Tag: Life

Pumpkins and Shotputs

I don’t remember the last time my shoulder and arms felt this sore. Probably not since that disastrous attempt at shotput in School many eons ago. Funny how the physical education directors of the day thought about life on the Athletic field. Of hurling shotputs and javelins, they let us experiment. There was one time when I went up to the shotput arena in awe. I’d seen folks with biceps the size of my thighs (then of course) go and make light work of it. The confidence a teenager can muster up is simply amazing. I walked up and stooped to pick the thing and remember the deadweight pulling me down so I was stuck in a sort of limbo between hands being pulled by the shotput to dear Earth again while my feet were plucked reluctantly away from the shores of the Earth.   I managed with all my will power to lift the thing. I still don’t know what I expected to do with it; given it was taking all willpower just to stand upright holding the shotput in my hand. But, being a keen observer I knew that snorting works better than power in cases like this, especially on the sports field. When in doubt, snort and grunt is the motto. I gathered up steam from the very bowels and snorted like never before, lifted the shotput to my shoulder height and heaved. Elephants uprooting trees don’t concentrate as much, I am sure. I felt the shotput leave my hands and held myself back firmly on the ground – I refused to fly with the shotput and become the laughing stock of the town.

Two things stuck with me as a memory from this disastrous foray into shotputting.
1) My hands felt like they’d been replaced with lead by a slow process that involved melting, searing and some more groaning.
2) While I scanned the horizon to see how far I’d thrown it, my soaring spirits were brought right back down to Earth when my friend showed me the shotput nestling snuggly near my foot.

There is something about aging that I hate to admit. The same lead like pain in the hands was what I got for a lot less than a shotput now. This time, it was the pumpkins. My maiden attempt at pumpkin carving yielded the same result. I had no idea the pumpkins were such hard-to-work blighters. Or I may have gone completely awry in the skill department. Maybe, I should have used a carving knife suitable for 12 year olds instead of 5 year olds. I suppose I thought the daughter would help to carve. Nevertheless, a friend and I managed a bunch of pumpkins (for the daughter and her friends) for Halloween this time.
They would not win any pumpkin heaving races, but it is my maiden attempt and I shall hold it up for the World to see just as soon as I can lift those hands.

Happy Halloween! The supermen and mermaids will be here soon.

An ogre or gingerbread cookies?

I picked up one of those best selling thrillers for light reading a few days ago. I must say! I am a software engineer and all that, and yet it stumps me every time I read one of these techno thrillers. Get me started on some code, and try as I might to design and think of all possible scenarios, seldom is there a time that I have the blasted thing to work in the first attempt. If nothing else, I would have taken care enough to miss a semi-colon in a particularly hard to spot spot. Without a once-over, I am bound to have let something slip.

Yet, these fantastic heroes and heroines of these thrillers just sit there and whiz through complex networks and hacking into the most complex systems set up with millions of lines of security code in a jiffy.

All I can do is sigh, and hope the sigh would transfer some of that luck over to me. Imagine how much time I would get to muck around with what to write if I could only do that?! Here, allow me to wallow in some scenarios for you…

Scenario 1:
The question in the practical examination in the Engineering examination read:  Design and code the shortest path algorithm and come up with the best route to get from the USA to Sevapettai village.

What happens to me if I were brilliant heroine like above?

The question could have stumped everyone, but being an excellent programmer, she had got it right in the first attempt. She actually proved that Djikstra not only had a spelling that wasn’t the shortest possible, but his algorithm could be improved as well. She was left to think and write about the pros and cons of having ogres as pets in the house for the remainder of the examination.

Scenario 2: I forgot my password.

What happens to me if I were brilliant heroine like above?

She never forgot her password because she was so good at cracking them. It took her 2.56 seconds to break into her own password and transfer all the data she needed, leaving her with 59 minutes and 58.44 seconds to twiddle her thumbs and wonder about whether gingerbread cookies had ginger and bread in them and why they were called cookies if it were really bread.

See the possiblities? Sigh again.

