If but then ...

A very interesting tag from Renu, I started doing it as soon as I read it. Here it goes -

If I were a month - December :) The time to wrap up (both a year and new year gifts) and begin anew. Nothing like looking forward to a New Year. Does'nt it explain the hype for 31st night! Poor 1st Jan inspite of being the cause of the celebration never gets celebrated much. Yes I have to be a December.

If I were a day of the week- What do zillions of people thank God every week for? Monday? No.Tuesday? Naha. Wednesday? Nopsie. Thursday?Nopsie  again. Friday?? Need I say more?

If I were a time of day-Evening. Evenings are so charming. They have a strange sense of romance to them. And for the not so early birds, the look and feel during evening is the same as day break (So sleep on sleepy pies, you are not missing much) And evening is such a joyous moment, kids come back from school and scamper to play. Moms make the leisurely dinner while watching re runs of soaps, what lies ahead in office is calls, you  just have to sit through them :D and is there anything better than coming back from work in the evening, enjoying the light sunlight?

If I were a season- Winter. The markets are  full of my favorite gobis, capsicums, beans,brrr you name it. Fried rice does'nt taste yummier than in this season. (Sadly somehow due to the supermarket culture, all veggies are available in all seasons now :( )

But in the good old days, we had to wait for winter to savor the tastiest peas, carrots and the likes. Its the season of Diwali, Dussera, Christmas, Id!  To sum it all things nice and good. Surely the most power packed season. And did I forget to mention the joys of having ginger tea, curled up with a novel in hand?

If I were a planet - The most intriguing one, for me always has been Saturn. I know its feared in the Hindu pantheon, but then He  is known to be a generous planet too! It comes second in  size, but then, does Jupiter have rings? Nay nay nay nay nay :)

If I were a sea animal- This might sound silly, but I would have liked to be a ahem ahem Dolphin. :) Yes a nice friendly one. Something about them reminds me of dogs, and I chimply louveeeeeeee dogs.

If I were a direction - East because I can never miss that direction. (Can anyone? Its the side  on which the sun rises! )

If I were a piece of furniture-This is a very tough question. I have a lot of favvie furnitures. It was a close call, but then I have to chose one. I would be a bed. You can sit and read, eat (I do, though it drives K mad :D, watch tv, have a phone conversation and then doze off. Its the place where normal human beings can and should and mostly do spend close to 8 hours. Makes one third of the day right? )

If I were a liquid - I would go with Renu on this, I would be water. The liquid which can be in 3 states of matter just like that. The universal solvent and one of the reasons for life on earth.

If I were a tree- I would be a Banyan tree mostly. I find something very majestic about the tree. And I sometimes imagine a rustic getaway when I am bit fuzzled by city life and the picture is never complete with a big Banyan tree welcoming me.

If I were a tool - I am not so much of a tools person, so this was though. I would like to be a pair of scissors. Its a pretty useful one, cant forget the crafts classes! What about the hairstyles that adorn us, not so achievable without scissors eh?

If I were an element- I would be Carbon. The life forming one, the thing that because of its crazy properties forms organic compounds which results in close to 8 chapters in Chemistry for a science student which drive most students against the wall (Am  I correct? 8 chapter hmm? Been so long! ). The one which can be the crystalline diamond (the most precious thing, a girls alleged best friend), or can be coal (which caused industrial revolutions to take place). Teams up with many elements pretty nicely :)

If I were a gemstone - Not much into gemstones, but I think being a Sapphire would look cool :)

If I were a musical instrument- A sitar. I feel the most happy notes can flow from that instrument.

If I were a color - Blue blue blue blue. Dont ask me why. The sky, the seas, peacocks - even nature seems to have a thing for blue. Other colors, no offense.

If I were a emotion- I would be satisfaction. I feel no matter, how happy or sad or angry or whatever one is, feeling satisfied simply rocks :)

If I were a fruit-Go crazy over Mangooooooooooes

If I were a sound-I would be the tinkle of a bell, a soft, little sound,and there is always something happy about it. The simple tinkle of bells seem celebratory during Christmas, seem pious in a temple and festive in a larger gathering.

If I were a car - A Merc, elegant, classy. For a more massy one I would be a Maruti 800, the car for everyone.

If I were food-I would be panipuri :) My fav street food.

If I were a taste- Salty. Zindagi main namak chahiye na.

