Thy name

On 8th March, 2013, I became a proud “bua“/Aunt (my cousin gave birth to a really pretty angel) .I popped the question in high pitched excited tone the day she was born “What do we call her  ?" I was asked for suggestions and I did my homework and here are my 2 cents (Rs 4 in INR) :

When Juliet said “What's in a name ? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet." Shakespeare was definitely deluded!!
As I dig through Wikipedia entries, I realize increasingly, parents are giving their children unconventional, made-up names which are not linked to any specific language or cultural tradition and could belong to any part of a cosmopolitan planet. Saddle a little kid with a name like Subharnarekha and likely as not she'll grow up and emigrate to Antarctica, or Adelaide, or Kotakinabalu, where everyone, starting with herself, will call her Subs for short, and also for long.
No, made-up names, which sound good and are easy to pronounce in any language you like, including Esperanto, are definitely a yes-yes, as distinct from a no-no. The name that identifies you should be like your fingerprint: exclusively yours and yours alone, as individualistic and un-interchangeable as you know yourself to be.
A made-up name doesn't carry unnecessary and sometimes inconvenient baggage. A child named after a well-known politician, say, might well be embarrassed in later life to be the namesake of a politician caught out in a major scam or scandal, as well-known politicians seem increasingly likely to be.
History has a way of turning heroes into villains. Unlike an Adolf, or a Stalin, or a Mao, made-up names don't run the risk of one day turning out to be politically incorrect. Free of the burden of history, made-to-order names — or designer names, if you prefer — are not about the past, but about a future which will be as independent and creative as the out-of-the-box-named individual chooses it to be.
Indeed, this business of unusual name-calling could well turn out to be just that: a mega-business, like iPhones or Twitter. Future jobs could include that of the professional name-caller, whom people would consult to devise an original name for them, much like people go to event managers today to devise original theme parties for them.
Lawyers and patent attorneys would also benefit, what with people registering their names under the Copyright and Trade Marks Act. After all, little use going to a name-designer, and paying the person a lot of money, if a couple of weeks later you discover that the person next door has pinched the name you've chosen so that there are now not one but two Ulianilonias, or Zingaloos, or whatever, on the block, whereas by all intellectual property rights there should only be one, your Ulianilonia, or your Zingaloo, or your whatever.
Numerologists will ensure that the name you chose is not only one-of-a-kind but also numerically calculated to bring good fortune to the person who is called by it. However, as in all things, moderation has to be exercised in name-calling. For instance, while Zyxwrut, or Aeiou, might be even uniquer than an Aadhaar number/SSN, as well as being numerologically sound, that they require a contortionist's tongue to pronounce should rule them out.

Some names are just too bizarre to be for real.
For example, what weirdo would end up being called Swati?

Duh!

Why are we sitting in the refrigerator ?

Why are we sitting in the refrigerator ? I asked Chinu (roomate/partners in crime) with one eyebrow lifted at an angle of 40'.
We`re not sitting in the refrigerator; we`re sitting in our living room she replied. This conversation took place during the recent cold wave that swept Scottsdale (Believe it or not Scottsdale actually got snow!!), the app on my phone read the temperature as 50 F making not just the living room but all the rooms of the house feel like the inside of a Ice box.
Teeth chattering in Morse code I marveled at this unique phenomenon of global warming. How had this global warming which was melting the Arctic ice cap and giving polar bears heatstroke all of a sudden become a global colding? What next??? Would they schedule the skiing and ice-skating events of the forthcoming Winter Olympics in the Mojave Desert in mid-July ?
However, environmentalists soon came up with a phrase which explained why the planet was freezing over even as it was heating up; it was an example of what they call Extreme Weather Events (EWEs). Thanks to global warming the Earth would increasingly experience extremes of weather; unusually hot hot waves, unusually cold cold waves.
As we huddled in front of the fireplace , both of us bundled up in woollies, Mili my pet ant (We met during my camping trip and I mused on the wondrous laws of Nature which could turn global warmth into global freeze, all as part of the day`s work and no overtime either. How cool or how globally warm was that. How cool indeed, Mili wiggled in acknowledgment, an icicle forming on the tip of her nose .As we shivered and shuddered in sympathetic unison, it struck me maybe if I go on a virtual expedition on google maps in the warm sunny beaches of Macau the placebo effect might kick in. Google can you please launch FIBRE in Scottsdale sooner, my fantasy for soaking in the sun needs to be supported by sonic speed

Larry and Sergey are you guys listening ??
=)

Out for Launch

Poems-It takes talent and I believe a different wiring in your head to write and appreciate them.I can never make the words falls so perfectly in sequence that would evoke a emotion in the readers head.My sister Sakshi on the other hand has several one them to her credit published in journals. What is my contribution to this feet you ask ? I can proudly tell you that I am the sole source of "countless nuisance moments" in her life which inspire her to write .(a.k.a vent it all out).
 Her latest penmanship made me think that perhaps she should bundle her writings and publish her own book. (After all my grandfather had several under his belt.They are out of print now but you can still request order them here Amazon Link1, Amazon Link 2)
We should celebrate her publication in style.Let me do a book launch for her book (Hopefully not like the one I attended in 08).
All I need is :
Invitations: I looked up my list of Facebook friends to invite.
I pinged a few and soon realized that the book-reading habit is not just dead but buried, with a stake through its heart so that unlike Dracula it can't rise from its grave.
Nobody reads books any more, not even on Kindle which was devised as a fashion accessory - like Gucci earplugs or Armani hernia trusses .Medical science has yet to establish that the reading of books can cause cancer and make hair grow on the palms of your hands. However, it is generally accepted that books are injurious to mental health in that they distract from watching Bigg Boss/Bachelor, playing angry birds, and catching up on the latest tweet that's doing the rounds .No worries, it would be a small cozy group.
Guest of Honor:
Undeterred, next on the agenda is finding someone to launch it. It had to be launched by a Celebrity, who should be a Big Name. It could be a politician or a show biz personality or perhaps another author. But the preferred kind of Big Name is the Big Name which doesn't fit into any particular slot and is known only to be famous for being famous. Like Kim Kardashian or Charlie Sheen.
{Coin Toss}
Heads. Charlie Sheen it is.I hope he reads my mail when he is sober i don't want my invitation to be swept under the carpet in his drunken stupor.
Cause:
It’s in vogue , to associate part of your earning to a charity. My mom does enough pro bono activities to support education, girl rights,unemployment and what not.So now its my responsibility to stand up for what i believe is a lost cause and needs attention.
Shoes.
I can already see the electronic scroll in font size 12 ,color neon ,font -Helvetica on the website “In aid of buying new shoes relief fund”.This should evoke enough empathy and drive sales.Yayy.
Website : 
I need a place to display the cause, share pictures  and get RSVP's.
Summary:To summarize ,the checklist for a successful launch are: guests, chief guest, cause, website and oh yeh the book maybe..just maybe.
Sorry need to go now, I need to update my out of office message to “Out for launch”.

