There is one place on this earth where the rain choose to fall not in its usual liquid style but change its form and settle on the trees . it started like this that the hard work of the clouds and air was getting wasted by getting absorbed into the earth . So the escapist rain befriended the chilly freezable winds in the north and blew them first and came by slowly when it was the right time for a vacation and started to fall in a white cloudy manner . The first few hours are a wonder and awe and you seem to see the whole thing in wonder for ever . But then after the awe comes the wonder of Why Why ? Why ?

So if the winter in minneapolis is to be described then there is just one line for it . It is the place where the gods have given permission for the rain god to stand and enjoy the nature . To be on the leaves on the trees, the houses , on the cars and rusting them , on making the beautiful lake to one solid ..the wonders just keep coming all the way.

..and officially today is the 6 month mark of my dad passing away..its like yesterday and its still like he is some where around . Missing him like a bee misses its honey . Missing his talk , his walk , his philosophy , missing his sarcasm , his affection , his driving , his energy , his spiritual talk , his smile , love , his calls , his voice ..everything abt him. Where do all dead people go ?

..I think we are a family who are prone to undergo shocks and disappointments on regular basis.

..but the hand beside me seems to push me further along the path . Its like going in circles and

circles.

..I see a lot of HGTV here which is mainly ( no guesses ) about housing , architecture and decor. ..and now i am really jealous because the houses are soooo beautiful and spacious . The house just sprawls and crawls , and you are just a small peck inside it . There are Living rooms , Dens , a spacious kitchen , Game rooms , the basement , the laundry room , half baths , full baths , Master bedrooms , children's bedroom , lawns , gardens ..really beautiful ...

but coming back to the ground and family living inside it , its a full family job .I mean no one can sit just without doing anything .There is work for every one inside it . There is carpet cleaning , lawn moving , trash throwing , garage cleaning , ..though these are not to be done on daily basis . But still it is every body's job and dream .

..but still still still life comes from people and oh! people . And a big house without any noise can be depressing enough to run away from it .Everything has a price . ..and loneliness is the price for BIG houses .

Huh!

The best way to be over a man is to be under another man!

-The greatest American saying i have heard .

..The week end saw us traveling in a rented luxury car to Waukeesha to hubby's College friends for the B'day celebration of their two year old daughter . Everything went fine and it was a good experience to travel in the luxury and the distance which we covered normally in 5 hrs was covered in 4 hrs . you just sit in the car and close your eyes and you can forget that you were traveling actually.

...now cmng to the point I am just a graduate in my education . I did not do any post graduation . The three people who were sitting around did their MS from good colleges in US and their conversations revolved around people who have done good and not so done well and not done well . So anyways I was the odd man out there and continuously felt that prick . Husband called it near to zealousness and I could not help it .I mean i did not try to contradict it and just let it pass . My point was all people do not have their lives in a platter like they had and i left it it at that. The first highest prick point was of course their continuous comparisons of US and India , you know how NRI 's can talk .traffic comparisons , infrastructure etc., Agreed US is far ahead from our country but it is home for me . The second highest prick point was when his friends wife was telling about some one in the party group has come there just like her 6 years back and how 'they' all have studied there .and how they all have settled there ..and i had to comment like 'So cute ' and smile .

I am supposed to be jealous so I will leave it at that.

.. after reading blogs for such a long time ..i think its the time to say ..Its enough now . I mean I am really not interested now in the thoughts , ideas and family life of other people . Their ideas of life, views about all things , I mean its over. I have deleted some of the blogs links form my page and I have kept only those which are of some worth. So that's it .

..again and again the wording and messages of the Gods point to the simple message He wants us to understand .. Be thankful for the Existence . Fo what ever situation and conditions you face , dont chicken ..if you have a smaller plan in mind He has the larger plan and you will fit in at the end . Its like for a cake to bake well everything needs to happen in its time mixing , baking , icing and decorating . So wishing everything to go well for everyone .

..and while we flit through the questions on life like why should we be the one to stand and face things ..there are people who are overcoming things like this ..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8365834.stm

..so go back now .

Hello there ,

Hope all are doing fine ? yeah i am surviving too . Well I wanted to share some thing today . I have been reading a book recently after a very boring so called mystery novel though actually it sounded like some kind of subdued comedy of M&B book to be correct . Anyways i picked this new book which is called 'Beyond the Blonde' written by a hairstylist sorry colorist Kathleen flynn -huii ..and thanks to this book i have been googling , using Wiki , and google images and may be i have hit some 1000 (!!) times till now to understand the hair styles , designers and came across some very good links which i give below .

Now what do we know about the 'Dear Abby' hairstyle ..google it and you will come across some thing interesting but the baap of all the links is this :

http://www.highonhair.com ..just go through this to understand the level of coloring that white people want to do to their hair..it is unthinkable for us asians .

..and also this interesting thing of interior decoration which set me thinking..

http://www.ohdeedoh.com/ohdeedoh/how-to/how-to-decoupage-with-lorena-simonovich-049459

you see i am reading all kinds of crap...

Saree cravings

.. there are cravings of many sorts ..people who want love have chocolate craving...it is said people in the cold countries crave cheese ..may be better read this

http://vegrd.vegan.com/pages/article.php?id=1489

and in the same way these days when i see our Tollywood songs like this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtyqYL5OIXQ&NR=1

I have saree cravings not that she is best in the sarees but because this is the kind of day when i would actually like to wear a Saree and hop around as if I am the most comfortable person in it.

Dressing up lifts the mood of any down person and it has been proved many times about it . A good dress with make up ( if you are up to it ) does magic to people ..Goshh i am missing it!

Lately i have observed that i have an obsession to houses , i mean it's just not a clean house but when i browse through all the channels on the TV i just stop at the shows which focus on home-make overs , home furnishing , flower decorations ( though i really it's a pity that they have to cut so many flowers for some stupid charity or marketing strategy ) . I suppose many people like to do it , but i have to give it a serious thought about this whole thing , may be do some course for that ..what you say ? By the way the channel I watch is called HGTV , i think quite famous here.

and on second thoughts i never saw myself kill time so much doing all useless things , i mean so much . At every stage in life there were so many things happening even when I was at home but this long gap seems to be never ending .

:-)

There's some thing sweet about a husband who comes into the house whiffing air and guessing whats for lunch .

Well actually this post has no meaning except to smile ( a big one ) at the compliment that a friend has given over my blog and my writing . a Big thank you and wait for my surprise call there . I desperately want to make this a public blog and enjoy some viewership and lime light . ( !!!!! ) , but i have to close so many posts to public reading that the task seems too cumbersome .

So again cmng to the point what am i actually doing in life ? Yes the boring question which has so many ambiguous answers that sorting through them will take a life time but looking with a squited eye , i can see that i am reading a book , and i make aloo -paratha ,( done with the dough thankfully , thanks also to friend M and Manjula's kitchen ;) ) , wait for some one to knock the door by , try to go anywhere if they just ask me casually ' What are you doing ' and before they hang up i am at their door step , got the general idea ?! , procrastinate the things which might actually help me to eternity like reading some thing meaningful to 'some time later jeee' , click on all the blogrolls even if it an old post to read ( desperate to pass time ) , clean , use the dish washer with a vengence (!!) , eat, watch TV ( a small info : An average American sees 4.9 hours of TV per day ) which actually made the thing repulsive ( yuck ) ) and finally sleep .

..and also to remind people that duniya gol hain tho paisa bhi gol hain , ghoom phir ke ek hi jageh pe aayenge bhai! samjhe kya ! duniya ka tareeeka hain yeh bhai !Samjha karo!

