10 Random Stuffs I find hard to Tolerate...

1) People being so vain enough to put their own pic as wallie in their cell phones.

2) Showing that you are totally jobless by converting orkut scraps to a chat service!

3) Anonymous friend requests on orkut with the profile being a member of atleast 25 porn communities.

4) Speaking on your mobile and driving..

5) The newly-sprung-retail-chain-supermarkets where every vegetable has to be wrapped in separate plastic covers, be it one small piece of cabbage or 3 lemons! Ever wondered where these plastics go after you dump it in your dustbin??

6) Mallus speaking English with an absolutely absurd sounding american accent -> 'green' sounds something like 'gzheeen' and creme becomes 'czheeem' with a tinge of 'r' somewhere getting lost in between. Of course, I hate the other extreme as well. One who says "oooyil" for 'oil' and 'loan' for 'lawn'!

7) Guys with extra-ordinarily long hair, let loose, looking half like King Cong and half human!

8) Auto drivers - the whole breed - without any specific clauses!!

9) Young girls(or guys) puffing away during breaks in office to reduce stress (??) !!

10) People taking hours to draw out money from an ATM with a long queue waiting behind them.

11) Couldn't stop at 10 as I promised.. :-( I hate FM radio with the jockey never shuttin up her

mouth and going blah-blah-blah...and most of the times playing the same numbers again and again!



(I have more, but I guess I should be a little more tolerant :-) )

Those little yellow sticky notes..

One can't but wonder the significance of those yellow sticky notes these days that you tend to stick in your cubicles, at home, in your kitchen..

The moment you have written down every single thing nagging you into those 2" X 2" bit of paper you feel a sense of relief flooding in, something akin to the feeling you get after 2 hours of pouring out all your worries over the phone with your patient-best-friend listening to you on the other end! Man, its like as though you have a constraint on the amount of things you can store in your head,say certain megabytes,and you want to make sure they are used only to store the most nitty-gritty things of life!

Now, that is the feeling when you have "instantiated a yellow sticky". The next time you see those tiny things trying their best to stick and stay on where they were pinned , you only let out a loud exclamation..followed by a slap on your forehead , followed by a "Ohh $%#@ I forgot!!!"

Soon enough,as days pass by, the yellow notes tend to curl up on their edges as though they are tired of reminding you again and again and are recoiling back accepting their defeat. True, the poor little notes rarely demand your attention on time...most of the time we take note only to tell yourself how we had wanted to get it done today and we forgot!

But still they adorn your walls like those inspirational wallpapers, hoping somebpdy would take a look at them once in a while. I have seen these notes stuck to computer monitors too...so that they are always in sight! But after days of presence, I guess your eyes get used to seeing something yellow out of the corners!

Now coming to the variety of things that get jotted down to be reminded... few people use it for groceries, few others use it for their imporant appointments,tasks at office and a lot other personal to-dos. Now coming to the point where I divulge the source of inpiration for this blog post -> PJ's apartment. A hard-core-yellow-sticky-notes-fan he doesn't do a thing unless its written down in one of those numerous stickies! And me being the curious cat I have always been ,I make it a point to see whats updated in them... and here is what I found one day..without thinking twice I caught it with my mobile cam... :-)) (He is going to skin me alive for this!!!)

Rate my Life!!!

Took this quiz recently from a friends blog and this is how somebody rated my life !! Am not sure if this is right and am even not sure whether I liked the results :-)
Anyways... here they are...

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	8.1
Mind:	7.2
Body:	7.7
Spirit:	7.2
Friends/Family:	6
Love:	9.1
Finance:	8.4
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

The Great Indian Arranged Marriage !

The subject line calls for a blog in itself but lets stack it away for another day and yes,I promise I will pop it one day for a novel post. But today, let me show you what I found in The Hindu dt 22nd Nov,2007, The Metro Plus. Here it goes ...

