued over who would go take bath first, that way other person could get around half an hr extra to sleep. Since, he is the designated driver, I accepted.
7.30 AM: We were out having breakfast in BTM Layout. Then we took the kanakpura road and headed towards the destination

Please have your breakfast, before you leave Bangalore. Unlike Mysore Road, there are not many hotels. There are only roadside tea shops, where you get bananas, biscuits, chips. There are no hotels in that road. But road is awesome. Not road bumps/humps, no potholes. It was smooth like butter. G had a gala time, driving on those roads. I am not sure about his average speed, you see I having my nap. But anytime I woke up, found him in 120 or 140. In between he would nudge me, to see the beautiful surroundings. Indeed, a pond and a small hill in the background would make such a pretty sight.

At one point there is dead end leaving you with 2 directions, you take right to head to Mysore, so we took the left which would take us to our destination. You will find directions to the place, every few kilometers; it’s a little hard to get lost on this road. Even if you do, the villagers are pretty helpful.

There are 2 falls, Gagana Chukki and Bara chukka , around 2 kms apart.
Finally, by 9.30, we reached the viewpoint of the Falls. This is probably a few kms before the falls; from here you get to see a beautiful view of the Gagana Chukki Falls. Since we had reached early, the crowd was less, hence enjoyed the view for quite some time. We sat there on a bench, sipping hot tea. It was such a beauty. Though I wonder, why is this place called Bluff?

We then left to go near the falls. It’s around 6kms from the view point. As we headed towards the falls, there is a deviation, one going towards Gagan Chukki and the other BaraChukki. Since we had seen the first one from far, we visited the latter this time. We parked the vehicle, and looked at the falls. The water looked so mesmerizing. In one view you feel, water from all the directions, merging into one waterfall. I like this better than the view of Gagana Chukki.

There are steps to go down till the river. After initial fun getting down, the steps become steeper. All along, I was wondering, how much effort would be required to come back up? But the view of the falls on the side, make you forget all this.

Once you are down there, there are coracle rides (in kannada: Theppa), which you can take. They take you for a round in the river, close to the falls. We din’t opt for that. There are multiple falls around. There is a point where, you can cross the stream, though it knee deep or more. A lot of people were crossing the stream to go under the falls. We sat there on the banks and were having fun, looking at people trying to cross the stream. A lot of them fell in water, due to the slippery rocks. One good thing which can be observed here, it doesn’t matter, who you are, where you are from, which gender you belong to, you could see people helping each other cross the river. If one was about to slip, you could see another person helping them avoid falling down. As I was sitting one of rocks, with legs in water, was passing mobiles, holding somebody when they were slipping. It’s such a great gesture, we could see there.

Just next to this, there was a small pathway. G and I headed there, we had to catch hold of the roots and climb a little bit. From there we could get a beautiful view of the falls. We took a couple of pictures and headed back. Not many people venture there, so there are some thorny plants which have just grown in the wild. We ought to be a little careful.

After this, the climb back to the parking began. Every time I was panting for breadth, I would sit on those steps and look at the view, which would probably fill me in with energy to finish the climb. Once we reached the parking lot, we had tender coconut and corn.

We headed towards the Darga, which is near Gagana Chukki. It seems people are not allowed near the falls, since its very dangerous. The rocks are too slippery. On that day, there was some kannada movie shooting going on, so we were not stopped from going near the falls. Ofcourse, the shooting area was still not accessible. We took a few pictures, but the fun part was going down those rocks and coming back up. There was too many monkeys in this area. I had given the camera to G, so that monkeys don’t come near me for the camera. They were least bothered anyway. We dint spend as much time here, since you can’t even touch the water here. Also, it was getting really hot in the afternoon.

There are 2 temples nearby, one is a famous Ranganatha swamy temple, it’s a part of the 3 Rangas. This is called the Madhya Ranga, other ones are in Sriranga and Srirangapatinam

We were thankful that it didn’t rain. We headed back to Bangalore. For a minute we thought we’ll visit Somnathpur. But then thought we’ll leave for another day. On the way we bought biscuits and then non-stop to Bangalore on the kanakpura road. Reached home around 4.30 and had lunch and had a nice satisfying short nap, and in the dreams, saw the falls, yet again.

Long Life!!!

2011-08-06T06:56:00.000+05:30

“Rao saab, Mirza sahib is waiting for you”, the driver came and gave a shout at the door. The 70 year old, Gangadhar Rao, got up from the rocking chair. He called his wife, for a cup of coffee for the driver, and went to his room to get his coat, turban and the walking stick. The driver did a namaskar and showed him to the car. He opened the back door as usual, but Rao saab insisted he sit in the front that day. The driver was confused, but it was master’s order, never to disobey Rao saab. He opened the door of the famous “Fiat Padmini” and Rao saab sat, in the front seat, after a decade.

The driver started off to Mirza sahib’s house, which was 50kms from Rao’s house. He never understood, the relationship between, Gangadhar Rao and Ali Mirza. He only knew that every 3 months, Mirza sahib would send him to pick up Rao saab. They would spend 2-3 hours at Mirza’s house and then he would be dropped back. This had been the same since 25 years, his dad had done this, and now, he was doing it for the last 10 years.

Ali Mirza was one of the greatest script writers in the film industry. Almost all the movies he was a part of were blockbusters. It had made careers of a lot of actors/directors. People would become desperate to work in the film, if they knew it was Mirza’s script, they knew something good was in store for them. For the past 30 years, Mirza had not failed to attend any award function, and his mansion had a room which adored all his awards.

Gangadhar Rao, was from a humble background. His father was the temple priest. He never like Gangadhar mingling with Ali. Despite punishments, he always found Gangadhar and Ali playing together. Ali’s father was in the british army, hence gaining the wrath of the villagers. It was not his will to serve the army, some past experiences forced him in. Nobody dared to question him, not even Ali. After independence, Ali’s father decided they would move to Pakistan, and packed their bags to leave. The partition was not kind to them, and due to religious fueds, Ali’s father was no longer there to protect him. Ali was left alone, he dint know what to do, so he ran back to Rao’s house. He was a teenager, scared and shivering. Gangadhar’s eyes did the pleading, and so Ali was then, for the first time, welcomed in the Rao household.

Ali was not allowed to continue in school. Even though he was given shelter, he was not given the same status as Gangadhar or other siblings. He had to take care of the farm, while all the kids of the Rao household went ahead to get education. This saddened both the friends deeply, but Ali had no grudge against the old man, afterall, when the country was burning, he gave him shelter and life.
Gangadhar, would hide from his father and teach Ali, anything he learnt in school. Infact, Ali was so good at things that, he would do Gangadhar’s school work and let him have the credit of all the good work too.

As they grew, Rao wanted his eldest son to become a doctor, but Gangadhar’s interest was not in medicine, he loved nature, he loved poetry, paintings. There was no way out for him, he had to take up what his father wished for. He was sent off to Delhi to study medicine. Ali was still working at the farms. The friends would write letters to each other. Gangadhar would send his paintings and poetry to Ali, and the latter would spend lot of time, safeguarding his friend’s possessions. During the final year of medicine, he wrote a story to Ali. It was his love story. How he liked one lady at an orphanage, in Delhi, how he met her, how he had proposed to her. But now, he was scared. How would he communicate this to his father? Ali suggested he just marry her and come to the village, this way his father couldn’t do anything. Gangadhar thought this would be the best solution and got married to her. He then came back to the village with her.

That night Gangadhar saw his father’s eyes filled with pride. He was happy that Gangadhar was married. He gave the orphan a life. When both of them bowed, to seek his blessings, he gave her one of the jewels, which his wife had left behind.
“What’s your name child?” he asked.
Scared of what might happen next, Gangadhar said “You know baba, she cooks very well. Come dear, I will show you the kitchen”.
“Chutki, come and help your sister-in-law here”, he called for his younger sister.

Days went by, Gangadhar opened his clinic in the village. Everybody was grateful, they had a doctor in their village. Ali was quite busy those days, he had gone to the city for some personal work, nobody knew what it was.

One evening Gangadhar picked up the evening paper, Ali stopped him, and gave him a book.
“what’s this? I don’t have time to read books now. You know that” Gangadhar was staring at the bound book.
“I know my friend. Just read this once, and tell me what you feel” Ali forced him to sit with the book.

After 2 hours, Gangadhar closed the book, sighed and addressed Ali “How did you know?”
“This is not what I expected. Your reaction is totally different from what I thought it would be” Ali was completely taken aback. “And what did you mean by how did you know? What am I not supposed to know?”
“How did you know she is not a Hindu? I have been trying to hide it from Baba, you know what will happen if he knows she is not a Hindu? Look at yourself, I have seen how my friend is ill-treated, how can I let my wife be treated in the same way” Gangadhar was in tears now.
“I didn’t think it that way, Ganga. Please forgive me” Ali was apologetic. As he was about to leave, Gangadhar stopped him “Baba doesn’t need to know it’s my story. It will make a good movie, you know”.

“What? What did you say just now?” Ali was excited.
“Yes, my friend. It’s my story, but the way you have written this, is wonderful” Gangadhar hugged Ali.
“You know what let’s have a deal. I will tell you a story and you make it as beautiful as this.” Gangadhar held his hand. Ali took it in his, and exclaimed “Deal, my friend, It’s a deal”

************************************************************************************************************************
“Rao Saab, the house is here” driver opened the door of the car. Rao took out his walking stick and got down the car, looked at the mansion, smiled and went in. the maid, bowed and ran into the study. Mirza sahib was adjusting his spectacles and reading, with a cup of tea on his chair.

“Sahib, Rao Saab is here” the maid informed.

“Get the old man a cup of tea and something to eat”
“Who is the old man here, you are the one who needs constant monitoring, who needs to see a doctor” Gangadhar entered the study.

“Come in my dear story, oops I mean Doctor. Now, I have everything ready, are you ready with the next part of the story” Ali took his laptop to note down what his friend had to tell.

“I sat in the front seat today” Gangadhar said with tears in eyes.
Ali was shocked “You did? That’s really brave of you. I am glad you have moved on. Baba would have wanted you to do this. He loved that seat dint he. He even took his last breadth in that seat”

“Will you write about him?” Gangadhar looked at Ali. His eyes were filled with tears.

“Yes, I will write about Baba. But on 1 condition” Ali smiled. “You will have to take Padmini forever”

“Ofcourse, it’s always been mine” both of them laughed their hearts out. For the first time in a decade, the mansion was filled with this laughter.

Gift

2011-08-01T20:47:00.001+05:30

“Hey Look look Dravid” they would tell each other, everytime Manju and Kavya went past the corner poster shop. Both the girls loved Rahul Dravid, the cricketer. It was a craze at one time, for some it was Ajay Jadeja, Kumble for some, but for these two inseparables it was Dravid.

“Aww.. he is so cute”

“Yeah, wish I could have life size poster of his. But that costs Rs.100, mom will kill me if I ask her for that”, they would giggle and move on from the shop.

“Amma, the small poster is Rs.15, can I atleast have that” Kavya was trying to strike a deal with her mom.
“No dear, why do you want to spend so much on a poster. Instead get yourself a nice comic book” her mom suggested and left the room.

“Amma, its Kavya’s birthday 2 months later. I want to get her a gift, which she would love. I will collect the money you give me and get her a gift” Manju was discussing with her mom. Her mom nodded her head and said “As long as you can save in your money and get her something, its fine. Don’t ask me for hundreds of rupees”

Kavya’s birthday was nearing, and Manju had bought the life size poster for her. Manju was so excited, about kavya’s birthday.

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

Years later, Manju was getting ready to attend Kavya’s wedding. Her husband asked her, what was the gift they were planning to give. Manju smiled and took out a roll.

When her husband opened it, he saw, Dravid’s poster. “Have you gone crazy? Will you give this as her wedding gift?” he asked her.

“Yeah. It was her dream once. Before I could give it to her, due to some family emergency, they moved to their village. We couldn’t meet for years after that. With so much of struggle, I met her when she came to invite for her wedding. This is an old gift and I am sure, she will be happy with this”, smiling Manju packed the poster in a golden roll.

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

Kavya was opening up all her wedding gifts, when her eyes fell on the golden roll. She opened it and was amused to see the poster.
She flipped the poster to see something written in a beautiful handwriting.

“Happy 16th Birthday Kavya” (Year - 2000)
Lots of Love
Manju

Kavya’s eyes filled with tears, she had got her best wedding gift “Friendship”

Best Friend Forever

2011-07-30T20:38:00.001+05:30

I got a call from one of my Bestest Friends (well I know that’s not correct English, but can they include it in the directory). This happened a month back, I started writing and then, as usual left it unfinished. But today I think I should continue… This will never get over, since we are still great friends.

What do I say about her… We both joined Infy together. We hadnt met each other earlier, but had a common friend, who had told both of us that her friend is joining Infy. In a way it was good, we dint know each other. We did not have any expectations or any impression about the other person…

We met in the beautiful Campus. We were given a week’s accomodation in the Guest House, and were in adjacent rooms. In a week, we became close to each other. We had similar interests. She was not very talketive, but an awesome listener, so we complimented each other. Late in the night, we just sneak into our balcony, jump over one and sit under the moonlight and talk for hours.

After a week, we moved to an apartment, with 2 other girls. All 4 of us belonged to the same gang of friends in Infy. Since the other 2 were usually busy on phones talking to their boy friends, it left the 2 of us to bond together, even better. We were room mates in the apartment.

We had mutual understanding, so it was always her who would wake up first and let me sleep for an extra half an hour. Once she was done with her bath, she would wake me up, like an elder sis, and then I would rush around and get ready and we would go to office together. As time flew, our bond became stronger.

Funny thing, our birthdays come on consecutive days. First comes her birthday, So the celebrations started from 12:00AM and went on till 11:30 PM, and then she would start cribbing “My birthday will be over and now yours will start off”. We laughed so much, and together waited for her birthday to end and mine to begin. Till date, when I wish her on her Birthday, I tell her, tommorow by this time it will be mine. And she says yeah everytime you steal my thunder…

She would always call me Doll. She was supposed to go to Pune for training for 2 months, she wrote me a letter and a to do list at home. Things like close the balcony door everyday, switch off geyser before leaving. One day a friend and me played a prank on her, calling her and telling that it was late at night and I came alone walking from his house as he refused to drop me home. The amount of scoldings he has got from her is enough for his lifetime. Then she dint speak to us for 2 days for playing the prank on her.

When I told her G proposed to me and I said no. She was the one who first told me that I was crazy to not accept his proposal. And after months, when I finally accepted, she was the first person to know apart from the 2 of us.

Like any other friends, we have had our share of good and not good times. We have gone thru the phase where we have not spoken to each other, due to some misunderstanding. But as we grow older, we mature and we realize, it was so stupid to lose a friend over trivial issues.

Both of us were in different places, I would say continents for years, but when we finally met, it seemed we were never apart. It just took us a few conversations to get back on track about each other. Again we lived in different places, occassional calls, occassional chats and we were still good friends.

Time got us together again in the same campus. We would go for lunch together and then a long walk… We would discuss everything under the sun. But then, this time last year she quit. I surely missed the time we had together. She was to move to Delhi a few months back. We decided to catch up over lunch. We had lunch in Sahib Singh Sultan. We were there for 1.5 hrs, it felt like 15 mins. We had so much to talk to. We sat on the stairs near PVR, wondering why there is no place in the mall to sit and chat. I got her a perfect photoframe, wrote her a card. When we parted ways that day, we could sense that we would miss each other.

I am just hoping she comes to B’lore soon, and I get to meet her again.

Race Race!!!

2011-07-28T20:33:00.002+05:30

“Is he getting it married?” My mother-in-law asked me.“He is already married to it amma”, I told her smiling.. She just headed towards the kitchen, nodding her head. This conversation, was right after my husband gave her a test ride, after the modifications on our car.
Modifiactions done to Fiat Palio
- Engine Grooving. Its like an open heart surgery, is what he told me. Free flow blah blah blah….
- Free flow exhaust, air filter change, silencer changed

Result: When he starts the car, it sounds like a race car… When he zooms past other cars, the sound is deafening… He doesn’t have to honk on roads, people just give way. All eyes are on the car. Car lovers kinda smile at it.

I am just loving it, for 2 reasons.
- I have always loved Ferrari in F1, and now I atleast get to feel a teeny weeny bit of it, considering my husband drives as if he is on F1 race.
- I can keep saying “Show Off” to him.

Why Show Off you ask?
Any time he is in stand still, he starts, he loves it when people turn around and look at itAs soon as we enter Infy, he has to accelerate such that the security guards notice… Ofcourse they smileSee a bunch of guys and accelerate and heads turn

Best was today morning, our neighbor was cleaning his car, when we were leaving… My husband started the car and let is on for warming up(he says so). So the neighbor asked… What’s with the silencer?. So my husband told him, and he said – Are you going to participate in a race?My husband said – No just the thrill… He just smiled and said –Enjoy :)
As soon as we left from there, I told my husband “Show Off”… You dint even try to impress me so much ….

Bus rides!!!

2011-07-22T08:08:00.001+05:30

Bus rides in the morning can be pretty interesting. And here I am not even talking about the people in the bus. That will make up a pretty long tale. As soon as I get a window seat, I feel the satisfaction same as quenching my thirst. I just open the window wide open to see off the place, where I stood, just before the bus came. As we move in snail’s pace in the (in)famous Bangalore Traffic, we see people running to catch their buses, which for some reason they might have missed, or people who are waiting for their mode of transport to arrive. Sometimes we see people strategically crossing the jam packed roads… The best time to cross roads when there are so many vehicles on road… is when there is a stand still traffic jam.

As we move slowly and steadily, the weather also tries to play along. The sky is covered with dark clouds, making us think about the time of the day. Out of nowhere there are droplets of water kissing your face. Instead of wiping it off, or closing the windows, you just push your face a little outside and feel the water on your face. As you go further, and the rain has increased its momentum and you can see a series of water drops falling everywhere. You see colourful umbrellas opening up. Those people who had not anticipated the rain, rush towards any shade available.

In the meanwhile, the windows are closed a little, letting in a little bit of air in, considering a fellow passenger’s request since they like stuffy and suffocating environment in the bus. When the expressway stretch was over and you can just look at the roads below from a bird’s view, it seemed so fresh. The road was wet. People were still running towards the bus with umbrellas hitting each other. Autos standing the stand, with all the drivers having a team meeting, with a cup to hot tea. The best thing in this whole journey was listening to soft romantic songs.

When I realized what a beautiful day it was, the song playing was “Hume aur jeene ki chahat na hoti.. agar tum na hote”… Bah!!! Just the song when I was coming to office without my husband today :) But these are time times which make me realize, small moments just make a good start for the day ahead…

Independence Day!!!

2011-07-10T09:00:00.001+05:30

Shweta, was getting her daughter ready for school. It was the 15th of August. Independence Day celebrations were planned in her daughter’s school. She was present in one of the singing groups. They were to sing a patriotic song that day. Since it was the 25th Independence Day celebration in the school, they had invited the parents to be a part of these celebrations.

