A penny for my thoughts

Need help catching Cupid's eye?

2012-02-11T05:17:00.000-08:00

‘Love is in the air’ someone said the other day and I promptly looked at the calendar to find myself in the middle of February once again.

Every time I hear this phrase, by reflex, I tilt my head up and sniff at the air like a hound on a scent only to wipe the drool pooled by the spicy aroma wafting in from my neighbor’s kitchen. Love, I guess, requires specially designed noses.

My mother was telling me recently over one of our informative phone conversations how very difficult it is these days to find a bride for a boy in India. According to her, girls in India are now plowing through the field of marriageable boys, harvesting only the best of them after ruthless scrutiny. Her blessed heart was fretting over the fate of those poor boys that don’t ever make the cut.

And that got me thinking: Is it time to reveal my secret? Do I have the right to sit on this anymore when it could potentially change lives? Knowing that I have the power to make it happen, can I really live with myself if I don’t lend a helping hand to those boys who yearn for their turn to be struck by Cupid’s arrow? Will the crest-fallen faces of those bearded youth haunt my sleep forever?

After a whole minute of thinking, I decided to come clean and tell the world about it if only to get back to my dreamless sleep.

Coming from a conservative South Indian family, my sisters and I owe our timely marriages at the tender age of early twenties to two things.

1. Good luck – Never underestimate the power of luck in a South-Indian wedding. How else can you get the kind astrologer to declare your horoscopes ‘MATCHED’? No matching, no wedding so if the astrologer turns his nose down at your horoscope, you may be Rajinikanth for all the good that will do you. A conservative South-Indian father would still boot you from here to Amjikkarai.

So is it any wonder that my sisters and I feel such gratitude for the powers above for lining up the dominoes correctly on our horoscopes? If the ‘Guru’ on our horoscopes hadn’t winked at his brothers on our spouses’ horoscopes just at the right moment, where would we be today? God’s grace is bountiful indeed!

2. Apsaras Photo Studio – This is the secret that I have been safe-guarding all these years. Second to luck, I owe my ‘mangal sutra’ to this Studio and the time has come for me to reveal it to this world so all mankind can benefit from it.

Want to get married? Go to Apsaras Studio today and get your photo taken. I guarantee that proposals will start flowing your way before you can sneeze and say’ bless you’.

But WAIT! This photo is not for the eyes of your prospective girl. Oh dear lord, no! Not if you want a fighting chance with the girl. Pose for the photo, pay for it, then quietly tuck it away like I did because an Apsaras Studio photo is never flattering to the subject and that is God’s honest truth.

Say, for example, you have a few pimples artfully spread on your face. Little pomegranate seeds just sprinkled here and there like cilantro in a bowl of ‘Chole’. Left alone, no one will be the wiser for they don’t attract too much attention other than lending sweetness to that young face, right? Wrong! Once Apsaras’s photographer is done with you, each one of those pimples will stand tall as a solder on a battlefield.

Got small pores on your face? ‘Yes, but they are hardly noticeable’, you may say. Wrong again, my friend. The Apsaras photographer will diligently adjust his lighting and make it his life’s mission to highlight each one of your pores to ensure that ‘posterity will not willingly let them die’.

I have always wondered about the camera equipment they use. How special it must really be to be able to zoom in on a standing subject from the bottom to give the subject a very unique ‘bloated’ effect! Man, was I awestruck when I got my photo back from Apsaras all those years ago! It reminded me of those Telugu movies on TV about Gods where NT Rama Rao will grow in height and weight by magical proportions to give his devotees a viswaroopa dharisanam. I looked just like that in the photo.

Be that as it may, that photo was my ticket to marriage. Till then, Ragu and his friends residing on my horoscope were most disinterested in cooperating. Once I subjected myself to a photo session at Apsaras, as if from a trance, dear Guru woke up and winked promptly at the astrologer and the rest, as they say, is history.

Happy February to one and all! May Apsaras Studio continue to be the miracle that will stop all those youngsters in India flocking to a monastery!

PS: Contact me privately for more details on Apsaras. Serious inquiries only.

A Desi Mom!

2012-02-01T08:21:00.000-08:00

“You are SUCH a Desi Mom”. At her wits’ end one day over one of our daily routine arguments, my daughter hurled the words at me in exasperation and stomped off upstairs to sulk in the sanctuary of her restroom.

What?? Hold it right there buster. Was that supposed to be an insult? Tsk, tsk, tsk…. you poor baby!

I have had better punch in a fizzled-out coke. As I happen to be a Mom with so many deep roots in India as to shame a Banyan Tree into drooping its branches, I naturally fall under the proud race that is commonly referred to as Desis. Given this fact, I hope you’ll understand why I clucked my tongue at my daughter’s receding back with pity. As exits go, it wasn’t her best. Poor child!

To my surprise, subsequent conversations with fellow Desi moms brought to light an interesting fact. Apparently all our children have been drawing from the same well of insults all these years, pitiful as it is. After one of our recent ‘sob and tell’ parenting woes sessions, we discovered that we had all, at some point, been at the receiving end of some form or the other of the following accusation.

· Why do you have to be SUCH A MOM? (a cry of agony)
· YOU DESIS! (in utter disgust)
· God! You are such a Desi. (also uttered in extreme disgust)
· God! You are such a Mom. (???)

In keeping with the spirit of the theme, they also use ‘You Asians’ every now and then.

Lately, I find myself pondering a lot about what it is about a Desi Mom/parent that brings out such eye-rolling exasperation in our kids. Why do we push our kids into tearing out their poor, unoiled hair roots so much? Here are a few reasons from the top of my head.

A Desi Mom loses more than her sleep over a ‘B’ grade on her child’s report card. At times she loses control over her bowels too.
A Desi Mom believes in regularly checking with her fellow Desi moms about all the academic and after-school pursuits of their offsprings. After all, she does not want her child to be deprived of any such advantages.
A Desi Mom manages to find time every day to fit at least 3 lectures to her children about the importance of Studies, especially science and math, in one’s life.
A Desi Mom will silently thank her stars when the US public school system offers to take responsibility for talking about puberty and other unmentionable subjects to her kids in school. She also breaks out a sweat when her child gets home and wants to discuss those unmentionable subjects to her.
A Desi Mom is a stickler for organization. Her children never are.
A Desi Mom hates the word ‘boyfriend’ as fiercely as she does ‘dating’, ‘drugs’, ‘alcohol’ and ‘cigarettes’. She will not hesitate to give her life to protect her children from these evil ‘boyfriends’.
A Desi Mom loves to play dress-up whether her child wants to play or not. She will hound her daughter every single busy school morning until she picks a shirt that reveals no more than her upper collarbone for this world to see.
A Desi Mom is inquisitive by nature. She insists on knowing the background of every human that interacts with her child. She doesn’t understand why her child thinks it is insulting.
A Desi Mom strongly feels her children do not know the value of money. She worries about their materialistic attitude even as she showers them regularly with unnecessary games and gifts. ‘Money does not grow on trees’ is a phrase that all Desi children are familiar with.
A Desi Mom expects no less than complete obedience/respect from her children even when she packs them off to a school that encourages them to ask questions. ‘Because I say so’ is a phrase she uses often at home.

Well! That is just from the top of my head.

While I believe a lot of the characteristics that I have listed here may belong to an unlabeled, regular 'Mom" as well, I believe we Desis are blessed with just a little bit more irritable traits than others to earn the very unique 'Desi Mom' title from our children. Here, at the end of this very weird essay, I am proud to raise my cup of rasam in a salute to all my fellow 'Desi' moms. :-)

Go Desis!

Slap your cheeks at Dr.V - Part 2

2011-08-15T08:40:00.000-07:00

(continued from 'Slap your cheeks at Dr.V - Part 1')

At last Mr.G closes the door behind the day’s first group of patients and those in the waiting room with the next 3 token numbers finally allow themselves to feel a flicker of hope. It looks like their trip isn’t going to be a waste after all. Their turn to stand on the hallowed ground is coming in a few hours. God is great indeed! Clutching their tokens inside a tight fist, they lean back on the hard stone bench with a sigh and will themselves to drift into a dream of Dettol, thermometer and Dr.V until Mr.G opens the door again to summon them.

Leaving them to their happy dreams, let’s join those on the other side of that door in Dr.V’s room. If I were you, I will hold on to something solid soon after you enter his room. Confused? Look below and you will notice that the floor has caved in (this building is a tribute to Chennai’s architecture) to form a nice little pit in the center of the room where Dr.V is sitting. What this means to you is unless you hold on to something for support, you will find yourself rolling on the floor to Dr.V’s feet whether you mean to kiss them or not. Fighting gravity on top of a cold and a fever is beyond the skill of most people so they usually dive for the bars on the window soon after they enter the room. When I was in that room during my recent trip, I remember holding onto a hook on the wall for dear life and looking down my nose adoringly at Dr.V.

Situated happily in the middle of the pit, Dr.V’s desk dominates the room and is populated by 2 palm-sized prescription pads, a manual blood pressure monitor and a torch that has surely seen better days. The rumor mill has it that curators from museums around the world have shown more than a passing interest in bidding for Dr.V’s torch and blood pressure monitor. This leads me to believe that they have not yet seen his hand washing bowl.

This is as good a work of art as I have ever seen. It is a big round white (I am 90% sure that it is white) porcelain bowl that Mr. B takes great pain in filling with fresh water every morning so that the Doc can wash his hands between his trips to the Injection room. You can see several black markings on the inside of the bowl giving it a nice eerie look. I hope Dr.V has the inner strength to turn down the fortune that I am positive he will get for this bowl should he ever decide to auction it. It will be a dark day indeed when the clinic will be left bereft without its icon of cleanliness. My father has a smaller version of this bowl that he uses even to this day in his daily shaving ritual. So far we have managed to keep the curators away from his door but I wonder if my Dad knows that he is sitting on a golden goose?

Coming back to Dr.V’s room, watch the first patient swing her way to the chair next to Dr.V. This chair is said to have medicinal qualities of its own because many patients, like my mom, start feeling better the minute they sit here. For ease of narration, let us assume that my Mom is the patient on that chair now and to preserve her identity, I shall refer to her as ‘Ambujam’ from here on out.

Dr.V – Come Ambujam. Is your leg bothering you again?

Mom – Oh, I wish it were that simple Doc. You know how the children have all come for vacation and how much work there is at home. I am not as strong as I used to be. The servant maid has not come for 2 days. Apparently there was a death in her family and she had to go to the village. Poor girl, what can she do? Sometimes, if you have to go, you just have to go.

Dr.V – Alright Ambujam, what is the problem today?

Mom – When I wake up in the morning, I have such palpitations and feel so weak. My leg feels like wood and my hip hurts all the time. Sometimes, I feel dizzy and not feel like getting out of bed. Can you give me some pills to quickly fix these problems? As you know, I have so much work to do at home. Oh, I almost forgot. 3 days ago, I ate some mangoes…I know, I know that I should not eat mangoes with my diabetes but you know how people bring mangoes when they come to visit you. Children these days don’t eat as well as we used to, Doc. I can’t really let all those mangoes go to waste now, can I? But don’t worry. I immediately made some bitterguard curry and compensated for all that sugar. I pray to God everyday for good health but I guess He is busy with other things.

Dr.V – There is nothing wrong with you Ambujam. You are aging, that’s all. I will give you an injection to stop the palpitations and give you some pills to help with your body aches and pain. Just tell your guests not to buy so many mangoes next time. Here is your prescription. Give it to G, he will get your pills ready and you go wait in the injection room for me. I will be there soon. (soon???? Yeah, right Doc.)

Mom – oh, thank you Doc. I knew I would feel better just talking to you. While I am here, can you talk some sense into our Meena here? She doesn’t eat anything healthy. No good vegetables or fruits. Can a person really live on potatoes alone? I am making myself sick worrying about her all the time.

Dr.V simply smiles and nods at the next patient to take the chair that my Mom just vacated but if you think that my Mom is done with Dr.V, you are naive indeed. Patients like my Mom believe in making full use of the consulting fee that they pay the Doctor. My Mom gives the chair to the next patient willingly enough and stands on the side continuing her conversation(??) with Dr.V. She wants to know if she should eat the pills before food or after food; she wants to know if drinking Oats with buttermilk first thing in the morning will cure her diabetes; she wants to know if it is alright to walk only 10 minutes a day instead of the 30 minutes that Dr.V suggested to her before; she wants to know how to reduce weight without having to give up on any of her eating pleasures.

Dr.V spends 8 hours a day treating patients like my Mom. Dr.V’s baldness may not be genetic after all.

Two doors lead away from Dr.V’s room – one to the Injection room and the other to what can be loosely termed as a 'Pharmacy'. The compounders Mr. G and B are the kings of this little kingdom where they cook up their magic to deliver the medicines to the patients. Potions are lovingly packed in little glass bottles and pills are wrapped up in newspapers of yesteryears. After collecting your bundle of miracle from Mr.G, move through the door on your right to the Injection room.

Dr.V’s Injection room is a small rectangular room with one long wooden bench and one straw chair - all for the comfort of his dedicated patients. A shelf mounted on the wall houses a gasoline stove over which an old pot sits. Mr. B periodically boils water in this pot to sterilize the syringes and other things. As you sit on the wooden bench there to begin the long wait for Dr.V, Mr. B will promptly come and collect your prescription and prepare the syringe with medicine that is to be administered by Dr.V. You can't help but admire the way Mr. B makes the whole business of preparing syringes look so easy. A dozen or so shoe boxes filled with different medicines decorate the cabinet at the corner of the room and guess who has the key to this cabinet? Mr.B, that's who. Talk about power!

The wait for the Doc. continues in the Injection room. You can safely take a nap and a half before Dr.V will walk through this door to administer the shots. By that time, you will find yourself literally rubbing elbows with other patients who are crammed up in the small Injection room with you waiting for their chance at a shot by Dr.V's hands. As the door swings open finally to let Dr.V in, patients stand up as much to show respect as to stretch their stiff joints. Folks start to roll up their shirts/blouses even before Dr.V begins to call out their names to step forward. Dr.V's injection is not for the frail-hearted, let me warn you. The big fat syringe looks intimidating enough to make Superman call out for his mommy so don't feel bad if you do the same.

When at long last, you stretch your arm in front of Dr.V and he pulls out the big needle out of you, the Sun is already making his way down West. The epic journey is finally over and rubbing your arm with the cotton swab that the Doc gives you, you can walk out of the clinic to greet the outside world that is eagerly waiting for you.

(the end)

Slap your cheeks at Dr.V!

2011-06-11T10:09:00.000-07:00

Over 2 weeks ago, Chennai spread her hot and humid arms wide open to welcome me warmly through her doors and just like with all my previous visits to India, I found myself in a hurry to visit Dr.V, our family physician. It is a time-honored tradition for me to go pay Dr.V a visit as soon as I get into town. I think of it as sort of like going in for a quick oil-change. One big, fat injection,a handful of pills and I usually find myself back in smooth, working condition.

Dr.V and our family go way back. He has known me ever since oral spurting became the most important daily ritual for me from the age of 3(somehow the word 'vomiting' sounds like a dirty word in a public forum). I know the black and white 'Welcome' portrait in his clinic's waiting room, not to mention the long whip of a lizard gracing its walls, as well as I know my two sisters.

For as long as I have known him, Dr.V has sported the most wonderful bald head that I have ever known. It has always gleamed like a polished granite countertop and when seen along with the thin-rimmed spectacles that is always perched high on his nose, it gives him an air of such supreme intellect. To this intellect, add a regal form of over 6 feet with a build to match that towering height and voila, you have a doctor who exudes competence, confidence and charm in equitable proportions . Just as I know that the Sun never rises in the West, I am positive that Dr.V never comes to his clinic in anything but a pair of smartly tailored slacks, a crisp full-hand shirt and a solemn tie.

A day out to Dr.V's clinic is anything but ordinary but without giving you a virtual tour of the clinic at this time, it is hard to explain why. Located just off a busy main road, Dr.V's clinic looks just like any other building in the street. Stray dogs and nomadic cows compete constantly to assert their supremacy as the uncrowned kings of the neighborhood and do their beastly best to block anyone from going through the gate. If you have the wiles to sneak between them, the long-winding entrance ramp leads to a rectangle waiting room where the norm is hard stone benches and simple cushionless straw chairs. There is no pretense of elegance anywhere in this clinic but you will agree at the end that the obsessive streamlining of the clinic's operations more than makes up for the lack of elegance.

As you climb the ramp to enter the waiting room, it pays to be agile and alert. On your march...get set...now RUN! Run like the wind! Better yet, run like PT Usha! Run to the little hole in the waiting room wall for it holds the magic key to the doc's room - your token. You don't stand a chance of seeing the doc without this token so grab the one from the top of the pile. While running for your token, if you find the mob of patients running alongside you resorting to devious methods to push you aside to reach the token stand first, don't be coy and don't be subtle. Take your elbow and aim for their ribs. After all, it is common knowledge that only the strongest survive in this world.

Ok, now you have your red token (so it doesn't quite look like red but come on, give them a break. For ones that have been in use since 1974, they don't look all that bad, do they?) and it reads 8. What do you do now? Well, if you are willing to give meditation a try, grab a seat and start practising some mind-control techniques because it will be a while before you lay eyes on Dr.V.

If my memory serves right, Dr.V has had two compounders under his payroll forever - Mr.G and Mr. B. I have never known any compounders who can wield such enormous power in a clinic. Take Mr.G. Every once in a while, he will open the door to the waiting room and bellow out 3 token numbers - (for example 1,2,3) and no less than 30 people will trip over themselves to reach him with such gratitude dripping out of their eyes. It never fails to move me to see the tears of joy and gratitude in their eyes. But Mr.G is a stoic one. The many years of working under Dr.V must have given him the maturity to not take all this fawning to heart. You will see him standing firm as a soldier at the door ensuring that no one without a token passes through . As for 30 people rushing in for 3 token numbers, the math has never added up for me but the important thing is it apparently did to Mr.G.

