Wanna go to yesterday?

I am extremely poor in Geography and I regret for being so, too.  I got to know of this piece of information from a little extra googling after watching "Who wants to be a Millionaire?" show.  

Well, the fact is that at a closest space, US and Russia are only 2.5 miles apart.  We can imagine to go to tomorrow and get back to yesterday if there are no Cross-Border issues; how sweet!!

The distance between Little Diomede, an Island in Alaska, USA and the Big Diomede, an Island belonging to Russia is just 2.5 miles. The two islands are situated within the U.S.-Russian maritime border.  During winter, when the water body (Bering Strait) surrounding the area freezes, it is possible to walk between the two islands – from America to Russia and vice versa.  And we can juggle between today and tomorrow or today and yesterday. 

K I S S

Wait, wait, this is not the Kamal Hassan thing. 

I read a post on a blogger's site yesterday.  I read the first 2 paragraphs but did not quite understand what the blogger was trying to say nor was I able to get to the subject matter. One paragraph had just one sentence and was at least having 12 lines. Only after reading 75% of it, I could follow what was being said.  I felt like I was watching a Kamal movie. I had to watch Kamal's dasavatharam thrice to understand (just understand, not to even attempt repeating) what he was trying to convey in the scene where he gives a lecture on a dais.

I had such difficult-to-comprehend experiences with some ex-colleagues.

One is a kind of person who thinks people are intelligent if they have good command over English.  Let us call this person A. A loves to write in English and makes complicated sentences with all new different vocabulary A has built in the recent past.  Nothing wrong, but each sentence will have at least 50 words. Whenever I had to deal with A, I had to read A's writing two three times to get an understanding.

On the other hand, B is a person who adores adjectives.  When B speaks there will be at least 3 adjectives for every noun and I have noticed in several occasions that this had become a norm for B's communication.  Have you ever been on an eternal hold on phone with an irritating music?  Thats how I feel when B talks.

I  had a boss C who brought in new ideas to promote a lot of things  in the entire team. C formed smaller groups and entrusted each group with specific responsibility to minimize the load on the leads - Idealistic.  I have heard many people say that C's communication is often unclear...but here the case is different, C does not use fancy words, nor does C have lots of adjectives/adverbs in C's talk but C cant make smaller sentences which makes it difficult for others to follow.

Why cant we Keep It Short and Simple?

Aruna Vs Anuradha

DH was talking to a friend in India.  This friend of him is a flutist and always hums "tha dha ri na na".  The conversation started with new year wish and went on to so many things and suddenly they hopped on the music season.  I was sitting on the sofa and overhearing his talk and was much interested when they talked about music.  DH said "I have been watching the Margazhi Maha Utsavam from youtube, its very nice...I liked Vijay Siva's..." and went on.  And Chinnu drew my attention to him and I had to lose track for a moment.  Suddenly I heard DH say "Anuradha Sriram's was excellent as usual".  My heart stopped beating.  I said, "Who? Anuradha Sriram? in Margazhi Maha Uthsavam?...that too Excellent as usual?"  I could only think of "Dei kaya vechukkittu summa iruda..." when it comes to Anuradha Sriram.  DH corrected himself "hey sorry da, adhu Aruna Sairam".  I agree that their names sound similar but how can such a mistake happen?

But this is much better than calling a friend's 2 year old daughter by the friend's name, is it not?

This and That

Chinnu likes "Super Why" on PBS kids. He pointed at one of his toys and told me "Why". His toy boy looked like Whyatt, the lead character in the show, indeed. I was surprised to know how this little brain makes such connections. Here are the pictures of his toy and his favourite animation character.

I have no regret for not being in Chennai during this Margazhi season. I'm watching Jaya TV's Margazhi Maha Utsavam on youtube. Priya sisters rock as usual and this rendition of them was a masterpiece and everytime I listen to it I feel like I am enroute to the Lord's abode. The Bhava, the lyrics, the modulation and everything else are in perfect mix. Vijay Siva's concert was no exception. He has a charismatic voice and his katha-kalakshebam style is well received. I am waiting for Aruna's videos - they are not in full on youtube.

