Iam repeatedly asked by anyone i meet is how is life in U.S staying at home, i would say whatever comes to mind that moment. It is one question i never liked, makes you feel stupid, remainding you are not doin anything constructive out of your life, no identity of your own,and the truth is always bitter. I always admire the smart ones who can adapt to any life and make it work for them and wonder at the ones who are very simple, no qualms,no questions kind. I saw this film Teen Deewarein ( 3 walls) quite a good movie, there is this one scene where the husband shouts at his wife for taking a documentary, he will say all i want you to be is a simple wife, cook for me,take care of me, every once a while have it with me...most man's definition of ideal wife, certainly nothing wrong,but it has to be a choice made by the individual, should not be forced by self, someone or circumstance. Well coming back to stay at home life here, generally there is nothing wrong. Life is either inside 4walls or 4 wheels, very cushioned, if u enjoy u got it.
We were driving in the Pokonos mountain range to see the fall colors, and we stopped in front of a shop as my friend wanted to buy pumpkins for the Halloween. It was a road side one, there were fruits and also artefacts made out of vegetables and fruits at dead cheap rate. To our surpise, there was no shopkeeper or salesman. In front of every item, price was displayed, and there was a board which read, please pay the amount for the items you purchase here in the box kept on the side, and if you need change, there is another box kept with change, you can take it from there. It also said, we can afford to give at this price only if you co-operate, if you steal the money or the items, we would have to close down the shop. My respect goes to all those who support that shop and it includes me also.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Friday, November 16, 2007
Thanksgiving celebration
I happened to go along with my husband for the Thanksgiving dinner celebrations hosted by his manager, it was probably the first formal dinner i have gone and also had a home cooked American food.
It was a gathering of around 15 people and the manager's husband and kids. It was not the first time i was meeting his team, been with the crowd earlier on two occasions, so they were not strangers to me, and i understand they all insist my husband to bring me along thinking that im stuck in the house and would have a change, though i appreciate their warmth, i dont know whether i really njoy except that iam there and i noticed no one else brings their spouse, i think i know why.
Most of their conversations are about office stuff, politics, gossips, pretty girls etc., and someone outside can rarely make sense, i mostly sit like dumb and listen, sometimes laugh without even knowing for what they are laughing,but this time, i ended up playing with her last kid who is 6yrs old, this was much better than doing nothing.
The party started off with drinks and starters, turkey was being cooked in the oven,
she was preparing some other stuff too. This was a like pot luck party, where every one brings cooked stuff ( starters kind ) or store bought one.As mine, i had made grilled chicken tikka and to my surprise, everyone loved the stuff and whether i was thrilled or not, my husband being a foodie, got a kick out of it, he went blah ,blah over it.Most of them there are in 50's and 60's,few in 40's and the youngest lot being the 2 indian guys, you could see some people dont really enjoy we Indians taking up their roles, that too kids kind and also be in their parties,they kind of show an attitude, u do feel that, but then in their age its very difficult to adapt to the global changes, so best is to ignore it. That way his Manager is really open minded, u dont see many
being friendly outside office, but she really has a team spirit and does not make u feel any less just bcos you are a non american, sometimes its funny when someone acts weird, they have forgotten its a land of immigrants and they were also once immigrant, cant help it,life's like that.
When the food was ready, we all gathered in the dinning room, these people really have early dinner, it was around 7.00pm, some one offered a prayer. Dinner started with a Salad, then the main course was served,
it was Turkey, mashed potatoes, vegetable stuffing, coleslaw, i was surprised all were healthy food, our idea of American food is always the junk stuff , burgers and pizzas, food was quiet good. Then the yummy part of the dinner, desserts , quite a few variety, chocolate cheesecake, apple pie, icecream, vanilla cake with fruit topping, and it was so hard to resist, i somehow managed to stick to one and did not try all.
After the dinner was over, everyone was playing beer pong, iam sure that must have been the most interesting part for everyone there,as usual no difference to me, anyway it was fun watching, overall it was a good evening, wasn't boring. What i really liked is the managers attitude, she really celebrates life, full of energy and is so cheerfull, somewhere in her mid 40's, with three kids, she seems to manage work and life and have fun too... thats the spirit i guess.
It was a gathering of around 15 people and the manager's husband and kids. It was not the first time i was meeting his team, been with the crowd earlier on two occasions, so they were not strangers to me, and i understand they all insist my husband to bring me along thinking that im stuck in the house and would have a change, though i appreciate their warmth, i dont know whether i really njoy except that iam there and i noticed no one else brings their spouse, i think i know why.
Most of their conversations are about office stuff, politics, gossips, pretty girls etc., and someone outside can rarely make sense, i mostly sit like dumb and listen, sometimes laugh without even knowing for what they are laughing,but this time, i ended up playing with her last kid who is 6yrs old, this was much better than doing nothing.