I Dare!

I wonder if you have seen or heard about the Ariel advertisement for detergent in India. The media company did not go for actresses, models, sportsmen and even politicians to star in their advt and went in for the serious effect. Watching a spot of Indian television always seems to remind me of the inordinate amount of time we spend thinking about and caring for our clothes. It tugs at my heart strings a bit to see that I don’t accord more than a second’s thought in selecting detergent. It is mostly void of thought while yanking on the phone and lifting it off the shelves at Costco. If this is the lackadaisal attitude I take towards something that is advertised for 1/3rd of all the slots, I wonder what I would be serious about. Tut Tut.

Still such is life. If I haven’t been too worried about that slight yellow tinge in my creamy whites before, why start now? Yet, I was forced to think about it with a trifle more seriousness when I saw a person I thought was worth emulating go on screen and telling you about how she cares for her whites. The guilt pang is a bit strong as the household has no whites to talk about anymore. All whites in the house are systematically washed with runny colours and their peace is shattered. I see to it. I give it enormous odds of 5 washes, and if by then I haven’t ruined it, I will change my name. I am not nourishncherish anymore! I shall be whitewash.

Given all of this, why do I ramble on about detergent? Well..I confess I felt numb when I saw Kiran Bedi go out on television and tell me how to soak the darn things. If she told me how to react to a poor child unable to fend for himself by the roadside, or even told me about how to rescue a stranded cat from high up a telephone pole, that was different. But, Kiran Bedi telling me how to wash my inner garments seems as un-Director-General-like as it is possible to be in Modern Civilization.

I remember my adrenaline high for several days after reading her biography, “I Dare”. To the feminist teenager, that is the sort of story that fills you with willpower to achieve and dream. I actually attributed my lack of spectacular success to the fact that I did not have to swim across a river everyday to get to School. I remember my friends asking if everything was okay with me, and I said, “Yes…I will!” or some such equally irrelevant answer simply fused with determination.

So, here it is. Just thinking of “I Dare!” has awakened that spirit in me. I will take a couple of whites and try Ariel Oxy on them to see if the Director General is as good as she claims.

Woof Woof!

The husband did well I thought, and yet they gave him a dog biscuit. I mean to say, I did think of rolling up my sleeves to bark at the fellow, but if a non-barker got a dog biscuit, what would a barker get? I was in no mood for bones at the moment.

The h. and his friends performed admirably at the San Jose Rock ‘N Roll half marathon. One of them actually ran like he had a fierce dog at his heels the whole way through and finished in an hour and 36 minutes.

Anyway, the point is when these marathons are conducted, there is a goodish amount of food given along the way and at the finish line. Having run a long distance, it is not uncommon to see marathoners sweating and panting , queueing up at these lines to pick up food. Bananas, oranges, water, rotten tasting fiber bars left to please the smarting eye on the kitchen counter till the lady of the house discreetly gets rid of it, salt tablets, foil cloaks – this is where they make their money back. I mean, these marathoners actually pay to run, so here is where they get their ROI is the general consensus. I once saw a fellow’s pants stuffed with assorted peanut packets, some chocolate chip cookies, three oranges and 2 bananas, and he wasn’t even halfway through the food line.

This, though was the first time I saw a dog biscuit packet in the accumulated finish line wealth. It is entirely possible one mistook the panting and yipped one at him, but I thought it mean. The husband was so biffed, he went and collected a beer bottle to make up for it.

Woof Woof and a Bottle of Beer!

Robots, Lord Indra & Global Warming

You know every time one of these scientists came up with a study on global warming, I shudder. I mean have you seen those photographs of what Earth would like in 40 years? I suppose we should get started on one of those research studies to see how we can spout gills to survive.

