I can hear you say, another eulogy is all we need now...

..but I am going to give it anyway otherwise these words in my head will start chewing on my nerves.


I swear I will keep my kids away from the story of Steve Jobs and the Stanford commencement speech as long as I can. I will tell you why.

When I was 18, I was lazy enough to google all my college assignments and then type in one line in the bibliography page - "GOOGLE". more like one word. Thats when I was introduced to Jobs by the prof who caught me guilty. She told me a story of how she did her research. It seems, in those days, you have to sign up a sheet, wait in line to use the mainframe computers that filled entire basements of Universities to do your thesis work (And this advanced facility was available only in select premier places). Steve shrunk them to their desktop and today you have google. The moral of the story delivered to me at that time was, think outside the box. People have raised the bar, that delivering plain information had no value. That was my first encounter. Now I have reached a stage where I can keep my socialistic ideals outside for a moment and argue that global economic growth is highly dependent on innovative product development and I come home to find out steve jobs has passed on.

When I connect his dots, I wonder what he was smoking. How can someone think up these products? Now why I look at the "i" devices I have, it feels perfect. From the material, to the weight, to the brightness, to the text. It fills me with awe. This guy introduced technology especially for people like me who stubbornly ignored it. He gave me things that I absolutely need, things I can probably live without and things I absolutely do not need. An innovator and a marketing genius all in one person.

For the average person I am today, I need such a living inspiration. I can look back and say that till 18, my hormones kept me going. Through my twenties an ambition and naivety kept me going. But slowly as we start living the life we carefully chose fully aware of what we can and cannot do, waiting for fridays, planning vacations, India trips, mortgage, trying to be a cook+career woman+writer+photographer all in the same person, raising kids, turning thirty, etc then we notice the monotony that has sets in. The lackluster of everything you run behind. Thats when we need to rekindled. To be told you have nothing to lose, so live this day like your last. Someone to tell us to do that one thing you love and give it your all. To help us revive those college dreams, to help us think out of the box and to work with a passion. Because really none of us want to be the average monotonous man.

Thats when I will tell my kids. When they reach that wall, when they need a fairy tale. A real one. When I tell them then that everything will not be just "OK", it will be perfect I will have the garage entrepreneur to back me up.

Theratti Paal

I am not a big fan of everyday tedious cooking but I love to cook. Contradictory as it may sound, I hate cooking tedious vegetables and lengthy protocols because between me and the husband, only half enters the pot. We eat everything from half baked paruppu to pachai kai gari, good only! So no cooking for almost smashed veggies. On an everyday basis our food consists mostly of dhal, roti, karis, simple sambhar rasam rice, grilled veggies, quinoa, pasta, wraps blah - all simply made, no extra spice/masala, cheese, bake or time to it. Thirty minutes straight, its done including the cleaning part. But atleast one or twice a week I get the cooking veri inside me. My husband has innumerable names for that mood and I cook kanda menikku. It peaks when there is external pressure, like my mom for a week was bugging me for not doing varalakshmi nombu properly (Yes the black sheep I am!). So I decided to go full fledged for Krishna's. I had this elaborate lay out for thattai and therati paal. Therati paal - my absolute favorite. Just the combination of milk solids and sugar can create this wonderful texture, like grated condensed milk all over. It also reminds me of all nice ocassions. Like my perima would always prepare this transfer it to a clean ever-silver dabba and hand it over to the samandhi family. That would be the single hand made thing amongst others on the plate. She claimed that it was the easiest thing to make and all you need is milk (It is not easy, it needs constant kelarification for hours but great results). It reminds me of cousins sitting around gossiping with sticky palms from the theratti paal. So the time I met my sister after she was pregnant, I made this for her. Yesterday for Krishnar, I decided to make it with half a gallon of milk. (Way too much, it took me four hours to make and probably forever to finish eating it). But while I was making it the aroma of milk filled the air, I had MS singing giridhara gopala in the background, with white baby feet in perfect imprint and the husband trying his best to thattify thattai for me. That second I felt a sense of belonging. This is the home I have created from everything imbibed in me for so long. For that minute alone I did not miss anyone.

PS: I wrote only about theratti paal because thatai became pooris for dinner, and that too after extensive trouble shooting from Chicago to Dallas. Really nice pooris though!

On my bookshelf

I am at present holidaying to eternity and a lot of reading is happening.