New blogrolls

..I just started to write a post wanting to crib about life in general and why this agni -pariksha of shoving empty time and space on the face and the general tired ness of being in life . then I wondered if an animal in capture is in capture because of its foolish ness and nobody is to be blamed other than the animal ? or is it like the other day statement of hubby when he said ' whats the purpose of life and i could not laugh within my self at the statement because it needed to come from me .

So yes guys whats the purpose of life and is it the non appreciation of the good things around you or the no recognization of the house above your head and the food in your plate ? so what is it that drives a person with job and a person without job to the same question of ' what is the purpose of life ?' .

Coming to that i saw a website by a group of foreigners on arunachaleshwar in TN where they seem to have found god . And coming to that why is it that when we have prayed right from the beginning of life till here could not see the power of god as they seem to see it ?
Why ?
http://arunachalagrace.blogspot.com/

..and since i have ultimately ventured into this let me also share or heck let me blogroll this :

http://nithyaevents.blogspot.com/

The clean house

..people who know me from a closer point know that i am a slightly obsessive cleaner not the OCD cleaner , but some one who more than once cleans the kitchen i would rate a obsessive cleaner for sure ..and i watch a pro gramme called 'The clean house ' in TV these days . Have been watching for some time now and it is funny the way i go about the pro gramme. There are two episodes about which i was impressed and let me tell you the way of the americans here before we start writing anything . 90% of them are shop-o-holic i mean for an average Indian like me where we think twice to buy anything the shopping here can drive crazy and the way amercians can buy and store things is like ' woaaah ' for me .

So there is this family with the 85 year mother-in- law , a chirpie grand daughter ,another daughter who does not live in the house because of the mess and the father of the house who is junk collector . The chirpie daughter is a ballerina and is the person who calls the clean home team and as all the episodes go about the team has tough time walking in the room to assess the clutter . The girl has ballerina dresses from the age of 4 , the MIL has stuff dating back to the 1930's , and the item of the house the father has the most junk of the house for eg., two dish washers , two black hammers etc., everything in two which he has bought to use if the first get screwed up ...

..and the motive behind writing the post is to observe my sense of satisfaction when i see the house getting decluttered ..i relish and enjoy every moment of the episode and the process of the decluttering is like, as if i am with the team doing the work with them . I enjoy the act of throwing things and coming to the point of that i enjoy throwing things in the kitchen , inside the dust bin when i am done with them ...pooh ..! What do you call this syndrome ?

But one thing is for sure that each american has such a strong individualism and they carry their style with them . It 'sa culture where individualism is appreciated and inter-dependence is discouraged to the edge . So each episode in clean house i get to see the family habits and junk storage of things connected to their personality and blah blah..

..there are some people who are exploring the peaceful waves of sringeri and i am missing the starlit sky of a midnight 5 years back where the gods have wedded under the careful eye of caretaker . To be more clear i miss the sringeri trip we went 5 year back where girija kalyanam took place under srngeri bharathitheertha swamiji where at the strike of 12 midnight the lord took the hand of her highness and intertwined his fingers with naughty twinkle and the skies showered a slight drizzle to make the picture complete . Will i forget the day ?!! Nope .

..Mom and gang are there now and seem to njoy the serenity and splendor of karthika pournami where the whole village and all the small temples are decorated with lamps .

So this picture for you .

.. the clouds are looking over bearing and seem to offer no hope of a good sun for ages to come by and winter is setting itself in all its glory happy to tear every tree of its multicolored leaves and bare the skeleton for all to see . The fall party is finished and she is packing up and throwing out all the colors to the borders of the lakes and blowing them with her famous chilly eastern winds ....and the people are preparing for the winters with stacks full of jerseys , coats and gloves .

..and i want to curl up in a sofa with a cup of chai and listen to good old bollywood songs ..esp this one ..to see after ages ...not a hot one nor a close one to heart but still it felt as if i was watching rangoli in DD again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0KhQY9bD3M


and another one which comes a bit closer is this one ..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2HJR_T2NFA

..look at the costume of bindiya goswami .. ..i am missing today jeetendras , dharmendra , sanjeev kumar etc., and want to watch a good old Hindi movie.

Hey i have reached a stage that i can fix a meal , give it the look like home food , gobble it up even without any company and eat two or more sweets after that. How does it sound ? Aunty ish right !!

Made dondakaya koora and it tasted like home curry after a very long time and as hubby was not coming for lunch , normally i skip doing things , leave half prepared meals till night , but today i completed the lunch and literally ate tummy full . Some thing is wrong .and then i ate the two rava ladoos ( yes i made them for diwali and lo! they came out well though actually you can ignore the finger marks and the elliptical shape of almost all ) how do they make such round ones really !! and then give a sign of a big blurp! .

I have declared myself aunty.

My idea of 'diya' for diwali :- 4 candles brought for $1 and tissue papers under them lining the balcony. The other indians brought electric lights and wrapped to the balcony in different shapes .It was good that way too.

F.u.r.n.i.t.u.r.e

I am ought to feel a little better ,
As i see a house full of furniture ,
but then the words keep coming to my ear,
'Dearie these things are not for real '!!..

( Wow these lines rhyme )

..i should have been some kind of carpenter or some thing in my last janma to have collected so much furniture in 1.3 years of marriage !!

Furniture fuss.

..walk a long alley ..climb 3 floors ..walk another long alley ..say the stupid hi and bye , carry the dismantled furniture ..walk the same path back , dump it in home and ...4 times was quite enough for the season .

...Its hard to relive the day again in this blog but the wonderful thing for the day was the continuous fall of snow like white powder till evening .It as beautiful , I suppose all the adjectives i heard about snow are correct till now . Hubby woke up at 6 30 today and asked me to see outside and i was amazed to see all the parked cars were covered by a white layer including the tree near our window .So i brushed , put on all the clothes and went outside to get a few snaps taken . It was nice to see the whole green color around covered by 'white'. Called family and showed the 'event' in web cam to Amma and Mahesh .Missed father today so much as he might have enjoyed the snow sight more than any one .

Link for the day :-

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.selfawareness.com/ChuniLalLahiri_GreatGrandsonofLahiriMahasai_.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.selfawareness.com/SSSFullLengthBio.html&usg=__8RDzW3NhDNbnntXIcTV9uOx7Yg4=&h=543&w=800&sz=57&hl=en&start=5&tbnid=HsNm5pm5bSONvM:&tbnh=97&tbnw=143&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dlahiri%2Bmahasaya%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den

Picture for the day : -

Song of the day :-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-87oXpW-KU&feature=PlayList&p=99847A9483C75BA2&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=3

have been watching TV in true sense for the past two days , and i have found the reason for the obesity , laziness , slowness in the whole american system . This is the culprit. .. ..and what frightened me was the number of commercials for pills , lotions etc., Pills for chromes disease (new disease names ), medical liquids for growing lashes ( with the side effects mentioned which is itchiness , black circles below eyes ) and once you stop them the lashes just fall off ( which is even more alarming ) .And after watching a continuous marathon of movies this sweet video brought back such peace to the house hold .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmZ5U9SfDNk&feature=related

Dont read it !

...so i don't want to write about anything that is happening around me forget even the place i am now except that i make myself kind of busy and well make a waste of time in helluva ways .

..I just want to tell that it has been a sunny sunny day! Bye!

....well coming back i wish life had been this dream i wanted to live but obviously am not!

...I wish i had been married at 25 , yes the right age of marriage , had good *** for the first 2 years , had come to the place i am living now , not as a dependent but with a work permit , enjoyed good work in nice companies , feel prouuuuud of myself , have a beautiful vision of studying further , work for that goal , have kids by 28 and 30 .. enjoy work , kids, education the whole of 30's , , have parents living at that age to see me ( !! )..gosh the way i manage to land up at the wrong times , wrong places wrong mishaps . Sign!! bye again!!! I wish i never cme bak to this blog again as this is such a record of all the sad thoughts , terrible moments , of broken dreams ,sour experiences .....

but as you see i wake up again tomm morning , go through a depressingly domestic day and feel the same way at the end of day and not sleep till 2 in the morning and just go through another day and so on..you see there is no difference in the perceptions .

