Indulging with Oprah magazine

I had subscribed for a couple of magazines as a part of a donation program at my nephew'school and the magazines finally arrived a couple of days back. One of them, the Oprah magazine is filled with all goody goody stuff just to give you the right kick. Reading through it has been such a pleasure so far! I just wait to sit down with it. It has a perfume sampler in it so the magazine smells fabulous every time you pick it up. Ah! the small luxuries! :-) Happy happy! 

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." Is it?

Albert Einstein once said that imagination is more important than knowledge. How true can that be? What is knowledge? The web says it is - "facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject". So now, what is imagination? The Merriam Webster dictionary says it is the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality. 

You see, how easy it is to collect information in this digital age? Few seconds is all it takes and it is open to the world wide web! Now, I am not down right putting down the importance of knowledge. It takes a lot a lot of time and effort to even get to the right state of mind to accept and perceive this kind of information, and one might actually lead a good life out of this knowledge. But a person may lead a much better life with lesser knowledge and more of imagination.

Think of some of the world leaders in various fields. Be it Gandhi, Mandela, or  the NASA team that successfully landed on Moon or Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg .Were they the world's most knowledgeable people? Probably not! But what really separated them from the rest of the world was their imagination. They imagined freedom, a passion to explore beyond earth and a world of personal computers and a digital era. They imagined something much much larger than themselves. Can you think of a world without them today? How very different it would be!

Oh imagination wins hands down! Absolutely.  

Here is another favorite of mine from Einstein:

A road less traveled...

The older you grow, the more prone you are to mundane, routine things. I feel kind of sloppy even saying that, but its true for me. So in that light, its been years since I have actually participated in any kind of sport.

Came in an opportunity at my husband's office where spouses were also allowed to join for a corporate challenge. With many hesitations I joined their badminton team. After the first practice session, my limbs were taking a walk and were in protest. It hit me that its been a loooong time since I had moved around so much. 

I slowly got used to these guys and that was that! We had a blast. We somehow made time on weekdays and some weekends. My game gradually improved and it was so much fun just being out there. The funniest part was playing as my husband's partner. We fought so much both on and off the court that the captain decided that it would be better if we partnered with others. 

The tournament was extremely memorable. My stomach was churning before the first match. I hadn't had those kind of emotions in since my undergrad days. We were super confident and had a bad loss in the second round. We met the same team in the finals and had a nail biting double elimination. We won!!! It was unbelievable getting a medal. I showed them off to my parents like a kid. :-)

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less

A quotation from C.S. Lewis (author of Chronicles of Narnia fame), it sets me thinking. In my opinion humility is about treating someone with respect and grace no matter what your intellectual, moral or economic stature is. In a way it is a kind of calm confidence that you have in your self and you don't let yourself turn into a pigheaded person.

For the most part I would like to believe that humility is one of my virtues but as I re-read this quote, I wonder, if I am confusing humility with being polite. Lets separate people into 3 zones. Zone 1: Super familiar people, Zone 2: People met here and there at office or say strangers in the airplane, mall etc., Zone 3: Globally, say kids in Somalia.

With Zone 2 its the best, because its so easy to convince someone for short term :-). With Zone 1, time to time they would have seen signs of impatience and haughtiness but still I would thing it would average out to be on the positive side. For Zone 3, its an absolute zero for I am so involved in myself and the first two zones that I just don't seem to care about anyone outside of it.

In answer to the exact question "How good are you of placing others before yourself?"  I would say, I am doing just about ok here. I could do better with both the first and second part of the quote.

Man, this is a deep topic and all I can think of at this point is hitting the sack. Toodles!

If I could banish one thing from this planet....Rape!

I imagine for a second that I am God and I have the absolute power to abolish something from my own creation, a mistake I made. What would that be? Now, I did see Elysium. But mankind is greedy and stupid. How could he imagine that I would banish death. Have you ever thought of actually living an endless life? How futile would that be!

Haha..that was fun, acting like God. Well, but seriously if I had that kind of power the one thing that I would banish would be rape. I am sure, most people would have heard of the rape incidents in India in the past few months. I felt like a sinking piece of metal as I read about them. Something that ashamed and saddened me to no ends. And the question that kept coming into my mind again and again at this cruel, sadistic deed was - Why? Why would anyone do this? Is this something designed in our biology? What forces men to do this?

