Happy Rakshabandhan

To the two men...


...who holding my hand walked me through every difficult moment of my life.

...who have answered my phone calls day or night and heard all my rants patiently.

...who always covered up for me when I got myself into silly troubles.

...who kicked my behind when I got complacent.

...who have been a part of all those funny childhood stories.

...who have promised to never make me feel alone.

Happy Raksha bandhan to my two wonderful brothers who mean so much to me!!

Two weddings and a lovely couple

First things first. I need to apologize for the disappearing act. I was away from here because of a combination of travel and laziness. Thanks Dew and Snippets for stopping by to check if everything was alright with me. I was away for the past few days to be a part of a very special wedding. Read on for the details.

The Girl: The eldest of the siblings from a sleepy little town in mid western United States. In addition to being good at school, she was very crafty and took up a lot of artsy projects like sewing, glass staining and knitting. She was a great cook and baked the sweetest of the cakes. In essence she was the kind of girl you wanted to take home to your parents.

The Boy: Eldest of the siblings from one of the IIT-ians churning south Indian city. True to his city's fame, he did well in school, went to IIT, got admitted to a good American University and all that jazz. He looked good, had a lovely personality and was quite charming. In short he was our typical Bollywood chocolate boy.

Boy met girl, they started going out pretty soon. Intially they had a lot of fun like every couple does during the honeymoon period. Then their first big test came up. The boy had to meet the girl's family. He went over, met her family and they all seemed to like him. It was then time for her to meet his family. His parents disapproved of her without even meeting her. Obviously, he was ruining their conservative brahmin family values. Knowing about the boy's parents rejection, the girl's parents decided they dont like the boy either. After a lot of persuasion from the boy and the girl, the parents decided to meet each other. Both set of parents met, quarrelled some about whose culture was great, argued about how their grandchildren need to be raised and quarrelled some more about remotely related issues like toilet paper, silk, gold and fastfood. Finally, the parents believed they managed to break off the relationship.

But in true filmy style, after a couple of months of keeping quiet and pretending to have moved on in life, the boy and the girl got back together. They moved to a neutral country in Europe away from both sets of parents and informed them of their decision to get married. The parents had to give in and approve of their relationship. Now, a fresh batch of quarrels broke out about how and where the wedding has to happen. This time, the boy and the girl found an easy way out. They traveled to India and got married in the traditional south Indian Hindu style. The boy's parents were happy. They went back to the US and had a Christian wedding ceremony. The girl's parents were happy too.
I know they are not the first inter-racial couple. I also know their struggles will not end here. Besides the usual hassles of married life, they will have to bear the additional burden of integrating two different cultures in their home, teaching their children about two different religions and living up to the wedding vows they exchanged twice in two different languages. But knowing what I know about them, I think they will do just fine. Please join me to wish my brother and sister-in-law a lifetime of health, happiness, love and courage.

The Palace of Illusions

I was introduced to Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's Sister of my Heart by one of my guy friends. He did not care too much for that book and mentioned he was in some way related to the author and got an autographed copy of the book from her. It was in fact intriguing to find this book amidst his sci-fi and Michael Crichton collection, which I didn't care too much for. I borrowed (and did not return) the book and I am glad I did. I loved the book and read a lot more of Divakaruni.

Divakaruni's latest, The Palace of Illusions tells the time-tested story of Kauravas and Pandavas, their parents, their siblings, their wives and rest of their kin. Unlike the B R Chopra version narrated by Samay or the original version narrated by Vaishampayana, in this book, the story of Mahabharata is retold by Draupadi or Panchaali as she preferred to be called. Like they say, there are two sides to every story and it is very interesting to hear Draupadi's version, presumably the female lead in a story full of men.

As the narrator, Draupadi takes us along in her journey of life beginning from her father's palace where she grew up feeling lonely except for the friendly conversations with her brother Dhrishtadhyumna and the occasional visit from Krishna that she looked forward to with excitement. She reveals her intimate thoughts before and during her Swayamvara and her life afterwards with the Pandavas. Her struggles as a newly married, that too to five men, her reign as the queen in the palace of illusions built by the best architect, the biggest insult of her life, her life in the forests, everything, narrated by the character herself, remind the readers that despite the eons passed since then, nothing much has really changed for women. We still have the same power struggle with the overly possessive Mother-in-law, we still look up to our men to fight for our honor and we still keep wondering if we picked the right man!

Although the story is nothing new, the author inserted interesting tidbits, making the book a delicious read. The secret love shared by Draupadi and Karna for each other and the way each of the Pandavas loved Draupadi, are such little pieces that don't really alter the story, but justify each of the characters' motivation for behaving the way they did. Despite narrating a story set long before the civilization as we know today existed, the contemporary language with a generous dose of humor and irony makes the characters all very real. Here is an example of Divakaruni's wit as she describes Draupadi's fears of being cursed by sage Durvasa:

Durvasa was known for his creative curses. No doubt Duryodhan had sent him here hoping he would would burden us with some obscure, incurable disease or metamorphose us into exotic fauna.