Alampur and its stories

...so the people asked for rains and god gave floods . Yes he gave what you asked and i need not write again what he took . It could be that i have seen news reels too much from yesterday but the fact that Alampur is completely immersed made me a bit sad . There was some magic in the name of the place and some times when you hear the description of the place , you just know you have been there before and the mind visualizes some scenes as permitted by its artistic cells . But this place has some back ground and a-many-visualizations in the mind . Mainly because nanna lived there and he wove beautiful stories around that place . He had a knack of telling things when it came to places and mostly the places he liked . So this is the place he learnt to swim and man how the stories wove with the place .

Obviously the kids were energetic those days compared to now and my grand mother was a tired lady with a bunch of kids around her . My peddananna , my father , the little brother and my atta in between and added to these energetic guys was my fathers mama , that is my grand mothers little brother who came late into the family and was sent to his akkas place for summer vacation . So these bunch of guys had just one mission in life to jump from the rocks edging the river and have a boisterous splash. It just sat on the nerves of my grandmother to watch the kids movements the whole day and she devised an idea. And a simple one . Just teach them swimming first before they headed for a disaster. So a town full of swimmers taught these guys the simple technique of the season then , to tie the bamboo sticks around their waist and throw them into water . So through the summer vacation the guys had just one job , jump and swim through the mornings and play near the temples in the evening . So the mention of Alampur temples was quite frequent then and now that it is submerged maybe, it is its way of missing the 'summer gang' of that time . I hope to visit the place some time .

And here are the links of the curious image of Alampur.


Coming back to this world , though its chilly we could see the sun in the mornings and had to ultimately bring the heater home yesterday . The flat is getting too cold now .

God 's style of doing things

"Give with one hand and snatch from the other hand"

..this is the thought i get when i see my marriage snaps.

...Its getting difficult to write things since there seems to be so many things inside the head , that even though i have been trying to sort the whole day , i just come out with out any thing clearly .I don't know what to call this state of mind . Hubby was telling me that since i spend some time in writing things , why don't i try to write some thing creative like Sudha murthy (!!) . I thought about it and tried to look inside myself to find a chaos space of flying thoughts and random pictures of life just gliding by at their own will . I have just no control over them and i just look at his noisy place clamored with thoughts, with incoherent second and third track talking at the same time and making it just the more mess . I just have to shut the space to be sane and go about the normal pace of life and be sane . I think the day i can do that i will be a mahatma who has tasted nirvana ( !!) . Well any way these are just the ramblings of a slightly over-leisured mind which has found a vent to throw-up.

The weather here has become just insane like my 'thought space' and its been raining for the past two days with the apartment becoming 'CCCCChilly' .The neigh borer has shared her small heater with me and it helped us survive the day .

Its funny how days can just pass by with doing nothing productive even though there are hundred ways of making myself productive . I have found a interesting read in the blog Within-without which should be read to understand the general mood of the whites in England and once you understand the mood of them , you can feel the dangerous underlying current behind all this 'white' wash.

..and and i am totally unemployed from today to be precise from yesterday , with the 2 month period coming to an end .

Weather update : The day started with ..actually did not notice except that it was so cold it became difficult to get out of bed ! So went to this yoga class flat 15 mts late and by the time i came the front hall was beaming with sun light! tried to feel the sun and opened the window to be stuck by a blast of chilly cold air and bam! closed the window . The Sun has no gutso here and is just for show! No heat at all!!

It was a whimpering kind of day with me kind of drowsy and after the pouring discussion with M felt better , but still not quite settled . Hmmm ..life and its situations !!

Hd and his manager pulled the couch from their house to ours and it was a sweaty affair for them . The empty living room has some thing to sit on now . More stuff will come and the house is going to get 'house-full' .

People have such hard time here , throwing stuff because they cannot carry things back nor can they leave them .Weight and other issues .So the managers wife gave me this tote bag of what looks like leather ( i doubt ) and 4 plastic plates .She is kind of forcing me to take some more stuff but the cash issues are pressing right now . So i am giving her half answers right now !! Guess I will take them , because it seems she will throw in trash if no one takes them !!What a waste !!

Weather : It started as a chilly day , the kind of chill you see in Shimla and in North India when the winter is about to set . To speak frankly the fright that people are creating on the weather to come is getting on my nerves with comments like ' The snow is going to stick to the road , you cant see the sun for 3 months straight , its going to get dark at evening 4 : 30 ' ..ughh it 's already racking my nerves and I want to run away . Lets see how much it will rack and crack me !!

Cons and Pros of present company :-

The company of these girls from villages is really getting on my nerves , ( sorry to say but my nerves are a bit delicate ! ) and i am looking for a bit polish company . The thing is they are totally crude to say in the least and what really bugged me today was they were totally junior to me , I mean kind of 4-5 years in age , these things bug me though not directly but somehow when i hear their chatter and keep nodding my head or say 'yeah yeah'.. I am lost ! But this is the best i can make of them and it is funny to find myself in such company . To credit them on the best front , they have been of immense help to me what with the groceries and all that stuff . Three cheers to them !! The toughest part of the day is spent with them either in going out or just talking .

The yoga part went well today and it was fun to teach actually to the neighborer , though i felt that it could have been better from my part , she was quite good and did almost everything well and had a good bend of the body .So far so good , it took one hour in the morning and may be it will help induce some discipline in waking up part for me .The funny part was when we were doing 'Au---uuuum' in the end , her 10 month old son joined us and bellowed 'ooooooooooo' .She is 25 years and is having 10 month old son has the complain of exhaustion and tiredness and some joint pain . Is it the con of marrying early??!!

Who supports Who ?
As a girl before marriage I was often under the impression that major problems are taken care by the men , like some major things say money and things basically which i cannot deal with .But as i am to understand , it is not so . Like for suppose Hd and I have a major problem between us and the menton of it can send me into hours of thinking and a perennial sulky mood for the day . Hd is equally pensive about the issue , but as a woman i tend to think that he will 'deal' with it . But as i am to understand it is not so and they look to us for clearing their fears and boosting them to come out of it . Am i clear in what am i saying ? They are just likeus and then in what way are they stronger ? Physically , yes . So finally what am i to say is the concept or illusion under which we were is wrong and well ...damn it!

As a matter of fact , I am trying to induce one more concept of Video of the day when ever i come across some thing remarkable , so this is for all of you . Its a beautiful video about a doctor as you will understand who had the capacity to understand the functioning of her brain and tell it in detail . Kudos to her and also the re-iteration of the fact and the principles of Meditation and Yoga as taught by our ancient rishis which is the similar technique or description she has told . So try to get the under current of the whole thing .

Sorry uploading the video is not working .;)

Weather update : Woke up on the festival day at 8 thinking that it was 6 30 ( the usual me ) , it was so dim with almost no light . So as you might have understood the dim light meant low temperature also and it continued to be chilly the whole day and windy . Hubby did not come to lunch as it got too chilly at that time and I went to throw the thrash wearing the over coat !!!!!!!

It was the usual things of the mundane day with the punishment of washing dishes too , the result of yesterdays procrastination . The day went by without for the first time the fever of a festival or any sign on that note and when i spoke to amma it was a bit sad to note that the festival she would have done with fasting for 3/4 of the day , she did not even do any sweet now . So life moves by with or without people and you need to wake up the next morning , eat sleep and yes wash dishes !

In the afternoon i met another lady from the neighborhood and it was so funny to meet another lady form the village back ground .The US is filled with namunas really and she had two children who spoke in the most dirty way and the little boy actually said ' dayyam ninnu champesta ' to his sister. To hear such bad language from children was unacceptable for me and i felt like i am in a continuation of yesterdays party . I cannot write more abt them but it was such peace when they left .