The introductions were done, the Mayor of the town was invited to hoist the flag and make a speech. The girls of class V were asked to sing Vande Mataram, and they sang beautifully. Shweta was a proud mother, she had a smile, when she saw her daughter singing. After this, there was a welcome speech and flag hoisting, then started the speech of the Mayor.

What happened after this, Shweta doesn’t really remember, since her thoughts drifted to the independence day celebrations, decades back, when she was in Class Xlll.

Shweta and 4 other friends, were the best of friends, the school had ever seen in that tenure. They loved attending the school functions, except for attending some boring speech, where the chief guests were supposed to give “inspirational” talks. This year, they planned to escape the speech part, of the celebrations. They were ready to sacrifice the usual Laddoos, which were to be distributed in the end. They hatched a plan.

The celebrations were to be held, in the huge school grounds. There was a huge sitting area and on the left was the stage. All the initial excitement had died down when the speech started. The plan was that the girls would try to leave one by one, so that nobody spots them leaving. In the initial 10 mins, the first girl slipped out of the compound. Then in some time the second and third. Just when the fourth one was about to leave, one of the teachers came and stood somewhere nearby. Though the teacher had no clue 3 of them had left. Shweta and the fourth girl waited for the teacher to move away so that they could escape and meet their friends outside the gate.

Just when the teacher moved, and the girls were about to sneak, there was an announcement.

We thank Mr.XXXXX for taking out some time from his busy schedule, to come here and give us some inspiration. Now we requests all the students to form a line, so that they can collect the sweets being distributed near the gate.

Eventually, both the girls went in line and collected their sweets and came out the gate. When they met the other 3 girls behind the school, their mouth was stuffed with Laddoo. They had forgotten to leave some of it for their friends.

After some, stares and laughs, they finally decided to sneak into the post office, which was right next to the school. It was national holiday, so it was empty. The gates were locked, so they actually jumped across the wall. There wasn’t even a security guard. All 5 played in the post office for quite some time. Around lunch time, they parted ways, unless all the parents arrange a search party for them.

Shweta was smiling to herself, when she heard loud applause. The speech from the Mayor, just got over. There was an announcement made. All the parents are requested to enjoy the refreshments, provided in the auditorium. Please make sure you have an eye on your kids… Have a great day all of you.
a
Shweta saw her daughter, stuffed with ladoo in her mouth…

Trip to CHIKKAMAGALUR - Part1

2011-06-29T23:13:00.001+05:30

Waynad…
ChikkamagaLur…
It’ll be too hot..
its gonna be raining.
But we’ve both been to Waynad…
I want to go to ChikkamagaLur…
I don’t want to go anywhere…
Let’s go to vythiri in Waynad…
Yeah looks cool…
But isn’t it too expensive?
Yeah… But its our anniversary… So lets go…
But we’ve both been to Waynad… Let’s go to some other place…
After a week of haggling and a day before departure… We thought Vythiri it is… and Waynad is the place…

Calls made to Vythiri… NO VACANCY…

Venue changed to ChikkamagaLur, calls made to 8-10 homestay…, NO VACANCY again.

Finally we thought if nothing, lets take our tent and go anyplace… Place dint matter, time spent together is what is important.

Just then a last attempt. A last call made to Homestay - Mugila Mane. Room available… room booked for 2 nights. All set to leave next day to the coffee place – CHIKKAMAGALUR.

Colourful Paper!!!

2011-06-24T10:30:00.000+05:30

Akshata opened the gates and ran towards the door, and rang the bell continuously. Her mom opened the door. Before she could scold her for making the noise, Akshata just barged in, throwing her bag on the sofa, shoes on one side, and lunch bag on a chair. In a moment, the beautiful house turned messy. Her mom realized the gates were wide open, which was an open invitation to stray dogs. She closed the gates and came in closing the door behind her.

One look at the house and she was furious with Akshata. Hands on her hips, giving a stern look, in a normal tone, she asked her daughter.

“What kind of behavior is this, Akshu? Is this what you do when you come back from school”

“Sorry Amma, I am so excited today. I can’t wait to show you, what I learnt in school today”

Her mom wanted to share the joy, but certain things couldn’t be left unattended, so she continued “I am sure, it must be very interesting dear. But, do you think we should go ahead with that, with all this mess around.”

Akshata understood what her mother meant, and promptly got up from the sofa, took her shoes and neatly placed it on the shoe rack, took her lunch bag and kept it in the wash area. She was just about to take the bag and go to her room, when her mom called out.

“Akshu, I have made something special for you today. You freshen up and come to the balcony, with what you want to show me, I will be ready with your surprise”

Her eyes lit up, she hugged her mom and said “You are the best Amma in the world” and ran to her room, to keep the bag in place and to change, but most importantly, she wanted to go and show the amazing thing to her mom.

As she entered the balcony, she could smell freshly baked fruit cake.

“Wow Amma, you made me fruit cake. It’s my favorite. Thank you”

“Well, I had to. You are the best daughter. Isn’t it?”

“Yeah,………….” she said something with a big piece of cake in her mouth, only she could have deciphered what she was saying.

After a piece, her mom reminded Akshata, that she was supposed to show her something.

She got a sheet of white paper. Then she got her Blue Ink Bottle, she got the filler. Akshata first placed a newspaper on the floor. On top of it, kept the white paper. Now carefully, she put drops of ink, on the white paper. It was random, no particular order. Then she folded the paper into half, rubbed over it. She opened the sheet of paper, and a beautiful artwork was on the white paper.

Akshata, beaming with pride showed it to her mom, “See Amma, Radhika taught me this today”

“Wow Akshu, that’s beautiful. Radhika has taught you something very nice”, saying this she hugged Akshata and gave a peck on the cheek and said “Now, let’s keep this aside, so that it dries and we can show it to Appa, when he comes home”

Next day, when Akshata came home, she had another surprise, Amma had got her water colours and told her, she could do the same thing with colours. Both of them had lot of fun that evening. It was one of the most colourful days of the 5 year old. Akshata kept singing all day, my colourful paper.

That night, Akshata’s mom, took out her diary from the trunk and kept the first 2 sheets of Akshata’s creations in the book, and named them – My Akshu’s artwork. She was about to close the diary when a sheet fell from the book.

It was her first colourful paper.

Incentive or Bribe

2011-06-22T22:12:00.000+05:30

Heard this line in one of the songs in 3 Idiots – “Rishvat dena to khudd Papa ne sikhaya”… It’s not to demean the parents. Ofcourse what we are today, is because of them, the push, the confidence they have given us… But it’s not entirely false, that we have seen this from our childhood.. Parents.. teachers… everybody….

Recently, I was in conversation with a person(X) I know. We were discussing jewellery. When she said, you must have gone to XXXXX jewellery store, they have got good collection. I said, yeah next time, I will go there and look out.

Just then she said, “we had to get a gift in gold, for the inspector who had come to our college”. I quite dint understand, at first I thought, they had some function and it was a memento, only later I understood, there was an inspection and this “GIFT” was the bribe.

There was another incident, when the college was supposed to have some event, and some permissions from the POLICE had to be taken. So the students told X, “Don’t worry ma’m, We will do some ADJUSTMENT with the police”.. Needless to say, the event was successful.

Now, as a teacher (GURU), isn’t one supposed to imbibe certain qualities in the student. If the Student is going the wrong way, should the teacher encourage the student. In the above mentioned incidents, may be if they hadn’t taken the steps they did, it wouldn’t have happened.

But is this what we are passing on to the next generation…

Not just teachers, parents too are responsible for this.

Lakhs and lakhs of rupees spent on “DONATIONS”
“Dad, I want my DL” – Ok, Lets bribe the RTO.

Why blame government and private agencies…

Its all root level..

“Eat the food baby… I’ll let you watch TV… I’ll give you a chocolate..” What is incentive in the beginning, becomes Bribe in the Long Run…

If you were....

2011-06-17T20:06:00.000+05:30

“I like your stories, darling. Why don’t we get this published into a book” Rajesh asked
Priya was very skeptical “I don’t know. Do you think it’s good enough to be published”
“Ofcourse dear. The grammar is right. Your stories are short, simple. The readers can just connect to it.” Rajesh persuaded her.
“If you say so, but how will we do it. Where do we find the publisher. And what about the investment?” Priya was anxious about a lot of things.
“You just churn out good stories, rest you leave it on the supreme one” Rajesh gave a loud laugh.
“Alright, almighty, supreme one… I am so grateful to you” Priya laughed along.
They kept the papers in the file and left to have dinner in their favorite restaurant.

Rajesh and Priya knew each other for 5 years. They were married for 2 years and had a great life. Priya was interested in writing, and started writing short stories as a hobby. Anytime, she saw some incident, which happened around her, or she remembered something from her past, she would weave it into a beautiful story. She had around 50 stories ready.

It took her an year to complete the number of short stories required for the book to be published. Rajesh had contacted a publisher who was eager to publish the book. Rajesh had to do a lot of travelling, for his work, and he did not find time for the publishing. Priya, did not want him to take too much burden, and she herself took up the responsibility of getting the book published. After the initial few stories, Rajesh had not read what she had written. Every time Priya sent him the new story, he wouldn’t read the story citing various reasons. For some time, she started feeling, that her stories were probably not upto the mark and Rajesh dint have a heart to tell it to her. But, her publisher was confident that the stories were great, and she should get it published.

The book got published. Along came the fan following, awards. Success was with her now. She felt aloof, inspite of all the adulation.

Priya couldn’t understand why Rajesh couldn’t be a part of her success. One day, she decided to confront him. She wanted to know if it was her fault and if success had got into her head that she distanced from her loved ones. Rajesh assured her, she was still the same doting wife. It was his work, that was eating up all the time.

She wrote a couple more books, which were again Best Sellers and undoubtedly won her awards and lot of recognition, not just on the national level. Next she decided to write a novel instead of short stories. In a year’s time, she was ready with the book, it was published. The publisher had arranged for a book release.

Rajesh was in town that day. she told him, she would be glad if he could be with her on this big day. Rajesh had agreed to accompany her.

In the evening, Priya was dressed in one of her finest Sarees. Rajesh had got it for her, from one of his trips. She looked so elegant. She looked in the mirror and smiled at herself. Just then, Rajesh called in to say, he would join her at the release location, and that she start from alone. This saddened her, but she was happy that he atleast took some time to come to the location directly. She took the book in her hand – “If only you were” and went downstairs to the car.

The book release location was bustling with people. They were waiting to take a glimpse of this fabulous writer, who had become a rage in a few years. There were photographers, journalists, other prominent writers, waiting to welcome Priya. A volunteer announced, Madam Priya is just in the corner, and she would be reaching the venue in 5 minutes.

Rajesh had just parked his car, and come near the entrance to welcome his Priya. He was happy, as he was going to be with his beloved wife on her big day. At the Road entrance, they spotted her car, taking a turn.

A huge crash. Everybody saw the car go up in the air. Police rushed to the place. The car was smashed all over.

Rajesh rushed to the place. He wanted to rush Priya to the hospital. He could spot the saree in that mess. He went near the body. Priya’s face had a peaceful smile. On one hand, she had the book, which was to be released that evening.

Rajesh couldn’t believe what he was looking at. He took the book from her hand. He opened the last page and read the last few lines.

“Everybody says – Behind every successful man, there is a woman. Some also say – Behind every successful woman there is a man. “
“But all I wanted was my man to be beside me”

~End of Story~

Rajesh took the book with him, and walked across the street. Some journalists claim they saw him teary eyed.

One Night!!!

2011-05-25T10:00:00.001+05:30

It was 8.00PM when there was a knock on the door. It was time for Akash to return from work. He was a hard working guy, who worked nearly 15 hrs a day. Nisha, his wife was very understanding, she knew, all this hard work was for their family of 3. Both Akash and Nisha adored their 3 year old daughter, Ragini. Nisha never asked for a thing from Akash, Sunday was the only day, he got an off, and that he spent with his family, the other days, he was buried in work.

Only complaint Nisha had was his smoking habit. Akash was a chain smoker. He needed one in his hand, all day long. Every day, as soon as he came from work, he would sit on the couch, and Nisha would keep the ash-tray on the table. This was a daily routine. Anytime she asked him to quit, he gave work pressure as the reason. Though Nisha was sad about this, she dint pester him much as Akash was great as a person.

Months passed by, with the same routine. Ragini was being fed her favorite dinner that night, when the door bell rang at 8.00 PM. She rushed to the door to open it up for “daddy”. She felt short, as the latch was at the top end of the door, so her mom had to come to the door, to open it up. Akash was happy to see both of them at the door. He hugged Nisha and then picked up Ragini and gave her a peck on the cheek. He showed his cheek, so that she could return it. She first checked if her dad’s cheek was smooth enough and returned the sweet little kiss, on either side. He put her down, and Ragini ran inside, as if she had unfinished work. He laughed at her excitement, kept his bag on the chair, went to the couch and sat there. He saw Ragini, come out with the ash-tray, she kept it on the table. She then, caught hold of all the ruffles in her frock and moved away from the table, as if, otherwise it would catch fire. She went to her mother, to finish her food and then off to sleep.

Akash, couldn’t sleep that night. When Nisha woke up sometime in the middle of the night, she saw him at the balcony, smoking. She could sense some tension. She walked up to him, kept her hand on his shoulder. When he turned, she just smiled at him, indicating, she is with him and the tense moments would just pass away. All of a sudden, she saw tears in his eyes. She had never seen this in 5 years of their marriage. When Akash realized, he changed expression, he couldn’t be silent. He cried like a baby. All Nisha did at time, gave him the shoulder to cry on; no questions asked. After a while, Akash controlled himself and made a statement. “ I will quit smoking Nisha. I don’t want to see my daughter bringing that ash-tray on the table again”. Saying so, he switched off the cigarette he had in his hand.

Bring your kids to Work Day!!!

2011-05-22T21:58:00.002+05:30

Malini was excited. She was taking her daughter to office today. Richa, her daughter was 6 years old, and she was super excited, when she got to know, she would accompany her mother to the work place.

Richa was a independent kid, she never wanted her parents to help her to ger ready on any outing. She asked Malini for half an hour to get ready. Since Malini was ready, she had all the time to wait for her daughter. She took her cup of coffee and walked up to her balcony which faced the garden. As she was looking a the beautiful hibiscus which had bloomed that morning, she wandered off to her thoughts, remembering her mom’s garden, which were full of flowers.

Malini was a cute kid herself. Nearly 3 decades back, she remembered, how her mom was helping her to get ready. Malini was supposed to go with her dad to his office. He was the boss of the factory. He was the production manager. Though there weren’t any kids to accompany, she knew she would sit with dad in his cabin, and she would be given all the importance that day, as if she owned the factory.

As soon as they entered the factory, few workers got her some cool drinks to drink, some of them got some chocolates. She felt like a celebrity. Ofcourse at that age, she dint know what it meant. Malini’s mom had packed her colouring books, story books, which she promptly opened up as soon as dad and she were alone in the cabin. Her Dad had arranged a small table and chair for her. But kids, are usually not satisfied, are they? She wanted the big table which dad was using. His table had 3 metal drawers and a glass top, he had so many files on top, along with a couple paper weights, staplers and lot of other stationary.

Malini was left near that table for sometime,since her dad had to go out for some inspection. He told her he would be back in 10 minutes, and that she was not to touch anything on the table. She was a very obedient kid, she dint touch anything on the table. Just a few minutes later, her eyes fell on the drawer. This was the kind where you unlock the top drawer, and open it and the below two get unlocked. She saw the keys dangling on the top one. She promptly closed, the drawer, locked it. Now she dint know where to put it. Since her dad had told her not to disturb anything on the table. She just put the keys in the second drawer, and closed it.

Malini’s dad came and she moved back to her table and chair, and started colouring. In 5 minutes, she saw her dad, franatically searching for something. She realized he had lost something. She dint know though what it was. Two of his assistants came over and all three searched the whole cabin. It was just fluke that Malini’s dad asked her if she saw the keys of the drawer, and that’s when he realized what had happened. They had some important papers in there, and now it was locked up. Just when her dad, and the other 2 were thinking of getting a locksmith, Malini came upto them and said “Daddy, did I do something wrong? I saw the drawer open and thought I should lock it up. And you told me not to disturb anything on the table, so I kept it in safe” and smiled. Her dad couldn’t help but admire her innocence. The other 2 guys also burst out laughing. The locksmith came and finally the lock was opened in half an hour of the incident.

“Mamma, I am ready. Let’s go”, Richa came running to Malini in the balcony. Richa wore a cute jeans skirt and red top, with matching accessories. Malini took her little bag and said “Let’s see what my darling is gonna bring to my office”. They both left in the car to Malini’s workplace. She was telling Richa, dos and donts in her office, mentally making a note to keep an eye on Richa, lest she has to start searching around for stuff, like her dad.

Trip to Mysore - III

2011-04-25T20:49:00.002+05:30

It was a hot day, and the moment we reached the palace (South Gate), we wanted to drink something. What better than tender coconuts. We were disappointed with the rates though. They kind of exploit the tourists. Point to be noted: The entrance is the South Gate, where you get tickets, to visit the palace.

After the tender coconut, we headed towards the ticket counter. As soon as you enter the gates of the palace, on the right is the camera counter. Visitors are supposed to deposit their cameras in this place. Photography is not allowed inside the palace (bah!!). Everybody has a camera in their cell phone these days, and nobody stopped them from clicking pictures inside. I still dint get the point, why cameras weren’t used, because we can use flash, may be. Anyway, let’s go a little further.

As we near the entrance of the palace, there is a footwear stand. No footwear allowed inside the palace. It’s not a temple, probably they just want to maintain the cleanliness of that palace, and it’s pretty cool inside, so it’s ok.

Note: Both the camera and footwear stands are for free, so no money making there.

As soon as you enter, there is a counter where they have audio guides, Rs.100 per system. You can also hire, certified guides, but we chose to go with audio guides this time (experience sake). There are 21 parts, the numbers are displayed out there to let you know which part of the guide to listen to. The moment we enter, we first go to the place, where the dolls are kept. This is the place, where the family decorates the palace with dolls during Navarathri/Dussehra.

We then enter the corridor, adorned with beautiful paintings. If you really love paintings, you can spend a lot of time here. The audio guide actually explains a lot of paintings, the details in those paintings, which you might overlook. We enter the centre hall, just look upwards, and you see awesome glass paintings adorning the ceiling. The flooring is so amazing; it’s so colorful, you are thankful that you aren’t stamping these beautiful tiles with the foot wear. It seems weddings and birthdays and other important functions were conducted here.