In full disclosure, the checklist above is not going to get you very far with your book launch but I highly recommend Guy Kawasaki’s latest publication.

Bully

I have walked more than two decades on this planet.I have met my share of bullies. Some intimidate you with their physical appearance and others by their sharp remarks, whatever be their style the one thing that holds them together is the common mission in life to generate secretions of your Lacrimal gland (a.k.a make you cry).
Now that the thermometer on my patio wall does not threaten to burst, I decided to go camping with my pals. We reached early morning and hiked before the sunscreen started to wear off .After the hike, we sat under the shade of a tree which showed gradual sign of the coming fall. The leaves had started taking hues of red and orange. We all sat exhausted sharing a bottle of Gatorade when I felt a slight buzzing near my ear; I moved my hand to shoo off whatever it was. The shooing did not deter the sound maker, exhausted and not wanting to move a muscle ..i tilted my head to see the source of sound .It was a brown and yellow ugly hornet.
Yuck.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAaa” the hornet stung my friend Priya, she winced in pain.
Ah the bully.
I ran behind the hornet to shoo it off. I had forgotten the terrain and fell on the boulders. I scrapped my knees and the tips of my fingers were gone (Aha ..time to commit Crime) I was in pain. The bully just flapped its wings more fervently circled around me in mockery and flew away.
I had it.
I might have been brought down on my knees once by the bully but that does not mean I accept defeat. After being rushed to urgent care, I visited the closet Walmart and bee lined for –Pest control section. On the top most shelf laid a can with my mortal enemies face on it. I could not reach it and had to use the back of the handle of a rake kept in the gardening section to make it fall down. I paid for my weapon and luckily the cashier put it in bag ,as I did not want to even touch anything which had my mortals enemies face on it.
The next morning while we sleeping in our tent, I woke up with buzzing again. My senses perked up and I reached for the can SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Priya mumbled “You missed it “,No I did not .
I could already visualize it stuffed and mounted on my dining room.
The taste of victory is so sweet.
I proudly stepped out to see the carcass of the bully. I did not find anything.
Hmmmm.
Ahh I know, the ants must have carried it away and the entire ant colony would feast on it.
So my dear readers…..if you plan to bully me ….remember I might find that can in walmart and spray you dead.
Beware.
Grr.

Call NOW !! 1-800-CHEAT-ME/1-800-BELIEF

CONGRATULATIONS! Your mobile phone number has won GBP 7,500,000! SMS your full bank account details immediately to Mr 420 to receive the money!
Yep.
It's another 'pesky' message. And the peskiest part of it is that it assumes that the recipients of message - you and I - must be idiots to believe in what is so obviously a scam. Who on earth would be so dumb as to send off their bank details to some totally unknown person who, having promised them the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, will clean out the entire contents of their bank accounts? And of course the answer to that question - who on the earth would be so dumb etc? - is:
Plenty of people.
And no, they're not necessarily dumb. They suffer from - or should that be that they are gifted with? - something common to us all, and without which day-to-day life would be impossible:
Hope. All of us live in hope.
 Which is another way of saying that we make ourselves believe what we want to believe. What are the things we want to believe? As children we want to believe in magical kingdoms where the trees are made of chocolate and the rivers of lemonade. As students we want to believe that, after all those hours of study, we'll top our class in the exams. When we get our first jobs, we want to believe that we'll end up being the CEO of the company. We want to believe that our friends like us, that the new diet will help us lose weight, that if we brush our teeth religiously every night we won't have to go to the dentist for root canal treatment. We want to believe in so many things. Most of all we want to believe in belief itself. We want to believe in hope. We don't have much choice. Because if we didn't believe in hope we'd have to believe in its opposite thing; we'd have to believe in despair. And if that happened - if we believed in despair - then life literally wouldn't be worth living.
So, from childhood, we train ourselves to believe in hope, to believe in what we want to believe. That there are indeed fairy godmothers who will make all our dreams come true. That hard work must inevitably lead to success. That in the book we are reading, or the movie we're watching, everything will turn out all right in the end, and that the hero and the heroine will finally be united and live happily ever after. It's called the willing suspension of disbelief . And this is what con men, and crooked brokers, and racketeers of all descriptions, rely on when they take us for a ride (Congratulations! You have won ten gazillion dollars...!) They're not cashing in on our stupidity. They're cashing in on our hopefulness, the human ability to keep on believing what one wants to believe, repeated disappointments and letdowns notwithstanding.
Call it foolish gullibility or the sucker syndrome.
(beep.. beep)
Wait, I just got a text
"Invest today and double your money in three months.
Send your bank account number in a text to 1-800-CHEAT-ME or 1-800-BELIEF."

Mr Bain:Is Rain–boon or bane ?