Games2Win is celebrating the union of two hearts the Indian way. Get hooked and get hitched in “The Great Indian Arranged Marriage” which explores some of the events surrounding marriages today. The game is narrative right from the girl a nd boy talking on the phone for the first time to the wedding reception.
Each level sports a different game – play mechanic starting from the question and answers in the first level which is the “Phone Call”, level two is the “First Date” where selecting the right outfit becomes very important, level three is the “Engagement level”, a classic match where the rings mechanic helps you select the best ring for the bride, level four is the “mehendi ceremony” and is a precision mechanic where you use the mouse to apply mehendi on the brides hand, level five is the sangeet (Musical) this level sports a management mechanic which forces users to manage the stamina of all the people on the dance floor, level six is the actual Lagan (Wedding), the twist to this level is that you have to find the grooms shoes which are hidden in the mandap (Wedding Altar) the final level is the “wedding reception”, here the groom is trying to feed his bride a laddoo but the challenge is to do it without people looking.
All the game mechanics are all controlled by different movements and clicks of the mouse buttons, the game also has a very comic art and music style which consumers whether married or not will really love. Click here to Get Married: http://www.games2win.com/desi/desi_the_great_indian_arranged_marriage.asp

Man, I was stumped!! What games do people play these days!! :-)) So are you clicking to enter wedlock ?? :-D

Washed Away...

And they were gone...almost 4 or 5 pages , 2 of them completely irrecoverable. Through the thick film of tears in my eyes, I looked at them as I traced the fonts gel into one another and smearing the entire page with a light shade of pink. The pages were soggy wet and smelling like a buttermilk factory!

In a hopeless attempt to retreive them, I laid the pages carefully beneath the ceiling fan. The ceiling fan did its best but what was lost was gone forever!

My most precious and one and only cookery book which had ALL the info I had gathered all these months... from mathan elissery to paneer butter masala..were all gone! The utter helplessness that was written all over my face was more than enough to bring a riot of laughter around me... but the loss for me was indeed a great one!

Thankyou Ceiling fan, for trying your best! :-) Here are the results -

Lessons learnt :
1) Never keep your cookery book next to the milk left for curdling. It might overflow and drench your cook book pages!
2) Never take down recipes using an ink-pen or gel pin. Always use a ball-point pen.
3) Never depend on cook books FOR EVER. Coz they are never there FOREVER.

The Aunty - Uncle Phenomenon

Wondering what? Well, get married and you would know. I had anticipated a lot of things that I would have to face once I got married but this one somehow managed to creep out of my list!

My first hand experience was hardly a few weeks after we got married when I was walking with Sand,hand in hand on the pathway just outside our apartment. On pinkie-frockie 2 yr old kid and her boy friend came running behind us screaming "Auntieeeee....please movvvveeeee out of the way...we are playing !!" Their sudden shreiking itself had me jostled and on top of it those kids got me paranoid for another reason... "Aunty????? " and Sand, right in front of me was laughing as though he had read atleast 50 santa-banta series in one shot!
Welcome to the Aunty-Uncle club,all you newly-married people!! Your neighbour's kid will start addressing you as 'Aunty' even though you are only in your early twenties. Get married and for that matter, even an 18 year old will turn into "Aunty" sighhh!! Reminds me of the old Godrej hair dye ad that supposedly addressed a common burning issue!!

The second,third, fourth and n-number of incidents came in quick successions that I started getting really worried! Some relief flooded in when I heard the kids call Sand "Uncle" :-) Soon, if you observe, you find that its not just the kids who call you Aunty but their dotting moms too !!! "Say hi to aunty..." How much more can you tolerate !!
I am a little confused as to what exactly makes you an aunty..coz when I was a kid I used call all ladies wearing a sari as Aunty and the rest as "chechi" (sister in mallu). Or atleast, you had the sense to guess the age! I admit that you don't work out any equation or go through if-else condition in deciding whom to call what, they rather come spontaneously ,but my point was that a little analysis would show that this was how I(or for that matter many of you) concluded.
But on that fateful day, I was in my jeans n t-shirt and if my memory is right, wasn't looking more than my age... sad!! :-(
>Is marriage the culprit??? Yes it is!!
But then another question comes up naturally ...kids make no mistake in identifying if a couple (however young they may look) is married or not!! How do they do that!!! At the ripe age of 24,am still faltering when it comes to conclude if a guy and gal are "just friends" or "much more" !!

Better Blog next time! :-)

Enikku ippo blog ezhuthanam!!