Next we move to the gallery where the paintings of the Royal family are kept. Sigh!! You wish you were a part of them. Who knows, maybe we were in our previous birth, if such a thing existed. Then you move to a gallery of gifts, given to the kings (Wodeyars), by the places they have visited. There was so much of Sandalwood in that glass chamber, such intricacy in sandalwood, hard to find in our daily life. We then saw some more paintings and then moved to the courtyard. The palace has a mixed architecture. European, moguls, Hindu, and you can see all these in one place. It’s a good example of unity in diversity.

History: It seems there was a wooden palace earlier, and it burned down during one of the weddings which happened in the palace. The queen then made sure, no material which can be burnt would be used in the making of this palace. So the palace is kind of fire proof.

Ok... Now in the first floor, In between, we go through rooms where the furniture and other articles are kept for display. Once we cross these we come to a big Durbar Hall, which is open to the public. (Like Deewan -e- aam).

Again there are paintings, infinite mirrors (mirrors kept in front of each other, you get infinite number of images. The arches in this hall are so identical. It looks so beautiful. From here you can see the vast ground. Just imagining, the king sitting right in the middle, with dignitaries sitting around him, the ministers and important people next to him. The ladies of the palace sitting in one place, and on the ground, you see hundreds of people flocked up just to see the king, and the proceedings. You just get goose bumps. The carvings on the ceilings are definitely worth an observation.

No wonder it took 15 years to build this palace. From here we move forward and find the elevator, which was used in those times. Right after this, there is a passage which leads to an Ivory Door. It seems there is a Ganesha Temple behind this door, and when the fire broke down the whole palace, this temple remained untouched. Even today, the Royal family visits this temple. It's not open for the general public. Then we come across 2 doors which carved ivory. It seems these doors won a prize sometime in early 1900s. Next you go to a smaller Durbar Hall (like deewaan -e- khaas). It is so colorful. Just like those you would have seen in the movies. Aah!! I really wish I could have lived there, the chandeliers, the mirrors, the carvings on the pillars. Slowly, steadily, you move out of the palace.

After living through the history, for a couple of hours, you feel bad that you are out of the magnificent palace. You can go to the rose garden, there are some beautiful flowers. You can go to the gate and collect your cameras. Then you can click as many pictures you wish, outside the palace. There are quite a few temples inside the palace gates; you can visit them if you have time. We had seen these earlier, and since it was lunch time, stomachs were pleading us to give them something. Friends wanted to have pizza, so off we went to kalidasa road and reached Pizza Hut.

We had yummy lunch of pizzas and pasta, and left to Bangalore, but not before another pit stop. We planned to go to Shivana Samudra... But did we actually go there or take a detour, will be for the next post... Time to say Good Bye Mysore... and off I drifted off to dreamland in my sleep.

Trip to Mysore - II

2011-04-22T18:14:00.002+05:30

Mysore is hotter, compared to Bangalore, but since Bangalore is also hot these days, we were used to sleeping without AC, so hadn’t booked the AC room. But, I guess we were lucky, due to some confusion in the booking, the hotel agreed to give us AC rooms with no change in the Tariff. We were glad about the AC, now with AC on and spreads to cover us, we had a good night sleep.

Usually on trips, I wake up early, one is don’t want to miss out on the beautiful day sleeping, second, I can anyway sleep in the car while travelling. But this time I slept till 8.00 AM. We were ready by 8.30, finished our breakfast of Idly vada (not so good), but no other option as we were not in the city, and that our next stop was a bird sanctuary.

By 9.30 AM we reached Ranganathittu. We had to pay Rs.50 per person, as entrance fee, and if we wanted the boat ride, it was again Rs.50, and the car parking was Rs.30. So after paying Rs.430 we headed to see the birds. We were lucky that the moment we reached the place of boat ride, we were about to start, so no waiting time. The boats are covered on top, so no worries of getting baked in the sun. We occupied a nice position. It was a ride for 20 – 30 mins. I have never seen so many birds in a natural habitat. There were birds from Siberia, North America, Japan and lot other countries. Actually I don’t really remember the name of the birds… But yes, very well remember the Painted Storks (easy to remember).

According to the boatman, feb- july is the season to visit this sanctuary. After this the eggs hatch, and the birds fly away with young ones, and you hardly see any birds there. One of the visitors asked, “how do you know from which place the birds come from?”. The boatman said, there are trackers tied to the legs of these birds, and when the report comes, that’s how they get to know.

One of the interesting things which we found was the way these birds were protecting their eggs or young ones in the nest. They would spread their wings in a weird fashion, we try to get a pic, couldn’t get it though. But it was as if mom would hold her saree pallu to safeguard you from sunlight (well similar way). Parents I tell you, ever protective.

Well, all this while we have been talking about birds, you might ask no animals at all. Behold, there are crocodiles in the same river. Yes, same river where we are boating. But, they keep to their business. They are usually under the trees, waiting for the eggs/ young birds. It was a treat to watch the crocs in the river, since a couple of them were moving. Anytime we see these creatures in the zoo, they are sleeping as if they are dead… For a while, I stopped watching the birds and was observing the crocs. It’s a little difficult to differentiate them with rocks around. Again some people had questions on, what will happen if it attacks us. The boatman was cool about it and said, they usually don’t attack, unless we are on their way. So we were making fun, what if all the crocs gang up and try to overturn the boat. We knew it wouldn’t happen at that time, but if it happens I wonder how it will be.

Once the boat ride is done, we came out and saw the watch tower, may be around 15 ft or so. We went up there, couldn’t see much, but enjoyed the moments when the birds were inflight. Tried clicking photos, but they are too fast, and we dint have too much time to capture the right moments. After this, we just took a stroll and were out of the sanctuary and headed towards the city…. Next stop was the famous Mysore Palace….

Trip to Mysore

2011-04-15T23:08:00.005+05:30

Let’s go somewhere, anywhere.. Just need a break, this was my slogan whole of last week.

Since we were to go with friends, getting everybody on board was not so simple. Timings, locations had to match. Finally, it was decided that we would go to Mysore on Saturday afternoon and return Sunday night. My first reaction was – “Mysore??? Again!!”, to this my husband said, you just wanna go somewhere right, so I reluctantly agreed.

I love Mysore, the place has so much to offer, but I have been to Mysore so many times, we were there for a couple of years, and it was just 2.5 hours from our house, why go there for a whole weekend. But then again, any break was welcome, so we were all set by 12 noon on Saturday.

As it happens in most of the trips, we started a couple of hours late, and we were kinda hungry the moment we had started. But we thought of stopping for lunch in an hours time. NICE Road is a boon, we reached Mysore Road pretty soon, and then the usual scenery, of paddy fields, some shops here and there, Wonder La and Innovative Film City advertisements. There was nothing exciting or new about this stretch. By the time we reached Bidadi, we were hungry and decided to have some chocolates, until we reach a proper lunch place. Around 3.15 we reached Kamat Lokaruchi. The food here is mouth watering. Kamat is on the expensive side, but once in a while it’s still ok. We had the North Karnataka meals (speciality here). After half an hour of eating, we left for Mysore.

By 5.30 PM we reached our hotel, White Orchids (Bombay Tiffanys Franchise). It was nothing great, but 1200 per night with AC was something we did not want to complain. Anyway all we needed was to sleep that night in the hotel.

We freshened up, and were ready to visit the famous Brindavan Gardens. On the way clicked we encountered a beautiful sunset. So we stopped the car and took a few pictures. The road is pretty ok, to KRS Dam(Krishna raja Sagar Dam). Much before KRS, nearly 2 kms, we were stopped by a few people for parking tickets. Once we got this, on the left we could see the beautiful Dam. After parking our car, we walked for 5 mins to the entrance. Since it was a Saturday, there were too many people. One of us went to get the entry tickets and paid for the camera entry fees (Rs.50) I wonder why so much for the camera. Once we entered, it was the usual mela kind of environment. Lots of eatables, chilli Bajji, Gobi Manchurian, noodles, Banana Bajji, Aaloo Bajji, Onion pakoda, popcorn, American sweet corn… we dint eat any of this, coz of hygiene concerns (bah!!). We took a litre of bottled water and went near the bridge which would take us to the north side of the garden.

There is a ferry (Rs.20) one way which will take you to the other side. We took the ride, just for the sake of it. It was fun. Though we have been here multiple times, we never took the ferry, to avoid standing in the queue, this time we thought, whats the hurry… So after 10 mins of waiting, we finally got to travel in the ferry, and it was fun watching hoardes of people walking on the bridge. We reached the other side in 5 mins, and then as we got down, till we reached the place where they had musical fountain, dint I tell earlier, this was the sole reason people flock the north garden J

Anyway, enroute we saw some cute little fountains, we were telling a friend of ours, this was the place, so many movies were shot, with the celebs. Actually it was a lie. All this shooting was done on the south Gardens, which was the other side of the ferry ride, from where we entered. Anyway, we took a couple of hazy pics, and negotiating the fountains spray, we reached the amphitheatre around the musical fountain. They were playing Saare Jahan se accha (the last song the of the fountain performance)

As soon as this got over, people got up and moved outside, we got on to those steps, and caught up with a nice place, with good view of the fountains. In 5 mins, the fountains took off with a famous Kannada Song. It was a nice attempt. As soon as this got over, there were a few hindi songs, and then a instrumental music piece, and finally Sare Jahan Se Accha Hindustan Humara Humara…. It was a nice feeling. There were whisteles and shoutings and lots of excitement.

After this got over, we headed towards a ice cream and had yummy Nutty Chocobars. This time we decided to take the bridge, and since it was nearing 8.30PM, the crowd was not too much. We had a nice walk on the bridge (not the dam), and then went out to have hot bhuttas/JoLA (corn). We then left to Mysore City to have dinner.

After much discussions, we decided to go to Metropole. This was once a palace, and now being used as a Star Hotel. Food is a little expensive, but the ambience is awesome, Food is good too. The restaurant is in the courtyard of the palace, so you are out under the sky full of stars. The highlight this time was the IPL match was on too. So good food, great ambience, a crowd which would react to every wicket and every four or six, made up for a great dinner.

We came back to the hotel, and contemplated if we should hit the bed, or play for a while, and play it was, and so we played cards for an hour and then left to our rooms, for a sound sleep, with plans to going to Ranganathittu Bird Santuary the next day.

Trip to Sravana Belagola

2011-03-05T23:00:00.000+05:30

It had been around 6 months, since we went for a trip. It was even more exciting as we were going to travel around 140km on bike. We had a holiday on Maha Shivarathri and we thought any Shiva temple would be overcrowded, so we headed to Sravana Belagola.

G (hubby) and me started from our place at 6.45. We are pretty close to NECE road, so we took that, toll upto Tumkur Road. Other way you can go is via mysore road... But I felt this was better.. Straight nice roads...

We were near Nelmangala and then from there we took the NH-48. It’s a straight forward road after this. Though the construction going on there might result in some narrow lanes, but the condition is really good. Around 8.00 we took a break on the highway. We stretched a little bit, after a 5 min break again continued on NH-48. We reached Mayura Veg Hotel around 9. Stopped there for breakfast. I had plans of taking pics of what we ate... But as soon as our spl.Masala Dosa, vada came we just digged in. I remembered about pics, much later :). We were there for nearly an hour.

We were 32 kms from Sravana Belagola. I was pretty excited, since I had never been to this place. Enroute, we saw so many coconut groves, it can easily be mistaken to be Kerala. By 10.30 we reached the place. After searching for parking, we finally entered the temple.

It’s a pretty huge rock, with some 500+ steps. There, we got to know, we had to leave the footwear below, you can wear socks though.

At the foot of the rock, I just asked God for some strength to climb those steps... I took breaks while climbing on the pretext of taking photographs, and we finally made it to the top. And what do we see there... more steps to see Gomateshwara. These steps were a little steep too, but since it was windy and not too hot, it wasn’t too difficult. Before going for these were saw few inscriptions which were from the 13th century, 16th Century, they were being preserved with Glass covering. since we dint understand much of it, we moved to see the World Famous, Gomateshwara.

As we entered, we saw a 60ft Monolith, we wouldn’t be as tall as the feet. But frankly, i wasn’t awestruck or anything like that.. Ofcourse it seemed huge etc, but dint have my jaw dropping. This is the highest Monolith in the world. And if you see it that way, its really amazing, what they have done with a rock. Anyway, the view outside itself made it worth climbing. We spent a lot of time clicking pics in the temple. Then we came out and again clicked lot of photos of the view from the hilltop.

As we came down from the main temple, on the left was something called Chennanna Basti. There was mantap kind of thing and a long pillar. Spent some time there and then went to the next Basti. We were on the top around 2 hours. We finally got down, freshen up and did a little shopping. Had some tender cocnuts and then saddled up to leave.

Actually, there is another hill, chandragiri, right in front of this, but you again need to climb this, and you can do all this if you have the whole day. We had to come back by 6(prior appointments), hence left the other hills for the next trip.

We had packed our lunch, but then thought we will have it in a hotel enroute.. We missed the Maura hotel which we went to earlier, now there arent many descent hotels on this route. So we then decided to finish off the packed lunch which we had got from home. There are certain farms enroute, else there are lot of empty bus-stands, if you want to have a picnic lunch. We stopped after an hour's ride, in one such place where there was water availability. It was good to have Chapattis and Tomato curry, on a highway, just the 2 of us. It was kind of romantic I must say. After the lunch, our next stop was on the NECE road for a short 5 min break, just to stretch ourselves. By,5.30 PM we were back home.

For those who are thinking if it’s worth going to this place… I would say, definitely, you won’t regret going to this place, just make sure you have the stamina to climb those 500+ steps, and ofcourse if you are going in summer bear the heat. But it’s pretty windy, so it’s still ok.

Go for it.

Reality!!!

2011-02-26T12:10:00.000+05:30

Sundar was bored, lying in the hospital bed for a week. Vishal and Sudha entered the room with the doctor. They had good news for Sundar, he would be relieved from the hospital that evening. The doctor advised him that just because he was going home, didn’t mean he could do anything. He had to listen to Vishal and Sudha, he needed atleast a month to recover from the illness.

The couple took care of Sundar like their own. They, spend most of the time in that month, taking care of Sundar. Once in a while, tears filled up his eyes. He wished, if only he had kids of his own, he wouldn’t have had this situation in life. He was so grateful to them.

**

A month passed, Sundar was allowed to take walks twice a day. The early morning walk was something he was waiting for. He reached the park, his friends were waiting for him. He was totally fit. His friends were happy to see him healthy.

Sundar declared “Only becasue Vishal saab and Sudha bibiji took care of me so well, I am in this condition”.

**
At home, Vishal was talking to Sudha “Sundar, had taken care of me since my birth. If only, I could tell him, I am his son, his blood”

Revenge

2011-02-20T14:47:00.000+05:30

Bali placed the cube in the warehouse. The cube was so heavy, but he couldn’t complain. It was his job to provide for his family. Every day, he had to go to the place where the huge cubes were, pick up as many cubes possible. He worked in a organized company, they were very strict. He couldn’t jump queues, nor could he overtake, he had to do his work in the time allotted to him, in the sequence he was assigned to.

The work gave his family the security in terms of basic needs, but there was a lot of risk. Everyday his wife, Kyra was worried, if Bali would come back home alive. The path he went on everyday, had lot of dangers. There were huge structures there, one wrong step could be the last one for him. She used to work with him before they had the kids. Now she had to wait until the kids could fend for themselves to help her husband.

********
Suri, Bali’s collegue came to Bali’s wife with a sad face. She had one look at the face and understood. Teary eyed, she mustered some courage and asked him “How?”

Suri said “we were at the garden”, there was nobody at the tea table, there were lot of sugar cubes. Bali was so happy, he mentioned that today would be an important day”
“as we took the cube and started back to the warehouse, a kid screamed looking at the train of ants. His mommy just got a mug of water and poured it on us”

She couldn’t hold her tears anymore. Suri tried to console her. “We are sorry, the impact of water was so hard, we couldn’t save Bali”

********
Two days later, Kyra was in the house where Bali was murdered. She found the mother and bit her on the eye. The lady started screaming. She caught hold of Kyra, and mashed her up. Just before that, Kyra was shouting “Bali dear, I punished your murderer”. The lady threw the dead Kyra in the dustbin. She walked out of the room muttering “Too many ants in this house”

Super powers

2011-02-13T14:33:00.000+05:30

Nikhil was supposed to go to his friend’s house, to collect something. Since he had to walk alone for half an hour, he could use his super powers. He would just get his spider powers out and jump from tree to tree or building to building. He would still take the same time, he would if he had walked. It gave him a sense of satisfaction though.

Another day, when he had to walk alone a lonely road, no buildings, no trees, he was disappointed. He decided to try something new. He got out his boat, and started rowing. He had the long oar, so that he could do the rowing both the sides. He loved his new discovery.

One day, Nikhil’s mom asked him to accompany her to the tailor shop. He never liked going with others, he loved his solitary walks. He couldn’t refuse his mom, and went with her. Mom was surprised to see Nikhil not chatting with her, instead, she saw him rowing a boat, or his spiderman actions.

That night she told this incident to her husband. He calmed her down saying “10 year old kids live in such imaginary worlds.. Let him come out of it, when he wants to… Let him enjoy his ‘Super Powers’”

He then turned to Nikhil and winked at him.

You are so beautiful

2011-01-23T09:51:00.000+05:30

“You are so beautiful, so damn beautiful” by Akon was playing the car, Ram loved to say these lines out loud to both his girls. Just then Sneha said ”come on, you can’t say this to both of us. You have to decide, whom you are gonna singing this to.” Ram just smiled. Aruna said, “Ofcourse it’s for me dear, I came into his life much before you came, so it has to be me”.

Sneha and Aruna argued as usual, until Ram stopped the car and said, if they dint stop fighting over the song, he would take them back home and the dinner at pizza hut would be cancelled. Both the girls loved pizza, so they just turned their backs towards each other and sat in silence until Ram took them to pizza hut.

They ordered their favorite garlic bread, and veggie supreme pizza. Ram wondered, how both of them liked the same things. As they were about to take the first bite of the food, the song played again. This time Ram decided, he would sing it to them in a proper way.

He took sneha’s hand and said “You are so beautiful” and then he took Aruna’s hand and said “so damn beautiful”, both the girls giggled and gave a peck on Ram’s cheek. They left the place after having a wonderful meal.

Ram had a superb evening, on one side was his princess like daughter, and the other side his beautiful wife.

Names

2011-01-17T22:38:00.000+05:30

Today was the day, Neethi Verma would get to know her workplace in the office. She was quite amazed by the cubicles, and the sound of the keyboards. The manager took her along with 2 guys to an empty cubicle. He said “Folks, this is where you will sit until you are allocated a project, please feel comfortable. If you need any help, you can let me know”.

Both the guys opted for seats in the cubicle, Neethi had no option to take up the last place in the cubicle. She switched on her system, the name of the previous user came up on the screen. “Hmm.. Rohit Sharma.. nice name” she thought and then logged in with her new id and password. She was excited as this was her first system in the corporate world. Every new application she tried to login had Rohit’s name flashing on the screen. In the evening she told her friends about this little incident. They finally concluded, he was probably the previous user of the machine and that’s the reason it was coming up.