Lucky are these folks who pass through the formidable Mr.G to enter Door#1, for their epic journey has finally started. Through this gate, they get their first glimpse of the great Dr.V. I even have vague childhood memories of folks slapping their cheeks gently in a show of reverence as they stand before Dr.V finally, just like in Thirupathi. It may be a while till they see the outside world again.

(to be continued)

Mommy booth is now open !

2011-04-26T12:11:00.000-07:00

One of these days, the inevitable may finally dawn on you that vegetating in front of a television is no guarantee for your happiness and health. Or you may just feel social one evening and get this friendly urge to stop by our house for a nice cup of coffee and snacks with a bit of lively, spirited conversation on the side. Whatever the reason might be, I urge you to please check the calendar first before you knock on our door. If ‘x’ marks the spot on Sunday, I suggest that you reconsider.

Please don’t get me wrong. We love company and have been known to be spirited and lively on occasions. It is just that on a Sunday evening, you may find more cheer in a funeral home. As breakfast gives way to lunch and lunch gives way to snacks on Sundays (btw, the hands on my internal clock always read Breakfast, Lunch, Snack and Dinner as opposed to the usual 3, 6, 9 and 12 on a regular clock), we, the Sankarans, find ourselves transforming from deliriously happy to decidedly depressed and unlike Cinderella, we manage this without the aid of a chubby godmother and an orange pumpkin. If you ever hear us whimpering, you can bet your next meal (sorry, I don’t take any chances on my meals) that Monday is not too far away.

I have come to call this strange phenomenon the ‘Smile-free Sunday’ syndrome. To us, Fridays are for fun, Saturdays are for snoozing and Sundays are for sadness. With my head held high, I proudly declare here that we beat moaning Myrtle fair and square in the battle of the Whimpering Wimps of the weekend.

Past noon on any given Sunday, my children embrace unhappiness like it is their favorite grandmother. When the clock strikes one and the mouse goes down (Hickory Tickory Tock…helllooooo???), a magic spark goes off somewhere inside the deep, dark recesses of their memory and sets them off in a maddening frenzy around the house in search of homework assignments and projects that, they suddenly remember, were due the previous decade. Thoughts of the many forgotten quizzes, tests and project deadlines lined up for the upcoming week pop up just then to haunt my poor kids to profuse sweating if not premature aging. Beautiful dimples start to dissolve in a quagmire of nerves, fear and despair leading to wobbly lips and fresh tears. All through the evening, you can find them alternatively rubbing their stomachs and foreheads in an effort to dislodge that invisible ball of lead that seems to have not only pitched a tent but also applied for a social security number in there.

Believe it or not, my children are convinced of a supreme cosmic conspiracy that deprives them of precious minutes on a Sunday by making all the clocks in our household tick faster than usual. What sounds like the regular rhythmic tick, tock, tick, tock to me somehow sounds like a super fast, furious bull tearing up a Rodeo field to my children. This is the same conspiracy that, according to them, sends the Sun sliding down the horizon in a hurry on that day. Of course, I know better than to dispute such comic (no typo here) conspiracies.

Usually I am all for keeping the lines of communication open with children but Sundays are the sole exception. I never initiate conversations with my kids past noon on Sundays because they always mistake the slightest movement of my lips to be a special invitation to break down and cry their hearts out. Call me a terrible parent if you want but I am tired of getting my good clothes soaked every Sunday under these sad tears. So much so that I am seriously considering buying myself a special Sunday ki Sunday bib that reads ‘Monday is coming and the Mommy booth is now open for your tears’.

At last we cross the twilight time zone that is between snacks and dinner on Sunday and the crescendo spirals up in a steady rhythm going from sniffling to sobbing to sulking and finally erupts into the inevitable resignation when our clock strikes Dinner. An eerie calm settles down on our home at this time. Trembling lips are bitten down, backbones are straightened, chins are jutted out and the inhabitants of the Sankaran land brace themselves to face whatever monster Monday has in store for them.

As the dinner table is cleared, I take my cue to heave a sigh of relief and go in search of Erma Bombeck’s essays to learn how to smile again until the next smile-free Sunday.

Do you still dare to knock on my door on a Sunday evening? Better yet, can I knock on yours?

Make way for Meena!

2011-03-01T12:42:00.000-08:00

As I sat watching the Academy Awards on TV last weekend, it occurred to me that I am totally unprepared to go on a stage to receive an award if the need ever arises.

If you must know, I did clear my mantel a few years ago in anticipation of receiving the Pulitzer prize but darn those folks at the selection committee there. They are too picky. It is not enough that I write. They are looking for quality in writing too, I heard. Where does this greed stop, I ask you? Anyway, I may still be batting at zero in the Pulitzer game but it is early days yet. Bigger miracles have been known to happen. And even if Pulitzer slips through my fingers, I feel confident that I have a good shot at getting nominated for this decade’s ‘The Ultimate Nagging Mom’ award. I am not picky. Really! Either one will do for me.

When that day comes, am I really ready to walk the red (or blue or gray or black) carpet and claim my rightful place on the stage? Do I have the right outfit in my wardrobe for the occasion? What about the acceptance speech? Have I practiced enough to get my eyes to sparkle with unshed tears of joy and my lower lip to tremble ever so gently in a show of nerves and frailty? Oh boy, talk about emergency preparedness! I really have my work cut out for me before my day of glory.

Let’s start with the outfit first. None of the salwars/sarees in my wardrobe will do, I am sure. They are too decent to qualify. They cover all parts of my body, for God’s sake. I need something that fits me like a second skin and leaves nothing to imagination. It would be better if the fabric closely resembles a potato sack except that it definitely has to be very sparkly. I will not compromise on that. After all, I want to fit in, not stick out like a sore thumb there. If I can somehow find an extra large fabric bow in red that I can hook on to my bottom, I will be all set.

I am not worried about the acceptance speech though. I have seen enough Oscar awards to know how to write it but it is not just the speech but the whole theatrical delivery of it that I need to work on. I will start by practicing to look dazed at the audience with the ‘I can’t believe I made it to this stage’ look. It won’t be easy but if anyone can do it, I believe I can. I will have to practice how to fan my face for the next several seconds to portray a desperate attempt to prevent my tears from spilling over and ruining my mascara. That is a must. That will set the tone for what is to follow.

Now for the speech – I will have to prepare a list of all the important people in my life. After all I don’t want to leave anyone’s name out in my ‘thank you’ speech and hurt their feelings. That will be unkind of me. Hmmm…..let’s see. What was the name of that wrinkled old woman who came around to bathe me when I was a week old baby? I can’t believe I forgot her name. Anyway, I will make a note to check with my mom. Then, what about the bus driver who drove me to school every single day of my formative years? I can’t leave him out now, can I?

Of course I will be thanking my mom, my dad, my sisters, my husband, my children, my dog, my brothers-in-law, my nieces, my nephews, my neighbors, my friends, my clients, my teachers, my students, my postman, my lawn maintenance guy and my plumber. Oops! I almost forgot about the handyman. And if someone in the audience feels the urge to start pulling out their hair at the monotony of my speech, it is just too bad. I would rather have the entire gathering snore in boredom than leave out thanking anyone of these important people in my life.

Whew…….that was exhausting but I think it will be worth the effort. I feel mentally ready now to put on the show of my lifetime. Step aside Natalie Portman and Colin Firth. It is time to make way for Meena Sankaran. Now if only I could find a sparkling potato sack with a red bow! Life will just be peachy.

Oh no.......not again!

2011-02-14T08:37:00.000-08:00

There is no use denying the truth when it has you firm by your hair. Some people can acknowledge the truth even if it slightly taps them on the shoulder. Others may face it if it gets up and stares them in the face. Me? I do it only when it yanks hard on my hair and kicks me a few times in the shin. And five times is one too many even for me and I have finally decided to face my truth.

I am a danger to all my music teachers and there is no point sugar-coating it anymore.

When I was a little girl long, long ago, so long ago, my parents heard me singing in the shower one day with gusto and not willing to lose any time, they enrolled me immediately in an instrumental music class. And since then, they made it their life's goal to nurture my instrumental skills and (note this) only my instrumental skills. Innocent that I was, I fell into that trap easily and gave up the pleasure of singing in the showers only to take up mimicking the instrumental sounds even in the sanctity of my shower at the passionate plea of my parents.

I grew up, got married, moved across seas and continents and all of a sudden, one day it dawned on me that I was the victim of a cruel conspiracy. Singing in the shower is as sacred a civil right as freedom of speech and I had given it up without as much as a picket-line protest. How clever they had been! Made me wonder how much the residents of 79th street had paid to have my parents stop me from singing? And how dare they? The rebel in me was outraged at the monumental injustice done to me. With the tight-lipped determination of one who had been unjustly wronged, I decided to take fate into my own hands and at last find a music teacher to train me vocally. And find her, I did.

Eager as a puppy, I attended my classes without fail each week and got through the basics successfully only to find that she had, one day, decided to quit her job, sell her house and move across the many states of United States. Why? To continue her higher education, according to her. Yeah, right! Come now, one has to get up pretty early in the morning to fool Meena. I should have known then that something was wrong, mighty wrong, in the State of California.

I found teacher#2 soon enough and picked up where I left off. Geethams turned to Swarajathis and Swarajathis turned to varnams and just then what did my dear husband do? Oh nothing earth-shattering except that he had decided he didn't like California as well as he thought he had and was now convinced that greener pastures were awaiting us on the eastern seaboard. Not again..... With the lusty sigh of a repeatedly injured woman, I bid a melancholic farewell to teacher #2 and got on the plane already busy plotting to find my next victim aka teacher.

After moving into my next home, fate gave me an opportunity to visit my family in India and I, in a delusion of grandeur, decided to push my luck and ask one of the leading vocalists in town (I will refer to her as Madam X in this post) if she would give me lessons while I was there on vacation. Giddy with joy at my good luck when she agreed, I knocked on her door promptly for my first class. She was everything I had expected her to be and more and I sat down to eagerly learn the Thodi Varnam from her and left a happy person at the end of the first session.

Please note that when I parted from her that day, I left her in no doubt about my intention to return the next day, same time, same place for the second session. As I was busy that night listening to the recording of the class and struggling to get a grip on the slippery notes of Thodi ragam, I got a call on my cell phone. ‘Hello, is this Meena? I am Madam X’s mom. I am afraid that my daughter won’t be able to take classes for you anytime soon. You see, soon after you left today, she doubled over with a bad stomach ache, vomiting and such and has now been admitted to the hospital. By the way Meena, don’t call us. We will call you.’ Oh Wow! Poor Madam X! She was looking the picture of health only that afternoon. Anyway, that is the story of music teacher# 3.

As one who is not so easily broken, I continued my search and found teacher#4. I decided to be smart this time around and found a teacher who gave online lessons. You see, she could pack up and move everyday if she wanted. Since I would only be a Skype call away, she definitely could not flick me away on that pretense. Patting myself on the back for that clever idea, I started my lessons with her and found her to be just as wonderful as all the previous teachers. Just when I was convinced that my luck had changed for good, she simply vanished from the face of the earth one day. Poof, just like that. Hmm…..hellooooooo! …student waiting here!!!!!!!! Apparently, she got too busy and so got too tired and decided to drop a few students. Darn it! What rotten luck that I had to be one of them. Makes me want to question my faith in God sometimes.

Had I known, I would have gladly shipped her a few dozen cases of Glucose-D drink to help her regain her strength. Or I would have happily given up half of my class hour so she could take a nap. I would have accommodated her needs so why couldn't she? I know that whining is unattractive, okay? That is why I am trying to do it in little easy-to-digest spurts.

Okay, I was back at square#1 yet again (square#1 is starting to feel like home considering how many times I land here) with my thinking cap on. Alright, let's see here. I needed a teacher who would not find it so easy to run away from the task in the future? Of course! Why didn’t I think of this before? My good friend’s husband, that's who. He not only lives minutes from my home but also happens to be a phenomenal singer. Duh! Sometimes I can be a little slow, I admit.

Okay, teacher #5 proved to be the answer to all my prayers and finally, things were looking up for me so much so that I was thinking of breaking open a 'Panneer Soda' bottle to celebrate. 'Not so fast' said fate. My 'All zz well' bubble burst tragically when I heard of the sad news that teacher#5 has been diagnosed with a nodule in his voice and has now been advised by doctors to rest his voice completely as part of the cure. Oh no, not again! Poor guy! He totally doesn’t deserve it.

That’s it! I am done. I give up. I refuse to inflict such pain on mankind anymore.

Could there be any more doubts about this? The minute a music teacher signs me up, the seven year reign of ‘Shani Bagawan’ starts for him or her. All kinds of unspeakable horrors await them. They fall sick, lose their jobs, lose their homes or find themselves too tired to face life. How could I, in good conscience, do this to anyone else ever?

The day is not far when twitter is going to be buzzing with the tweet ‘Health Hazard Warning: Teach Meena at your own risk.’

Sigh, sigh, sigh…….

Laurel or Hardy?

2010-12-06T10:58:00.000-08:00

Personally, I have nothing against Laurel, you see. I would be the first one to admit that he was one of the best comedians of his time and more than a match for Hardy. Who, in their right minds, could contest the fact that this ‘thin and chubby’ duo was a riot on the screen? But behind the laughing eyes and waddling legs, did Hardy hide a truckload of hurt? Did anyone ever stop to think how the fashionably-thin Laurel might have made our flabby Hardy feel?

You may think that I am crying wolf when there isn’t even a trace of a puppy around but trust me, I have my reasons. As a fellow chubster (just because MS Word underlines this word in red doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, ok?), I feel like I can speak for all the Hardys of this world and tell you that it is a major pain in the you-know-what to be constantly surrounded by thin people.

I am not saying that thin people are bad. Definitely not. They may very well have a small golden heart inside their very petite bodies. It is just that, unwittingly, by their mere presence, they give us chubsters a huge complex and as God knows, we can very well do without anything huge, if you can catch my drift.

Take my case, for example. I happen to live in a town where all the women enjoy eating air for the main course and delight in drinking water for dessert at every meal. If it were up to them, without any qualms, they will rewrite the secret code to open Aladdin’s treasure caves to say ‘LETTUCE’ and then what will happen to poor Aladdin?

Now as one who salivates over a bowl of rasam rice for breakfast, I fail to understand how soy nuts can be appealing to anyone first thing in the morning. Fine, as long as you are at it, why not eat a nice cup of those soy nuts? Why count them every morning to eat exactly 6? And if you eat 8 instead of 6 one morning by mistake, is that any reason to call poison control? Seriously, if you are planning to relocate to my town for any reason and your daily lunch/dinner menu does not include a bowl of colorful leaves, do reconsider. You will thank me later and I will tell you why.

When I first moved into this town, I mistook all the inhabitants to be refugees from Somalia. It was an honest mistake really. I had never before seen anyone else walking around with bones jutting out of the skin like that. My heart bled for their misfortune and determined to do my part as a Good Samaritan, I hosted many parties in the hope of feeding my neighbors and friends with my no fat-spared cooking. But my plan was a big, fat flop. It was the same story at each party. One look at the long row of my wickedly tempting food trays, these folks would whip up their calculators and get busy. The minute the calorie count crossed zero, they would pretend that the food was e-coli infected and happily go back to their air and water diet.

So I gave up and switched to Plan B. If the town wouldn’t fatten up, then I would have to slim down, I thought. After all, I didn’t want to be the only Hardy in this town of Laurels. So I stocked my fridge with leaves and soups of all color. I even went out and got Quinoa. I was that desperate. Since that took care of the eating part of the Plan B, I next set out to buy a treadmill. Of course there is a gym less than a mile from my place but I didn’t want to take any chances, you see.

The shiny Nordic Track was finally hauled up the stairs and just as I got ready to jump on it and puff my way to health, I realized that something was missing. Ah, of course! What could motivate me more than a nice big TV mounted on the wall just across from my new machine? I know that my husband granted this wish of mine and installed a TV on that wall only because he was convinced of the sensibility of my plan and definitely not because he wanted to stop my nagging. Not at all!

Anyway, to make a very long story short(is it too late??), Plan B turned out to be an even bigger flop than Plan A. To say that the sensible diet plan was a complete disaster would be the understatement of the year. For every spoonful of the nasty Quinoa that I ate, I compensated by attacking the white rice with vengeance. For every green leaf that I had to push down my throat, I rewarded myself with a bowl of home-made spicy potato fries. For every cup of sugarless tea that I had to drink, I thumbed my nose at it with 2 glasses of kheer. Sigh, sigh…….......

With regards to the exercise equipment, it wasn’t a total waste after all. I am using the handle bars to organize and hang my thupattas these days so that is something, right? And about the TV, I realized that I liked watching it better from the bed anyway.

I have learned to forgive myself these days. Just like some people enjoy their air and water diet, I am fated to go through life as a Hardy. Philosophically speaking, some things are simply not in our control. As the French would say "Que sera sera".

So what are you? A Laurel or a Hardy?

Am I smarter than my 4th grader??

2010-11-09T11:15:00.000-08:00

I know that I should be grateful about this. After all, bribing government officials in India is no joke. It is an expensive business for anyone and more so for the middle class. Looking at the historic, exorbitant rates of bribery, I am positive that nothing less than utter desperation or blinding love could have pushed my middle class parents to do it and I am leaning towards desperation in this case.

I have no proof but my gut feeling says that my parents coughed up big money all those years ago to pay off the Education board of India to let me graduate from College.

Why do I suspect foul-play in my education? Many reasons really but when the first time I held my daughter's homework folder and my stomach involuntarily heaved in protest, I knew something was fishy. Forgive me for asking, but shouldn’t I be able to do a fourth grader’s homework with my eyes/ears/mouth closed given that I am a college graduate? Well, I can't, hence the allegation against my parents.