There could be a whole lot of debate and discussion on this. But this what it comes to. I have listed out the factors that I think are the root cause of this evil in that order:

Male chauvinistic society with suppressed women

Extreme competition between men (economically/socially/physically) to prove their worth and extreme suppression

Man's dominance over women (physically/socially/economically), a way to ascertain his masculinity

Disastrous situations --> rape

Problem made stronger by weak laws

Continues on as a heritage - vicious loop!

Top all of the above with the fact that man is genetically wired to spread his seeds across as much as possible, whereas a woman to only receive, bear the pain, deliver and nurture.

I read  a very very interesting article here from a leading daily in India, The Hindu. It talks about how some other mammals are also known to rape, but the cruelty involved may be more characteristic of us pathetic humans. It also says that some native human tribes known for brutal wars and other masculine attributes, have zero instances of rape because of the inherent respect and equality that women of the tribe enjoy. Food for thought?

Perhaps our "Man"kind would be "kind" enough to think this through?

If I had more time each day?

Time, that elusive silky thief! The older you grow, the lesser you seem to have. It seems laughable now that as a child we often wish for time to fly by so we could grow faster and do "grown up" things. Ah, now I wish I could go the other way round. This reminds me of a funny Woody Allen quote:

“In my next life I want to live my life backwards. You start out dead and get that out of the way. Then you wake up in an old people's home feeling better every day. You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your pension, and then when you start work, you get a gold watch and a party on your first day. You work for 40 years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You party, drink alcohol, and are generally promiscuous, then you are ready for high school. You then go to primary school, you become a kid, you play. You have no responsibilities, you become a baby until you are born. And then you spend your last 9 months floating in luxurious spa-like conditions with central heating and room service on tap, larger quarters every day and then Voila! You finish off as an orgasm!”

Okie, so moving on, if I had more time each day I would like to do three things:

1. Exercise/Meditate

2. Follow news around the world more closely

3. Write more often

My problem is this list usually has like 50 items in it and I am scatterbrained enough to keep randomly jumping around all of them from time to time. Focus is another of my issues. Enough said for now, will crib about it some other day. 

Cheated a bit by writing 2 posts on the same day. But the snowstorm and the resulting power outage is to be blamed for that. 

The iPhone washer/drier survival story

Ah! the lovely surprise I gave my husband a few days back on Thanksgiving! I decided to start my day by doing some chores and promptly fished out the dirty laundry lying around. Dumped them all into the washer and began to prepare for some breakfast.

Tra..la..la...had breakfast, dumped the clothes into the drier, tra..la.la..laaa....My husband goes,

H: Where is my phone? Did you see it?

Me: Not really..trying calling it.

H: Hmmm..(picks up landline phone and calls his number)

Phone: tringgg...(muffled volume)

Frantic search for the phone. Horror at realizing that its is coming from the drier.

H: It went something like this -

Countless arguments on whose fault it was later, we decided it was best to focus on the phone's survival first. After frantically switching off the super hot, water filled phone and one day's worth of rest in a rice filled zip lock bag in the oven (multiple websites suggest to do so), the phone made a miraculous come back the next day. We took it to a repair shop nevertheless and changed the screen and checked it out again. $150 later the phone functions perfectly fine. All is well and life once again returned to normalcy. Phew!



It is so hard to write in 10 minutes! It took 15 minutes for this one! 

Second servings...sigh!!!!!

This is topic is very close to my heart at the moment as I struggle to lose a few unruly pounds off myself. As I enter my 30's, gone are the carefree days when I huffed at people counting calories and smirked at people struggling to lose weight. Well, I have read 2 books on nutrition and diet this year, which is a miracle in itself. Man, its hard to lose even a single pound. I weigh myself in everyday and often blame the scale for playing tricks on the up and down readings it shows.

Sigh! the second servings are so hard to control. The worst meal of a week day for me is dinner. I am typically hungry, then angry and I gulp down a large meal before I can think straight. The diet books I have been reading suggest an astonishingly full meal with lots of snacks and multiple meals. At the crux of it other than the obvious no junk, no sugar etc., is a pretty low carb diet.