To reflect the wisdom of her characters, Divakaruni also has some very thought-provoking lines which we sure could use in our current war-ridden world. The irony in Duryodhan's words after being defeated in Kurukshetra made me wonder what the real meaning of winning is!

I am going to heaven to enjoy all its pleasures with my friends. You will rule a kingdom peopled with widows and orphans and wake each morning to the grief of loss. Who is the real winner, then, and who the loser?

Being raised on a weekly dose of Mahabharata on TV, the story is one of my favorites. The book narrates the events in a non-spiritual context, reveals the complexities of their actions and judges the characters to human standards. And this is what made it real interesting to me. Besides, the cynicism in Draupadi's tone is something that I completely identified with. The book forces you to look at all the well-known characters with a new eye. I always liked Duryodhan and Karna much better than the Pandavas and the book reinforced my idea. I declare Karna my favorite character in the story and join Draupadi to wonder what course it would have taken if he wasn't stopped from competing in her Swayamvar.

Characters that live on

I picked up this book tag from La Vida Loca and I need to list my favorite fictional characters. I used to read almost exclusively fiction before I moved on to other stuff very recently. So this is in a way a trip down memory lane for me.

1. Mr. Darcy: Anyone who read Pride and Prejudice cannot help but fall in love with this man.
2. Sherlock Holmes: Its elementary my dear Watson.
   For all you folks in London: really? there is no 221 B Baker Street?
3. Scout Finch: The little girl from Alabama is my hero anyday.
4. Gretel of Hansel and Gretel: I remember imagining myself as Gretel when my brothers had to study and I was left free to do whatever.
   
5. Samwise Gamgee: For the dependable friend he is. Honestly, he is much more a hero than Frodo Baggins.
   
6. The Common Man: He is you, he is me, he is every one of us. An Average Indian.
   
7. Calvin: I have to agree with LVL. He is much more than a kid. He sounds as philosophical as his namesake if not more. Need I say I believe in destiny?
   
8. Moushumi Mazoomdar: I found more to identify with and liked this character much better than that of Ashima Ganguli in Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake.
   
9. Rosie: RK Narayan's Guide, beautifully unfolds the story of this strong, independent dancer who overcomes every injustice done to her. Waheeda Rehman did nothing less in her portrayal of this character.
   
10. Laila: Of The Thousand Splendid Suns. Her beauty, her courage, her strength and her intelligence is just amazing.
    

I wish I could write more. But I cannot think of any other characters. So go on. Help me. Who are the characters you loved?

Of daughters, sisters and wives

Pardon me for the cliche but my parents, I always believed, were traditional with a modern outlook. They sent me to an all-girls convent but did not mind that I was friends with boys in our neighborhood and hung out with my brothers' friends playing whatever you play when you are in school. They let me pick engineering that too Civil Engineering although they much rather preferred me joining the software bandwagon. For the most part I got to wear what I wanted to and got my way around most things. To top all of that off, they had no problems in me picking the person I wanted to spent the rest of my life with. Suddenly, after all these years, my mother said something yesterday which made me wonder what I mean to them as a daughter.

To give you a little background here, my brother who is two years older than I am is traveling to the US in a couple of months to take some licensing exams. He is not traveling on business where his employer will pay for his trip. He is funding this entire trip by himself and will be in the US for about 3-4 months to complete the exam and subsequent processes. Ever since we started discussing his trip, it was taken for granted that he would come stay with us and take the exam. Obviously!!! And then yesterday we were discussing the logistics of his trip, when my mother asked my brother to look for another place to stay. At first I wasn't sure what she meant so I had to prod a couple of times before she finally came out with it. Men from a respectable family do not stay in their married sister's and brother-in-law's house for an extended period of time it seems!! What???

Knowing for a fact that my mother does not spend the energy thinking about these kind of Uttam Dave type things, I asked her where it came from. She first denied that anyone helped her with these thoughts before admitting that it was one of her colleagues. My initial reaction was to yell, cry and threaten her that I would never talk to her if she ever entertained such thoughts. After sleeping over it for a day, I called her back to find out what exactly was bothering her and she says it is shameful on her, my father's and my brother's part to accept any kind of help from me, their married daughter. And secondly she is sure I am doing it against the husband's wishes and it will cause me problems with him. And of course she believes the parents-in-law would never approve of such a thing and will promptly disown me when they know my intentions.