Here is a small sample of the problems that I commonly face on the homework front.

Math – Nothing gets my tear glands working faster than fractions, especially the word problems. The other evening, I was faced with my daughter’s wide, adoring eyes and the following problem.

A first grade class took a poll to find out their favorite ice cream. 1/4 chose chocolate, 1/4 chose vanilla and 1/2 chose strawberry. 2 kids are lactose intolerant and can't eat ice cream. If there are 22 kids in the class, how many kids liked each flavor?

If you ask me, can they not have a glass of lemonade each and be happy? Huh? Is Ice cream really necessary for the happiness of first graders? Somehow my daughter was not convinced with this argument of mine.

My evening’s homework woes will, by no means, end so quickly. Usually, right about this time a missile of a different sort like the following will attack me:

The entire third grade class is going to the zoo. There are 3 buses for the field trip. Each bus has the same number of kids. If there are 90 kids in the third grade, how many are on each bus?

Helllllllloooooo…..? What is wrong with the society today? If every parent took the responsibility of driving his or her own children to field trips, I wouldn’t have to sit and bite my cuticles off over the bus situation now, would I?

An important point to observe here is that I am very easily persuaded to double or triple the monthly allowance in lieu of escaping to the powder room in the evenings to avoid any contact whatsoever with Mathematics and yes, my daughter is very much aware of this weakness of mine.

Science – In the name of all that is sane in this world, why would I want to know Earth’s distance from the Sun? I am not planning to go there now, am I? Duh!

Grammar – Now, I know I have heard of irregular bowels but what is this ‘Irregular Verb’? And wait; aren’t pronouns, proper nouns, prepositions, helping verbs and conjunctions banned from the language dictionary yet? Have mercy, lord! I thought I had learned all there was to learn about grammar from Professor Higgins’s (My Fair Lady by George Bernard Shaw) teachings “In Hartford, Hertford and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly happen.” Obviously, I have miles to go before I can even think about resting. (Sigh, sigh…..)

Social Studies – Okay, I know that the big, bad English people came a long time back to America to shoo away the natives and set up colonies. Hey, I watched Disney’s Pocahontas too, you know. But come on, how much information can you absorb from a cartoon movie? Is it my fault that Disney forgot to include important details of the Civil war and Declaration of Independence in its movie? Talk about irresponsibility!

Anyway, there it is finally. My homework woes for all the world to see. So knowing what you know about me now, would you call me smarter than my 4th grader? Before you answer, please do keep in mind that I hold a college degree from a very reputable educational institution. That has got to count for something, right?

Deepawali - A Memoir

2010-10-31T18:34:00.000-07:00

“Can you come here for a minute? Check and tell me if the dough needs to be a little softer. All the children love thenkuzhal only when it is crispy. Should I add a little bit more butter to it? ” My mom shouted to be heard over the noise of television from the living room. Looking at her bulging vocal chords, you would think that my aunt was standing a good 200 feet away in our neighbor’s yard but she was only standing 2 feet from my mom busy grinding the soaked rice and urad dal in the grinder. If the batter doesn’t ferment well overnight, the Idlis won’t come out good. And we have had Idlis for Deepawali morning breakfast for as long as I can remember. I could hear my Dad and Uncle animatedly arguing over the different possible outcomes of that day’s long awaited cricket match between India and Pakistan. Their voices were just as loud as the heated literary debate on television that was part of a special series of programs for Deepawali next day.

“Hold that thought. I want to add a bit of water to the Idli batter first before I get distracted again. If I take my eyes off for a second, I am liable to forget it. You know how forgetful I am getting to be these days.” My aunt fretted over the grinder some more before turning to my mother. Pinching the dough with her fingers, she nodded her head. “Yes, add a stick of butter to it and may be some more cumin seeds too. “ Watching my mom follow my aunt’s advice, I peeked in to the several big stockpots lined up at the southern wall of the room. So many sweets and snacks! The colorful line-up could bring a saint to his knees and I was only 9. Grabbing a fistful of murukku and thattai, I quickly stepped out of the kitchen before my mom or my aunt caught me. When the kitchen smells of sugar, cardamom, cumin, butter and deep fried oil, you can tell that Deepawali is here.

Grabbing the only empty chair in the living room, I settled down to enjoy the snacks and the debate on television. At least I tried to. It is not easy to follow the TV program when your many cousins and aunts and uncles are all gathered around you engaged in various spirited conversations. Giving up on TV, I turned my attention to my sister and 2 cousins playing cards on the floor. “You are a cheat. I saw you signaling to her. You let her know what your trump is, didn’t you? I will never play with you again.” My 12 year old cousin stomped out of the room. All eyes turned towards me. They wanted to know if I would fill in for my cousin at the game. Well, why not? With so much drama going on in the living room, who needs TV? Sitting cross legged on the floor, I picked up the cards and looked at the big grandfather clock on the wall. Another hour, at least, before we would all be called in for dinner. Just the thought of the slowly roasted potato curry and onion lentil sambar simmering on the kitchen stove even as we played cards, had me wetting my lips in anticipation. Onion sambar and potato curry are a delicacy any day but somehow they assume incredible taste and flavor during Deepawali. As my mind wandered to the big suitcase full of firecrackers in the bedroom that all of us were looking forward to getting our hands on early next morning, I knew very well that very soon I would have to viciously fight for second helpings be it for sparklers or potato curry as was the norm in all large families. Glancing around at the noisy room around me, I knew that I wouldn’t have it any other way.

--------------------------------

That was a nostalgic recollection of the night before Deepawali when I was about 9. I find it curious that I am unable to remember the color or pattern of the new clothes that were bought for Deepawali that year but somehow can clearly recollect the mixed voices of the many people sitting around me as well as almost smell the onion sambar and potato curry wafting from the kitchen that night. Goes to show that Deepawali is much more than fancy clothes, magical firecrackers and fattening sweets. It is an opportunity to make big and small memories with our loved ones. It is the only gift that matters.

Happy Deepawali everyone!

Would you rather I ‘ewewewew….uhuhuhuh…..awawawawa’ ed?

2010-09-14T07:49:00.000-07:00

Few things in life have left me this stumped. I am not usually so easily ruffled but the incident from last week has left me questioning my own ability to face the many curve balls that life tends to throw at us.

My kids and I went for a routine dental cleaning appointment last week. It all started out uneventfully with me exchanging the usual string of meaningless pleasantries with the receptionist at the front desk. Before I could finish enquiring after her hairdresser’s new neighbor from Bimini, we were herded in to a private room to meet a person that I have come to greatly admire. Our oral hygienist! Usually I can get away with colorfully exaggerating the truth with anyone. Well, almost anyone because this guy is very hard to fool. He can take one quick peek at my teeth and know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me God. All it takes is one little disapproving shake of his head to make me feel very small and that, my friends, is no ordinary feat considering the fact that I look like the poster child of ‘chubby cheeks’. Two minutes of facing him, his folded hands and narrowed eyes, I am usually ready to confess my sins, both real and imaginary.

As my kids were the first ones to be attended to, I was politely asked to step outside the room and wait. This meant that I had at least 30 minutes of free time sitting on a couch waiting for my turn. I decided not to be frivolous and spend the whole time admiring the many shiny models of fake white teeth artfully spread around the room. It is not that I wasn’t entertained by those perfectly sculpted white teeth but you have to admit that if you have seen one set of teeth, you have seen them all. Anyway, unwilling to waste those precious minutes, I got busy indulging a great passion of mine.

There sitting in the middle of my dentist’s office, to the utmost horror of my children, I cleared my voice and started practicing a carnatic composition in ‘Punnagavarali’ ragam that I had recently learned. I am positive that I heard whimpering noises from behind the closed doors of the room but I chose to ignore it as always.

I confess, I do have this nasty habit of breaking out into song in public places with a blatant disregard to the sensibilities of those around me and I guess waving fingers in public by way of putting ‘talam’ doesn’t help my image either. Ok, so I have very little talent but honestly, does it justify my kids’ behavior? Every time I step out of my home and open my mouth, my children publicly disown me these days. Is that any way to treat the one that lugged you around for 9 months in a very small pouch inside of her? Is fairness just a fairytale, I ask you.

Call me the Queen of digression today. I haven’t even come to the point yet. At last my turn came to go in and see the oral hygienist. I went through the routine motions of pleading guilty to not flossing every night and eating sweets regularly before going to bed. This confession left me feeling cleansed so much so that I ended the session profusely thanking him for absolving my sins. In walked the Dentist now for one last check up of my teeth before I would be let out. I obliged her and dutifully lay down on the dentist chair courageously looking up at a light that could very well be Sun’s evil twin. So there I was, with my mouth stretched wide open so my dentist could quickly look in and pronounce me healthy until next visit and what did she do? Deciding to take a break right at that time, she relaxed, put her feet up and started sharing the happy memories of her recent vacation with me.

Please don’t get me wrong. I love my dentist. She is as awesome as awesome can be. It is just that I wanted to get out of that office before the combined sound of three growling stomachs got public attention. In a few more minutes, I knew that we had to start shouting to be heard over all that growling. As the clock continued to tick away with the dentist showing no sign of stopping, I decided to help speed things up. Angling my head towards her face all the while nodding enthusiastically to her remarks, I stretched my mouth open even wider (if that is possible) and put on the most pitiful look I could manage. My idea helped but only for a second. She came out of her happy memories long enough to stuff two pieces of big, thick rubber pads in between my teeth to help keep my jaws open and frozen in position.

And that is when I faced the toughest challenge of my life. The curiosity bug apparently bit my dentist when I had turned away for a second because now suddenly she wanted to know all about my family’s last vacation – our destination, transportation preferences, favorite cuisines, tolerance to sunburn and even more. Hmmmm.....wait a second! Wasn’t she the one that just put a rubber gadget between my teeth so I couldn’t move my jaws? Wasn’t it obvious that I was in no position to answer even nature’s call at that very moment let alone her questions? Did she know a secret way to talk with one’s mouth wide open? Did I not look pathetic enough lying on the table with my mouth stretched open trying to howl the answers to her questions? For that matter, did my ‘Ewewewew......uhuhuhuh....awawawawa’ really answer her questions? It just goes to show that one can never be prepared for everything in life.

Got any interesting dentist stories to share?

Refund Rantings!

2010-08-15T18:41:00.000-07:00

I have had it. The time has finally come to take a stand in this matter. Enough is enough. I don’t see why I should be stuck with a defective product. Am I not entitled to some customer satisfaction? Is it so unreasonable for me to demand a full refund for something that I am not happy with? Ok, so I don’t have a receipt to show as proof of purchase to the store. Big deal! Well, come to think of it, I don’t even have a store to take it back to but that is hardly the point.

Be honest and answer these for me. What would you do if you buy a product that falls apart at your first touch? Will you not be outraged? Will you not march straight back to the store and scream for a refund? Yes, I am mad as hell but once you know my reasons, you will understand why. I am not given to such angry outbursts often. Folks usually find me patient and mild-mannered. But in the past few months, my patience has been wearing thin and for a good reason.

I am in my thirties, look the picture of health on the outside and put together like a very cheap and tacky Burma Bazaar watch on the inside. If it is not my gallbladder, then you can be assured that it will be my foot. Fix the foot and watch my shoulder tendon snap. Heal the shoulder just in time to hear my voice croak. Treat the voice only to have the doctor pronounce my knee cap ‘inflamed’. Do you know how tiring it is to keep a mental list of all the failed parts of my body? And that is why a big whiteboard is hanging on my kitchen wall now so I can save my voice and report my daily health failings to my family. Mm/dd/yy – problem part –symptoms is the format that I am using these days.

I have a nagging suspicion that God outsourced the manufacturing of my body parts to China. Why? Because the way I am falling apart like a wet sand castle at the beach characterizes all the items sold in ‘Dollar’ stores across the United States with a stamp ‘Made in China’. Or maybe He entered into a secret partnership with the giant pharmaceutical industry with a promise to manufacture 'me' who will help drive their stock prices up by using every medicine that passes through their factory floor. Either way, I smell a stinking conspiracy here.

Call it paranoia but recently I have started noticing that every time my husband looks at my father, there is an unspoken admiration in his eyes that seems to say ‘How did you know when to unload her onto my head?' Mind you, there is no malice, only an acknowledgment laced with awe for my father’s timely great escape.

Yesterday, I heard my husband pleading on the phone with an insurance agent to allow him to buy additional insurance for me. Poor guy! I really do feel for him. He is so traumatized watching me disintegrate right in front of his eyes that he has 911 stored on his speed dial. And of course, all credit goes to his unique begging skills for securing fully approved credit accounts with all the local hospitals where the lovely staff insist on buying us all little trinkets during each of my visit. Their love and affection for us come as no surprise to me. After all, they do owe me big for the generous bonus they get every year.

Coming back to the point, I refuse to take this injustice lying down anymore. I hereby file an official complaint against God for manufacturing me with so many defective parts and demand a full refund from Him. Did I hear you ask 'What refund?'. Well, all I want in way of a refund, is for Him to take out all the substandard parts and put back limbs, bones and muscles that actually function according to specification. All I want is to not fall apart like a Lego tower carelessly built by a 2 year old. Is that too much to ask?

Hell on Earth!

2010-07-13T05:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday a friend, after sharing his family‘s last vacation experience on bungee jumping and para-sailing with us, wanted to know if we would be interested in joining them on a trip to the local amusement park soon. The silence that followed his suggestion was deafening.

To tell you the truth, his suggestion was not without merit. Schools are out for the summer and to parents like me, this means loud music pumping out of some media all day long, loud feet pounding up and down the stairs at all hours and loud voices demanding food and entertainment at all times. Insanity is an inevitable by-product of long summer vacations so letting our kids loose in the outdoors for a few hours was not at all a bad idea. It might just help us to survive this summer. Except for the fact that I would rather be gagged, tied up in front of a TV and forced to watch soap-operas all day long than to ever set foot inside an amusement park again.

Why? Because amusement parks are anything but amusing. They are torture chambers ideally suited for convicts on death row. Acres of land filled with deadly, long, sinuous contraptions that are built to toss, spin, squeeze and knock the life out of any poor soul that has the misfortune of getting trapped in them. Roller coaster rides are my idea of Hell on Earth.

I still remember my first time riding a Ferris wheel. I screamed so loud that they stopped the ride after a couple of spins to let me off before resuming. Stopping a ride in the middle was unheard of. My folks, very proudly, credited it to my screaming skills.

Screaming, if you didn’t already know, is an excellent voice exercise. It clears the cobwebs in your throat, so to speak. Young singers everywhere, aspiring for a career in music, would beg to take lessons from me if they ever overheard the lullabies I sing for my children every night. If you don’t believe me, ask my husband. He proudly declares that I am the only one in our species that can bring King Kong to his knees simply by singing ‘Rock-A-Bye Baby’. Of course, it must only be a coincidence that the minute I clear my throat and get ready to start, my children squeeze their eyes shut and pass out cold. And what is up with all the neighborhood dogs always starting their nightly chorus exactly at the same time? Seriously!

Come to think of it, screaming was not the only thing that I did when I was busy holding on for dear life up in a ride. Every time I was sent rocketing through the air, spinning and tossing in a roller coaster ride, I had a profound spiritual experience. What solid earth refused to imbibe in me, those roller coaster rides managed to do. Screaming and puking my guts out while suspended in the air, I was enlightened by the realization that God is our savior and that He will come faster to save those that have no shame. Therefore abandoning my ego, I always sought his protection and sang His hymns (yes, while on the ride) loud enough to reach Kailas without Skype. Even today, I am unsure as to why folks tripped over each other to move back and make way for me every time after I got off those rides.

Coming back to yesterday, in the silence that followed our friend’s invitation, my family turned such hostile eyes on me that I was forced to explain the depth of my feelings for amusement parks to this friend. I never meant it as an insult when I told him that I would rather sleep on the floor of a dark, wet cave with a dozen snakes slithering next to me but, unfortunately, he seemed to take it so.

Anyway, my husband and I agree that if we were to ever find ourselves stranded, wet and hungry, in a colony of aliens where the only residing human was this friend, it would still be totally unwise to knock on his door.

Ouch…I just fell off my moral high horse! And it hurts.

2010-06-15T13:03:00.000-07:00

I always knew he was clever but I never realized just how much. I had no clue that he was capable of such devious plotting. I concede that I wrote a few articles here at his expense. Okay, so I pulled his leg a few times publicly and enjoyed it too but for a spouse of 16 years, couldn’t he just take it in his stride? Was this action really necessary? Could you, in all honesty, justify it?

Let me be frank here. I didn’t see it coming at all. Not until it fell into my lap. I never once heard him say anything like ‘If I go down, I am taking you down with me.’ No such hints were dropped in my presence. He kept it under tight wraps till that day just so he could catch me off guard. According to him, it was a ‘surprise’ for me! Yeah, right…..like I am buying it. It wasn’t enough that he ended up an addict. He had to now go and make me one too.

Guess what my husband got me for my birthday last month? A Droid phone with 24/7 internet access, that’s what. How LOW can he get? Has he no shame?

Before this gift, I was having such a splendid time looking down my nose at the Droid phone addiction of the world at large, feeling superior about my self-control and strutting around with a smug smile plastered on my face. Riding high on a moral high horse was my specialty then. These days I can’t even crawl on the back of a moral pig.

Upon accepting his gift, I first gave him a look that was sure to wither a healthy young plant, then pulled up a chair and got busy. Obviously, there was no time to waste with a whole new world to explore at my fingertips. Several You Tube videos were beckoning me with the promise of entertainment, a built-in voice recorder was begging me to play with it and a digital camera was tempting me to click the ‘Kodak moments’ of life away. With these, also came a plethora of free applications that offered to keep track of my grocery lists, calorie intake, frequency of burping, pulse rate, dry cleaning schedule and cooking recipes. Oh, get this. I even found a free app to download a special pink calendar to keep track of my menstrual cycle with all its lovely details. Can’t believe it? Well, if I didn’t see it myself, I wouldn’t have believed it either. It is a miracle indeed.