But the Summer of 2010, seems to have softened my fears a bit. We had a mild summer, with a few days of the Sun bobbing and fresh flowers. I spent all of this summer annoying my family and friends in other countries, mostly in Asia, telling them all about the mist filled mornings and the mild drizzles and the cloudy clouds. I don’t think any of them were too happy with this relentless gloat I had going on, but distance and love can be a great restraining influence, and I was therefore allowed to roam around sans physical injuries. Just before I transcended the levels calling for justifiable physical violence, the sun burst forth in all its fury. In fact, the Sun has taken it upon himself to expend all the summer’s worth of sun in one action packed week.

Just like we would not know how to react if we were to spout gills, some of us don’t really know how to react to this spot of Summer in the Fall. Some people have reacted to it most strangely by asking each other what they thought of Robots wherever they met. I am usually fairly quick on the uptake, but I was clueless – foggy if you know what I mean,  wondering what robots had to do with global warming. Maybe, I’d let a significant scientific study slip through the cracks.

Some others have become stranger still and talk incessantly about Lord Indra. I know he is the King of Gods and all that, but beyond that I am quite helpless.

All of these factors have left me with a sort of dull ache between the eyebrows. If the temperature goes up any more, and the robots become any matier with the Indian King of Gods, I might just do what the thermometer did.

Did you hear about the thermometer that couldn’t take it anymore? It burst.

I am sorry if that sounded like the rottenest thermometer joke in recent times, but it is the effect of a jarring note on a hot day. I was referring to the thermometer up in LA – it simply threw up its hands in despair and burst at 113 F

http://mobile.latimes.com/wap/news/text.jsp?sid=294&nid=23162863&cid=17190&scid=-1&ith=0&title=Local

To all you folks who think I just became cuckoo with the heat, I finally figured out that robots have nothing to do with global warming and global warming has nothing to do with Lord Indra.

The folks are all buzzing about Endhiran, the new Rajinikant movie about Robots released this week. Since, it would be odd for folks to behave madly in the middle of Fall in the Bay Area, I suppose these movie chaps prayed to Lord Indra to tune up the temperature a bit. The passing madness could be attributed to the sun on the bare head, you see?

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=219283&id=690222330

All is well – watch the robots and wait for the gills to spout.

The Pictuaraguan @ The Asian Games

All hopes of the tiny island nation of Pictuaragua were pinned on Wilpat Shue as he walked up the stairs to the weightlifting arena. Nike had promised him an advertisement slot if he could bung in a gold at the Asian Games in New Delhi. To the Pictuaraguan President, this was huge. This meant, Nike would enter the markets and little boys who wanted to play ‘Seven stones’ will aspire to play ‘Seven stones’ wearing fashionable Nike shoes, and that may be just the boost Pictuaragua needed to turn its poor agrarian economy around.

“No pressure Wilpat”, said the President pompously stroking his goatee, “the entire nation depends on you and the Nike deal, that is all!”

Wilpat was the hot favorite for the gold medal, but he had a somewhat annoying habit, one that is employed by quite a few top athletes. He made heavy noises – he claimed weightlifting was strenuous.
“GRUNT! OHHHH!” He would scream and then he would flex his gleaming muscles and issue the following “HAARRUMPH! OOOMPAAA! BBEERRRRR AAAH  GRRREEAADDDDYYYYY?” with increasing intensity. And then flex them muscles once more for good luck and lift.

True to form, Wilpat surveyed the audience and issued the first of his grunt – “GRUNT!” Nothing happened. In fact, folks looked mildly amused and a couple of dogs peeped in to see who the new animal was. It was during the HAARRUMPH” stage that the first grumblings of dissent were heard from the building. It did sound like an elephant herd practicing for the Jungle choir. The OOMPAA was not as long as the HAARUMPH, but built on the previous one was too much strain. Wilpat bent down and started on the BBEERRRR and picked up the rod when he felt something solid bunging him on the back of his head. GAAARR he continued and another one hit him unconscious. He dropped the rod on his foot and crashed with a resounding thud on the ground.

The tiles from the false ceiling in the arena had just collapsed unable to bear the strains of Wilpat’s vocal chords. Poor Wilpat lost points and did not win the Gold Medal as predicted because he had dropped the bar on his foot while falling. “Anywhere else…”, said the judges, “but rules are rules.”

