Vazhga Tamizh!

The week-end was spent in California Tamil Academy. Sat was graduation day – completion of a school year. California Tamil Academy is an amazing organization – run entirely by volunteers, they teach Tamil to over 3000 children in Bay Area. I really like the setup and the dedication. It gives a sense of belonging in more ways than one. People felt at home – at times, they behaved just as badly as they would in a political rally in India without the lathi-armed police.

For example, the secretary was pleading, shouting, cajoling anything to get people to settle down so the ceremony could start to no avail. It was so disheartening to see people (most of them with professional careers no doubt!) standing around without the least bit of consideration for the Secretary’s increasingly hoarse voice. I wonder why we embarrass ourselves thus when we congregate.

Finally, the program started, and the children trooped on stage to receive their certificates. As usual, they first sent the pre-schoolers onto the stage. They got them to stand on stage, and there was a slight delay before the certificates were given. The children were left standing on stage looking around at the crowd! One of them sat down on the stage (Guilty as charged: that clown was my child!) I was visible in the audience wringing my hands with an upward swing movement (“You can’t sit like that on stage K!” I said to her multiple times after the ceremony quite horrified)

http://www.hashwinphotography.com/cta/index.php?album=cta-fremont-graudation-day-2009

Here is what she learnt to write though!

The day after, was the annual day program. It was a grand mela – a LARGE congregation of people belonging to a similar demographic (all Tamilians with one or more children studying Tamil). The day long program started with the preschoolers. We had to drop them off after taking them to the restroom!

The cuteness index to quality of the program was inversely proportional.

In the preschool lot, there was one who decided to admire the chain she was wearing in the middle of HER program (this time, thankfully, it wasn’t my daughter!), one of them wanted to talk to his friends on the stage and another decided to just run to his mother halfway through the performance!

As the day wore on, the children definitely performed better! All in all, I laud the academy’s efforts.

Vazhga Tamizh!

Vazhga Tamizh!

The week-end was spent in California Tamil Academy. Sat was graduation day – completion of a school year. California Tamil Academy is an amazing organization – run entirely by volunteers, they teach Tamil to over 3000 children in Bay Area. I really like the setup and the dedication. It gives a sense of belonging in more ways than one. People felt at home – at times, they behaved just as badly as they would in a political rally in India without the lathi-armed police.

For example, the secretary was pleading, shouting, cajoling anything to get people to settle down so the ceremony could start to no avail. It was so disheartening to see people (most of them with professional careers no doubt!) standing around without the least bit of consideration for the Secretary’s increasingly hoarse voice. I wonder why we embarrass ourselves thus when we congregate.

Finally, the program started, and the children trooped on stage to receive their certificates. As usual, they first sent the pre-schoolers onto the stage. They got them to stand on stage, and there was a slight delay before the certificates were given. The children were left standing on stage looking around at the crowd! One of them sat down on the stage (Guilty as charged: that clown was my child!) I was visible in the audience wringing my hands with an upward swing movement (“You can’t sit like that on stage K!” I said to her multiple times after the ceremony quite horrified)

http://www.hashwinphotography.com/cta/index.php?album=cta-fremont-graudation-day-2009

Here is what she learnt to write though!

The day after, was the annual day program. It was a grand mela – a LARGE congregation of people belonging to a similar demographic (all Tamilians with one or more children studying Tamil). The day long program started with the preschoolers. We had to drop them off after taking them to the restroom!

The cuteness index to quality of the program was inversely proportional.

In the preschool lot, there was one who decided to admire the chain she was wearing in the middle of HER program (this time, thankfully, it wasn’t my daughter!), one of them wanted to talk to his friends on the stage and another decided to just run to his mother halfway through the performance!

As the day wore on, the children definitely performed better! All in all, I laud the academy’s efforts.

Vazhga Tamizh!

