Mnamma has tagged me to do a post about me. Hmmm..quite interesting..
- I love books, esp the Agatha, Sherlock mystery kinds. However, these days given a choice between a book and a movie made on it, I would go with the movie because it saves time. Yes, it is no match for the nostalgia of a book, but a working mom needs to cheat sometimes ;)
- I love to keep things organized. I make the ‘to-do’ list quite often. It’s another thing that I don’t complete doing everything..ever! My husband used to tease me that I am like Monica from friends, but I think those days are long gone after the birth of the little explorer!
-I am very friendly and jovial when it comes to people that I am comfortable with, but it takes a while for me to get comfortable with somebody.
- I like dressing right for the right occasions, but am generally a sloth… combine this with working all the time with male engineers that love jeans mainly…there is absolutely no motivation yaar :(…
- I am a big sucker for fresh flowers
-I also cannot stand people that try to put down the abilities of a girl child or discourage her in any form.
-I am jack of many trades and master of none – I know Bharatanatyam, learnt a fair bit of Carnatic, learnt quite a bit of painting, am a green belt in karate
Phew!…there…
I am not passing this along to 7 more people because all the people that I interact with on the blogs are already tagged ...
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
Engagement Story
mnamma tagged me on my Engagement Story and here it is ..
It was the end of June 2002 when the first ‘R’ effect happened. I was in the middle of an extremely stressful job search. Marriage was the last thing on my mind. As I have said in previous posts, I was a very career oriented person. The only thing I wanted was to get a job after my Master’s and be independent. So whenever my mom would start the marriage topic, all hell would break lose. I was a very feisty girl and was sure that ‘arranged’ marriage was not for me.
On one of the usual weekend calls back home, my mom mentioned something about a great marriage proposal. She said that our horoscopes matched too very well. As usual I took it lightly and moved on to other things. In a few days I received an ‘About Me’ mail from R. The mail had a very friendly and pleasant tone to it. It did not speak anything about a marriage. All it was was an introduction to him. I was very skeptical and did not want to give him false hopes. I mentioned in my reply mail that it was great getting to know him and gave an intro speech about myself. I ended the mail asking him to expect nothing but friendship at this point since I was in the middle of a stressful phase.
A gentleman that he was (is), replied back offering to help me with my job search and spoke nothing of marriage. So our mails continued back and forth. All this time he was vacationing in India. So he would give me accounts of his travel etc.
While I was totally oblivious to what was going on in India, this is what was happening…my parents went to visit him and his parents. They instantly fell in love with R. I remember my dad telling that R had absolutely no airs about him and it was very very easy to talk to him and to see his straightforwardness. Now my dad likes straightforwardness. So I guess R hit the target alright! They did not have any special photo of mine to show to him, because I did not believe in taking special pictures for marriage prospects. They just showed an existing picture from our family album and R now says that he fell in love with me then ;) (I know..liar!) . When R called my dad before leaving to Houston, my dad asked him to somehow convince me into marrying. He said that his daughter was a brat and it would be up to R’s talent to get me to marry him. Wow...I can’t believe R did not run away and persisted on meeting me after this!
He came back here and after a week or so gave me a call. It was strange hearing his voice for the first time. We started exchanging phone calls (I was in Pittsburgh then) and this went on for a while. Some time in August he asked me if I would like to meet with him.
I wanted a break from my boring life and readily agreed. So we informed our parents that I will be meeting him in Houston.
I came to Houston late August 2002. It was an awkward kind of pleasant feeling when I first saw him. Since we had talked for about a month now, I was more comfortable around him. Now I have to mention that although R is a very charming person he is horrible when it comes to remembering directions. The first thing we did was lose our way in the airport!..yeah..can you believe that? Then he missed an exit on the way to his house and we lost our way again. Some way to impress your future wife! :)
I stayed in Houston for 5 days. We must have driven close to 600 miles in just 5 days, seeing various places and hanging out. All this while, we never spoke a single word about marriage. In some unsaid words, it seemed like we were just made for each other. We complemented each other in many ways. On the final day when it was time to go back to Pitts, R came back a bit late from work. We were chatting and there was a traffic jam, I was late for the flight. I had to miss it and was very upset. We then went to a Starbucks store near his apartment and finally sat down to talk about marriage!!
