Aham Vyaktam

I was waiting for the bus to get to my home from a shopping mall. There came the bus and after boarding it, I noticed the bus filled with adolescents probably of age 13. May be the bus came from a place populated with schools and it was off-school time in the evening. I didn’t have a seat to sit and my back pack was straining my shoulders. The bus was filled with pandemonium and I heard here and there “I am czhazy over that cazh (the slang of replacing “r” with “zh” sound :) ), you know its jus awesome”, “can you take your fxxking hands off my shoulders”, “Oh my Gaud, that class reelly reelly sucked” (you would have known its “oh my god, that class really really sucked”), etc. I have the habit of observing the people around me and those kids were really a feast. There was a gang sitting in front of me and I started watching what they do.

Everyone was in hunky-funky dresses, a girl wearing her spaghetti over her long sleeved tshirt and a guy wearing his jean not on his waist but almost on his knees. He had tried hard to make it stick to his thighs with a belt. I pity that belt. In that age, I knew no dress other than my uniform and got reminded of those days wherein I was not allowed to attend the prayer just because my socks wasn’t tidy.

A kid picked up a make-up kit from her bag and started patching up her eye shadows and lipstick. I was getting reminded of the days when I was in the 8th grade and I wasn’t even knowing there was something called a fairness cream existing. Whatever mom did to me was the so-called make-up for me. Never really bothered if my tie knot was proper or my shoe was properly buckled or the powder was overdone on face or the flower on my head was looking odd like a headlight.

A kid was making hip-hop moves as she was listening to some song over her mobile. I wasn’t even having a landline phone at home when I was a kid. Why that? I remember the cable tv connection being given when I entered college. Another kid was doing something with his PDA. I remember writing the class periods in a timetable sheet and sticking it at my home.

I saw a girl asking a guy “can you take your hands off my shoulders?” The guy asked “Why?”. The girl replied “coz you are a gay and I hate you”. My jaw dropped on hearing this. They speak about homosexuals. Did I even know at that age that the opposite sexes attract each other?

The bus halted at a stop and a lady got in. She came and stood beside me. She was wearing a thick spectacle and a teeth clip. The girls in front of us started passing comments and were chortling within themselves. Though the comments were private, it was very evident from their gestures that they were about this lady. I never dared to comment on anyone and had always thought twice before lampooning the best of the best friends even.

One was sloppily throwing the books here and there. I was thinking “may be he is too ingenious that he completed studying it and its no more required”. How much importance have we given to our books? If anyone makes a dog-ear in my book, he/she is gone.

I sensed something repeatedly hitting my legs from behind (I was standing with the support of a pole) and turned back to see what it was. There was a guy sitting in the seat behind me and was swinging his legs back and forth, hitting me every time. I expected him to say sorry when I looked at him but I got just a nonchalant expression in return. Giving him a cold stare, I moved aside. I would have sought pardon thousand times had I been in that position as a kid.

I don’t mean to say the people in our generation were all subservient and they were stainless. We had also been relentless when we were kids but I feel we always had a sense of reverence and fear in whatever we did.

I might get a comment “you are a fruit, may be you should learn taking these light”. or I might get a comment “you are no miss.perfect, to speak about these”. I don’t mind as I wasn’t that bad a fruit or that bad a rogue.

I admit that the kids of today are far matured and they know a lot at early ages, they are given a lot of exposure, which is apparent. But the kids of today being lackadaisical about their demeanor cannot be left tacit.

Whatever it is, I got reminded of my childhood and adolescence on seeing them and I wish there was a way to go back to those times. There had been days where I was happy on hearing the age of heroines, being proud that I was younger than them. Now, the thought that all the new faces are at least a year younger than me really sucks. Sounds silly eh. Am a girl after all.

My rants were distracted by the talk of the bus driver. He and a passenger were talking to each other. When I started listening to them, I was smiling to myself as they were speaking about the kids too. The driver was expressing his concern that the kids of today hold no respect for elders, for studies, etc.

Now comes the interesting part (of course for me).

My involvement was hindered by a joggle of the bus and it was my stop. When I said a thank you to the driver while getting off, he said “you are welcome. Study well kid. You gotta get a nice job alright. Pay respect to everyone”. I was really happy on hearing this and told him “thanks a lot, but I would like to tell you that I am not studying but working in a reputed concern”. He said “you gotta be kidding”. I said “I wish I really was kidding” and started walking towards my home with a cheerful thought that I look young.

On my way home, I got reminded of one more instance which happened 6 months back.
I was in Aliso Viejo and I was walking towards my office. On my way was a school zone and there was a volunteer directing the traffic of kids and the cars in a T-intersection as it was peak hour. I was walking at a greater pace as I was late and wanted to cross the intersection. I guess I gave the impression to the volunteer that I wouldn’t wait for her direction. On seeing me approaching the intersection, she said “wait wait, cars first, kids next”. Hurrah!!!!!! You should have seen my face then. I was trying to keep it as innocuous as a kid to stand up to her words. ROFL.