Days passed by, Neethi got busy with her project. One day she noticed a drawer next to her table. She realized, it was for her use. She felt stupid for not realizing this earlier. She always kept her stuff on the table. She opened up the first drawer, to find a lot of notepads and pens. Just when this happened, a friend of hers came to her place. She saw the stuff and took it out. Neethi stopped her saying it was not hers, so it would be better they don’t touch it. Rekha did not care about it. She read out the name on the notepad. “Rohit Sharma.. hmm.. that’s why you dint want me to touch it”. Neethi dint understand what Rekha was talking about. She snatched the notepad from her and read what was on the Notepad. She felt so embarrassed. She just put it back and told Rekha she had no idea about this. Infact, it was the first time she had even opened the drawer. After Rekha left, Neethi was very curious. She opened the second drawer, this was pretty big, it had a pair of shoes and also a t-shirt. She assumed these also belonged to Rohit. Neethi was now concerned, it was more than a week since she had moved into this place, and this guy Rohit never came up to claim his things. She sent a mail to him, asking him to collect his stuff, from the place.

Two weeks passed, there was no response from Rohit. Neethi was frustrated that she couldn’t use the drawer as it was full. Also, she dint feel it was right to use it when it already had somebody else’s stuff. Few days later she started cribbing about Rohit. Her friends referred to him as RS. Every evening they would ask her if RS came to claim his things. Neethi was now used to this. She dint mind Rohit’s stuff in her place.

A month later, when she logged in, she saw a mail from RS. He apologized for the delay in replying, he was on vacation for a month, and he now had to request for a new drawer to keep his stuff. He had asked Neethi, if she could accommodate the stuff for some more days, until he could get his own drawer. She had just completed reading the mail, she picked up her coffee mug and got up from her seat. As she turned around, she saw a guy standing behind her. She just blurted out “Rohit”. He was quite surprised, “Hi Neethi, I hope I haven’t left any of my pics in here. How did you know it was me?” Neethi just smiled and said it was wild guess. He thanked her for keeping the stuff with her and also allowing him to keep it for a few more days.

A week passed, they would occasionally crash into each other, just a smile or a hi, would be the conversation. All her friends had started building their love story. It seemed more like a movie than what could happen in real life. Every time Neethi heard her friends talk about her and RS, she would just smile. Following Monday, when Neethi came to office, she saw a big dairy milk on her keyboard. She was surprised, since it was not any special day. She dint understand who could have kept the chocolates at her desk. As she opened her mail, she saw there was a mail from RS. He had thanked her for all that she had done. He had to leave to a different location the previous weekend, hence dint get a chance to meet her personally.

Neethi opened the drawer, to keep her stuff in. Everything was taken out there was just an envelope in there. She opened it. After reading it, she just smiled and kept it back with all other stuff.

Four years later, all her friends received her wedding invitation. Neethi Verma weds Rohit Sharma. All her friends came to the wedding, claiming to tell her “we told you this would happen”.

On the stage was Neethi, happily married to Rohit. One of her friends came up on stage to wish her. She introduced her husband to her friend. “Rohit, meet my friend RS. You remember I had told you I have a friend with the same name as yours”

Workload!!! No matter what

2010-12-28T22:40:00.000+05:30

Two ladies were having a conversation in the office pantry(where we have aquaguard, coffee machines)

Lady 1 (L1) : I don’t like this location. Workload is too much
Lady 2(L2): Yeah!!! Park5 was much better.

L1: So many people are leaving the company, its making our load even more
L2: 3 people from our team left last week.

L1: But one of them was caught stealing, who asked him to steal.
L2: that’s true…

And they went on for a few minutes regarding their work load, then the house keeping ladies went on with the description.

L1: I am the only one who has Garbage cleaning work this week, I think I will ask for easy mop.
L2: I have hand pain since yesterday, I don’t want easy mop
L1: Ok.. then I will take easy mop, you take the garbage cleaning
L2: No, that’s very boring…

I could have heard further, but my bottle was full and it was time for me to go back to my desk.

I was just trying to compare their conversation with what we have

Person 1(P1): I don’t like this project. Workload is too much.
Person 2 (P2): Yeah!!! My previous project was much better.

P1: The attrition rate in the company is too much.
P2: So many from our team have quit in the last month.

P1: I think one of them was taken off due to disciplinary action taken against him
P2: hmm…

P1: I am just fed up of this maintenance project. I think I’ll ask for a project change
P2: I am bored of testing too. I think I’ll ask for prod support for a few days.

Conversation continues…

I couldn’t help but smile thinking about how similar our way of thinking and environments are even though the kind of work we do is totally different.

Full Circle

2010-11-18T20:25:00.001+05:30

“I don’t want to leave my friends mamma”. Anu was telling this to her mother since morning. “We don’t have an option Anu; daddy has to leave to Bangalore. We can’t leave him alone. Can we? ” Radhika tried convincing her daughter. Anu went to her room sulking.

“Daddy, why do we have to leave now? Can’t we atleast leave after my summer vacation?” Anu was asking for the nth time that day. Satish answered very patiently, that they would come back someday just to meet her friends. Anu wasn’t convinced, but she had no option to get into the cab, which would drop them to the airport. Her best friend Ramya, had come with her dad to see off Anu. Both were hoping against hope, that Anu would stay back. Since, that did not happen, they exchanged their address and promised to write to each other.

It was 6 months, since they reached Bangalore. Anu had new friends here. The memories of the old city had started to fade out. Radhika was happy that her daughter had stopped whining about moving to Bangalore. She then realized that life was a full circle. 10 years back, when she got married to Satish, she had to move out of Bangalore. And today life had brought her back to the place where she started. She like Anu, had got new friends in the new city, in the process, she lost touch with her old buddies. And those were the times where communication was not so easy. Today, when she came back to Bangalore, she dint know what her old buddies were upto.

Radhika was busy shopping and she spotted a lady, who looked very familiar. The lady also happened to be staring at her. In a few minutes, she was gone. Radhika was trying to recollect who she was. On the way home, she passed by a coffee shop. That was once a hangout place during her college, she realized all of a sudden, the lady she saw earlier was one of her best buddies. When she got married, they had promised each other that they will stay in touch. Today, when they saw each other it was just a faint familiar face.

At home, Anu was playing with the gift Ramya had given her, Radhika was having tea and thinking about her past. She realized, all her old friends were nothing more than strangers now. She decided she will try to find out the phone number of her friends and try to rekindle the friendship they had. Just when she got up to do something about it, she thought she has to do something else.

She got a notepad and a pen to Anu, she also had an envelope with Ramya’s address on it. She told Anu “Don’t you want to tell Ramya, how much fun you are having with the gift she gave you. I think you should thank her for this”.

Anu smiled and said “Oh yes mamma! I almost forgot to write to her. Can I ask her to come over to Bangalore when she has holidays?”

“Definitely dear” Radhika said and walked towards the phone, to get back to her past.

Huff!! Puff!!

2010-11-17T23:30:00.001+05:30

Suresh knew his dad wouldnt be coming back home until 6.00 PM. He had 2 more hours. The offer his friends gave him was good. After all it would take him just a few minutes. "Few minutes, few puffs, your dad wont know" is what one of his friends' said.

They stood in the corner of the road, near the pan shop. All of them had one each in their hand. They were very busy creating circles in the air. Just then, Avinash signaled to Suresh, his dad’s cab was taking a turn. All of them threw their cigarettes down and blew it off. Suresh, was confused, how his dad came home early that day. He was hoping, his dad hadn’t seen him smoking. He went for a round with his friends, reached home after half an hour. His dad was sipping the hot filter coffee and snacks which his mom had prepared.

Suresh tried to escape his dad’s eyes and was about to snoop into his room when his dad called him.

Dad – Suresh, I don’t like you to waste my money. Infact, I don’t like any of the guys wasting their father’s money

Suresh – Sorry Dad

Dad – Here, these are the cigarette buds you guys threw, after spotting me. I have got them back to you.

Suresh (puzzled look)

Dad – When you earn, you can waste your money. This is the money I have given for your books and studies, but if you want to use it for smoking, utilize it correctly. Please don’t waste the cigarette.

Saying this, Dad placed the newspaper with the half burnt cigarette buds on the table and went to his room.

Suresh could see the disappointment in his dad’s eyes. He promised himself, he would never let his dad feel so bad, ever again.

Security!!!

2010-09-19T22:26:00.003+05:30

This incident probably happened a month back. I have been so busy these days, no time to blog.

Anyway, we went to see a movie in PVR Gold Class. As we entered, we had to go through the routine securtiy check. Then we made ourselves comfortable, in the lounge, a guy came with our welcome drink. As we were having it, we realized a movie star also entered. The people there were ready with a bouqet. What amazed me was, she was allowed inside without any securtiy check. And the guys who came with her, did not have to go through the security check.

I asked the guy who served us the drink, what if these people had a bomb with them. He just smiled at me, embaressed and with a "What Can I do?" expression.

But isnt this a serious threat. Sometimes people do anything for money. If you are harassing common people for security checks etc, why are the rich and famous not made to go through the same ordeal?

Why these double standards? What kind of security is this?

FMS

2010-08-09T13:55:00.000+05:30

This happened during one of my trips during Engineering. We were about to have lunch (lemon rice and curd rice – packed from a caterer). It was in those paper packets, no fancy packing, no spoons.

All of us sat in a group. Since we were tired of playing around, as soon as we got the food, we started digging our hands and filled our mouths and started chewing. One friend of mine, opened the packet and was just staring at the food. I couldn’t help but wonder why he hadn’t even touched it. This was the conversation we had.

Me : Hey S, are you not hungry?
S : Very much
Me: Is something wrong with the food?
S: I don’t know. I haven’t tasted it yet.
Me: You don’t like rice?
S: I like rice, esp curd rice.
Me: Ok. Then what’s stopping you from eating the food.
S: Can I get a spoon?
Me: Emm.. I don’t think we have spoons. We have anyway washed our hands, why don’t you just eat without the spoon.
S: I can’t
Me: Look S, where are we going to find a spoon for you in the middle of the forest. Come on, go ahead and start eating.
S: I know, but I can’t
Me: Why?
S: I don’t know how to eat rice, without a spoon.
Me: You mean you have never had rice using your hand.
S: yup.
Me: You mean, never, ever?
S: yup
Me: Ok.. This is a situation. No problem. I will teach you to eat using FMS.
S: FMS?
Me: Flexible Mobile Spoon :) Our palm and fingers
S: ok.. lets try
Me: See the incentive is you get to eat your favorite – Curd rice.

After a few minutes, S could manage to eat using his FMS and thanked me a ton, for helping him and not letting him starve.

Benadryl!!!

2010-08-07T13:52:00.002+05:30

Usually medicines are always taken with a disgusting expression. Medicines are supposed to be bitter. But when we have cough, there is one sweet medicine, which even acts like a sleeping pill and makes it so difficult for you to wake up in the morning. Its as if you have a hangover. I am not a alcoholic person, but then can I say for sure? Am I 100% non-alcoholic.

Ofcourse I don’t drink beer, whiskey or the likes, but that doesn’t rule me out from not having alcohol at all. Its not in the recent times. Since childhood, all of us have had some taste of alcohol, or we have liked it in some or the other way.

When I was kid, it seems when the coughs were unbearable, doctors used to prescribe – “Doctor’s Brandy”. This is supposed to be very good for the cough, and is seemed provided good relief.
And now, its benedryl. It sure is very tasty and effective too. One shot of this, oops I meant one sip of this, and you can be assured of a cough free deep sleep.

Incidents related to bendryl;

We were in mysore, and since I had cough my friend insisted we get benedryl. In a week the whole bottle was over. The reason was, my friend also had a sip of it everyday, inspite of she not being sick. I tease her of being a alcoholic. Till date, we laugh about this. Infact, even yday we discussed on how tasty benedryl is :)

I had come back from US and had jet lag, then got cough here. I started taking benedryl, I used to sleep at 11.30 and till 7 in the morning, I would noteven be conscious (deep sleep you see). I wondered how my jet lag vanished so quickly. After I stopped the medicine, I used to be awake like an owl, or even if I slept, I used to wake up a couple of times. I cursed benedryl for curing my cough.

Few months back, I was suffering from dry cough. We had a bottle of benedryl, I drink my sip and then my husband says, Its been ages since I have had a drink and gulps a little bit. Result is past 1 week, our eyes struggle to open even if its 7.00 AM. Now I have got used to this, and our plans of going for a walk a 6.00 seems like a dream.

Hail Benadryl!!!

Snakes

2010-07-28T13:31:00.000+05:30

Our house was next to the GKVK forest in Bangalore. There were lot of eucalyptus trees and the forest was pretty dense. Whenever they cut down these trees, lot of snakes came out of the forest to our area. We could hear lot of snake stories. Infact, when I would come back from college, mom would have a snake story ready. That was one of the reasons, why everybody had a mesh door in front of the usual wooden door, so that they could keep that open for the air circulation.
One day, both the doors were open, and when mom came out, she saw a big, fat snake, resting under the table in our verandah. It seems my parents called the snake catcher, and with great difficulty, they got this out.

One of my neighbors had left the water sump (tank) door open to get something from inside. By the time she came back, there was snake which had fallen inside the sump. When I came back from college mom told me this, and I went to see the snake. That was probably the longest snake I had seen other than snake parks or zoo. Then they had to call people and get the snake out. They also got the whole water sump (tank) cleaned up.

I haven’t seen that many snakes as much my mom or my brother have seen. But I did encounter a snake story once. Let’s say I was just saved.

It was on a weekend, my cousin brothers had come home for lunch. Usually my elder brother is fond of pulling my leg. He kept on teasing how I would believe anything he would say when I was kid. This had gone for a couple of hours, after which I gave him a warning that I would never ever believe whatever he said. As they were about to leave, we all went outside to see them off. My cousin was near the gate and I was near the door. We have a big garden, so he just happened to see something and shouted at me to move. I dint move an inch. He again shouted saying there was a snake, and asked me to move. This time I was determined it was a prank, I dint move. My other cousin saw this and pulled me, and the green snake just jumped. It would have hit my eye, if my cousin hadn’t pulled me. We were in a shock for a few minutes, and later I kept teasing my cousin, that his pranks would have cost me my life, if not for my other cousin. Till date, we remember that incident and laugh about it now, but it was pretty scary when it actually happened.

Even today, I am not scared of seeing snakes, but if its gonna attack me, I can scream like crazy and run around like a mad woman to save myself. By God’s grace, I have never encountered a situation like that except for the instance I mentioned above.

Power Cuts!!!

2010-07-27T13:29:00.001+05:30

Summer is associated with many things – Heat, Sweat, Cotton Clothes, Mangoes, Juice, Cold water, Vacation (for kids), First rain and with rain comes power cuts.

It’s so stuffy inside the house during summer. We still manage to watch our favorite TV programs with the help of Fans or for luxurious ones, we have ACs. Sometime around 6.30, when there is either a cartoon or a movie coming up, mom is just done preparing some yummy snack, there is a power cut.
Instantly, people in the house scream “Oh no” or “Che” or “S**T” etc in chorus. Probably if you can listen carefully, this happens in all the houses in the neighborhood simultaneously. Everybody starts fanning themselves with the palms, or they grab the day’s newspaper. After a few minutes when the heat is unbearable, one by one they open the front doors and go out near the gate. Slowly, the kids in the neighborhood come out and start playing; the aunties come out with a cup of coffee in their hands. They start of with the conversation

Lady 1: There is so much of power cut these days
Lady 2: Yeah, it’s too hot and stuffy inside
Lady 3: I haven’t finished my cooking. I needed the mixer, now god knows when the power will be back
Lady 4: (showing off) I thought such a thing would happen, so I finished cooking beforehand
Lady 5: I just came back from office and now there is no power, this is unbearable.

All this while, they don’t realize that they are actually socializing, instead of sitting in front of the TV, which hogs all the attention most of the time.

Give them 5 minutes, and then a different set of conversation starts and this time it’s interesting. They are either talking about the corner house, where new tenants moved in or it is about Savithri’s daughter coming late to the house on a bike with a guy or discussion of a new recipe.

The men folk might just prefer to stand near the gates and watch people walking up and down. Very few actually socialize, when they do, its either politics or sports that they catch up on. Not very juicy to overhear what they are talking about.

The kids get together with their tricycles and bicycles and start going up and down the street as if they are chasing a thief. If there is enough light, they would even gets the bat and ball, to start with the gully cricket.

When this hustle bustle is going on, there is a bulb flickering somewhere, signaling that the time for gossip and time pass is getting over. In a few minutes, the road is lit up again. The houses have their tube lights flashing. Everybody, now comfortable in their chat, start back home, with a content of having a nice time during the Power Cut.

SubWAY

2010-07-23T13:03:00.001+05:30

I had been a year since I joined the comapany, when I heard a Lady say, the food in subway is really good. I knew she had been to US, so she was talking about Subway over there.

Background : Subway meant those underground crossings which we have where pedestrians are not allowed to cross the road. Ofcourse in Bangalore they have these hawkers selling pety stuff over there, so I assumed she meant the food she got there was good. I thought, lucky people, they get good food even in subways, all we get here is peanuts/cut guava/ or something which doesn’t look very healthy enough for us to eat.

I never discussed this with anyone to clarify, what subway food was all about. Few months later, I was in US and one of my friends suggested we go to “Subway”. I was thrilled, and wanted to see, what it was all about. Off he drove and stopped in front of a sandwich shop, which was called “SUBWAY”. The conversation was like this:

Me: Here?
Him : Yeah… this is Subway
Me: Oh (laughing at myself)
Him: It’s ok right? Or you want to go to Indian restaurant
Me: Its fine… I can try it out.

The first time I dint know what to order. I couldn’t understand what the fuss was all about. Bread and few veggies, so why go ga-ga over it. I dint go to subway for a long time after that.

Later, on a trip, one of my friends showed me that we could add sauces to it, have it with veggie patty etc etc. I started loving the sweet onion suace, slowly mustard. They even started with a broccoli cheddar soup. I liked that too…

Today when I was ordering in subway, when I asked for sweet onion, southwest, spicy mustard and I saw so many people in the queue (esp new to the corp world).. I wondered, when I was like them, I dint even know what this thing was… How things have changed!!!

Also, now I know Subway is just not the underbridge, but it’s a food chain.

PS: Hey the train system in New York is also called Subway… So if there was a Subway within Subway.. how would you say it?

Great Achievement

2010-07-20T13:00:00.000+05:30

The project was due in a week and all his project mates had completed their part. Mayank was the only one, who was to finish his part of the project.
Though all his project mates were his friends, the anxiety if Mayank would finish his part was straining their friendship. He was so engrossed in what he was doing, that his mom was to remind him multiple times, so that he could have his meals on time.

The model would be evaluated by a panel of 3 people.