A sudden urge caused due to a fleeting siesmic wave travelling from one portion of my brain to another,added to it Sand's discouraging comment "innu venda...pinne oru day ezhuthikko", am here typing away like crazy!! But still I have not decided what to write on and all I know is that I should blog today! Sounds crazy ? I know and I have noticed, the worst of the worst blogs are created when you have nothing to write and still want to write something. So forgive me if this write-up really doesn't appeal..for a change,am writing for myself and have no readers in mind! :-)
As my clock ticks away, I realise I have exactly the same time in my hand as much it takes for the heater to heat my water for my bath! Which means 3 minutes?
Ok,lets start.

Or rather, let us stop?

Yes,its time to stop!! How long are we planning to run like this?? Till you gasp for air and die a painful death?

You start pondering about your life and what is not your life when you realise you are hurrying as if there is no tomorrow! And when those musings come up too frequently, you should take the symptoms , for your life is asking you some precious time for yourself. You don't pay heed and continue the rat race cos you know there is no stopping until you win and the ironically,you don't even realise that sometimes you are already winning!!

Soon you start discussing with like-minded people about how we are hurrying about in life and those like-minded people whom we call friends ask us to "take a break" . Now "taking a break" is easier said than done! What exactly is "taking a break" these days?? Can you take a break from deadlines? Can you take a break from the mundane tasks of cooking and house-keeping? Can you take a break from checking your e-mails every 4 minutes? Can you take a break from scrapping your friends in orkut and chatting on gtalk?

You realise things that make up your life carries you so fast in its wave that its hard to stop the over-powering current from swallowing you. And you just flow on and on, not knowing where the waves are taking you.

And thats when you think of quitting your present job ...and searching for a "better offer" :-D

PS-1 : - Am not planning any job-change now, if this is wa=hat crossed your mind just now....its just observing a general trend :-)

PS-2 : As I told, I feel sick reading my post -> really bad write-up...but I did write some(no)thing !

Monday in School...

This is the story I wrote for the short story contest in office today.. and coincidently it happens to be the first story I have penned in my life :-)

Little Neha never liked Mondays. She wondered why God had made a day thats not liked by just about anybody she has met in life.Mondays always seemed longer than any other day. Not just longer, they felt depressingly darker somehow.Mondays usually had you writing exams, submitting homeworks and sometimes, PTA meetings too!And as if all those were not enough to hate mondays, the Bangalore Traffic Jams, as daddy says!

And today was not just-another-monday, Neha knew. Her mom was back with her this weekend after a long span of 6 months in the US. Neha had pleaded her to take her along when her when her mom said she was to go onsite for 6 months. "In which country is onsite in mommy?" ,Neha had asked her, in between her sobs.. and mommy had laughed and taken her in her arms and said "No dear, onsite is not a place... Am going to work for a while in US for my company and that is called onsite".

She was so happy to have her mom back soon! Her grandma and grandpa had come from Chennai on Saturday and they had gone to pick her Mom from the airport on Sunday morning.

It had been a hectic weekend for little Neha. She had planned lot of surprises for her mom. Saturday was spent with Dad and Neha going around shopping for groceries, something that Neha used to love doing with her mom before she left. She would carefully pick up packets from the shelves and take a good look at whatever is written at the back, imitating her mom,
though she rarely understood anything.. but it made her feel like mommy and she loved the feeling! After taking care to pick up few packets of chikkis for her mom, she returned home and collected all her toys scattered around and put them neatly into her box.

Neha hardly slept on Saturday night thinking about all the things she planned to do once her mom is back home. She woke up her grandma time and again to ask if it was morning. She didn't remember when she slept, but was already awake and looking at the hands of the clock when grandma came to wake her up in the morning.

On Sunday she was ready even before her dad! And she stood next to the car and screamed "Daddy, come soon..we are going to be late!!" While she waited, she shouted in glee at the newspaper boy "My mama is coming today!!", and then at guy who supplied milk, at the watchman , at the uncle next door...!!

And when mom landed, Neha was running helter-skelter! She ran into her arms and hugged her mom, not speaking a word! Ah, mom's smell is so special! She was too happy to even speak!!

