Lost........

Sigh........ If I hadn't gotten hooked to Lost back in 04-05 and If I wasn't such a wikipedia addict, I wouldn't be feeling so strangely sad right now.....Sparto - this is all your fault!

The PNRs have landed!

Mr. and Mrs PNR are here! And since the moment they've landed I've been going overboard saying things like "Look Ma, I can cook, I can clean, I can organize,....... I can manage a house (petite apartment to be exact :)". To the extent that Mr.PNR who is normally my #1 fan, made a sharp "Ma's been doing this for 30years" comment, when he caught me giving mummy some cooking "tips" :)). The last 3 days have been simply awesome. It is soooo great to have them here with S and me. Pa btw celebrated his 65th b'day travelling more than 6000 miles over 2 continents and transiting through 4 countries. Ma though wasn't two happy about the 2 beers and couple of glasses of wine he indulged in along the way :) But they got to Lux safe and sound and happy :)

The crazy Luxembourg weather has been playing spoilsport though - grey and dreary doesn't begin the describe the unexpected cold spell we've been having. And after this morning's walk around the city centre, I get the feeling Pa and Ma would rather sit indoors and drink lots of hot tea than venture out in the cold again :((


@Sparto: Wish you were here - it's the only only thing keeping this reunion one notch below perfect.

Parle-ing Francais!

It's now the third week of French classes for moi :) And it is easily the most fun I have had in a classroom. Sort of like being in a live version of that old British comedy series where a group of foreigners are learning English in the UK. This is like the French version :) The class composition is something like this - 2 Indian women (including me), 3-4 people from South America and Mexico, 1 Serb, 2 Russians, 4 Arabs, and a couple of eastern Europeans. There is no single common language that the class speaks as yet :) So Prof. Alex teaches the beginner's French class in French!! A very very animated French, to be precise. Like French+dumb charades. For example, "J'aime le chocolat" is accompanied by a 'yumyumyumyumyum' and a tummy rub! And as for the rest of us, each of us speak French with our own unique accents :) Poor Monsieur Alex! (He's quite a linguist though - we've come to realize he teaches English too and probably speaks a few other European languages as well ) But I've realized that this is quite an effective method of teaching. We've quickly developed an ear for the language and we have no choice but to use French to communicate within the class :)

For the love of books :)

Somewhere in her email today was this line - "Sigh! sometimes i wonder y i read those classics...its so hard to ignore the heroes of yore..". I smiled. Because I blame the books too, for many many things :) For things ranging all the way from incurable romanticism to hypochondria. For the rose tinted glasses and the real ones too :) For the love of happy endings and for the depths of misery when things end no-so-happily :(. For being a bit of a drama queen at times. For the total inability to take things at face value. And of course like she said for expecting men (S to be accurate) to be Rhett Butler, Roark, Darcy, and many others all rolled into one :))))

The thinking man :)

A little ingenuity goes a long way :) The ancient Egyptians built the pyramids and S moved a large wardrobe the same way last night :). I'm impressed!

Now this wardrobe is made of wood, is 6 feet high and just as wide, and used to stand right next to our bedroom door in a very annoying manner. Apart from creating the visual illusion of a much smaller room, it prevented the door from opening fully. Not to mention the risk of walking right into it in the dark. I knew moving it wasn't going to be easy, but obstinate person that I am, I simply had to try. So I went to S about how it's a 'husband' job to move furniture at home and how I would do it on my own, with just a little help from him. I had all my 'bad vastu/feng shui' arguments ready, but S decided trying to move the wardrobe was easier than trying to talk me out of it, and agreed very quickly. 

So I emptied the wardrobe and threw the entire force of my 5'4" 54kg frame against it. Not too surprisingly, it didn't budge an inch. The furry rug it was standing on didn't help matters either. Then I decided wrecking either of our backs for this was not worth it and gave up. S figured that brute force wouldn't work, then tried tilting it forwards and back (!?) and said it could be done, that we just needed the right tools, and went off to look for the said tools :) He came back a few minutes later with the rolling pin, a round handled wooden cooking spoon and a couple of wooden rods from the towel rail in the bathroom. Clever, thought I, and had to smile :) He tilted the wardrobe and I squeezed the makeshift 'rails' underneath it. And within a few minutes the wardrobe was at the other end of the room, with barely any effort! Very very impressed with S right now :)

With a Big Fat Grin on my face :)

1:00 o'clock in the afternoon on very wet, grey and cold Monday. And I'm at home, heating up fish-biryani for lunch, that S made over the weekend. Have downloaded a movie to watch with the biryani, and have a book to finish curled up in bed afterwards. Do I miss working? I think not :)

P.S. Does the voice in my head make me feel guilty about it? sadly, yes :(

The ties that bind

Found it. Finally.
http://thedjinn.blogspot.com/

There is always someone

I've found that many a times life sends us exactly the people we need at the time - whether we're aware of it or not. Posting this now, because yesterday there was another such incident for me.