Sister of my heart - Chitra Banerjee (less than 3 stars)
I was dying to read Indian. yes, the immigrant's life. Nothing compares to a good Indian read, my list would probably be Salman Rushdie, R.K.Narayan and Jhumpa Lahari. Jhumpa lahari probably gets critiqued quite a bit but I think I am very close to the immigrant Indian in her head. Since I was dying to read about India, and also wanted drama, I picked up Chithra banerjee. I had heard some rave reviews and the title of the book sounded tempting. I finished it through the 9 hour flight to Alaska. I thought her writing was desperately Indian. The references to "puchkas" and mangoes were close to nauseating. I was not tempted. And why is every woman's life in India filled so depressing? Why cant Indian women authors boldly infuse humour and happiness? My need to finish every book I pick up kept me on. A very predictable ending, same ol Calcutta - tram, crowd, dirt and widowhood!Bah! I think the present fiction writers have a lot to learn from R.K, Kalki, Salman and Rabindranath Tagore in terms of creativity and wordplay.

Angela's ashes. (4 stars)
Now this is my type of immigrant book. I think I am a little late to discover Frank Mccourt, but he is a word hilarious. Taking my cousin's word and a few google reviews, I had decided not to embark on it during Alaska. It sounded like a sad book. But I was wrong. The author had done a great job in using humor at difficult circumstances. There were times when the "chamber pot" jokes were getting a little out of hand, but my family raising made it easier digesting these jokes. The book was a laughter riot. And, first book where I was not hungry reading it. I am eternally hungry when food is described in books, and sometimes I re read my favourite food parts eating. Now that explains approximately 15 pounds. But this one was either talking about poverty, slushy rain or yucky toilets. Being catholic and Irish made the jokes even better. The book is an easy 1-3 day read and very entertaining. Its not a philosophical or a literary treat, and I do admit I saw the humor coming at times but the sati-rity in it, if that is a word made it awesome.

PS: I am back to re reading all of R.K. Narayan and struggling through Ponniyin selvan. Now you may say I need to go back to work, but here comes my evil grin.

Alaskan message

I woke up with a strange dream. The dream was that, I was allowed to re-do my MSc in India. I should do the exact same drill and I could live with my parents. I would end up wasting six years of my life. Very strange and worse, it felt realistic. I woke up dissecting my dream, because I had felt very happy with the offer (in my dream). In hindsight my happiness must have stemmed from the fact that I could live with my parents. I pushed open the curtains and stood to see the broad day light at 3:00 AM, clouds moving up the mountains. It was beautiful. Alaska was offering sights I had seen never before. Crisp clear, blue glaciers formed between scaling snow clad mountains, miniature bonsai tundra flora all over, hump back whales , sea lions, grizzly bears, rain forests, the only sound to hear is the distant snorting of whales, above all millions of acres of wilderness with absolutely no human inhabitation. Several people come here to experience the “Mccandles phenomena”, to live one with nature in an absolute sense. We all end up carrying a part of Alaska in us. I was reminded of what almost every forest ranger had told us till then. If you listen closely, the land speaks to you. This was not my first strange dream in Alaska. I had had several, all holding opportunities to time travel to the past.

I woke up at 7 in the morning to the husband singing “Like a true nature child we were born, born to be wild”. I was annoyed. I am not a morning person. I need my caffeine to kick start my endorphins. And at 7 he has the energy to sing born to be wild. He saw me and said, “Innuki ena ma Whale watching a? Unfortunately we are not in Pazhani”. I tried hard not to smile, to not encourage these jokes. But these days even the slightest movement is being recognized. Two years of being married.

During our Alaskan vacation, we hiked up several thousands of feet that gave us breathtaking views. During one of them, after our picnic lunch, jan our guide read out something Kim McCox, a ranger at Denali had once written. Alaska, a state which is as big as India, 2/5th the size of the United States has millions of acres of conserved land, letting the land be wild. That’s the most beautiful part of it. The lines were something like this.
“To leave a place as it was found, and not after we are finished with it, a place where worries come from bears and not from bear markets, and for once try not to shape the land but to let the land shape you….”

Somewhere along the wilderness, I realized my Alaskan message. I constantly glorify the past, stress or fantasize the future therefore not truly living the moment. I think that’s what I should aim to do. For there is too much happiness in the present, and at every moment I can only realize how gifted I am for all the people I have and the opportunities I cross.

The girl with the dragon tatoo!

Have I waited enough time to read this that the entire world knows what am going to say? That it was a great book? Anyway today I feel like I just ended a relationship and am frantically trying to replace it with another book. It was absolutely absorbing. A mystery novel with a pretty predictable ending and all that but the character placement and the writing style was brilliant. It was like watching a movie. I would not recommend this book for people on a vacation or reading by the pool. Its a book to be finished in one sitting. I was so addicted that three hours after reading the book, I tried to re-establish the relationship with the movie. The movie sucks in comparison.