I asked him all kinds of questions and he did too. I tried to talk to him about all my negatives and tried my best to scare him. His mind was made up and he did not sway one bit. He said that he was in love with me and that he would be very happy if I considered marriage. At some point during our conversation it finally hit me that he was the one for me! The knucklehead that I am, I said that I would go back to Pittsburgh, ‘discuss’ with my parents (I don’t know what there was to discuss) and let him know.
I came back, did not think twice before I made a call to my parents and said that R was the guy for me. My mom just could not believe that I was saying this. She had expected that I would churn through zillions of marriage proposals before I decide. This was the first proposal and I had found my soulmate. I also called R and let him know that I could not wait to marry him :)
As they say ..marriages are made in heaven and I truly believe that you can recognize your soulmate the moment you meet him/her.
It was the end of June 2002 when the first ‘R’ effect happened. I was in the middle of an extremely stressful job search. Marriage was the last thing on my mind. As I have said in previous posts, I was a very career oriented person. The only thing I wanted was to get a job after my Master’s and be independent. So whenever my mom would start the marriage topic, all hell would break lose. I was a very feisty girl and was sure that ‘arranged’ marriage was not for me.
On one of the usual weekend calls back home, my mom mentioned something about a great marriage proposal. She said that our horoscopes matched too very well. As usual I took it lightly and moved on to other things. In a few days I received an ‘About Me’ mail from R. The mail had a very friendly and pleasant tone to it. It did not speak anything about a marriage. All it was was an introduction to him. I was very skeptical and did not want to give him false hopes. I mentioned in my reply mail that it was great getting to know him and gave an intro speech about myself. I ended the mail asking him to expect nothing but friendship at this point since I was in the middle of a stressful phase.
A gentleman that he was (is), replied back offering to help me with my job search and spoke nothing of marriage. So our mails continued back and forth. All this time he was vacationing in India. So he would give me accounts of his travel etc.
While I was totally oblivious to what was going on in India, this is what was happening…my parents went to visit him and his parents. They instantly fell in love with R. I remember my dad telling that R had absolutely no airs about him and it was very very easy to talk to him and to see his straightforwardness. Now my dad likes straightforwardness. So I guess R hit the target alright! They did not have any special photo of mine to show to him, because I did not believe in taking special pictures for marriage prospects. They just showed an existing picture from our family album and R now says that he fell in love with me then ;) (I know..liar!) . When R called my dad before leaving to Houston, my dad asked him to somehow convince me into marrying. He said that his daughter was a brat and it would be up to R’s talent to get me to marry him. Wow...I can’t believe R did not run away and persisted on meeting me after this!
He came back here and after a week or so gave me a call. It was strange hearing his voice for the first time. We started exchanging phone calls (I was in Pittsburgh then) and this went on for a while. Some time in August he asked me if I would like to meet with him.
I wanted a break from my boring life and readily agreed. So we informed our parents that I will be meeting him in Houston.
I came to Houston late August 2002. It was an awkward kind of pleasant feeling when I first saw him. Since we had talked for about a month now, I was more comfortable around him. Now I have to mention that although R is a very charming person he is horrible when it comes to remembering directions. The first thing we did was lose our way in the airport!..yeah..can you believe that? Then he missed an exit on the way to his house and we lost our way again. Some way to impress your future wife! :)
I stayed in Houston for 5 days. We must have driven close to 600 miles in just 5 days, seeing various places and hanging out. All this while, we never spoke a single word about marriage. In some unsaid words, it seemed like we were just made for each other. We complemented each other in many ways. On the final day when it was time to go back to Pitts, R came back a bit late from work. We were chatting and there was a traffic jam, I was late for the flight. I had to miss it and was very upset. We then went to a Starbucks store near his apartment and finally sat down to talk about marriage!!
