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.

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.....

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!

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!

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 :)