The Chief Minister of Delhi rushed on to the scene and urged everybody to retain their optimism. She said minor glitches such as this will not hold the prestigious Asian Games from being conducted. She also urged future competitors to not make as much of a noise as Wilpat did, and asked them to walk onto the arena gingerly on their toes like ballet dancers. If they could do that, and if care was taken not to cheer anybody, there was nothing preventing the games from proceeding she said.

Instead of saying “Quite a Tournament!”, we will say ‘A Quiet Tournament!” she joked. Nobody laughed for fear of the roof.

PS:

http://www.hindu.com/2010/09/23/stories/2010092357330100.htm – Now, tiles on false ceiling collapse in weightlifting arena (after the bridge collapse, the deplorable state of housing for the athletes, now tiles).
“Glitches won’t bring down Games”: Sheila Dikshit,  Delhi Chief Minister

LinkedIn & Slur Motion Photography

“Please stand back – we will answer all your queries.”
I wave to my adoring fans who would like to just have one word with me. I stand next to my second level contact in LinkedIn, while he is looking dazed with all the attention. I assure him that all will be well, and I am there to take care of the number of people who jostle around him for photographs and such. Not that I wouldn’t like a photograph with him myself. I can entrust the camera to the one person I can rely on. The husband. He would never lose the camera; but what he does with it is an entirely different matter.

I am not sure whether he would attempt that new technique in photography he was so enamoured with the last time I was around a mini celebrity, I hope not. The technical term is ‘Slur Motion Photography’ or the ‘Earthquake Effect’. The results were fine if I were viewing them sitting on a vibrating machine or one of those massaging chairs you see in malls with old men burping loudly on them. But if I were to see them standing still, it took a practiced eye to find me, and that is not the state of affairs one wants when being photographed with your Second Level Contact in LinkedIn whenever that maybe.

So, who is my second level contact on LinkedIn? None but the President of the United States, Barack Obama! To all you skeptics who don’t believe me, I snapped an image of my screen.

Obama.jpg

Here is a sample of Slur Motion Photography, that I personally find admirable as long as you are not looking to retain memories of yourself in it and such.

For more pictures of the same calibre, please go to http://suroba.wordpress.com/2010/09/19/one-more-take-saar/

Philtrums and Parafiltrums

There is something about parenthood that messes up the pride gene. Humble people who never looked to anyone for a bit of credit will find themselves boasting freely of their offspring. In fact, it is rumoured that folks coming within 500 yards of my parents’ house run a considerable risk of getting trampled by the band. If blowing the trumpet means boasting, watching my father at it, can be nothing short of a band. I assure you, if all you are doing is looking to kill a couple of hours, please drop by my parents and ask how his children are doing. I hear he has the course split into three equal parts. After 1/3rd of the course is done, coffee is served. The second 2/3rd later, snacks and water, and if you have survived the last portion, you are invited to a free meal with an added bonus. The bonus has a wonderfully sweet surprise element to it – you get an encore anytime you ask for it. Free of cost.

Boasting about one’s offspring takes various forms: some like to go for the audio-visual aspect, some not. For example, folks coming to visit my in-laws would do well to leave their spectacles at home. For their course, contains lots of pictures from tattered albums, and include complete latitude and longitudinal elements to every feature in the album. It is a bit like reading the National Geographic with poor pictures.

I blog – so, that’s where I boast. What am I here to gloat about? One day, the daughter and I are enjoying a perfectly normal evening stroll, and discussing matters of importance in our lives like chocolates and cycling, when she dons a serious look on her face and asks me, “Amma – you know everything right?”
There is something about flattery, I filled out a little, and said modestly, “Well…not everything, but … What’s up?”
She looks at me, casually brushing the area between her nose and upper lip, and says, “Umm…I have a Science question.”  The one opening she knows will get her full answers from my side. I unwittingly encourage her to ask away throwing in a quote about the thirst for knowledge.