Strangely enough though as I try to achieve this, I find more and more that it makes sense. I ate a single roti (say a slice of bread) for dinner today with some lentils and veggies and I am surprisingly still full. I would usually eat three rotis. Am beginning to read the labels on food boxes finally, know the difference between saturated and unsaturated fats, have begin to use quinoa, drink plenty of green tea, exercise regul *cough cough* rarely ..man I am entering strongly into my 30's. Woohoo..

I may actually never stop going for seconds though, for in South Indian tradition, we have to complete the meal with buttermilk or yogurt. Lets just make that low fat, high protein Greek yogurt. :-)

Day7: Obsession with Zodiac Signs?

Day 7 of the August Marathon. Am I obsessed with zodiac signs? I was to some extent when I was much younger and first got to understand what the whole deal was. I was fascinated by my sign Scorpio and have obsessed over whether or not I have what it takes to be one. I have read over daily forecasts and have desperately tried to match it with what actually happened on a particular day, always looking for some mysterious hints.

Only after a sometime I realized that as I read the qualities of other signs, I could actually picture myself into most of those qualities. And the daily horoscopes are so general and vague that one could apply it to absolutely anything and everything.

So in short, zodiac signs are just some old fashioned mumbo jumbo in my opinion. Sure, sometimes if I am flipping through a magazine, I would definitely look over the daily/weekly horoscope section, just for some kicks. I used to read the ones from this site with some interest (in the days when iGoogle was popular). 

Happy New Year 2012!!!

Wish you all a super duper absolutely fantabulous New Year 2012! 

2011 has been a year of transition for me in some ways. Entering marital bliss (no single people, run!!! ;-)), completing my degree, moving from the Netherlands to the US, looking for jobs and gaining a few (a lot actually :-( ) pounds. 

Had one of the best new year's eve celebration with my cousins in NYC, standing in that tightly packed crowd, right next to the big apple! You have to believe me. In that crazy crowd, that is as close as close gets!

Lets see how things roll out this year!!! Happpppy Newwwww Yeaaarrrrr people!!!

Steve Jobs dies

Steve Jobs (photo link)

God, what a man! It makes me really sad that he is no more. An iconic visionary of our times who has touched a lot of our lives in so many ways. I cannot even begin to comprehend what his driving force was  while he was battling a pancreatic cancer for more than half a decade. His life in itself seems to be some kind of a fantastic/crazy movie. He would be one person whom I would have loved to meet in my lifetime. :-(

I will end up buying his biography. It will be my first. Watch this inspirational speech he made at Stanford's  Commencement ceremony in 2005.

Hurircane Irene came and went

Hurricane Irene towards the east coast

"But, why?? you are preparing as if its war time" said my husband controlling his laughter when I told him that we would need to add a transistor to our hurricane shopping list. As he hung up the phone, I could snatch a bit of what he was telling his colleague "Man, my wife is freaking out watching CNN...." :)

Hurricane Irene came out of no where and forced us all to be at home last weekend. With 24x7 coverage on several news channels claiming that even the New York Stock Exchange would be closed, I was expecting something in lines of the movie "The Day After Tomorrow". We shopped extensively and am now quite familiar with the hurricane emergency kit: bottled water, torch and batteries, candles, food supplies, some medicines, filling up gas in the car and a transistor (The NJ Governor said we may need to listen to news when there is a power outage - then, of course we need to!). And thank God, we live above ground level. Oh yeah! We were all ready for the vicious Irene to hit us. My husband's only interest (apart from lazing around most of the two days spent at home) was on getting a day off on Monday.  Alas, the vicious category 3 hurricane Irene turned into a wimpy tropical storm as it hit NJ (No no, I am happy about it, really!).

We were fast asleep as it poured its worst rains on us and in the morning we got up to see even some sun shining on us. :). Better luck next time Irene! After resisting this intense urge to get out on Sunday itself, we all left to NYC on Monday (with a more than eager guest who also spent two looooong days watching the rains from our home), hoping that the city would be less crowded this one time. Ya..like that would ever happen...NYC was as crazy as always.

Hats off to the government though for carrying out such extensive precautionary measures! While a few felt that they overdid it, I think its always better to be safe than sorry. 

What it takes to be an Indian

Who is a true Indian? (photo link)

While living abroad one often wonders about their true identity. Initially you feel alien in the foreign land but after some time you begin to feel alien even in your own country, until you get to this middle fuzzy place where one learns to take things as they come. Being originally from quite a conservative city in India, the stark differences between my past and the western world are not lost upon me. But I have come to accept them in a healthy way. 