Of the 15 days I was in Seattle, it rained for 13. Dark clouds gloomier than an economists forecast covered the skies. The locals hated the cold and the wet. Sakshi and I loved it. The locals thought we were mad to prefer rain over shine. Either that or we were high on Starbucks Chai latte (from the first Starbucks store ever ), a surfeit of which might well have hallucinogenic effects.
Our preference for cloudy skies over clear had nothing to do with insanity or Starbucks. It had to do with the grass being greener on the other side. In Scottsdale, we crave for raindrops to hit our car windshield, even though that might spell into multiple unplanned car washes. Seattle on the other hand, is a peacock heaven,the locals wait for shooting stars and wish for sunny days,the slightest glimpse of the sun makes the locals rush in hordes to hard, pebbly beaches where they take off their clothes and turn themselves into human barbecues in a tribal ritual called sunbathing.
Having left phoenix when it was a sweltering 115 F, Sakshi and I didn't miss the sun at all. And we welcomed the rain clouds that kept it away, ensuring that the mercury never went beyond a maximum of a very pleasant  60 F .
Sakshi and I love walking. Equipped with umbrellas which we'd had the foresight to pack in our luggage and thick-soled, puddle-resistant shoes.We walked along the banks of the river for three and half miles where tourists fed bread crumbs to a quackle of ducks. We stumbled upon Anglers, a picturesque café with tables outside .We played scrabble as we munched on our salad .Sakshi was leading the game .All my pleas that “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” is a real word were coolly gulped with lemonade.
With nothing left in my artillery I resorted to the last arrow in my quiver of whimsies .I decided to distract her with cute street dogs that bounced on the street .Ahh well it made her smile but not happy enough to be bad at the game.
Sheesh. I continued to struggle to make triple word scores when the gentle man sitting on the next table spilled his drink .The helpful staff was immediately trying to clean the mess and replace his drink but in the commotion we didn't realize that it had started to rain again and we had to abandon our game (I knew my faith in almighty will pay off some day).
So Seattle with your green grasses ,unplanned showers and yummy lunches, you made me realize , It's not just about walking, or rain, or sunshine. It's about how all of us yearn for that which we don't have. Those who are brown-skinned use Fair & Lovely to whiten their complexions, and those who are white-skinned spend fortunes getting themselves fashionably suntanned. The paparazzi-pursued celebrity seeks the protective cloak of anonymity, while the anonymous hunger for the limelight of fame.
Yes, the grass is always greener on the other side. The credit for greenery goes to rain .Phoenix eat your heart out.
=)

Meeting woes/Me eating s ‘mores

I spent all of last week trying to get hold of a person i needed to speak to about something that needed doing. But no matter what i tried - mobile , landline, email, facebook, twitter - i just couldn't seem to get through to him. By now i was desperate. What should i try next? Courier pigeons? Telepathy? Then, by sheer chance, i bumped into the person, in the mall. Where in the world have you been, i've been desperately trying to get in touch with you, i said. And he replied: Sorry, but i've been frightfully tied up; all these business meetings i've been having to go to, you know.
Arghhh..
Business meetings are what people who are very important in the corporate and professional world go to. And the more such meetings that they have to go to, the more important they become. I'm not sure which came first. Did important people become important as a result of having had to attend all those meetings? Or were they important to begin with, and so had no choice but to go to all those meetings because they were important, and meetings have to have important people in order to be meetings?
It's a chicken-and-egg situation, trying to figure out which came first.
And people who are not just important but very, very important, like Mayawati, for instance, have so many meetings to go to, all at the same time, that they build statues of themselves so that they can be at several meetings simultaneously in moorti avatar.
The other thing about meetings was that they had to be as far away from wherever it was that you normally were. The farther off the meeting you had to attend, the greater was the importance given to it and to you for having to go to it. For instance, if you lived in phoenix and you said you had to go to a meeting in, say, Scottsdale, Tempe, no one in the audience was likely to ask you for a date but drop a hint that the meeting you were going to was in Amsterdam ,Dubai or New Zealand and everyone present would know that you were a big toots and no mistake.
Every time I book a room for a meeting or have to move between building to reach the meeting room I always think why can’t we book beaches or campgrounds where we would all gather around the campfire and make some s ’mores.
Just some more s ’mory food for thought..

Waxed/Vexed mouse

My neighborhood library "Agave"  is my secret haven for the last couple of months.It is a small cozy place tucked in the corner behind a grove of mesquite trees.It symbolizes a place of comfort, solitude, free books and DVDs for me.
The librarian -Richard is a kind soul who is blessed with a balding head and a twinkle in is light grey eyes  which makes me always wonder whats buzzing underneath his graying temples. He has been at this very library for the last 8 years since his retirement. He takes great pride in sharing stories about how it rained cats and dogs the day the  foundation stone was laid and how in no time he had all kinds of people flocking in the corridors of the library .
Richard maybe happy about his visitors but since the last week there are a bunch of visitors that have been the reason he is popping aspirin as m n m's.
There is apparently a new mouse family in the library who get their nourishment from Shakespeare ballads and Newton’s theorem alike.So three days back when I went in to drop off the books I noticed the distraught look in Richard’s face. He shared his woes about the "brown" clan .I decided to jump in and figure a way out.
I went to the home depot and looked for all kinds of traps I couldn't bring myself to kill them . After looking the talents of many locals’ artists i decided to go with one that looked like an open book which had sticky pages.The idea is that the mice would get stuck on them and can be safely moved to their own sanctuaries.
Richard said he had notice 5 baby mice and 6 adult mice.so we placed the traps in different sections .I placed two in "romance”, one in "fiction" and a couple in children section.
We switched off all the lights and closed for the day .
In the morning we found a mouse stuck in the trap placed in the romance section and the rest of the traps remained untouched . I high-fived with Richard .The mouse was pretty calm his beady eyes looked unperturbed by our presence .We took the trap/books and placed them outside the library near the manhole waiting for it to run off.It just couldn't move .I went back to my car trunk and got my bachii (Taiko stick) and poked at the mouse nudging him to move but that didn't help either . Richard took over and poked harder with the stick and wallah.
We had a mouse with well waxed bottoms.
So much for all the Brazilian wax advertisements that flood radio stations.
Romance section seems to have been a hit so we planted another set the next day but caught none. In fact they all seem to have vanished.
My theories with Richard range from either the mice pride themselves in being the furry clan and didn't like our services or for all you know they might have gone to get the rest of their clan for the Brazilian wax .
We will see.
=)

Fitness SpREE

Our Fitness which art on treadmill,/ Hallowed be thy gym./ Thy aerobic come, thy work-out done,/ In Nike as it is in Reebok.

I remember a couple of years back when I was a self-professed atheist, i was nervous. For i was about to enter the temple of a new religion. The new religion – which according to some is the fastest-growing

faith system called Fitness.I’d heard of the religion of Fitness that was sweeping the nation, and of the temples dedicated to it called gyms that were popping up faster than pizza joints. But i remained not only an atheist but a gym-atheist, or a gym-nastik. Then one day the inevitable happened. A gym got set up in the housing society where i live. I hadn’t gone to the mountain of Fitness; the mountain had come to me.