“What is this area called?” she asks.
“Eh?” I falter
She is still stroking the area between the nose and upper lip, and asking me what the bally thing is called. How am I supposed to know? I don’t exactly notice the area everyday. It is just there. I suppose it serves a purpose: something like preventing food from going straight to your nose when you stuff your mouth. But apart from that, I have little knowledge. I wasn’t always the best at Biology.

“Eh…mustache area?” I answer, to which she gives a loud laugh that sounds like a waterfall pounding on tins below and says, “Then, the cheek is the kissing area?” (Yes, she is young – she still thinks I know everything remember?!)

So, I ask you – what is that fertile piece of land between the nose and upper lip called on your face?

I suppose I did the right thing, by admitting that I haven’t the foggiest clue, and the pair of us set out to look for the term. Thank heavens for Google. I don’t know what we would have done without that marvel. Apparently, that hideous thing where caterpillar sized mustaches grow on men is called the ‘Parafiltrum’, and the canal is called ‘Philtrum’

Philtrum – humph, Parafiltrum – humph again. Even wikipedia doesn’t have a link for it as of today (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&search=Parafiltrum)

All that glitters …

Have you wondered why these Army Generals always display all their medals about their persona? It is simple psychology. The more impressive one looks, the more confidence you have in him.

Apparently, the towing truck I had called for had studied this aspect of psychology well. Of all the rotten experiences, one of the most rotten has to be getting a flat tire. Of course, one never discovers a flat tire at a convenient time. Nevertheless, this time hurt. It happened at the end of a very long and tiring day – 16 hours of non-stop nonsense. I got into the car, my little chariot to take me home towards my comfortable bed that seemed to be sending positive signals of welcome, and felt the car sag a bit. So, I got out to check what had happened and lo and behold the tire looked like a soggy piece of bread, with a car on it. The car looked sorry to be exerting any sort of pressure on the blasted piece of rubber. But cars, unlike dogs, are constrained in movement, and cannot lift one side up and stand on three tires of their own will.

I’ll race through the next steps: Called the emergency road service, female promised aid within 10 minutes, clear directions given, waiting commenced. If I wanted, I could not have chosen a clearer spot to get a flat tire. I mean a person with no knowledge of any of the roads in my town could have gotten there. On one of the arterial roads, in one of the major complexes. Can’t miss.

“Only 10 minutes, only 10 minutes, only, only 10 minutes…” I sang to myself for 45 minutes, and decided to call again. The female who had promised me aid 45 minutes ago, came on again, and I wailed to her. She promptly got in touch with the driver and he said he’d lost his way. I don’t exaggerate much here – you would have to work really hard to lose your way on this road. Still, I can be charitable and gave him another 15 minutes. This time, the truck came.

You know how Great Emperors used to go down to the battlefield in all their regalia to enthuse the troops? Just their presence would do. I don’t think Akbar heartened his troops as much as that tow truck heartened mine. I mean to say! What an impressive vehicle it was. For starters, it gleamed yellow and came with blinking lights. The daughter was thoroughly impressed with the spectacle, and we both gaped at it longingly. Food, water and sleep were moments away.

The truck stopped, and the truck driver jumped down to survey the scene. He was methodical. Methodical Joe. The front left tire was the soggy bread. I’d mentioned it on the phone twice. But he checked the rear two, the front right and finally exclaimed “HA!” on finding the flat tire. He then walked around his large truck in a clockwise direction thrice, and tapped the compartments in a xylophonic manner. All part of his process I suppose, but I admit that my confidence in the food-water-sleep-moments-away dream sagged a bit.

Methodical Joe then opened a compartment containing an assortment of tools, and inspected each tool thoroughly. Just as I thought, he would use this nut, or that screw, he would replace it, and move on to the next. He then, closed Compartment #1, and walked around the truck in an anti-clockwise direction, and opened Compartment #2. He pulled each spanner one by one, and replaced them in exactly the same order in which he had taken them out. I felt Lady Patience deserting me. When he opened Compartment #6, I asked him if everything was okay. He replied without much conviction that it was okay.