I wish my mom doesn’t read this. If she does, then the 2 apples, badams, cashews, date fruits (what not) which she says she would give me daily when I go there, would become 10 each. :(

Woops!!!!

One of the most important days in my life just passed by. It was my engagement. The engagement was to take place at Chennai. My marriage is the most awaited as am the only girl child for entire family and as it’s the first marriage in the immediate generation after my dad’s that’s gonna happen. My dad wanted to ask me before doing anything (I am the only child for my parents) but I wasn’t within his reach. The mode of information transfer between us had been gtalk, that too during weekends [kudos daddy…there are only a hand full of fathers who have explored chatting, browsing and orkutting and am proud you are one such]. I gotta tell you all an instance [I don’t mind deviating for telling something about my role model] that happened a few months back. Dad wanted to send some photos to me and he was asking me the best way to do it. I just told him he can upload them in picasa and went to see the dish that was cooking. When I went back to chat after 5 mins, and told my dad that I’ll direct him how to upload the photos, he coolly said “check your mail. I have sent the album link”. I got apoplexic when he said “I have put the album under unlisted and have shared the link. You can download the album. I don’t wanna go public”. I wasn’t able to say anything other than “Dad!! You drive me crazy”.

Ok back now.

Me and my fiancé are in USA and we were not in a position to go for our engagement. When I told this to my friends, some said “What? That is weird!”, some other said “You gotta be kidding”, “Is it a love marriage?” and the guy who tried to woo me asked “Are you trying to play some prank or something?”. I was tired telling “people!!! Its an arranged marriage, we are not able to make it to the engagement and that’s all about it”. They really instilled a feel in me “is the engagement without both the bride and the groom that weird?”.

Sunday 3PM was the engagement in India, which was Saturday 1.30AM midnight for me. On Sunday morning, parents and all my other relatives were getting ready to go to the venue. I gave them a call to know what was happening. Mom said she wanted to see me before the engagement and asked me to show myself up in the webcam. So did I [did I tell you this was the first time they are seeing me live in a cam?]. They also had a cam. The moment my dad saw me in the cam, he said “you are not Anu. Go call my daughter”. He claimed I have changed a lot and it was hard for him to relate the webcam face to that of his daughter’s when she left India. Somewhere in the corner of my heart a murky pain struck me – Has my dad forgotten my face? Well, he cannot be blamed, I had/do shown/show a huge metamorphosis in my appearance. It’s close to a year since he saw me and it’s enough time for metamorphosis.

My mom on seeing me shed tears and was showering an array of flying kisses - typical of a mother. Everybody was showing all the things they are gonna display and they were telling it’s gonna be really a grandeur. Oh, how much I missed the occasion!!!! I very much wanted to see what my dad had done for my engagement.

I was very restless here, it was midnight for me. I very much wanted to be there in the venue, to see the rituals. The bride and the groom’s parents would be the center of attraction for this ceremony and I wanted to see how my parents presented themselves.
I gave my aunt a call at 2AM my time, thinking that atleast the hymns would fall in my ears. My aunt picked my call up and said “Hi Anu. Your engagement is going on very well. We are right now very busy. Can you call us after half-an-hour?” I was yelling “Come on guys!!!! It’s my engagement, it’s the bride who is calling up. You are asking me to call later? That’s overmuch”. No response from the other end. My aunt had hung up long before. I was blaming my fate.

It was 2.30AM for me and was lying sleepless on my bed, pretty sure of my fiancé being half-way through a snoring sleep in his home by then. Then I called up my uncle and thankfully, he said I shall be on line listening to the hymns they chant and he was also giving a running commentary about what was happening.

After the engagement, everybody out there was jostling to speak with me and I had to give a word or two to everyone. Uff..finally I gained attention. Everybody said the function went on great. Dad and mom gave the usual cries expressing their agony that everybody was there except the two of us. Mom was describing about the saree my to-be-in-laws have bought for me – typical of a woman. Dad said they have written over the sugar crystals, my fiance's name with gems chocolate and my name with jeera mithai as analogous to our body weights :) He was also telling they have proved that they are from Erode by displaying the mysore paks in a huge silver thookku, like how an authentic Erode community would do. I dunno what all humors my dad let out. I missed them.

I felt very nostalgic when I heard the chitchats of people. I was just able to hear the festive mood but I wasn’t able to feel it. My dad fuelled my pain by telling “you will be Miss. Muralitharan no more, my child”. It was too much for me to swallow and my eyes swelled up. Threatening my lachrymal glands that they should spare enough tears for the marriage, I hung up.