There was no help for it. Along with all the other worshippers at the altar of Fitness, i queued up at the

door of the gym. But, as in the case of all places of worship, first i had to acquire the appropriate

investments, the ritual costume required for entry. In the case of the gym, this costume is called a kit,

the first and foremost component of which is something called cross-trainers. It turned out that cross-

trainers are not, as i would’ve thought, bad-tempered people who travel by trains. Cross-trainers are a

special type of footwear which you have to put on to get onto the treadmill, the holy of holies of the gym.

I went to buy cross-trainers. The shop was full of all kinds of cross-trainers, of bulbous shape and lurid

colours, like bullfrogs with strange skin diseases. They were all called REE-something, like REE-flex and

REE-play. I looked at the price tags and REE-coiled. Don’t you have anything called REE-jects which are a

bit cheaper?, i asked the sales assistant. He looked at me as though i were something REE-volting, if not REE-pulsive. In the end, i forked out what seemed to me a REE-markable sum of money which had me REE-ling for what in effect were nothing but what used to be called keds, except these were keds in fancy dress, and with a lot of zeroes added to their prices.

So in retrospect i got a fit because i wanted to be fit.

=)

PS/Words of wisdom:

The reason i skip the gym at times is not because am lazy (or i ran out of good excuses) ,it is because i

want to preserve my sports wear. Common, who does not want to be pinched ("New pinch") for old clothes .It has its merits. Try it.

Egg-stra fun

Full disclosure: I have made many a friend a victim of my cooking. Some have been smart and figured a way to politely say no and run as fast as they can in the opposite direction and others have yet to master the art.
If you are privy to my daily schedule you would definitely advise me to "Do some good”. Anything to cleanse my karma or else am definitely going to be reborn as a slimy sloth stationed on a bunch of malnourished trees with cannibals doing the dance without pants underneath. Not a pretty sight!
Now that spring is here it’s the perfect time to be outdoors so when there was a notification on my friend stream asking if anybody wanted to pitch in for the food drive( the benefits of which would go to a charity of our choice) i signed up.We were divided into teams and had to sell food through a food truck at the Maricopa Fair.I was teamed up with petit Clara and Hugo a 56 yr old ex-cop."Hugo " was aptly named as he was a broad shouldered 6ft 3 inches tall guy who probably wouldn’t need a hammer to drive nails in wood .In my head every time i turned around i would address him as huge-O!!. I chose to cook rather than attracting and pulling customers to our booth. Clara manned the orders and Hugo was helping me with the cooking. Our food truck was infact Huge-O's customized monster trucks so it was really high and looked like it’s all set to compete in the Monster-jam at the fair.The flow of customers was a little slow in the beginning but by noon we were in full swing. Watching me work, Hugo soon realized that am a little lost (i like to see it as getting in touch with my disoriented side )He believes that i have the attention span of a Gnat (maybe ..i do..i have sticky notes floating on my car dashboard and room walls) so he kept the oil case, flour, sugar bags, case of 2 dozen eggs etc on the roof of the truck so that’s its easier for me to work. We had developed an assembly line to turn things around. It was working really smooth till Huge-O had to go in the front to help Clara manage the flow of orders and i was left at the back alone. I ran out of eggs and reached to on the roof to grab some and "i don’t believe its butter" filled hands slipped , I tried balancing myself by holding the side mirror of the truck but one thing led to the other and before i knew it, there was a loud crash and i had the whole crate of eggs on top of my head.
 Eww
eWw
ewW
My head was filled with gooey --yellow --stinky--broken eggs.
I was stunned.I just stood there in shock . Huge-O and Clara rushed back. They burst out laughing. I couldn’t stop sheepishly grinning as well. Clara shot a video which she promised was going to be uploaded on Americas funniest videos. I continued making the food (i still reeked) as we had bunch of folks whom we had already taken orders from.I waited another hour and finally got down to cleaning myself. I don’t know what caused the humpty dumpty eggciting event. I wonder if it was the prayers of those who were yet to be fed or the cursing of those who had finished eating either ways i definitely had my share of egg-star fun.
now i better be reborn as a princess .
At least Santa i hope you are taking notes.
=)

Perfect answer (hold on ..it’s coming..wait for it..)

You come in out of the rain looking like a mobile swimming pool and some dear, concerned soul is bound to ask in a solicitous voice “Oooo! Have you got wet?” 

After a long, hard day at work followed by a lengthy commute you reach home only to be greeted with a “You’re back, are you?”

You get a gilt-edge invite to the big, big social event of the year. Everyone who is anyone is going to be there. For weeks before you go around feeling smug and confident that you’ve made the haut monde grade at last. The day comes at last, you turn up at the appointed time and as you walk in some blight in human form says, “What are you doing here?”

The next time someone asks me a stupid question I’m going to give a clever answer. And since I’m not very good at snap repartee, I’ll prepare and rehearse a few stock situations and responses.

Let’s take the “Are-you-wet?” scene.
 Right? Rolls of thunder, lashings of rain. Enter Suraiya looking like Father Neptune. Questioning voice: “Have you got wet?” Me, spurning water like Moby Dick, “No. It’s just that I’m a big sweater.” Or, “No. Actually I’m melting.” How about, “No, I’m perfectly dry. It’s just that you’ve been peeling onions.”

Take the “Are you back?” gambit. 
“No, I’m still away. It’s just the other half of my split personality that’s come back.” “No. This is Byomkesh bakshi’s ghost in a new avatar”  “No. You’re hallucinating.” “I don’t know. I’ve got amnesia. You tell me.” Or, since the cleverest way to answer a stupid question is to ask a stupid question yourself, “Is that you?”

Now for the “What-are-you-doing-here?” routine. 
“Casing the joint. I’m a aid to the gentleman burglar” is not too bad. Likewise, “I’m a house detective hired to protect the silverware.” “I’ve been asked to give away the special prize for the best fancy dress turn-out. Congratulations.” “Collecting local color for my big novel about the underworld. Thanks for contributing a chapter.”

