Musings of a girl

Well,the year 2007 is going to end soon.And somehow, over the past few days, I find myself slipping into musings about the past, and how I have changed now, or what changes have come into my life.

The first thingf I have noticed about me, is that I am more responsible these days. I mean, for household related work...washing, folding dry clothes, cooking, vacuuming..everything has to be done on time. In India, i used to slip into blissful slumber for atleast 2 hours in the afternoons. A few months into coming to US, this continued. But stopped from June or July onwards. I simply wasn't able to sleep in the afternoons. Now a days, since i am so exhausted from my Red Cross work, housework, etc, I sleep sometimes, though now the maximum duration would be half an hour or 45 minutes. even when Madhu tells me to relax, forget all the work pending, n sleep, I am not able to. Thoughts of pending work keep dogging me at the back of my mind.

So, the conclusion being, I have become more responsible in taking care of things. And possibly, an insomniac. !!!!!

Secondly, Frisky!!!!of course, how can I not mention the little bundle of joy, on four legs. He has brought Madhu and me so much happiness,and taken away our tensions and worries. Thanks to him, we are getting trained in parenting, in many ways...For example, when in the cold mornings, I want to snuggle back under the covers, after switching my alarm clock off, I am reminded of Frisky, how he would be waiting for us to take him out for a walk, so that he can "do his business"...If we don't wake up and take him out, he would come and lick our hands, or jump to the edge of the bed,and try to wake us up, if he is in great urgency...Once or twice, our laziness, or lack of understanding, resulted in Frisky doing it inside itself ....But to his credit, he knows when he has done something bad, something he is not supposed to...he would go and hide under the office table, or under the bed, and not come out. Other dogs are not like that, from what we have heard from the dog owners we meet.
Again,As I hacve mentioned earlier in my posts, Frisky ios scared of the vacuum cleaner sound...be it the large one we have,m or the small hand vacuum. Similarly, mixie sounds. So when I am vacuuming the house( its susally me..."designated Evil Vacuum Lady") and Frisky would go scampering off to find some safe spot to hide from the vacuum. If I am alone at home, he is tied to his leash in the patio. Otherwise, I plop him down next to Madhu. Madhu keeps a protective arm around him, and soothingly talks to him while I am vacuuming. { For those among myfamily/ in-laws reading this, believe me, 90% of the time, its Madhu telling Frisky" Don't worry. the Evil Vacuum lady won't come near you. I am there da kutty". And if by chance I am in the same room, he tells Frisky, "Don't worry, its only Mommy....":) :)

However, Frisky lying on Madhu's arm, on the sofa, is the cutest picture...Hai, meri hi nazar na lag jaaye.!!!!!!Madhu has been showering Frisky with toys, n a nice comfy little bed of his own, one in the car, and one in the home.

For my part, Frisky never used to listen to me that much, even though Madhu and I said the same commands.Amnd I used to complain to Madhu about it. For the past 2 weeks, since winetr chill started, I have been taking Frisky out day n night. So he apparently got more attached to me. When Madhu and I both enter the house after having been away, or having left him and gone, he runs and greets me much more thsn he greets Madhu. He jumps up, wags his tail, puts his paws up to my knees,and generally shows his happiness seeing me back. And in case, Madhu is inside the house,and I am still outside (picking up grocery bags or something), Frisky will come outside, and wait for me to step inside..And then he will follow me in. :) :)

Isn't that positively Sweeeet of him???/ Madhu is already plotting revenge. Come summertime, he is going to take Frisky out on walks, not me, he says.


Another thing I have done is, prepared food on trips we have been on. My mother used to cook everytime we travelled via train to chennai, or pudukkottai. So in my mind, it was always amma who would do such things, not me. Now the time came for me to do them, and it was a learning experience.