I did not know what he was looking for, but just in case he was looking for the spare tire in his truck, I told him that my spare tire was in my car trunk. He seemed to consider it a valid point. He then came and pulled the tire out of my car trunk and repeated the opening-compartment-procedure three more times. By now, Lady Patience had completely deserted me and had sent Lady Hunger to keep me company.

I asked him a bit edgily if he knew what to do. His candor at a moment like this impressed me. He said, simply and bravely, that he did not know. I gaped at the man. I suppose he felt sorry for me and said he will send somebody else and left.

Luckily, his replacement (who came in a far less impressive vehicle I might add) had my car up and running in about two hunger pangs.

All that glitters…..

Honeymooning in the Hills

I’d been on a great trip like the voyagers of yester years and swept acrossvarious countries in the Summer. Well, I’d only been gone three weeks, and I had only gone to Asia. But the journey still felt like an epic one, and what better place to log it than my old blog? Now, I am going to go for the classic NRI effect and make a statement intended to annoy the masses: I had clean forgotten how hot the Indian summers could get. Folks who live there claim it has already cooled down because of the monsoons. But I thought it was still hot, very hot. We did our best to escape the heat and retreated to Kulu Manali.

Kulu Manali, I learned was the latest vacation hot spot. One evening, under the pretense of reading a book in the garden, I silently drank in the antics of a newly married couple playing basketball in the garden, and almost split myself sideways, while attempting to keep a straight face. The poor fishes were taping themselves playing, with witty comments about each other peppered with love dialogues. I could have told them that 5 years from now, they would squirm faster than a bunch of earthworms watching it, but that would have been plain mean of me. So, I did the next best thing and watched them.

I must say those honeymooners brought on a flood of memories. Before you recoil in horror, let me assure my readers that I am not here to tell you about the time my dearest and I recorded ourselves on our honeymoon. I do not wish to impose ……

I have probably remarked on this blog that I was brought up in the picturesque Nilgiris in South India. Ooty, the ‘Queen of Hill Stations’, was home to the southern half of the honeymooning crowd, and our home was often the abode for honeymooners who were the third related cousins to the aunt who was just two hops away from the distant maternal uncle (who incidentally also knew my paternal grand-uncle’s maama through adoption, did you know?) There have been times when folks would arrive on our doorstep with a letter of introduction from someone like this, and we would be entertaining them for their honeymoon. Or rather vice-versa. The children of the house were quite adept at studying the smitten behavior from the long-lasting, and had our own jokes running in the background. What I did not appreciate was the fact that the guests being honeymooners needed a separate room, and mine was offered up without the slightest word of consent from me. Indian hospitality I tell you – tut tut.

Some of them were decent guests and chatted up with us without having to touch each other every 5 seconds to make sure it wasn’t a dream. I am sorry to say this glowing statement of conduct did not quite pass for a few of them. What appalled me was the fact that these visitors would then go on to ask us to accompany us to show them around Ooty. Thank Heavens my father did not usually consent to these requests, but the fact that they would ask was enough to give me the jitters. I mean, what do they expect a school going girl to do with them while they walked arm in arm down a quaint lane in Ooty? The problem, I realise now, was the fact that we as a nation try to get the maximum bang for the buck. So, while honeymooning and linking arm in leg or arm as the case maybe, we should also drink in the Botanical Gardens – Botany classes, and the HPF (Hindustan Photo Films Factory – Engineering) and Marine Sciences in the dying Ooty Lake.

There was one moment when a pair of them came back eating out of one ice-cream. Caused quite a scandal in the 80’s I tell you.

THUMP!

A loud thump woke me from my reveries. Apparently, the female half of the couple had inadvertently basketed the ball from within 5 meters of the hoop, and the thump was a loud congratulatory smack, which the male half was promptly recording for future use. I looked up. The couple smiled and asked if I could take a picture of them. I smiled and obliged. They positioned themselves next to a largish rose plant and smiled at the flowers together while I clicked.

Honeymooning in the Hills is still in, and love is in the air.