My chef likes Vah Chef and he made this tomato chutney a few days ago. Wow, it was awesome. I bet you will fall in love with this chutney. I also tried my hands at this and it came out very well.

Watched Kamal's interview on NDTV. What an innocent guy? Chinnathambi ellam jujubee. Ivaru thonthi ganapathy nnu (mattum) than sonnaram.

Look at this wonderful pencil drawing. It is a collaboration by two artists - the beautiful drawing is by a "sakalakala valli" friend(she is a painter, craftsperson, a good cook, beautician and so on) and the background sketching is by my dear son. I am sure he is gonna be an artist. I want him to be all those that I am not, like any other parent :))  (1000 Taare Zamin Par vandalum nama appadiye thaan iruppom!)

Had a potluck in a friend's house last saturday, not just the kids but we also had some funtime.   Now, looking forward to welcoming the new year.  Happy 2011 :)).

Mynaa and my 'no'

What is life without watching a movie over a long weekend?  

With that being said, DH and I watched Mynaa yesterday.  We had to keep the volume under control because we did not want to disturb the little one's nap (in turn did not want to get disturbed), so I started to lose inclination towards watching it further as I had difficulty in following the accent for sometime and within few minutes I saw the protagonist hitting a lady so violently and I walked out to the other bed room, intolerably.  DH stopped me and asked me what I was intending to do - he got to understand from my facial expressions that I did not want to continue watching and he also knew at that point that I might not like the movie.  I told him I would better blog than watching this crap.  By this time the unpleasant scenes rolled and the screenplay got its dynamism.  Yes, you are right, I brought the laptop out and started to surf while I had a watch on the storyline as well.  

When the movie ended, I had a heavy heart and was sympathetic not to the lead characters but to our own selves. Our movie-makers have to understand the basic fact that we want only ENTERTAINMENT for those 2-2.5 hrs and certainly do not want to end up wiping our tears or get any sort of negative impact on us or on our society.  I vehemently believe that the movie-makers have the moral responsibility of influencing the society to a great extent;  Cinema is so much in our blood and culture - we see our illiterate society doing pAl abhishEkam to their super-heroes ( When I was nursing Chinnu, I used to feel quite bad in a situation when a single drop of breast milk gets wasted; honestly, I used to think that the milk that I consume is the calf's birth right and this was the time I wanted to convert to veganism) and the educated ones celebrate movie releases like Diwali, new year - their FB headlines will whirl around the movies during then.  

I remember few crimes that were merely triggered from our tamil movies - a little boy's murder in Chennai and the criminals were minors too; they used red-chilli powder in order not to get traced by the sniffer dogs - seems they stole this idea from a movie, in another case a girl was gangraped just that the accused wanted to experiment what they had seen in the movie paruththiveeran.  There may be so many other cases that did not come to the light.  That being the situation, I think the movie-makers can not just say that they only get their stories from real life.  They may be true but they also feed the ignorant with new ideas to commit crimes(or should I make it a passive sentence here?)  One gangrape in a remote village in Jharkhand or Orissa may be a news for a week but a movie with such a storyline will easily stay in our minds for a remarkably longer period.  

After the movie ended, DH and I did a postmortem (romba thevai!!) and were discussing about the logical flaws in the idea of sending mynaa with the policeman who had a terror-wife.  I see no reason why she was not sent with the older guy.  Secondly why was the former's wife not updated about the accident or further happenings?  Anyways, I made a resolution (new year resolution?) - I am not going to waste my time on watching our movies; at the same time I do not want to miss TZPs, 3 Idiots, Pasangas, Arunachalams, etc. etc for sure.

