Darnest of things!

"Well, you know thats why I want to get an arm job done!!" a voice boomed from the hallway when my boss and I were trying to have a quiet introspection on a "matter". I pretended not to hear it but my boss couldnt hold his laughter in. The other "jobs" are liveable compared to this one. The perfection towards size is getting out of hand. There has to be a story that led my sane friend into taking this decision.

Her six year old niece, a darling beyond compare, while happily rocking on her grandma's comfortably corpulent thigh was playing happily with her fleshy arm slightly loosened by age. When she got to the upper arm, just above her elbow the girl turned all doe eyed and put on her extra cute voice and inquired; just out of curiosity..."Gramma, why does this place look like a cow's neck?". Age and grief caught on my friend who was witnessing this horror leading her to think "I inherited everything bad from my mom and had absolutely no control over them. Now I have a chance atleast try to protect myself against bratty grandchildren".

Kids do say the darnest of things, dont they? One of the hybrid kids that I know, born to a girl of a remote Iyer origin and an Irish guy is unbelievably cute. Thats where Darwin's distance theory of farther the species are from each other, better the offsprings makes sense. He has dark hair from his mom, blue eyes from his dad and an olive skin from his paternal grampa. This angel on earth looks like he cannot harm a fly. Just that he is extremely honest. My friend wanting to live up to the Indian culture and tradition sincerely did the navarathri routine and took him along wherever she went. At the end of the season, when they were visitng the second last golu, Nick piped.."Mommy, why do you have to sing that particular song every time before we eat the beans??". Now thats a sincere attempt to learn the culture. Except- wrongly timed.

Here is the last one. My dad has an ugly habit of singing right into a sleeping being's ear. Its usually a screeching "Murugunai kumbitu murai ita peruku" or a "kadaithanil thoongiyavan vetri ezhanthan" that could sap all the fun out of a saturday morning 9:00 AM sleep. U.S doesnt do anything to change those habits nor do the presence of grandchildren. Unknowingly, a similar one came out while the all-enduring and smiling adhav was sleeping to glory nestled in appa's lap. My dad immediately bit his tongue for fear of waking him up and being tormented by his cries. Having taken over his father's genes, Adhav rolled over and put his hands to his ears, blocked out the ugly surrounding and continued his beauty sleep. He is a four month old by the way.

So if you want to hear the honest opinion on questions like, "Do you think I look fat?" or "Do you think this song suits my voice?" ask the smallest one in the family. I would say, "Go for the arm job!"

Colourless cribbing

A guy with a small jewish hat on his head, found the three of us at around the corner and decided to join us for coffee, unmindful of what we thought about it. Spotting a scarved moslem, a brown skinned Indian and an.. uhmmm lets say Europen together was his luck. I know people like this. In exactly two seconds, he is going to start quoting phrases from the bible, thinking we are women from a tribal land and have a shaky belief system and desparately need his help to deepen our faith. "So is the elephant God a symbol of strength?" would be his next question. I cannot take it, calling my dear thonthi pillayar "elephant god". I am not religious, but I can see myself becoming over protective of anything that is Indian and see myself feeling threatened by these "converters". I immediately surface all emotion that comes to missing home and a train of thoughts follow.

I dont really care about people who try to convert or people who think I am a barbarian because I have one God for every day of the year. I am frustrated that I for myself have just realised that India is the most exotic country ever. How can I even expect these people to understand my culture? We are the only ones who could have a different God, different food, different clothes, different languages or dialect every 500 miles and still preserve it, maybe with all the maamis wearing onbothu gajam, or with kolam, mavadu making, mukani padayal for new year, manjal kunkuvam, valayal, kolusu, kolattam, paatu class, pallankuzhi, thayakattai, etc.

After days of interospection I conclude that U.S lacks colour. Thats it. Thats what I miss the most. Its not the people who call us "those barbarians praying to the elephant God", or the noiseless traffic on the roads, or the repeated bland "veggie meal" at MacDo that I hate. It is the colourlessness. Mayil kazhuthu coulour, kili pachai, MS blue, Kathiri poo colour, vengaya colour, arakku, karu neelam and even govinda manjal that I miss. Its the Early morning beats of nadhaswaram and mirundangam followed by a theru, which has a few million colours that I miss. Kabaleeshwarar kovil gopuram, scaling up with every definable colour covering every spot, that I miss. The fresh green water sprinkled banana leaf sharing a stark contrast with the bright orange kasi halwa to the white pachadi and reddish manga thokku that I miss. This is what makes me miss India even though I have 3/4ths of my immediate family sitting right here. This is what makes me nostalgic when I listen to "Yeh jo desh hai", with full knowledge that I did not, or may not do anything for my country and that may not be the top reason for me to head back home.