If I were a scent- I would be nothing but Davidoff Coolwater.

If I were a pair of shoes - Sneakers. Always comfortable and stylish too.

If I were a bird - I would be a friendly domestic talkative parrot. I don't like the color green. But a parrot green is something I love. I would love be a parrot especially in an old age home maybe. I am not sure where the idea comes from, but somehow I would keep all company by imitating stupid youngsters and making fun of them :)

Done. A very interesting tag indeed. Now my turn to tag :) And I tag Ashu, Abhishek, Satish

Yea mera India

There have been lots and lots of things written and said about India and Indians. But then I never came across anything more poignant.

There is no village in India, however mean, that has not a rich sthala-purana or legendary history, of its own. Some god or godlike hero has passed by the village - Rama might have rested under this pipal tree, Sita might have dried her clothes after a bath on this yellow stone, or the Mahatma himself on one of his many pilgrimages through the country, might have slept in this hut,the low one, by the village gate. In this way,the past mingles with the present,and the gods mingle with men too make the repertory of your grand mother always bright (Simply loved this line!) One such story from the contemporary annals of my village I have tried to tell. 

The telling has not been easy. Onehas to convey in a language that is not one's own the spirit that is one's own. One has to convey the various shades and omissions of acertainthought-movement that looks maltreated in an alien language. I use the word 'alien', yet English is not really an alien language o us. It is the language of our intellectual make-up - like Sanskrit or Persian was before - but not of our emotional make-up (Soooooooooooo true. The 'feelings' a Hindi/Tamil/Oriya sentence can convey, can never be done in the most poetic English - I personally feel as an Indian). We are all instinctively bilingual, many of us writing in our  own language and in English. We cannot write like the English. We should not. We cannot write only as Indians. We have grown to look at the large world as a part of us. Our method of expression therefore has to be dialect which will some day prove to be as distinctive and colorful as the Irish or the American. Time alone will justify it.

After language the next problem is that of style. The tempo of Indian life must be fused into our English expression, even as the tempo of American or Irish life has gone into the making of theirs. We, in India, think quickly, we talk quickly, and when we move, we more quickly (I doooo :) )There must be something in the sun of India that makes us rush and tumble and run on. And our paths are paths interminable. The Mahabharata has 214,778 verses and the Ramayana has 48,000. Puranas there are endless and Innumerable.We have neither punctuation nor the treacherous 'ats' and 'ons' to bother us - wetell one interminable tale. Episode follows episode, and when our thoughts stop our breath stops. amd we move on to another thought. this was and still  is the ordinary style of our story-telling. I have tried to follow it myself in this story. 

It may have been told of an evening , when as the dusk falls, and through the sudden quiet, lights leap up in house after house, stretching her bedding on the veranda, a grandmother might have told you, newcomer, the sad tale of her village.

                                              Raja Rao

Menton, November 1937

This is the foreword to the book Kanthapura by Raja Rao. The book honestly is not breathtaking but the foreword definitely was for me.....

Hello World :)

I am writing after a span in which maybe Avatar 2 would have been made by James Cameron :) I am not sure if people remember me (do they even know me?? :S ) 

So like every programmer this is a mike testing post from me... hence........... Hello World!!

Hope someone is listening out there *Dejected sigh* (Read - please leave magnanimous comments, I am dying to hear from you all)

Well, what had been up with moi? Hmm... well I had gotten used to checking emails at the library, when suddenly one fine day I log and get a comment in red highlighting - We have detected suspicious activity in your account from China and locked it. Please enter your mobile number underneath for verification. Very gingerly I gave the same. Got a confirmation code from Google. (Getting an email from 'Google' - it looks so snazzy in the inbox!! ) Entered the confirmation code and gave a high strength password for the account. But then I was so scared, I stopped checking my emails at any public place.... That my dears was the reason I was out in the dark all the while. It was but last Monday that we got internet at home! Yes God save the Queen, while the masses are bereft of basic facilities like the Internet!!!!! So while I got real busy uploading all the pending photos and chatting with friends, my creatives juices ran completely dry and I wasn't sure what to post out here. But finally I summoned the courage, and am blurting out something. 