I am to teach Yoga from tomorrow to the neighborer and lets see how it will work!!Ciao!!!

From today i have decided to give an update on the weather of the place we stay till i stay here even though i don t have anything to write in specific !

So it started with a bright morning and a clear sky till 11 o clock . Got cloudy after 11 and suddenly it started to chill with a dip in the air . By evening it started to drizzle and got quite cold . By late evening it was very chilly , windy and raining with Hubby saying 'Yo Hooo' the Minnesota winters have started ! This is just the beginning babe !!! and laughed looking at my 'lost puppy' face .

The much awaited party was a ruin . To begin with it started with me getting that stupid feeling that I should not have participated in this thing . That feeling just hung like that. It just did not go.

The flopped things of the day :-

1. The cooking part was not that difficult but the fact that rice was cooked in the Microwave just made things turn bad .The rice got stiff without any of its mushy feeling and it was like a taste less hard thing . Salt was also less and it just did not give a yummy look from the beginning .It was dry like hotel food and just bland .Some thing was missing in it : salt,oil,and peas.Damn!!

2.Then there was this mild tension about the water over flowing from the bath room , it did not exactly overflow but scared a little bit when the water did not go and raised in the tub. The maintenance was called and it got solved but the whole alley of the apartments smelled really bad till they came and cleared the mess , it was more for the neighbors .

3 . So finally we set on and were welcomed by the host and hostess and i got the feeling ' ok we have come , lets eat and then go ! Yup ! No i don't want to talk about anything . It was funny how the cheerful mood and the green patchy walk we had across the lawn and park just got damped as soon as i entered the house . It was very beautiful and done pretty well . But some people just dont have the charisma , love , genuine ness inside them . Had it been a party at my home any one would have got a better reception . But this was like ' You see we have been staying here for long and we know how to live and live well' That kind of message that was coming from that side .It just felt weird . So our 'vegetarian' dishes are given a step-sister treatment and are kept in a side table . Ok Fine with me , it is as usual in mixed parties . Then we are joined by two other families , whom they knew well and live nearby . They all looked very beautiful and pretty , though i should say that their beauty only stopped with their looks . It was awful when they started to talk . For one thing they all belonged to rural Telangana and even though had polished skins and beautiful skin , the language was just unbearable . One hour was enough for me to feel like yelling and wanting to go away . Once they knew that i had come on L2 visa , they started to look down their noses and show some attitude . It was unbearable and i just sat there hardly opening my mouth .

We spoke the same language , were from the same country but there was 0% common between us and i just smiled at the thought of how different we were . Money , status , prejudice most of the Indians have it int heir blood , sorry for generalizing that but that is the matter with us .

The worst part hubby told was the host and his friends the other three men had wine ( Australian one ) Man how they were bragging about their PR status ! ! told him that it was herbal drink ! and not for vegetarians !! and other lady at my side was cracking how she wanted to mix the veg and non-veg dishes so that we can get used to being non-veg. The gall of the woman!! She would have got a sound lecture from me but it just escaped with an 'aaaah' from me ! :-)

The nice things :

After our exit form there we gulped the cold fresh air outside and ran to home happy to be out and free form them . It was relieving to be home and then our African-american friend came by. His company was so soothing that i had to smile again at the dissimilarities of color, race and the comfort zone we had with him .Hubby almost said , it was nice to have him home !

Nice things : -

1. We went to Pool and it was nice to see Hd playing like a hero on the pool table. Really , all his hero-isms were right there and he won every game in 5 shots . He became suddenly this lively guy who needed nothing except his cue and ball . He won all shots and even the whites there were impressed with his game .

2.So this hero taught me some basic things to the girl who was wondering whether her thick gold chain and gold earrings ( from morning ) were so out of place to the sudden change of surroundings . Man he had good technique of the game and I understood the difference between his technique and others . Fun learning!!

3 . From there we three went to check the movies to find that there was none which matches our criteria and we just ran back to the car in the cold wind.

4. From then on we went to eat ice-cream , could eat half of it , packed the rest and came back home .

So far so good and for all those wondering what happened to yesterday 's drama , there has been no sequel for it. In the morning I saw the kids doing their usual business around the house . Kali peeli pareshani!!

..well i am not over yet since i am in a fright ..

now the neighboring family is a mexican ( so i think ) and there is this white man with the big tattoo on his shoulder and and his decent wife with two obese boys and a small girl and they have this small mongoose like thing which is their pet . I know this because it some times slips into our portico and i have seen the kids play with it .

...and today we can hear these big shouting and banging on the walls from their side and i am in a fright with fear overflowing from all my sides .Hd is smiling at me but i cant take his jest in this and if some thing else happens ..? What if ..?? So many bad questions ? ..I heard the word 'fuck' like 30 times now and the man has gone mad and is i think hitting the lady . A case of domestic violence .

...what if ? what if ..?

See you tomorrow if nothing happens at night !

..It is possible that two people can sit in a room and not talk any thing with each other for more than two hours ! Yes it is , we can do it !!

Was having dinner with hubby yesterday and suddenly hd blurted that 'If i was unmarried , then the guys here would give me dowry ( telugu lo eduru-katnam) and marry me " . Even though the days of my platform i worked on are over , it felt so sweet to be told like that , that I was still worth a million dollars worth !! Gosh , it felt nice even though just a passing conversation .

..sometimes i just sit in the hall and i imagine as if i am having a conversation with nanna like for example , I made tamarind rice to day and did not know what else to make with that , i mean Curry . And i made sorakayi koora with it , and if dad had been there then may be he would say like ' evaraina pandaga roju , pulihara tho sorakaya koora chestara, 'adi ratre chestaru' '

..dabba pe dabba!! ( that was his way of bearing my foolish ness )

and some times when i am just lazying around in the home he might have said ' evamma emi pani leda , baga tini padukuntunnava' lechi running cheyi '.come on get up!!

..you get the flow ? It is that kind of conversation where i can imagine what he would say for any thing !! So that is what runs in the second track these days !

I some times think that may be his restlessness for every thing like what i did , what did not happen correctly was what he felt was enough for life time , I mean if he would have been alive then he would have been more distressed about mahesh's unsettlement or my joblessness or anything to that point!! he was very rarely at peace with everything you see ! some thing had to cook inside him always , but all that kind of changed at the end and he quite liked Hd and was talking with him continuously with him through out the journey . He does that rarely with any one and of course that was the last long conversation he had with any one . I miss his liveliness when i go home and when i am not at home , as he had this habit of calling every one hour , just to find out what i was doing and scolding me if i slept at day time !! Suddenly it is as if I am living alone , though i can get home sick if i don't talk with Amma for 2 days but still it is as if there is no one at home .

Thats for today!

..I can see now that the days will pass with difficulty as the weather is becoming more and more dull , cloudy and rainy . It 's almost raining from morning now , not the heavy rain but the grey rain which wets the road but does not pour .

..Got the Vonage connection and may be i can call home more now , though skype was equally good in talking with Family but friends ( sorry friend ) i need this since she is very busy and cannot come online .( !!!!!!!!!#!#!@#!#!$)

..so we are still in the crux of thinking whether we should take the furniture or not and all this dollar counting is getting on the nerves ... mean i am just not understanding where to put a stop to the buying since you see the empty flat is slowly beginning to bug us and we want some basic things .Coming here the whole focus of the existence has shifted to cooking , cleaning and sleeping . But it is a surprise for me that i have survived this long on this menu without throwing up as yet.

..when ever i go out it would be to buy some thing to eat or plan to cook some thing etc., you see including the entertainment of the week would be to go to the Tuesday market to get vegetables . Then i go with the neighboring ladies again to some super market to buy some thing to eat and then there is the trip to the Indian stores which happens some times in between .So you see how am i revolving around food .