If God had ever marked both this phone and the fruit from the tree of knowledge as forbidden in the Garden of Eden, guess what Adam and Eve would have chosen? Could you really blame them? Even Satan would bow low in submission to such devilry.

So now I have officially joined the ranks of the many whose lives are inexplicably tied to their phones. Do the phone companies realize that they are creating monsters around the world?

Yesterday evening, I looked up for a minute from my Droid phone only to find my husband and daughter sprawled over the couch across from me with their eyes locked onto their respective phones. Just weeks ago, stumbling upon a scene like this would have led me to launch one of my well-rehearsed lectures on the ill effects of technology addiction and ways to develop self-control. Now, all I can do is heave a sigh of resignation and get back to my game.

You have got to hand it to my husband. He really did kill 2 birds with one stone here. He got me (my friends insist) a great gift while at the same time, silencing my protests and lectures about his phone addiction effectively. Obviously the man is devious!

If you are sitting there mentally congratulating my husband on his clever mind, hear this too. Now that he has taken care of his problem (me)once and for all, guess what he got me for our anniversary last week? A pillow from Costco!

Makes me think that my Droid phone isn't so bad after all.

-Meena Sankaran

Chardonnay, Merlot or Zinfandel?

2010-05-12T06:05:00.000-07:00

I am always amused at the way people react when I tell them that I had, at one point, worked for a winery. While one person wants to pull up a chair next to me with the intent of discussing the merits of Pinot Noir and Port into the next decade, another takes a few steps back in aversion.

When it comes to wine, people invariably fall under one of the two following categories. Those that

1. Love wine
2. are ignorant about the beverage but predisposed to hate it on principle

Wine connoisseurs, who lead this list, are an intimidating bunch. Trust me for I worked with a whole nest of them at one point in my life. If you can’t look fashionably drunk and be able to engage in an hour-long animated discussion of wine, food and cheese pairings in their company, you better pray for the ground to open up under your feet and spare you the embarrassment.

Don’t know whether Cheddar or Provolone cheese goes down well with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc? Unsure of the year the grapes were harvested after the first sip from a bottle of Chardonnay? Unable to decide if a chunk of Swiss dark chocolate or a box of sweet raspberries compliments a white Zinfandel better? Well, I am no magician but try this. Hold out your hand and introduce yourself - ‘Just arrived from the next Galaxy, name is Idiot.’ It might just get you out of a tight corner or two.

For every winatic (wine+lunatic, if you must know) that is out there, there is another one like me. We are the self-righteous moralists who consider any little human indulgence a step up in the path paved to Hell. So what if doctors insist that a glass of red wine a day keeps the heart pumping away? Who cares if wine has only one third of the alcohol content as a bottle of Bud? Big deal! To a conservative, logic is the first cousin to ignorance which is why the word ‘wine’ is only slightly below ‘blasphemy’ and ‘Tiger Woods’ on my no-no vocabulary list.

So why did I take up a job in a winery? Two reasons really! 1) The way I figured, how much sin can one commit crunching numbers, even in a winery? 2) How else can I see Lucy goofing around in a wooden vat stomping grapes?

Imagine my shock upon entering the first wine-making facility only to find big, giant stainless steel Vats with long winding tubes leading to rows of oak barrels as far as eyes could see! Where was the big wide wooden Vat in which women in bare feet were busily stomping the grapes? What kind of a set-up was this anyway and where the heck was Lucille Ball? Boo to industrialization! I was a heartbeat away from resigning that day.

But having decided to stay, I had no choice but to accept the benevolence of my employer 3 times a year - six bottles of prime wine each year at Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don't think my co-workers appreciated my sobbing hysterically each time a HR person walked into my cubicle with my seasonal gift. Obviously bursting out in tears while accepting a gift was not a common custom amongst them. But as the years rolled by, I did learn to show some appreciation. If my effort at peeling my lips wide enough to show at least six teeth as a show of appreciation was misconstrued as an allergic reaction to a Botox injection, I really couldn’t help it.

There is a bright side to this story. Staring at the rows of Chardonnay, Merlot and Zinfandel stacked in my garage one day, I realized that I didn’t have to buy a housewarming gift for at least another decade. An even curious observation was our new and improved relationship with our neighbors who apparently realized that Asians weren’t such bad neighbors after all.

-Meena Sankaran

Do you ti-ting, chi-ching or di-ding?

2010-04-14T19:48:00.000-07:00

Ti-ting, Ti-ting, Ti-ting.............

That was my husband playing with his Droid again. These days if it is not ‘Ti-ting’, then it is either ‘chi-ching’ or ‘di-ding’ around our house. Just between you and me, I like ‘chi-ching’ better than the others.

He had downloaded yet another application for his phone earlier today. And was every bit as enthralled as when he downloaded the other gazillion ones like the leveler app, the compass app and many more. How do I know? He was not being subtle by any calculation. His dimples had deepened considerably for you to miss it and I had to threaten ‘Quinoa’ for dinner before he would clip his phone to his shirt and go in for a shave.

This brand new app is nothing short of a miracle, I am told. With its help, you can use your phone to scan the bar code of any item and find out 1) where they are sold and 2) where you can go to buy it cheap. A tool that facilitates and encourages cheapness? What was the developer thinking? Dangling this in front of Asians is like dunking in a honey tub and standing in front of a bee-hive. Do they realize the serious repercussions this could have on this nation’s business landscape? I am willing to bet my gallbladder that Wal-Mart is, even as I write, planning a class action suit against Asians for loss of business and is naming this app developer as a co-defendant. Who could blame them? Really!

Coming back to ‘Ti-ting’, this morning I watched my husband walk around the house looking for items with a bar code to test his new, ingenious application. Seeing him step into the powder room, my curiosity was piqued. I followed just in time to see him frantically grab the tooth paste, mouthwash, lipstick, soap scum remover, scrub pads and a doormat to scan. Ti-ting, ti-ting, ti-ting, ti-ting, ti-ting and ti-ting. While I stood there watching him with my mouth hanging open in disbelief, he proudly declared the names of all the stores that carry them and their selling price.

I find myself in a dilemma. Should I sue the pants off these Droid application developers or would it be more prudent to have my husband checked into a reputed Droid rehab program? Heard of any decent programs for Droid addiction lately?

In the meantime, I concede that there is one advantage to owning a Droid. Ever since my husband brought this phone home, I have had to dim the lights around the house thereby saving huge on the electricity bill. Who needs lights when he is glowing bright enough to light up 10 Christmas trees like the one in front of Macy’s store in Union Square?

-Meena Sankaran

How do you measure love? In grams, gallons or bytes?

2010-03-25T10:37:00.000-07:00

If you believe in reincarnation, then you should know that my father is a reincarnation of the famous English poet and philosopher Thomas Gray. My sisters and I will swear on this for we were the only lucky ones privy to our dad’s profound philosophical insights.

As children, we grew up on quotations from Thomas Gray’s poem ‘Elegy written in a Country Churchyard’. The following lines from this poem were discussed so extensively, so often that if I were to wake up from a coma with amnesia a few years from now, I will still recite them without missing a beat.

“The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.”

Can you think of a better way to teach your children the futility of joining the maddening rat race called life? Dad enriched our childhoods further with acute philosophical observations like ‘Beauty is only skin deep’ every time he caught one of us standing in front of the mirror unashamedly admiring our own reflections, questions like ‘Were we born into this world with the comforts of a fan and a fridge?’ whenever we whined incessantly about the power outages and the unbearable heat of Chennai. It was only natural that we nicknamed him ‘Mr. Gray’.

Now the point of this whole big introduction is to show you that I come from very good erudite stock. Those who believe in the laws of genetics would naturally assume that I would be, at least a little bit, philosophically inclined.

If you had bet your house on that, all I can say is 'oops'. I am afraid you are about to join the ranks of the homeless. Just like weight loss, philosophy eludes me. But determined to thumb my nose at fate and get the hang of this profound thinking business, I had been picking my brain lately about something that I can think profoundly about. I never had this much trouble even when raising toddlers. After hours of exhaustive brain picking, I came up with a question that might convince you that I am my father’s daughter.

How do you measure love? In grams, gallons or bytes?

The commercial on TV that claims ‘some things are priceless but for everything else, there is Master Card’ is based on the assumption that love is not measurable. I can put a big hole in that theory and for this I have my kids to thank for.

Both my kids love me just as much as I love them. I know this because I can measure their love quite easily.

I can measure my youngest child’s love by how many kisses she blows my way every day. The daily count starts in the morning. On her way to the bus stop each morning, she stops after every few steps to turn around and blow kisses to me. It doesn’t bother her that the bus is fully loaded and the driver, parents at the bus stop, the kids aboard the bus are all impatiently waiting for her to hurry and board so they can be on their way. She doesn’t let a little pressure like that deprive me of my daily love dose and always takes the time to blow my quota of kisses before boarding. At last count, she topped her own record with a round 100 kisses a day. Now anything less than 80, I feel unloved.

My eldest child is unique in many ways and all the more so in her expression of her love. She pats my head to show her support and rubs my head in a circular motion to show her affection. Please be sure to note the difference here. To pat is to console while to rub is to love. The more she loves, the harder she rubs. On days when her love for me peaks, I worry a little about premature balding. For now I am using a special herbal hair oil treatment for damage control. The day when all that rubbing leaves behind a hint of a bald spot, I will have to gently redirect her loving hands to rub my arms. Who knows? I might even save some money on salon waxing!

So how do you measure love?

-Meena Sankaran

No more Uncle Sam? Hallelujah!

2010-03-12T11:07:00.000-08:00

I heard my husband walk through the front door calling my name over and over bursting with joy. One look at his face and I was ready to drop down on my knees and thank President Obama. Hallelujah! We got tax-exemption. I was sure of it. What else could have put that goofy grin on his face? Joy so pure and unadulterated on someone’s face can only mean a few things:

• You just received a notice in the mail from the IRS offering you full tax-exemption for life
• You struck oil in your backyard and now have to fight off the Sheikhs of the Middle East for your market share (or)
• You won a 50 million dollar lottery and Uncle Sam was kind enough to say ‘Never mind my share, you get to keep it all’.

Every year around this time in March, I find myself plagued by nightmares where I am running breathlessly through the dark and shady alleys of a city with Uncle Sam hard at my heels screaming hideously ‘Pay up, pay up, pay up’. I wake up drenched in sweat with eyes darting around in terror expecting to see an IRS agent cackling down at me with an audit notice flapping in his arm.

Obviously I wanted tax exemption more than anything else. Duh!

It turns out that that wasn’t the reason for the face-splitting grin on my husband’s face after all. His cell phone was dead. As in dead as a doornail.

Not a moment too soon according to my husband. It might sound callous to you but he had been waiting a long time for its death. Don’t get me wrong, he loved his cell phone. Such was his love that had I not stopped him, he would have called the governor and demanded a full State mourning and funeral befitting a fallen hero.

He did love his cell phone. It is just that he loved the new Droid phone on the market even more. All of Richmond knew that he had been secretly eyeing the Droid phone for a while now when he thought no one was looking. Did he really think that no one would notice those long sighs, vacant dreamy looks and the slight drool on the corner of his mouth? I knew and I sympathized with him. It must be really hard to be a gadget-junkie and not be able to play with the newest, shiniest and beautiful gadget out there.

All he needed was a valid excuse to go shopping for this new toy. The only excuse that didn’t bring truckloads of guilt with it was if the existing phone should die. And now finally it is dead and gone. Once I managed to calm him down and stop the hyperventilation, he was busy calling his friends to convey the good news after which he proceeded, in a frenzy, to check the websites for deals, do price comparisons and analyze the available accessories.

Today he is the proud owner of not one but two Droid phones thanks to the popular BOGOF sales technique. No happier man ever walked this earth.

If you are driving in our neighborhood and happen to catch a glimpse of another driver directing his Droid’s voice activated GPS to ‘Find Wal-Mart’ or ‘Find Chuck E Cheese’, be sure to honk and say hi to my husband.

-Meena Sankaran

What did Humpty Dumpty have that I don't?

2010-02-05T17:01:00.000-08:00

If I weren’t in so much pain, I would howl in indignity. How dare they! I am quite thoroughly insulted and rightfully so.

Let me ask you something. When Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, didn’t ‘all the king’s horses and all the king’s men’ try their best to put him back together? Did the King summon the Palace janitor and order him to patch Humpty Dumpty together with Gorilla super glue? Of course not! The entire kingdom marched to save him. They failed but that is neither here nor there. I am sure Humpty’s soul rests in peace today knowing that he died with his dignity intact. So why, I ask you, don’t I rate the same courtesy?

No, I have no head injuries. I am quite sure that I have no concussion. But I do have 4 holes in my stomach. And that, my friends, is the source of my ever-rising irritation.

If you read my ‘New Year’s Resolution’ post, you would know that weight loss has always been the elusive pot of gold at the end of my rainbow. So you can understand my reaction when my doctor told me last week that my gallbladder had to be surgically removed. Ok, so I needn’t have squealed with glee and grabbed the ‘doc’ to waltz in the 4x4 examination room but hey, is it my fault I didn’t know that gallbladder is a teeny tiny sac the size of my palm? Isn’t it just my luck that the one part that I can afford to lose happens to weigh under a pound or so? Why couldn’t it weigh, say, 20 pounds? Chop, chop and I would have been 20 pounds lighter today. I give up now. When the many forces of the universe at large conspire to keep you (there is only one way to say it) chubby, what’s a girl to do?

Coming back to why I feel insulted, guess what the great doctors at the hospital did? You can’t guess, I bet. After yanking my gallbladder out, you would think that they would have the courtesy to stitch me back together, wouldn’t you? A few simply sewn stitches (I am not asking for French knots here, mind you) that I can show my husband to justify the enormous bill that is coming our way. For thousands of dollars, they could not bother to leave behind some eensy weensy sutures?

An even bigger dilemma is this. What do I say to all those friends who have cooked their hearts out for my family this week when they ask ‘When are you going back to get your stitches out?’ How do I tell them that I don’t need to go back? How do I tell them that the doctors actually slapped some ‘derma glue’ on me and sent me home? Glue, for god’s sakes! How insulting, really! What did Humpty Dumpty have that I don’t, I ask you.

Until I am strong enough to get up and stomp my feet around to vent this anger, this post will have to do.

-Meena Sankaran

Need help feeding your chickens?

2010-01-14T08:18:00.000-08:00

A friend recently invited me to join her on a trip to Europe. Knowing me, she should not have bothered. I think twice before venturing on a trip to our backyard. It is true. I like traveling almost as much as I like scrubbing a toilet bowl.

I need more scientific data to prove it but I am convinced that an aversion to travel must be a medical sickness. Why else would the thought of going to sun-drenched beaches and other exotic destinations put me under a self-induced coma? What else would explain my need to pretend hearing loss whenever the term ‘vacation’ is mentioned? If my considering a visit to Paris on par with a visit to the Dentist not sick, I don’t know what is. I do hope that someone will hurry and publish a paper soon about this new disorder/syndrome ‘travelophobia’ to give my theory validity and save me from the many murderous looks around the house.

That being said, I do have some good news. I have stumbled on to a place that I might just like to visit. I know that a lot of my friends and family have already been there. They must have fallen in love with it because all of them have pitched tents and settled very comfortably over there.

What is most noteworthy about this place is that it seems to entice folks from all walks of life to try their hands at agriculture.

Welcome to Farmville! At Farmville, anyone can be a farmer and you better believe it. A friend of mine who has earned a well-deserved reputation for bringing home a bag full of rotten tomatoes from her grocery trip without fail every week is now growing a field full of healthy big, red tomatoes in Farmville. A cousin who has never owned a pet in her life is now caring for a cage full of chickens in her farm. I am forever hearing stories about lost sheep or calf that wander in to people’ farms looking for a new home. Talk about a mobile petting zoo!

What actually pushed me over the brink of uncertainty and to seriously consider overcoming my travel phobia to visit this place is the way this place seems to inspire generosity and samaritan values in people. Are you sick or on vacation? Are you worried that your crops will shrink and wither away in your absence? Quit worrying. A few good neighbors in Farmville will drop in and fertilize your crops out of the goodness of their hearts. Need to go out of town for a few days? Count on any inhabitant of Farmville to come feed your hungry chickens. Found a lost baby calf on your farm? Be at peace knowing that you will get it adopted in this beloved city in no time at all. Such generosity is mind boggling and can only be inspired in Farmville!

Got to go now and dust off my suitcases to get ready for our family vacation to Farmville! Hold on, my Facebook friends and cousins with puny crops, hungry chickens and lost animals! Help is on the way. Who knows? I may end up buying the farm south of yours and pitch a tent there myself.

-Meena Sankaran

PS: To all those non-Facebook users who look lost after reading my post like the poor animals on Farmville, here is a little explanation. Farmville is a game application on Facebook that keeps folks around the world busy 24/7.

New Year Resolution

2010-01-04T19:12:00.000-08:00

Just four days in to the New Year, I am already wary of wishing anyone a ‘Happy New Year’ anymore. Not that I have anything against passing around some cheer and goodwill. Usually I am all for it. But due to some mysterious phenomenon, the birth of a New Year seems to whet folks’ curiosity and after returning my New Year wishes, they invariably want to know what my New Year resolutions are. Their happiness and health somehow seem tied to finding out the status of my prior years’ resolutions too. The conversation that follows this line of inquiry is, to put it mildly, quite embarrassing.

You see, I have the same single resolution each year. There hasn’t been any change to it over the past few years. I am steady and reliable that way. My modest resolution for every New Year is to lose enough weight to be able to recognize the image in the mirror. That is a perfectly plausible resolution, if you ask me. I am not aiming for world peace here, am I? Forget about fitting back into the wedding clothes. Forget about making the ‘Economy’ class seat in an airplane look roomier. All I want is to buy one dress each year that is not labeled ‘Jumbo’ size.

