Indian Weddings

What do I love most about Indian weddings? The people and the food!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Who cares about the couple;) They are just a means of providing this wedding entertainment for us:)

My wedding next month makes me muse about Indian weddings:) So colo"u"rful, so bright, so many people, so much noise, so muct activity, so much frenzy, so lively and so lovely:)

What I like best in weddings is like I said two things: people and food. When I was a kid, I was a pampered one, totally spoilt by my aunts and my cousins, I am much younger than most of them. So whenever I went for a wedding, I was totally smothered with goodies;) Be it food or fun rides or special place in mantaps be it anything, I completely used to feel like some queen straight out of Mysore palace;)

As I grew older I changed but the fun remained the same and so did the pampering:) I so love it, even to date all my cousins pamper me so much! My aunts too, specials are made just for me, everyone else gets so jealous and that makes me feel all the more better;) In weddings that I attended as an adoloscent, it was a different kind of special place. Everyone who came for the wedding, would wonder at who this girl is, because my aunts would deck me up so much, so much admiration and all the aunties talking about who did what, who wore what, what their sons/daughters did latest and greatest and so much more gossip!

Then comes the BEST part of it all, shadi ka khana (wedding feast). Sankethi weddings especially, I love the obbattus and the chaklis and the murmura unde and all that fancy good stuff. And Telugu weddings of course the traditional food and sweets and so much to eat, mirhci bajji, pakodi, gongura wow!!

In my own wedding, I know everyone else is going to have fun while I am sitting in the mantap busy tying the knot(rather getting the knot tied;) ) so I wish so much that I am able to attend at least one first circle wedding everytime I hop to India;) Indian weddings rock!!!

I love to laugh..

..at almost anything. Some of the best laughing days we have had though is when we used to laugh at/for nothing. I must mention all my friends here, Teju, Shetty, Vamshi and Rathi. Now, Vamshi, Teju and I are the only three souls who are capable of laughing at nothing or creating something out of thin air to laugh at. So much so that Shetty was always troubled. "Girls!", she used to say, in her typical St. Ann's Captain style, "you must stop your sidey jokes". And there, we laughed again, we will laugh at whatever sidey, uppey or downey jokes we want!!!:)):)) Remember Teju?;):))

So we scared quite a lot of people with our laughing. Some of the most striking are when one of our lecturers in St. Francis, refused to teach our class because he was intimidated by the "girls of 2A". Another is when we went for our second round of EAMCET counselling. We just went there to hang out, none of us had any real business to do, we just finished all the movies in town so we went to the counseling to hang out;) We laughed so much that one of our friends (not one of us five) disowned us because she was embarassed at the way we were goofing around and went and sat by a corner.

Lots more history to think of when I think of laughing. How much I goofed around in Hyd!! I so much want to start doing that again;) But for that I need the right combo of people, like Teju and Vamshi, and of course Shruti and Rathi to sit with us and get embarassed;)

I still love to laugh, and take every opportunity at it;) Like Darcy says in Pride and Prejudice, what defence can a man have against a person whose sole objective in life is to laugh;)

When I interviewed..

This one goes to the micro suburbs of holy Silicon Valley...

When I interviewed with Cisco, I was put up at Westin, Santa Clara (Its now Hyatt, I just drove past it last evening and noticed that it is now a Hyatt hotel). I was a little apprehensive because Cisco was in San Jose (yes, to an outsider that is all it is) and the hotel was in Santa Clara so I was wondering why they didn't give me a hotel in San Jose itself, so it would have been closer for me to drive. So anyway, I flew down from Milwaukee into San Jose International Airport (Don't think its one of those huge airports, its even smaller than the Madison airport I think, and international obviously means they fly into Mexico and Canada, that is good enough for this to be international d'oh!). That was the first shock I got on my first ever trip to the much-awed state of California. What an airport, so much for calling it international.