I asked him all kinds of questions and he did too. I tried to talk to him about all my negatives and tried my best to scare him. His mind was made up and he did not sway one bit. He said that he was in love with me and that he would be very happy if I considered marriage. At some point during our conversation it finally hit me that he was the one for me! The knucklehead that I am, I said that I would go back to Pittsburgh, ‘discuss’ with my parents (I don’t know what there was to discuss) and let him know.
I came back, did not think twice before I made a call to my parents and said that R was the guy for me. My mom just could not believe that I was saying this. She had expected that I would churn through zillions of marriage proposals before I decide. This was the first proposal and I had found my soulmate. I also called R and let him know that I could not wait to marry him :)
As they say ..marriages are made in heaven and I truly believe that you can recognize your soulmate the moment you meet him/her.
P.S: only later did R reveal that he purposely came late from work the day I missed my flight. He wanted to let me know his feelings for me and spend more time with me, so made me miss my flight!...well all's fair in love, so I forgave him :)
and my husband is a great great fan of Rajini. It was the time Baba was about to be released and he sang 'Dippu Dippu Kumari' song.. (YUCK!) for me :) . In trying to fine tune him , I sang a lot of romantic songs like 'Mere Humsafar' in refugee, golden oldies and so on. He finally sang 'Ingi Iduppazhagi' from Thevar Magan for our nalungu...!
Monday, October 8, 2007
Middle Name Tag
First off all I would like to apologize to mnamma for taking quite some time in getting to this tag. I have been basking for some time now. Anyhoo..here are the rules are the rules :
a) The rules must be mentioned in the beginning of the tag.
b) You must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don’t have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had.
c) At the end of your blog post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
If left to my family, they would chose 'sleepyhead' as my middle name..but since its too late in the game ....let me do this tag with my blog name, Dee..
D - Drama : a big time drama happened in my life when I first landed in the US at the O'Hare airport. I was carrying this file folder that had all my critical documents right from birth certificate to my passport. I had to get a connecting flight from Chicago. In the excitement of everything, I placed the folder on my trolley and happily walked off to the connecting flight. This gate was 26 gates away from the gate I landed in. It stuck me in the waiting lounge that I was missing something and once I did realize what it was, I was devestated . I have the memory of an elephant. So I walked back 26 gates (I was new to the place and everybody was a stranger and this airport was so damn big and I had no clue how else to get back to the first gate). I asked everybody I could if they saw my folder. Half the people could not figure out what I was blurting out..but luckily one sweeper said that an air hostess was holding on to a folder she said she had found on a cart. I ran to her with tears almost dropping out of my eyes and asked her if she saw a red colored folder. She had safely kept it and had planned to give it to the embassy!
Man..I could have fallen at her feet for keeping it safe and saving me from going through a ton of crap on my first day in a new country .. away from home for the first time :)
E - Engagement
My engagement day with R is a day I will forever remember. I was in Pittsburgh and he was in Houston. Our engagement was virtually happening in Chennai . R could not meet me because of a deadline at work. But R is the kind of guy that loves to live and enjoy life's moments truely. He all the while told me that he would not be able to make it to Pittsburgh..but on the day of engagement he called me and asked me to come to a place close to where I was staying. I was waiting expecting to see him there...instead I see this huge LIMO! ..out comes my man with a huge boquette of red roses. He took me on a chauffer driven Limo to a high end French restaurant on the banks of Albany river. I had a piano playing for me while he read out a beautiful romantic poem written by him. The whole experience was so totally romantic and hats off to R for making it so special instead of just staying back in Houston and calling up to wish me :)
E - Enthusiasm
My energy and enthusiasm for life has increased a million fold with the birth of Chintu. I have always had these two qualities but combining this with mommyhood is totally something else. Being Chintu's mother is the greatest blessing that God could ever give me and I am sooooo lucky! (touchwood!!!)
I am tagging Sheela and Boo :)
a) The rules must be mentioned in the beginning of the tag.
b) You must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don’t have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had.
c) At the end of your blog post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
If left to my family, they would chose 'sleepyhead' as my middle name..but since its too late in the game ....let me do this tag with my blog name, Dee..