In between vacation planning, house and job hunting, paper writing, finishing up, getting frustrated, it was so difficult to find time to read. I had neglected social contact in person and online. This book somehow gave me a break from what was occupying my mind. I was reading in the restroom, making coffee, asking husband to drive me to work so that I can read on the way, walking, gymming so on. Thanks to kindle it was actually possible!

Now to reestablish this relationship, suggestions anyone?

Kindle - A review

After consistently running for three months and developing a sore on my little toe, we decided I get myself fitted for running shoes and that is my ideal birthday gift. Surprisingly, my feet are stable. They did not need any additional requirements other than the normal cushions. I got some pretty good, pretty expensive shoes. Therefore did not see the kindle coming. When I saw the Amazon cardboard box, I knew what it was
I had some opinions on electronic readers. Therefore I had not expected to be gifted one. I love the look and feel of books, to feel the fresh pages and the smell of paper. Well, that’s what I thought. My love for reading also got me to own copies of books I really like. The result being an over flowing bookshelf. I guess receiving a kindle is an end to my clutter collection as well. But holding it really changed everything. It is really light, easy on your eyes and works with you to whatever comfort you want to get. I love it. I think paper is over rated. Really. I do think this is eco friendly, and the publishers get their money anyway. There have been books I had wanted to read, but waiting on the library for it. It does save a lot of time, quick downloads, free classics, audio friendly and wi-fi assisted. It is not a necessity, especially if you are not a regular reader. But if you are someone who reads to sleep every day, want to catch up on a lost reading habit or someone who reads more than three books a month, I would definitely recommend it. Some of my friends compared and contrasted it to Ipad2. I think the IPAD2 is not an e book reader and therefore does not have some of the reading comforts. And also, it is expensive.

I read Molaka’i, a fiction based on the leprosy scourge in Hawai’I. It was pretty good, and I thought the scientific misunderstanding of the disease and the biblical references were captured well. I have a long list downloaded including Ponniyin selvan and sivagami sabatham. A brave attempt to read tamil fiction. This whole week I have just been waiting to go back home and to my toy. (So there goes my need for running shoes). Happy birthday to me.

On the other side

Sumi drove back home with her head swirling with the smell of pressure cooked rice. It was queer to her how nostalgia was mixed in the smell of cooked rice, ends of green beans on a cutting board and grated coconut. She was getting back from her favourite new client's house who was from her own hometown, a place that no longer held visuals in her mind. They had become friends and Priya invited Sumi home. In a few seconds of entering Priya's house the screeching sound of the girls, sharp whistle sound from the pressure cooker and over hospitality of Priya's mother brought her childhood back to her. She had taken those things in her childhood for granted and actually never missed it later in life. Having migrated to NY for college education, Priya had consciously decided every step of her career from then on. She met her husband in law school, an aggressive farming lawyer. Sumi and her husband had always stepped each other's career up. Every decision concerning them, and their only son Ananth had been consciously taken and in their opinion, the best way for their son to learn. Ananth went to montessori day care,trained to be a latchkey kid and had a packed schedule to meet that of his parents. Sumi and her husband made sure Ananth did not decide their career. She loved her job. Every client and case brought her a high that routine family time failed to give. They could also easily afford Ananth's private soccer coach, Montessori day care, play dates, private schools and Disney land trips. Sumi felt it worked and Ananth had no regrets.

Priya's house hold got her introspecting every decision she had taken so far. Priya's lifestyle made her think if she was denying Ananth a childhood that she had enjoyed.

Priya and her husband had moved to Connecticut right after the birth of their first daughter. Being raised to be fiercely independent, Priya had lived by herself in her early twenties in Manhattan. She had graduated from Colombia and worked in the city for three years. Thats when she met her husband. The economic recession ate into her job but she quickly grabbed the opportunity to do other things that she had always wanted to in life. After the birth of her first daughter, she decided not to go back to full time work. It had been willful. She thought she knew exactly what she wanted from her life. Besides, between selecting home furnishing, picking up the family's groceries and carpooling, she hardly had time for anything else. Her girls had her full time and her husband's salary was enough. Her husband was not all for throwing away a Masters diploma from Columbia but soon realized she looked pretty contented at home. What he made was enough. She debated that if his pay was not enough, then what she brought back would not be enough either. They could afford fancy vacations, a town house at connecticut, and the girls' trainer. Probably not a private education yet. With the girls' grandparents constantly visiting, the house always buzzed with Indian cooking and high pitched conversations, she felt the girls were secure and happy. She convinced herself, her husband and her daughters that it was a decision, not a sacrifice.