Let me tell you why weight loss beats all my other resolutions to the door each year. It does get a little annoying after a while to be singled out in a crowd and complimented on your chubby cheeks in social gatherings. Also, I don’t particularly care to have my cheeks pinched to see if they are as soft and round as the babies who model for baby food commercials on TV. Really! But my indignant scowls almost always go unnoticed so I have finally come up with an ingenious, if temporary, solution for this problem. I don’t knock on the door of a party without first sucking my cheeks in and holding them in to form artificial dimples. Lucky for me it fools them every single time.

I don’t know about you but I take my New Year resolution very seriously. Every January 1st, I go and enroll myself in the nearest fitness center. Then, I go out shopping and spend a week browsing the stores looking for a dashing new gym outfit. That being done, I sweat another week trying to find a water bottle that matches my new outfit. After all, there is no point looking shabby when you take an important step in your life. While at the store, I let the store clerk convince me that my feet have outgrown last year’s shoes so then I go home as the proud owner of a new pair of latest technology shoes that is said to melt pounds even while I am sleeping. You have to admit that I can use some extra help here.

I usually pack a lot of enthusiasm into my first few weeks at the Gym. This year, I got a head start by signing up for the gym membership the week before Christmas. The novelty of the new shiny machines keeps me going back. Every Cardio machine is tested and tried but the weight machines intimidate me so much so that I pretend an acute aversion to those monsters and dismiss them as unworthy of my attention. I compensate for this cowardice by walking around the living room couch 3 times a day with a 5 pound potato bag from the pantry. Do not underestimate your potatoes for they can muscle up your arms in no time. Every time I cross the bathroom to pick up a load of dirty laundry, I catch myself looking in the mirror, stretching my arm, straining to see the as yet invisible biceps and triceps. I have a hunch that I will watch those muscles bulge in just another week.

On top of puffing my way to health, every January, I also try to learn to eat all things that taste like sawdust. You may know these as ‘healthy’ food. It takes a lot of inner strength to sit in front of a plate of sickly-looking leaves that is termed ‘salad’ and not gag. It takes even more to push it down your throat. Determination, they say, is the key to stay on a healthy diet. And I have no shame in admitting that I have the determination of a dead earthworm. If you ask me, you have to be critically insane to choose a bowl of oatmeal or a salad over a bowl of hot steamed white rice and a cup of spicy sauteed vegetables.

And there lies the secret to my failed New Year resolutions. But this year I am determined to let this farce play out at least until end of February before I shelve it to be pulled out and reused next year.

Happy New Year to all of you. May the New Year bring good health and laughter to you and all your dear ones.

-Meena Sankaran

I cut them so sue me

2009-12-23T10:20:00.000-08:00

What was I supposed to do? Stand back and watch them wreck havoc? I was left with no choice and simply did what I had to. As always, the innate sense of fairness in me (stop rolling your eyes, will you?) made me put myself through the same ordeal too. But did anyone appreciate me for that? Oh no, of course not. Anyway, thank your lucky stars that you weren’t a witness to that scene in my house on Monday morning. It wasn’t pretty but I was armed and up to the task.

I cut everyone’s nails on Monday. Get in line if you want to sue me. My kids are heading the long list.

You would have thought that we just lost our major European modeling contract as a result of my heinous act if you had heard the big ruckus at the scene. All the wailing and sobbing would have led you to believe that we frequented a Spa at least once a week for manicures and I butchered a few sets of French nails this week. You would have been totally wrong. Sure they were long and sharp like Cindy Crawford but there endeth the similarity. Ours were uniquely chewed up on the corners with spiked cuticles left for proof and overall stood out with a nice unhealthy yellow glaze. This is one time I can say with certainty that ours were truly one of a kind.

If you knew the real reason why I was armed with a nail cutter this week, you would take my side in a heartbeat, I am sure of it. Sure, those nails looked ugly as sin but that wasn’t why I snipped them off. Sure, we were walking around looking like a pack of tigers with our claws out to pounce on the nearest living thing but that wasn’t why I cut them. Believe it or not, I did it to safeguard our house.

Last Friday was the last day of school for this year. Christmas break was upon us again. As the school doors were opened wide for the last time on Friday afternoon, my kids rushed out like war prisoners who were freed from an isolation box after 6 months of imprisonment. Backpacks were tossed to a dusty corner with as much disdain as revenge. Sheer ecstasy of not having to do homework made my children glow like energy efficient white bulbs. Relationship between protons and neutrons, line graphs, Renaissance period literature, grammar assignments and more were decidedly swept under the memory rug and vengefully stomped upon.

Gazillion plans were made to milk the two weeks to the maximum. And they included hitting the movie theaters, game stores and restaurants. But a wicked snow storm blew its way in to our area on Friday evening like the big bad wolf and bared its fangs with glee. By Saturday morning, the snow had piled up so high that I saw my dog stare in dismay trying to find a place when nature called. With every snow flake that drifted down, my kids watched their vacation plans disintegrate.

But since our family is as resilient as they come, we decided to make the most of it. Board games were brought out and instruction sheets were read out loud. Card games kept us sane for a few hours. We decided to improvise and had a writing contest. Endless hours of movies followed endless plates of snacks. By Sunday morning we were ready to tear each others’ throats out and sing in a monotone just to kill boredom. As I watched Sunday drag along with no hope of the snow melting or the roads getting cleared, I knew I had to do it. Monday morning, I got out the nail clippers much my kids’ horror and cut everyone’ nails. I had to save our home before insanity pushed everyone over the brink to go scratching at the walls. Trust me, it was only a matter of time.

Now anytime my kids get an itch and they are forced to go looking for a sharp kitchen utensil to scratch it, they are going to turn hostile eyes towards me. (Big sigh…………….) I do hope that one day they will realize that I did it to protect our home.

-Meena Sankaran

Pride and prejudice

2009-12-19T14:26:00.000-08:00

Jane Austen's 'Pride and prejudice' is my all-time favorite novel but this post has nothing to do with that classic masterpiece. Just wanted to get that disclaimer out in case some gray-haired publisher from England decides to sue me for copyright infringement violations.

It is with a lot of pride that I am posting a short story here that my daughter wrote today. She took all of ten minutes to write this story.

Short story, she claims, is not her cup of tea but I beg to differ. It is a tough genre, I agree. Much more difficult to grasp and master than a novel even since the author does not have the luxury of time and length to carve out his/her characters, plot and so on but I think my kid has done an awesome job of it. If you think I am prejudiced, so be it. I think I am entitled.

Here you go. Hope you enjoy it!

--------------------------------------------------------------
Coming Home

He stared at the candle. A sudden blast of cold wind shot through the window and threatened to blow the light out, but he blocked the cold with his hand.

Four years. Four years since he had seen light. The blasts of bombs, and the yelling and screaming and shooting, the harsh barks of commanders issuing hurried orders to their men. His unit had been stationed in the mountains of Afghanistan for two years now. Huddled in a corner of the rickety one- roomed cabin, he stared at the candle.
One of the men who had been playing cards in the table got up and walked over to him.

“Sorry ‘bout your loss, Ben,” he said softly, laying a rough hand on his shoulder. “Jack didn’t deserve to die.”

“No one does.” Ben’s throat croaked from lack of use.

The man looked like he might stay, but then changed his mind and left his comrade alone to get back to the card game.

Ben’s eyes had not left the candle. In its light he suddenly perceived a mirror through which he could see his own gaze; the gaze of a young man stripped of family and feeling. There was a crazed look in his eyes, the look of a man who had given everything, including his memories, to go through hell.

His commander’s last words to him echoed in his brain. “Ben, there’s still light. Remember that. There’s always light.” Jack had placed the candle in his hand and squeezed his shoulder before turning to make a poor soldier’s life miserable.

Now, staring at the candle, he was plagued by memories. His wife weeping as he left to join the service; his three- year old daughter clasping his neck as though her life depended on it. He could not even remember their names anymore.

“Come back soon,” they’d both called to him from the doorway. “Come back soon.”

At first, Ben had replied to every letter they sent as soon as he could. Now he did not even bother to open them. He knew that all he would find would be pleas for his return, pleas that he had no answer to. He no longer controlled his fate; war did. War decided when he ate, slept, fought, and died. Around him he could dimly hear the insane laughter of his comrades at the table beside him, as if from far off.

They’ve done it, he said in his mind. They’ve gone and taken us and everything we had. We’re not human anymore. We’re machines. That’s all we’ll ever be. Soon we’ll all flicker and die just like this candle will, and they’ll just get someone else to replace us and keep the war going.

A jolt went through him. For the first time in four years, Ben was thinking. His mind, before moving mechanically to the orders of his commanding officers, now awoke as if from a long and deep slumber. With his thoughts the memories flooded back into him.

My name is Ben Towski. I was born in Austin, Texas. My wife… Ashley! He leapt to his feet, almost knocking the candle over.

The men at the table stared at him. “You alright, Ben?”

Ben stared at them. Though he had known these people for four years, they seemed like strangers to him; he turned away from their dead, insane gazes.

“I’m fine,” he told them roughly. They shrugged and went back to their game.

Ben picked up the candle and stared at it wonderingly before slipping it into the large pockets of his coat. He grabbed a pack of matches and headed towards the cabin door.

“I’m going to get a smoke,” he told his comrades. They ignored him, so he opened the door and walked out, pulling the hood over him to block the wind. He coolly made his way through the soldiers who were scuttling in and out of the cabins. No one paid attention to him as he walked away from them.

At last, a sentry saw him through the blizzard. “Where are you headed, soldier?” he called out.

Ben turned back to him. “I’m going home.” For a moment something like realization passed through the sentry’s face, and Ben took that moment to turn and run. He ran through the blizzard, ignoring the warning shouts of the men. He did not feel the wind chilling his face.

I’m coming home, he said. Ashley, I’m coming home.

He would leave these deserted mountains, and walk till he found a village. He’d fly to America again, even if he had to hitch a ride amongst the cargo. He would find a way.

There was a knock on the door. The woman wearily walked towards it. In the first year she had run to the door, keeping that hope that she would open it and find her husband there. Now it was a nightmare to do so.

She swung the door open and froze.

Ben smiled at her. His face was haggard, there were scars all over him, and his clothes were barely more than rags, but his smile seemed godly.

“Sorry I’m late.”

-Aarthi Sankaran
9th grader
Godwin High School

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-Meena Sankaran

Misfit is the name of the game

2009-12-02T14:03:00.000-08:00

I have no proof to back it up. No notarized documents to substantiate my claim. I can’t even quote the source as an eavesdropped private conversation where folks tend to whisper such dark secrets. Nothing dramatic of that sort really. It is simply a hunch, a gut feeling that I have.

About 30 years ago, in a fairly large city in southern India, a male child must have been switched at birth. Don’t ask me who committed this dastardly act because I don’t know. But I know that the switch happened as surely as I know that a plate of deep fried onion fritters is the best reason to think favorably of a dark rainy day.

Before you write me off as a lunatic, let me explain the logic behind my supposition. The alleged ‘switched baby’ happens to be my cousin from my mother’s side. He is a misfit in our family and I say it in the nicest way possible. Here are some of the reasons why.

1. If he is Einstein, we are the Brady bunch.

2. If he is Marie Curie, we are the nosy neighbors of Mary Poppins.

3. Philosophy is to him as popcorn and a movie are to us.

4. While we restrict our reading list strictly to milk cartons and horoscopes, he has written and published a book on Computer programming. I am sure that the word ’embedded’ plays a crucial role in his book but I somehow doubt that he was talking about quilting.

5. While the rest of us were wasting away our childhoods with pillow fights and the like, he spent many joyful hours staring at the World Atlas, committing to memory the landscape of the world.

6. While we consider it a victory to just be able to recite our own names without getting our tongues twisted into a knot, he can not only recite the Vedas and the Upanishads but can take on even the wisest of men in an engaging religious discussion.

7. While we don’t attempt any addition or subtraction over 2 digits without a calculator, he can make a TI-85 hang its head in shame.

8. While we have all happily settled in to a rut that we call life, he quit his successful job recently to open up his own software business to pursue a dream of pioneering in the technology field, to “go where no man has ever been”.

9. Mathematics does to him what a bowl of cold Banana fudge sundae does to us on a hot tropical night.

10. Generosity, kindness and humility are next only to Physics, Math and technology on his list of accomplishments while we are all still scrambling to put together something that resembles a list.

Do you still doubt my claim that he was switched at birth? I am sure that the rest of the family will agree with me when I say this to the culprit who switched him to our cradle - We owe you big time man!

-Meena Sankaran

Are your children cherished?

2009-11-22T18:56:00.000-08:00

Clothes carelessly scattered over the floor of my children’ rooms are usually enough to get my blood pressure shooting up to lethal levels warranting a visit to the ER.

Every pair of smelly socks that I unearth from under a sofa is a cue to open curtains on the most explosive show of fireworks ever displayed. One that would shame even the best July 4th celebrations in the country.

The occasional ‘B’ among several ‘A’s on a child’s report card has been instrumental in me experiencing a few fairytale-like fainting spells giving me a chance to test the strength of the smelling salts that I once bought over eBay.

Feel free to pull up a chair because I can go on forever about all that my kids do or not do to push me to the brink of a cardiac arrest on any normal day.

I am a perfectionist. Not by desire or design. I simply am one. Or I was until yesterday.

A 15 year old child from our community took her last breath two days ago. Yesterday was her funeral.

She was a beautiful girl, so full of promises. She had sung like a dream. She had played tennis with the grace and ease afforded by youth. She had brought home her share of good grades and had laughed wildly with the abandon of a teenager. She would have sulked, rebelled and cried too. She could have been mine or yours. Today she is just a statistic. One more life snapped off before its time by the cruel claws of Leukemia.

What wouldn’t her parents do to see her clothes lying messily in her room today? What wouldn’t they give to see her walk through the front door one more time with a report card? Where would they not go to retrieve her sweat drenched dirty socks?

With a heavy heart, I realize today that I have lost the desire to raise flawless children. I don’t want to see them grow up to be perfect angels. I want to see them grow up. It only took the death of a child to make me understand a simple truth - our children are precious gifts that we quite so often forget to cherish and enjoy.

I am going to have to control myself into not giving big hugs when my children next come home with a few ‘less than perfect’ grades. After all, I don’t want to confuse them.

My heartfelt condolences to the family. May God give them the strength to survive this grief and find meaning in life.

-Meena Sankaran

PTCs are not for amateurs. Seriously!

2009-11-04T13:58:00.000-08:00

I got out of bed this morning feeling quite confident. I could do this. After all, I had prepared sufficiently for this day.

Mentally running through the checklist once again only proved that I was right.

New running shoes. Check. Water bottle. Check. Whistle on a long chain. Check. Paper bags for hyper ventilation. Check. Facility maps. Check. Schedule for the day. Check. Warm-up exercises. Done. Breathing exercises. Done. Squatting exercises to strengthen upper thigh muscles. Done.

My most recent trial run was 2 days ago and I clocked it just under 5 minutes. All in all, I felt up to the challenge.

“Mom, are you sure you can do this?” Hearing the hitch in my daughter’s voice, I held one of my spare paper bags in front of her face to help with her hyper ventilation. “Have a little faith, will you? Step aside and wish me luck. I will be fine.”

Armed with a well-stocked knapsack, I marched out to face the challenge of yet another parent teacher conference. Just to spice up my otherwise boring life, my morning was scheduled to start off at my freshman’s high school with no block system and end at my third grader’s elementary school.

If you have no knowledge of a block system, take a minute now to give thanks to the Almighty. Not knowing the difference between a 4 period and a 7 period day gives you away as the parent of an elementary child or a preschooler. Life may be predictable even a little boring for you at this stage but at least your heart is sure to be free of excessive palpitations. After all, how much excitement can you expect out of a 15 minute meeting with one teacher? And all those 15 minutes spent in only one room!

When I pulled in to the pathway leading to the high school, it was crowded alright. After cruising around the lot for about 20 minutes I finally crammed my van in a spot meant for bicycles (don’t try this unless you have a good third party auto insurance coverage) and strode in through the main entrance.

This was it. This was the moment that I had prepared for all these weeks. And I was ready. Lips pursed, shoulders squared, eyes slightly narrowed with focus, I whipped out the schedule that my kid had painstakingly hand-written for me even while I flipped open the school map with the other hand. A quick glance at the schedule showed me that my first meeting was with Mrs. R, the social studies teacher in room# 94 in exactly 6 minutes.

If you were a seasoned parent like me, you would know that on a parent teacher conference day, the dozens of long, winding hallways of a high school are more crowded than the busiest highways of an industrial town.

Estimating the time I was going to need to get around the many parents circling the hallways, I mapped the shortest route to the 90s hall mentally and started off on an easy rhythmic jog. 2 more minutes left to my destination, I faced my first major hurdle. Closing in on the intersection of the 60s and 70s hall just beyond the library, I noticed a group of parents huddling around a map looking confused and lost. Amateurs! They were clearly blocking my way. I had 2 options there. I could stop near the crowd and politely tell them to get the hell out of my way or, ta da, I could blow hard on the whistle hanging around my neck to startle the crowd into giving me way. Take a wild guess as to what I chose. It was certainly a stroke of genius to bring the whistle along for the day.

After making a quick stop outside room# 94 to gulp down from my water bottle, I stepped in to greet Mrs. R with one minute to spare. The conversation that followed went like this.

“Mrs. R, how are you?”

“Very well, thank you Mrs. S. Please take a seat.”

“Don’t mind if I do. How is A doing in class?”

“Oh, fine. She is a conscientious….oops, your time is up Mrs. S. Oh my, how time flies when you are having a riveting conversation! It has been a pleasure to meet with you Mrs. S. See you in nine weeks again.”

That was certainly a productive meeting. I couldn’t help but like Mrs. R. She was awfully nice. I left the room reassured that my daughter was in good hands.