There are a thousand other inane inquiries which can be similarly countered.
 The inevitable “How do you do?” has the equally inevitable reply, “Do what?” 
.“Where have you been hiding all these days?” is easy ,“In the one place I knew you wouldn’t dare look. The police station.”

Be in good trim when we meet next time and I ask you –“ Did you enjoy reading my blog ”

:)

horo-(in-)scope

Like every new year" never before " offers for zodiacal predictions are flooding my inbox.At this time of the year, astrology books sell hotter than hot cakes and threaten to unseat the latest Chetan Bhagat from the top of the best-seller chart. Some might find this surprising considering that we are in the digitalised 21st century of spaceships and supercomputers. So where in this supposedly hi-tech mindspace does hocus-pocus like astrology fit in? Nonetheless, the ongoing debate about whether or not the distant stars and planets can rule our destinies seems to gain in volume and intensity with each passing season. Is astrology mere mumbo-jumbo, or is it? as its adherents claim? more jumbo than mumbo in terms of its cosmic credentials?Except for one thing, i've long been a sceptic with regards to star-gazing. The reason for my skepticism goes back to the time when i was part of the "Horizon " e-magazine . The magazine had decided to publish a astrological column for the annual issue.None of the editors took astrology seriously. The way we looked at it, it was harmless fun, rather like speculating about life on Mars or if UFOs did or did not exist. As long as you didn't begin to see little green men peering up at you from your morning bowl of cornflakes, or resign yourself to the fact that you'd never get that office promotion so long as Saturn remained in your ninth house, everything was fine.We decided that horoscopes should be  generally cheerful and upbeat, the zodiacal equivalent of a vitamin tonic. If your prediction of the week was good, it gave you the confidence to succeed in whatever you were doing. If the prediction was not so good, working hard could help to overcome negative influences, so buck up and put in extra effort. Either way, you won.The only catch was 

we did not have a REAL astrologer.

So what would we do without the annual forecast that our readers eagerly awaited? (We had publicized it in our last issue and there was a lot of buzz)

Simple: Make it up. 

We divided the zodiac signs between us. I was given Pisces, Leo and Sagittarius. And we made up the predictions for what lay in the year ahead, remembering to keep the general tone positive and throwing in a lot of trines (as in: Your Jupiter will be in trine with Mars) for the sake of authenticity. No one knew what a trine was. But it sounded like a powerful ju-ju, an astrological version of ajinomoto. So we liberally sprinkled our cooked-up predictions with generous dollops of trines.After that do-it-yourself foray into horoscopy.

We recived a lot of positive response and the readers wanted us to make it a regular feature.

The team exchanged amusing glances at the thought.We had to come up with a way to get out of it graciously.So the subsequent monthly issue's editors note read something like this :

Dear Readers,

blah blah.....blah...some more blah

We loved your feedback but our astrologer based on the accuracy of his predictions has been offered a "exclusive" job with a country's elite and has entered a "exclusive"contract

whereby we would have to pay royalty every time we used his name or his whereabouts .So unfortunately we cannot continue with this feature ..

blah blah

Team Horizon.

PS:I know team this was supposed to be out little secret but trust me the readers of this blog are completely trustworthy and they promised me to take this secret with them to the grave .

 Miss you Horizon!!

:)

MRP

Reading about the FDI in retail in India makes me wonder if actually the advent of the BIG wigs would wipe the small kirana shops in India. There is a 10ft by 5ft kirana shop (with a big curtain as the backdrop) near our house. The owner looks like # 3 in the 6 stage Darwin evolution theory pictures .

In his tiny shop irrespective of what you ask for he has it all and at all times.

(Not that i have ever asked for firearms to verify the completeness of his stock but i still wonder if there is tunnel connected to a supermarket behind that curtain ).

Irrespective of his looks i know running a store can be hard work, as i discovered on my first visit to "Sukriti" boutique, during a trip to Los Angles . It was delivery day and a large van was parked in front of the shop. The driver was unloading goods from the wholesale warehouse and piling them on the pavement. From here, the boxes and crates had to be carried into the store, unpacked, and their contents put on the shelves. While my cousin did the unpacking and shelving, she had hired a couple of college kids to do the heavy work of lugging the boxes into the shop. To help out, i picked up a bag of tissue and carried it in. Assuming that i too had been employed for the chore, the two kids began to pile more and more of the boxes and crates on me: C'mon, don't be so feeble and carry only two of those, take that third

box as well. Under a triple load of silk, cotton , i staggered into the shop under the direction of kids who had promoted themselves from labor to managerial supervisors: Easy now; put it down gently, don't break anything.I was carrying in my fourth — or it might have been fifth load — when Shilpa spotted me from the rear of the shop and came rushing up. She yelled at the kids. She's not the hired help; she's my sister! You're the hired help, said Shilpa. My self-appointed supervisors mumbled apologies, which i brushed aside. Sukriti was a family enterprise, in which all the family pitched in to help. And as a sister , it wasn't just my job but my pleasure to lend a hand. 

Shilpa minded the till and chatted with customers as they came up to pay: How are you today, luv? Got over that nasty cold you had last week, i'm glad to see. And how's your daughter doing at university? Coming down for the holidays, is she then? Good company for you, so nice when the children come home.

This was what Sukriti — and the thousands of such across the country — had to offer which the big supermarket chains didn't: conversation and human contact, no matter how brief. Each customer was a known face, a remembered name. And in an increasingly impersonal society, where anonymity is the norm, this made all the difference.

How do you put a MRP on that. 

=)

A case study:Indian paunch

Objective:To visit the temple.