The beauty of questioning

I spend a lot of time vacillating between an agnostic secular person and a religious person, who doesn’t believe 80% of what my religion has become over the ages. Suffice it to say that the days I spend in my former state far outnumber the days I spend in the latter.

Here is my problem: I like to believe in the power of hope and if belief is what brings hope, I am all for it. On the other hand, over the ages, I can categorically state that religion has done more damage to mankind than good. The moment religion ceases to be a personal experience, I can see it wreaking havoc.

I quite like the idea of finding yourself. Easily, that is the path taken by all the “founders” of religion – be it Buddha or the Sufi saints of Islam or the Bhagavad Gita. But how does one explain “finding oneself” to the masses? That is where the problem begins. So, the explanation became finding one’s moral conscience – still good. But a few centuries later, moral conscience evolves into a set of rules written by the elitist community of the religion. Slowly, the congregation becomes more of a unifying force, one to forge your identity with, than to use as a tool to better yourself.

At my wedding, the priest was a person who was my grandfather’s friend. My grandfather was a kind-hearted, generous, loving, able teacher, caring husband/father and he was a pious man. But somehow, whenever people described him, they put his piety ahead of his other virtues. This priest came to my wedding and said he would do all it takes in his power to make sure that great man’s grand-daughter lived a fantastic life, and put us through the most grueling wedding ceremony in recent times. I didn’t understand more than a few words of what was said – there was no need for me to elongate the proceedings by asking for clarifications in between on a hot day in front of the fire, with no food in my stomach. The ceremony lasted a good 9 hours of listening to things I didn’t understand. Everyone who came to congratulate me, said the priest was excellent, he hadn’t missed a single thing – who would understand how my intestines were reacting at the time? Which religion?

What I am trying to say is, some people are ritualistic by nature – to them, rituals become religion – this isn’t orthodoxy, this is just an interpretation of their own religion. It is also show-case worthy.

I have spent my growing years chanting some prayers that my mother taught me on the way to the school in the morning, as we ran for the train. That is all I know today, and probably that is all I will ever know – who knows? Every now and then, I think that just because I am part-agnostic, I should not deny the experience of a religion to my daughter. So, I take her to the local temple. She asks a million questions along the way as usual. We are in the temple, and she looks at the statues and asks – “If Ummachi (God) made everything and gave us everything, how come he isn’t even moving?”

I savoured the question – the beauty of questioning always delights me. I am sorry that when it comes to religion so few people still have the power of questioning left in them.

Only running…..

To everyone who heard the shocking news that my husband left me for a sleepover in a van, and how much my daughter misses her dad – here is the good news, my husband is back!

Really? I did not think he was going to do that? The family seemed pretty stable, don’t you think?

To all those potential rumour mills that started buzzing, luckily I was nearby to explain the reason behind the husband’s sudden disappearance! He ran a 200 mile relay for the India Literacy Project. He and his team spent the week-end in a van sleeping and eating off the road, while they passed the baton. Over 200 teams participated in the relay, and the mild drizzle was an added twist to the tale. (Regular readers would be pleased to know that now, I have 2 chaffing-proof raincoats added to all the other running condiments at home!)

Of course, all my daughter knew was that her father was missing for the whole week-end. He had gone for a sleep-over, and that too in a van! I had to quickly explain that he hadn’t joined the hippies out to explore lands unknown, but was really only running – PHEW!

The tired h. came back last night battered and tired and certainly in heavy need of a shower, but back he was! Meanwhile, the daughter filled him up with all the cool things the girls did this week-end.

I am getting the news of the relay itself in installments, since I wasn’t given much air-time with the father-daughter reunion and all. What I did get was some of the funny team names that participated.