Priya picked up a green scarf that Sumi accidently left behind. The soft fabric and the smell of Armani coming from it made for a second longed for busy 9-5 days, dressing up,coffee to go, mail-check on the train and the gratification finishing a code brought her. She admired Sumi and for a second wondered how much of difference she was making in her daughters' life.

Parallely, across the states a single thought wandered - At sixty, when the kids had grown up and left home, when they were back to being a couple, vacationing and debating where to retire, then would they feel every decision had been worth it?

Chaos

I wish someone picks up this world, shakes it, twists and turns like a rubix cube and put the colours back together.

Late

In a couple of lines

Very few pieces of a movie or a book leave you with a light feeling in your head. Like all your neurons just found something new to network like it never has before. After every such movie or a book, the deep feeling cannot be shrugged. A part of it follows you. I thought I will put down only a very few books and movies that at some point, in some dialogue or quote gave me that feeling. These are quotes from memory, therefore may not be the exact line.

PS: These are not necessarily my favourite books or movies just a select few that stuck to my head despite the bird brain!

Sleepless in Seattle:
Yes, starting with a cheesy chick flick. Tom Hanks after he lost his wife.
On the radio to “What are you going to do?”
Well, I'm gonna get out of bed every morning... breathe in and out all day long. Then, after a while I won't have to remind myself to get out of bed every morning and breathe in and out... and, then after a while, I won't have to think about how I had it great and perfect for a while.

All the King’s men.
I think I should have read the book. This is just an extra ordinary movie to describe the faultiness of nobility, if that makes any sense. Jack tries to reach out to his childhood buddy, but only for a purpose.
“Everyone has only one friend from their childhood. And this friend represents all their lost ideals, mostly lost. And this friend is probably only a mirage from memory.”

Shawshank redemption:
No explanation needed here I guess.
Red’s narration after Andy helped the guard keep his money,
“You could argue he'd done it to curry favor with the guards. Or, maybe make a few friends among us cons. Me, I think he did it just to feel normal again, if only for a short while”

Apocalypse now:
Well, I did not like the second half of the movie. But there were some brilliant parts about the movie. Something that will always help me connect with Vietnam war veterans and its probably this line by Kurtz.
“I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream; that's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor... and surviving”

Picture of Dorian Gray:
That’s just a great book. Should make it more than a book. It should be a religion or something. Here are some of my favourites:
“ “”You are much better than you pretend to be”
““I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit.””
“Conscience makes egotists of all of us”

Fountainhead: This book sort of changed my thinking steering away from an underdog socialist, here is one of the lines, probably the most quoted line.
“A man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress”

On a lighter note

From Ice age:
Ice age is my favourite movie. My comfort rainy day movie and I love Sid, so every line is almost my favourite. Here is a sample:
Sid: Whats the problem?
Manny the mammoth: YOU are my problem.
Sid: Well, I guess you are just stressed. That’s why you over eat. Otherwise its hard to get fat on a vegan diet.

Blind side:
“I never thought we will have a Black son before we meet a Democrat”

Madagascar, again a rainy day comfort movie.
On hearing the train announcement
Did he just say "Grand Central Station," or "My aunt's constipation"?

Dobhi Ghat

First of all, its "Dobhi GHAT" not gat. I was told this repeatedly before seeing the movie. But who cares, I am tamil! Its dobi gaat.

I thought the movie was caught between a documentary and a real movie with characters. The documentary part was great, did what the characters failed to. To me, someone who was never a mumbaiite other than just a visitor, the movie was soulful. I saw immigrants in India, how the city was built, whose existence I had not paid much attention to. The husband next to me kept asking, "So whats the point of this movie?" continuously. Well, I thought Kiran Rao was caught between trying to explain a story and romanticizing Mumbai. The latter, she did a very good job at. The layers of economy in India. These, a visual treat to the foreigner was not enough for the Indian in me. I expected to see that more, given the name of the movie. I wanted to see more of life in Dobhi Ghat, not a camera snap shot.

A friend told me it was a beautiful poem, another said the movie was like a painting. But to my unartistic head, I felt the movie lacked direction and it could have been great if there was only one purpose, either to tell a story or to capture the shades of Mumbai. The colours were beautiful. Mumbai, was pictured really well. I feel I would have had more appreciation for the movie without the three main characters in it. But to me, a person who loves places, likes to know the history of a city, it was a get away to Mumbai.