I now had 5 minutes to get to the 500s hall to meet with Mrs. M, the Math teacher in room# 505. After that I had 5 minutes to come back to the 50s hall to meet with Mrs. B, the English teacher in room #56 followed by more such meaningful meetings with the Science, Band and PE teachers – all of whom were spread across the sprawling campus.

The $120.00 that I paid for my new Nike running shoes was well worth the money. I was going to get great mileage out of it in just one day.

By the time, I got out of my last meeting at the high school, I was soaked in sweat and just a little breathless. When I got into the van at last to drive to my last (thank god!) meeting of the day at the elementary school with my 3rd grader’s teacher, I made a mental note to add some Gatorade and vitamin tablets to the next parent teacher conference preparation checklist.

As the wise say, live and learn.

-Meena Sankaran

Could we get some help down here PLEASE?

2009-10-02T10:58:00.000-07:00

Today I am pondering about ways to meet God.

Before you trip over your keyboard looking to bolt out of this place, let me tell you quickly that this is not the beginning of a long philosophical discussion. In fact I have as much chance of saying something intelligent about philosophy as I have about Science. Shameful but true.

My husband once bought a book called ‘Self Unfoldment’ and urged me to use it to start my spiritual journey. I got lost within the first 100 yards of my journey and ended up tucking the book safe behind my dozen recipe books in the Kitchen. I showed it with pride to a friend the other day as the only book in my cabinet that has no finger smudges or rips or pencil marks.

I have a couple of questions that I want to ask God. How do I find Him first? If I stand on one leg and meditate, will he show himself to me? Considering the success that the sages from Indian mythology had with this method, it might be my best bet. In that case, I better make a quick stop at a local drugstore to pick up some Bengay first. You see, I get cramps in my legs if I stand too long on two legs. Imagine my problems if I stand on just one leg!

On the other hand, it might be smarter to simply text God. “OMG, SH.YS. HV FW QK QSTS 4 U” should do it. If you can’t read it as ‘Oh my God, show yourself as I have a few quick questions for you’, consider yourself a little behind current times, my friend.

Okay, okay…...before you go scratching the wall, here are my questions to the Almighty.

If the purpose of my existence on this Universe is to wash dirty dishes, do laundry, tie shoelaces and drive my kids around town:

1. What was the big idea giving me only one pair of hands?
2. Where is my superpower – the ability to beam in and out of places? (Now you see me, now you don’t)

At the risk of inviting a fierce black bolt of lightning to strike me, I will have to say this. Big flaw in your design, my Lord!

Your design specification list for a Mom should have started out with 3 pairs of hands to effectively multitask - the first pair on the shoulders {as in the existing design} to wash dishes, the second pair on the waist to fold and iron clothes and the third pair on the ankles to help tie shoe laces for kids. Considering the fact that we also cook, shop, network and volunteer to sell popcorn for the PTA, we could ideally use a couple more pairs of hands but hey, I will settle for 3 if you can manage it.

When we were watching Star Trek the other day and Jim and Spock pressed a button on their shoulders and said ‘Beam me out Scotty’, I almost jumped out of my skin with excitement. Here is the solution to one of my problems. Here is how I can avoid entailing my estate to the County. Here is how I can pick up both my kids at 5.00 pm sharp from their swimming and tennis lessons respectively from the opposite ends of town without accumulating a dozen speeding tickets in the process. In the next few days I risked alienating my children by pressing an imaginary button on my shoulder often and declaring ‘Beam me out God’. Guess you weren’t listening.

As a time-starved Mom who is forever on the verge of a breakdown trying to be at 2 places at the same time (thereby breaking all known traffic laws of the State), I probably speak for all moms when I say ‘I WANT THAT’.

If you are listening up there, could we get some help down here PLEASE? Hello…..?

-Meena Sankaran

A hairy solution

2009-09-21T19:16:00.000-07:00

I was waiting at a hair salon the other day when conversation broke around me. Two gentlemen began what was, at first, a friendly discussion on current political news. The conversation then gradually progressed to a heated debate on the pros and cons of Capital punishment. Oops, I thought. Here I go again caught in the middle of yet another conversation that was completely beyond the scope of my ‘world’.

Sandwiched between the two men, I did what I had practiced to do in such situations. I put on a face that dripped with intelligence and belied my ignorance on such issues. It is actually not that hard. You can try this too. Bring your eyebrows together very gently to create a slight furrow just above your nose. This tells an onlooker that you are deep in thoughts. Now tuck both lips inside your mouth to indicate that you are deliberately restraining yourself from jumping into the conversation and nod your head this way and that way every few minutes in agreement or disagreement. Hah, here is an absolute must that is sure to help you fit in. Be sure that you massage the back of your neck and rotate your shoulders often in a show to relieve some of the non-existent stress. People can’t help but admire such intelligent looks, such restraint and passive participation. If nothing, it sure beats sitting clueless among strangers with eyes rolled upwards in a prayer to be let out of a scene from what resembles a historical wartime drama.

As I was playing back the scene in my mind on the way back home, I suddenly realized that I had missed a golden opportunity to contribute positively to a discussion. For, I happen to have a solution to the controversial social debate on death penalty. I happen to know a ruthless form of punishment that could easily replace death penalty and have heartless criminals wet their beds in fear. I, an average housewife from the suburbs of Virginia, happen to know an alternative method of justice to the death penalty that will have murderers begging for the electric chair and the victims’ families applauding the simplicity of the solution. I am talking about some serious pain here. I am talking about a torture that is more heinous than any criminal act that warrants such a justice.

If you haven’t tuned in yet, I am talking about an inhuman act called waxing. I will bet you my right ear that any woman or girl who has ever waxed a leg at least once in her life will agree with me that there is no torture/punishment worse than that. (He he he, I am counting on the fact that my right ear is of no use to anyone…just in case the bet goes awry and I need to pay up).

You got a murderer or a rapist? Bring him on and sit him up on a chair. Stir up the hot wax and pour it on his legs, arms and back. Ignore the blood-curdling screams and spread the wax. Press a strip of muslin cloth on the wax and rip it off his skin. If this doesn’t qualify to top capital punishment, I don’t know what does. With every yank, watch the evil drain out of a man as the pain ripples through him. With every yank, discourage another one that is planning to step on the wrong side of the law. Why spend thousands of taxpayers’ money on implementing capital punishment when you can mete out something equally terrible for just over $10.00? If the Supreme Court embraces my suggestion and replaces death penalty with waxing, the Federal treasury is sure to heave a sigh of relief.

I have only one request to make of any man who thinks women are weak and powerless. Try getting your legs waxed just once before you call a woman weak. Please!

-Meena Sankaran

Are you constipated?

2009-09-17T10:39:00.000-07:00

After years of denial, I woke up one day not too long ago and reluctantly admitted to myself that I was constipated.

Wow….hold your horses! Tear off that prescription for laxatives, my friends. My intestines are in perfect harmony, thank you very much. I am talking about emotional constipation, a rarely talked about illness in people that when left untreated can cause irreparable damage.

If you are unsure about what I am talking about, here is how you can recognize the symptoms. You are emotionally constipated if:

Hugs and kisses come as natural to you as they did to Adolf Hitler.
You consider breaking down and crying in front of someone to be the worst cardinal sin ever.
Admitting an error on your part costs so much more to you than a gram of gold (which is saying a lot considering the gold price in today’s market).
After yelling at your kids for something you know to be totally trivial and facing the aftermath of sobs, pouts and accusing glances, you still find yourself unable to give a hug and soothe away the hurt.
When your husband comes home brimming with excitement about a new promotion at work, all you can say is ‘nice’ and pat him once on the hand in an awkward show of appreciation before turning back to the stove to continue stirring the pot of water.
Even when your heart is filled with love for …………… (fill up this space), the phrase ‘I love you’ gets stuck somewhere to the south of your throat and refuses to be spit out.

If you recognize any of the symptoms above, do not despair. All is not lost yet. When I first diagnosed myself to being afflicted with this illness, it stole my breath away. Me? Emotionally constipated? Afraid to be emotionally expressive? How could that be? How could one who prided herself to be friendly be such a coward? After a lot of soul-searching, I figured out something very curious. The closer I feel to a person, the more constipated I become. Go figure! Anyway, the good news is 'emotional constipation' is fully curable though it takes a bit of ingenuity in shuffling around your genes that dictate your behavior and relearn certain reflexive responses.

For example, if you think you may be afflicted with the same illness, the next time your child comes up to you and declares “Guess what mom/dad! I got an ‘A’ in my Vocabulary quiz today” and looks expectantly at you, resist the urge to give a stoic pat on the head accompanied by ‘good good’ before walking away to attend to the million mundane chores that always seem to await you. Difficult as it may be, stretch your lips wide in a smile, give a squishy hug and say ‘I am proud of you’. And watch utter joy wash over the little face like you have never seen before. That is just one example of 'relearning a reflexive response'.

If you are trying to quit before you even started telling yourself 'I can't change my ways. It is too hard', know that there is another soul on the planet who is trying to do the same and slowly getting the hang of it. Bad habits are there just begging to be broken. As one who is genuinely attempting to recover from this illness, take my advice and practice these phrases at home every day.

I love you.

I miss you.

I am proud of you.

I am afraid of ............

They will come in handy and go a long way to help speed up your recovery. Hope you feel better soon.

Oops

2009-09-11T05:56:00.000-07:00

If I had a nickel for every time someone said 'Oops' in my family, I could have easily joined Bill Gates on the list for the top 10 wealthiest people in America by now.

'Oops' now heads the list of commonly used words and phrases in our day to day life such as 'No', 'OMG', 'I am hungry', 'Can I have a snack?', 'Do I have to?', 'Are we there yet?' and 'Stop bugging me'. The reason is very simple. We believe in cutting to the chase and 'Oops' allows us to do just that.

To my question ‘Why didn’t you switch off the stove 5 minutes after I left like I told you to?’, instead of a long winded explanation like ’Are you sure you told me mom? Coz I didn’t hear you at all. May be I had the MP3 on. Next time make sure I don’t have my earplugs on before you leave me with a responsibility like this. Gosh mom, all you have to do is tap me on the shoulder before talking to me. That would have saved you the saucepan’, my eldest daughter now simply says 'Oops'. What brevity in expression! Smart girl!

Before the advent of the word 'Oops', English language was elaborate, descriptive and tiresome. It took an eternity to say anything. For example, BO(before oops) if you had wandered into your dining room at 7.00 am one Saturday morning with eyes still half closed, dressed in your worn out pajamas, scratching your legs and the drool not yet dried around your mouth, only to discover all your neighbors sitting around your kitchen table staring at you because you forgot that it was your turn to host the monthly neighborhood watch meeting, you would have had to say something along the lines of "Hi...............what are you...I..........I just.........I didn't...I mean........." and run out screaming. But now voila, simply say 'Oops' and walk away for that says it all. For such a seemingly small and simple word, it sure packs a lot of meaning.

It is a shame that Shakespeare, Milton, Keats and Shelley were deprived of this miracle word during their time. How the history of literature would have changed! If I tried a bit, I could almost hear the wistful sighs floating from their graves. Let us take a look at Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet.

Act I

Romeo has come disguised with a mask to a party at the House of Capulets, the sworn enemy of his family, the Montagues. Juliet sees him and wants to know his identity and sends her Nurse to find out some information about him. When the Nurse comes back, the conversation goes like this:

Nurse
His name is Romeo, and a Montague;
The only son of your great enemy.

JULIET
My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
That I must love a loathed enemy.

Come on! All the girl had to do was say 'Oops' and move on. Why all the big words that no one can understand? Shakespeare could have saved himself barrels of ink and lots of wear on the feather. Poor guy!

Coming back from the 16^th century, let me tell you why I think ‘Oops’ is an indispensable word for our family. Our vocal chords have been resting easy ever since we stumbled upon this tiny miracle. Reading below, you will see the wisdom of speaking less and saying a lot.

Me: Did you remember to wear your eyeglasses at school?

Daughter: Oops

Me: Did you mail the tax payment to the IRS?

Husband: Oops

Daughter: Where is the binder for my Math class? Did you forget to buy it at Wal-Mart this morning?

Me: Oops

Husband: How long are you going to be blogging? Is lunch ready?

Me: Oops

Hold on, folks! I am getting a call on my cell phone. Will be back to blog in a second………………………

‘Hi sweetie. What? Are you waiting for me to pick you up at school? Oops.’

Run run run run run………………………….

In the company of greatness

2009-08-19T18:42:00.000-07:00

It is August. You know what that means, don’t you? It is the time when parents of school age kids across the US, in frenzy, plot their first criminal offense of robbing a bank. How else can they stay afloat after buying the foot long supplies’ lists from their kids’ schools? I sympathized with every one of those moms and dads as I walked the aisles of Staples and Office Depot armed with my kids’ back-to-school supplies lists and a cart that looked like a grasshopper colony went overboard with its pre-winter ritual of stocking up food.

In addition to the familiar items on my yearly list of 10 large glue sticks, 6 pack index cards, 6 composition books, 2 pack loose-leaf college-ruled paper(not wide-ruled, mind you), folders with 2 pockets on the sides, 3 2” binders and a dozen #2 HB pencils, I had a new challenge this year.

My high school freshman’s list had a calculator. Not any drugstore calculator. A scientific calculator. The TI-84 Plus Silver Edition. My daughter uttered the name with such reverence that I, in turn, marched to the store and whispered it ever so softly to the store clerk who pleaded stomach flu and ran inside the doors that read ‘FOR EMPLOYEES ONLY’. Realizing that he wasn’t coming out anytime soon, I managed to locate it myself in an aisle filled with even more fantastic gadgets. This calculator, according to the flyer in the aisle, is the next best thing to sharing Albert Einstein’s gene pool as it could handle Trigonometry, Pre-calculus, Geometry, graphing and something else (the name of which eludes me now) that rhymes with suitability. I hope my daughter realizes how lucky she is. She can breeze through her high school years with absolutely no risk of a receding hairline.

Isn’t it just my luck that I had to be born in a decade when such technological advantages were unheard of in schools? While I sat cross-eyed with the strain of squeezing my poor little brain to manually calculate the sin of an angle of 72 degrees two decades ago, the kids in school today can simply punch up a function in this calculator and spit out the answer 0.9510565163 in under a second. Where is fairness, I ask you.

When I finished reading the box I was in awe. The TI-84 Plus sounded smart enough to sit for the SAT exams all by itself and ace them with a 5.0 GPA. Don’t quote me on this, but I think NASA used this palm-sized miracle to calculate Apollo 13’s return to a free return trajectory after the unfortunate accident in space all those years ago.

As I stood there in the aisle holding this calculator in my hand, it struck me. I was in the company of greatness. I held in my hand the century’s most phenomenal invention - a tiny box that held within itself the answers to all the science and math problems that had baffled the toughest minds of my time.

Placing the calculator in the shopping cart with a gentleness usually shown only by a first time dad holding his newborn baby, I joined the long row of parents at the cash counter.

Can the brain drain with an overdose of mega serials?

2009-06-23T01:22:00.000-07:00

It has been over a week since I touched down in singara Chennai. Several things have changed in this city since my last visit here. One can get pretty much everything here for the right price. But the most outstanding change of all is the effect of the television ‘mega serials’ on our society.

Mega serials have revolutionized the social behavior of our society. It is truly an amazing phenomenon. Staying glued to those intensely melodramatic serials with a total disinterest and disregard to the world around it defines the society of today. Take any household in Chennai. Between 6 and 10 pm, you can’t pry anyone from the TV screen with a 2 feet crowbar if your life depended on it. If the Great God Ganapathy ever chooses to make an appearance before a devotee to grant a boon, I hope he can squeeze in sometime between the ‘Kolangal’ and ‘Enge brahmanan’ to do it or else he would be in for a rude shock.

Take, for example, the other day when I called up my aunt around 7.00 pm to chitchat. It wasn’t a conversation but a monologue. I talked while she watched TV barely hearing a word that I said. I could have announced that a volcano just erupted around the block leading to the entire neighborhood evacuating and she would have mindlessly said “yes yes good Meena”. After a long monologue, I got tired of hearing my own voice and hung up. I also heard a true story where someone left a restaurant and his family in it without quite finishing his dinner in a hurry to catch up with ‘Abhi’ in Kolangal who was returning on that day’s episode from abroad.

Watching the world fall madly in love with those serials, I decided to look for myself what the allure was. It was mind-boggling. If there was a clearly defined plot in any of them, I couldn’t find it. Most are family dramas highlighting predominantly dysfunctional families. Abortions, murder conspiracies, jealous lovers/husbands, adopted kids seeking their birth parents, damsels in distress waiting for their knights in shining armor are the distant mirages of plot in these Indian soap operas. That is not all. The same actors are cast across all the serials making it impossible to remember their many different character names and their roles in the various dramas. The actors are often overly made up with very little talent for acting and would do better with a modeling contract to showcase the recent fashions in clothing and jewelry than an acting one. Yet millions of people stay tuned day after day to follow the lives of these characters in hope of experiencing a few vicarious thrills through their lives. What is this magnetism? What draws our society to this brain-damaging mediocrity of an entertainment is the curious answer-defying question of this era.

Despite all this, there is one unshakable truth. No single thing in this world holds as much power over its inhabitants or brings them together as a unified identifiable group as this ‘mega serial’ phenomenon. Go figure!

-Meena Sankaran

Knock Knock. Who is there?

2009-06-11T06:45:00.000-07:00

Usually people have different reasons to buy houses in a certain neighborhood. While choosing a new home, some look for a safe neighborhood, some look to see if the home has easy access to schools, shops etc., some insist on a cul-de-sac so the kids can bike without the worries of traffic.

