Indian Ameri

Monday

='ity

Ain't it strange that we take full liberty in really venting out at large on the phone at the slightest mistakes our parents make? While dad's pass a "hmmm..." followed by a comment of apology or a futile childish attempt to reason out the mistake, mom's just do what we used to do when we were her "my lil' baby!" (which btw is eternally unchanged for her) - the voice's decibel level drops, shakiness in the words, a hint of pre-tear breaths, and finally awkward silence as an attempt to plug the flowing emotions. And ain't it really strange that by the time we finish the conversation we feel a great deal of mindless guilt rolling over our hearts, that we end up apologizing a few dozen times to her, while, you wait till the next time to apologize to your dad?

Taking the 'frustration-shown-at-the-parents' out of the picture, I feel that women always have an upper hand over men on getting an apology. It just ain't fair!! My apologies to the ladies if this POV is illogical. For the men, "Peace, mate!"
posted by Unknown at Monday, March 29, 2010 0 comments

Friday

Participle - Participating Continuity

Simple statements like, "Both Dr. Hi, and Dr. He are busy tomorrow. So, no meeting tomorrow" make me look as confused as a baby in a strip club. The reason being, when someone gift wraps a few hours of 'no work, just play', the mind starts to take the idle devils gameplan. And conventionally like all humans, I hate it!!

Instead of 'so-called' utilizing the opportune moment of the free Thursday evening in years to draw bright tangents with the dark circles, the heart took the road less taken. Turned out, that the road was in fact the parallel wooden rungs of a long iron ladder over which the mechanical monsters pass behind the Desi street hooting every night. Twenty counts of "taken pictures" later, I was stranded soaked from the breezy rain, over a railing deficit bridge several miles from any area I know in Lexington. A pick up by the senior roomie later using the i-phones google maps location finder, discovered that I had actually ran around eight miles on a railroad just by listening to a rhythmic song. Somehow, the jog steamed a great amount of pressure out of the cooked bheja.

Time well spent on finishing an old photography project somehow induced the Ghajini's intuition to make a call to Lady Liz (LL) and Skipper (SP) inquiring about their wedding anniversary. Turned out that the pair got married by registered paper on July 24th, while the real "Thaali/Mangalsutra" episode occurred two weeks later (after LL eloped from her village 'alone' back in the late 70s). Skipper's discussion of restlessness for those torturing 14 days and LL's mute excitement experienced in the presence of my grannies for a lil' over 12 happy days proved a real enthusiasm for the year. Every time I probe deep into my parents romantic adventures, I learn something interesting. As a token of appreciation of their guts, I gutted out the truth of finally passing the final stage of the faculty interview from IIT-K. And as a token of sharing some principles, I also informed them it's just a back up plan if things turn 'fatal' here in the States. This sharing somehow instigated the curiosity in Skipper, and we ended up detailing a discussion on just the phrase, "What is Nano?"

Ended the night with an experimental kitchen attempt to extract rose flavor from a bouquet of bought love using coconut oil, hot water, and a never used antique 10 ml extraction column. A few spoons of mango pulp and milk gave it an exotic drooling taste.

Off the rail roads of romantic adventures:

1. Fortunately every roomie I had in the past 5 years turned out to be good in character. Or is it the perspective of seeing, appreciating, and 'extracting' the rosy-goodness in all that I've been with? For the two days of sleepless fundamental scanning and multiple book reading, I'd been offered Nescafe, given hot soup, compelled with black coffee, and satiated with a nice "busy-belabath." In return, the party demands not one, but two blue labels from me. :))

2. It's early summer/spring and the 'hippy' vision is already kicking some neural dendrites' ass by noticing a lot of things on the walk to the lab. The recent count of non-human materialistic smiley faces on the road has been six (and these are not visions of clouds changing into the faces). And every time I cross the concrete cemented smiley, I think of taking a picture with the phone and sms'ing to the fan.

3. Three and a half years of points of no return were reanalyzed and the pick of the lot ended up on 'turning around, sighting a shut door, getting into the elevator, and thinking "The answer for the long sought question is now."'

4. A lot of muteness is shown by me on the field and it is really making me feel young and energetic.

5. "Screw you" was the exact phrase Dr. Hi used, while he was analyzing my response to the rude reviewers query. Coincidentally it was the same phrase I used as I read the query 2 days ago. Also he used twice the term, "What a d**k!!" in front of me as he read the reviewers next query. Non-coincidentally I wasn't that peeved with the bloke.

6. I am doing another jog definitely when it rains and this time I'm going to listen to "not alone" all the way till I meet the polar express.