The day begins with the morning things getting done first and i have started to re-learn yoga by seeing a CD . So far so good it has just been two days and it is kind of going OK . Then the bath and all the next immediate things after that . Then comes the cooking part and i am left with the fridge which has never been so full with veggies . I hope not to rot them !..Hd comes for lunch similar to how he came at Chennai , Gosh! there are so similarities between Chennai and US , it is kind of prepared to be at home and stare around the house .

OK OK let me write some nice things which would be the last week end when we have actually resigned to fight over the lap top and sit at home , Kalyan's friend an African -American came over to take us out . God bless him ! We went to Renaissance Festival which was like those days when the Whites dressed like there are in the 'Gone with the Wind' period and roam around.There were little plays and shows which were full of adult comedy and some for the kids like 'riding a pony' , feeding sheep and such kind. Then there are these pottery , finery and shops with dresses for rent . It was fun on the whole and probably the first chance to see so many whites with families . Minneapolis is a kind of place where families have 3-4 children minimum and the mind set is kind of still like being in a 'town' .So you can see so many children and with their skin and blue eyes they look really cute. But the other hand the sun here stays only for 6 months in an year and they have so many allergies on their skin . Women and men have black dots and patches which they cover with their make up . if you look more closely at the old ladies skin then it feels like a wrinkled tissue paper .

The young which i had seen have this bold attitude and walk with upright shoulders and have a kind of jump in their walk when they wear sneakers shoes , its almost like HBO movie from what i understand but one can almost feel that they have a very proud attitude .

..the funny thing on that day was this black friend of Kalyan who was completely smitten by the 'pretty' Indian wife of his freind and went to the point of asking ' Do you have a sister 'Kamly' ? much to Hd 's irritation . HA HA kind of felt refreshing after being in the 'married' feeling for so long .

The looking glass

..i was watching the TV9 channel online and was frightened to see all people wearing masks and moving around .Wanted to call and tell home to be careful but then i realized that i was just acting like those people who see some thing on TV and come to conclusions , like India is like this , that etc., I am badly waiting for the phone to come by and looks like it might take another week . Its like this you see , you come to an empty flat and have only the carpet to sleep on to and then you want some mattress to come back , and then you want the Internet to come and then you want a bed to sleep on to and then you want a TV to watch , and then you want a dish TV ..the list goes on ..so ultimately what you want is a complete home and all basic luxuries .

But life is US has now come to the point of bankruptcy..and so need to take things slowly!!

back to blogging thing !

..writing anonymously takes away the thrill form writing gradually and you can almost shut down the blog ..so here it is, the Ms sunshine thing and i am not sure till when will the sunny days will be ..

..so it is this lazy Saturday afternoon and hubby dear is doing his favourite thing 'zzzzzz...' and i as usual cant blink my eye in the afternoon when i am in 'this' kind of mood ..don't know what exactly 'this ' is ! When ever i post some thing i am not sure now whether i should write it for the Dr.jekyll or Ms . Hyde , a relatively new confusion for me! ..

...I am afraid to make any noise since Hd is having his really one of those peaceful sleep and i am typing away ! Did a really disastrous meal today with almost no spice and i am wondering why simple meal can turn so bad , its actually a normal Saturday menu which i made a zillion times till now , many times even to my brother and he loved my aloo curry and tomato rasam so much !!

...today being dassera , the pooja part went well and Hubby actually washed the dishes for me ! He woke up in this dazed fashion with me and said , don't worry , I will wash the dishes and i am like 'which side to see and thank the stars ? I am lucky today and hurriedly went to the bath room before he changes his mind or some thing and by the time i finish he is done with 3/4 of the stuff . I make a delicious coffee and offer him but he is too involved and nods a NO and i take the vessel which he has washed just now , make some coffee and keep back in the sink and he is like 'How many times am i supposed to wash the vessel ..mumble mumble ..and pat comes my reply 'THAT is what I do daily"!! LOL

..so I go into pooja and he is his usual self ''i call it his 'hidden pooja' , goes inside the room and shuts the door !! Don't have a clue what he does inside and when i ask him he says he is done !! Man that happens quite fast and that is when i miss 'my' home when nanna used to do his daily pooja and the whole house would smell of the Agnihotram..Will those days ever come back!!!
Time and people are just there to change continuously .

There was a time when mama would look after and manage a whole temple by himself , denying himself the credit of anything . He left at the turn of the century and a big flavour kind of thing started to miss strongly from hence forth . Then after 9 years nanna goes off and home is no longer home . You keep searching for that some thing and its just not there .

..so so and so before the excitement of the new place wears off and i am to drool about the ughs and aahs of this let me write some thing nice and refreshing in this blog !!

..yes dears , ladies and gentleman ( only one ) I am in a new place and list of hurried things led us to minneapolis with hd and 4 huge suitcases , The journey to US , how will I ever forget it , except for the Amsterdam airport the whole thing was disastrous ...started at home in chennai to get stuck at vadapalani traffic jam and the cab driver coming almost 40 mts late ..i really saw tears in Hd's eyes and his face expression was really pitiable ..i was my usual chatty self and some how it did not bother me though i should say the whole thing of packing and moving got on my nerves till the end , well any way we boarded the next flight and it was just part -1 breaking nerves thing ..the next part was when we boarded the plane in Mumbai with almost running towards the immigration desk .. so many checking and rechecking that at the end , i felt like a criminal trying to get into some other country without permissions .. Finally got to Amsterdam after an 8 hour journey and slept like a solid rock in the flight . ..

The first time you set your foot out of India leaves kind of aweeed , it started when the plane started to land in Amsterdam ..the neatly packed rows of houses , the farms with exact dimensions and i could almost count the sheep in some ones farm ( joking ) , the neatness and exact boundaries of the whole place form top gives you an idea about what to expect when you get down..the airport at amsterdam was beautiful Me and Hd had spent some thing like 50$ there buying the knick -knacks and all ..i was like this spoilt girl running amuck on so nicee things , that i bullied hd to spend some ..;) ..so from there we boarded the flight to Minneapolis airport to find myself suddenly among super silent white people and a nervous hd as he had 'accidentally' teared the print-out of the ticket and we got sound advice from the flight staff to 'preserve' the ticket till the end of the journey ..getting a piece of cheesy advice from some ones mouth and i was mmaad at Hd for doing that but had to swallow it hard before i burst up..'gosh the nervous ness of Hd , it really got on my nerves ..may be because it was so important to him and not me ..may be ..but the whole thing was just picnic for me ..just pure picnic of some thing nice to see and a not a serious thought at all ... and there ended the flight story with another immigration check and a big good bye to high nosed 'Delta' flight staff , take my word they are the most inadept - unservicabe( if there is a word like that ) set of old waitress who cannot handle any thing than a glass of water and one needs to think twice before asking anything to them ....

So we landed in Minneapolis with only three of our luggage coming and the last one coming the next day to the hotel ...

America and Super 8 :- We took a room in a motel called Super 8 and checked in around 5 in the evening .. the first impressions of the place is to be a object of 'stare' when an American white woman stared at my thick gold chain and bindi with a amused and raised eye-brow for a few mts and asking me politely if I was in the line ..and the next thing is taking some big car ( no clue about cars and models ) sorry ! to find the roads so silent that i felt like shouting myself to create some noise and the super smooth drive to a motel called Super -8. Dumped our suit cases and asked a friend to all home and tell that we reached safely there ...We literally passed out after one hour and woke up some where at 3 in the morning , wildly hungry and awake ..to wait for the break fast room to open at 6 .