Me? I had a unique list of priorities while choosing mine. Topping my list was a critical one. I was looking for neighbors who wouldn’t call the cops when they find me knocking on their door at 6.00 in the morning to borrow some sugar for coffee. Or when I go to borrow some cilantro for a pot of lentil soup, 2 AA batteries for a new toy, a needle and a thread to sew a button on my kid’s band shirt, a glue stick for a school project or 1 egg for a cake recipe that calls for it. With gas prices soaring, you don’t really expect me to get in the car and head to the store every time I need a little thing, do you?

When it finally dawned on me that my utility closet, kitchen pantry and refrigerator will never sag under the weight of being fully stocked I figured my next best bet was to have neighbors to whom overstocking was a religion. Somewhere in the Bhagavat Gita, there must be a line that reads ‘Treat thy neighbor’s supplies, food or otherwise, as your own’ or else I am toast. You can hardly blame me for this attitude because I grew up watching the best borrow/buy/sell/ trade transactions ever conducted over a wire fence in our backyard. My mom and our backdoor neighbor served as each other’s ‘7 Eleven’ store when I was growing up. Ran out of flour to make rotis? No problem. Shout over the fence and thou shall get it and vice versa. I learnt it early in my life that if you can’t count on your neighbor for a pinch of salt and a cup of yogurt every now and then, you can’t count on anything in life. Embarking on a journey to buy a home, it made solid sense to first look for good ‘stocked up’ neighbors.

With this plan etched in my mind, I set out to look for properties with my realtor. The neighbors were scrutinized more thoroughly than any house shown by the realtor and points were mentally awarded for friendliness, accessibility, a second fridge in the garage (anyone with a second fridge would definitely be big on stocking from Costco or Sam’s Club) etc. Many potentially good houses were turned down for lack of qualified neighbors. When I was ready to throw in the towel and accept that I was not going to get lucky like my mom, fate smiled on me and showed me a neighbor who raked in a perfect score of 100% on all my tests. Don’t quote me on this but I have a feeling that my neighbor was born with a smile on her face and her guarding angel put a spell to freeze it there. She is ever so friendly and best of all, she believes in buying 2 of everything when she shops. Lucky for me, huh?

I go to bed every night thanking my lucky stars for this neighbor who makes it easy for me to carry on a family tradition. My mom would be proud of me.

-Meena Sankaran

What is India?

2009-06-07T16:07:00.000-07:00

If you are looking for the regular dose of humor to lighten your day, I am very sorry to disappoint you. There isn’t an ounce of wit in this post. This article is a result of some deep thinking, folks. Come now, you don’t have to look so stunned. I can think deep thoughts, if only occasionally. Read on to travel through the deep recesses of my mind that would afford you a glance at all those deep thoughts. :-) (Ha ha ha…) That is as much humor as I can muster up today. Now on to the post.

Learning of our upcoming trip to India this summer, my husband’s colleague, an American, requested if we could bring back some ‘curry’ for her. I was completely intrigued by this request. What is ‘curry’? What it represents for her may not be the same for me. In fact I am sure of it. Made me wonder about what ‘India’ represents to the world on the other side of the picket fence. After all that deep thinking, this is what I figured.

To many, like my husband’s friend, India is synonymous to a rich and aromatic blend of spices that tease the senses to explore beyond the realm of imagination.

To some, India is beautiful tanned women clad in yards of silk and dresses fashioned on mind-blowing color palettes and materials.

To some, India is hand-woven Kashmir rugs that can be bought at high-end retail stores for an arm and a leg.

To some, India is over-achieving children and their ever-worried parents crowding their neighborhood schools, Kumon centers and spelling bees.

To some, India is sandal incense sticks and small wooden elephants found at the World Market.

To some, India is the unruly person that buys a fan in May at Wal-Mart, uses it through the summer and returns it to the store in August without batting an eyelid for a full refund.

To some, India is heavily accented and overly polite customer-service people answering tech-support calls in call centers from the remote towns and villages of India.

To some, India is elderly couples walking the streets of their town in traditional Indian clothing throughout the year pushing strollers or holding the tiny fingers of their grandchildren.

To some, India is the population that stole their jobs, the country that lit the firecracker leading to the unpardonable ‘outsourcing’ explosion that chopped off their paychecks.

To some more, India remains a distant dot on their planet that has no relevance in their everyday lives.

To me, India is home. With its power outages, ever-increasing traffic, no-end-in-sight corruption and bureaucracy to its fabulous colorful billboards, sensational shopping alleys, mouth-watering food and most important of all, the extended large family that I left behind, it is the home that is beckoning to me now.

I will be home next week. Yay, yay, yay......

The countdown has begun

2009-06-02T02:22:00.000-07:00

With less than 2 weeks to go, we have started the countdown to our India trip.

'X' marks the spot on the calendar every morning while we make a big production of counting the days left for our trip and ‘marking the calendar’ ritual is accompanied by joyous shouts and a quick nostalgic trip down memory lane to revisit some of the boisterous family reunions of our past trips.

Plans to hit the movie theaters and the best restaurants in Chennai are made to the loud approval of the children. My request to stop at ‘Saravana Bhavan’ on the way home from the airport is met with utter disbelief and is turned down to my disappointment. Oh well, so what if we are landing at 3.00 am?

Suggestions from us to make a pilgrimage to a few holy temples are unanimously voted down and discarded by the children.

Bath and Body Works’ semi-annual sale in June is duly noted and the store is agreed to as the best place to buy gifts for the trillion family members back home. Costco’s inventory, we all acknowledged, is about to take a big dent when our family finishes carting the oats, Splenda, chocolates, cereal, Ziploc bags, almonds and whatnot from the Store to our suitcases. Wal-Mart won the vote as the suitable store to buy Pam spray, Bounty paper towels and Scotch-Brite.

Promises are made, yet again, to not fill up suitcases till they rip on the way to the airport. The 3 page shopping list (not my idea, folks) makes it clear that some promises are made just to be broken.

Reminders are made to all family members to dig up all the wrinkled formal clothes in the closet and pack them to avail the services of the ‘Dhobi wala’ in India. Thank you God!

Daydreaming of eating sumptuous wedding type meals on a plantain leaf is accepted as a normal precursor to the upcoming trip. Having already secured two invitations to attend a wedding and an upanayanam during our stay in Chennai, we acknowledge with satisfied smiles, that these dreams are about to come true soon.

Kids’ concerns about the heat, cockroaches, mosquitoes and lizards are patiently addressed and soothing ‘all will be well’ statements repeatedly handed out.

In response to feedback (I prefer the term to ‘complaint’) about my incessant ‘all-consuming’ urge to blog, I acknowledge, with a sinking heart, the need to ease back a little. At least enough to finish packing in time to board the flight.

Sweet Chennai, here we come!

Men are from Mars

2009-05-28T06:18:00.000-07:00

It is written in to our genes, I am sure of it. Worrying from dawn to dusk about our children must be an obsessive compulsive behavior that is pre-determined in mothers by genetic factors. How else can I explain biting my cuticles off when my child got on the bike without training wheels for the first time and wobbled her way around the cul-de-sac while my husband stood on the curb cheering for her?

I cannot speak for others but worrying is almost a hobby for me. Some folks knit, read, putter around the garden, write blogs or cook for fun. I worry. If the President ever gives me an executive order to stop worrying for one day, I would be completely lost. What, in all that is holy, am I supposed to do with myself if I can’t worry?

I worry if my kid will miss the school bus when she wakes up 5 minutes later than usual; I worry if she brushes her teeth for 2 minutes like the dentist says; I worry if she gets enough protein when she chooses to not have eggs for breakfast; I worry if she will lose weight when she refuses cookies and sits down with a glass of juice after school; I worry if she will gain weight when she indulges in a candy still left over from last year’s Halloween; I worry if she has trouble making friends when she opts to stay by my side at a party; I worry if she has studied enough for the test next day when she goes to bed at 9.00 pm; I worry if she will get dark circles under her eyes when she stays up to finish a project one night. It is simply exhausting to worry so much.

My husband, on the other hand, is a fatalist and believes that the French “Que sera sera” is the right motto for child rearing. “The child will do what she is supposed to do and what she does do will shape who she will become” and “Let the children make their own mistakes and learn from them” are his favorite responses to my heart-wrenching laments of worry. “Stop worrying” he says as if it is a valve I can shut off at any time. Have you ever heard of anything more illogical? No wonder they say “Men are from Mars.”

My mind quits on me

2009-05-24T08:02:00.000-07:00

More often than not, my mind feels like a cleanly wiped counter top; a true blank page if there ever is one. I am afraid the day is not very far when one of my children (I do have some, don’t I???) is going to initiate a conversation that is going to go like this:

"Mom, did you see my homework?"

“What homework?”

“The Science homework. I showed it to you in the car on the way to my swimming lesson yesterday.”

“Who is taking swimming lessons?”

“Both of us. Remember, you and Dad take turns driving us there every week?”

“Dad who?”

“Your husband” snaps my daughter.

“Oh really...When did that happen?”

“When you said ‘I do’ 15 years ago. Now coming back to the point, do you know where my homework is?” She sighs with impatience.

“What homework?”

The way my mind quits on me makes me wonder if I have an early onset of Alzheimer disease. If it is, I think it is a big rip-off considering I am only in my thirties. Don’t ask me if it is early or late 30s, my mind is a little foggy on that detail. What annoys me most about the way my mind kicks back and goes to sleep is:

1. It happens a lot and

2. It happens at the most awkward times.

Take, for example, the other day when we were mingling at a social gathering. There I was, walking around with a glass of punch and a goofy grin on my face. No one would have guessed the turmoil I was in. The names of half the people at the place escaped me. And all of them seemed to remember mine. That is not all. Folks were embracing me with such familiarity that you would think that we meet every other day for a game of cards. Or do we? Oh well, I know better than to ponder on that one.

If the DMV ever found out the logic (or the lack thereof) behind my driving technique, my license is sure to be revoked. Anytime I get behind the wheels, I need a quarter. No, there is no toll road in my neighborhood and I do not use a coin laundry. Every time I leave home and turn the corner to arrive at the ‘STOP’ sign, my mind quits on me. Do I turn left or right? What is the destination? If my kids are in the car with me, they shout out the destination but if I am driving solo, I use the coin. Before the advent of the coin usage, I used to sit there at the ‘STOP’ sign with my brow creased in intense concentration in an effort to determine which way I should go before folding under the pressure of honking cars from behind and turn to drive around on auto pilot mode. These days, I flip the coin. Heads, I go right and Tails, I go left.

Quarter – I don’t leave home without it.

I was out the day they taught 'Organization' at School

2009-05-20T18:46:00.000-07:00

My kid asked me the other day “Mom, Sara’s mom says that being organized is a trait that passes through generations genetically. Are you organized?” Fortunately, I didn’t have to think long on that question. Quoting Grandma and myself as exemplary examples, I assured her that these things are known to miss a couple of generations.

If you are one of those people that get their jollies by making lists and checking them off going through life packing for a trip down to the neighbor’s house or shopping for spring plants, school supplies, groceries, underwear and all else under the sky, do me a favor, will you?. Can you clear your calendar for an hour sometime this week and give me some pointers? Actually, if I were a computer program, you will have to rewrite the code from scratch.

Organized people are a puzzle that I have yet to solve.

Have you ever noticed how they all have a notepad and a pencil on the refrigerator within easy reach in case the mood to make lists strikes them? “Honey, we are running low on breakfast items. Can you start a list for Wal-Mart?” or “It is time for our annual camping trip. You know what that means? Let’s start making lists for camping supplies, emergency phone numbers, all Chevron gas stations with clean restrooms on our way and a separate one for travel games that we will need.” In my house, we run to the store when we dump the cereal box over a bowl of milk and can’t shake loose any crumbs.

Another trait found common amongst all ‘Organized’ folks is their ability to pull vital information like birthdays and anniversaries right out of their mental rolodex in a moment’s notice. These are the same people that can take one look at a person that they had met as a child and remember the day she lost her first tooth and enquire on a neighbor of hers who was 7 months pregnant at that time. I once forgot my husband’s birthday and still haven’t heard the end of it.

You might think “Oh, this Meena, she always exaggerates. She is not that disorganized. Take her family room. It is always tidy enough to seat a dozen people.” I will let you in on a secret. When our realtor wanted our requirements to shortlist properties to show us, I was emphatic about having a bedroom in the first floor. I let everyone assume that this room is for the visiting parents or in-laws but the truth is when company knocks on the front door, I need a place to dump the many clothes, socks, toys, remote controls, books and crayons lying around the place.

I was very surprised the other day to open the refrigerator only to find empty shelves staring at me. Now why didn’t I notice that before? Hmmm…… I decided to give the list making idea a shot and reached for the notepad on the fridge. Oops…..just remembered that there has not been a notepad on that refrigerator ever since the day we moved into the house. Oh well, you can’t blame me. At least I tried.

An extraordinary creation of God

2009-05-18T18:24:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you a little bit about an extraordinary creation of God that lives with us. Her name is Angel and if you haven’t guessed already (you are more tired than you think so go to bed and read this later:-)), she is our dog. If you are sitting there thinking ‘Uh, oh…Poor Meena’s well has started to dry up already. Under 2 weeks of blogging, she is looking at the rear end of a dog for ideas for an article’, perish that thought.

Angel is no ordinary dog. She possesses amazing qualities that are so often missing in human beings like compassion, loyalty, patience and wisdom. Yet she manages to stay a sweet, eager and innocent child.

Those who have never had the pleasure of adopting a dog in their lives might claim that all dogs are more or less the same. Believe me when I say that nothing is farther from the truth.

Angel has a most riveting personality and those who have spent some time with her would completely agree with me.

She has unique psychic powers that control our motor skills. When we are munching on something she really really wants, it simply falls numbly from our fingers to her waiting jaws.

She needs as much attention as any child and shows all signs of sibling jealousy if we play with our kids and leave her out.

She has a basket full of toys and insists on greeting all visitors to the house with her latest toy in her mouth and, not to say, her tail wagging furiously.

She has excellent taste and even better standards. She sleeps on nothing but leather sofas and chairs during summer months (the 2 dog beds we bought are totally beneath her, we have realized) and wouldn’t get on the leather furniture during the cold, winter months if you paid her unless we put a soft, comfy blanket on it.

She prefers to eat her 2 meals of the day at the exact same time every day but would graciously tolerate us feeding her pieces of bread, biscuits, bananas, cantaloupes, mangoes, carrots and more anytime in between.

She is afraid of a small vacuum cleaner but wouldn’t think twice about getting in front of us to take on an intruder 10 times her size.

She defends our backyard ferociously with all she has got from the many bunnies and squirrels that have the temerity to encroach on our land.

Despite our many failed attempts to make her understand that she is not a guard dog, she insists on barking away any mailmen, lawnmowers (or is it lawnmowerer ??), Utility company representatives, and painters that are unfortunate enough to have business in our neighborhood. She simply refuses to accept that we own only one house in the street and the neighbors are within their legal limits to come and go as they wish.

At the risk of sounding cliched, living with a dog is not always a bed of rose petals. Angel prevents us from taking long vacations. She doesn’t move a muscle to help around with the chores in the house and instead we wait hand and foot on her. She sheds a lot and snores quite loudly even as I write this post. I wouldn’t trade her for all the gold in the world.

Angel, it is a privilege to live with you.

-Meena Sankaran

Torture or Parenting?

2009-05-17T13:32:00.000-07:00

Since the Obama administration took a public stand against the ‘brutal’ torture techniques secretly authorized by the former Bush administration officials to interrogate terrorists, my husband has been threatening to write to President Barack Obama about what he (and the kids agree wholeheartedly) deems as my torture of our kids.

If reminding your children that not brushing their teeth after eating their favorite dessert would result in gingivitis and more importantly, mom spending a fortune to fill a dozen cavities is considered torture, so be it. I admit that I could have waited until they actually finished eating the dessert to remind about this.

If pointing out that taking a brush to the hair is not a punishable offense in this country and that without constant combing, birds and squirrels would consider the tangled hair a wonderful place to build a nest is considered torture, so be it. I still don’t understand what was so wrong about saying it in front of company.

If driving your children week after week to Kumon Math Center to help them become the future Einsteins of the world is considered torture, so be it. I don’t consider offering to fetch extra Kumon sheets for the week anytime they have the audacity to stand up to me a threat. Do you?

If insisting that they clean up their rooms enough for me to see the floor before I take them out to a movie is considered torture, so be it. The fact that taking them out to a movie was promised as a reward for a past good behavior has got nothing to do with it.

If wanting to do a criminal background check on all members of a family before sending my kids to a new friend’s house for a play date or a sleepover is considered torture, so be it. Believe me, it is no walk in the park for me to grill their friends for information on the number of members in their household , their ages, their social security #s(how else am I going to run a background check?), their general whereabouts during the day, pets in the house etc., etc., etc.

If taking the responsibility to enlighten my kids on the value of money by giving them regular talks about how I had to walk 3 miles every day to take a bus to college and save up my allowance for six months to buy a new pair of sandals is considered torture, so be it. Contrary to their beliefs, I don’t intentionally choose the times they are relaxing to give these talks.

Go ahead and bring in the troops to take me away now, for I am guilty as sin.

-Meena Sankaran

My 15 minutes under the spotlight

2009-05-15T12:24:00.000-07:00

You might not believe it looking at me. I am an adventurous sort.

As a child, I dreamt about flying a plane, skiing down snow-covered mountain slopes, running for the gold medal in the Olympic track event and doing all the glorious things that people on TV did. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were second only to action star Rajinikanth on my tall Pedestal. I promised myself if I ever got out of the clutches of my concerned, over-protective parents (that was the old stinking me, mom and dad), I would go and have myself a life of adventure.

The most adventure I allow myself to have these days is carting 20 bags of groceries in to the house in under 3 trips from the car. Playing referee to my kids, forcing them to their corners before any blood is spilled gives me all the adrenaline-pumping action I can handle.