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posted by Unknown at Friday, March 26, 2010 0 comments

Tuesday

Chapter 2 in the book of surviving tricks...

Cursed are those who hate the jovial table companion with a good memory. Also cursed, are those few (like me), who go through memory lapses. Only with frankness over flattery this unwanted, unrequested trait is guised into blessings.

Unlike most normal adults, I have trouble in remembering names, numbers, and especially "Whether I met them before in my life?" And I really 'meant' the last statement unlike those who use it as a way to for healthy flirting. Yesterday was one of those awkward socializing days. Cherishing the taste of mashed potatoes half way through the portion of daily carbs, a perfect curve of hips in green scrubs jumped errrrr... sexily a few inches from my sight. Lifting the head along with the spoon in my mouth, I saw this lightning powered beautiful smile coming from a familiar face. Initial neural firing brought back memories of being introduced to this doll of a brunette by an old acquaintance from the medical field. Further cranial activity induced scenes of a night at the comedy caravan followed by funny karaoke moments with the pig-tailed, Texan-hat-dunked doll doing a few steps with me and the other friends we partied with. But there was one little trouble in wonderland. Not even a single spark in the neural network occurred that would infer her name!!!

Believing that with conversation, the hapless memory would hit me with her right name was the risk to be taken. Instead, it played the devils play by smirking at my attempts to extract a name out of the million other data that were stored in the corners of a spaghettied mind. One full meal time of flirting later, I was left stranded in figuring out her name. And unfortunately, every bit of the karaoke memory (except the name) being a driving factor for a good flattery involved chat, the frankness in asking out her name was out of the equation. So I had to go with my usual ways of figuring out the name - use 'spell the name' strategy!!

Ghajini - Nice meeting you again. I'll call Ted, get the caravan tickets, and then shall call you.
Doll - Sounds good.
G - What's your contact?
D - beep bip bop, boop baap beep, bip bip buup bop!!
G - (missed call) That's my number. (Time to act smart and find her name) How do you spell your last name?
D - (giggling... me: huh?) It's ******, spelled as * * * * * * *
G - (Last name found. Brain - what's her first name? No response for the next 1 second. hopeless) And how do you spell your...
(in came the chorus from both me and D) .... First name!!!
D - This is second time you are using the "How do you spell your name?" trick with me. You used the same, last time we met at my dad's office. (Instead of just a blank face, now I have a puzzled look of "I met you outside the karaoke bar, and that too in your dad's office?? Who's your dad btw?") You even told dad, I'm like my mom.
G - Like your mom? (Still continuing with the puzzled face - I knew her mom too??)
D - Mmm hmmm... 'Beauty with brains'. Anyways I'm D O L L 'again'. Remember to use my name when you call me with the tickets.
G - (Sheepishly) Sorry 'bout that. One of those days....

After she left, I had trouble figuring out the dad, the office, the mom, and why I said 'beauty with brains' part, especially to her dad. Instead of hammering my memory for an answer, I ended up texting for her dad's name. Turned out that the details of the family, gushed out the sleeping memories of an important meeting I spent with her dad and why I called her beauty with brains..

Most times, I have to depend on such acts to figure out on certain memory lapses. Fortunately, live images turn into photographic negatives and had proved useful for directions, finding misplaced stuff, solving academic problems, choosing/managing wisely, etc. Unfortunately, it's also seeping it's way into the professional life, which could turn costly in the near future. Guess, time has come to figure out a way to figure out how to remember certain important things!!
posted by Unknown at Tuesday, March 23, 2010 0 comments

Sunday

The Triad

Every once in a while, a sudden surge of passion for a family reunion occurs among the Chirras. While, the senior generation members are all either under snooze mode or fried mode, the pick of the lot among the growing generation make it good enough to produce some magic among those who are still up and tik-tokking solid. As the first few seconds of the movie as sent by my cousin played, I was wondering 'what the names were?' of the different Chirras that were been taped. Three minutes and fourteen seconds later, as ordered by cousin, I glued my eyes to the screen. Instantaneously, I went into shock followed by denial, acceptance, confusion, followed by "no words to describe the blankness". Among the dancing crowd of youngsters (maximum of near 35 years old), I saw mom dancing gracefully. For the next eighty odd seconds, I expressed utter blankness in my face along with a smile radiating a thousand watt bulb. Then, the shot twirled and focused at dad. Believe me, he had a pasted portfolio of the same expressions his son was showing now. He did his sheepish laughter, while his eyes were still searching for a plausible explanation of the sight of "the return of the old self". The last time I saw mom dance, was during her pre-arthritis days, when I was nine or ten.