Selfish me

I am angry at the world today. I am infuriating with anger on people who take credit for what they are and feel good about themselves. When you expect a lot from yourself and push yourself to do better, it is good. But just because you did well, you cannot take the pleasure to feel superior to people who did not have the same opportunities as you had. Your efforts count very little when compared to the chance you are given to do it. Be it study, work or just live a life without anxiety and fear or have three meals to eat, you possess them, while millions of others dont. We can now happily sit down with a glass of wine or a cup of coffee and discuss why we have to pay so much tax or how anyone can expect us to give our hard-earned money to someone else. Why can there not be an ideal world where everyone is eating, vacationing and building houses only upto what is needed for them and then allow the rest of the world to use whatever is remaining? It is unachievable, right?

Sadly I have resented to the fact that equality can never be achieved. My dad often says "If you arent a communist at your 20s something you do not have a heart and if you are still a communist at your 40s something you do not have a mind". It is true. Even my 20s something friends do not think equality is a good idea. But I cannot applaud a doctor's son who turned out a doctor as well and consider him close to God while look down on the lorry driver's daughter who was in the slum, abused and failed in the eyes of a successful career. Give equal opportunities and then feel intellectually and socially superior. Even genetically, brain wise, just because you can think or act better you are not a better person.

How selfish is it to grab ten people's opportunity and give it to one person on a silver platter and force it down his throat and he finally gloats about being obese. It is a crass example. But inequality strikes to such an extent that no one wants to think or do anything about it. Ego is good only if you are pushing yourself to do better in terms of expecting more from you. It shouldnt make you distinguished just because there is a mass of people who are not as "good" as you. Well I donot know what I am trying to say on the whole. I guess I am plain upset at the fact that research, medicine, economy, literature, sports are growing day by day while there is a whole world of people wondering how to feed themselves. It is so unfair. Maybe there is nothing that can be done about it and we have to live with it. I am not going to stop researching, eating, over eating, indulging, reading, vacationing and work for these people, am I? So I dont even have the right to talk.

Springing to glory

"Its time to bring my barbecue grill out" Scott commented on the weather, when I was out of the lab for a brief moment. The janitor was cleaning the mess we had created in the name of research. That was when I actually looked around. It was a low 70s with a mild breeze, and at seven in the evening, the sky had just turned a pale orange. There was enough light to last for another hour. The side walk trees were alternating with purple and white leaving a fragrance of wild flowers in the air. There is a lake just opposite, yes there really is and people who know me would know how much of happiness a body of water brings to me. The lake was bringing to life the verses "beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze." There were daffodils all over. Thats when I heard the "All done" from the janitor. I had to get back to my experiment. Or...

I decided that this day is never going to be back and so put my ipod on, requested a labmate to watch over my useless experiment and headed to the lake. I reached my favourite spot at the deck and stood there for a thoughtless moment. My ipod shuffled to play the saxaphone bit from duet "naan padum sandham" and I watched a father in his mid 50s trying to get his teen daughters to dance with him as his wife played the guitar. This was worth the freezing winter, ditched lab experiment and for the moment forgotten biochemistry. I was glad I got out.

Maya and Adhav

I forced myself to get out of my laziness and write this post because I do not want to forget how it felt to see Maya and Adhav for the first time out of the incubator. I realized the complete meaning of a "bundle of joy", only that there were two. It was a marvel just to wake up in the morning and stare at them for hours together, to feel their soft breathing on your face as they slept on your shoulder, or to see them smile in their sleep. Its amazing how two 7 pound odd beings could hold so much of happiness.

The best noise of all is to hear Maya "sigh" when she accomplishes something big, like when she just finished a meal or adjusted herself to sleep. Amma commented saying, "Etho iva than karthalernthu ela velayum mudicha mathiri".