Lets come to the lighter side of it.  After the movie ended I told DH that the accident scene was well conceived and I had not seen such a thing in other movies where accidents were shot.  He said it was perfectly stolen from a hollywood picture.

rEmEmBeR DeCeMbEr...

2010 is approaching its end.  By God's grace I had to throw something off my mind that was worrying me for quite some time and the good deed happened yesterday.  This is the best day of 2010 for me.  In the same lines, I was thinking of the last few Decembers and I had only good things to count.  Here is the chronicle -

2010 - A sigh of relief on Dec 16.  I can stay calm for some time.  Thank you, my dear God.

2009 - Hmm, nothing significant happened but had a good get-together with friends at our place on the eve of new year.

2008 - The most memorable year in my life.  I saw my mom alive for the last time on Dec 9.  Thanks to my FIL and the technology(skype).  I wish SriVaikuntam is web-enabled and I can see her again and talk to her.

2007 - India trip in Nov-Dec.  Just missed (thalai)Deepavali but had fun during brother's wedding.  Unforgettable awful travel through Emirates.

2006 - Had the best touring in my life.  Stayed at sis' place at Tirunelveli and went to Kutralam, Kanyakumari, Navathirupathi etc.  Nellayappar kovil was an architectural surprise for the one who had thought that all temples would be like the Parthasarathy temple.

2005 - First milestone achieved by nephew Hari.  He rolled over as mom anticipated (by end of 3 months).  Second consecutive year of attending Aruna Sairam's concert @ Parthasarathy Swami Sabha.

2004 - Had a cool darshan of Lord Narasimhar at Sholinghur.  It is a special temple for me and DH as we got to know of each other only here.  We stayed at brother's friend's house and had fresh cow's milk for our coffee in the morning.  However we heard the news of MS' demise (Dec 11) on our way back home.  Got mesmerized by Aruna Sairam @ Parthasarathy Swami Sabha.  I still remember few of her renderings from this concert. 

2003 - We moved to Chromepet.  Lots of fun!!!

2002 - Attended my SIL's wedding.  I still have the saree that I wore for the wedding and even my MIL wore it once or twice when she was here in 2009.  I recollect what hubby told me.  As soon as the engagement talks were on, my FIL picked SIL's wedding photo album and showed it to his MIL saying "maami, ido parungo unga peran pathu vechirukkara ponna!!!"

2001 - Memory corrupted.  Vella paper a karuppakkanumna, my father's Bday, Sis' Bday, Sis wedding day, Niece's Bday and New Year eve are celebrated (in every December) :))

2000 - I spearheaded the chris-ma/chris-child game for the fellow BSSLians.  And it helped two girls find not only their chris-children but also their lives.

1999 - Joined BSSL.

I think I have good memory, huh?

Atlanta Trip - Nov 2010

Chinnu and I had a 10 day trip to Atlanta to visit my friend's family there.  My friend's son was a great company to him while we both would chit-chat about quite a lot of stuff.

I flew by Delta and had a bad experience during the flight.  The crew member that served juice and snack gave me a paper napkin but just passed by me w/o giving the edibles.  It was as though she did not notice that I was there.  I got so much irritated and told myself - "It is all because of you, my dear husband.  This is a foreign land and I am insulted for being an alien".  When one of them (not the one who gave the paper napkin) came back to each passenger to collect the trash, I called her and asked her if the service is ticket-dependent as I hazily remembered that there was no in-flight service in the trip.  She said no and told me that she thought I was sleeping.  I told her that the other lady gave me the paper napkin.  She apologized and later the lady who (purposefully) ignored me apologized as well but my blood was still boiling.  I wanted to complain to Delta.  Later when I checked the Delta webpage, there was no option to lodge such complaints.  I had to leave the issue there - chee chee inda pazham pulikkum.