After waiting six brutal hours of night time in India, for a change I woke up dad, told about the cousins video and asked 'what was all that about?' A series of discussion with queries directly to the lady at grace gave me this - (Am assigning characters to my family members from now on)
LL (Lady Liz of the royal empire/mom in layman's term) made friends with a bunch of Velachery Maamis, personally hired an autowaala, shunted too and fro during Skipper's (Skipper Penguin of Madagascar/dad in NRI language) off-field work, and finally figured out the right kindergarten for CJ (Nibbles/nephew to me; Cool Jay/grandson to her making them the LL Cool J pair). She even started bribing the ABCD teacher with her so called delicacies (Poor skipper. Still bearing to his Lady's cooking). And she blatantly admitted that this feat of her doing for Cool J made her forget her pain for a while and just partied with a success implied dance.

Skipper's comments as sputtered when interviewed were, "I fell in love AGAIN son!" After confirming that during his comments, LL was busy dropping two sugar clumps in the tea she is preparing in the royal kitchen, I agreed to skipper that I bow to his patience of passion. While, this was the case developing back in MumsLand, here Nibbles was all excited to even write KRE (Kindergarten Regional Examination) and TOIFL (Test of Indian as a Foreign Language), started watching desi movies to improve his grandmother tongue, stand in queue for a visa, practicing the right answer for "Tum India kyun jaa rahe ho?" and finally making a list of what cheese (like achaar) to take to India and how to tackle the customs officials when caught on transporting perishable items. When asked, "Why are you so interested in going to India?" the shrill voice in the phone proved the excitement that "I can eat Dosa with my haaaaaaandssss!! Gaaampa make yummy i-keem tooooo" Thinking about the Pillsbury dough eating a fried dough and the yet to be recognized by the apple inc. product - i(ce)-c(r)eam as homemade by Skipper, I'd guess I'll witness these and more interesting stuff when I go to India later. For now, all I need to do is figure out a way to meet the kid (been 3 months), and send him to India soon.


Life away from the Triads!
Sickness issues - 33 teeth leading to 2 decays below the visible region, an anesthesia induced bi-teeth removal and mistaken poking of the other side, mouth ulcer developed on the poking zone leading to inability to even gulp semi-solid food, leading to malnutrition, metabolic breakdown, night fevers, and further misery by skipping gym for 3 straight weeks, which lead to muscle relaxation and severe cramping.
A "frick it!" rejuvenation jog turning all stupid coz I fell on my elbows trying not to do a stampede on the rain-induced-worm-migration kept me locked and sealed. Finally a rebooting of the system by two days of good rest ensured that I was fine enough for some friendly water polo. But, as the apple falls due to gravity, I tore a fragment of my back muscle fiber keeping me stiff for enough time. And finally, the sickness drought struck lightning, by a first ever shin cramp during a backfoot punch drive for a four. While, the guys were ball watching and appreciating an elegant shot I 'never' attempted, Chotu was stretching my leg by pressing hard on the ankle and knee region. His sarcasm during the physio, "Ab toh accept karo ki bhooda ho gaya. Retire ho jao re". Been two days that I'm still limping around the department attracting concerns.

Lost in Migration - Somehow the gold chain I wore, broke loose and got lost somewhere. The part that worried me the most was that the dollar in that chain was 32 yrs old. It was dads first piece of jewelery out of his savings (and it was insisted by mom to buy one for him). The symbol had been lurking around as the symbol in three different houses that was built over three decades, was part of my brothers college life, and in spite of my disinterest in wearing it, mom believed that it would protect me from danger (Always made fun of it, but somehow felt guilty after losing it).

Irony of work - Return of the sick graduate led to a back log of experiments broiling my way out. But the real irony was, the post doc got sick due to gall stone issues and I ended up being the scape goat of a senior to work on this 11th hour for advisor crisis-industrial project. While, I single handedly optimized the reaction to make the best contact lenses as required, not even a single cent of the time I spent on perfecting this project turns into a para in the corners of the last pages of even the appendix chapter of the thesis. Strangely everything on the thesis seems to be giving trouble 'only' at the last step. This has kept me from even finishing revisions for the paper and submitting it for final acceptance.

Strangely the word rat poison reminded me a little over a decade old memory of how circumstances led to the coining of the word "Guli" Although I can never imagine, I still have the right to glance about the possibility of "what if that accident never occurred?" I can only wish....