Whom do they look like?? hmm...In my opinion Adhav epitomizes Subbu and Maya, me and my sister and all the other women in my clan. Maya needs perfectly serene environment to be herself,is extremely reactive and needs her place in the swing. Adhav responds to everything at his own pace and settles himself accordingly. Its ecstatic to just watch them. Well, not everything is green, they are a full time and after hours including nights and weekend job for four people. They are a handful.

All that said, I did not imagine I would love these two so much!! I just cannot wait to hold them again.

speculating..!!!???

The whole world, along with me celebrated the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin. He had a kick-ass work life. Well, whats better than vacationing in a lonely island and calling that your "laboratory". Have you seen ours??? Ok the scientist in me continues further, so here we go!

Born at a time when studies could not be done at the molecular level, Darwin and spencer "rightly" correlated origin of species to the origin of the universe. It gave rise to some agnosticism, triggered by the conflicting concept of God sending the 13 spp. Also, it gave a lot of scope for science fiction for years to come.

They were born to be skeptical, to question everything giving rise to 'science' as such. To think of what was achieved centuries agao, I speculate if we as a group of scientists are even reaching anywhere. Nothing really has changed over the last twenty years. With advance in technology like having a whole genome sequenced in less than five minutes, we havent achieved breaking success with either cancer or AIDS. We have only added to the list with mutant varities of bird flu and salmonella.

In my opinion, scientists today compared to 100 years back, are more concerned about short term success and material recognition. (like publishing a paper). Added to the fact that we have made education comprehensive and rigid that there is no scope for thinking beyond. Like for example, what if our categorization of animals and birds were all wrong? Anything that lays an egg outside itself is a bird, whereas anything that breast feeds is a mammal? We have learnt and accumulated so much knowledge, that we are not sure when to give our radically different ideas a chance. Should we go unlearn everything to give ourselves a broader perspective?

no6 kalyani

13 Bagirthiammal street, is the house amma grew up in. It is in the heart of Madras, accessible to all places. Many early afternoon coffee sessions have turned extremely interesting listening to paati's stories about the house, and the innumerable people who lived in it at different times. The mamaram, thengai maram, magizham poo maram, malli poo pandhal are all too familar due to my imaginary head. I myself, a total T.Nagar and Madras fan, have passed by that house many a times (now an ugly apartment stands there) imagining how early Madras life would have been with the tram and all that. I kept wondering how so much emotion could be attached to a house. Appa, being a banker we had to shift several houses and one could not afford that kind of emotional attachment towards a place. I am happy I still have association with most of the houses/places/apartment complexes that hold great memories, except with No6 kalyani I guess.
The saidapet srinagar colony house is set in a "posh" locality and the only individual house, unlike the rest of the family living in tiny boxes. Periappa moved into the house when I (along with the extremely intelligent ganesh and sriram) just finished 12th std and was entering college. It perhaps does'nt hold any better memories than coimbatore, pallavaram or madurai, places where me and my cousins have had the best of times. But it is a place where I recognized I share an unbreakable bond with my so called extended family. They are really not that extended. It is a place where we lost both our grandparents, where madhu and vijay got married (not literally) and where we have had many a basketball games, motai madi singing and literature fights. The front room must have a sighed a relief, no more high pitched and off note shruthied people singing "sri meenatchi thaye". I must have been one of the very few creating the off note, for most of my family can sing. Well, it created a sense of belonging, so who cares about off-notes.
"The periavar" decided to move out and I guess we are going to have vague people take over that house. I think I will also be saying stories of its broad front yard, its sit out from where you could watch the kids (us) playing basketball with a coffee at hand, the motai madi which has been tortured the most by vimal trying out every musical instrument possible (listening to him practising them is usually a very difficult task, nevertheless we have been encouraging cousins. He would finally come up with a pehala nasha in his guitar, or play a song with mouth organ and say "guess which one it is?". Even the most raaga gnyanamed people fail at this)and its coffee+ aratai sessions, athai's shopping episodes, futile carrom board coaching for me and its huge kitchen which was always buzzling with activity (That is the best part). So i guess I have some interesting stories for my grand children, too!

PS: I think day by day, am getting too nostalgic in my blog! Will try to work on writing about the present a little more.