Achievement:Me and my sister manged to get up early.Like 5 am early.(oooooooo...ahhh...whistles..applause)
Scenario:We are sitting at the back of our car and driving through the parking lot of a temple.
View from our car window:A young couple has come down to get their new car blessed .The priest who was performing the ceremony stood a 5.4’’ ,300 lb whose only clothing was the lungi .He had a lot of body hair (looked like a fur coat) but his head was shaved and was shining bright. In fact for some reason the sun and the surrounding shadows from the trees seemed to make the world map on his head. He had his eye shut and was busy chanting the mantras.
Request made : Our driver honked and requested the priest to move so that he could park next to the new car.(only parking space available after taking multiple rounds looking for one)
Response received:The priest without batting an eyelid (infact with closed eyes) sucked his paunch in and said  "Nikaal lo "(Go ahead)
Reaction:Me and my sister exchanged amused glances (I promise i did not laugh)
Next scene should have been: A growl/comment of exasperation from the driver .
Next scene was: The driver could smoothly steer the car in.
We(Me and my sis) are now fans of :

• Indian paunch.--Our amused expression had turned into awe . The disrespected indian paunch had now taken a whole new dimension.It can serve as a table top and at the same time the owner can take a deep breath and give the illusion of non existence...even to make a car pass without opening one's eyes.
• Indian driving skills-- Countless tales and hymns have been written in appreciation in history..and history has again repeated itself.

 Afterthought:The priest with his paunch sucked in would make a good poster for bikram yoga studio wall. 

Chase

Baseball and football are in the air .Every YouTube video you stream is first accompanied by initial 30 second of Foosball advertisement which you can’t even skip .All the sports bars and grills are overflowing with sports fanatics who duly tip the bar tender for every touchdown .Our team at work decided to go for a diamondback game as well to Chase field. We all got tickets and duly chose to sit next to each other and avoided the "not so close" to the other end .We wooted our plans on facebook and set off.Correction the whole unit set off, I had a call with folks in UK .The poor chap was supporting me at his midnight i did not have the heart to tell him that i preferred  the game to his status updates(don’t read this blog BOB :)) so i stayed back till i completed my virtual meeting .After the meeting i realized that i had given my car for detailing and viola no mode of transport .I called one of my chums and asked where they were, fortunately the bus had just left so all i had to do was catch up . As i grabbed my Gucci and stepped out of the building spotting the sharp nosed driver with a ruddy familiar Indian (south Asian Indian not native Indian ) face was such a relief.
I got in the back seat and asked him to drive till the destination.
We drove for a couple of minutes and we spotted the white bus , i asked the cab driver to follow the bus. I called my pal to stop the bus but apparently the order of traffic lights didn’t quite agree. There was a time when the bus did really slow down and so did my driver. The bus picked up pace and so did the cab.The bus again slowed down and again so did my driver that's when i realized that my driver was actually just following the bus and not driving so that i could get on the bus.
BA-DING!!
Oh man .I clarified and the bus did pause and the driver (i have no clue why) chose to halt the cab right in front of the bus at an angle (rajnikanth style).I was aghast, what if the bus driver had not completely pressed the brakes, i would have been dog luncheon .I looked at the driver ,he  had such keen sense of achievement on his face .I am sure he was convinced that his Transporter fatal stunt had stopped the bus ( Sania i know you stopped the bus but his broad smile was too warm to break) . Anyways still in one piece i climbed in the bus and thankfully had a less eventful ride to the Chase field/venue.
The cheerleaders were the highlight of the game. The big screen boomed with scores and recaps and perky sport-o-holics.Our seats were really good in fact i was afraid that if the players jumped too hard their sweat gland excretions could be our popcorn topping .Ew .Ew. Foursquare updates and tags punched throughout the game. After 2 hours of an exciting game

The diamondbacks won .YAYY!!.

I was enjoying the Chocolate covered apple (with sprinkles) stuck in my teeth as I stepped out with my team and guess what, the mascot was giving out freebies to peeps .I took one for BOB (the guy whom i was on call with and missed the bus - before my adventure began).
So friends if your name is BOB as well send me your mailing address and i will pass on the freebies.

And while you are at it could you mail me the 16 digits in front of you CC and just the last 3 digits at the back .What are 19 digits amongst buddies right ? :)

Royal pain--achoo!!

I did not go to the royal wedding .Over the years i've developed an allergy to any form of royalty. Some people are allergic to peanuts, or prawns, or dairy products. If, by mistake, they ingest one of these things their faces swell up, or they break out in spots. In my case, my allergy to royalty causes me to break into a sneezing fit, often at the mere mention of a member of the species.It first manifested itself years ago when i knew a family the head of which had in his youth been an ADC to a Rajasthani maharaja. Every now and then, in the course of general conversation (So hot and sticky the weather is, no?), mention would be made of the maharaja connection whereupon the entire family would apparently be seized by a collective fit of sneezing, all of them going Ziness!, Ziness!, Ziness ! Bless you, i'd say to them. Bless you, bless you.

One day, one of them asked me: Why do you keep saying bless you? Because you keep sneezing all the time, i replied, and demonstrated how they did it: Ziness! We're not sneezing, you idiot, i was informed. We're referring to His Ziness, the Maharaja.It seemed that, in royal circles, the preferred pronunciation of 'Highness' - as in 'His Most Royal and Exalted Highness' - was 'Ziness' with an exclamation mark at the end and an accompanying clicking together of heels. I don't know if it was that particular experience or something else, but i start sneezing when people start talking about royalty. Reason i don't play cards. Can't, what with all those kings and queens mucking about.
Anyway, i'm glad that the nuptials went off without any glitches, or sneezes. Though it all seemed pretty tame stuff, no drama-baji like we have in Indian weddings. No last-minute dowry demands. No bhangra-ing baratis. No helicopters. No shotguns fired into the air, bringing down the stray crow or curious bystander caught in the blast. No wailing pooh-paah cars competing with the wailing of shehnais. No Bollywood starlets doing item numbers.
Still, it was a nice shaadi, and i wish the couple all the best for the future. As and when Mummyji finally steps down, and Charlie-baba ascends to the throne - How will they get him out of the wheelchair and onto it? - Willie will be next in line to be king. Perhaps it's time he began to take a few kingly lessons. True, he'll be king of only a small, wet island largely inhabited by Pakistanis and Bangladeshis who run balti restaurants the waiters of which are rumoured to spit in cheery contempt into the chicken tikka masala that the natives consume with obsessive dedication. But a king's a king for all that, and a little royal tutoring might well be in order. Where should Willie go to get it?
Ever since the French Revolution, royalty keeps a low profile in Europe. As in the case of the midget monarch, Sarkozy I of France, who stands five-foot nothing in his elevator shoes. With the Indian takeover and the booting out of the poor Chogyal, royalty has been banished from Sikkim, as it has from Nepal following popular demand. Bhutan's King Jigme Wangchuk has stepped down for his son (why won't Mummyji take a hint?) and has also announced a rollout plan for democracy. The anti-royal Jasmine Revolution is sweeping West Asia and North Africa. So where can poor Willie go to learn to be a proper monarch? Which is the only country left in the world where dynasty is destiny, and destiny is dynasty?
All right Willie, pop across and we'll try and arrange to get you a darshan of a truly Royal Family. OK, Maharani Soniaji, Yuvraj Rahulji? Ziness! (Damn, there goes the sneezing again.)