The party started off with drinks and starters, turkey was being cooked in the oven,
she was preparing some other stuff too. This was a like pot luck party, where every one brings cooked stuff ( starters kind ) or store bought one.As mine, i had made grilled chicken tikka and to my surprise, everyone loved the stuff and whether i was thrilled or not, my husband being a foodie, got a kick out of it, he went blah ,blah over it.Most of them there are in 50's and 60's,few in 40's and the youngest lot being the 2 indian guys, you could see some people dont really enjoy we Indians taking up their roles, that too kids kind and also be in their parties,they kind of show an attitude, u do feel that, but then in their age its very difficult to adapt to the global changes, so best is to ignore it. That way his Manager is really open minded, u dont see many
being friendly outside office, but she really has a team spirit and does not make u feel any less just bcos you are a non american, sometimes its funny when someone acts weird, they have forgotten its a land of immigrants and they were also once immigrant, cant help it,life's like that.
When the food was ready, we all gathered in the dinning room, these people really have early dinner, it was around 7.00pm, some one offered a prayer. Dinner started with a Salad, then the main course was served,
it was Turkey, mashed potatoes, vegetable stuffing, coleslaw, i was surprised all were healthy food, our idea of American food is always the junk stuff , burgers and pizzas, food was quiet good. Then the yummy part of the dinner, desserts , quite a few variety, chocolate cheesecake, apple pie, icecream, vanilla cake with fruit topping, and it was so hard to resist, i somehow managed to stick to one and did not try all.
After the dinner was over, everyone was playing beer pong, iam sure that must have been the most interesting part for everyone there,as usual no difference to me, anyway it was fun watching, overall it was a good evening, wasn't boring. What i really liked is the managers attitude, she really celebrates life, full of energy and is so cheerfull, somewhere in her mid 40's, with three kids, she seems to manage work and life and have fun too... thats the spirit i guess.
Friday, November 9, 2007
A few rants on the way
For sometime atleast let me say that most of my blogs are going to be personal, heard,seen and felt for, not becos they are interesting or must mention kind, just that iam not creative enough to imaginative so as an amateur its easier to write from my own,i certainly would like to write with more substance down the line.
Well here goes the rants,
I have a phone pal, she is a busy mother of 2 very small kids, she told me a bizarre things,or atleast to me it was like that,it took me couple of days to get that out of my mind.
For both her kids, her husband did not allow her to breast feed, rather pump and give the milk. It was not for cosmetic reason, but bcos he believed that kids will grow attached to the mom if breast fed than the father,and he didnt want that to happen, this man has told and she has also obeyed as a dutiful wife and i didnt know what to react,i went silent for a while...(fyi, she told me her husband calls himself as holy man).
There is another one, she is a Doctor, got married few months back and lives in my complex,i use to go once a while and chat with her.I just happend to be there when this happened,her brother had arrived to U.S, it was a place which is like 1hr drive from our place and her sis-in-laws birthday was that weekend. So she wanted to go and meet them and spend the weekend with them,she was literally pleading him with so many pls and stuff like that, she didnt go on her knees except that asked him in every possible pleasing way,that guy just turned deaf ears, bluntly said he cant drive her and needs to relax at home,i was just plainly looking at him,more unbelievable was, she didnt show single trace of dissappointment,nor showed any resentment towards him,seemed very normal,iam sure she wasn't pretending bcos i was there,it looked only i was abnormal to think that is abnormal.
Not that my life is picture perfect, just that i thought these women were so amazing for me,i certainly want to meet them after few years...
Well here goes the rants,
I have a phone pal, she is a busy mother of 2 very small kids, she told me a bizarre things,or atleast to me it was like that,it took me couple of days to get that out of my mind.
For both her kids, her husband did not allow her to breast feed, rather pump and give the milk. It was not for cosmetic reason, but bcos he believed that kids will grow attached to the mom if breast fed than the father,and he didnt want that to happen, this man has told and she has also obeyed as a dutiful wife and i didnt know what to react,i went silent for a while...(fyi, she told me her husband calls himself as holy man).
There is another one, she is a Doctor, got married few months back and lives in my complex,i use to go once a while and chat with her.I just happend to be there when this happened,her brother had arrived to U.S, it was a place which is like 1hr drive from our place and her sis-in-laws birthday was that weekend. So she wanted to go and meet them and spend the weekend with them,she was literally pleading him with so many pls and stuff like that, she didnt go on her knees except that asked him in every possible pleasing way,that guy just turned deaf ears, bluntly said he cant drive her and needs to relax at home,i was just plainly looking at him,more unbelievable was, she didnt show single trace of dissappointment,nor showed any resentment towards him,seemed very normal,iam sure she wasn't pretending bcos i was there,it looked only i was abnormal to think that is abnormal.