Will be out with a neater post soon, but quick updates 

1. K got promoted!!!!!!Huraaaaaaaaay... It was long pending long due and much deserved. (I am not being boastful but I faced the brunt of being hyper ignored cos his love for his work supercedes his love for me) But there were a host of other promotees among his colleagues. There was a very gung ho atmosphere and this coming close to Diwali made the celebrations even more appropriate. )

2. This reminds me, had a very vibrant Diwali here, even though far from near and dear ones. Lavish cooking (chole bhature and gajar ka halwa), decorations and some decking up, marked the day :)

3. My kid sister, defied me and got her nose pierced!! Yes she did it (My mil is very proud of her ! ) But that kid knows what to do for style and nothing in the blue heaven is stopping her.

4. I feel The Social Network is a very crisp movie and worth a watch.  (This is not an update but then felt like saying :) )

Humm....Cant think of anything else, while at the same time, my head is clogged with thoughts. Will be more coherent in my next post, till then will leave with some images of Diwali :)

Guess whos coming for dinner

No no it wasnt someone very famous that I should be waxing eloquent about like Julie Powell did in her blogs. They were K's technical manager and one of his teamies with family. We had been meaning to call them since a pretty long time. And finally things worked good and our routines coincided for us to meet up. The time was set-Saturday night!

We had an elaborate menu planned -  matar paneer(a dish that K loves and mandates that I cook when someone comes since the calorie content of the dish doesnt permit his conscience to have it on normal days), stuffed puris,onion and mint rice, lady's finger in curd and gajar ka halwa for desset. We had an awful lot of shopping to be done for this. We had decided to get started on friday, but a torrential downpour prevented us from doing it.

Saturday morning we rose early to get started. First was a trip to the nearby 'Asian' store to get most of the stuff. After a humongous purchase we realised that we had not been able to manage the carrots,peas and milk. We took the trudge to the departmental store which was on the opposite direction. On the way we decided to finish some bank chores and also sneak a peak in the library. Now how can one manage to sneak a 'peak' in a lib!!! We ended up spending one and a half hour there. Finally with all the shopping done,we came back home all famished. By luck, I had cooked a huge quantity of rice the previous day,so lunch was old south Indian style curd rice. The acute hunger made the curd rice taste even more divine! :)

It was 1400 hours by the time I got to making the first dish matar paneer and K got started with separating the mint leaves. One dish down after 45 mins, I prepared the lady's finger while K was busy grating the stubborn carrots. It was close to 1640 when the ladys finger dish was ready and looked little in quantity for 6 people.K was of the opinion that he should get some more of the vegetable while I was in utter panic mode :S. There was the rice, the dessert and the puris to go and I would need to rework (damn office lingo) on the lady's fingers (a funny name for a vegetable if you think about it) again!!!!!!!!! So rather than being cool headed and discussing and deciding on a good course of action, like most couples we got into a fight(My stance being I would make dal as another dish, K being the lady's finger is a tasty dish and deserves to be more in quantity)  We continued our spat while I kept slow killing the carrots in ghee and the rice cooked oblivious of the domestic cauldron. Finally the smell of the halwa which was close to something to die for (how humble can I be eh? ) distracted us. Now K is a person who likes his halwa just the right sweet and he does nt know what is right sweet. Huh. And when I gave him a spoonful of it, he was like 'Mu this IS perfect, you should make this again'. When K says one should cook the dish again, that means he really likes it.(He is such a sweetu he never ever criticises a dish unless it completely lacks chillies :P) Phew!fight over thanks to the carrots and the bill was passed for chane ka dal being the addendum.

I was yet to take a shower and the clock was ticking towards 1730. I made the dough for puris, fried the stuffing and scooted. We were all set, but around 1915 when the dal was yet to get started with I did it again! I panicked yet again! The puris rolling started getting all messy. Thats when K stepped in to save the day, and rolled one Perfect Puri. Then there was no stopping him as he rolled and fried all the remaining 10 puris in a jiffy! How I love my man :D. I made dal in the meanwhile and we were all good to go exactly at 1950.