Back at home, the existence of dad,grandma and grandpa was completely ignored by little Neha and she was always with her mom. She did everything she had missed doing in the past 6 months.. she sang to her mom all the new songs she had learnt, mom made Neha her favourite cookies, they went out and had ice creams and then her mom read to her in the night and was at her bed side till she slept.. It was a perfect day!

Monday morning it is... Neha felt like crying out loud.. "Its not fair, I don't want to go to schoolll!!" but mom wouldn't listen. It had been raining heavily since the night before and it was quite cold.Neha remembered she had not done any of the school works in the weekend and her Dad had also completely forgotten about checking her school diary amidst all the weekend rush.

"Mommy, I have not done my English homework and the teacher is going to beat me.. You won't believe it, she beats really hard..I don't want to go...". Mom was not budging at all. She gave another pleading look at grandma knowing her heart would melt. "Let her stay at home Padma, after all she is a small kid". Neha nodded her head and with an even more sad face, she looked up at her mom again to see the response. Hmm.. no way! With a sunken heart she packed her bags and left to school in the rain.

In the bus,as she watched people on the roads with umbrellas, she thought of all the good times spent yesterday and then about her English teacher who is going to beat her soon. Neha never liked her English teacher, but yes, she hated Mondays more.

In the English class, ma'am walked in. Neha was scared to even wish her. She was the famous terror in her school.The kids never liked her because she never hesitated in beating them! Neha's throat was going dry. Teacher began looking into the notebooks of the children in the first bench.. one after the other..Neha was in the 3rd bench. As her turn was fast approaching, Neha was sweating though it was cold and damp outside.

She could hear the teacher getting angry at Rahul for having made a lot of mistakes. Tina was beaten and she began crying. Arun was sent out of the class because he didn't do his. She even said she wants to meet his parents.Peter, who sat next to Neha was fumbling with the pages when ma'am asked him his notebook. "GET OUT OF MY CLASS" she screamed and the whole class froze in silence. Peter was inconsolable.

Neha thought she would burst from within, the tension was mounting so high!

"Excuse me,ma'am. There is a message from the principal to all students" , Rajan uncle, the peon in the office was at the door. Ma'am took the paper from his hand and read out aloud to the class "On account of heavy rain in the city, considering the safety of students and members of staff, all classes have been suspended. Everybody is requested to leave the school premises and board the school buses rightaway and go home."

"Children,please go and board the school bus and return home... there are no classes today".. For a moment, Neha's face turned expressionless. Then all of a sudden she got up and screamed.."Yeeeeaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.." in joy!!

Soon enough the whole class was jumping with joy!! The teacher was also looking at the little ones and joining in thier celebrations... Everything had changed in a split second!!! Neha looked out through the glass panes as the rains lashed outside and whispered to herself
"thankyou rain!! Mondays are not so bad " and gigggled to herself.

"Pls take an Orkut Photo for me...! "

Thanks to orkut, we have few new words to add to the dictionary. A friend of mine has made a remark on the word "scraps" but more than anything, I think its the word "orkut Photo" thats catching up fast in people's lingo..

Lets try examining what type of word it is..
Of course,its more of an adjective to the word photo.. "Da,pls take an orkut photo of mine .." which means it should be good enough to be put as a profile picture in orkut. As a matter of fact, in order to call a photo "orkut photo" ,it should satisfy the following criteria -

1) Even if I look like a mirror-cracking material in real, in an orkut photo I should like the hero/heroine right out of a sugar-coated-lovey-dovey H(B)ollywood movie.

2)The background should be perfect.. Preferably looking very similar to European countryside or New York skyline. If they can't be met, its alright,pls refer to point no : 4 for a solution.

3)There should be a touch of professional charm in the photography .. you know,something like showing you in a silhoutte with a tiny ray of sun peeping out beneath!

4) For guyz, you get extra points if the photo is taken to show a jazzy car/bike along..and for girls, its any photo where they are decked up like the ladies in kyon ki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi or for that matter, any other K-serials of Ekta Kapoor ...

5) For a handful of people, this kind of photo is taken in such tricky a way that you-will-know-its-me-but-you-can't-see-my-face... like creatively wearing a mask, taking the photo in such a way that only a portion of your face is seen (and the pose looks so natural sometimes!) These people fall in those category where they are strictly forbidden to put their photo in orkut after their worried parents/spouses read about orkut crimes (now, that will soon be another new word !) in newspapers.