D - Drama : a big time drama happened in my life when I first landed in the US at the O'Hare airport. I was carrying this file folder that had all my critical documents right from birth certificate to my passport. I had to get a connecting flight from Chicago. In the excitement of everything, I placed the folder on my trolley and happily walked off to the connecting flight. This gate was 26 gates away from the gate I landed in. It stuck me in the waiting lounge that I was missing something and once I did realize what it was, I was devestated . I have the memory of an elephant. So I walked back 26 gates (I was new to the place and everybody was a stranger and this airport was so damn big and I had no clue how else to get back to the first gate). I asked everybody I could if they saw my folder. Half the people could not figure out what I was blurting out..but luckily one sweeper said that an air hostess was holding on to a folder she said she had found on a cart. I ran to her with tears almost dropping out of my eyes and asked her if she saw a red colored folder. She had safely kept it and had planned to give it to the embassy!
Man..I could have fallen at her feet for keeping it safe and saving me from going through a ton of crap on my first day in a new country .. away from home for the first time :)
E - Engagement
My engagement day with R is a day I will forever remember. I was in Pittsburgh and he was in Houston. Our engagement was virtually happening in Chennai . R could not meet me because of a deadline at work. But R is the kind of guy that loves to live and enjoy life's moments truely. He all the while told me that he would not be able to make it to Pittsburgh..but on the day of engagement he called me and asked me to come to a place close to where I was staying. I was waiting expecting to see him there...instead I see this huge LIMO! ..out comes my man with a huge boquette of red roses. He took me on a chauffer driven Limo to a high end French restaurant on the banks of Albany river. I had a piano playing for me while he read out a beautiful romantic poem written by him. The whole experience was so totally romantic and hats off to R for making it so special instead of just staying back in Houston and calling up to wish me :)
E - Enthusiasm
My energy and enthusiasm for life has increased a million fold with the birth of Chintu. I have always had these two qualities but combining this with mommyhood is totally something else. Being Chintu's mother is the greatest blessing that God could ever give me and I am sooooo lucky! (touchwood!!!)
I am tagging Sheela and Boo :)
Friday, September 21, 2007
Of Dreams and Nightmares...
Mnamma tagged me on dreams and nightmares and here you go…
There was a time in my life when I was a very sound sleeper and could sleep whenever I wanted to. The arrival of Chintu the great changed all that..quite another story. But here are a few dreams that I can remember vividly because they seemed so real -
* I am playing for the Indian cricket team and I have this HUUUGE crush on Rahul Dravid. I am very shy to talk to him though (duh?!) We are almost on the verge of losing this match against I don’t know who. It’s the last ball and they need 4 runs. The batsman hits the ball far enough almost near the boundary and I run from nowhere (in slowmotion) and dive and get the ball and save the day and the match…all this to impress my Dravid . It cuts off there…I don’t know if I ended up going out on a date with him ;) My husband and brother can’t stop pulling my leg on this one !
* Ooh..here’s a scary one. When I was a teenager, I dreamt that my cousin that is 2 years older to me, murdered somebody and put her in the harmonium box and placed the box under my bed. I was so freaking scared that I refused to get down from my bed and keep my feet on the floor in the morning. I put my feet on the ground only after my dad showed me that the harmonium was in a different place and that there was nothing under the bed. My cousin was short of beating me with a broom for having dreamt that ;)
* I have one dream that has recurred more than 3 times now. I am climbing a flight of stairs that look like those in a temple. I climb up a long was and realize that I am climbing the Thirumala. But half way it changes to a temple I grew up going to in my childhood in Bangalore. I only see a picture of Lord Srinivasa. I am disheartened and walk around the temple only to see Him smiling at me! I wake rrejuvinated after I get this dream. I can decipher a lot of things from this dream…may be I was thinking about Tirupati a lot, may be its time for me to visit India, may be I am homesick...may be He smiled at me after all :)
I can’t remember any more right now. I only hope I get to sleep more, so I can dream more. After all, what can be more relaxing than a pleasant dream? :)
There was a time in my life when I was a very sound sleeper and could sleep whenever I wanted to. The arrival of Chintu the great changed all that..quite another story. But here are a few dreams that I can remember vividly because they seemed so real -
* I am playing for the Indian cricket team and I have this HUUUGE crush on Rahul Dravid. I am very shy to talk to him though (duh?!) We are almost on the verge of losing this match against I don’t know who. It’s the last ball and they need 4 runs. The batsman hits the ball far enough almost near the boundary and I run from nowhere (in slowmotion) and dive and get the ball and save the day and the match…all this to impress my Dravid . It cuts off there…I don’t know if I ended up going out on a date with him ;) My husband and brother can’t stop pulling my leg on this one !