Not that my life is picture perfect, just that i thought these women were so amazing for me,i certainly want to meet them after few years...
Special Diwali
Diwali,most celebrated festival in many parts of India, is yet another regular day living in the U.S. Not that im a hardcore festive person,or had great diwali moments in the past, still i missed being in India, i love lighting up the house with diya's, watching the sparkles and glittering crackers in the sky and ofcourse our full time cine shows in the T.V, back here we are locked up in the 4walls with all heavy clothes to stand the winter. When you are away from home and u know u cant be part of all this, make u feel to miss it more...the least i could was walk down the memory lane...
When we were growing up, my parents never really encouraged spending much on crackers,mom felt we can give that money to some poor people, so they use to buy a very few, and the boy in my next door use to start bursting crackers 1month before itself, we just use to watch and envy... i remember we had even cried and asked for more, it never used to work,,,they were pretty stern on that,i still remember it was my 5th std diwali night, whatever we had got over by evening itself, and i wanted more, and they didnt buy and i was sitting in the entrance steps and crying till 10pm, and finally they had to drag me in...it seems very funny to think back those moments,i think life is always filled with such incidents, which would be so important one time will be most pettier later, yet that nature will remain us till we live...strange...anyway the next year,to my surprise and disbelief, we bought crackers for Rs.350, ( Thanks to one of my thatha's), he fought for us,and finally my parents gave in and sadly he passed away before next diwali and we were back to usual routine of watching our neighbor blast and slowly we accepted thats how it is. So many diwali's have passed by, i can walk to a store and pretty much buy howmuch ever i want, yet i have never really indulged myself, not sure why ?maybe there is no thrill when its easily available, or i never wanted to forget the thatha who could understand our small innocent wish and fullfilled for us,,,it's the greatest diwali i had and will ever have.
Happy Diwali to all my friends...
When we were growing up, my parents never really encouraged spending much on crackers,mom felt we can give that money to some poor people, so they use to buy a very few, and the boy in my next door use to start bursting crackers 1month before itself, we just use to watch and envy... i remember we had even cried and asked for more, it never used to work,,,they were pretty stern on that,i still remember it was my 5th std diwali night, whatever we had got over by evening itself, and i wanted more, and they didnt buy and i was sitting in the entrance steps and crying till 10pm, and finally they had to drag me in...it seems very funny to think back those moments,i think life is always filled with such incidents, which would be so important one time will be most pettier later, yet that nature will remain us till we live...strange...anyway the next year,to my surprise and disbelief, we bought crackers for Rs.350, ( Thanks to one of my thatha's), he fought for us,and finally my parents gave in and sadly he passed away before next diwali and we were back to usual routine of watching our neighbor blast and slowly we accepted thats how it is. So many diwali's have passed by, i can walk to a store and pretty much buy howmuch ever i want, yet i have never really indulged myself, not sure why ?maybe there is no thrill when its easily available, or i never wanted to forget the thatha who could understand our small innocent wish and fullfilled for us,,,it's the greatest diwali i had and will ever have.
Happy Diwali to all my friends...
Friday, November 2, 2007
Sour and Sweet
In the past few years,i had lost contacts with most of my friends,except for one or two.Recently i tried to contact 2 of my friends,who were part of my college gang. We had a girls only gang ( were from different dept), and then the mixed gang ( this was only my CSE dept).
First i called one of my G.friend, last i spoke to her was sometime in the year 2000.
Excerpts of our conversation :
Hey, where r u calling from...Iam in US and got ur no and so i thought i could talk to u...
Well, then to get start , it was a brief of her bay are life and then the conversation was about U.S life,
and their dilemma to move back to India as they have 2girl kids ( iam thinking of bloggin on this seperatley,bcos every house i go where there are girl child, the topic is their for discussion ),
and then she started asking me about life in India, the infrastructure, education and stuff like that,
and then finally we xchanged our email ids and said cya later . Our whole conversation was in english.
The next was a boy, he was also a very close friend,he was the shy one in the gang, so u can imagine the hard times he would have had with us. But he was very dear to all of us, very warm person. I got only his email id, so i wrote to him. Next day he had replied, and i could sense that old friendship was still there. He had asked for my phone no, and he called me from India and spoke to me for few mts. There was absolutely no formal conversation, we recollected some funny moments, pulled each other,we did talk about our families, i have met his wife when he was just married and we lost touch , now we decided we will meet as families when we get back to India, and keep in touch. We may meet or not, but it was a moment to savour.
I just felt like writing this. We all change as we grow, priorities change, innocense is lost,
no time for small pleasures and moments, simple and plain is outdated, accepted life's like that ,,, Yet somehow sweet to immerse yourself in the past ... i was left with mixed feelings after speaking to both my friends, they were sour and sweet, i think we need both in life.