My friend was very happy because her naughty boy had naps in the noon and his lullaby was our gossip talks.  The weather was awesome there, a temporary relief for us.  We spent the evenings in the community park when the kids liked to play in the slide and the swing.  When his friend rides on his volvo (his tricycle) around the kitchen, Chinnu will follow him like a calf following its mother.  They both had some fun in the backyard, punching the balloons, cleaning the house with the toy vaccum.

My friend was happy introducing me to all of her friends whom we met during one of their friends' son's Bday party.  Alpharetta had good amout of Desis and my friend has a good circle of friends - konjam poramaya irundudu.  Costco, Kohl's, Walmart are within few miles of reach.  My friend drove like a man (I hope I will make her happy when she reads this!!) and I was scared to sit on the passenger seat.  We bought some butter biscuits and chat items from Hot-Breads - sad that Pittsburgh does not have these facilities :((.

It was raining for 4 days or so and the temperature was quite low in the nights.  Chinnu got accustomed very well over there.  DH came online to see his DS.  Chinnu did not bother to look at him.  I knew DH must have been crestfallen then.  

My friend did not want me to leave at all.  She was persuading me all along the day - she would suggest that my husband better move to Atlanta. (not a bad idea as Hot breads was within reach).  She also made a variety of food items for me to enjoy my meals.  She was quite satisfied and moved when I commended her dosa (I told her it was like my mom's dosa and it was so too).

I met one of my ex-colleagues from BSSL.  Went to her house that was 2.5 miles from my friend's place.  She has a new born boy and my friend bought some nice gifts for her kids on my behalf.  We talked about a few other friends in the states and got back home after an hour or so.

Did not know how time passed by.  We had to leave on the 18th.  Chinnu did not want to leave that place, he was throwing tantrums when we were about to leave.  I dumped some food inside amidst his tantrums and we headed to the airport.  I checked in online as suggested by my friend's husband and that gave us enough time for security check though we reached the airport little late than we thought.  Chinnu behaved well in the airport and there was again a bad experience and this time it was the confusion with my seat #.  The one at the counter gave me a new aisle seat with an unoccupied middle seat as I was having a baby on lap, but she was too considerate that she gave the same seat to somebody else as well.  I had to again wait and got another seat and the wait time for take-off was almost 40 minutes (thats why you should not live in such big cities) and we reached Pittsburgh at 11.40 pm.  Dad was eagerly waiting to see his son and when they met ore paasa mazhai than.

I was fully charged during this break.  It was a wonderful time well spent.  I am hopeful of having her and her family here in Pittsburgh during summer 2011.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Twinkle twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are
Up above the world so high
Like a diamond in the sky

Do you think I am crazy? Well, may be!  I was collecting Chinnu's favourite rhymes to copy them onto a CD, and found this version of this nursery rhyme from youtube.  Until this point, I did not know that the song has many stanzas and I was so curious that I landed at Wikipedia to know more details of the song.

Love the way it is picturized in the youtube version and I have become a great fan of this rhyme (may be more than Chinnu is).

தங்கச்சிய நாய் கடிச்சுடிச்சு பா...

I'm irritated.  By a lady, by her questioning.  She asks me the same question every time we meet or talk.  She called me today to wish for Deepavali.  Then she immediately asked me "Why are you not seen at all?  I thought you must have probably been to India or so".  The weather is getting worse and she lives pretty much in the same city and I certainly dont know why is she expecting me to be wandering outside in this single digit temperature. 

When I meet her next time, I'm going to ask her myself "Wait, you want to know if I am in the city or not because you did not quite meet me all these while, right?"

Deepavali is here

It's Deepavali.  One day that every one irrespective of age, waits for!  A day full of events, full of fun with crackers, new clothes, sweets and snacks, festive food, family get-together, TV programmes etc etc.  Something to entertain everyone.  And it is one festival that every Hindu celebrates so a nationwide festival.  