6) Orkut photo also happens to be updated very frequently, like ones resume !

A recent trend in orkut photo culture is that people tend to have a "status message" along with their names where they mention if their album has been updated today or not! And then there is a swarm of activity in their scrap books "you look choooo cute yaar" blah-blah...
If you are going on a holiday, few pics are shot mandatorily just to make them candidates for orkut photos and after 5 rounds of heavy rigorous screening which is capable of scaring even our historic Abhimanyu , one of them gets to be "The chosen one". And what follows is another couple of rounds of editing contrast,lighting,removing red-eye blah-blah until the expected degree of "glamourism" is achieved!
All said and done, it would have taken half of your day...and with a satisfied smile you upload your "orkut foto", only to realise that your best friend whom you located recently is still looking at the glamorous "orkut foto" and wondering who you are!Here you are,listing down in his public scrapbook all those moments in your life that were too embarassing for words just to help your weak-memoried friend map the ugly-duckling in school to the glam-doll in the "orkut foto" ! Sigh! :-) But life goes on...

Happy Orkut Photography!

One more to the list...

No comments this time. The pic says it all..

Voila!! Yet Another Crap!!!!! [Contd.. Its Italian! ]

If nothing makes sense...read this first.. and this.. and then the following.. Huh??? Call it 'Italian Makeover' or 'Getting Duped at the cost of 75 lakhs' whatever!!!!!


Italian Hobs and chimneys could be something great..but not when manufactured locally... !!! An Italian price tag is not what we mean by Italian, dude!

See ...I told u so!!! [ Contd .. Its Italian]

I spoke of the Italian thingie yesterday and see what I chanced upon today at Cosmos Mall .... Am now on a look out for more such crappy ads...so keep watching this space for more updates..


How Italian (and designer for that matter!) can a simple dessert get??????????? Hello....we are not so dumb!!!!

Its Italian !

From flooring tiles to electric chimneys to kitchen hobs to modular kitchens,these days its Italian all the way!! The reason the vendors give for quoting such an unearthly flabberghasting prices for commodities that are from never-before-heard-brands are that "They are Italian ma'am" (as though that gives any reason for you to pay more for something that a trusted indian brand can give for one fourth the price he said!)

Now whats it about this "Italian"-mania that has caught up with people like wild fire? How did this wave come up? And are they genuinely Italian?? How diferent is its quality when compared to the indian brands? Is it really worth all this hype??

As far as I understand (from the research that Sand and I have done in the past one year on building materials and furnishings) there is absolutely no difference at all. Moreover, Indian brands are much superior in quality and I doubt if their claims about the product being Italian is really genuine! And the supposedly "italian brands" all land up only in the city's huge showrooms located in posh areas where the sight of a customer buying their product is itself a remotely rare incident! And its only natural for vendors like this to brand their products as "italian" and place a smart price tag too , for how else are they intending to pay for the huge rents for having their showroom in posh areas!

While on our way back home after a drive in the city on a weekend, I was looking around for a shop that sells glass for doing a glass painting.. Passing through Indra Nagar, there was no shop that I could see which saw a potential. Finally I noticed a huge art gallery , obviously empty , and pondered aloud about giving it a try..and Sand exclaimed.. " Hey no, not there...that looks like the places we have seen where a mere Rs 25 glass-piece would cost like Rs 400 and they would put all the blame for the huge cost on the "Italian finish and processing" ... " That says it all I guess .. :-)

PS : Am not against anything genuinly Italian. No room for controversies here please !

Cooking for Dummies - The 10 point Mantra!

1) Before you start off anything,DO NOT check if you have all the ingredients. If you do so,believe me, you will not only end up having cooked nothing but also doubly hungry than what you were 2 hrs ago.

2) As a corollary to the above, it is a fact that you are never in posession of all the ingredients mentioned in the recipe. And DON'T even try to fetch them from somewhere!Its a waste of time! This was my first important lesson.

3) If the missing ingredients happen to be scattered mostly in the top portion of the recipe in the book, it means you are in danger.. (you are trying to make a chicken biriyani without chicken!). Instead if they are towards the bottom,breathe easy, leaving them out is purely harmless !