America and Food : Food in America for a first timer like me is 'IMPOSSIBLE' a single word and what ever i ate in the first few days was just out of hunger than any thing else . The hunger almost tempted me to eat eggs , though i did not eat since they seemed the only palatable item in the hotel. Everything i touched was covered with unknown variety of cheeses.. and in the hunger i mostly ate toasted bread for survival .If you are a vegetarian then the things you eat will be very limited .

America and Climate : The climate in Minneapolis right now in fall and is very pleasing,hot and coming from a hot climate like Chennai i find it very pleasant and the place is full of greenery like any place where people are sparse . In their language the climate is sunny reaching upto mid 70F with occasional winds and a pleasant evening , their way of expression of the climate . Its summer for them here and people are quite happy right now .

America and Silence : America is super silent and pleasant in the initial days . What you feel later on is a complete different story , we wil deal with it later . But the whole system is super silent and if you don't have some thing like TV and car then you like marooned in an lonely island with almost no shore at sight .

America and cars : The only thing i guess an average American can talk about is i guess cars . Since that is the the basis of connection with anything since no place is in walk able distance nor there is any other mode of comfortabe transport here . Cars which drive at such speeds that the air gives a'wrooooom' sound and i can hear it from my window some quarter mile away .

America and 'house -wife' : For the first few months it is living hell for any house wife in US simply because you cant go anywhere without a hubby since every thing is linked to SSN numbers and credit cards etc., which you don't see any sign of seeing in the future anywhere . It takes long time for some things to happen here .

America and furniture : - All indians who come here initially take the second hand furniture for a less price from people who are either going away from here or are selling them . Most of it is very used and looks kind of old ..hmmm ..boooo..i miss our furniture brought from 'khoon-paseena' of my salaries .

America and walking : Its beautiful to walk here and yesterday we had a great experience walking with huge bags and being the object of amusement for every one since 'we' just went to get some milk and curd and brought some very cheap clearance things from there .4 beautiful microwavable sets of plates and saucers for 6 $ the cheapest price in America.
..here 'we' stands for three ladies (indian) wearing thick gold chains and 'mattelu' for feet , walking and laughing as if we were going to shopping to monda to get vegetables.

America and Amma : Mom comes on skype these days sees me in the video watches me for 10 mts and is quite happy with it . She says she is seeing me often from US than in Chennai , true quite true and she gets most worried if my hair is oily or out of place and always ends with ' Be happy bhavani be happy'!!

..and so end the nice things that i wanted to write about my 'Ameeerica ' trip.Ugh! So difficult to write nice things and think 'politely'.

Happy birthday !!

So the new gadget here signifies a milestone in our married life ..:)

Hyderabad is in a drought ,
there have been no rains this July and the chances of rainfall are looking bleak . I came here anticipating the heavy rain which are famous , the chill that comes with the rain , but like a confused life , the rains are confused about their plan .

Like the drought that has come from some where ,
like the mist that comes from across the mountains ,
Like the chill without the winds ,
We are all still and waiting for the some rain .

always in a limbo and that is how i can describe life for the past one year ..
First the restlessness in the MIL's house , then my adventure of taking an unpaid leave , then the great depression at home , joining back to work ., searching for a job ( it could be called the longest search since it has been so many times that i almost got a work and could not get the offer letter ) .the inability to be at one place ..The movie seems to have no end ...

What do they do ...

..have been staying at home now for quite a long time and till today could not figure out what do all the ladies do at home from morning till evening and night . Basically they all have children with them so i guess it is 24*7 entertainment or job ..so hmm ..what am i doing at home ..!!

can say one thing it is very boring whether with children or not ..It will be boring and damn mundane . Basically it is so wrong to think that having children will make life at home very interesting or purposeful . It can never be like that and children also need a break from their moms .It will be the same waking up in the morning , the cleaning business , then the feeding business and then the nothing !! there is nothing else to do with your selves unless may be you learn some thing like music , be creative i mean. But then too The Money factor is worrying .

I suppose we got used so much to being Busssy that any free time you find it taxing to spend with your selves .

Memories Forever

May be when i turn 70 years old and look back at life ( If am alive at that age ) i will probably remember Chennai as the place full of memories and sad notes .

Went today to Mylapore temple after so many failed attempts from my side previously that it is funny to even recollect them .After the marriage i promised my self that i would come there and offer prayers to the Gods.A simple thing . But the thng i noticed many times was when ever i tried to go there there would be some obstacle after another . Firstly it was the distance , secondly my journeys to chennai were always added with confusion , tiredness and ..hectic. So i post poned the trip , re-postponed and finally I went there today quietly .God , has this strange ways of communicating things to us . He stopped me so many times and finally when there is no more a father i go there as if nothing happened .

The temple was so full of memories that it is difficult to go there any more .

Me and Dad eating the pulihora prasadam and dad coming there so many times .

Me , Amma , nanna going there in 2006 for the morning trip .

Dad and mom going there before he came to hyd finally and they attending the Dakshinamurthy pooja there .

We going there when we were planning to buy the voddiyanam.

I and nanna once going around the temple on his bike and seeing the pond behind the temple , the guy who disappeared without giving us the change for flowers and..

he coming to pick me up from airport the day i came to chennai in 2006 ...

Me and him going to George town branch office and he showing me the beach road ..

the shopping i did for him in Nilgiris .

.The house in Kasturi apartments ..

And finally the painful art of his tript o Isabella hospital ..

..and it was so strange that we shld come with the body to our house in nolumbur as if to fulfill his last words to come to our house ... The feeling i got when we stopped at vijayawada prakasam barrage , i felt as if he wanted to stop there purposely to offer his last prayers to the goddess there ..

I suppose these are the things that will remain with me for ever and ever ..

Death makes no difference

..though i really don't want to mention it that's the truth ..Death of a person makes no difference ....

If a place called hell is there , it is no where but on this planet Earth , right , right under our feet . Today we went to dad's house in My lapore and even though i wanted to avoid the adventure i could not just push Hd and be at home . So there we were in the auto with a cylinder , all the related papers and a small cylinder to fill at any private outlet . Just look at the process of changing the address and name of the gas holder's name . You need to get the address proof of the person who is not there int his world.Just imagine this , the person has disappeared and you need a address proof of him .So i and Hd went to nanna's bank and got the expired rental agreement .

Nanna promised the watch man of the bank to give his bike for a very nominal sum . So looking at both of us his face glowed and he smiled most sheepishly and sweetly . It was kind of funny actually . We gave him the papers and asked him to collect the bike by 2 o clock .

So after taking the papers we went back to the agency and they terminated dad's connection and gave us a new one under third party connection . It was soo sad to see dad's signature on the papers and leave them to fill ours . Its the small things like these that make us realize that one day when we are not there on this planet , its not going to make any difference at all .
Dear dad , i need to tell one thing , you were perfect in providing us all the things we needed in this life , and it would have been really great if you were there here , sharing all the things of happiness with us , but looks like god had different plans for you . And the saddest thing is the way things get replaced when we are not there , they are just done by some one else .

After some confusion again , the present connection is cancelled and transferred to Hd's name since he is the only one having address proof. And the giggling watchman comes gives me 1000 bucks instead of the agreed 2000 and smiles again cleverly saying he needs some bucks for the repair of the bike . Man , the way people react when money is in between .Well i was in no mood for any argument took the new 5Rs bundle from him and again boarded the same auto and came back to noalumbur .

The last connections with Mylapore are closed , but the memories will always be there . Some times bringing a smile and soem times making me sad . I wonder how many more such experiences are there in store in different forms , different situations . Ugggggh!! this life.