Rejection - After two weeks of intense phone interviewing and back and forth e-mailing, finally I was let go from the possibility of having a back up option of a faculty researcher job in India on the basis of "inexperience". Guess, I need to rewind my life back by 5 yrs and stay put.

Florida awaits - For some unexplainable reason, I'm skipping the plan of making it to Panama City for the weekend. And I still can't figure out what the heck is the reason about?

Anyhooo the post is long, the debt in penning one was longer, and the satisfaction in finally coming out of sickness is the longest (hope it ends tonight)......

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posted by Unknown at Sunday, March 14, 2010 0 comments

Thursday

Unassimilable

With all the things that had happened and are happening in the past one week, I 'Should' be shit scared!!!

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posted by Unknown at Thursday, March 11, 2010 0 comments

Friday

Sour and Sweet!!!

An exciting finish to a weeks Friday schedule, a conference for the learning tooth-fairies, and the early spring break for the other students. These along with a few other uncontrollable events left me with the option of fixing a dental evaluation appointment only for the 19th of March. While, the 'mard'/man in me did not cave in to the 'dard'/pain (I still don't understand where/from whom I heard this dialogue from, but it's giving me some cheer faces), somehow on Tuesday the pain took a trip to hell. After hardening eight chewing gums in a span of six early morning working hours, I had no other option, but to get admitted in the ER.

At least that was what the original plan had been. With the barcode of a name wrapped around my wrist, things seemed optimistically certain of getting alleviated. Two hours later, with nearly giving up on the last bit of self-control to not pull every hair of the scalp, I asked humbly to the ER nurse, "I've been here for two hours. Is the doctor coming?" After counting every bit of hair I had plucked of sheer pain in my imagination twice, I went again and enquired, "Ma'am, it's been four hours......" Walking back in agony, I started doing the 'expecting dad'. For every ten to and fros I traveled I checked the wall clock and it seemed like time had snail juice written all over its path.

Seven brutal hours later I walked to the shift over nurse, bit the plastic bar code wrapped around the wrist, pulled it, set it on the window gap of her counter, smiled, and said, "I guess my teeth is all fine now. I can chew good" and pointed my finger to the bar code. I finished with "Please cancel my emergency off the schedule. Thank you" and exited. Suffering on the edge along with a few partial things I witnessed took evasive action in such a manner. The severity in pain though should have been the reason for keeping me insomniac on bed, the guilt of such an act kept me awake. Thanks to it, the happiness of donating blood the number of times more than my age the next day all dissolved into a painful fever. Ended up watching this again. Hopefully the fever doesn't hold me from going to this on Friday (Would be 5 yrs in a row).

Today, a mail from the hospital came in regretting that their standards of service could not suit my emergency needs. "My foot!" was the instant remark in my mind considering the fact that they treated really sick, old, and really young people the same way - by letting them wait and suffer till they are Grey enough for an Anatomy of more insurance money. (This is the fifth time I had been in the ER and I've seen too much shit) Too bad, they had close ones comforting in their sickness and holding on to this brutal concept of an ER in the US.


Anyways, the things I found in the seven vital hours of thoughtful food are
1. Pandora can be loaded with Indian songs (old ones too) and I've listened to this like a few ten times submerged in oblivion.
2. Moment before walking off to the nurse counter #1 - I had realized that the biggest advantage I had with the tooth ache was, 'I had full control over my #1 vice'. Heck, I was ready to test it further instead of rotting here.
3. Moment before walking off to the nurse counter #2 - "I'm getting old and I need something to rely on" buzzed from Pandora's rock channel and I decided I'd better start relying on self if things stay this way for a long time.
4. Moment before walking off to the nurse counter #3 - The person second next to me in terms of admit was a sick kid. He waited for the fricking same seven hours for no treatment. And I decided to contribute a push by simply walking off.


10 hrs later - Disappointed of how boring and same my alter ego was to the original me in my dream (nodding in disbelief)
Lunch - For the first time ever I hated the favorite French dip from Arbys coz the tongue has grown in admiration to self cooking (Colacassia fry, Bhindi masala, Palak Paneer, Malai Kofta, Fish Fry and Mango Sambhar in 1 week of home rest).
Now - The chemistry between desi senior lab members and Gori sisters of the lab is so bad that I am tempted to write a 2 page report on the obvious potential blunders of an hypothesis, the qualifier taking grad student has proposed. Hell, with it! I am sending it to the boss with a note that let him do the talking/discussion with the student. Guess, it's really big time to scoot from the current lab.

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posted by Unknown at Friday, March 05, 2010 2 comments