How wonderful were the yesteryears? Until 16 or so, I would wait for my brother to apportion our share of crackers, would keep my share safe, would check it everyday, would admire my new clothes, would talk to friends about the purchases.  For the next ten years, it was more of a family celebration.  Around 9 in the morning, a Nadaswaram troupe would go to each house and play some songs.  By the time they would leave, kith and kin that live closer by would stop by to seek blessings from parents.  A short exchange of details of new clothes and batchanam would take place amongst the ladies.  Amma would bring in the batchanam to all.  All of us would have idli for breakfast (only day in the year when we have a breakfast-lunch routine).  Amma would go to the kitchen and make her yummy bisi-bele-bath.  And we would yell "amma amma, it's time for patti mandram".  Half of what people talk would not be heard because of neighbours bursting crackers.  And most of the celebrations of the day would end with the sumptuous lunch.  We would wait for the late evening so that the flower pots and chakkarams are bright and colourful in the dark.  Amma and appa would sit on the thinnai to watch them glow in the dark.  And the day would be gone; we would have to wait for another year for that fun.

Talks of Deepavali started by end of Vijayadasami, and believe it or not I started hearing that "dasu busu" sound of a new saree worn by amma.  This is the 4th year for us to pass through Deepavali away from home and 2nd Deepavali without that divine lady.  

However I want Chinnu to enjoy this day.  I hope we would be home for the next Deepavali at least so that he enjoys.  We got up late, but took bath early, cooked early and prayed early.  Chinnu is having some cold so he did not get a ganga snanam.  Its only a prokshane for him today.  He wore his first jeans pant and was not able to enjoy much because of his stuffy nose. He's having a nap now.

This year's deepavali will be ever in my memory.  As soon as we got up I was only thinking of getting things done quickly, so I attended to Chinnu's needs and went to take bath.  I cooked, offered my prayers and got DH's lunch ready, called up a few people that I missed to call last night, gave Chinnu a bath, put new pant and shirt on him, took his photos.  There was something missing...and I just then realized that I did not brush my teeth in the morning.  That's the special for this year's Deepavali :-).

Happy Deepavali.

Letter to Chinnu - #1

Dear Chinnu,

I started telling you stories this week. I have narrated the "kulla vyabari" and "singa raja" stories this week.  You did not want to pay the slightest attention to it.  Half the time, you were screaming to get you off the armless chair.  To calm you down I was singing wherever possible - we can call them as situational songs.  But the experience was nice.  I love to tell you lot many stories this way.  I hope you will soon understand what this is all about and will start to bug me "amma, katha sollu".

Love

Amma.

Westernization - for good cause

Chinnu dialed 911 yesterday.  Not just 911, but a number like 911PPP1111PP and so on.  And he knows how to press the speaker button.  So I got to hear the ring on the other side and immediately went to the phone and see whom did he dial.  I saw the number with 911 in the beginning and and immediately hung up the call - I wanted to disconnect before it get connected.  Unlucky me  - it was too late and it appeared that someone was on the line already.  I said "Hello"  and was answered "Whats the address of the emergency site?" I replied to him "Sorry Sir, there is no emergency, my son has pressed the number by mistake".  He was kind enough to excuse me not just once but thrice as I kept on getting incoming calls (dont know why) from the emergency and I had to get the battery off to put an end to it.

Later in the day, I was browsing the NDTV site and got to know that the bollywood stars had some Halloween party and was wondering how westernized Inda has become in the last few years.  We have imported everything from West to our culture - right from celebrating birthday, wedding day and any xyz day by cutting cakes and blowing candles to wearing all sorts of western fashion even in the least developed village in India.  The younger generation loves to listen to pops and rocks and their orkut, FB profiles list bands that I have not heard of, as their favourite music. The nerves in their hearing system are deaf to Indian classicals such as Carnatic, Hindhustani, Ghazal and the like. Change is the only constant thing in the world, is it not?

I dont know why we fail to see the other side of it and import some western procedures and policies as well that will improve the service rendered to the society.  Emergency service (though we have 100, we dont know how effective it is), Social security, the idea of school districts, library services, health insurance etc etc.- oh my God how nice it is to envisage an India with such facilities!!