Slow As Molasses (They beat the husband’s team by about 5 minutes)
Dude, Where’s My Van?
Smells Like Team Spirit
Heart And Soles
6 Degrees Of Perspiration 12 Women Of Inspiration
The Fast, The Slow, And The Pretty
Slower Than Turtles, Faster Than Dsl
Babes Are Back In Black
Google Leftovers [Google]
Who’s Watching The Kids? [Willow Glen Track Club]
Shut Up And Run [Kaiser Electronics]
Suns Of A Beach
Cheaper Than Therapy
Does This Van Make My Butt Look Big?
Just Watering Your Flowers, Ma’am
That Wasn’t A Mile
Y R We Runnin?Running Noses [Stanford University Otolaryngology]

There was a walking team christened “What’s the hurry?” (that was my favourite!)

Oh Lord My God

Every morning, I arrive at the public transit terminal in San Francisco city as the morning fog is deliberating whether to lift from the streets or not. Whether it is the reluctant fog, or sheets of rain or a lazy sun peeking through the cloudy skies, I am reassured that the Lord is there to take care of me. I ascend the escalator and as I come out, one cannot escape the screaming. “HE knows” he shouts. “HE knows all the good and will take care of you. “. Sometimes, I am tempted to stop and ask this guy what HE knows? And if he does, why HE is letting him waste his energy standing and shouting HIS glory at people who are evidently not interested in his daily sojourn.

No kidding rain or sun, this man shouts himself hoarse about the Lord’s glory. Maybe, this is a form of ecstasy like people whipping themselves to transcend levels (none of which I have ever understood)All the people around me try to ignore him for the most part. He stands there telling us that the greatest thing that ever happened is the fact that the Lord is there watching over us.

Similarly, every Friday, no matter how early I leave, I always find a man with brown eyes of medium build handing out pamphlets with the Lord’s glory printed on them. I don’t think these people are being paid for this, so what is their motivation?

I would never know. I wander around looking for a bear claw. The staff inform me courteously of course, that bear claws have been discontinued. (Bear claw is a kind of a breakfast thingy that I particularly love. Generally, I am not looking for the literal bear claws in the morning – by evening, it is a different story of course!)

Now, screaming outside Starbucks saying – “DON’T DISCONTINUE BEAR CLAWS!” may have had some effect. Maybe, the company would have seen the undying love people had for bear claws, and continued the product! But shouting that the Lord is watching over me when I’ve just been denied my pamper-myself-breakfast-item is a whole different elephant!

Ergonomic bliss and werewolf howls

I’ve been having ergonomic problems lately. The problems have little to do with ergonomics, it has more to do with the fact that I have been forced to spend the bright spring days couped up in a drab cubicle with gray and beige shades, barely having time to stuff the old mouth with lunch. So, the finger moans, and the knees groan. It is all a collective attention seeking mechanism to lure me out into the open.

The truth being, I do load balance making my mouse left-handed because of the carpal tunnel syndrome. So, a colleague of mine declared that all I need was one of those large, unwieldy trays that pull out from under the desk, and I would feel like I had relaxed in a hot bath the whole day, followed by a professional massage. The painted image was too good for me to bear. I had to act, and fast!

In a moment of weakness, I caught the company carpenter unawares on his bi-weekly visit, and got the tray done. I imagined painting my cubicle with a cool colour and put up a tent with spinning juice trays etc, as I pulled out the heaven equivalent from under my desk. (You get the general picture as I visualised my path into “heaven”)

The tray came, and I found the effect strange. Given that most of my tasks are done with the suspense and thrill of a racing car in a Grand Prix, I find myself sitting on the edge of the seat quite often and poking my beak towards the screen. The pull-out tray demanded a more relaxed position, and the beak was too far from the computer! Over and above that, the phone was too far from my relaxed position for comfort.

I’d already mentioned the left handed mouse temptation that I yield to once in a while, this large tray put a cork screw stopper to that as well! See the pic, the mouse area is always on the right! So, not only could I lose all cool imagination about being the superwoman flying in to tackle the issues at work with the leaning-in-tip-of-chair posture, I had to also make the carpal tunnel tunnel in harder to make its presence known!