4) If you have decided to cook something, don't even think twice! Cook it!

5) While cooking non-veg, rely on those Meat Masalas to save your day! They make up for your bloopers very well! :-)

6) Keep stirring like crazy.... non-stop !!!!! :-))))

7)Keep your recipes out-of-reach of your victims so that you don't give them too much of hope and they don't know what exactly were you attempting to cook! (If the victim happens to be somebody who knows what exactly we possess and what we don't,then surely don't allow him/her to take a look, cos its people's nature to notice what is not than what is.. human
psychology ;-) )

8) Keep your utensils squeaky-clean. This way you earn trust of your victims ! This also slightly lessens their tension and helps them to relax (atleast,until they actually taste it!) ;-)

9) If the dishes get really bad, serve them in your bestest bowls (aesthetic appeal does a lot to soothe the strength of "de-complimenting" ;-) )

10) Finally, if you are lucky enough to get a pass score ,make sure you let the world know of it! Move the contents to a jazzier serving bowl, garnish it with anything that you lay your hands upon,take snaps from all angles and multiple lights ,send it across to all of your friends, declare it on your blog (if possible, update your orkut album too!!) ... phew! we are not done yet.. use your mobile fones buddies...call up friends and send sms!!!!

Once done with all this circus, bow to your audience and thank your victims for having co-operated :-D

Happy Cooking....Be a Winner!!!

PS :- Sorry Sand.., But I know u still love me :-p

Why Everybody needs a Mom like Mine!!!! :-))

Mom was quite shaken when she discovered that she had one of the most deadliest "PJ sense" ..I think it was around the time when my bro was in college... He called it a kind of "parallel thinking". Am strictly prohibited from listing down any of her PJ's on my blog (In fact,she doesn't even want me to tell it to my frnds coz she thinks its awkward for moms to crack PJs!!)
Yesterday, in between the rain of test sms-es I was getting from her (She was learning to type/send sms yesterday!!) ,I msged back asking her to contribute something for my blog if she was free. And here is what she wrote for my blog....

(Its entirely un-edited)
----------------------------------------------------------
Hi Beti,
Sub:- Mother of a Bloggist(blogger-bloggistsariyalle?)
Once upon a time there lived a bloggist.She lived wth her Mother blogger &Father.Blogging is her hobby & she asked everybod towrite blogs.One day poor Mother blogger tried to blog& fell asleep.The moral of the story is anybody who wants to sleep may write blogs. 'Kutty karayenda.' I liked yourblogs.Especially about your mother,about the cookingskills you have inherited from your mother etc .I went30 years back when I started my experiments in the kitchen. Poor Dad,Now poor Sandy. Anyway carry onwith cooking & blogging.Photograph of girl playing inrain looks nice.I want to see you. .Please come & haveChoodu kappa & meen curry.
I told Etta that I am goingto write blog for Soo."Enikku vayya " ennuparanju.Avan onnum vayikkarilla ennu paranju. Naanpavamalle.Ithu porey.
Bye
Mom.
-----------------------------------------------------------
And I guess now u know why I say "Ende mommy oru rakshayumilla"!!! :-))

I love the rains coz....

The skies are cloudy today and it looks like we will have a downpour here tonight.. At last!! Today's post might look very silly and 6-yr-oldish but can't help it..am in such a dunno-wat-to-do-so-bored mood!
So here we go...

I love it when it rains coz..

-> I love watching the dark clouds covering up the skies ready to burst any moment. And that moment when the first big drop of rain splatters on my arm, I am reminded that I have no umbrella with me and that am wearing the newest and my favourite-st clothes which had a tag "Dry-clean only" ... The feeling of utter helplessness as you look around for a shelter not there combined with the glee as it starts pouring is a strange feeling a lil similar to the one you have had when u faced that question paper on computer organization and design back in 4th semester and you saw that all the questions were "out-of-syllabus" and you didn't have a clue as to what they are asking you to elaborate for 15 marks!!! All you did then was look around and giggle. Same here when you are soaked to you skin...

-> I love the smell of the damp earth. It makes me look too poetic and romantic, but naah... just that somehow it makes me want to go home :-(

-> Mom makes kappa-meen curry then for sure !!! A hard-core kappa fan ,my mom sees to it that we have a steaming kappa and spicy meen curry awaiting us when we get back home drenched completely...yummmmyyyy..