I recently decided to sign up for French lessons at a popular institute here. Yesterday was the first day of registrations for the new semester. I turned up at the institute at 8:40, anticipating some rush for the registration, maybe a 100-150 people, since I knew the low tuition fee made the course quite atractive. I walked in to find a queue that had already wound itself over two floors and two corridors before breaking up into a mob at the entrance of the hall where the registrations were happening. The institute had called in their biggest and most intimidating looking staff to hold back the crowd at the door. I raced to find the end of the line before I lost another dozen places. Maybe this is going to take 2-3 hours I underestimated as I joined the queue :)

Directly behind me I heard a couple speaking in English and occasionally in a language that sounded like Hindi, but was not quite Hindi. "Indians! or at least of Indian origin", I thought. In Luxembourg finding yourself right next to other Indians is quite something. The man left for work, and the woman and I started a conversation about the queue. Was the best thing that happened to me yesterday!

The wait in the queue turned into an unanticipated 8-hour marathon, the first 4 hours in the queue patiently crawling along to reach the doors, and the next 4 as part of the mob at the doors, where it was definitely each man for himself. Things heated up when the staff shut the doors for some reason and the space we were in got quite claustrophobic. By then most of the people there had been on their feet for about 5-6 hours, were hungry and thirsty and tempers were really starting to flare. Someone started yelling at the staff for not organizing things better, and a section of the crowd started chanting "Let us in" :) Every time the door opened even a crack, we would be packed in tighter by the crowd pushing in from behind. Some policemen came in, for crowd control in case things got ugly, I suppose. And someone with a very professional looking camera came up to the front and started clicking away. Maybe we'll all be in the local news in a day or two :)

If it hadn't been for my new found Parsi friend, the registration would have a horrendous experience. I get panicky when pressed in by crowds and probably would have given up and gone home hungry and tired as many people did after a while. If her husband hadn't come in at lunch time and stood in the queue in our places for a while, I wouldn't have had the respite of sitting down for a while and getting some food and drink. Incredibly when we came back, we found that he had even managed to move us up several places in the door mob. Quite a feat, considering the shoving and elbowing that was going on. And most of all if it hadn't been for our animated conversation about Luxembourg, the crazy rush for registrations, life, the universe and everything, I would have felt every minute of the 8 hours of standing in the queue.

And yes, we finally got ourselves registered at 5:30!

P.S. The award for the most cool headed people in the crowd goes to the group of Chinese students next to us who kept their smiles throughout the whole thing, didn't shove a single person, and even managed to teach some Chinese to the Cambodian girl with them :)

A new start ....

Here's hoping that 2010 will be a wonderful year for everyone! That Ammamma will recover from her hip surgery. That those of us looking for love will find it this year. Those of us starting out on new ventures will find success. That P, S, papa, ma and I will get to spend some holidays together. That the wedding bells that we are waiting for will chime this year. And good luck and good health will be with all of us!

Cosmic retribution strikes again :((

Last Saturday, while driving to Strasbourg....
S: Did you carry your mobile?, I left mine at home [Now, this is a very rare event with us, probably a first ever. S *always* has his phone with him, whereas my phone and I are usually not at the same place at the same time]
S: Your parents might call, we didn't call them yesterday
Me: Yes I did, though its not likely that my parents will call...

S: Why not?

Me: They usually call me on the landline or on your mobile, if I'm not online...

S: Why not on your mobile?

Me: Ummm...I don't think they know my new number...I ummm think I forgot to give it to them....

S :!!!???!!??!!!

Me (feeling very guilty): It wasn't intentional, I just didn't get around to it...you know how I am with phones [There was a time when I used to accidentally give dear friend R's number to people who asked for mine, simply because I knew that number better than mine]

S: You are lucky that your parents still love you!!!


Later that evening my phone starts emitting its 'low battery' sound. S and I are watching a movie, and the phone is my bag.

S: Sounds like your phone needs to be charged...

Me: (In no mood to get off the couch) Yes I will, after the movie...

I put the bag away that night, forgetting again to charge the phone. It was Monday morning when I finally got around to it. A thought briefly ran through my head that I hadn't heard the 'charge me' sounds all night or on Sunday for that matter. And then when I took it out of my bag, there was a large inexplicable crack on the screen!! I tried switching it on, only to find that it was dead for good :( The bag didn't have too much stuff in it, so I couldn't help thinking that this has to be punishment for Saturday's statements :( S was nice enough not to say 'Serves you right', atleast out loud. Sigh....hopefully I've learnt my lesson...

Winter Nostalgia........