Our California trip was such that all the women coming along said, they weren't going to waste time and money in eating in restaurants. So we all agreed on who would make what, and generally shared the burden of cooking for lunch n dinner. Each person cooked enough for 10 people, so we had a variety of food to eat. Similarly, on our Vegas trip too, I cooked chole, and pav bhaji and took it along. Though this time there were bitter argumnets with Madhu about this, I realsied how this was a very good idea on reaching Vegas.

Prices there are so high...Petrol itself was 25 cents higher than Phoeniz prices per gallon. And the menu in any restaurant had nothing to offer for vegetarians...Since Madhu also didn't eat non veg or egg or Saturdays, we were saved the expense of having to spend on burgers for breakfast lunch and dinner... and had chole n pav bhaji instead. Those hotels didn't even have a coffee machine in the room, and I was deprived of early morning coffee in the sanctuary of the bedroom. They want to extract as much money as they can out of you, I guess.
So in this way, I guess I have become like other housewives, learning to save on unnecessary expense in hotels etc.

I know some of my friends wouldn' t agree with me. But my school friend who is also vegetarian, told me there is nothing for vegetarians to eat unless you go to an Indian restaurant. There, in spite of paying dearly, you end up getting a frozen-heated samosa on your plate....I am inclined to sympathise with her, as she is a home science student,and knows her stuff.

Telephone conversations with my college friends, during navaratri, and Diwali, centered around exchanging recipes, and sharing ideas on what to do with leftovers, what new dish had someone tried out, etc. Online chats with my mother consisted of asking her the rates of Sona rice in Chennai, as in Phoenix, they had increased by $4.00 for a 10 pound bag. This led to my sister teasing my mom, "what, you are now discussing grocery prices over chat with ur daughter in USA?"

I also find myself eager to dispel doubts of my American friends/acquaintences, about India, and Indians in general. Many of them have seen, heard, or been acquainted with North Indians, and hence find my surname astonishingly long. At Red cross, when they were trying to make my ID, they designated me as " the girl with the long name"..Clearly, they do not know Indians specialise in having long names, esp South Indians. Our names can be tongue twisters for the Americans. To their credit, they try to pronounce it correctly as much as possible. It does sounds funny however, when you hear your name being pronounced in a sing song way....However, when recently someone asked me about this long surname, I countered them with a joke about Polish names .

Many people are eager to know about Indian cuisine. So I made vegetable pulav one day,and distributed it to those who had expressed an interest. Another day, I made kesari,and gave it to them. Both these dishes were much appreciated. I have been questioned in detail about arranged marriages, wearing of the thaali, sarees, mehendi, kumkum pottu, to name a few. I try my best to explain it to them. However, as one American girl pointed out, " If i were getting married, the only person I would want arranging it is ME!!!!. "

Similarly, some peopel think that Indians also speak "Indian"...like Chinese speak Chinese, British and Americans speak English...I have told them that though Hindi is the national language, many states have their own regional langauge. India has many langauges, with dialects,and sub dialects. So there are many people in India who still do not know Hindi. One person actually though that Telugu was some tribal langauge, that's why I was referring to it as my mother tongue!!!!! :)

Again here tehre are two sides of the coin. I see and hear people ask me questions like this. On the other side, when Madhu and I watch Cash Cab,on Discovery, we see people here know many amazing facts that both of us had no clue about. We are left speechless when we see peope answer such difficult, obscure questions about contemporary world events, or Greek / Roman history....As in, a former President of US made the Latin phrase meaning "something in return for something" very famous? what is the phrase? Madhu and i were searching our minds for answers, coming up with vice versa, vis a vis...when the answer turned out to be "quid pro quo"...We both were berating ourselves the minute we heard it.,...


OOOOOOOOOOOH... i have just seen the clock, and its 8:20 p.m....I have been on a roll ...typing away since 6:45 p.m....Well, stomach rumbles, and grumbles...so gotta go. tata. Ciao...Those of u reading this...u must have spent atleast 15 minutes in reading this....Better make it worth my while, n respond back, ASAP.