-> Most of the time we have the famous power failures!!! And its time to curl up in the bed with a warm blanket and pillow.. No wonder power failures were such a "Most Wanted Phenomenon"!

-> Rains might bring a rainbow... one more thing which I can keep watching until it disappears.. Last week ,I was in the company bus at 6 when I noticed a beautiful rainbow looking like a bridge between two towers. I tried showing it to a girl from the same stop who was sitting next to me.. "Look , there is a rainbow.."..She looked around and asked me "A what?? Where?" .. I said again .."A Rainbow...see there..looks nice na..".. She looked took one look at it and said "Haa..yeah...rainbow" and returned to listenig to the chattering of RJ's on her cell. Got so annoyed.. rainbow vs RJ, RJ wins??? Too bad!!! :-(

-> You are relieved to know that if God himself cries at times (naah..thru out the season!) , its alright for u too to shed a few :-p

Like Daddy Like Daddy-in-Law!

The conversation was turning very interesting one day...Sand and I were discussing about childhood days and the topic carelessly swirled to our dads.. And it didn't take long for us to keep exclaiming "hey, my dad used to say/do the SAME THING when we were kids" after every new point we discussed abt our dads... Surprisingly,the points we noted were in no way helpful to conclude that all daddies around the world were the same coz the similarities we noticed were not something that you would readily tag as a daddyish-behaviour...they were more or less character specific traits,rather than a role-specific trend. AT the back of my mind,I had already decided to blog about this... And here goes the points:

1) Both our dads NEVER EVER used to get us Pepsi/Coke/or any aerated drinks for that matter,when we were young. For me, the restriction went as far as to my teens.

2) Chewing Gum was a strict ban. No matter how efficiently you list down the names of dads of your friends who don't have a blanket-ban on gums, its not going to work here.A ban is a ban is a STRICT BAN !

3) Sand and I,both, had one long-term Homeo doc (not the same) who used to be at our aid when we were running temperatures or when we showed symptoms of measles. He was always The One and Only Doc trusted by our dads.. And the tiny sugary pills were the only medicines that were given to us for a long time in childhood! (One more common point : both of us loved the pills!!:-D )

4) Sea was always a nightmare for both our dads when we were kids (or even in our teens ). Even wetting our legs was a result of a deal made in half-an-hour after we have decided if the legs are to be made wet one inch above the knees or half an inch below. :-)

5) Both our dads used to love getting us masala dosas when we went out in the evening... There was hardly any room for a second thinking when asked what we wanted ! :-) And strangely, ice creams were also in the pls-avoid list for both our dads!! And stranger still, we never protested too !

6) Both our dads love the same fruit :Bananas ! 'Nothing like Bananas' was the common punch line that was mentioned on a daily basis and once this is said, the rule goes without saying that you are supposed to eat atleast 2 after your dinner so that "the loo-blues" are avoided!! :-S

7) "Train-il poyaal cutlet venammmm " :-) And dads ,though try to make us understand that they are made in unhygienic conditions, have to relent to the cries!

8) Both our dads are the "trusted-unofficial career consultant" for many a worried parent of a Standard Xth student and both have a soft corner for the engineering stream and make it a point to suggest a rigorous entrance coaching at trissur from the famous Mr.P.C.Thomas's when asked what stream is the best for their son/daughter who has scored a 98% in their boards!

So much said and done , the discussion was such a relief for both us....coz when you realise that your daddy in law is no different from your own dad , you can be sure that a blog on this would be met with a safe response from either sides and that you needn't duck your head!!!! :-))

Love ya Daddy and Daddy-in-law!

Is Google Sexist???????

I got this mail from a friend which went on to say that Men have finally won over women and that there is a proof..I thought it must be yet another mail thread where in the whole of the women clan is made to look like a world of blondes ! (Now, I don't have anything against the blondes... I want no controversies here!! Its just that "blondes" have almost become synonymous to ..err..well..."blessed-with-brains-yet-unaware-of-its-presence" kind) . As I scrolled down, I expected pics of how women hvae parked their cars in never-before manners or how they have rammed into somebody else's car (women's driving skills are always in question!!! ) blah-blah... and finally a note to fwd it to "all the men in the world to prove we are superior and to all women who have a good sense of humour" ...well said... !
But no, instead this is what I found... Try typing "she invented" in google search and see the outcome...