There was a party here in USA thrown by his relatives to celebrate our engagement and it was a bit consoling. But needless to say that it’s no compensation to being with all the people from both the sides swarming around you. My engagement was just virtual to me. I hope I would have fun on my marriage.

Many of my friends on seeing the title of the post would think "What does the word cook has to do in Anu's blog?" I remember my ex-teammate saying once "I doubt if she knows to boil water". I have never even peeped into the kitchen before I came to the US and I wore an astounded look when my roomie here told me that toor dhal and channa dhal are different. My knowledge in cooking was literally that void. Luckily, all my roomies during my first 6 months here were great cooks and the responsibility of cooking wasn't shouldered by me. I wasn't hitherto paying a damn about cooking. Cooking posed itself as a real scalawag when I happened to move into an apartment 2 months back with another girl who too was sailing on the same boat as mine, being a novice in cooking. Google was the Deity for us, providing the recipes of dishes. We can cook without oil, not without google. :)

We try out different dishes. The feel that we are starters in cooking doesn't intimidate us and confine us to make simpler dishes. There had not been a single day wherein the dishes were made without the patching up here and there. But I tell you everything turns out really well eventually and there had not been even a ruined one. I often get reminded of the days wherein I found umpteen faults in whatever my mom made. She used to curse me telling I'll know when I start cooking. Now on hearing my adventurous, yet successful cooking, she feels very happy and says it's a comeuppance.

You would be highly entertained when you see us cooking I promise. The things that petrify us the most are the curry leaves and ginger paste when added to heated oil. I would stand a yard away from the pan, throw the curry leaves and ginger paste into it and run to the other end of the kitchen to see them spurt oil all over. And we are too artistic in making rotis. We bring the shapes of all the continents in the world so perfectly in our rotis you know!!! Once we get the feel that the dish is cooked, we take a pinch of it to assess the salt and spice level and try fixing the faults [you should see us exchanging ominous looks before tasting]. We keep repeating this till we arrive at the taste we want. It's embarrassing to tell you that if you sum up the pinches we consume to assess the taste, it would be more than a person's actual intake of it. Oops!!!

For this new year, we made aaloo bonda and gulab jamun [by telling aaloo, I get reminded of you Sachi. The days when you used to share my aaloo fry are still green. You better miss them :)]. Aaloo bonda was awesome and so were the jamuns, softie-soft. But the sweet syrup got hardened time and then, how much ever we microwaved it. We will blame it on the weather. Here's the photo of jamuns to your envy [The aaloo bondas were so nice to be spared for a click]. Aint they mouth watering?


The first dish which we made was vaangi bath (rice bath with brinjals) and we have tried almost all the dishes ranging from simple rasam to malai kofta and cutlet. We are having great fun. To those who made fun about me – your desires to comment on me are ramshackled. I should admit I haven't gained confidence to cook solitarily. Want the dish to be great? – I want Nitisha beside me. I actually would be seething if someone pries in when I cook, directing me to do things. As this sweet lady is also a starter in cooking, she never does that. Nitisha: you are a great companion. Thanks a lot!

Am sure I’ll become a good cook. Beware Nala - Nalabaagam might get replaced with Anubaagam!!!!
Okay guys, I know that was too much!!!

There are oodles of disparities between the work environment I have now and the one I had before.

I had seen only micromanagement before [I hold meager years of experience in the industry and had been only under a few managers though. Sachi, and Abhi-if you read this, you know what I mean J]. Now I am being given the tasks and schedules and will be reporting about it only on the day of deadline. I see a complete sense of entrustment and am emancipated from frequent jabbing.

I had always sensed a huge distance between the manager and the subordinates before. My manager now cries if some times the team quotes him as manager. He reiterates considering him as yet another team mate.

I have never seen
Work load / (engineers + Manager)
But now for the first time I see it happening.

Of late we have taken up the practice of solving a riddle a day. There is this team mate of mine who always wants to put forth questions and hates answering. This notion of solving a puzzle a day was incorporated into work by him. He started throwing a riddle a day, leaving the rest 3 of us in the team to scratch our brains. We used to solve the puzzles together brandishing the zealots inside us, creating a huge hullabaloo around. My manager was more than a zealot I should say. The moment we receive the riddle, he would yell "everybody, drop your work off. The next few minutes for the riddle". Then this he-who-questions conjured up an idea that the puzzles are to be solved individually for which each person would be allotted points. This created a healthy competition between us and we were racing with each other to score. Am at present at par with my manager, my teammate lagging behind us by 2 points.