..I have read today about the a blog named 'Ramblings of a pretty woman' and really found the title amusing to read .The author lives in Paris and is of course 'Tamizh' -my half guess was true about it any way .
..and its really amusing to read the bloggers like her and many more to that writing so dearly about their husbands in such endearing words ..Why cannot i do like that ?
Yeah i can understand it been only 10 months of marriage and may be i am tooo old now to fall in luuvvv any way but still i wonder even after 10 years i can write like that .Things like life has started with you and so on .I mean what about all the people who made life before that person came into our lives . To speak the truth there were moments of emptiness before marriage and there was a constant grudge to fill the empty place with some one but there were many more fulfilling moments , like interesting conversations with the "exes..' etc., and also parents .

______________________________________________________

..some times people come home and remark that it is really unfortunate that dad should pass away so immeditaly after marriage and that they did not expect to come to home for a death after such grand marriage and remark how happy dad and mum looked in th emarriage etc.,
True ! it is all true ..I agree completely , but to all the people who said that did you ever wonder how freshly wounds can be ruptured by such callous statement !
..and it brought me this feeling that may be the delay in my marriage was also for good since dad was any ways destined to pass off after my marriage ..God the things people can put in mind . Ok all of you out there , live for a hundred years and curse your years like hell .Good for you . Dad had a life of Quality than Quantity and I tell you what , he was dear to god , since from the day i knew him well , he never missed even one day of prayers or sandhya vandanam /agni hotram in his life and it is enough to put him ahead of all of you .

the unevenful events of an uneventful life

..so life has changed considerably and new situations have cropped which i never thought would crop up in the near future and lo! i am thinking seriously about them and well even blogging about them .

..i don't want to acknowledge it but mom is not quite herself yet and it is difficult to leave her in the situation right now ! so immediately ..i think i will always feel as if the incident of nanna has happened just yesterday and i always get this feeling that he is still there some where .Sometimes a sudden ring from some where and i think nanna is calling ..and so i can imagine mom's situation she might be getting such feeling more number of times . ..

But still life has to move on and she has to come out of her depression , face the world and get along with her daily things , though she is a bit better now it might take a lot for the normalcy to come back if at all it will come back .

Today i just took a promise from her that she would come visiting to me at least three days a month and i would come here another three days ..and suddenly i thought that both of us would cry .I controlled mine but she lost hers . Death of a person is such that there is no use for people to avoid talking about it anyways . For Eg., many relatives come to our home and try to avoid talking about nanna.It feels so bad since we want to talk about him more and more and laugh. I feel laughter is the best therapy to some out of such situations .

Me and mom were eating parathas and suddenly the current went out . So mom put a candle on the show -case and the light was falling on the dad's picture . And we both said how he would have enjoyed such a good meal . I mean we were relieved by such talk and felt easy after that .Its like that we want to talk about such small and good things about dad and feel happy . And this is what bothers me if I go to chennai , such situations or occasions will not come up and mom might get lonely and become more depressed . I know , i know there are mobiles and phones to connect but still i wonder if we can feel at home with that .

As far as i know Hd will not get any job in Hyderabad . I know that for sure . at least in the current period and his line of work is such that there is now way we can come to Hyderabad anyway .Oh bloody hell. Real bloody hell .

All i asked life was not its riches nor its joys but a period of peaceful bliss and all i get is crap , crap and more crap.

A silent prayer

Sitting and reading my blog i don't know how to break the ice between us .
Its a kind of coldness that comes from being there for long time and being oblivious of each other .And so after a 3/4 of the month , with muted eyes and sniffled noses i see my past to realize that some things will never be the same and that destinies of people has already reached some new place from where there is no back turn , to wish , smile and laugh.

Dad , we will miss you for ever at home .

...and we will always remember that you lead a life of quality than quantity ..and that your darling daughter will always keep searching for the honesty of your talk in people around her , to sign and not find any where .
..to see the emptiness in mom's eyes and get pained more ..
..to realize that 'every thing that starts has to end some where ' and praying that you might have reached the heavens of your choice and will show there the same exuberance, happiness , transparency , divinity , faith that you carried with you all the time on this place when you were with us .
..remembering the same calmness and happiness you showed in your last moments ...
..praying fervently that 'God provides you the best in the next life '.

-Your left over family here .

Ayyo paavam

..so here i am settled into the routine of the house-wife doing seva to my 'purusan' as is my dharma and showing my pathibhakthi to the god ( my man)..Frankly speaking i really don't know what i do the total of 24 hrs excepting planning to write so many things and updating only half of them...and some times in the afternoons after the daily cooking and cleaning part is over i some times wonder what am i doing to myself sitting almost idly and wandering in the different blogs that people write and keep loosing myself most of the times .Yes , I can go and mix with people but language has become a major barrier for me and i hardly can communicate with the maid or any one here . The only neighbour who speaks with me is the old lady who stays diagonally opposite to me and has helped me with the finding the present maid .She is a bit cross with me these days since i think i paid for the emergency maid a bit more than the usual .The old lady can hardly listen and does not find a big company in me ..so there i am almost alone on the floor with the laptop and the blogs......so much free time with almost nothing to do drags me to the bed so many times that by the time it is evening i am fresh , with kajal ( madhu to blame ) she got me hooked to it , with neat partition in the middle of my head and a oiled hair ..only the malepuvvu is missing ( chennai style ) attracting people to the new face ;) ..

Hd and i have started to walk in the mornings and it is a good experience at least to wake up a bit early and do some things like finishing break fast by 9 o clock etc., if i i am in a mood to do some thing . But the maid problem is really killing me ..she comes at 10 and gives back the most arrogant answers ..!! reminding me that she has a family and that is her first importance ..Yes she has agreed but then why agree to work in the morning hours ..we initially agreed that she finishes by 8 all the work.Well that how is the issue is!

..but like i read some where earning and being financially independent is so important in life ..what if the same thing continues ..what if ..??!! i would have to depend on the graciousness of the Hd ..he being a good man will give me but how much ..the kind of life style i am used to ..i didn't even think abt the little luxuries at all till now !! So what in the future? These are questions which probably only time will answer but still where i am a heading to ..??
..and as always ( i find some one to comapre myself to ) there is S in the company who is not getting tired of changing her different snaps in Gtalk and keeps updating her goals of doing MBA and stuff . In the three years i have known her , she has bagged 2 promotions , changed countries twice , has done 4 projects and is now planning to do an International MBA .Good work S ! cant help saying that since we were on the same boat once , and look at me now , one promotion , on the verge of lay off and on LOP for the next 2 months . ..and i dont have any new pics to add to gtalk as well except the marriage pics which i cling on to for uplifting my mood and making the imporession that all is going well on the outside layer.

..Recession has some good effects too , i could find time to spend time with Hd in leisure and take care of his health a little bit ..poor guy is quite lonely and the sad part is while my people call me atleast 4 times a day finding out what i have cooked and cleaned !! for the day , there is hardly any message from that side .All this could be just my 'Ayyo paapam' angle as well.

..so i realise today today that i will feel at home only when my ward robe is arranged properly ..and that it needs due respect instead of a small rack some where ..I need a whole shelf for myself not considering how much space i really use in it ..So finally the ward robe is set in chennai with just 1/4 of my clothes from hyderabad and the rest are yet to come from there .

........and so the menu for today is tomato chutney and potlakaya koora. ...not knowing what to call potlakaya in English i typed the same in google images to get all kinds of food recipes on snake gourd. ..the day started rather slow and was still in going on but some where it picke dup and i prepared the lunch which was finished by Hd and me in 20 mts ..and the joke is 'menthulu' was out of stock at home and i went to the near by grocery store to bring it and they could understand what was i saying..and i the idiot did not know that it si called 'methi' in hindi even though the shop keeper was repeating 'is it methi ?..so i fished it out from the store and the shop keeper told some complex name of the same in tamil which i cannot even recollect now ...