You all know where this is leading I am sure. Even if I did manage to make peace with the tray, the chair I was sitting on was just not suited to the new lower height. So, I ran after a good chair. I am not tall, but I am not included in the dwarfish subset either, yet I had a chair that either had my legs dangling or sloping forward at an incline (almost waiting to tip me off any moment – because of lean-in-ahead car-racing-posture, I am sure). So, my hunt for a chair started.
Then, the mouse pad joined in – the carpal tunnel effect could be remedied with a mouse pad with a wrist support pad, said another ergonomic expert.

I now sit in my original bad leaning-in-position, yelping and howling every few minutes. The pull-out tray has been sent to an early retirement citing performance issues. But, it still hides under my desk!

Everytime, I inadvertently cross my legs, I howl like a werewolf calling its kind. (This pain can’t wait for full-moons for werewolf transformations!) My knee is badly bruised with the banging on tray injuries, and the carpenter took leave this week!

Ergonomic bliss and werewolf howls

I’ve been having ergonomic problems lately. The problems have little to do with ergonomics, it has more to do with the fact that I have been forced to spend the bright spring days couped up in a drab cubicle with gray and beige shades, barely having time to stuff the old mouth with lunch. So, the finger moans, and the knees groan. It is all a collective attention seeking mechanism to lure me out into the open.

The truth being, I do load balance making my mouse left-handed because of the carpal tunnel syndrome. So, a colleague of mine declared that all I need was one of those large, unwieldy trays that pull out from under the desk, and I would feel like I had relaxed in a hot bath the whole day, followed by a professional massage. The painted image was too good for me to bear. I had to act, and fast!

In a moment of weakness, I caught the company carpenter unawares on his bi-weekly visit, and got the tray done. I imagined painting my cubicle with a cool colour and put up a tent with spinning juice trays etc, as I pulled out the heaven equivalent from under my desk. (You get the general picture as I visualised my path into “heaven”)

The tray came, and I found the effect strange. Given that most of my tasks are done with the suspense and thrill of a racing car in a Grand Prix, I find myself sitting on the edge of the seat quite often and poking my beak towards the screen. The pull-out tray demanded a more relaxed position, and the beak was too far from the computer! Over and above that, the phone was too far from my relaxed position for comfort.

I’d already mentioned the left handed mouse temptation that I yield to once in a while, this large tray put a cork screw stopper to that as well! See the pic, the mouse area is always on the right! So, not only could I lose all cool imagination about being the superwoman flying in to tackle the issues at work with the leaning-in-tip-of-chair posture, I had to also make the carpal tunnel tunnel in harder to make its presence known!

You all know where this is leading I am sure. Even if I did manage to make peace with the tray, the chair I was sitting on was just not suited to the new lower height. So, I ran after a good chair. I am not tall, but I am not included in the dwarfish subset either, yet I had a chair that either had my legs dangling or sloping forward at an incline (almost waiting to tip me off any moment – because of lean-in-ahead car-racing-posture, I am sure). So, my hunt for a chair started.
Then, the mouse pad joined in – the carpal tunnel effect could be remedied with a mouse pad with a wrist support pad, said another ergonomic expert.

I now sit in my original bad leaning-in-position, yelping and howling every few minutes. The pull-out tray has been sent to an early retirement citing performance issues. But, it still hides under my desk!

Everytime, I inadvertently cross my legs, I howl like a werewolf calling its kind. (This pain can’t wait for full-moons for werewolf transformations!) My knee is badly bruised with the banging on tray injuries, and the carpenter took leave this week!

Want-to-do Vs Have-to-do

I sometimes like to let domesticity and a full-time job fulfill its duties of giving me excuses from doing the things I want to do. I find that every time I am really looking for an excuse, the never ending domestic tasks or the ever demanding official tasks jump upto the bait with enthusiasm, and I spend week after week letting my want-to-do simmer in the background, while my have-to-do takes over my life.