* Ooh..here’s a scary one. When I was a teenager, I dreamt that my cousin that is 2 years older to me, murdered somebody and put her in the harmonium box and placed the box under my bed. I was so freaking scared that I refused to get down from my bed and keep my feet on the floor in the morning. I put my feet on the ground only after my dad showed me that the harmonium was in a different place and that there was nothing under the bed. My cousin was short of beating me with a broom for having dreamt that ;)
* I have one dream that has recurred more than 3 times now. I am climbing a flight of stairs that look like those in a temple. I climb up a long was and realize that I am climbing the Thirumala. But half way it changes to a temple I grew up going to in my childhood in Bangalore. I only see a picture of Lord Srinivasa. I am disheartened and walk around the temple only to see Him smiling at me! I wake rrejuvinated after I get this dream. I can decipher a lot of things from this dream…may be I was thinking about Tirupati a lot, may be its time for me to visit India, may be I am homesick...may be He smiled at me after all :)
I can’t remember any more right now. I only hope I get to sleep more, so I can dream more. After all, what can be more relaxing than a pleasant dream? :)
Monday, September 17, 2007
eScuuuuse me please ....
Everytime I listen to the song 'my name is Ali' from Dhoom 2 , I lose it. The guy pronounces 'excuse me please' as 'eScuse me please'. I just get so mad at him...I feel like holding his collar and screaming at his face...its 'eXcuse me ' dammit! ....aaahh just one of those jobless things I do...:)
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Aruna Sairam
was listeing to Aruna Sairam's rendition of 'Aadaadu asangaadu vaa kanna' (pardon my tinglish)..at one point I was in tears..taken to a different world ...deep into my heart. This lady sure rocks!! Hope to see hear her sing in person some day.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Bob Uncle...
We wanted to outsource the 'fun' activity called lawn moving ever since R started B school. One day we saw an old man mowing a neighbour's yard and asked him if he could mow ours regularly as well. Thus came Mr. Bob into Chintu's life :) He is a 65+ old guy that has been doing this as a profession for years. He is very professional at the same time very friendly. Chintu is crazy about his Bob uncle's lawn mowing. I even got him a toy lawn mower so he could imitate him...and you bet that was and still is a superhit toy.
What I like about Bob is his happy attitude. He mowes off lawns even at this age ...just like that. I feel bad for him on summer days and have asked him to do his work early in the morning or late in the evening, but he does not seem to mind the sweltering heat. He works as a team with his wife. She takes care of the accounts while he mowes the lawns in multiple communities and keeps their income coming. He has gradkids as well...so he has family and is happy. It's just that he wants to be independent. I wish I can have his energy and enthu when I get to his age.....
What I like about Bob is his happy attitude. He mowes off lawns even at this age ...just like that. I feel bad for him on summer days and have asked him to do his work early in the morning or late in the evening, but he does not seem to mind the sweltering heat. He works as a team with his wife. She takes care of the accounts while he mowes the lawns in multiple communities and keeps their income coming. He has gradkids as well...so he has family and is happy. It's just that he wants to be independent. I wish I can have his energy and enthu when I get to his age.....
Friday, August 10, 2007
So much for threading!
So I go to this Indo/Pak beauty parlor once a month to get my eyebrows threaded. I am a regular and have been going there for almost 3 yrs now. I did not take an appointment , so I said that I was fine with anyone doing my eyebrows. A woman probably in her mid forties was scheduled for me and she greeted me with a smile. I thought it done smoothly and quickly as I related her age to her experience. Boy was I wrong or what!