It was in the news that the Manmohan Singh Govt. is trying to bring a system of identification numbers for the Indian citizens.  Dont know how far they have come along.  I do agree that it is very difficult to implement such huge changes considering the population that we have to deal with.  But I think we should plunge into action than keep worrying about the population.  I know there are so many of you who think like me and want to live in a healthy and wealthy India.  Until our politicians do it, let us day-dream about it living in America.

JAI HIND!!!

(Posts like this should end this way, ain't they?)

New age "Ganga"?

I was shocked to read a news article from the NDTV site.  In Mumbai, a new mom had abandoned her twin baby girl - she flung the baby from the bathroom vent.  I dont know if it was because of baby blues or if she thought she could not manage 2 babies...whatever be it, its unimaginable.  When people long for an offspring, someone does not want the baby - after all she bore it for all those weeks with great difficulty.

May be she is the new age Ganga?  River Ganges  took a form of a woman to give birth to Bheeshma in the story of Mahabharatha.  Bheeshma is one of the ashta vasus that are cursed to be born on earth.  The remaining 7 of them are dumped in the river as soon as they were born as the curse for them was only to be born on earth.

The TIME factor

A scene from Mahabharatha.  The yadhava clan ends up in a dispute and people are killing each other.  Krishna and his brother Balarama decide to go on a penance until their last breath.  So Krishna sends a note to Arjuna about this and comforts the people comprising the elderly, women and children that Arjuna would come and would help them relocate to a safer place.

Arjuna comes to Dwarakapuri (Yadhava kingdom's capital) and meanwhile some ransackers plunder whatever they can from the innocent people. Arjuna guards the yadhava people by fighting with the ransackers.  He sees himself on the weaker side of the war and is surprised why his "Kandeepam" (his bow) is not as powerful as it used to be.  Then the divine sage Vyasa says that the Kandeepam's (in turn, Arjuna's) power is going down and Arjuna realizes then that time changes everything.  

There are so many things that one can learn from the great epic and I consider this one as the best amongst them. I am correlating this piece of the story to what my father was saying nearly a year ago.

If we see the human life, from birth till about 20 years we are playful and happy and many a times do not know what life and its hardships are all about.  After 50 years till death life is mostly troublesome with physical ailments or other worries.  Only about 30 years we are active and enthusiastic and relish every aspect of life.  We think and act like a superordinate.  Many a times, we repress our faculties that tell us what is right and what is wrong.  At times, we tend to be pretentious, greedy,  immoral, self-centered, miserly, inhuman and what not.  We forget that we will one day become the captives of TIME and our lives will then change topsy-turvy.  

Motherly thoughts from male poets

Poems and poetical works are one of my passions. I used to admire the way our male poets pen their thoughts which seem quite motherly to me.  I wonder how could such words originate from a man!!  

Let us take the Mahakavi first; "Unnai thazhuvidilo kannamma unmaththamaguthadi"  I could not find ways that can express how you feel when you listen to these words.  Not just this line but the entire "Chinnanchiru kiliye kannamma" is awesome and an incomparable composition in such a simple manner and it turns out to be a great lullaby. 

I love to listen to "Solla solla inikkudada muruga!! ullamellam un peyarai..." from Thiruvilayadal movie.  I think it is Kannadasan's composition.  My favourite words are "Murugan endral azhagan endru thamizh mozhi koorum, azhagan endan kumaran endru manamozhi koorum".  We have heard "Kakkaikkum than kunju pon kunju" but this one is a new thinking and it is indeed a wonderful expression.

And the last one in this series is "Paaloottum annaikkellam thangal pillai marbai mutti paalunnum saththam sangeetham".  Vairamuthu rocks here.  

How can a man express such motherly thoughts?  Are they the "Thaayumaanavargal"???