I have always wondered though, what children of Indian origin, born and  brought up in the western world go through. How do they create their identity and which way would they/their parents prefer to go - the traditional Indian school way or the much modern western way? 

Bharatanatyam - a traditional Indian dance form (photo link)

A few days back we attended an "Arangetram" (graduation from an Indian dance form) in NJ. I am not really a big fan of the dance form as such, but decided to go for some cultural enrichment (plus the free food!). The young girl gave a dance performance for 3 hours! The event was so well organized and the dance so well performed that  for some time I forgot I live in the US. I have seen several Indian kids here who are so much more culturally proficient of the Indian ways that I wouldn't stand a chance in front of them knowledge wise. Ever! 

It leads me to this interesting question though - who is a true Indian (or put your own country here)?

1. One who lives in India (whether he likes it or not) - manages to survive; the common man who is bringing the country forward, or

2. An Indian origin person living anywhere as long as he wants to and tries to identify himself/herself with the country, sometimes much more than a regular citizen (but possibly shall never step into the land of cows), or

3. The blessed people who live in and love the desi (slang for Indian) ishtyle. 

Does your mouth water when you think of samosa or gulab jamun? Do you get into fainting fits when you look at Shahrukh Khan or Aishwarya Rai? Did your blood boil as the Indian cricketers lost against England in the recent test match? Have you changed your facebook profile picture to support Anna Hazare (the man claimed to be the next Gandhi)? Nah! that doesn't really prove anything. I think the answer is much simpler than that. Just ask yourself where you are from. No matter where your were born and raised and where you live currently you know where your heart wishes to be.

If your answer is:

1. India - True Indian (you love/swear/laugh/cry all at once when you think of India) 

2. Ahem well, I love all countries - Hippindian (Hare Krishna Hare Ram! Peace out!)

3. India is great, but I just love it out here/there - People of Indian origin (best of both worlds or confused desi?)

4. Man, this whole planet sucks, I would rather live in Mars - Beware these types. We suspect them to be actual aliens. (Run!)

Dhokla Idly

This is what a South Indian turns a Dhokla into - Dhokla idly :D

P.S - for anyone who is like W.T.H, let me try to explain a bit. Dhokla is a dish which is supposed to look like a sponge cake, but I turned into these famous southy style dish - idly..which look like small mounds.

P.S2 - sorry if you still din't get the funny side, its an Indian thing I guess.. :) 

Thank you your honor!

Have you seen Judge Judy's show?

Yup! I guiltily admit I have watched quite a few of Judge Judy's shows. So given a chance to visit a small claims court in New Jersey, a few of those spicy court cases churned around my mind and I didn't want to miss watching a few of them live. No! No! I was not lucky enough to sit through the show. What happened was that hubby & friends' previous landlord decided conveniently to blame them for not getting a new tenant in time, and charged an extra month's rent by framing some interesting stories of his own. Unwilling to even to accept our calls, we had no choice but to drag him to small claim's court.

$3000 is the maximum amount you can claim at such a place, and hiring an attorney can turn out to be super silly cost wise. So we turned lawyers, arranged valid proofs, witnesses, filed a case and got ready for D-day. Now, I was eagerly waiting for this 'larger than life' Judge Judy character to appear and voila! Judge Costello was brilliant! An impressive and majestic lady with sharp wits and cool authority. Don't really know whats with the 'glasses waiting to fall down your nose' style with her as well (maybe its Judge thing), but overall it worked!

It turns out our defendant had 7 cases pending against him since 2004!!! Every defendant and plaintiff has to go through a state authorized mediator initially who helps in discussing the case to resolve it out of court. Our lucky lucky stars, the mediator was so convinced that we would win, that the landlord panicked and agreed to pay up the money, even before we went in front of the judge!! :) From just as a wild thought of going to court, none of us expected the issue to get resolved this way.

