Wedding bells!!!!

I have a time course experiment running with an all day-all night long, free time to do whatever I want. So here goes an account of recent observations. dont sleep on me, pls.

Situation 1:
Girl seems extremely handicapped and her husband acts as if he could be next advisor to Obama. Girl- thrilled that her husband owns a Japanese car (psst...she doesnt know the loan balance yet), says "alrighty then" when he hangs up the phone and orders "baked bean burrito- NO MEAT" with style and grace. He suddenly starts having all three meals a day (HAHAHA cynical laugh). Girl thinks Guy is charming intelligent and interesting. He should be, his profile says he treks, loves long distant drives, camping, bikes, loves surfing (does he actually surf or just likes watching it???!!!) and most of all cooks. Now which Indian male does that?
Yes, I am being extremely cynical of marriages across oceans happening over the phone. My only problem is that still most Indian women dont have one with this set up. If someone can tell me, dont worry they are great, or if these girls could tell me "We were totally prepared for this" I wouldnt buy it. Well, all relationships survive past hurdles or are really made of them, but the typified arranged marriaged USPS shipped Indian women mostly seem to have extravagant ideas, not of United states per say, but of the men they are marrying. Their parents are no exception.

ok now, Situation2:
"Well, 25% of the smart women are either married or engaged, another 25% dont want to date me or I dont want to date (cos they are too smart for me to handle or are Carrie Bradshaw types), the other 25%, am hoping exist". Does this sound cliche? Have you heard it from too many of your guy friends who just use euphemism to say I am a loser? ;-). Well, I dont mean that, I respect this category more than the above. I have started to hear a lot of this from the Indian women folk too. A part of me is extremely happy, yes we are getting there. But I get annoyed when i hear a comment like "Have you seen the way he puts his hand on his hips while waiting, its too gay and I dont think I can continue this relationship." Well yeah literally! This is the crowd who are always in search of Mr/Ms.Right (ppl,dont say look who is talking), have commitment problems, love being alone, cannot share ward robes or cannot stand the other's furniture taste. Well being alone, I can see how people get there. So my empathies with them!

Situation3: (my favourite)
Guy meets girl in school/college/is neighbour/is cousin's friend/friend's cousin/29C/sarang ..., they get along really well, somewhere down the line (or in the beginning itself) a spark happens, they think they are made for each other, survive hardships, fight for their relationship at home, survive long distances and then get married. O.k, I can see eye brows raised. Why I envy this relationship so much is because they know no one other than each other, have grown to adjust with everything, from the beginning have over-looked petite flaws, most of all realise what you are in for (atleast these days) and still stick on to it. Do these relationships even exist these days?

situation 4:

Ahem.. this is the dangerous part. Broken, beaten, "grown, matured" individuals, meet, have great admiration for one another, explore relationship hurdles, have similar life styles, goals and are ambitious. I would like to quote janani (http://justlovelife.blogspot.com/2008/11/finding-and-keeping-life-partner.html) here and are in love with each other...well what more could you ask for? and by the way why is it the dangerous part?

Way too many people think they know it all when they start a marriage..so that idea is more dangerous than the unknown.

So thats to the skeptical me. It is all the fault of United states of A. I used to believe in frog prince, sleeping beauty and beuty and the beast! really!

pongalo pongal!!

“Hey manju happy pongal”...a voiced boomed from the phone. The voice and all its excitement was so out of place for the genomics conference I was at, at San Diego. “Any plans? Pongal panna poriya?”
“Chance-e ila...enga intha hotel roomla ukarnthundu…”

It did not even strike me that it was pongal. I went back into the quiet conference room, to a bunch of people who would never understand an Indian festival even if explained twice. Atleast if I was at “home” meaning Carbondale, I would have tried to recreate the situation drawing a kolam (all geared up like I am going skiing in the alps) and made a sakara pongal, sans jaggery , elakkai and mundiri (well I guess I should rename it now) and finally end up having a pot luck dinner on a weekend some four days after pongal. Phew! There is no point trying to recreate the festive spirit here. Just doesn’t happen.
Sitting in the conference room, I decided to just recreate it in my mind. With me getting up at seven with utmost difficulty , to early morning madras heat, to a house smelling a mixture of karpooram and elakkai, to some random carnatic music played in the background(speaking of which even if I colud never understand its intricacies, I have grown to love the sound of carnatic music and associate comfort feeling with it after being in the U.S), to coffee being refused at the moment due of heavy cooking happening, maya selling karpoora valli for an exorbitant price just outside the house, and appa trying to put all his artistic skills together in getting the vengalapanai ready. Nothing is going to substitute THAT, is it? That would be followed by the poojai and sun tv “pongal sirapu nigalchigal” watching. The food followed by the nap is probably the best for me. Then a lazy round of visiting follows, to catch up on my cousins’ lives who would mostly be eating morning’s left over vadai soaked in rasam or thair. I would just happily join them. Such is a holiday in the recent times (it used be even better a few years before, in Coimbatore) for me .
Well instead of complaining/feeling bad for myself I just decided to do what I could at that moment. What could be better than 70F and bright sunshine for someone who is stuck in mid-west all of winter? So I just laid back, skipped the conference and enjoyed the Californian sunshine at torry point beach. It was almost as good as pongal!