It's a beautiful winter morning in Luxembourg, clear skies, orange-gold sunlight falling on the plants on my windowsill.... made me all nostalgic about winter days in Bangalore and the life left behind...dug up this old post that I had put up on N's (now dormant) blog many years ago....

Saturday, November 26, 2005

Winter days
Hey N, just accepted the invitation to join your blog...better late than never, like they say. So you'll find some of my posts scattered in between yours from now on...Guest writing on one's best friend's blog has its advantages-you get to post stuff on the net without maintaining a blog of your own :)-the friend will no longer crib that you don't visit her blog often enough (net nanny at work to blame ) So here's my first post ...
Winter days....
Bangalore is at its best in winter. Deep blue skies, the kind of blue you just don't see the rest of the year...with cotton-white clouds floating about. The red steeple of St.John's church framed against the sky. The breeze creating ripples on Ulsoor lake and the pale winter sun warming the early morning joggers. The abandoned granite buildings of the military barracks with their soot-blackened chimmneys. Even the trees here seem to wait for winter to shed their leaves and bloom. This is the scenic route to work every morning. The nights are amazing too. Clear clear skies, a chill in the air that makes you glad to see the warm yellow glow emanating from the windows of your home. The huge full moon rising over the little islands on Ulsoor lake, the lights from the Philips campus reflected over the still waters. The early morning prayer from the local mosque breaking the stillness of the night air...reminding you of stories from the Arabian Nights.Just the right kind of weather to laze around with a cup a coffee, a chocolate bar and a good book.
I just got back from a visit to Chennai. It's a really nice city - great roads, well planned, etc.But when it gives you a thrill just to see the signboards along the railroad change from Tamil to Kannada, you realize that Bengaluru with all its traffic and pollution and potholes is the best place on earth. Simply because its home.

Music for the monsoon

For a few months during my engineering days, this track used to be my favourite 'just before it rains' music. It's an A cappella piece by Taufiq Qureshi and Shankar Mahadevan from 'Rhy-dhun'. It found its way home thru' the sibling, because a friend was using it to choreograph a dance performance.

Came across it once again when looking for music for a rainy day at home CD. For me, listening to it is like instant transportation back in time to my parent's living room, with the guava tree outside the window swaying in the wind and framed against dark clouds, and the smell of rain in the air.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B4CnU95VT8

Kings and Queens

Played chess yesterday for the first time in many many years :) With S. Actually against S. Lost the first game in under 15 minutes :( Lost the second one too, but it took S nearly 3 hours this time around :) [To be fair, he did agree to a couple of "I want to take back that move" situations] At least my learning curve was pretty good :) And then my bruised ego informed S that I would beat him in 5 more games, wait and watch.
Sigh.
So here I am, googling chess strategies on a rainy Monday afternoon, when there are so many other things I could be doing (or not doing too :) But the net is turning up some interesting info. Like bringing one's queen into the attack right in the beginning might not be a good strategy against good opponents. My games were based on a queen+knights attack, while the bishops and rooks defend. In fact in the first game my rooks didn't budge from their original positions - the second-most powerful pieces on the board!. And I used to think they were the amongst the 'easy target' pieces. Time to do some rethinking, before the next battle :) But best of all, my (and S's) liking for a game that used be a rainy day favourite in childhood has been rekindled :)

Remember Shankarabaranam?

One thing led to another today, and I'm sitting here getting over an unexpected flood of tears now.
Ironically enough, it all started with me feeling super cheerful because it's Friday, the sun is shining bright and I had a good breakfast :). So I decided to do something creative and started ripping music off YouTube to put together a 'happy music' collection. This led to looking for good audio versions of my favourite classical-fusion tracks, which was when I noticed a link called 'Shankarabaram 2' in the corner. That triggered a childhood memory of the song being quite beautiful. And I chose to ignore the faint warning bells about a sad ending, and clicked. Then came the flood of tears :) Not because of the tragic end itself, but more because of the part where the little boy is singing to his teacher. Because the scene is so touching, and the lyrics so beautiful. I understand very little Telugu, but the sentiments in the song transcend the language barrier. Need to find a translation of the lyrics now...

The youtube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWnbNK5662Q

And since I'm addicted to wikipedia-ing everything, this is the wiki link [this led to a few more tears, looks like today is 'mood swings' day]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shankarabaranam

Breakfast Serials :)

Another case of my karma making a full circle :) I have to confess to being completely addicted these days to watching Bidaai and Balika Vadhu, currently the top two competitors for 'India's no. 1 TV Serial' slot. So addicted that my breakfast cereal will not go down unless I'm catching up on the latest episodes of the above on Youtube. And I catch myself thinking about the plot twists too during the day. This has to be karmic retribution for making a face and saying "you watch Kyunki Saas bhi kabhi bahu thi!!??, OMG" to Sumanth years ago in BIT :)