She stared at my eyebrows for a couple of mins. OK...she is making sure she gets the right shape...nice ...nice I thought. She started slowing threading and it took what seemed eternity to get 4 hair from my brows removed. Then she took her tweezers and started pulling the rest of the hair out....OUCH!!!!
I thought she was just tweeking and making the finishing touches...so gritting my teeth I kept quiet. She moved to the other eyebrow and this time no threading at all...direct pulling my hair out.....mummmmiiiiiiieeeeeee!!!! I could not take it any longer...and screamed STOP! ...That must have scared the hell out everybody in the parlor. I asked her why she was pulling the hair out one by one instead of threading . She must have become nervous and called another girl to help with my eyebrows. I apologized to her for screaming out in pain...but I said I am not used to this pulling out each hair thingie. The other girl came and it was done in a jiffy..
I hope she still has her job...she should probably do so facial or something...but definitely not touch anybody's eyebrows ever again!
She stared at my eyebrows for a couple of mins. OK...she is making sure she gets the right shape...nice ...nice I thought. She started slowing threading and it took what seemed eternity to get 4 hair from my brows removed. Then she took her tweezers and started pulling the rest of the hair out....OUCH!!!!
I thought she was just tweeking and making the finishing touches...so gritting my teeth I kept quiet. She moved to the other eyebrow and this time no threading at all...direct pulling my hair out.....mummmmiiiiiiieeeeeee!!!! I could not take it any longer...and screamed STOP! ...That must have scared the hell out everybody in the parlor. I asked her why she was pulling the hair out one by one instead of threading . She must have become nervous and called another girl to help with my eyebrows. I apologized to her for screaming out in pain...but I said I am not used to this pulling out each hair thingie. The other girl came and it was done in a jiffy..
I hope she still has her job...she should probably do so facial or something...but definitely not touch anybody's eyebrows ever again!
Complaining
I can't understand people that are embarrassed (or at least think it is cool and so pretend to be embarrassed) by tradition! I have a girl friend of mine complaining about how looong her Indian marriage was. It sounded something like...' you know how long the Indian marriages are right? You have to sit there hungry half the day and the priest keeps chanting something...blah blah..' .
Get a life folks....hopefully you have only one marriage ...enjoy everything and ask the priest to explain what he is chanting .I did it for mine...and loved the reasoning behind every ritual.
Complaining about traditions is soo not cool. You either find out why they do things they do, or just don't waste your time sitting through it . Just don't complain and think it sounds cool...
bah...just letting off steam!
Get a life folks....hopefully you have only one marriage ...enjoy everything and ask the priest to explain what he is chanting .I did it for mine...and loved the reasoning behind every ritual.
Complaining about traditions is soo not cool. You either find out why they do things they do, or just don't waste your time sitting through it . Just don't complain and think it sounds cool...
bah...just letting off steam!
Monday, August 6, 2007
My ideal day...
...would be a day in the month of Margazhi in Srivilliputtur or some simple village in Tanjore by the Cauveri. I would get up early and have my aromatic cup of filter coffee made by patti. Have a dip in the kolam and dress up in pattu pavadai. Say my prayers and draw a kolam outside ..amma guiding me how to draw. Sit in the kitchen and listen to the relatives talk general stuff. Have dosai for breakfast. Then do some work or help in making lunch. Have paruppu saadam with neigh and vatha kuzhambu in the well made with paruppu saadam, potato curry, appalam, thair sadam and mavadu orukai. Have a short afternoon siesta. Get up and have a cup of coffee and do some artwork. Get dressed with Madurai malli pinned to the braid. Go to the Andaal koil ..pray , eat paal kova/halwa..walk around the temple enjoy the feeel. Come back home, gossip with cousins...help in dinner. Eat. Sit on thinnai and watch people walk around. Read. Have a marudani session and girl chat. Sleep......
Hey ... I might be a mom but I can still dream :)
Hey ... I might be a mom but I can still dream :)
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