God's name??

I spent a blissful 20 day break with my uncle's family and my lil cousin 'S'(all of six) is as bright as they ever come! She kept me entertained through my stay and there is this one particular incident that I like to jot down which was uproariously hilarious. 'S' finds it difficult to remember the innumerous names of her innumerous relatives in India and just to keep her memory refreshed my aunt indulges in Q &A sessions about the names of different relatives now and then. So this is what happened during one such session!
Scene:The family is at the dining table gobbling down the yummy delicacies made by my aunt'V'.
V to S: Do you remember my brother's name?
S:Hmmm...Rama?
V:No!
S: Krishna?!!
V:No!
S: Ramayana??!!
at this juncture all of us are in splits!
S: What is it??I know it has to be a god's name..everybody in India is named after a god!!!
thats a six year old's perception for you!lol!

"The mystery of cashew-burfi"!!

Well I made it back to the USA after three months of bliss at home..and I thought I should get lil somethings for the people at my work place and also thought that I would share some Indian dessert with them, knowing that none of them had ever tried anything "Indian" before(this is SGF the village am talking about!!lol..) So I got them "Cashew-burfi/Kaju Katli".
So I go around the office distributing the sweet and each of them taste it like I have filled it with chillies!lol!(Any Indian food=spicy!) and then some pretend!(ya pretend!) to like it and some others exclaim that it tastes weird in their mouths, whats it got they question me..I say cashew, milk and sugar..they go on to say no its something else..curry maybe??!!I was like WTF no!lol!crazy Americans!

Dirty old man!!

this funny instance(atleast some of us found it hilarious!) occurred recently here at sgf and I wanted to put it down in my blog so i dont forget it! ya its that simple..Well, to give a brief preclude, a couple of my friends stay in the on-campus apartment and this particular dorm has this old man as a maintenance guy..now he is known to flirt with all the pretty ladies and once came down to one of my friend's place with a smirk on his face asking if she had left behind her undie in the washer-dryer?! and she's from this small town in India and isn't accustomed to such questions!!lol! so u can imagine the look on her face and I shall let your imagination take over as to what happened there after {coz imagination gives everybody a kick and I want everyone to experience that! :) } so you can guess the image the old man had created for himself in the other Indian girls heads.. and this is where the current story kicks in! The old man started chatting up 3 of my other friends in the dorm and told a couple of them that they were decent (In USA that means you are OK..nothing to do with decency!) and told the other one that she was 'onery'!
( I still dont know what the spelling is for this word! and I would be highly appreciative if anyone corrects me) Now this girl got highly offended and called him names and yelled at him and refused to talk to him for three months! why? because she thought it was some synonym for "Horny"!! Lol! Lol! None of us had heard of this word before and google or dictionary.com did not help either! So we turned to an american friend and asked what "onery" meant! turns out that it intones naughtiness and mischievousness!!lol!so it was us and not the old man who was dirty after all!! ;-)

"What goes around comes around!!"

The previous week I very skeptically agreed to attend the 'Vedic Mathematics' course that was being offered at the ashram, along with my mother. I say skeptic because 'Math' had always been the cause of..err..not all but most of my academic miseries!!On the other hand Mom's a teacher and loooves math and one can only imagine the consternation both of us underwent standing on opposite shores of this ocean called"Mathematics"! Not a day went by during my school years when I would not be reprimanded, smacked or punished in innovative ways (dictators could train too under my mom!!lol!..kidding!)..
Fast forward to the present year, where I was forced to face my phobia and it was with very high levels of reluctance and anxiety that I challenged myself to attend the 2-day course! (Nightmares of Numbers and mom chasing me hounded me alternatively through the nights!..seriously!)..On the first day, rather in the first hour of the course..The teacher started out with an introduction to pascal's triangle and as always I found myself dumbfounded and gaping with my mouth open, if I was not so tense I definitely would have laughed at my comical expression! and gradually the teacher eased us into the basics of the awesome course and a miracle occurred then and there! for the first time ever..I was the first to solve the problems posed and for all you smart asses ya! they were correct too! :-) and you know what as guruji often points out that "what goes around comes around" it was now my turn to teach my mother who for some inexplicable reason for most (but I prefer to call it the "divine intervention!" ;-)) couldn't keep pace with me (YAHOO!!) but well as the good human being that I am (modest too..) I decided not to punish or smack my mom..but just helped her out!! So all you parents out there beware! for not all children are as saintly as I am and treat..err teach ur children the same way you would want them to teach you in the future! ;-)
Jai guru deva!

The Chase..

Yahoo! The object of my attention had been cornered at last in Bangalore, India! phew..boy! this cat & mouse game was going to end soon ( or so I thought!) the chase had taken both of us almost all around India as well as some parts of the world and now (rather in Dec) all that was going to end in good fashion!

Well am neither a cop nor am I talking about a criminal on the run..the person who I mention of is my ........

Sister ..Tj!! ha ha..the thing is it feels like I have been chasing her in & out of places all the time and we never get to spend as much "quality time" as I would like to.

Here's how its been..
Our parents decided to send us to bangalore after the 5th grade so we could get the best of exposure in education n culture, since there is a 3 yr age difference between the both of us, she went earlier and the chase has been forever since then! so, when I went to bangalore, Tj was already in high school and just after 2 years she left back to where our parents stayed to do her Pre-uni colleging and then when she came to bangalore for her engineering I was all set to leave bangalore to pursue my professional degree in Dharwad. At this time Tj went to Manipal to complete her MBA degree and landed a great job during campus recruitment, for which she had to leave for training in Bombay. I was almost done with my colleging by this time and was happy to go back to bangalore to be with my family ( my parents had decided to move to Bangalore by then!)..but alas it was not meant to be..'coz Tj then got an offer to move to US of A for a year's time! ( which then extended to 2 1/2 years!) So in the meanwhile , I dreamt of pursuing my masters in the US content with the knowledge that my sister was going to be there! but..it was not meant to be! ya! I got here and she decided to move back to Bangalore within 2 months! So now its been a year since I got here and thought would spend my christmas vacation in bangalore..welll..Tj has made plans to go to the country down under for her christmas n new year vactions! so whaddya think?? the chase continues...

SKWEETH!!??!!

I moved into a new apartment this month and its taking me time to get adjusted to the new place, new walls!( kidding!) and last but the most important of all new roomies ( a Chinese..lets call her N and an Indian who will be S)..no there is no war waging between us, in fact, the other day N and I were watching "Friends" and also bonding (ahem!ahem!)..and I offered her popcorn to eat, which she gladly accepted and in turn offered me the snack which she had got from home ( Now, knowing the chinks food preferences, I was a little vary about tasting it) so this is how the conversation went:
Me: want some popcorn?
N: ya sure.. do u want to try this ? ( holds a transparent zip loc cover..which holds some sort of dish which looks similar to cheese strings!)
Me: ( skeptical) what is it?
N: Skweeth
Me: ( all confused!!) huh?
N: Skweeth..u know ( the packet is almost in my face now!)
Me: ( trying to be brave!)( maybe sweetened wheat!!!???!!) oh ok..will try ..
I take a bite of the stringy thing..umm..( realization dawns!dumb me!)
its SQUID!!!
me: ( trying not to puke!) Oh! its squid!
N: yeass..yeass..dried and salted skweeth!U like it???
Me: Well.. :0