Mayank had spent days on the design. It had been days since he met his friends. Anytime, his mom came to his room with food, he would drive her away. At times, she would scold him, that his health would be spoilt, if he dint eat properly. He dint understand, how his friends implemented it so easily, while he was struggling to put everything together. The day before the project was to be submitted, Mayank finally completed the project. He informed his friends, and they were relieved too. Finally, Mayank and his friends submitted the project on time. They had to wait till the evening for the evaluation. All the worries which surrounded Mayank for all these days had come to an end. There were smiles of relief in his group. At 5.00 PMthe principal came out with both the science teachers. They were the panel of judges. Mayank and his group had won the science project competition at school.

For Class VII students, it was a great achievement that day

Autowallas

2010-07-18T12:57:00.001+05:30

There was a discussion on how autowallas in different metros behave. This just reminded me of a particular incident which happened in Hyderabad. This was more than 2 years back.

On Monday morning, I reach Hyderabad bus stand. As soon as you get down, auto folks start with their bid.
Everytime, just to check, I used ask a few people, how much they would charge. Are you people thinking about meters. Come on 6.30 in the morning, who would use it. Meters don’t start their work until 8.00 AM

Near the bus the rate would be – 200
By the time you reach the entrance of the busstop, the rate would be reduced to as low at 150-120

After a few weekends, I found another way. I would go midway in auto, from there would take a bus to my place. The reason was, I dint know which bus to take from the busstand.

One fine day, when I was looking out for an auto, found another girl who was looking for one, to the same area. So we decided we could share the cost. One guy agreed for Rs.70, we thought Rs.35 is a fair deal and got in. Once we reached the place, we gave him 70 and he started shouting at us, saying its 70 per head. We told him that he never told us this, and since it wouldn’t cost that much using meter, we were not going to pay him 140 total. He threatened us that he wouldn’t let us get down. We were pretty aggressive too, and we asked him to drop us back to the busstand, and we wouldn’t pay him a paise for this wonderful behaviour of his. After much argument, he finally left us after charging us Rs.5 extra per head. Next week onwards I was extra careful and confirmed with the driver much ahead about the cost per head.

PS: I know Hyd has shared auto system, but this was not a part of the shared auto thing. Also, I have had auto problems in most the of the places I have visited… So its nothing to do with one place

Credit Market

2010-06-28T14:00:00.000+05:30

This incident happened a couple of months back.
I was at my desk, trying to get past the chunk of code, when I heard the extension ring.

Me: Hello
Phone: Hello mam, I am calling from #### bank, we are offering
Me: I am not interested.
Phone: (uninterrupted) you a credit card with
Me: Excuse me!!
Phone: (still uninterrupted) zero percent interest.. blah blah..
Me: (phew!! She is done). Ok, now that you have finished what you have to say. I am not interested.
Phone: Why madam?
Me: Firstly, you don’t have the patience to listen to what I was trying to say. Secondly, I am just not interested.

15 mins later, another ring

Me: Hello
Phone: Hello mam, I am calling from #### bank
Me: I just got a call 15 mins back and I said not interested
Phone: we are offering you a credit card with zero percent interest.. blah blah
Me: Ok.. but I am not interested
Phone: Why mam?
Me: If I need a credit card, I will call you.

15 mins later, another ring

Me: Hello
Phone: Hello mam, I am calling from #### bank
Me: I just got a 2 calls in half an hour and I said not interested
Phone: we are offering you a credit card with zero percent interest.. blah blah
Me: Ok.. but I am not interested
Phone: Why mam?
Me: (Irritated) Why don’t you go and ask the other 2 people who called

After this, I haven’t got any calls from them, but a funny incident happened last week

There were around 6-7 people in the elevator. The phone in the elevator started ringing. After looking at each other’s face, one guy decide to pick the call.

Him: Hello
Phone: ******
Him: (After he kept the receiver back, announced) : #### credit cards

All of us burst out laughing… And this statement just came to my mind

“Credit card Lelo Credit Card..”
“Togolrappo togolli.. free credit card”

Queue or line

2010-06-27T14:00:00.000+05:30

On Sunday, we went to Shrek Forever (3D). Wait!! I am not reviewing the movie here... But yes, if you are a Shrek fan, go for it.

Anyway, one of the reasons I love going to movies is, I can eat popcorn. Not that otherwise somebody restricts me, but its fun while watching movies. I was standing in the already formed queue. I saw one guy standing next to the counter with money. He was not in the queue.

Me: Excuse me!! There is a queue here
Him: (Smiling) Oh Sorry!!

And then he came and stood in the queue.

In a minute, another guy came and stood outside the queue just next to the counter.

Me: Excuse me!! There is a queue here
Him: Yeah!! There is a line
Me: Yeah!! So can you please stand in the line?
Him: (Just Grinning and standing there)
Me: I think all of us are in the line or the queue for a reason, I think you should join the line.
Him: (Embarrassed by now) hmm

And then he left the place to stand in the queue or according to him the LINE.

Movies:Raavan:The Karate Kid

2010-06-25T13:45:00.001+05:30

Its been raining movies for the past 2 days.
We watched Raavan and the Karate kid

These are not reviews, but just my opinions on the 2 movies

Raavan:

Reading so many bad reviews, should have told us what to expect. So we went to the theatre, mostly to admire the cinematography. And I must say, Santosh Sivan has not at dissappointed us. Only thing I dint like was the rain. It was raining most of the time. If it dint rain, Ash would just jump into the water and get wet. The movie was damp most of the time.

There is nothing much to say about the movie. As everybody knows there is a Raavan(evil) in everybody, and there is Ram(Good) in everybody. It just goes to say nobody is perfect. The movie potrays the same feeling.

By the end of the movie, you dont know if the Dev Pratap(hero - Vikram) is the good person or Beera(villain - Jr AB) is the good person. You dont know if you should be rooting for the Dev. You dont know if you should sympathise with Beera. Ofcourse thats the intent of the movie. But I all the intents are dampened by Ash's screaming all the time. She is either screaming or crying, or just staring with her red eyes.

Vikram was ok ok, nothing great to speak of. I hope he has done a tremondous job in Raavanan.

AB - He looks very ugly. I know he is supposed to be like that, but somehow not so appealing. He was better in other movies

Ash - Less said the better about the beauty queen. She is screaming most of the times. Ofcourse when her mouth is shut, I wouldnt say elegant, but yes beautful.

I liked Govinda and Ravi Kishen, both of them did justice to their roles.

Priyamani- Oh yes!! She was there, 3-4 scenes, may be 1 or 2 extra. She was fine.

If you really want to watch this, wait for it to come on TV.

Its a one time watch.

The Karate Kid:

Jaden Smith is great in the movie. I liked the movie. My husband was quite dissappointed, being a Jackie chan fan, oops die hard fan, he dint get to see too much of action from the action king.

Locales are breathtaking. Once again my wish to visit the Great Wall Of china has increased. Ofcourse its there only in a few scenes. There is one place where Mr.Chan takes the kid to. I dont remember the name of the place. But it looks beautiful.

As everybody guessed, movie is all about Jackie Chan training the kid. Well when you think of training, its not just about Kung Fu. The way he teaches the kid, really tells you, how you must percieve anything in life.
Determination to learn something is a must, along with certain basic values in life. The movie tells you, however strong you are, if you lack the basic human values, you will never grow up in life.
It tells you how after pushing yoursef to hard, you still need a break to rejuvinate yourself, which can bring out the best in you.
How great friendship is, and what levels it can take you to
How, we need to respect each other.
How different is being calm and doing nothing is.
How by being calm, you can actually control lot of things. Being calm on the inside, you can see things clearly, otherwise anything you see or do appears to be blurr.
And finally, if you fall, you can choose either to brood over it or get up and get over it.

Karate is the Japanese Martial Art and Kung Fu is the Chinese Martial Art. I wonder why the movie was named The Karate Kid. There wasnt 1 bit of karate in this (ofcourse I dont know the difference, but hey I know people who know the difference).

Even the movie has this dialog - its kung fu not karate.. then why was it named so? Well, I know we cannot get this answer, probably they were trying to bask on the glory of the previous version of the movie.

In one sentence, I would say, a Bollywood movie with Kung Fu in it. I dint think it was a waste of money. But, if you wanna go to see Jackie Chan, for his comedy or for his stunts, you might not find much of it.

Notice board

2010-06-10T23:38:00.002+05:30

Pallavi’s college, had notice boards in each floor of every building. These were the kind which had glass frames. One day, lot of new notices were put up on the board, Pallavi was staring at all these. When she came away from the notice board, her friends asked her, what was put up. She had no clue about it. They had no clue, what she was doing there. They then went up 2 floors, where their classroom was supposed to be. Again, they saw a notice board. This time again Pallavi went and stood in front of it.

There was one guy who was staring at Pallavi. Her friends were furious, before they could go and give him a piece of mind, they just turned towards her. She was looking at the notice board, but this time it was weird. They asked Pallavi to leave from there as the guy was staring at her. She couldn’t stop laughing at told her friends the secret.

“The guy might be staring at me, may be, coz I was staring at the blank notice board”

Her friends went blank, and then she told them about her fascination towards notice boards.

Pallavi was fond of mirrors. She loved to see her reflection, anywhere possible. If she happened to walk by a shop with glass windows, and if she could get a glimpse of her reflection, she would stand in front of the shop, like a child in front of the bakery. The onlookers would only feel she was admiring the merchandise inside.

They finally realized, the mystery behing Pallavi and notice boards.

Halloween

2010-05-28T23:00:00.001+05:30

We were on our usual coffee break, in an unusual environment. The entire office was decorated with skulls, masks, RIP boards; in short it looked like a graveyard, with people dressed up as ghosts, witches. You guessed it right, it was Halloween. We were having a nice time in office.

Every friends group has 1-2 people who are scared of ghost stories or any such thing. We also had 2 friends like this. Our plan that day was to scare these two. So, coffee break was spent planning this whole thing. Our PM was also in this plan; he was to play a major part.

Planning:

PM was to wear black jeans, black jacket, black gloves, and SCEAM mask (from Wal-Mart cost: $10)
Another friend was to wear black jeans, a t-shirt which had green glowing skull
We at home, had to have our camera and camcorder ready.

Evening 8 PM:

One of the victims was sleeping in one room. We had closed the door. The other one was in the kitchen. The other 2 (i.e. me and friend) were busy on phone, atleast acting to be busy. I was on phone with the PM, informing him about the right time.

The door bell rang. My friend went into the room to fetch something. I was busy on phone to answer the bell. The victim was forced to answer the door bell. Next thing we hear is her scream. We had recorded the whole thing. Her expression was awesome. For 2 mins, she dint realize the prank. Later, all of us started laughing. We teased about her being scared. But I must say, the mask was pretty scary.

8.15 PM:

We could hear victim 2 coming out of the room. We sent these 2 guys out again, repeated the trick. This time Victim 2, screamed even harder. It took her more time to realize it was a prank. She was so scared, she dint touch the mask for a long time. We took quite some time to convince her, that it was just a prank.

After all this, each one of us wore the black jacket, gloves and mask and did some scary walk. We recorded each of this. Then we plugged these to the TV and had a hearty laugh at all this.

It was one of the best days of my life :)

Sarva Guna sampanna

2010-05-20T21:53:00.001+05:30

I watching TV yesterday and I happened to see a trailer of some new serial. I don’t remember the channel or new serial name.

The trailer goes like this:

Girl is studying and her mom comes and asks her to stop studying as that wont help her when she gets married, she wants the daughter to stop all that and help her in household chores. Finally the Sarv guna sampanna (one who is bestowed with all knowledge) girl, gets a nice groom.

Now, learning household is totally fine, but why does the girl have to quit education for the same?

How does it make here Sarva Guna Sampanna if she isn’t a literate? No offense to anybody who isn’t a literate, but isn’t that also a kind of knowledge?

This is on national television. What are they trying to show, education is not important for girls?

Learning household chores and getting married based on your performance on this and good looks is the ultimate goal for a girl?

When so many NGO’s, so many people are striving towards Girl Education, why the hell is a TV serial trying to showcase something else, just for TRPs and money?

Cant they come up with something interesting, than such concepts?

It really irks me when such things happen around me. Be it on TV or in reality.

PS: My mom also told me to learn household chores. She also told me if I don’t learn these, what will my in laws say? But she always wanted me to be well educated and if possible and independent person.

Directionless!!!

2010-05-18T21:38:00.001+05:30

This was the era, when I-phone had just started to become a common phone. Every other person, wanted to have THE I-phone. What better time to purchase it, than thanksgiving and Christmas (SALE, SALE and SALE) when you are in US.

During Christmas, I was in San Francisco downtown with a couple of friends. We had checked in Google maps for the place we wanted to go, we dint take any print outs though. One of my friends has an i-phone. We left the office around 5.30 PM, and followed the map. After walking a couple of blocks, we thought we were lost, searched for a bus stop. We checked the maps there, and continued walking. Our friend with i-phone was happily clicking our pictures, while the 2 of us were breaking our heads for the direction. All this while we were hoping that we had some GPS which would tell us how to go.

Somehow, after some map reading, and asking people we reached the destination. By this time, we were hungry, and wanted to check if any Indian restaurants were available. At that time, my friend announced “Hey, I can search for the restaurant using i-phone”. We both glared at her and said “All this while we were breaking our heads for directions and you just clicked photos, Couldn’t you search for directions?”

All she could muster to say that time was “Oops!! I forgot that my phone has GPS”

Only reason, she was saved by our beatings that day was, we were in public.

Even today, when we talk to each other, we recollect this incident and laugh at it.

One mischief

2010-05-17T22:07:00.002+05:30

“Ragini, what are you doing, Let daddy sleep” called out her mom. Ragini, like an obedient daughter came out of her parent’s room and went to the kitchen to see what her mom was doing.

“Mummy, I want to show you something”, she was pulling her mom’s saree.
“I will come baby, let me finish the chocolate biscuits I am making. Then, all of us can eat this together in the evening.”
Ragini went to her room nodding her head. She got busy with her toys, in a few minutes; she slept with her favorite teddy.

After a while, the bell rang, dad happened to open his eyes at that time. “I will get it” he screamed while mom was busy with the special dish.
Murthy uncle was laughing loudly, when Ragini went out.

“Oh Ragini, you adorable kid. Where was your talent hidden all this while? “ was the question posed to her. She was confused, and disappointed to see dad’s face.

From that day, people would come, touch her cheeks, and say “naughty kid”.
**************************************

15 years later:

The groom hunting was on in Ragini’s household. She heard her parents say, she has always been a naughty kid.

“Few years back, when her dad was sleeping, she silently crept near him and put a rubber band, so that his head had a sprouted fountain, and so much of powder and bindi on the face, making her dad look like a joker.” Mom was telling this story to the prospective groom.

Inside the room Ragini was whispering, “Oh no mom, not again” and then sighed “I do one mischief and it’s stuck to me for life”

Ninantha Appa illa

2010-05-11T17:09:00.001+05:30

“Ninantha appa illa…” (there is no father like you) song was on the radio a few days back. That’s when I thought of writing this post.
This made me recollect my relationship with dad.
I have always been closer to mom, regarding anything in life. But, this doesn’t mean dad is of any less importance.

Dad was and is still my alarm clock (when I am at my parent’s house).
In 12th STD, I had taken up the morning class, which used to start at 6.15. My dad used to wake me at 5.30 AM. I would ask for 5 minutes and in those 5 minutes, he would sit on the bed, wait for those 5 minutes and then again wake me up. I would again ask for 5 minutes, but this time, he would wake me up some 5000 times, that I would get irritated and wake up. Then we would leave home at 6, and then he would have to zoom in his scooter to drop me. I would keep yelling, “Fast appa, fast daddy, fast fast fast”. He never lost his patience though, and he would just say, “Why can’t you get up when I come to wake you, the first time” or, “that’s why I told you take the evening batch”. This would happen almost every other day.

During my Engineering days, I once missed my college bus; rather I realized it as soon as I reached the bus stop. My dad was in a Lungi and T-shirt; he drove me to my college which was 30kms from my house in the Bajaj scooter in the same avatar. He still recollects that and tells it to my husband. Even today, he is ready to drive those 30kms to drop me to Infy, if I happen to miss my bus. But I don’t make such a fuss getting up early, so no chance of that.

I have got lot of punishments from mom, but none till date from dad. At his angriest moment, he might have said “you are hopeless”, that’s it. Not a swear word, not even a single hit full of anger.
There was a song which goes like this “Papa ki pari hoon main”. That song just fits my situation. However the movie was, I love that song.

Even now when I go home, he is ready to dance to my tunes, literally. We don’t dance on any music, I just taught him a few moves and I sing and we dance. My mom says, we are crazy, but who cares :)

He was the one who taught me chess and carom; he never lost just cause I would cry, he wanted me to make an effort and win, ofcourse he would play a little easy, but never let me win unless I tried really hard. It’s because of him that I started following sports. We loved watching tennis and cricket together. Ofcourse mom was also interested in those days, so it was family time.

Every evening, I would sit and watch serials with mom and comment simultaneously. After that, I would sit with dad, and both of us would watch movies. Dad dint like movies, mom couldn’t sit through movies. So I would give them company. Ofcourse both of them, would sometimes wonder, if I am watching TV all the time, when do I study :)

There was a time when dad wanted to learn computers. There were times when I would get a little impatient, but then, I remembered the time when he used to teach me Mathematics, and understand what patience actually meant.

I know everybody’s dad is special to them. I also know its Mother’s Day which is nearing. So what?? I feel like writing about Dad today… so Dad, this post is dedicated to you.

PS: The post may not be well composed. But feelings need not be composed all the time :)

Gazab Kasab

2010-05-09T17:06:00.000+05:30

Kasab, the moment we see this name, it brings out fury, for he has killed so many people in 26/11 attack. Most of the Indians want him dead. When I say dead, it’s not just hanging him; we want to torture him so much that he has to beg for death. And once we are done discussing the million ways to bring his life to an end, we start blaming Pakistan.

Something goes wrong in some part of India, we blame them. We don’t think twice, it might our greedy politicians, or it might even be frustrated common people.

When we want Kasab dead in the most painful way, what do we need to do to the Indians who were involved with him, helping him?

We blame Pakistan for promoting terrorism; we blame them for training their people to create such situations. But are we not all pure and perfect. Does India not nurture terrorism at all?

Do Indians don’t help people like Kasab to enter our country and kill so many people ruthlessly?

There is a saying in Kannada, am sure there will be similar ones in all the other languages. It goes like this “”, which translates to “There is a hole in every house’s dosa”, this means, we keep trying faults in each other, we never realize there is a fault in us too.

Let’s definitely punish people who do wrong things, lets just not blame others as if we are totally right. If Pakistan is nurturing terrorism and bringing out a new batch frequently, we are no less. We are doing the same thing. If you think about it, they are sending these people to other countries; we are doing the self destruction act.