I actually would have been in the second place. One day, after solving a riddle while at home, my manager had called my organizer teammate and had told the answer and gained a point. The next day I went to him and told the answer, not knowing that my manager had already solved it. So my finding was considered to be disqualified. Will I be passive? No. I fought that mine was valid and such over-phone cracking of the puzzle shouldn't be encouraged. I didn't have to chew much over it as my thought was immediately accepted [becoz I was pretty younger than everyone, I would rather say I am a kid besides them and deary to everyone that they don't want to see the kid crying J] and I was also given a point for that riddle. That's how I became at par with manager and secured the first position. Brand me crooked, I don't mind.

We are having lots of fun at work, these puzzles not being the only ones contributing to it. I at times feel am at school, when my team tries to scare me when I come out from in between the dark racks in lab. We hang out atleast twice a month for lunch. We go for bowling or gaming every month. Its absolute fun. This week seems to be snailing as everyone is on PTO and am missing the fun, awaiting them to come back with a bang.

The entire credit goes to my manager, who encourages such things and wants his team to be cheerful. He not only encourages the team to learn new but also sits with us and explores and learns things. I haven't seen any manager like him till now. Keith – you are a marvel !!!!
[For those who conclude this post is to boot-lick my manager, I swear he doesnt read this :) ]

And for zealots like me (?), here are the few puzzles which went around us:

• One of your employees insists on being paid daily in gold. You have a gold bar whose value is that of seven days salary for this employee. The bar is already segmented into seven equal pieces. If you are allowed to make just two cuts in the bar, and must settle with the employee at the end of each day, how do you do it?
• There are three on/off switches in one room, each controlling a different one of the three out-of-sight light bulbs in another room. You may manipulate the switches (only to the extent of turning them on and off), then you must go into the room with the light bulbs and stay there until you have determined the mapping from switches to light bulbs. How do you do it?
• An explorer wishes to cross a barren desert that requires 6 days to cross, but one man can only carry enough food for 4 days. What is the fewest number of other men required to help carry enough food for him to cross?
• There are 3 baskets. one of them have apples only, one has oranges only and the other has mixture of apples and oranges. The labels on their baskets always lie. ( i.e. if the label says oranges, you are sure that it doesn't have oranges only,it could be a mixture) The task is to pick one basket and pick only one fruit from it and then correctly label all the three baskets.

I had lots of expectations before going to the movie, obviously because it’s a remake of the super star’s. The movie was for 2 and a half hours and I don’t mind you Ajith fans, to tell that the movie sucked. A slow motion walk with regal suit and goggle was what Ajith was introduced with. This slow motion walk and putting on the goggle is shown through out the movie every now and then. Had they been minimized, the movie wouldn’t have reached even 1 and a half hours. J

Prabhu as DSP. Uffff…. LMAO. He didn’t get into my mind at all as a police officer. He was not Deputy Superintendent of Police, but, Dumb-Snickered-Personality. I couldn’t refrain from thinking “Is Prabhu trying his hand in comedy?”. He tosses his fingers towards his subordinates standing behind him, to face billa. I didn’t sense a pinch of majesty in it. I could only imagine it analogous to kaipullai tossing his fingers towards his allakkais to face kattadurai.

Nayantara as Sasha in don’s gang. Good to see her having reduced weight and she’s not hassle-some to the eyes when she’s glamorous, unlike the bulky Namita, who is utterly obnoxious [am not gonna dedicate a paragraph to her, I hate her man. But I should say she was a degree below the peak of intolerance in this movie]. I pity Nayantara as the costume designer had made her roam around in the movie with high-heeled knee high boots and she struggles to walk. Better luck next time Nayan: Everyone cannot be Angelina Jolie aka Lara Croft.

I uttered a deep sigh of relief on seeing Santhanam on screen but before I could complete sighing, he disappears off the screen. I wish he was given a bit more number of scenes.
Rahman as drug lord has given an optimum acting. He has done perfectly what was given to him.

Am sure the dialogue from Ajith “Murugan aaru thalai, naan ore thalai” would have been sumptuous to Ajith’s fans. Ajith’s belly gets tucked in his suits but it’s pretty noticeable when he’s in casuals. I have to admit that he’s charming. Long way to go Ajith: You need to tent at a gym.

“My name is billa” remix deserves a wow but I feel it’s not Yuvan’s music which created the magic but MSV’s. I didn’t find any other song reverberating in my ears. Probably it requires repeated listening.

The former half of the movie pushes you off the seat [or lay back in the seat and sleep] but during the latter half, you can be awake and comfy in your seat. Director Vishnuvardhan didn’t do a justice to the director of old Billa, R.Krishnamurthy.

Despite racing towards the movie scenes, my mind was keen in observing who amongst the audience would crack what comment next. The taunts from the audience were the only cajoling factor I would say, which made my money half-worthy.

It was me who suggested this movie to one of my friends who joined me to the theater and I am sure he would have cursed me for it. I was saved as he was decent enough, by not spitting over my choice. Anyways, I seek apologies buddy.

PS: No disrespect intended to anyone.