HealDy MacD

The first week in the United states, Walmart, Kroger, Target will seem like a giant carnival having so many options not knowing what to pick. In the next six months it will become a routine and in two years a really really boring routine.

Well like the first scene of Food inc, the supermarkets do trick you here. The options when it comes to vegetables, grains, oil, fish and meat is extremely limited. A huge believer in eating right, I enjoy but find grocery shopping difficult and limiting to the vegetarian soul. I also find that I easily get into eating right debated, meat vs vegetarianism debates and preservatives, frozen food debates. And after almost every one of them, I read, and Lehninger is a better source than wiki I guess. A year back, I started consciously observing what I ate here and contrasted it to what I ate in India. And I made a list of things I would recommend. I decided to share it.

Before you proceed any further, this is not Yahoo's "Eat this not that". Most of my dinners are home cooked!

1. A popular Gynecologist once said that Asian women have problem because they eat too much rice and the westerners have a problem because they eat too little. The best bet would be to not eat rice three times a day, but to eat rice atleast once in two days.

2. High - protein diet is extremely essential for a vegetarian since you do not eat meat. This can be debated for hours at length. Well, if you are not rigorously exercising or building those bailwan muscles (the sedentary life style of an IOB mama) require less than 0.8g of protein a day. But too much protein is not a bad thing. It can help you burn fat etc (If you are burning it at all). Everyday include a protein.

3. A dietitian once told me that we should all ideally eat 38g of fiber a day. Well, now thats exactly one fourth of what a cow masticates. We neither have the enzymes or the teeth to eat that much fiber. Its probably 2kg of avaraikai uncooked. "Ideally" is a key work there. Like protein, fiber is always a good thing but its perfectly ok to include one meal with a whole grain and go on for the rest of the day eating others.

4. Sugar is bad. That is wrong. Sugar is the only direct source of energy to the brain cells. But if you are genetically prone to type 1 diabetes, then you need to watch out. If high metabolism and have a job that makes you think all the time, a lunch and a small dessert, like a tiny square of dark chocolate or a small baklava can set you running.

5. You need to drink so many litres of water a day. I dont even know whats the usual propaganda. The food that we eat, the coffee we drink, milk, juice everything has water. You probably need 3 -4 litres of water a day. And yes, morning water is good.

6. You have to ingest all the calcium you can before you are 40. This is not a myth. But the most absorbable calcium is not in milk, its in banana. And in banana not ripened too much.

7. I love raw vegetables and fruits, therefore propagate it as good. But I guess eating raw spinach, lettuce is even better. I try to include a spinach salad but does not happen all the time.

8. Frozen, refrigerated food is bad. Well, there is really no evidence that this is true. But I guess an Indian meal cooked without preservatives and stored will lose most of its nutrients in 36 hours. I cook sparingly almost everyday. We may not cook an entire Indian meal everyday but try to eat fresh.

Well let me stop here, because I guess its going to be more series of this now. I think regular south Indian food needs to be revamped. But again I never over do it. Like on deep introspection dosai and sambar or dosai and thakkali chutney maybe a high carb low nutrition diet but hey, its comfort food, so who cares.

Outsourced fiasco!

If you are still laughing at Russel Peters then maybe "Outsourced" the sitcom will interest you. It is relevant to a generation of Indians still struggling to understand Facebook (Please read: Donot exist at all). The Indian immigrant today is closer to Koothrapalli than to any of the outsourced characters. The movie this sitcom was based on was released at a time when every American complained about their jobs being outsourced (Despite having better things to talk about like Saddam, hurricane Katrina and Borat), therefore a big hit. The sitcom on the other hand does not even classify as that.

The plot itself is not all that bad. It is set in a call center in India that sells American novelties. Being an Indian in America, I had some hopes for this one, was actually excited. While Mississippi Masala, outsourced - the movie, lahiri and Russel Peters somewhat saturated this subject, Outsourced still had an unconquered zone. Indians could be made fun of for their small idiosyncrasies rather than still laugjing at the sterotypes. Like, us wanting to save rent money and therefore living with XYZ relative, us wanting to be debt free in a world running on credit, us wanting to be big "conservationists" at every party but lazy to live the ideal. But the sitcom is still working on us celebrating strange festivals, having an arranged marriage or being socially awkward.

All in all, (using words like this itself is an idiosyncrasy) in this world where every other vagabond on the internet is good at diaspora humor, outsourced failed at its big chance.