..i was still boiling and wheeling under yesterdays pressure when the EPR drama started and i felt really tired ...I fought hard and earned for a second round of discussion and i hope that i will win through it .Friends are the ones who can help you through the thick and thin of life and the EPR review result shocked them . ..and in the process chitra told me about the concept of 'Emotional Weightage' ..and thanks to her my mood lighted up a lot ...the funda is ' already so much has happened that I guess there is nothing much to happen except may be some thing tooo devasting which will i guess kill some part fo you ..so when already so much has passed then what is the significance of the small things that annoy you ..true..the small things can be made smaller all the time and so better leave it and take a stand of the opinion on things rather than make them bigger . ..be firm on the opinions and stand by them'...and frankly speaking it does not matter what people say as long as you know that amma and nanna are right ..once again thanks for being there people !!

..the day ended with Hd making some nice dosas and we filling it up again ..he seems to be good at this job...

..and so so so its been 5 days in chennai with Hd and we are having our big fight already .

The day started with me trying to clean the kitchen with the words of my akka ringing that i have become an cleanliness freak and 'people who are obsessed with cleaning cannot actually cook' which i have to accept because i have seen this kind of people already . I mean both the types , mom who can cook great guns but looses interest when it comes to cleaning , which can be attributed to the small space in kitchen . And well..i need not compare the rest .

So the cleaning thing has actually took hold of me strongly and there i am with a cloth in my hand and either i sweep the kitchen or wipe the gas !! god i really need to stop this !!!

..akka gave me really good tips on cooking ..i mean really good ones and has given me 'పోపుల డబ్బా' as gift . Funny but true and it seems she is going to monitor how much i actually clean and cook in the kitchen from there on !! and that it should be a gentle reminder of 'cooking Vs cleaning' balancing act. Frankly speaking , life as a house wife is nothing but cleaning , wiping , cooking and sleeping ( the most imp ) . The detached Gemini that i am , need some hook to connect easily and which i am unable to find. The point is I am badly hurt , hurt from the different situations in the past and from life in general . I felt that i could find some comfort in relating to Hd about the big incident few weeks back and was shocked when he reacted cooly by saying that he knew what passed between the families and had no comment what so ever. To speak frankly i never expected this , I thought i could find some solace in his words or may be his reaction and have been constructing his reactions in various ways , but today's will remain with me for some time .He was cool as if it has been some thing that was natural .

Let me tell you one thing dear , the amount of hurt any one gives to my family will bounce back a 1000 times and with a vengeance . That's for sure and you will remember this day for ever .

..marriage is nothing but ...a beautiful view ' from afar about the hills the forest around it the sunset , the sunrise ..forgetting all about the trekking you need to reach there ..and more ever it is like that bright dress which looses its color once washed and tested.

:)

.....and so my leave got approved and i am in chennai for the better and the best of all the situations ..and it was so sweet to see the happiness in Hd's eyes that i wished i could capture that moment  for ever .Hey , I can say atleast for today with no thought of 'how it might be  tomorrow' be that i have a sweet guy in my life who values my company .

A full stop .Period.

...so i am trying periodically to clear all my backlogs in the 'nomulu and vrathalu' section and find a truce between the expected and the actuals..in the process i visit many people in and near my Akka's home in Ramanagar Gundu and give them the Tamboolam. Some of the houses we visited were so narrow and they were quite happy to receive the fruits and flowers ...Its an altogether different experience to visit so many unknown homes and give them and in the process receive many curious glances and questions about my where abouts . One house we visited was so narrow that there was hardly place to stand and give them the required things ...and it seems they charge 5000rs as rent for the same ...

Hd is happy that i will be coming there for some time and be with him ...and he is happiness is very infectious ..there will be a full stop to all the roaming i do from here to there and i swear that i will not travel in kesineni again . Come what may!!

Out and Over!

...and slowly and steadily the saga of being at home has started and today being the first day i am able to feel the weight of being at home with absolutely no work and happily watching TV the whole day . but the time spent with parents was worth it and i never get bored of going home and lazying the whole day there...

..and no i did not get the reply for the important mail ..to add tensions to the whole thing.

..on a final note I also do have a some light moments with my in laws some times when we go out for some shopping ..and it was fun today to see the different models of refrigerator's and finally selecting nothing .SIL seems to have learnt to keep away from her parents as she gave some non committal comments when asked about her opinion and she was pointing fingers at me to ask my opinion ..some how this feeling that she tries to avoid her family in many things does not leave me. Well that's it then , its their problem.

..i am waiting patiently getting rest less all the time about the one mail which can buy me some happiness .God Please help me !

..lizzie sitting so cooly above seems to find my notes in all things very amusing though!!

..so as the new day dawns i take a resolution to not blog any more abt in-laws .Period.

Hd and I had a great time in the marriage and one thing I admire in Hd is his patience in dropping and sitting patiently all the time..i am sure that had it been any other person then he might have asked me to pack early ..he is so better than me in matters related to patience. But one thing which also bugs me is his childish nature and behaviour. what is with guys? I mean what makes them stick to their 8 year old behaviour , i dont seem to get it. ..and speaking frankly we hardly have any people to visit in india keeping aside my people . ..though this is just a thought , i thought that after marriage there would be many people and social circle would increase . But there are hardly any additions to the old circles and Hd practically does not have any friends in india .I mean i want to meet new poeple as well . ..but one happy thing or rather sad thing is mum coming to work place and really admiring the place and at the same time wishing that i would not have to leave the company . Yes , yaar this place looks like a safe heaven and it did some things for me which probably would not have been possible may be outside . But when a decision is taken then i understand that it is better to follow it , may be the future has some thing else in store for me. ..and like mum said .. 'Everything is ought to have a beginning and an end' .
..this last week SIL has been at home and it was a chance to understand and spend some time her ..one thing that can be really appreciated in her is her attitude ..though she had come form USA only 2 weeks back , she did not show even one ounce of 'usaness' and was always ready to move ...and seeing the way she was controlling her mother , i could understand where she learnt all her ways of talking smartly and with knack . Her mother made her the way she is .. Unlike what Hd told me abt her , she is in complete awe of her husband and uses his experience and contacts to get into good positions in the company and makes use of her charisma to get things done...but coming to personal touch between us ? well i did not see much as she kept mum on many topics and only talked about the superficial things . But quite a career oriented girl who manages things well.
Marriage is all about keeping silent in many things , everything else about their family becoming ours is all crap. MIL gave me a picture about the perfect 'bahu' of her daughter as a DIL . After meeting her in person I felt she was just like any other person and gives importance to her freedom and guards her career ferociously.

Happiness Quotient

....If happiness is the measure of seeing and liking what you see then my H.Q for this week is 200% ..Seeing madhu in the bridal make up and seeing the happiness of both of them was a enough for me..One scene which would always remain with me is when we saw them both after we have come down from lunch in the first floor ..the guy sitting casually and leaning a inch too close to madhu on the stage and madhu smiling all the way ...and the grooms mother was blushing looking at them like that ...it was enough to bring a smile to all of us seeing them ..hey madhu , Good luck to you all the way and i hope you dont take the different things that come your way too seriously ( like me ) and learn to smile ..

A gentle reminder

...you have a choice to choose which is true happiness ..whether it is happy face of the friend beaming with life ..or the happy face of the husband when he finds that there is time to spend together ..

....Well the day started with Madhu's function and it was such true happiness to see her sitting there and beaming with life for a few minutes ..that it was all worth it ..all the pain that we had undergone in the hands of all the people who had bickered , sneered and made us fun when we could not make the decision on time . Yes the answer was worth of all the trouble we had undergone in making the decision and sticking to it ..

..and finally on today i could take mom to work place like the post below and it was so nice to see mum getting impressed with the work place that for a moment it was worth the pain of working all these days aganist the tide ..just to see her impressions and awe at all the things around .. It cannot be compared with anything else !!

.....and it was nice finally to see Hd happy and gay at the prospects of the future..!!