First i called one of my G.friend, last i spoke to her was sometime in the year 2000.
Excerpts of our conversation :
Hey, where r u calling from...Iam in US and got ur no and so i thought i could talk to u...
Well, then to get start , it was a brief of her bay are life and then the conversation was about U.S life,
and their dilemma to move back to India as they have 2girl kids ( iam thinking of bloggin on this seperatley,bcos every house i go where there are girl child, the topic is their for discussion ),
and then she started asking me about life in India, the infrastructure, education and stuff like that,
and then finally we xchanged our email ids and said cya later . Our whole conversation was in english.
The next was a boy, he was also a very close friend,he was the shy one in the gang, so u can imagine the hard times he would have had with us. But he was very dear to all of us, very warm person. I got only his email id, so i wrote to him. Next day he had replied, and i could sense that old friendship was still there. He had asked for my phone no, and he called me from India and spoke to me for few mts. There was absolutely no formal conversation, we recollected some funny moments, pulled each other,we did talk about our families, i have met his wife when he was just married and we lost touch , now we decided we will meet as families when we get back to India, and keep in touch. We may meet or not, but it was a moment to savour.
I just felt like writing this. We all change as we grow, priorities change, innocense is lost,
no time for small pleasures and moments, simple and plain is outdated, accepted life's like that ,,, Yet somehow sweet to immerse yourself in the past ... i was left with mixed feelings after speaking to both my friends, they were sour and sweet, i think we need both in life.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Frivolous Moments
I was on a road trip with my Husband and his parents in Florida and he was bent on visiting the Everglades National Park, though i wasn't really interested,had no choice as all the other three were already fantasicing the crocodiles, nd we hit it off there. ( FYI, there is only one everglades in the world and this was it).I too convinced myself , that i will be among the few who visited this place.It was really huge park, largest subtropical wilderness in the US. We walked around few trails to have an encounter with the crocodiles and believe me we were swamped by so many that i couldnt stand and ran off from there, boy they were one hell of mosquitoes... Yeah, we had a great encounter with mosquitoes, and not a single crocodile.
So with all of them acting pretty excited with the place, we started back and i was on the wheels this time.
For those who dont know,my husband always keeps annoying me and he is best at it, but unfortunately he tried at the wrong time.I had already lost my bananas scratching myself, he was chumma tapping me on my head,making fun and irritating me all the more, i asked him to stop it or i would run the car into the dicth on the sides, I never meant it when i told that,but he triggered me saying try doin it, i on my craziest moment,
turned the steering, it was a very slight turning,God,my heart stopped pounding, i thought we were done, the car started moving in a zig zag manner, speed was 70miles which is 110kms and i dont know how i controlled and brought it back, it was just a miracle.Man never ever in my life i would do such a thing, i did feel bad,
but on the other hand, i made a very uninteresting trip a unforgettable one...Do u guys agree with me ?.
So with all of them acting pretty excited with the place, we started back and i was on the wheels this time.
For those who dont know,my husband always keeps annoying me and he is best at it, but unfortunately he tried at the wrong time.I had already lost my bananas scratching myself, he was chumma tapping me on my head,making fun and irritating me all the more, i asked him to stop it or i would run the car into the dicth on the sides, I never meant it when i told that,but he triggered me saying try doin it, i on my craziest moment,
turned the steering, it was a very slight turning,God,my heart stopped pounding, i thought we were done, the car started moving in a zig zag manner, speed was 70miles which is 110kms and i dont know how i controlled and brought it back, it was just a miracle.Man never ever in my life i would do such a thing, i did feel bad,
but on the other hand, i made a very uninteresting trip a unforgettable one...Do u guys agree with me ?.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Just there
Iam blogging for the very first time, though i have been reading others blog for the past 5 or 6yrs, i started of reading blogs in sulekha.com and it had been one of my hobbies since then, and now here iam to experience and enjoy the fun of blogging as well hoping that i can make my blogs interesting for others...
I was thinking about the title name,and so many popped up,but i chose this, this is where iam at my life, not very young or not very old, fighting with heart and mind,with a whole bunch of questions over right and wrong, trying to absorb many different things around me,,,i had a busy career till 3 or 4 months back, and i was more sane, now i have left it due to personal reasons and ever since iam on life's roller coaster ride, and iam here to bring some sanity into my life.
More to follow.......
I was thinking about the title name,and so many popped up,but i chose this, this is where iam at my life, not very young or not very old, fighting with heart and mind,with a whole bunch of questions over right and wrong, trying to absorb many different things around me,,,i had a busy career till 3 or 4 months back, and i was more sane, now i have left it due to personal reasons and ever since iam on life's roller coaster ride, and iam here to bring some sanity into my life.
More to follow.......
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
