Life - or something like it

There are times in your life when you could actually commit a murder. Some people go out of their way to rub you the wrong way or sometimes they manage to do it just by being themselves. Here are a few of them. 1) Spitting in Public : There are actually 3 types of Spitters a)   Casual Spitter   : This one cares about no one and just spits because of habit and just because he wants his mouth to work for no reason. He will keep spitting the whole day regardless of the necessity of doing so. They are harmless in a sense. b)   Experienced Spitter(ES)   :   These are the ones who eat paan, Paan Masala which gives them an opportunity to colour the world. Especially so, when they are travelling in India by a bus and an innocent bystander gets a nice dollop of their colourful spit on his clothes and gets coloured regardless of whether its Holi or not.   He is actually like a painter in his own regard and the walls, the road and people's clothes are...

I would Like to wish all my blogging friends a very Happy New Year . Gudi Padwa marks the beginning of the New Year to the Maharashtrians. The advent of a new year heralds new hopes, new dreams and greater chances of prosperity and wish fulfillment and so it is celebrated with a lot of joy and pompousness throughout Maharashtra. Gudi Padwa, also known as Ugadi, is celebrated on the first day of the Hindu month of Chaitra, which according to the Gregorian calendar would fall sometime at the end of March and the beginning of April. This festival is supposed to mark the beginning of 'Vasant' or spring. According to the 'Brahma Purana', this is the day on which Brahma created the world after the deluge and time began to tick from this day forth. According to Hindu mythology, on the day of Gudi Padwa, Brahma created the universe. It is also believed that it was on this day that Lord Rama killed Bali. It is one of the three and a half days in the Hindu calendar when each and ...

Things have been really rocking in our corner of the universe. There has been a switch in 'Job Profiles' of the (oh! so typical) dutiful wife and the bread winning Husband. I know, I know, things are changing in India too. I have met Hubby's who cook and help their wives with chores in the house and take pride in the fact that, they are very different from their fathers. Frankly, no matter how much modern or free thinking Indian men are, very few can actually let go of that typical mentality of bossing over their wives and generally having their own way. This is not a 'Male bashing Session' but just a general observation on my part and thoughts shared by countless number of women friends. Where was I? ..umm...yeah the job profile switch... Getting back to it.... Yesterday, we had invited over friends for dinner. They are 'S' the Hubby('A' s classmate), 'M' (his wife) and two kids. They are Indians and live just next door to us. With the rec...

Once I asked Friend, "What is the secret behind your happy married life?" Friend said, "You should share responsibilities with due love and respect to each other. Then absolutely there will be no problems." I asked, "Can you explain?" Friend said, "In my house, I take decisions on bigger issues where as my wife decides on smaller issues. We do not interfere in each other's decisions." Still not convinced, I asked Friend "Give me some examples" Friend said," Smaller issues like which car we should buy, how much amount to save, when to visit home town, which Sofa, air conditioner, refrigerator to buy, monthly expenses, whether to keep a maid or not etc are decided by my wife. I just agree to it" I asked, "Then what is your role?" Friend said," My decisions are only for very big issues. Like whether America should attack Iran, whether Britain should lift sanction over Zimbabwe , whether to widen ...

Please check out the video below...I got this as a forward from a friend. I died laughing... A few thoughts came to mind... 1) Why does he look like a bad version of Elvis? 2) What does 'H' stand for? 3) Where are his Red Undies?? 4) He does need to go on a diet real fast....stop eating Rice and hogging on Idlis. 5) I simply loved his dance routine. 6) How come Jayaprada could keep a straight face while dancing with that Joker? Any more thoughts folks....I am so eager to hear your reactions.

People who live in India or lived in India and learnt driving a car on the busy roads of major cities know that its nothing but the 'Survival of the Fastest'. We Indians, have a unique way of manoeuvring our vehicles through people with road rage, endless number of pedestrians, street hawkers, crazy kids on bikes, aunties on 'Activas ' with 'as slow as you can go' syndrome, the beggars and lastly the cows and dogs littering the road and bringing traffic to an absolute standstill whenever, they have the desire to just hibernate in the middle of the street. Added to this chaos is the endless horn blowing by some mindless freak. As if the red light at the traffic stop is just a minor hindrance in his way. Its been a pleasant experience walking on the streets of Lancaster. I am never in fear of being run down by some smart ass with a foot on the pedal. We moved from the University 6 months(after 'A' finished his MBA) to town. We felt the need of a car after...

'A' and I have this long standing tradition of arguing just before I plan to have a haircut. Its a finely tuned ritual with each of us playing our well rehearsed parts. 'A' never wants me to cut my hair and says I look better with long hair. I tend to disagree (Well, what's the fun if you give in). The other reason being I think I look better in shorter hair, younger and also its manageable. After completing the ritual, I got dressed and left for work, an hour earlier. Being quite impulsive on a lot of things, I can never ever book appointments for any of the beauty regimes. Never did that in India and am not about to change here. So I popped into a swanky looking Hair Salon. After looking at the charges I started praying inwardly ...Please god, please let them not be free for an appointment. The cost of one haircut could feed an entire Indian family for a whole month. God heard my prayers and I moved on to my ever dependant salon whose charges were decent and did...

As traditions of weird things happening in my life, I had a hilarious experience today afternoon... If you have read my blog post 'Me, Myself and Me again' . Point No. 16 in that blog, raised its ugly head yet again. But, being in 'phoren' lands its nature was a bit different. Lancaster is shedding the blanket of cold and is now welcoming spring with open arms. Today the weather was very pleasant. Bright and sunny with just a tad of chill in the air. I took this opportunity to spend my lunch break in sunshine. There is a small park just walking distance from my office. Check out the picture below: I was sitting here on the bench in the bottom left hand side of this picture. I was happily reading a book basking in the wonderful sunshine when a 'firang' chap (decent looking maybe in his 40's) asked me if he could sit on the bench next to me as all others were already occupied. I scooted to the extreme left so he could sit down. Just out of politeness I made a ...

Today was a weird weather day. I woke up to snowy showers. By the time I got ready it was sunny. In the afternoon it started snowing heavily again and when I reached home after work it was sunny again. I did not want to miss this first glimpse of the approaching Spring. I woke 'A' from his deep afternoon-evening siesta and dragged him to a pub which is on a canal at a very picturesque location near our house. I clicked some photos of our coffee date. Here are a few of them. It was sunny but bitterly cold.....some might call us insane to be sitting out in the cold but it was a marvellous impromptu outing. The Pub View across the Canal ...

I came back home from work sometime back and found an Indian friend (From Delhi) having a cup of coffee with 'A'. I joined the conversation and we started talking about 'How the Thullas (Policeman) make life miserable for Businessmen in Delhi". How at every junction a person needs to grease the hands right from Policemen Clerks and Bureaucrats to get his work done. Be it a simple a telephone connection or to paying his sales tax. 'Corruption', It has become such a part and parcel of life that we just turn a blind eye towards it. When things come to such a stage when you need to pay money to open the doors of your own shop, then where and when is it going to end??? I had an interesting experience at work today. Our company won a lawsuit with another company and I had called up to enquire about when our payment was to get released. Imagine this happening in India. I am calling up xyz co and speaking to a babu (Clerk) who works in the accounts Department. Me...