The guests came in at 2015, and after the usual starting problems with everyone staring at everyone's face, we jumped on the food. But one of the couples had an 18 month old hyper active toddler who was draining them off their energies with her antics and the other couple had a 7 month old baby who was sleeping but had drained them off their energies. So there we were guarding the lil kid and K and I were nearly running around with our plates. We wrapped up dinner real quick. And there was so much to spare. :( Once the guests left, I was like, maybe the dishes did nt come good enough. K said,comeon, God heard my prayers,I wanted more for me!(K can be very greedy when it comes to food and I am on seventh heaven when he likes my food. Baaki duniya jaaye tel lene :P). I was utterly at a loss, that how would we ever finish those gigantic portions  of food. On the Sunday when we finished the halwa, we counted one down :). There were many more to go. Finally on Tuesday evening we had finally cleared of the remains of the Saturday :)

The dinner might have been a fiasco but pulling it off with K was such fun. He was the sweetest person on earth that day being at my beck and call. We should do it again sometime soon:).

Will leave  with a pic of the halwa :)

Surprises make me write more :D

I thought my last post was the most random-est thing to take shape, and I was so ho-ho pleasantly surprised by the comments! People read and what I think, liked it! Whoa! So propelled by all, I thought of writing about some more random thoughts of mine.

I feel I keep thinking one thing or the other all the time. Since I cant think all the thoughts aloud, I love blogging which gives me the chance to put some of my words in bold face and maroon font color :) Now that I have all the time in the world to use or to waste, there have been a lot of thoughts whizzing around.

I had often hear Renu say(I have never even met her and it seems she talks to me through her posts :) ) that her children give her all the happiness and sorrow. A couple of days after getting here, these words stuck me as more poignant. I always remember the tear streaked face of my mom as I was leaving Chennai. She took quite some time to get accustomed to the fact, that my calls would not be that frequent, that there would be a time lag, that she could nt reach me anytime she wanted to. I somehow did not want her to make all these adjustments at her age. My heart also went out for my mil, being all alone in our home. Even if K was not there, I was there to give her some sort of companionship, she too did not deserve being just by herself. I know there are many parents who have accepted this as their destiny. Even our  parents have gone on to make their lives useful by doing social service and being devout. But I kept feeling, I failed as a child by leaving my parents- that too maybe when I was capable enough to be of use to them. I once confessed this to roomie dear, to which she said, imagine if you were a good for nothing and at home, wouldnt that have been more painful for your parents. Touche. It was paradoxical - and Renu's words drove home like a ram on a rampage. I hope I am a good enough daughter and daughter in law :S

Along with this, the other day I had gone to get myself registered at the local NHS office. In the form there was a question 'First Language'. I had no qualms in filling the answer - I filled it as ahem yep - the Queen's language, English. I did it and then I thought, hmmm, now I had put the thing in black and white atleast somewhere. I have always thought in English, I have been love with the language since I care to remember. Yep, the traditional meaning of first language is one that a person knows from birth  but its also one a person speaks best. Honestly speaking I learnt Bengali before Oriya ( the language I called my mother tongue), I tend to lapse into Hindi more easily because of my cosmopolitan friends, and I married into a Tamil household and day in and day out, I talk in English. I am most confident and most articulate when I talk in English. Hmmm to hua na first language :)

I have no idea where do I come up with such absurd thoughts, but then thats me :)

Sans technology

In corporate lingo I am supposed to be a 'techie' - sounds good eh? Here am I am writing about my life without technology - irony, yep hands down!

A week after I landed here, we were bereft of the internet. K was in a shared accomodation and the person who moved out had the internet connection in his name. So when he moved, out went the internet with him. I somehow managed by checking emails at some of his colleagues' homes. Then I discovered the library and the free internet facility there. I could book computers for 2 hours everyday and browse(This explains my long irregularity in the blog world, both reading and writing. Not that it matters a lot to a lot of people :D. 2 hours were way too less but then atleast I had a continued access. )

We had somehow gotten used to the routine of having no internet.  We had South Park, Everybody loves Raymond and Scrubs for entertainment at home. During dinner, we used to sit with a sitcom for while, after which I would retire with a book while K would indulge in a game or a movie of his choice. Slowly as I got attuned to visiting the library and spending more time there, somehow my need for the laptop waned and I drifted towards books and developing an eclectic taste in them. But K's hold over the laptop was not to continue for too long. Suddenly the laptop charger went kaput! Ahem, now imagine. No tv, no internet, no laptop, the cell phones which ring only when K or I call eachother ( Sometimes K's colleagues call him, but apart from that, we make the customary calls home and thats more like it ). I read Abhishek's post some days back about technology having nearly ransacked every part and parcel of our lives, and here I was, in an ahem developed *rolls eyes* country sans technology.