Makes me wonder.... Is google a sexist???? :-((

Flash News : Absconding Blogger found in a new marital status!

Am back! After a long period of absence from (b)logam, I thought I needed a break from the busy life I was living! The last note of indication that I was alive happened on Dec 19th..after that life was whroooooommmm!!!! On Jan 21st, I got married to my best(est) friend, we moved to our new home on Jan 30th, honeymooned in Goa,Delhi and Manali and got back after a nice luxuriously pampered holiday, on Feb 10th, sun kissed and full of enthu ... only to be bit by the reality ---> " OUR NEW HOME " sounds romantic enough, but the flip side of the coin reveals the 2 BHK's pathetic condition ... the word "new" in "Our new home" is a far call to being romantic, unless it happens like in the ads on TV where the hero brings in the heroine blind-folded into the new house and the moment he unfolds her, the song sequence flows in .. "yeh he mera ghar..mera hamsafar.." and the heroine takes alook around at the beautifully lit house,sparkingly clean and decorated...hugs the hero and the name of the Paints come on the screen! For the two of us,the house was still very much terrifyingly new...which roughly translates to something like the moment you open the main door,you should be closing your nose rather than your eyes coz you are greeted with a cloud of dust.. step in with your right foot forward and as you move on, you will turn back and see that you have indeed lovely foot prints against the film of cement powder on the floor.

So with both of us literally "biting the dust", there was nothing other than dusting, vaccuming, cleaning, mopping, dusting, cleaning, mopping, again vaccuming, shopping, more shopping, still more shopping, exchanging shopped items, transfering goods here and there, bringing our things to the 3rd floor taking the stairs coz the lifts were not functional...phew!!! In one week, with the able support from my mom and dad, we were almost settled.. (and so had the dust!)..

Soon the kitchen had some activities going on ..Thanks to mom! Every other day on my way back in the bus I would remind myself that I will have to do the cooking once mom goes back to Kerala and so learn to cook atleats one dish today! But sadly enough, by the time I reached home, point one ,I would be dog tired after being mentally over powered by 2 major traffic jams and a mosquitoe laden bus.. point two , mom would have already got the dinner ready! :-(

After a week's no-responsibilities-yet-married (!!) state of bliss, my dad and mom left to Kerala (boo-hoo!!) and the truth stuck me.. The kitchen is under my jurisdiction ! With the highly infectious compliments from hubby dear ( I taste the curry and say...wow..it tastes amazing... and he tastes it and I wait and watch his expressions and look away only after I make sure that he starts feeling "wow..it tastes amazing" :-)) ) I managed to have a good start with veggie dishes and during an auspicious weekend, I laid my hands on fishes as well. The Success Story in the Kitchen was taking me to the seventh heaven and the feeling of pride was as obvious as the taste of salt in my dishes and ploooooop...one day 2 nice juicy pieces of neimeen turned to karimeen ( :(( --> karimeen = karinja + meen )! That one incident was enough to bring me down from a feeling-of-high aka Am-I-Tarla-Dalal !

After 3 months,am still picking up the basic lessons of cooking..I have 2 books that I hold close to my heart for survival--> both self authored by a famous cook back home (yeah, my mom!) which gives me detailed instructions like no one can give (Eg : Take 3/4th spoon of salt if you are using the spoon inside your salt dabba or take 1 spoon in case you are using the new ones we bought from ******* super market! Or in another instance, she says, take the dal from the
jars on the left cup-board ,so that I don't demonstrate my famous dal-indentification-knowlege (or lack of it) !)

So life has been treating me good...and so has my husband :) (News about my "animal husbandry" (!!) would require yet another blog...so am saving it for the next time...I have loadddddsss to tell you !!)

And in case you thought I was sticking to my home..naah... am back at work too...and juggling the 2 totally different "applications" decently well :-))

Time for me to make dinner now...Catch u on another day...Till then...Take care... and Get married soon... (Believe me,all those nasty quotes of weddings are nothing but media-hype ;-) Actually,its great!!)