Neither will Dad

2010-05-02T16:16:00.001+05:30

“Wow!!! It’s such a beautiful place. Isn’t it Dad?” asked Sushma, while her dad was busy reading the newspaper. She got a cup of hot coffee for him, the usual in the morning. It did not change today, just because they were on a vacation.

Sushma, got her laptop, wherever she went. She wanted to note any new idea that stuck her. She couldn’t let these idea go away. She was a writer after all. She lived her life with her dad and her characters. When her mother, Latha, was with them, life seemed like a fairytale. Her mom told her so many stories. That’s how Sushma inclination towards writing started. She always wanted to write about her parents’ love story.

“A few girls were on a vacation, to this beautiful hill station. One of them was the blue eyed, Lalitha. She was not very fair, or very tall, but there was something which was prominent in her. You could just feel the warmth when you set your eyes on her.”

The alarm rang. It was time for dad’s breakfast. Sushma, got 2 plates of Semiya Upma and hot coffee. She loved tea, but she drank coffee just so that she could give company to her dad. They always came to their farmhouse for vacation. The three of them had so much fun here.

“Lalitha had finished her final year BA, and all the girls wanted to have one last vacation together. They never knew if they would even meet each other after an year and wanted to make the most of it. Just as the girls were walking around, they came across a beautiful estate. They did not see the “trespassers will be prosecuted” board and went in. The estate manager saw the girls enter and reported it to the owner. Just when the owner came out, his eyes met Lalitha. He was speechless, his anger vanished from the face, and he gestured the girls to come in.”

The bell rang, Sushma did not get up from her chair. Dad tapped her chair twice, but she just did not want to leave her story. Finally, after 3 rings, she went to answer her door. It was her dad’s friend, Ashok. She got him a cup of tea.

“The owner offered the girls coffee and some snacks. He asked them about their background, studies, vacation, duration of stay. He offered to show them around. He then called his youngest son”

Sushma, you really shouldn’t have to got your dad here is what Ashok told her. She had tried a lot, but then dad never agreed to go elsewhere on their vacation.

“It had been 2 years since Lalitha and Sumant got married. They had a beautiful daughter and they just adored her. They were staying in the outhouse of the big estate. Sumant was still the manager in the estate. He loved Lalitha, just as much, since the first time he saw her, when she came there with her friends. He always thought, the owner had good plans to make her his daughter-in-law. The youngest son Deepak, tried his level best to woo her. But destiny had other plans. Everyday, the manager accompanied Deepak and the girls and secretly impressed Lalitha.”

Sushma was called by the cook asking, what they wanted for lunch. Then, she helped dad go back to his room, to get a short nap.

“Deepak, was all set to propose Lalitha. He had gone to the city for a few days to get a beautiful gold ring. Sumant knew about the plan, and decided to propose Lalitha before Deepak came back. The evening before Deepak was supposed to be back, Sumant asked Lalitha to join him for dinner. She secretly wished that he propose to her. Instead of taking her to a fancy restaurant, he invited her home. He had cooked all of her favorite dishes. After some time, Lalitha declared that her stomach was full and she could eat no more. He offered her butterscotch ice cream, as she was eating the ice-cream, she saw a ring in the bowl.”

Sushma, kept her laptop aside. She dint want to continue with the story without her dad’s approval. She went to the room to see if dad was awake. He wasn’t on his bed. She then saw his lying on the easy chair. That was the chair, his mom had got him, so that he could sit in the balcony and relax. She went near him and called out to him. Latha’s photo was on his chest. She could see a tears in the tip of his eyes. He had a smile on his face. His eyes were closed. But he looked content. She shook him a little and his hand dropped down.

Sushma understood, she lived with her dad and her characters. Her characters never spoke to her.. Neither will her Dad.

Sparks!!

2010-04-25T21:45:00.001+05:30

Every day, the sparkle at the corner shop, fascinated Anita. She was not sure, if she should share this fascination with anybody. She loved to walk in that road everyday, just to get a glimpse of that sparkle. It was always a mystery for her to know what the sparkle was about.

Anita used to run near the shop and stand to stare at the sparkle. But the shop keeper would drive her away saying it’s not for kids. It was the time she had started reading Enid Blyton books. She sensed some conspiracy, like how it was in her books. She wasn’t sure if her dad would have an answer to this. Also, she was scared her dad might not allow her to go near that shop.

One fine day, she came back from school, and found guys wearing masks and she saw those sparkles. Even though she loved to see those sparkles, she panicked that these guys were doing something to the house. She dint say anything, and silently went to her room. That day, Anita went to bed without dinner. She never made a mention about this to her parents.

Days passed by, it was time for her summer vacation. She went to her grandparents house in a different city. Anita, came back home just a couple of days, before school resumed. In the evening, she went for a walk with her dad, only to find her sparkle shop closed. She observed this for a week, and curiosity had reached a limit. She finally decided to ask her dad about this.

Anita: Dad, why is the sparkle shop closed?

Dad: Sparkle shop? What kind of shop is that?

Anita: The one in the road corner. It’s been closed since I have come back

Dad: Oh that… they have shifted the shop a couple of roads.

Anita thought now is the right moment to ask her dad what they did. So she mustered courage and asked her dad what they do. After all the explanation, Anita asked him, what is such a shop called. He then told her. It’s the WELDING shop

Roadside!!!

2010-04-21T19:51:00.004+05:30

I have met very few people who don’t like road side food. But otherwise, 95% of the people I know love it.

Some of them I can think of right now:

Churmuri: with loads of carrots, cucumber, and these days mango pieces, murmura (mandakki or kadlepuri). And now we have so many options with yellow moong (heserbele), tomato puri, nippat (I don’t know what else its called)

JoLaa: the corn which is either boiled or roased on the coal, with some lemon or spicy chutney and many different flavours

Pani puri thelas: The big round puris with aaloo and spicy paani (sweet too) and the final puri where they add chat masala, make it spicy and top it with some lemon.

Masala corn: This is the American corn, which is mixed with different providing different flavours, pepper lemon, chat masala, salt. (it seems American corn has more calories than Indian corn)

The everpresent Chat gaadi: Masala puri, bhel puri, dahi puri, samosa chat, paav bhaji, dabeli, kachori chat… basically spicy stuff which just gives life to the tongue.

Lemon soda: Earlier, we used to have Goli Sodas, in the green bottle, where we would have soda and the shopkeeper would add lemon and salt and give it to us. Now it’s changed, and we have different flavors again – Salt, sweet and salt, jaljeera, ginger and what not

Dosa Camps: How much ever dosas you eat at home, there is nothing to beat the benne masale dose (butter Masala dosa)

Bajjis and Pakodas: Mirchi (mensinkaayi) bajji, Banana(baalekaayi) Bajji, capsicum bajji, onion pakoda, aaloo bonda, ambode (I don’t know what the English counterpart for this is)

Tender coconut: Paper Ganji, where after you are done drinking the water, we can just scrape the thin coconut film. Just sweet coconut water.

Sugarcane juice: Before CaneOLa s came on to our roads, we had those manual machines where the guy would put in the sugarcanes into the crushing machine and rotate the lever manually. Well they old or new, it tastes wonderful

Bakery: Aallo buns, khara buns (spicy), veg puffs and sometimes the hot tea and just baked biscuits (different varieties)

Peanuts: Either boiled or roasted peanuts, which are neatly given in newspapers which are cone shaped

Fruits n Veggies: Cut watermelons, Jackfruit pieces, Cut Guavas with salt and red chilli powder, Cut cucumbers, cut mangoes

PS: Thanks mom for introducing me to most of this. And thanks to G, he also loves all this, so we can enjoy it together

God Sent!!!

2010-04-16T22:57:00.000+05:30

Most of the houses, have a small pipe which protrudes from the terrace, so that all that water can be drained. Well, my granny’s house too had one such thing. April, was the time when all cousins would meet. I am the second eldest person in my cousin’s list. I had just one elder brother (A) to look up to for anything. And the amount of trust I had on him was un questionable.

On one such vacation day, it was raining heavily, and water was flowing continuously through that pipe.

This was the conversation we both had.

A: ಈ ನೀರು ಎಲ್ಲಿಂದ ಬರುತೆ ಗೊತ್ತಾ? [Do you know where this water comes from?]

Me: ಎಲ್ಲಿಂದ? [from where?]

A: ಅಷ್ತು ಗೊತಿಲ್ವೇನೇ. ಇದು ದೇವ್ರು ಕಳಿಸಿದ ನೀರು. [You don’t even know this much. This is God sent.]

Me: ಹೌದಾ? [Is it?]

A: ನೀರು ನಿಂತುಹೋಗೋ ಮುಂಚೆ ಕೂಡಿ. [Drink this water, before it stops.]

I was too innocent to realize I was being fooled. And I sincerely, took that water like prasad and drank a handful. Till date, he teases me about this incident, and we have a hearty laugh.

Nangu Beda.. Nimgu Beda!!

2010-04-13T22:00:00.001+05:30

I was a kid when I heard this for the first time. Mom was saying this to some shopkeeper. “ನಂಗೂ ಬೇಡ ನಿಂಗೂ ಬೇಡ Rs.45 ಮಾಡ್‌ಕೊಳ್ಲಿ”. (not for me, not for u, lets make it 45) And this was when mom quoted 40 and the shopkeeper quoted 50. It used to be fun going shopping with mom, esp to see her bargaining. As years went by, this just rubbed on to me. Ofcourse, I am yet to master this, and a couple of years in US has surely reduced it. But yes, I cannot just leave it.

Some of the conversations which mom has had.

Location: Saree shop, Malleshwaram

Mom : ನಾವು ಮಕ್ಕಳಿದಾಗ್ಲಿಂದು ನಿಮ್ಮ ಅಂಗಡಿಗೆ ಬರ್‍ತಾದ್ದಿದ್ದು. (we have come to your shop from the time we were children)

SK (shopkeeper) : ಅದು ಸರಿ Madam. ಆದರೆ ಕಡಿಮೆ ಆಗೋಲ್ಲ. (that’s right madam but not its not possible)

Mom: ಏನ್ರೀ ನಿಮ್ಮ ತಂದೆ ಇದ್ದಿದ್ರೆ ಕಡಿಮೆ ಮಾಡ್ಕೋಟಿದ್ರು (if your father was here, he would have surely done it)

SK: ಅವರು ಮಾಡ್ಕೋಟಿದ್ರು Madam. ಆದ್ರೆ ಈಗ ಆಗೋಲ್ಲ. (He would have done it Madam, but now its not possible)

Finally, after 5-10 mins of bargaining, she would actually get the stuff for the price she wanted.

My granny is no less.

Everytime she goes to a saree shop, she says this – ಏನಪ್ಪಾ , ಇಷ್ಟೊಂದು ಸೀರೆ ತೊಗೊಂಡಿದ್ದೀವಿ, ಒಂದು ಬ್ಲೌಸ್ ಪೀಸ್ ಫ್ರೀಯಾಗಿ ಕೊಡಬಾರದ (we have taken so many sarees, can’t you give a blouse piece free)

Or sometimes she says - ವಯ್ಯಸದ ಅಜ್ಜಿ ಬಂದಿದ್ದೀನಿ, ಇಷ್ಟು ಬೆಲೆ ಹೆಳೊದ (old granny is here, you are quoting so much)

It was always fun to go either of them. Best part about it was they would never be rude to the shopkeepers, my granny would even know how many kids that man had by the time she came out of the shop.

And next time either of them visited, they would be welcomed and many a times offered some cool drinks too. Ofcourse as a kid, these were my perks for going along.

Best till date is when mom and bro came to visit me when I was in Hyderabad.

We were in Charminar, it was my wedding time, so mom wanted to do some shopping.

We went to a shop where they sell, beautiful laces, some shiny threads etc. After, selecting mom started her bargaining.

Mom: क्या भय्या इतना बोल रहे हो, तोड़ा कम कीजिए ना (You are asking for this price, reduce this)

SK : नही मेडम जी इससे कम नही होगा. (no madam, cant reduce further)

Mom: अर्रे भय्या मैं Bangalore से आई हून, अगली बार घर में शादी होगी तो आपके दुकान में ही आना है ना? (I have come all the way from Bangalore, next time when there is a wedding, we will come to your shop only right)

SK :ज़रूर आईएगा आपही की दुकान है. लेकिन आप Bangalore से Hyderabad क्यों आओगे (ofcourse, please come. But why will you come from Bangalore to Hyderabad

Mom: मैं तो यहीं पे पैदा हुई थी ( I was born here!!)

Bro and Me: (stunned looks with the expression – what?)

After we came out of the shop, we told mom – all these years we thought you were born in Bangalore:)

Life !!

2010-04-11T22:15:00.002+05:30

Its Gen-X era now.

We seem to have broken ourselves from a lot of superstitions. But there are some which we are still holding on to.

Incident which happened recently:

A family is searching for a suitable groom. An alliance comes through some matrimonial agencies. The mother of the groom calls the girl’s parents. Both the moms speak to each other on phone. The prospective groom’s father is no more. After the basic horoscope matching, the guy and his family decide to come home, except his mom. The reason why his mom wouldn’t come is coz she is a widow and since it’s an auspicious occasion, she wouldn’t go and visit the girl, the first time.

Why are we still having such beliefs that a widow would be a bad omen?

Isn’t she the guy’s mom, without her, he wouldn’t even be existing, how can he consider her inauspicious?

Why dint the girls’ parents insist that it’s ok, and that she could come over too?

I know if I ask these questions to MIL or even mom, they are gonna say, You’ve become modern? I am pretty sure, they wouldnt know the reasons either

An old lady, if her husband is alive, is given utmost importance in any ritual as she is Sumangalee (Suhagan in hindi – not a widow). But if another lady of the same age or even elder is a widow, is considered inauspicious.

So a lady’s worth is decided by the existence of her husband?

What kind of a society is this? I am not being feminist here. But, I have a question.

In case the guy’s father was a widower. Would he also get the same treatment? Would he also be barred from certain rituals or gatherings? If they do so, I am not aware of. If it’s done, it is definitely wrong.

Most of this is done by the women themselves.

And to think of Sati system was eradicated, to give the women life after husband’s death, What a Life!!!

Ugly mark for our beautiful future!!!

2010-03-30T22:26:00.000+05:30

It was in 2008, when I first got the opportunity to vote. I was not very sure whom to vote for. I thought I will be wasting my vote if I randomly went and voted for somebody. Mom and dad went and cast their vote. It was nearly 4.45PM that day when I made up my mind, ofcourse mom dad helped me, and then we zoomed in the Honda active… We went there and dad easily spotted my name in the list, and that was when I cast MY VOTE for the first time.

The ugly blue mark on the index finger, gave me the sense of pride of being an Indian citizen. If not anything else, I atleast now had the right to complain against bad roads in our area, if the chosen ones didn’t do their work.

Last year, I was in Bengalooru, during the election time. There was an event organized in company too for this. It was a good experience to see 4 politicians on one stage, putting across their thoughts. Well that time again, I did vote and get the ugly blue mark on my index finger. I flaunted it with pride, esp. in front of those who did not vote, only to show them, they did not exercise their right.

Ofcourse, there were 2 people in my family who wanted to vote, but their name was not in the list, for no fault of theirs. My Father-in-Law, had gone to the office to make sure all our names were there, and all our names except his name was in the list. Same thing happened with my brother. He was so disappointed, that would have been the first time for him.

This year again on 28^th March, we had the BBMP elections. We went this time again to vote. There wasn’t any queue, there were hardly 3-4 people. We thought, since we went post lunch, people must have come early, only to realize this morning, only 46% of Bengalooru did the voting.

To all those who took some time off your relaxing Sunday, Kudos to You for doing a great job.

To all those who had all the time and still thought it’s a waste of time to go and vote – Well next time you complain, think of that as a waste of time too. If you were not sure of whom to vote, or if you thought nobody is eligible to be elected, you could still have chosen the option of not voting anybody. By not voting, you wasted one of the rights, where you could choose someone to better your society. The society in which you live.

On a different note, the ugly blue mark this time is on the right index finger. It’s really ugly this time, is spread all over the nail L Well, I went home and applied some nail polish on the nails, it doesn’t look that ugly, except on the skin.

It’s that ugly mark for our beautiful future!!!

Siblings!!

2010-03-22T22:52:00.000+05:30

A few days back, I saw a girl today crossing the road along with her younger brother. This just reminded me of school days, when my bro started going to school.

We were in Chennai when he started his LKG. I was in 6th. Our school was just 10mins walk from our house. I insisted that I was a big girl and dint need any of my parents to drop me to school. Our morning timings were the same, and in the afternoon mom would come to pick him up.

My routine was always like this:

Mom would pack lunch for us, I would carry both the lunch bags. As we entered the school, my classroom would come on the way, so I would keep my stuff and then continue to go to my brother’s classroom, keep his lunch bag in his room and say bye to him.

Then during lunch time, after my lunch, I would go to my brother’s classroom just to check if he has eaten. There were times when my brother would wait to see me come near his classroom. He would tell all his friends, his “akka” has come to see him.

As we grew older, different timings, different locations, dint allow us this luxury. But yes, even today we check on each other almost daily. Ofcourse, these days it’s not just about lunch.

Sasural Genda phool

2010-02-23T23:17:00.000+05:30

Conversation with a friend:

Friend: so how are things at sasural (in laws)

Me: sasural is fine

Friend: in laws ke saath hi reh rahe ho na

Me: haan. ab unko itni acchi bahu mili hai.. unka to jeevan dhanya hogaya

friend:hahahaha

Friend: yeh unhone bola ya khud hi decide kar liya ???

Me: woh to speechless hogaye hain na..

Me: to kaise bolenge

Friend: hahaha

who says beggars cant be choosers

2010-02-17T19:39:00.000+05:30

On Sunday, we went to Najungoodu. Since, it was the weekend just after Shivrarathri, there were lot of people. We dint opt for the special darshan (charged Rs.100). There was also another ticket for Rs.25 and then there was a free darshan. We first wanted to try the free darshan. I would say we were lucky that our darshan was over in 15-20 mins. After the temple, we came to the place where we had left our footwear. After paying him, my husband still had 2-3 rupees left in his hand. We saw lot of beggars, one of them was handicap, so my husband gave him the money.

I was busy putting on my sneakers, so dint pay attention to what he was doing. There came a old lady, who was begging for a long time, she asked my husband for money and he refused. All of a sudden, she turned towards me and started accusing me.

Lady beggar : Ninge yaakamma hotte kicchu aa yappa nange duddu kotre (why are you jealous if this man gives me money)

I was shocked and lifted my head to see why she was telling me this. My husband was equally shocked. He asked me if I said anything to her. I had no idea of what was going on. She was about to move murmuring something else and I still had no idea why I was accused, and why I would be jealous of her. I couldn’t control my anger at this point and said “God has given you hands and limbs. Why don’t you do some hard work and earn something, rather than begging”

My husband then consoled me and asked me to ignore what she said and not to react on such petty things.