Still, every now and then, I would think back on the dreams that I once had. Smart that I am, I have stumbled on to a secret; the perfect way to enjoy edge-of-the-seat, nail-biting, sweat-pouring adventures without getting rushed to the ER. Meet, my friends, the most fervent collector of Cop dramas on TV, the proud owner of all seasons of NYPD Blue available out in the market.

When an urge for adventure strikes, I put my feet up and enjoy an hour of action-packed episode.

An anonymous tip to the Precinct about a 30 year old homicide gets the cops in to swift action. Vigorous canvassing of the neighborhood leads to the arrest of a reputable businessman with strong ties to the community. Will the Judge remand him to the custody of the State without bail? How is the Prosecutor going to prove a 3 decade old crime without solid physical evidence? Will the defense attorney crucify the state’s only eye-witness who is plagued by schizophrenic tendencies?

Whew….if I can’t get my heart rate to slow down, will someone please dial 911?

AND, (imaginary fanfare) here is the highlight of this post. Hold on to your seats, folks.

I knew all those hours of watching Andy Sipowitz and Bobby Simone kick ass, pardon my expression, won’t be for nothing. On a seemingly ordinary day, when I was on a routine errand to the grocery store, fate finally decided to indulge my wish. Parking the car, my sharply honed cop-like instinct sensed trouble. Sliding back slowly in my seat to avoid being detected, I noticed a tall, big guy hassling a man half his size. Sensing the opportunity, I decided to see the ‘crime scene’ through the eyes of a ‘witness’ in case the prosecutor summons me to take the stand ever. I noticed that he was wearing a light blue jeans frayed at the edges and a blue polo shirt with white stripes. I noticed that his eyes were edgy and glazed over leading me to suspect that maybe he was under the influence. I mentally filed this information away to be presented to the cops later. The alleged ‘victim’ managed to escape into the store and was followed closely by the ‘suspect’. I got out of the car, grabbed myself a shopping cart and under the pretext of shopping, followed those two at a safe distance. I slowly pulled out my cell phone and had it ready in case the situation demanded that I call for help. I pushed a little closer to the ‘suspect’ just to see him put his hand in his pocket. To reach for a gun? I could hear my heart beat loud and clear in that noisy store. I watched the ‘victim’ call for help from his cell phone and heard the faint sirens of cop cars approaching in the distance. To my total dismay, the ‘suspect’ slipped out of the store just in time to escape the attention of the cops who rolled in.

Watching the cops take the ‘victim’ outside the store to question, I hurriedly finished my shopping and stepped out. Squaring my shoulders, I prepared to wait for the cops to start canvassing those at the store for details. Boy, are they going to be surprised by all the details I noticed about the scene! This is one case where the ‘suspect’ will be handed over in a silver platter to them. May be, they will even invite me to be a guest speaker at the next ‘How to be an ideal witness’ convention, who knows? Shaking out of my pleasant dreams, I saw, in confusion, the cops wrapping up their conversation with the ‘victim’, get back in their cars and roll out. What? What happened? What about ‘blue jeans with frayed edges’ details? What about testifying on the stands? What about staring down and terrifying the defense attorney?

Oh well, I guess that wraps up my 15 minutes under the spotlight. Remembering that I had yet to start dinner and attend to a pile of laundry waiting to be washed, I loaded up my van with the groceries and pulled out myself.

-Meena Sankaran

My world is ‘large’ to me

2009-05-14T07:32:00.000-07:00

A friend asked me recently, while waiting in line at the grocery store, about my take on the leading political story on the News that day. The store clerk, bless her timing, beckoned me to a new line precisely at that time and saved me a lot of embarrassment. I mumbled something incoherent to my friend like ‘Catch you in Mars’ and fled the place.

If you were my neighbor and your dog ate your newspaper today and you wanted a quick update on the top current events around the world, I would advise you to not pull up a chair at my home. It will take me all of 10 seconds to update you.

Not that all is well with the world and there is nothing newsworthy to report. I am sure our world has its share of heated political debates, elections, nosy neighboring countries, civil upheavals, dashing winners of nail-biting reality shows, sports events, so on and so forth. It is just that I don’t follow them. I do not subscribe to a newspaper, do not have cable to watch TV (by choice, my friends, so put the brakes on your Samaritan instinct to mail me a donation check) and can think of several interesting things to do on the internet besides checking on the News.

My apathy for the world around me is a constant puzzlement for my husband. You can’t really blame the guy because CNN is the default page on all of his browsers. He likes to know things as they happen. He is nosy that way. My routine of tending my kids, my dog, my family, my friends, my hobbies and my work with a total lack of interest for the ‘larger’ world around me baffles him.

The concept of a ‘larger’ world is highly subjective if you ask me. Packing lunch bags and getting my kids out the door before an ungodly 8.00 am with promises to go shopping that evening for the 2 new pocket folders for the Math class, 6 glue pens and a white shirt for the band recital next day is my world. Buying a soft fleece blanket to cover the leather chair so that my dog can curl up and sleep without feeling cold is my world. Playing hangman with my little one and letting her win just to see the proud smile on her face is my world. Taking my daughter to the Orthodontist to pay a fortune so she can smile pretty at the world is my world. Finding the time somewhere in between to indulge my hobbies to sing and write and talk to my friends is my world. And I haven’t mentioned the few hours in a week that I actually work for gain yet.

Now, you tell me, what would I need the 'larger' world of football games, United Nations conventions and American Idols for?

-Meena Sankaran

Isn't it illegal?

2009-05-13T06:39:00.000-07:00

I have always admired and, if I am honest, envied the impeccably dressed folks walking out with their kids to wait for the School bus at 7.00am. These are the mothers and fathers who look like they have just come out of a UN Council Meeting. The mothers are fully suited up sporting 3 inch high stiletto heels, smiling out of a face that could be the next one modeling the latest line of cosmetics for Estee Lauder. The fathers, as I observe through my front window dressed in a pair of pajamas that are not fit to be seen taking the garbage out, are clean-shaven, freshly showered with water droplets still glistening on the hair neatly brushed back and have on the latest career suits from Gucci or Ralph Lauren.

It is indecent for anyone to look that good at 7.00 am. If it is not already illegal, I say we petition the local Congressman to write new laws. No one can blame me or my family for the same offense. We are the folks that give new meaning to the word ‘disheveled’. You can’t catch us wearing anything but mismatched clothes, socks and shoes at any time of the day. No sirree Bob. It would take nothing short of a miracle to get us to dress up like our neighbors at the bus stop even to attend an event where the President would be presenting us with an award for the ‘Sloppiest dressed couple in the States’ at a ceremony held at the White House lawn televised by all the leading TV networks.

I have tried to get my kids to watch others and learn the secret to putting together an ensemble that doesn’t scream ‘I am sick and I gotta stay in bed’, but they are bent on upholding the family tradition. My daughter is in middle school and owns one blue pair of sandals. Be it a wedding, piano recital or a graduation party, she wears these sandals with the pride and affection of a mother watching her child perform solo at a school play. My offer to buy her another pair was taken as an insult. To my sensitive efforts of picking the right time to gently suggest that it may be time to let go of the old, battered sandals and give them a decent burial, she gave me a look that was dirtier than her worn-out sandals. Recognizing the futility of getting her to wear dress shoes when we go out to a party, I have come up with another solution. I just tell the hosts that our dog ate her shoes.

-Meena Sankaran

Eat white rice at your own risk

2009-05-11T18:18:00.000-07:00

If Weight Loss were a war I am waging, White Rice would be the deadliest weapon of choice to bring me down.

You should know a few basic things about me to appreciate my frustration. I don’t lose any sleep over rich sinfully delicious chocolates. I despise Juicy, frosted cakes. I am not a compulsive snacker either. I am a vegetarian, eat plenty of fresh produce and walk past all things in a grocery store that is not labeled ‘fat free’. By this account, I should be skinny enough to get up on a catwalk and strut my stuff.

I blame the fact that I am not, solely on this white grain imported from Asia. To quote Lady Macbeth, “Who would have thought this little grain to have had so much evil in it?” It looks harmless enough. How bad could a cup of steamed rice be? Trust me when I say it is more dangerous than skydiving or bungee jumping or jaywalking on a busy San Francisco street at 10.00 in the morning.

Eating three tablespoons of white rice a day for 2 weeks will guarantee the following changes in your body and lifestyle:

1. Your cheeks will start to puff out and in the process pull both eyes inside their sockets.
2. Your long neck will be a thing of the past.
3. A crane will become a necessary accessory to lift you from any sitting position.
4. The skin around the wedding ring on your finger will swell like a balloon requiring the services of a doctor or a jeweler to relieve the pressure.
5. Bending and tying shoe laces will require the same intense concentration as maneuvering a submarine with nuclear warheads in enemy waters.
6. The sales clerk at the Department Store will offer congratulations on the impending birth of a non-existent baby and offer to model the newest fashions in Maternity clothing for you.

To top it all, the college kid hanging outside the Mall distributing flyers for $6.25 an hour will seek you out in the crowd and hand you the flyer about the next ‘Treating Obesity’ Clinic in the neighborhood.

You might say ‘What is the big deal? Kick the habit and switch to buns’. If you were a habitual rice-eater, you would know that it isn’t as easy as that. There is a larger conspiracy at play here. The attack on humankind’s health by this unlikely terror comes in various forms - steamed rice, steamed rice cakes called Idli, thin golden crisp crepes called Dosai, mouth watering delicacies like murukku (a dear friend today packed a bagful for me) and sweet coconut rice pot stickers called Kozhakkattai……………..

I know when I am beat. Nothing else for me to do except come out with my white hanky waving and surrender to a much superior enemy with my head held high.

-Meena Sankaran

Science for Dummies

2009-05-10T19:10:00.000-07:00

Today I was browsing the Web and came across a whole category of books called ‘For Dummies e-books’. If you have ever wished that you had learned how to scrapbook, tie your shoes the right way, bake cookies that at least your dog will eat, the secret to growing a tomato plant that actually grows tomatoes or the right technique to scrub a toilet, I guarantee that there is a ‘For Dummies’ book out there for you. I can’t tell you what a relief this is to me. I can crawl into bed tonight and rest easy knowing that help is just a keystroke away.

The book heading my very long list is the ‘Science for Dummies’. I am tempted to let you believe that I have this insatiable thirst for knowledge and that I am trying to keep ahead of the curve in Modern Science. If I were Pinocchio, my nose could now be used to measure the double windows in the living room for new curtains. There is no dignified way to say this. Call me ‘Dumb and dumber’ when it comes to Science. It is true. My husband would vouch for it.

For years now, he has been trying to get me excited about Science. Short of dressing up like a molecule and twirling around the room, he has done all he can to get me to share his enthusiasm for the subject. Discovery, Scientific American, and National Geographic magazines are on our mailbox menu week after week. We have annual family membership to all Science Museums within 50 miles of our home.

After an hour perusing one of the Science magazines last week, he sat me down for a crash course in a new theory in Quantum Physics that the magazine was sporting as the main story that week. ‘But first let’s see if you remember what we talked about last week. Go ahead and tell me what a black hole is again.” To which I promptly replied that something was burning on the stove and ran into the Kitchen. “Did you forget already? Alright then. Let me explain again.” He said and proceeded to talk about concentrated areas of mass, gravitational pull, Sir. C.V Raman and Nobel Prize. At the mention of a fellow country man’s success and fame, his chest puffed out with pride.

Satisfied with my repeated promises to remember this vital piece of information this time around, he then initiated a family discussion about Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and the social debate involving Science and Religion. I tried my best to look intelligent and think Science.

I have GOT to get myself that ‘Science for Dummies’ book soon. It is an emergency.

-Meena Sankaran

Mother's Day reflections

2009-05-09T19:07:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day.

In honor of this day, it is customary to write and reflect about a Mother’s love, her selfless sacrifices, and the countless little chores she does that almost always go unnoticed and unappreciated. This is the time to draw attention to the innumerable things that a Mother does without any expectation of remuneration.

I do not want to do that. Instead, I want to explore the idea of a perfect Mother through a child's eyes.

Every child deserves and wants:

A mother who can soothe a scratched knee without first yelling ‘Why didn’t you watch where you were going?’

A mother who understands that the child is a separate entity and that he/she doesn’t have to sign up for ballet or vocal lessons to make up for her unrealized childhood dreams.

A mother who understands that it is within the rights of a child to demand to use the Port-a-potty on the way to the grocery store, even though she reminded him/her to use the nice, clean potty at home before leaving for the store.

A mother who can say a little more than ‘Good job. Now why aren't you studying for the next test?’ when the child comes home brimming with excitement and declares that she got a 102% in the latest Math test.

A mother who limits her lectures to under 2 minutes at a time and resists the urge to step up to the pulpit and start preaching at every opportunity.

A mother who understands that a hug and a kiss on a Sunday night can quiet the Monday morning nerves much better than asking “What is there to be worried about? Monday comes and Monday goes.”

I hope I can be everything my kids need me to be, at least for tomorrow.

My mother, I am proud to say, has been so much more than that all her life. Without doubt, she is the best. If I have never said it before, here it goes. Mom, I love you very much.

Call me crazy and lock me up if I sign up to be a chaperone anytime this century

2009-05-08T15:21:00.000-07:00

Right off the bat, let me make something very clear. I love my children and there isn’t anything I won’t do for them. Just about anything.

I was a chaperone for a Second grade class field trip today. We traveled in this beautiful luxury Charter bus with several TVs, roomy overhead compartments for bags and a bathroom on board. It was truly a work of art. You couldn’t ask for a better ride, really. We were also blessed with a scenic route all the way through the hour and a half drive each way. I wouldn’t ride on another one if you printed money in your basement and loaded up my attic with it.

I was a mess when the bus finally pulled into the School grounds at the end of the trip. I barely resisted the urge to drop down on my knees and let out a vicious scream when I got off the bus. I wanted to embrace every teacher and chaperone who sat through the day fielding questions like ‘Mrs. S, can I go to the bathroom again?’, ‘Mrs. S, can we please, please go to the gift shop?’, ‘Mrs. S, boys think girls are hot, what do you think?’ ‘Mrs. S, are we there yet?’, ‘Mrs. S, …………...?’, ‘Mrs. S, ……………..?’ with gusto. One more ‘Mrs. S’ and I would have embarrassed myself and cried.

I sat and watched numbly as my daughter’s teacher smiled, patted a child’s back with gentle reassurance because he seemed to need it, quietly controlled raised voices and through the chaos acted like she was in the midst of nobility in a Royal Palace rather than amongst loud screaming 8 year olds.

There isn’t enough money in our Federal Treasury to convince me to sign up for the next trip. I would rather be gagged, bound and tied upside down over a nice, slow fire.

Which brings me to raise a very important question. Are our teachers getting paid their fair dues to spend 6 hours a day with our children, their loud voices and their curious minds? I sure hope so. If not, I may be easily persuaded to start lobbying for their cause.

My mother loves to quote

2009-05-07T06:29:00.000-07:00

To make a relevant point in a context, all of us have quoted an expert at some point in our lives. It is generally considered essential, not to say, fashionable to quote on a subject over which you want to claim autonomous authority. The more quotes you can pull out of your arsenal, the more scholarly you look.

Friends, I would like to introduce you to my Mom, the consummate scholar. My sisters and I were raised on quotes. A typical day in our childhood saw astounding quotes like these:

Eating a spoonful of squished neem leaves with yogurt every morning will cure all of your stomach ailments. If you don't believe me, check last week's 'Kalaimagal' (a homemaker's magazine).
On a hot sunny day like today, you should be sure to have a lot of yogurt to cool your body....our next door neighbor told me today so you see?
Massaging warm gingily oil on the scalp twice a week will promote hair growth....your Aunt from Alwarpet told me over the phone yesterday......you should listen to her.
Soaking your colors and whites separately for 15 minutes before washing is good for the clothes...I heard it from the man on the street corner ironing the clothes..

This is simply a sample of the million quotes she used every day to guide us in the right path of life. If it is not the weekly magazine, neighbor or a distant relative, she would have heard it from the daily TV newsperson, my uncle's maidservant, my aunt's sister-in-law or the dear old lady she met on the bus to the temple. Her ability to quote from a variety of sources is unparalleled.

Not to take away any credit from my father's erudition, he did occasionally quote but his knowledge was very limited to literary works such as Shakespeare and Thomas Gray. Even though he could recite Anthony's speech in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar from heart (during when I stared open-mouthed at him in awe) and quote famous poets, he simply could not compete with my mother's ability to quote on a wide range of issues.

The other day, I found myself telling my daughter "If you don't apply oil and braid your hair every day, you are not going to have any hair left. If you don't believe me, check with your grandmother." I have come full circle, don't you think?

-Meena Sankaran

Have you seen my Muse?

2009-05-06T08:28:00.000-07:00

Incredible but true. I have been waiting for 3 decades for my muse to call me. Waiting for that bolt of inspiration to strike and unleash this well of creativity, I was sure, lying dormant in me.

All those restless hours of snuggling on my very comfortable couch laughing at Lucy and Ethel concocting ridiculous plans to entertain the world on CBS; all those fine sunny days of choosing to wait at home with a gallon of ice cream to bide my time over spending a sweaty hour at the Gym; all along waiting patiently for my muse.

Three decades, my friends, and not a peek, knock or a whistle from my muse. Today I woke up and decided to stop kidding myself. No muse is calling me and that is that. I have been growing old and dusty waiting for that elusive inspiration.

Au Revoir, Muse! I have got a lot of things to say even without your help and you bet, I am going to say it. The realization takes a load off my shoulders. It is not on me if I cannot write profound poetry or sublime essays or revered literary criticisms. Can you hold me accountable for the pale mediocrity of my writings, using the term very loosely? No, indeed not. My buddy Mr. Muse, as you all know, has deserted me and left me with no choice really.

With no pressure to create any masterpieces, I start my baby steps today to embark on a journey that, I hope, will take me on a road with many interesting twists and turns.

Here is to hoping that my little well never runs dry!

-Meena Sankaran