So I went, I took my car from Avis in the airport and headed out to the hotel. Now we are in Santa Clara. Next morning was my interviews, I had three sets the whole day long 8 am to 6 pm with a one-hour lunch break thrown in. Boy, that was hectic! At the end of the day I was tired of anything networking and even the very word;)

So I was under this impression, Cisco--San Jose, and hotel--Santa Clara. Then I asked my friend for directions to this particular building that I was interviewing with and I set out. I saw Cisco's campus, and was awed, spread out over 41 buildings and a mammoth campus area. Still in my mind, Cisco--San Jose, and hotel--Santa Clara. Then I went and I interviewed and during some casual conversations of the interview I was told that this building of Cisco's was not in San Jose, this was Milpitas!!! I was like, yet another town?! God! I was tired of remembering so many names, Cisco--part San Jose, part Milpitas, and hotel--Santa Clara. What astounded me (and continues to astound me) is that they are hardly two streets away. Each of these suburbs is over maybe at the most 5-6 streets and that is it!

Next I had to go to my friend's place in the evening. I set out, it was pretty close to the hotel, I reached in maybe 5-10 minutes. After describing to them how the day went, I asked the question that was most lingering on my mind...Is this place Santa Clara, Milpitas or San Jose and they said....yeah you guessed it right, this is neither of them!!!! This is Sunnyvale!! Huh?!?! I said, yet another suburb?! On the whole in the 10 mile radius that was driving in during my interview trip I covered four suburbs of the Bay Area!! Whoa! I was amazed how small these were, you cross one street and you don't know when San Jose ends and when Milpitas begins and when you go into Fremont from Milpitas. I was fazed...and so I remain to date...

How old am I ...

Disclaimer: This is not some suspense or riddle blog about trying to make you guess my actual, factual age. I explicitly spell it, so you don't have to go mad trying to guess!! (Why mad, of course because you will be left wondering how old a person can have such profound thoughts!) This is just a musing attempt. If you think this is a guess-my-age-with-this-set-of-clues game, then you are wrong and if that is what you would like to do, I would suggest the book, 100 best puzzles of all time (no, I don't know of any book by that exact name, disclaimer in a disclaimer) or just about any book sounding like that:) Thank You.

This morning I was looking at one of my cousins' engagement pictures. It happened in December, of course the couple in the pictures always looks "cute" and so did this one. There is no point in discussing the couple in any wedding slash engagament slash nupital pictures. They always look cute and that is all there is to be said about them. Now the point I am coming to..how OLD am I, and where and how am I choosing to grow old..

One of my younger cousins caught my eye in the pictures. He is EXACTLY ten years younger to me, and as usual I mean exactly what I say so this one is exactly ten years younger to me. We share the same birthday exactly ten years apart! So much for exacts. The last time I saw this one, he was a little boy, and I was perhaps some 16 or 17 years old. So he was really little you see. And today I saw these pictures and it hit me like one big bolt, boy, we have grown so old. This boy is now so old, and I am so much older!:((

So what is the big deal? Everyone grows older, so am I. I think the point that hit me more was that I was growing old and not realizing it at all. Did I have to look at my cousin in the pictures to realize how old I am? Heck no, I know I WAS 21, 22, 23, 24 and when someone asks me today I say I am 25. But you see I am not exactly thinking 25, I am just saying 25 and thinking 17:) THAT is the point of this blog my friend. I saw the pictures only to stop and think, so many years have passed in life, just what exactly was I doing when this happened. How did it go past under my feet without my realiziing it. It didn't strike me I was already way above the 20 mark in life!! Added to that I had to look at the pictures on the 31 of December, when everyone is already and only talking about one more year gone for good, and a new year coming on, unstoppable!Huh!!!