I adjusted fine to the demise of the laptop charger. Slowly K had to drift away from technology to keep himself busy. So there he was forced to read - comics and conspiracy theory stories were his liking. But none the less, thanks to the lack of any gadgets, the house was full of books and the most companionable silence possible. It had both of us resting on the sofa and reading our time off. There was no hurry, no noise,  no disturbance - just the sound of pages flipping, giggles coming when we read something funny, each telling the other if we found something interesting and then getting on a track to discuss stuff. It was just us, our thoughts and the thoughts of the writers - a warm cosy cocoon. Its gone to such an extent that now the 20 books I am authorized to take at a time are getting exhausted in no time and K too has applied for his library membership! People who know him will vouch that K and libraries dont go together, but now we are experiencing a brand new love affair!

I am really satisfied that we got to try this - we got to keep away the ipods, the phones, the laptops, the television sets and enjoy something as simple but enchanting as a book. There is no experience which is more enriching.

And the touchdown

I did write about the run up and the last lap, but forgot to write about the touchdown, the day I finally travelled to be with K after a span of 4 months and 17 days. (Huh I sound so melodramatic, saying as if it was 4 years and 17 months! )

On the eve of my travel, there was franctic packing and lots and lots of phone calls. Me being the preemptive types, had started making the calls 2 days prior to the actual date, but then there are oh! so many contacts. And with the travel plans and dates being packed like sardines in my calendar (I always wanted to use this phrase :) Did itttt!! Aint sure if it matches this scenario,  but then who cares :D ) Now back to the point, after the mindless packings and the telephone sessions, I finally had things under control at around 2230. Thats when I had to call up dear A. Well.... she was the one who was through with me like a shadow, and my agony aunt along with Roomie Dear. When I called up A, we had the usual banter of  "Packing shacking ho gai" etc for quite a  while. When it was time to wrap up, moment spoiler that she is, she said " tu kal chali jayegi, main bahut miss karoongi tujhe". And that was it. Realisation whacked my bony head Wham! Yes, tomorrow I was going to travel so far away. And hell, I was going to miss everyone! I got that big bad blob in the throat, the ones you get when you cant wail aloud :(

I retired to bed, thinking I would never get a wink. I was palpitating. Tomorrow, would be the day, it seemed so near yet so far. I kept thinking, random thoughts, and drifted into a sound slumber till 0400 hours the next day. It was dad's birthday! His 60th. Pity I was leaving him. Last year, on his birthday, we had seen sis off for her training, which was again a sad moment. :( .

Till it was time to move along to check in, my entire gang was just chit chatting and making fun of the deperate, the weird, the bedraggled, the jazzy  and the whole league of travellers in the airport. When the moment finally came for me to move along for check in, my mom sporadically burst into tears and so did mil!!! I was like ruko inhe. Till yesterday these two women were all prayers and slokas, that their kids be with their spouses, and now look at them with their hyperactive lachrymatory glands. I was going to miss them tremendously though I had not admitted the fact till that time. My mom, my (silent) dad, my sis, my mil, were waving me off. And in all that movie style I saw everyone, my friends A, Roomie dear, Sam, my colleagues. I thought, here I was leaving everyone that meant something to me, to be with someone who meant (nearly) everything. (ARGH!! What a cheesy dialogue. Kasam se kisi card se nehi utara. Khud likha. Dunno how I came up with these *Shivers* )

The flight itself was uneventful though tiring. I read, watched movies and tried to sleep but was not able to for more than 20 mins. Maybe I was too anxious to reach and there were pangs of nostalgia too. It felt like a free fall, a daze. I was in the same state till I walked out of the airport when I saw K holding a biggggg bouquet of roses and for some reason I got tears. (It was his birthday too! Yea my dad and K are born on the same day! ) (And K is not at all a flower person, like me. He later admitted it was his colleagues idea to take something for her ). I had pictured the moment to be with all razzle dazzle ( a heavy dose of Yash Chopra and KJo movies do disturb the system. ) But it was just normal, we walked holding hands as if we were never apart.

PS. Strangely that night when I hit the bed, after some 20 hours  of wakefullness, I did not sleep a wink. It was just last night, I was with everyone with everything belonging to me, and I had slept like a log. The change that had happened over a day seemed too big, too sudden.

I was nothing but a bundle of emotions.