Sumac

Thats the name of a Persian spice. I got introduced to sumac on a basketball court.
One of the player's had bought a to-go box for his dinner which ultimately turned into free for all and i guess he did manage to get a morsel. In my defense we had 10 players on court.intrigued by the seasoning i set out looking for middle eastern stores which might have some in stock .i could have ordered stuff from the same shop my friend had got his dinner but the cook apparently was out on a month’s vacation to Iran. After a week of calling stories and walking to front desk with empty hands i resorted to online stores. My experience with online shopping has always been good but i had never entered the territory of online grocery shopping. I ordered a bag from Amazon and marked it 2 day FedEx.I had already already listed down what all i could do with it. My friend who is an atheist was co-erced into observing lent (you leave one thing you love during a 40 day period) by her dear ones and let me tell you she was not happy camper .So on Sunday after her morning service she came to my place with a giant's appetite for chicken. I had baked the chicken sprinkled the sumac (most of it) and set it for cooling while i left to run an errand. lo behold once i came back i had a smiling f(r)iend waiting for me with an empty plate and worse an empty sumac bottle.Arghh ..I have been told that I turned a shade of crimson not existent on a box of 120 box crayon and within 5 min she was ordering another shipment from her android. The shipment for some reason was returned (i blame FedEx) and it was out of stock by the time we got to it again.

The poster on my desk "Everything happens for a reason" did not really cheer me up either.

But last week’s trip to havasui pai falls-a destination you reach after hiking 8 hours downhill in Grand Canyon did lift my spirits. Trust me playing a game of hike on the Xbox kinetic is totally different deal then roughing it outdoors.Our hiking group was let by a native who had Navajo blood in veins and a leathery skin. He had white hair neatly made into a plait tucked in his shirt. His face and hands were marked with wrinkles and sunburns .He might have 3 times the no of candles on his last birthday than mine but his physical health was at its prime. He was a very patient man educating us about the desert blooms and the tricky species during our hike. I am not sure was it the aching limbs that made me forget sumac or the thought that there were no restrooms in the vicinity coz we had taken a wring fork and the nearest one was 1 hour of uphill and 45 min of downhill walk and back.The campfire has always been the best part of any hiking trip for me .The Guide started sharing his years of experience .He pointed at the moonlight cactus which only bloomed at a particular time of the month at night .We sat with our cameras zoomed to capture the rare beauty. While we roasted the chicken we had bought with us he vanished for a while but came back holding dried berries in his hand. He sprinkled some on the cooked poultry.
I took the first bite and my taste buds tingled.

Sumac it was .

Nirvana.

A particular gentlemen confused sumac to be paprika and layered (no he did not sprinkle..just layered) on his meal. Our guide was distracted as he was busy  making sleeping arrangements .So an hour later when we were about to retire to our sleeping bags the man complained of dizziness and his palpation was up. He shivered and was given a blanket. Before we knew 911 was punched on a keypad and a helicopter had swooped down in the valley to give the guy immediate medical attention.He was flown to the nearest ranger station.
Sumac my friends if consumed in large quantities causes dehydration.
I am back at my desk today and I see sumac has been restocked online too .No i do not want to order one now ,I had enough for a lifetime.

Kite calling

This makarsakranti –The Indian festival for flying kites I found myself at the other end of a thin quad lateral / an isosceles trapezoid shaped paper and a will to make it soar in the sky.

Sushmaa holding the flyer and still panting from all the stair climbing but knowing my weakness for jalebi pushed the piece of paper in my face and smiled.Remember the Dhara jalebi add- “jalebi “ that’s how big my eyes grow and light up and saliva glands become active when I think of the delicacy so the invitation to the kite flying festival with jalebi around seemed like the perfect destination for a sunday afternoon.

The event was taking place in a different city –an hour and half drive but "jalebi to khani thi" so in the next 10 min we were in the car and GPS was set to its destination .Green fields flanked the road on either side and snow covered peaks adorned  in the distance – (peaks like Tiramisu with whipped cream on top --ohh yumm) .As we arrived closer to the destination we saw that the sky was full of colorful dots of different shapes and sizes .The venue was a large green field with pebbled pathways .The whole city seemed to be basking in the sun and were busy flying kites and cheering each other.
Me and sushmaa felt a little outnumbered but then we were really not there for a hand to hand combat- infact we were not even competing ..we just wanted to figure how to fly to a kite(and eat jalebi of course).

We took our kite out of the boot and located a spot to start our venture. It was time to implement all the “how to” videos we had seen while driving and make the kite leave the ground .A few futile attempts later, Sushmaa examined the weather conditions with astuteness akin to that of a seasoned gray-locked sailor(its ok sushmaa just watching podcasts does not really make one a pro).I was discouraged a little but then I thought of Benjamin Franklin - he developed all those theories about lightning and electricity while he was flying a kite ,god knows what lies ahead .(Yeh right.. i could discover the solution to WORLD PEACE)
We decided to take a break and were sitting on the footpath (thank fully no red ants around ) mulling our next course of action when one guy was kind enough to come over and help us get started .

Did you guys know one has to loosen the thread when its pointing downwards and pull it when it is in the upward direction. Our faces were glowing when we managed the feat .
Ten minutes of kissing the winds and the villains of kite flying came into the  picture and before we knew our kite was a victim of “Survival of fittest” AHHH
but we didn’t feel all that bad about loosing  because when we went to get our kite back from the ground we actually got a few others as well(no body wanted to pick them and they looked like helpless kittens at a shelter).. so we lost 1 but got 3 more. Am not complaining. :)
We walked proudly back to our car with kites/Trophies  held tightly in our hands.
The jalebi was finished but guess what ..I have a BOX FULL of jalebis (my aunt on hearing our experience shipped one right away from chiacgo ) and am gonna have it tonight ..yehh JALEBiii
:)

Post-mortem

** Fiction as always**

There are only some 1,440 tigers left in India, presumably including the CWG mascot, Shera. Clearly the Indian tiger is an endangered species, and we must do all we can to save it. But while we are trying to save the tiger, let's spare a thought for a species that is not just endangered but extinct: the postman.