This week, after a particularly brutal have-to-do week, I decided to have a want-to-do week-end, and while I am still battling with the have-to-do’s on my list, I had fun. For one, we went for a Dandia dance program (the kind where we can dance rather than passively sit by and watch). It was fun to think of oneself as dancing gracefully, while co-dancers deftly dodged the bludgeoning monsters unleashed by dancers such as me. While we all danced our way through the large hall to the fantastic music provided by the band, we lost rhythm more times than once, and stepped into people’s toes and raised our sticks for banging on an non-existent partner,
or a partner who was there, and disappeared just as we turned around from our graceful swing. I enjoyed dandia with my daughter who decided to dance to her own rhythm, found the most amusing place to be beneath the table lining the walls for no apparent reason and numerous other reasons! (The one in black is me!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7J3vF9gDVY

In Dandia, a moment’s negligence can cause disarray and as I turned to see where the little one was during the dance, the whole party missed their respective partners, and we were all waving our sticks at random people who were all looking for their partners who just slipped a position! Anyway, the group was accomodating and I soon left to see the little chef sitting in the middle of the room stirring and cooking with her dandia sticks! I asked her what she was doing and she explained that she was making soup and rasam (In the middle of a hundred people dancing for God’s sake!)

All in all, the evening was filled with dance, music, imaginary food and just a stirring of the joie de vivre that is so carefully concealed in the folds of the daily grind.

The next morning, I decided to continue the trend, and spent the morning in the park with some friends, with a good run thrown in for good measure! I loved the joys of a spring morning – and step after painful step (remember the dandia the night before), made me savour the day.

I still have to to-do list to deal with – but my mind is revelling on the want-to’s that I indulged in after a long time!

How to eat a sandwich?

When is the last time you ate a sandwich or a burrito or a wrap gracefully? By sandwich, I don’t mean the bread/butter variety, but the variety where the first layer contains sprouts, followed by a layer of large leaves and twigs, and then a tree of something. A thin layer of cheese and the forest again on the other side! I am not one to comment on the taste, since I seem to reach out to this variety quite readily. But I do want to write about is the eating.


One bite into the infernal thing sends the taste buds reeling, and then when I pull away, a large leaf the size of 3 plates will want to get pulled out from between, and the flora above shifts sending the incumbents of the sandwich to scramble for safety. Something like a tectonic plate movement-earthquake-sort of thing. On my end, I can’t let the stuff loose and in a moment of reining in the chaos will try to rearrange the thing.

Just when I get it to resembling a sandwich again, I find that another bite makes the soggy stuff to start levitating towards the opposite end. You get the pictiure. The mouth on the southern end, the contents shifting and spilling out through the northern end. Almost like it wants to get away from being eaten. You see, when one is holding a largish object, gravitation exerts its influence as always, and the thing slopes downwards (around 12 degree incline is usual)

So, I rearrange the elements again and try a third time holding it at a perfect 180 degree angle, only to have the thing leaking on the sides and messing my arms.

The next item on my list is the height. I shall talk in term of units because I haven’t yet reached the stage of measuring the thickness of bread. Let us assume we are making a sandwich – the bread on either side is 2 units each, making a height of 4 units. Then the stuffing adds another 8 units, making it a grand 12 units high.

Sometimes, I feel like a crocodile. I open my mouth so wide, I can feel the bones make a cracking noise. I then have to adjust the cheek bones, give them a loving pat, assure them that what I am putting them through is actually good for them in the long run and start afresh with renewed vigour and fraying enthusiasm.

By this time, I don’t care about graceful eating anymore – in fact most times, I care neither about grace nor eating! I just let nature take its course. I pull and let the contents shift freely. I allow the sprouts to mingle and socialize with the tomato, while the pickles boss the mushrooms around as they spill onto the plate below. I eat whatever cares to remain within the sandwich – this is called wolfing down the sandwich. This activity is followed by cleaning up the spilled adventures with a spoon!

I feel full, and tell myself to go for soup the next time around.