We were out of court pretty soon (that is in 3 hours, apparently it takes the whole day). Alas, I watched only a few cases, that too darn boring ones. I was expecting a wild raucous!  Judge Judy, waiting to come to your show! ;) 

Meeh! I am back, I guess :)

New home, old memories

Its been well over a year since I last blogged. I really can't believe it! Just been a bit busy with a few itsy bitsy things you know, like - my WEDDING, an internship in Canada, graduation and shifting from the Netherlands to the United States of America! :D

Yup, a lot happened over the last year! But every now and then I would have these itches or to put it more delectably, these incredible cravings to write. Perhaps by writing is how I express my self most clearly. This line by Anne Frank summarizes my feeling the best:

" What I still like best of all is that I can at least write down what I think and feel, otherwise I would just choke"

I simply had an incredible time in the Netherlands and it is no wonder why me and hubby darling chose on this picture to adorn our living room - something to remind me everyday of how lucky I have been...

In terms of the blog, I intend to write stories from past and present, some that I missed to write down and others as they happen on topics as varied as my gray cells allow me to come up with. Hope I will be more disciplined this time around! :)

Happy Mother's Day!

To my incredibly amazing mom with her ocean of patience and love, to my sis, who seems to be creating new oceans for my nephews ;) and to all the mothers in the world, a bouquet, is not enough, so I dedicate a field of flowers to you!

The hand that rocks the cradle, rules the world!

Here and there...

I just got my ass kicked! Literally! I lost 6/7 games in badminton and that too with my office colleagues. :( My friends who play better than me have let me down rather gently I think...Today I just kept looking right and left whilst the birdie just kept zipping past me. Several times it landed on my face. Anybody watching me would have had a good laugh. :D

On a side note, we had a Dutch swimmer, Olympic gold medalist Marleen Veldhuis working in our office for 3-4 months as an intern and we had no clue, until after she left! Talk about dumbness, but this time, actually none of us knew. I could have taken a picture with her...

Work and travel have been keeping me occupied...but I would be lying if I said I had no time to blog! Just need to manage my time better.

How do I motivate myself to keep fit? Any suggestions on time management books?I could certainly use one now. :)

Award Time!

I came back last week from India and am still reeling with the 30 deg change in temperature, an exam and periodic confusions over whether to ride the bike towards the right lane or left lane (India follows the British way). Well what better way to be surprised than a blog award. Not one but two them!! :)

The first one is the Beautiful Blogger award given to me by Isabella from A Touch of Dutch an American expat giving valuable advice on just about everything important. Oh, you must check her photography!, Sandra from Presepio com Vista para o Canal, a Portuguese expat whose exotic blog crosses barriers of language and Lopa from Life as it goes on...a fellow Indian blogger in the Netherlands, who in the recent past has turned into a buddy of sorts..:). Thanks a lot girls! It means so much for me to receive these awards.

As per the rules here goes a list of the 7 beautiful things around me:

1. My friends! Thanks for just being there.

2. Supervisors. Believe me when I say they make your life at least 100% better..:)

3. The Netherlands. Travel, nature, people, culture...Sooper!

4. My royal stooge - my bike. It takes me everywhere even in the darn snow. I must oil the beauty this weekend as a surprise!

5. At this moment, my Dutch teacher who let me write the exam today as I misses it while in India. I passed!

6. Free time - I have done atleast 5 new things in the past year. Things I wanted to do for a long long time.

7. Blogging! Am loving it...:)

Most bloggers I read have already received this award, hence I pass it on to one othe - Efrutik at Psss It's Efrutik's world! a relatively new blogger with great posts on her blog.

The second award, Just Read it, I received was from Presepio com Vista para o Canal. Thank you again Sandra!

Many many thanks to Isabella, Sandra and Lopa once again.

We can help Haiti

Reading fellow bloggers: Psss It's Efrutik's world and Life as it goes on..., I was motivated to write this post. I realized sometimes how caught up I can be in my own small world.

It has been over a week since Haiti was hit with a massive earthquake with a 7.0 on the Richter scale. The capital Port-au-Prince was all but flattened. While rescue aids pour in, much of the country is in chaos not knowing how to organize relief efforts. That much is common knowledge to most of us. I realized though that with over 72,000 people dead and millions who have lost their homes just the governments cannot do much.

I am certain each of us can contribute in some way. Let us take some time out to donate and spread the word. Checkout Efrutik's blog or this PBS link to find out more. Please make your own assessment on which organization to donate to.

Let us do our bit to help Haiti.

Picture Courtesy - http://www.mirror.co.uk