Remember the postman? He was the guy - though it may well have been a gal, the erstwhile postal department having been an equal-opportunity institution - who left mail for you in your letter box. Postmen - postpeople, if you prefer - were like Santa Claus, or the Tooth Fairy: you never saw them but you found evidence that they'd been there by what they left behind - letters, bills, junk mail, what have you. No, it's not quite true that you never saw postpeople. You did see your postperson, once a year. On the dot of Diwali your postperson would turn up on your doorstep for the annual Diwali mubarak baksheesh that all postpeople were entitled to by tradition, if not by their official terms of employment.

Over the years, i'd got to know my postperson quite well, thanks to our once-a-year meetings on Diwali. Then this Diwali, my postperson didn't turn up. Had my postperson forgotten? Unlikely. Postpeople had to have powerful memories, capable of remembering all those addresses and where exactly each one was on their beats. A good memory was a professional requirement if you were a postperson. So why had my postperson not kept our Diwali rendezvous?
Then I begun to come across people, friends and neighbours, whose postpeople had also not turned up for their Diwali baksheesh. Why this sudden paucity of postpeople? That's when the ominous thought struck me: were postpeople becoming - or had already become - an extinct species, along with the dodo, the typewriter and telephones which had dials instead of pushbuttons?
And the chilling answer seemed to be 'yes'. Along with the dodo, the typewriter and phones with dials, evolution had bypassed the postperson. With the advent of internet and e-mail people not only stopped using 'snail mail' to correspond with each other, but they also stopped writing letters at all to each other. Instead, they tweeted each other, or sent each other SMSs: Hw r u?
OK, so people stopped writing letters. But what about bills, junk mail, pizza delivery offers (If It's Not Hot/Our Bandha Can Be Shot), and all that other stuff? If there were no more postpeople - because people had stopped writing letters - who was going to deliver all the other mail? The answer, of course, was couriers, a vast army of which appeared overnight.
Unlike postpeople whom you never saw, save on Diwali, you see couriers every day, several of them every day. When the doorbell rings you always know it's the courier come calling. How do you know this? Because experience has taught you that couriers, all couriers, have an uncanny psychic ability by which they know exactly when to ring the doorbell while you are in the middle of performing an intimate function which requires your total concentration, like using the loo, or trimming your toenails, or dealing with the blackhead that's suddenly appeared on the tip of your nose. You're just about to squeeze the damn thing out when ... Ring! It's the courier. With an invitation to an ikebana exhibition organised by the Indo-Japanese Friendship League, or the exciting book launch of the Telephone Directory.
Yesterday the doorbell rang. I wasn't in the loo, or the shower. So it couldn't be the courier. Could it be my postperson, come back to life? It wasn't. It was the courier. Demanding Diwali baksheesh. I gave it too.

As a bribe. Not to make sure the courier kept coming to deliver my mail. But to make sure the courier stopped coming to deliver my mail.

Mountain L.I.O.N

We were driving through the beautiful national park of Yosemite at night when the entire sierra Nevada range (white granite) was bathing in beautiful moonlight .White moonflowers which bloom only at night smiled in the meadows as we passed through them .My gaze was locked in the sky where I could see stars twinkling through the moon roof in the car. People around me were tired and were trying to either check the camera batteries or missing their loved ones.
Suddenly the car jerked to a sudden stop when the car beam fell on the sign board which had text in neon ink :
WARNING: Beware of mountain lion.
Hearing lion stories in the comfort of your warm bed from your grandparents is a totally different experience than to confront a sign board that warns you of its existence.
The brake lights at the back of our car glowed, we all sat silently for a moment deciding our next steps when we heard rumbling in the nearby area, it seemed so awfully close, one of us assured that it was just a wild deer for that matter and we were all making much ado about nothing. Though I must mention the voice of the speaker was hesitant to its very pitch, some assurance is better than none.
A look alike of Bambi jumped and off it went. Phew!!
We all giggled but suddenly there was a strange low shriekey sound ,it sounded as if someone or something was in pain , we all shushed up to hear better but the clarity in pain didn't help much as we just felt worse.
The big question was did we want to risk stepping out.
A ranger vehicle stopped as we had our emergency light's on .
He approached our car and saw 4 pair of doe eyes peering at him .We shared our concern , he looked unperturbed and said maybe it was a Bear. After all there must be reasons for calling California the bear country. He checked with us if we had any food in our car ?
The strong smell of garlic from my co-occupant‘s breath reminded of the pizza boxes in the boot of the car. He reminded of us the 1000$ littering fine and the fact that animals get attracted to food.
Even though words were not exchanged we knew we had to get rid of the food .We couldn’t find a bin so stopped at a campsite hoping to find a bin.
We all got out of the car looking for a bin. Unity in times of adversity helps .Trust me. But little did we realize that were walking with the bait .Probably smelled “ bait” for a carnivorous out there.
before we knew we had a :

A petit cat jumped in front of us and snarl.

A pal of mine who apparently had a source of light in her hand (a pencil cell powered laser) -our only source of light in the pitch dark forest…the camp lights had been extinguished and the clouds over the moon didn’t help either ,thumped loudly on the ground .
The cat was unperturbed .It looked at us. I threw the food in my hand in its direction .
“Please don’t feed animals “ was a sign we had read perhaps at every second turn in the national park and the monetary penalty stated with it but alas.
And then a volunteer wearing a hat with light fitted on it like the miners used to wear emerged from the corner and said :

“That’s the mountain lion folks, walk away it will do nothing.”
We didn’t know what stumped us more the volunteer appearing from nowhere, or the fact the “meow” creature in front was the much hyped mountain lion “Junglii billi “ my friends is called the Mountain lion in California.We all burst out laughing .

And I had to blog about it.
:)