But, my argument was I never said anything to that lady, only after she accused me of this, did I say anything to her. Moreover, I told her a fact. Did I do something wrong?

Names Names!!!

2010-02-11T21:34:00.001+05:30

Couple of days back, I was browsing channels and found the movie “Yes Boss” in one of the movie channels. Since there wasn’t anything interesting elsewhere, I continued watching this. My father in law was also there, and he heard the name Rahul. The conversation went like this:

FIL : There are so many people named Rahul
Me : Yup
FIL : This is not fair to Ketu
Me : (Confused) huh??
FIL : see Rahul = Rahu + L
Me : ooooooohhhhhhhh
FIL : But there is nobody named Ketul = Ketu + L
Me : hmm..
FIL : That’s unfair to Ketu
Me : Well, there is the name Ketan, little bit modified but the nearest
FIL : But it doesn’t beat Rahul
Me : Yes Boss

Reasons Reasons

2010-02-10T18:02:00.000+05:30

I have read so many posts where we crib about our company. Even though some feel we don’t have the expected monetary benefits. I still have a list of reasons why I wouldn’t crib about it

1. Joy on my parents’ face when I got the job.

2. Liberty to get them any gift, which I have always wanted them to have.

3. I found the love of my life here.

4. Roommates/training mates became friends for life

5. Superb onsite trips.

6. Amazing friends made at onsite, it was because of them that homesickness was not a routine. Infact, when I came home for a vacation, I missed them so much that I wanted to go back.

7. Learnt to be independent. Earlier, I wouldn’t even go and buy a chocolate on my own (unless for gifts), had never paid bills of any sort.

8. Financial independence.

9. Bought my first mobile phone.

There might be lots more, and I agree that any first company which we join gives us joy. The fact that in my case it happens to my company, just gives the company that vantage point that I would be ever grateful.

Namma Bengalooru

2010-02-09T21:31:00.000+05:30

Bangalore, or Bengalooru as it’s called now, was always one of the best climatic places in India. It was not too hot, not too cold. We never felt the need of an AC, fans were more than enough.

For the past few years, due to increase in traffic and population, there has been a change, we have started to have hotter days. And when, we started complaining that Bangalore’s climate is changing from pleasant to hot, the weather just surprises us by a chilling morning.

Friday morning was one such day, when even at 8.30 AM, the Hosur Expressway was so foggy and it was so cold. It just felt like B’lore was just getting back to the it’s groove. Well, once in a while such nice mornings just bring back the faith in you, that namma Bengalooru is still the place to be.

To hide or not to hide

2010-01-29T23:13:00.006+05:30

There was a discussion on who is the best actor oops!! I meant who is the super star of the country.

One of them wrote “He is transparent in all his activities, people know that he Smokes, drinks.” He refers to the actor and I don’t wan’t to mention the name, since my post is not about the actor.

I just cracked up looking at this. From when did Smoking and drinking become an offensive activity which needs to be hidden?

I don’t smoke or drink, but I remember when I first started working, attended a project party (not company sponsored), this was some birthday party I think. When my team mates ordered drinks and cigarettes, I was quite shocked. Call me naïve, but I had never been to a restaurant which had both veg-nonveg, no bar attached. This was probably my first cultural shock.

As days passed by, these never bothered me, ofcourse I don’t like people smoking in front of me, so I request them and they oblidge. When I went onsite, when any of my teammates ordered for any of the alcoholic drinks, I used to promptly ask for an extra empty glass, and pour my glass of coke into it and cheers with them. My teammate always said “Arre yaar, humesha alcohol ka apmaan karti hai… uss glass mein coke kyon peeti ho”. What can I do if people give these drinks in nice glasses and give coke in a ordinary glass. Anyway, that was not the point.

I completely agree that smoking and drinking are injurious to health, well lot of things are like eating junk food etc etc, but are these something to be hidden. I know, lot of people who smoke or drink hide it from their parents, but lets says the family knows about it. It’s not something you would hide from the general public.

So does hiding or making it public, make any difference to anybody, except for your own health?

Locked Up

2010-01-28T23:54:00.001+05:30

New year has just passed by, and I remember the 1st new year party after joining the company.

We were in Mysore, and that was my first new year away from family. We had decided to have a girls night out. We borrowed speakers from friends, got some cake and chips and sodas.

We stayed in a 2BHK, with attached Bathrooms. It was around 10.30 PM, my friend/roomie went to restroom, and since I had to change, I locked the bathroom door from outside, changed and came out of the room. After 10 mins, we were wondering why my friend hadn’t returned. And, I look at my phone, it’s the same friend calling. “why was she calling me, when we are in the same house” was my first thought. I picked up the call and she was yelling “Open the door”. I rushed and opened the bathroom door. After this, all of us were laughing non-stop for 10-15 mins.

We kept teasing her, why she had to take her cellphone in the bathroom. So she said, that saved her, else we would have celebrated new year by locking her up.

Phir Mile Sur

2010-01-27T22:24:00.002+05:30

“Mile sur mera tumhara” – This is one song which most of us would have heard while growing up.

Yesterday, on republic day, Zoom TV in collaboration with Times Group aired the “Phir Mile Sur”. I was excited to see the new one. I couldn’t help but compare it to the old one. The video starts off with AR Rahman with a orange Keyboard (instrument) and green Kurta (the flag is suppose), and then the obvious Big B came up with “mile sur” in his voice. He sings one line and then makes it a prose. There was a mixture of musicians and bollywood personalities. In between, a few states were showcased. The song is too long, so I can’t mention every person in the song.

On the whole, this is my review:

Good points:

Good locales, scenic places
Girl education, women employment, showing the children with hearing and talking disabilities were shown
Other sports (esp. no cricket) were given importance. One of my friends said, atleast somebody ignored cricketers.

Not so good points:

Very long
Seemed like bollywood song or a film fraternity song
Overacting by some actors (SRK, Ash)
Voice didn’t match for many of them

Even if I don’t compare with the old one, I don’t see any national integration message here.

The old one made us feel that “Mile sur mera tumhara to sur bane humara” but this one has got too many surs, that the humara feel just doesn’t come.

It’s a nice effort, may be not be very good though.

Flower show

2010-01-24T17:47:00.000+05:30

Saturday we had been to the LalBagh Flower show. This was my first time ever. I would say it was worth the visit...

Let the pics do the tallking

There are some more...but may be some other time :)

Alone Alone!!

2010-01-20T23:32:00.003+05:30

Alisha, could sleep anytime of the day, the moment her head touched the pillow. One day, her parents had to bring groceries, so they left her at home to watch TV, while they came back in half an hour. They wanted to lock the door from outside, but Alisha insisted that she will take care and lock the door from inside.

Alisha was enjoying the TV show, but slept off in between. Her parents came back home after half an hour and were knocking the door, rang the calling bell, called out for Alisha. But she slept like a kumbhakaran. No noise could even bring a change in her face or sleep. Finally they found a long stick outside, and tried to poke her from the window. Luckily, she woke up and opened the door for her parents. No guesses on how much scoldings she got. It took a long time for her parents to leave the house on her responsibility again.

Hide and Seek

2010-01-19T23:28:00.001+05:30

“Hide and Seek”.. Wait!!! I am not talking about the yummy choc chip biscuits, I am talking about the game.

Hide and Seek used to be one of the must play games, esp. during summer vacations when all the cousins would come together and we could hide anywhere in the house. All the cupboards, under the tables, under the cots, bushes would be occupied.

I heard this song in the morning, “Kanna muche kaade goode”. I realized all of a sudden, we used to play hide and seek saying this too..

There were times when we would gang up against the youngest cousin or the innocent (read silent and the usual bakra), and make him/her the seeker. As soon as we knew the bakra is going near one person, rest of them would make sounds. We would add in new rules and change a few existing ones. We were a little cruel that way. Unless, we made one person cry out of frustration, there was no satisfaction.

We used to play this with neighborhood kids too. There was a lot of favoritism when this happened. Irrespective of who was out, the main of the game wasn’t hiding and seeking, it was to trouble the seeker :

Probably, we still play the game these days. In office we keep hiding from the seekers… if you know what I mean ;)

Movie Marathon

2010-01-11T23:17:00.001+05:30

I know calling it a movie marathon is an understatement. But, considering the situation of obtaining tickets here in B’lore, I would surely term watching 2 movies in theatres on weekend as a marathon.

Yes, I watched the hyped Avatar (3D) and 3 Idiots.

Do they live up to the hype? I would say, pretty much yes.

Avatar:

If only I could watch Avatar in IMAX, it would have done complete justice to the movie. It was a simple story, told in the most magical way. The story was similar to any bollywood movie (mind u just the story). The whole new world was created. As everybody else said, it was a visual treat. The animals, the plants, the way the Navi’s connected to each other was just out of the world. When they prayed together, you could sense that their ancient gods actually listened to these prayers. I personally loved the floating mountains, magical tree, also their home tree, the hammock beds. Jake was really handsome (earth waala), I liked his Navi avatar too, but considering his long plait and the long tail, I would rather stick to the earthly Jake. He was the Hero, no doubt, esp with his big orange dragon. For a change, it was good to see that we were the Aliens, but the bad part was earthlings went to destroy their beautiful Pandora. Well, each and every point is worth a mention, and I don’t want to leave out anything. So, I better stop here… Go watch it.. if you haven’t…

Watching it in 3D was good, but I wouldn’t say it was outstanding. Either I watched a lot of 3D movies or it was because of not watching it in IMAX. I felt it was long for a English movie (considering no intervals). But, watch it in IMAX, to get a thrilling experience.

3I:

Aal is well… This is the mantra of the movie. Most of them including the baby go by this mantra. From Millimeter to Wangdu, from Chatur to Virus, I loved all the characters. What can I comment about Aamir. He can totally convince the audience, that he is just a college boy. The speech from Chatur had the audience in splits. Everytime Virus had an encounter with Rancho, we would expect something to happen, and something unusual did happen. Ofcourse, Madhavan and Sharman made it look like cake walk. It wasn’t boring in any part. Every small incident, seemed to bring atleast a smile on your face.

All this aside, the beauty of Shimla and Ladak were so beautifully captured. I am almost planning my next vacation there.

Only misfit according to me was Kareena. I don’t know why, but felt that she looked older than Aamir. But as they say Aal is well… Way to go all you IDIOTS.

Baarish kar de paison ki

2010-01-04T22:46:00.000+05:30

When I heard this line for the first time - “Main Baarish Kardoon paison ki jot u hojaaye meri”, we were travelling in car. I turned to G and we had this conversation

Me: “Ab baarish kar tu paison ki, main to hoon ab teri”.

He: “Meri to tu kabse hai, ab kyon baarish karoon?”

Me: “Pehle pata hota to itni jaldi nahi mannti :)”

Royal Bird

2009-12-21T23:02:00.002+05:30

On Sunday, we went to the Royal Enfield showroom to check out the new 500cc classic. G is crazy about bikes, so this was going to be the first on his list.

This is the pic

At first, the guy in the showroom thought, it may not be possible for us to take the test ride, G being the persistent one, somehow got the bike out of the workshop. He took it for a ride and then asked me if I wanted a ride... Ofcourse, I went :)

Things I did not like :

1. Looks - Nothing special. Its a classic, so ordinary looks, esp with the back seat, looks too ordinary... Our Thunderbird has got super looks
2. Feel - It just dint feel like riding a bullet. Well, if it was 500cc, dint feel like it.
3. Sound - Well, seems for the wonderful sound, they would have to add another silencer for Rs.3000. Else, its bullet with no sound !!!!
4. It costs a min of Rs. 1,40,000 on road. Even if we are ready to pay the total amount in cash, it can be delivered only feb end.

Thinks I liked:
Dint like anything... May be I like the thunderbird better.

As for G, I am still not sure if he liked it or not. But I dont think he is ready to pay the price for it... So the thunderbird is here to stay with for a while :)

Let's do charity instead?

2009-12-19T07:00:00.000+05:30

I have read it in many articles, seen it on TV, but fail to understand. Why should we not enjoy just because it can go to charity instead?

Before, anybody thinks I am mean. Let me clarify. People say, instead of doing such and such a thing, you can give it to charity. I agree, charity is a very noble thing to do. But, I don’t understand, just for the sake of charity, why are we depriving ourselves of the little joy.

Let’s say I am spending Rs.1000 on something, it irks when people come and say, it’s a waste of money, and some needy person could have used it better. I agree, but this is my hard earned money. If I feel happy spending it in one way, why should I always think about a needy person. I might be donating a 5000, when I really feel like it. At such times nobody says, oh you really deserved it.

Charity shouldn’t be forced. If people feel like contributing, they will definitely do it. I also think sometimes people do charity more for the peer pressure rather than the actual feeling for it.

Next time, when somebody wants to promote charity, why tell people to kill their desires for the sake of charity. Instead suggest that they can share it with the less fortunate people.

PS: Nobody has come and told me anything like this. But I have seen people saying – Instead of spending money like this they can as well give it to charity. Come on it’s their money, their wish :). I do charity too. I dont need anybody telling me that instead of enjoying I should be giving this money to some one

Blunder

2009-12-18T07:00:00.003+05:30

The incident happened couple of years back. I was at the client office in US. We were used to the people overloading their desks with photographs, magnets, souvenir and lot of stuff on their desk. One of client project managers also had a lot of photographs. He had his wedding picture, Then a picture with 3 beautiful ladies. I couldn’t recognize him in his wedding picture, it was a few years old. There was another picture with one beautiful lady in it. This lady was one among the 3 beautiful ones. I assumed it was the eldest daughter. I went and complimented him.

“Hey Brian, Your daughters are beautiful, especially the eldest one. She is very pretty”

And I pointed to the single picture. “Oh! She is my wife” was his response. This was so embarrassing, I wanted to go and bury my head in shame.

He sensed this, and then comforted me “Not your fault, This picture is 10 years older, and yes she is very beautiful. I take that as a compliment. I am sure my wife would be thrilled to hear this”

I was so relieved, that I just scraped out of the blunder I had just commited.

Techniques

2009-12-17T07:13:00.000+05:30

Attended a session few months back. The instructor said this quote, which makes a lot of sense

The quote :

You tell me, I will forget
You show me, I will remember
You involve me, I will understand....

As I type this, I go back to my 6th standard, where we had to read details about a leaf (botany) and cockroach(zoology).

I am not the kind of person who can by heart/mug things... I need to understand what the topic is all about. I tried my best to read about these 2, but in half an hour I was just forgetting this. And my usual resort for all my problems is just one person –MOM. She has a very good ability to make me understand things. She read the whole stuff and explained it to me. My brain, I think had taken an off that day. It just wasn’t registering in my mind.

Point 1: You tell me, I will forget

Next my mom got a leaf from the hibiscus plant from the garden. She showed me each and every part of the leaf, according to what was in the book. I could slowly remember what a leaf is all about. The same thing with the cockroach. I could remember it for days after that.

Point 2: You show me, I will remember

I had to keep going back to the books to keep my memory fresh. An idea struck and I got a leaf from the plant and read the whole stuff again with the leaf in my hand, I did the same with cockroach(this was yukky!!). And I never had to read this part again as I had totally understood how things were :)

Point 3: You involve me, I will understand

Isnt it amazing that these simple rules are followed in our daily lives but we never realize that all we are doing is following certain techniques :)

Time

2009-12-16T23:22:00.000+05:30

There are times when we wake up in the middle of night and wish the sun rises a few hours later than usual.

Last night, I happened to wake up and saw that it was still dark and there were no sunrays trying to peep in through the thick curtains. I thought it might be around 5.00 AM, and I would just have an hour more of the blissful sleep and then the rush for office would start.

I just turned around and checked the time in my cell phone. When I looked at the time, I felt like dancing around, but then I did what was best to do. I slept again peacefully, it was just 2.00 AM

On Call

2009-12-16T07:12:00.000+05:30

When you are on phone, and if you happen to be in front of these:

computer or laptop.

On the desktop, keep clicking the right mouse button and then refresh. I wonder what special animation is going to come out of the desktop.

If you have a paper and pen

The artist in you emerges and all sorts of sketches appear on paper. The moment the phone call is done, the pen stops and you don’t know what needs to be done to complete the sketch :)

Candles or Charity

2009-12-15T07:11:00.000+05:30

Recently, as a mark of respect to the 26/11 victims, lot of drives happened. People payed their homage in many ways. One of this was the candle lighting event. I thought like many other people, what a sweet gesture until I saw this programme in the evening.

I don’t remember the channel or the name of the programme. This is one, which my Father-in-law doesn’t like to miss. There is a senior journalist and every now and then he puts a lot of politicians on the hot spot and asks them some rigid answers to his questions. I like this show too. On 26/11, the guests were a retired army officer, 2 wives of late army officers. One of the ladies runs an organization, which helps the family of the officers who are no longer alive. When asked about the candle lighting event. This is what she had to say:

These are not the exact words, but the gist of what she said.

She respects and is very grateful that people have cared to remember the men who have sacrificed their lives. But, instead of lighting the Rs.5 candle, if they could have just collected that same amount from all of them, it would have actually helped the families.

This made me think. What she said really made sense. Just imagine, even if 10000 people had lit the candles, it would be around 50000. This could have really helped the families. May be the money which was collected by selling these candles were sent to these families. I don’t know what happened, but if such a thing happened then the candle lighting has actually served the purpose.

Whatever may be the way, just remembering them on the anniversary of this incident and then forgetting the rest of the year, is of no use. If we really need to help them and pay our respects, this has to be a progressive activity.

Belts on the seat

2009-12-05T22:06:00.000+05:30

“Why don’t you wear the seat belt?” Anvesha yelled at Nikhil for the 5th time in 10 minutes.

Nikhil impatiently replied - “It’s not mandatory anyway”

Anvesha was tired of this excuse “You always wore it when we were in US. Why do you ignore these things when you come back to Bangalore?”

“You can also take it off. It’s free without the seat belt” saying this he took off her seat belt too.

A truck in front of them made a sudden halt and Nikhil put sudden brakes. Anvesha was sitting at the edge of the seat, and the sudden break and collision pushed her forward to the windshield.

This jolt suddenly woke her up. She was happy to see that, there was no collision. Nikhil was just frustrated with the traffic, and was trying to find a way out of there. They were still on Hosur Road. Anvesha checked if she had the seat belt on and drifted back to sleep.

Lesson learnt

2009-12-01T22:54:00.000+05:30

Traffic in Bangalore is too exhausting. It can teach you the value of time though. Since we take a bus to office, we leave at a certain time daily. We reach office in half an hour. One day we were 5 mins late to the bus stop. Ofcourse, we lost our usual bus, but got another one in 5 mins. But to our dismay, the traffic had increased so much, that we had crossed only 2 blocks in 10 mins. This time it took 45 mins to reach office.

We learnt the lesson, delay of 5 mins caused us a final delay of 15 mins. If we had stayed someplace else, where its only 1 bus every morning. They would value each and every second.