I am not the type who feels sad about growing old. No, don't get me wrong, I DON'T get depressed on birthdays, I love them;) And I love gifts too. I do feel a little lost when I think, in all this time, exactly what this-this-and-this of importance have I achieved, null-zero-zilch!!:(

Already I have gone from I-am-going-to-be-twenty to I-was-once-twenty! When I was in college people who were 20+ were BIG people, who were mature, independent and could do what they wanted with their life, were we-can-take-care-of-everything type people. (Basically I am just trying to say, they were OLD people;) Life-is-over-for-them type people) And I was just a kid who still had a lot of fun childhood ahead, loads of time to have a blast. Now I can't believe I am already in that 20+ category. I guess what I am trying to convey here is that, I never realized I left my brain and heart frozen at like maybe 17 years and grew older since then;)

But, there is one sad part to it and that is where I have chosen to grow old. I would have loved to grow old in the midst of people who saw me grow to 21:) I would have loved to drive past my school everyday, even if it was to work and not to college anymore. I would have loved it if for every birthday I could go to eat like a pig at some chat bandi or go to some around-the corner Archies store in Hyd. I would have loved it so much if I could go hog on food in each (and every) one of my cousins' wedding. And so many more things I would have loved to do back in Hyd. That is how I want to grow old, and that I guess this troubles me more than anything else. The older I grow the more restless I get about going back. When now? When now?

What have I done while I have grown old, gosh!!!! I don't know. I can hardly believe I am already 20+, everything seems to have raced past while I was sleeping! This morning I felt like I was sleeping all this while and grew old in my sleep, as if someone woke me and said, okay get up bahut ho gaya you are already 25:P I wanted to achieve so much, and so much I did, but there is a lot of difference between these two so muches. They have changed and been defined and redefined and chiselled and moulded and what not. I want to achieve so much more, and I hope that will at least be more in congruence with my planning, Amen!

PS: Just what did you think of my disclaimer at the beginning. Amazing isn't it? I think I am getting more proficient at it with every blog, and might just become a really good Disclaimer person some day. I even think I can make a million or two in lawsuits;) So did you finally know my age or do you really need a puzzle book to sharpen your skills?;)

How my Racquetball went for a toss

..was thinking about writing this in the blog this morning when I was playing racquetball with Aayana;) I thought, why not, its a good matter for a few laughs!

So I took this course in Racquetball in Spring 2002 when I was doing my Masters in the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Actually, come to think of it, what my friends used to say about how I "played" through to get my Masters kind of sounds right to me now;):P

I took Racquetball 101 in Spring 2002, and Swimming 101 in Fall 2002, and then in 2003 I interned for GE, (which was a sizeable 1-year chunk of my Masters career) AND during that time I did a German 101 course:P I also dared to register for Golf 101 in the Summer of 2002 but later dropped out. Now none of these credits counted toward my degree as such, but I was so totally "vela" (read as extraordinarily capable of multitasking:P) that I did these anyway;)

So anyway I went and bought a Racquet dutifully at Dunham Sports in West Gate Mall and me and my roomie Navrina started going to the class. That was my first "unnecessary" purchase in the US ever (no, I am not counting all the double-scoop waffle cones I ate up every evening at Union Square or Memorial Union, and that got me to 145lbs too, mind you). The first time I dared to buy something that was not an absolute necessity.

Then we started playing, boy, that class was at 7.10 in the morning I think, and we started off in what is possibly the worst winter month in WI, February. I still remember wearing multiple layers of clothes and taking them all off in the locker room, and going out to play in shorts. This was one exercise that made us take 2 hours for what would have been a 50 minute class:P Wearing clothes and jackets and shoes and gloves and what-not = 15 min, taking them off in SERF = 15min, you know again wearing them and taking them off at home, phew!! A whole hour gone just in bracing against the winter demon.

So anyway I played and played all Spring and the instructor was really good. We used to have these fun tournaments, and eventually at the end of the sem, I think I used to always play in the "Winner's court", I was always second, there was this other guy who was totally good. But this morning I was thinking, whoa! that seems so distant. I still remember even after that sem, I continued playing Racquetball for nearly a year till Summer of 2003. I used to play alone, when I didn't have anyone to play with, but it was fun:P

BUT you should see me play now, this morning was my second round after nearly three years since I started, and I was pathetic:)) May the powers in nature, bestow back on me my once good game ! (That was a lame attempt at creating a blessing jibe)

So you are thinking, what is the ohh-so-important point in this blog, does this need so much blogspace? Answer is no!!! I wasn't having anything better to do so I wrote it, and if you are mad, then I am not responsible (Yes, this is a disclaimer!)

Howzzzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!!!!