It is said, every place has a lesson to teach, may be Bangalore is trying to teach time management.

Bus or plane?

2009-11-22T16:15:00.000+05:30

Some people love to travel. I like visiting to places, but I hate the travel part of it. Sometimes I just hope we could just disappear from one place and land in any place of our will in seconds.

Everytime, there is an international travel more than 8 hrs, after you tell your itenary to people, they empathize with you that, it’s a long travel. I was just wondering, will the same people have the same feeling when you are travelling within the country. Sometimes we travel nearly for 10 hrs, in the bus. There is no food available, no restrooms or washrooms available. We are on the seat continuously for these 10 hrs. Sometimes people travel this distance every fortnight. They don’t get the same empathy which is given to people who travel the same number of hours in a plane, with food and restrooms.

Well, we have to be thankful everytime our journey is comfortable. That way our visit to any place will just get better.

Live to Ride, Ride to Live

2009-11-13T12:30:00.000+05:30

"Live to Ride and Ride to Live" - is G's favorite slogan. He has it printed on one of his T-shirts too. G is crazy about bikes like I have mentioned it here.

Lot of people dream of sitting on a Harley Davidson, let alone go on a ride. But I am so proud of G, I have had thrice the pleasure of going on a ride on the Harley Davidson....

In India, G has a bullet - Thunderbird.When I was a kid, I dint like bullet since it made lot of noise. Little did I know then, that its the power thats making the noise. Again, thanks to G, that I learnt a lot about bikes. Ofcourse, if it goes too technical, I still dont understand.

But what matters is, G is happy that I love to be his pillion rider. And, I love it that he likes to drive around with me on this powerful motorcycle.

It seems like we are made for each other :)

Judge me or no?

2009-11-04T20:40:00.000+05:30

Relatives are by chance and friends are by Choice, choose your friends correctly.
This was a sentence I had read in so many scrapbooks.

There was a time, when we had a lot of innocent friendships. It didn’t matter what we could do for each other. No matter, what we thought of each other. This was the time where we grew up with each other. We could tell each other anything, and our friendship would just remain the same or get even better.

As years passed by, we started making thoughtful friendship. We would observe and then try to be friends with people who seemed to have similar interests. As the friendship thickened, we helped each other to become better people. These were the friends, who would celebrate with us when we achieved something, who were our best critics when we did something wrong.

As we move on further in life, we try to analyze people and then want to make a friend. By now, we have grown so much that it becomes difficult for us to take any negative comments from anybody. We assume that people judge us and to be on the safer side, we befriend those whom we feel don’t judge us. But, can anybody be non judgmental?

Ofcourse, not everybody will tell you what they feel about you. Whether somebody is judgmental or not, how would we ever know?

Is it better to have a friend who is not judgmental, but doesn’t even tell what they think about you or is it better to have a friend who is true to you?

Same Same but Different

2009-11-03T05:10:00.000+05:30

I used to be a good student in school. But, mom thought it would be better if I spent more time in my studies. I was always a night person. I would study in the nights, but could never read a line in the mornings. TV was my favorite passtime. Even now, on the internet I am on youtube watching something.

Few years back, the conversation would be
Mom : ಓದ್ಕೋ ಹೋಗೆ (Go and read)
Me : Hmm… ಈ break (After the break)
Mom : TV Connection ತೆಗೆಸ್ಬಿಡ್ತೀನಿ (Will take off the TV connection)
Me : (Sadly goes to the room).

Recently this conversation happened

G : Packing ಮಾಡೇ (Do the packing)
Me : Hmm.. ನಾಳೆ ಮಾಡ್ತೀನಿ (will do tomorrow)
G: Internet connection ತೆಗೆಸ್ಬಿಡ್ತೀನಿ (will take off the internet connection
Me: (Now that I have a iphone) No problem, I have 3G now :)

Blogging

2009-10-27T12:15:00.004+05:30

I had no idea about blogging, before a friend introduced me to this virtual world. This is my journey of blogging. I was excited that there is a place on the internet, for the stuff I write. As days passed by, I would write about trivial incidents, some good thoughts, some travelogues. There was even a time where I would write some mundane things too. Later, I began to be discreet about some feelings.

Initially I sent the link to a few friends and I would insist G, that he read my blog and give his opinion. He was the biggest critic. It was always about grammar and spellings. It was never about my ideas or my opinions. Once I used a friend's name, and I got a big lecture, as to how I am not supposed to reveal anything on the internet. After this, I stopped insisting that he read my blogs, as I never got any word of encouragement from him.

G loves my writing, but on the internet, he was not very comfortable about it. We even had a few tiffs about this, but I was persistent and dint give up blogging. Somehow, even though we have our opinions on each other’s doings, we still don’t give up some things, just because we love each other. If, at that time I had given up blogging, I am sure nothing path breaking was missed, but I would have lost my space and that’s something which I am proud of. I am no big writer. I might just have a couple of readers, but the best part here is, I don’t write for anybody else. I am the person who is most eager to see a new post coming up on my blog.

Coming back to G. As I mentioned earlier, I stopped irritating G to read my blogs. One fine day, I told him some incident and he said, I read that in your blog. I was surprised and happy (thought I was calm outside). My mind was celebrating inside and outside I was this calm and satisfied person. But, he still did not like that I was on the internet. So, I decided never to ask him if he ever reads or not.

Last year, a few friends of his, said they read my blog. I was happy to know that. In a way I felt sad that, other than my husband, everybody else who reads my blog is appreciative of it in one way or other. I still did not ask for his opinion. Now, he reads it every now and then. Infact, when I wanted to change the look of the blog, he even offered to help me. Sometimes to irritate me, he opens the blog in front of me and starts reading it aloud. Even today all he does is point out grammatical and spelling mistakes. I have come to terms with this. Bottom line is he reads it and I am happy about it. I hope someday you actually tell me what you think about my blog.

So G, all I want to say is I Love You and thank you for being such a loving husband. This just goes to prove that, whether you are poles apart in your thinking or you are on the same page, love just makes life beautiful.

Home Alone

2009-10-27T11:30:00.001+05:30

Alisha, smart and brave kid, just moved to Bangalore with her parents and kid brother. She was pretty good in her studies. Since they had just moved to Bangalore, they were staying in a rented outhouse. It was a single bedroom house, but they could easily manage. There was a very big park in front of the house and Alisha went there daily to play with her friends. There was a old man in the park, none of them liked him. He was a little weird, but Alisha and her friends always ignored him.

One evening, her kid brother fell ill and was to be taken to a doctor. Her mom and dad wanted Alisha to accompany them. But she had to prove to them that she was a big kid now and that she could stay alone for a couple of hours. So her parents, left her in the house, ofcourse they told the owner who stayed right in front of the house.

Half an hour and Alisha sincerely was doing her homework. She heard the sound of their gate. She wondered that it was too early for her parents to come back from the doctor. She waited for some time. She heard weird sound, she could see from the translucent window. She saw a white shirt. She remembered her dad wearing a grey one when he left. Also, there was no knock on the door, so, it couldn’t be her parents. Now the height where she saw the shirt resembled the old man’s height. She couldn’t imagine why the old man was here. What the hell was he doing at the window? She dint know if she could muster the courage to open the window and peep outside. But she was getting terrified from what she saw outside. Slowly she moved to the kitchen, and after some time began crying. She couldn’t understand why the old man was following her, she never even gave him a disgusting look at the park, unlike her friends.

Lucky for her, the landlady happened to hear her crying and came to the kitchen window. Alisha was so relieved to see a familiar face, she told the owner lady, that somebody was at the door. Finally, when she came there, all she found was a white shirt hanging on the clothes line. Alisha couldn’t believe that inspite of being a brave girl, she was fooled by this. Within half an hour, her parents came back.

Everybody had a good laugh at this. But for Alisha, it was a life changing experience. After this, she was never scared of living alone in the house.

Hindustan

2009-10-27T11:00:00.001+05:30

I was excited to go back home after an year. The flight to Frankfurt was packed. I was just getting comfortable in my seat, a man in my adjacent seat, smiled. I returned the smile. We started talking and then he just popped this question. I don’t remember what the conversation was about, but this question has just made a place in my heart. The man was originally from Karachi, Pakistan, who was settled in US. He spoke pretty good Hindi. Infact, until he told me, I assumed he was from Northern part of India.

The question he asked me was – “Aap Hindustan se hain?”

I was shocked at this question. I have been asked several times if I was from India, but never been asked if I was from Hindustan. I don’t know why, but this question just added to my excitement.

Its been more than 2 years since this incident happened. But this part of our conversation has been etched in my mind.

Happy Diwali 2009

2009-10-23T14:50:00.001+05:30

Deepavali or Diwali, is the festival of lights. It’s a time to wish our loved ones and ones around us for prosperity. Its time to clean up the house and mind to throw away all the dirt. Its time to burst the crackers and celebrate. Well, this time we dint get to burst any crackers, but we did manage to do the rest of it.

This was our first Diwali together. Last year, we were in different places, so this one was really special for us.

Saturday morning, started with a small Pooja, and an early brunch. Initially, we thought of going for a movie, we took a small nap instead. Evening was supposed to be a visit to the temple for a view of fireworks and then a potluck dinner at a friend’s place. We had decided on taking bisibele bhat for the dinner, so after our tea, G started on that. Around 8.30 we started for fireworks in the SwamiNarayan Temple. Well, by the time we reached near the temple, the fireworks were nearly over. So we headed back, so that we could have dinner. Since it was a potluck, we had lots of stuff to eat. There were so many sweets, rotis, dum aaloo, mix veg, gajar halwa, bisibelebhat. We were back home by 12.30 AM.

Sunday wasn’t a busy day, we just went for a movie and then dinner, with friends.
Monday, we had invited friends over for dinner. Its always a nice feeling to have people over for dinner. Also, decorating the house on these special occassions has always been my passion. Earlier, mom and I, would get new floating candles, new sheets for the diwan, new cusion covers for the sofa. It would just give a fresh look to the house. Well, I plan to do a lot of these things, but for this time, I got a lot of candles and flowers and tried to decorate a little bit.

The dinner was good too. Although this time I made limited quantity, as everytime I would have lot of food left over. But I must say, I was satisfied with the taste and so was G, I think our friends were too. I made vegetable cutlets, poori, mutter paneer, vegetable rice. G made awesome fruitsalad custard. Since it was a weekday, we had to wrap up the get together pretty early.

I must say I will cherish our first Diwali forever.

Sambar, Rice, and Spoon

2009-10-10T11:00:00.002+05:30

Cookery shows have been my favorite since I was in school. Although at those times I used to tell my mom to make all those dishes. Recently, I have made some stuff, following these shows. It's kind of fun. Once in a while, I even see those clips, where I already know how to make the dish. I do this, just so that, I can see some difference and try it out.

So, I was watching this sambar recipe. Well, incidently, I know to make sambar, with the powder (which mom/M-I-L make) or ones where we grind the powder. Now, anytime anybody asks me, how do you make sambar? there is no single recipe. Every house, mind you, not every community or every caste, but every house has its own taste of sambar. The sambar powder mom makes is different from what my M-I-L makes, and who knows, someday, I might have my own recipe(thats in the far future). So, I just tell them the basic recipe if they already have a powder.

Now coming back to the show, the chef prepared the sambar, and for the taste, he mixed it with rice and started eating it. He was eating with spoon. As he ate 2-3 spoons, he kept on thinking what was missing, and then he realized, it was the spoon.
He makes this statement " Sambar, Rice, and Spoon, never go together". I was laughing out loud when I heard this. I have heard this a lot of times since my childhood "Who eats Sambar Rice with spoon?? " and sometimes its totally true. Atleast at home, most of us grew up eating our food using our hands without spoons. Exam times, study times were different when we would have the liberty to use spoons, but otherwise it was always hands.

Infact, until I had a lot of north Indian friends, I dint even seem to notice. Well I have seen them using spoon for a dosa. I have never understood that part. My roommate was one such girl. She used to make the dosa piece into a cone and put in sambar using a spoon and then eat. I would lose interest in eating dosa in such a way. Some of us even tried to tell her, how we eat it, but i guess she never left her comfort zone.

Well, all you people who feel eating rice and sambar using your hands is weird, let me tell you its not. Infact, using the spoon for this very reason is injustice to rice and sambar :)
Well, on a different note, when I go to Indian restaurants in US, and I happen to eat sambar rice I use the spoon, only because, I am lazy to go and wash my hands in restroom and they dont give a finger bowl here. But at home, it's always my god-made spoon :)

A place of worship or discrimination

2009-10-08T12:50:00.002+05:30

You go in with faith and you see discrimination. How would you feel?

Temples are one of those special places, which give a boost to the level of faith in God. This is one place, where people find peace of mind (I somehow dont, but some people I know believe in this).
How does it feel when in such places you see discrimination? We have seen that in so many temples.

Lets take the temples near our homes in India. The purohits give special preference to people who are regulars at the temple. Why?

A few temples, you dont get the theerta (holy water), unless you give the purohits dakshine (offerings)(mentioned about this here). Why corruption in temples?

Then comes Sabarimalai which is the abode of Lord Ayyappa. Girls/Ladies of age group 12-50 arent allowed here. The are so many stories and theories to this. But the same God can be worshipped by all ladies elsewhere. It's only in this place they arent allowed. Why would god discriminate? If he did, wouldn't this rule apply in all the temples?

I wonder if there is a Godess temple, where men aren't allowed!

Well, the reason this post has found a way in my blog is because of a temple I visited a few months back, and came back home angry. Yes, you read it right, ANGRY.

Now, this is the Swami Narayan Temple. It's got beautiful architecture. The moment you enter the temple, you actually dont look for the god, but the architecture. This is the same one as the Akshardham Temple in Delhi. I havent seen this one yet, but have been to 3 of them in US. One in Chicago, other in Atlanta and another in Houston. Below are the pictures of the Houston Swami Narayan Temple.

Beautiful!!! Isn't it?

Well, we were waiting for sometime, so that it would open up for Darshan. As we were waiting, saw a board which meant, Men will stand in front and Women will stand at the back during Arathi. We were a little confused as to why we would have to stand seperately. Seriously, it was not because we are husband-wife, its not even that we had to stand seperately. But why, guys in the front and ladies at the back.

I am not being a feminist here, even if it was the other way around, I would have asked this same question. Why, in the name of Godm are you doing this discrimination? Its nothing to do with equality or anything else. It's plain faith. A friend of ours was sitting in the front, and she was asked to vacate that place, as the guys were to stand there. What kind of rule is this?

We scream our hearts out in the name of racial discrimination, we shout so much for equality. But, when people do such things in the name of God, we just sit, and watch. I, felt ashamed that day, as i was silent and didn't question anybody. I wouldn't blame the men for this. Women have accepted this, and thats why its continued. We keep quiet, just coz its in a temple. And since, we are taught from childhood, we shouldn't question certain things related to god, we don't question such discrimination.

Aren't we all hypocrytes? We preach, everybody is equal in God's eyes. And then we do something shameful as this. Are we not responsible for such deeds???

Disclaimer : I have no idea why its done like this. If anybody believes that its right and have good reasons for it... Good for you. I still dont think its the right thing to do.

Routines or Memories

2009-10-03T11:10:00.002+05:30

We stayed in Mysore for a few months after our wedding... These months were when we were always together except office, and there were times when I used to steal my moments from our time.
I always used to wake up G by 6, asking him to unlock the gates. He would get so furious, and most of the times I would end up doing it at 6.30, then getting the milk and paper from the door. I was always the first one to read the newspaper. It was fun. I used to read the sections which interested me and watch the milk from boiling over simultaneously. Later when G started to read the paper and our conversation would go like this.

Me(giving the cup of coffee to him): Oh! did u see this happened???
G : I just opened the paper
Me : Oh ok...
G (reading silently and sipping his coffee)
Me : What do you want for breakfast
G : Anything will do
Me: What do I pack for lunch
G: Whatever is convinient to you
Me: You never help me decide all this... Now, are you done with reading, go take bath. blah......blah....blah.....
G: I am still reading
Me ( banging whatever is in my hand) : Fine, I'll go, you watch while the maid is cleaning... (murmuring some other stuff). Fill water in thr filter, clean your cup
G: Hmm...

Me(coming out of bath): You are still drinking coffee and reading paper, you dint fill water, u dint do this.. you dint do that.. I have to do everything here. I am not going to fill water in the filter, thats your part.
G: I know baby... I'll do it.. Relax...

In the evening, once home, we would decide what we want to see on TV. We had the Dish network... yeah yeah... dish Karo Wish Karo... Yeah right!!! You wish#$@

G: Do you want to see Star Movies
Me : Naah!! I want to see the dance show
G: Thats boring, lets watch the Bruce Lee
Me: Noooooooooooooooo
G: Come on its fun
Me: Dance show...
G: I cant watch a dance show
Me: I cant stand Bruce Lee
G: Ok.. let me take out the set of DVDs
Me: No English movie (come on they were all action movies... bruce lee kinds)
G: Well no hindi movie either (as if he had any)
Me: Ok lets watch animation.

And so we did, after much discussions we used to watch movies which both of us could manage to watch.

Later G would do his part of the chores. I would think I am just wasting my energy reminding him. But then, if any of this dint happen on any day, I would feel something missing. I dont if G ever felt like it. But I am sure he loves those days too.

I loved the way, we had started to build our sweet little world. It surely wasnt perfect. But I loved it. It was ours, just ours.

Things have changed now, we have understood each other better. We yell a lot less at each other, so many times things get done without saying much to each other. I think this is just another phase of life, where we just grow together. We even sit and watch programmes together, I still dont like the bruce lee movies. I just go, do the kitchen chores or read a book or just lie down on his lap when he his watching this. As per my programmes, I make sure I am done with them before he comes home.

But I just miss those wonderful times we had in our home. I know they are only memories now. We will never get back those days back, but, I surely hope, we will build a lot of new memories which we will cherish all our life.

Austin Trip

2009-09-28T20:00:00.004+05:30

Austin, capital of Texas is 160-170 miles from Houston. This place was one of the first trips we took after I came to Houston. We went there with friends. It was a 3 hr drive, we reached there a little beyond lunch time. So we just stopped at a place and had bisibele bhat, sabudana khichidi, pickles and papads.

We then headed towards Lake Travis. The plan was to rent a boat and have some fun time. Since we reached late, we couldnt get the speed boat, but we did get a pontoon boat. We had an hr till we could get this boat. So few of us took ride on the jet ski or wave runners. It was fun. But, it was too hot.

Finally, when we got on to the boat, we sat in the shade for a while, just roaming around the lake... Riding this doesnt need much of training, so all of us tried to ride the boat and it was complete entertainment. We spent nearly an hour in the lake with boat just roaming on the lake...

We then left to Austin Capitol. Well, I wouldnt say it was as good as the one in Washington DC, but it was amazing in its own way. We just did a round of this, took a couple of pictures, then headed for dinner and then back home.

This was a trip to be cherished forever.