It is not like I never discussed my brother's trip with the husband. In fact he was the one that brought up the subject of all the paperwork needed to be done for his travel and he of all has no problems with the whole idea. My parents-in-law are of the sweetest kind. Although I itch real bad to join one of those Bitch9-about-MIL discussion groups, she is sweet enough to leave me with nothing to bitch about. I did mention to them about the trip and they had no problem absolutely (I hope!). My brother who is the subject of the entire discussion has no problems because he gets along well with the husband and honestly, doesnt care. My father had no second thoughts about it either. So really, I think the problem is with people like my mother's colleague who I am guessing are the targets of Uttam Dave's advice and my mother who's thoughts are so easy to manipulate.

And me, well I am left thinking what I mean to my parents after all these years! Was I just the daughter that they spoiled rotten knowing fully well has to be given away to another family and never reclaimed? Have they lost all their rights on me that they cannot let me fulfill my tiniest of responsibilities towards my family? I wonder if this is a question of being traditional. Or if it just not being able to break away from what is expected or rather not expected of you by some moronic society. Either ways, I feel terribly disappointed for having to explain this to my mother!

P.S: When I read reactions to Dave's posts at Chandni's and Mad Momma's I thought maybe the advice is necessary for girls married into Ekta Kapoor kind of K Families. Ok please let me eat my words from their blogs. No, no woman should be given the kind of marital advice where she is asked to forget about her parents, her family and everything about her before she got hitched. Sorry, that doesnt work for me. My mother of all people should have known that!!!

P.P.S: Oh, today is my blog's first birthday. And am I glad I have this place to voice my shouts and murmurs! The activity here is not as much as I would have liked, but at least I get to have my monologues without any opposition so thats good. Happy Birthday Shouts and Murmurs!!

Is he listening?

People's exhibit 1:

Me: Do you want to stop by at the Temple on the way to B Aunty's house?

Husband (with a genuinely confused expression) : But B aunty will serve Desi food. Why do you want to go to the temple?

People's exhibit 2:

Me: Do you want to stay at N's house after dinner tonight or drive back?

Husband: I don't mind either ways.

Me: I think we should drive back because we have a lot of things to do tomorrow and will be good to get a head start in the morning.

Husband: Right, I will check with N if we need to bring our own sleeping bags.

I rest my case.

Khuda ke liye /Aamir

After reading a lot about Khuda ke Liye and Aamir, I finally got to watch these movies over the weekend. I write about both these movies in the same post because I couldn't help notice the similarity between the two, themes centered around Islam, lesser known actors, debutant directors and great music.

Khuda ke liye is the story of two musician brothers Mansoor and Sarmad and their British cousin Mary. After a brief introduction to the characters, the real story starts when Mary visits her cousins in Pakistan and Mansoor leaves to the US to study music. Since there are reviews and plot outlines everywhere on the web, I will stick to what I thought of the movie here. Shaan, who played Mansoor in the movie, Wikipedia tells me is a popular star in Pakistan. I am guessing his past experience came handy coz he has done an excellent job without at any point appearing to try too hard. He sounds convincing and absolutely lovable even when his tells his American girlfriend that his religion prohibits him from drinking liquor or that women cannot pay when a man is involved (I would have been up in arms against any other man who told me I cannot pay because I was a woman). Iman Ali, again a popular model in Pakistan, looks pretty and plays Mary without appearing too over the top. Apparently Shaan had sneered at Iman saying models cannot act (yeah, I follow Lollywood gossip too) but I am sure he will have to eat his words after this movie. Iman Ali and Shaan were the two actors that stood out for me in the entire cast. The excellent music is yet another reason for me to like Khuda Ke Liye. I am still struggling to pick a favorite between Tiluk Kamud and Bandeya Ho.

Aamir is about a doctor who returns to Bombay from UK to find himself involved a sequence of strange events. Without giving the plot away, lets just say the movie tracks the hours ensuing Aamir's return to Bombay. Rajeev Khandelwal, a first timer on the big screen, plays Aamir and carries the movie almost entirely on his shoulders that too effortlessly. Although the painstakingly slow scenes towards the end help create drama and give Khandelwal immense opportunity to perform, the movie could have done much better with some editing. Towards the ending, more often than not, the audience want the movie to end just so they could go home/go to bed or to do whatever they do after a movie ends. In stead, this film seems like it goes on forever. I am guessing the climax scene was shown in real time which could've definitely used some much needed chopping. What I like best about this movie is the transformation of the main character from your average guy to the man who takes charge all while displaying an entire range of emotions without appearing like the usual macho bollywood hero. The background score was great and Ya raham, my current favorite, is very addictive.

Both movies are likable because they come across as extremely real. No make-up, no gaudy outfits, no stopping in between for a duet in some glamorous location, no melodramatic dialogs, no item numbers, no sir, none of your bollywood stereotypes. These movies instead are armed with a strong story and an intelligent screenplay. Full points to debutant directors Shoaib Mansoor and Raj Kumar Gupta. Also there is good music in both movies but the songs don't distract you from the story. Its like a little respite from hectic storytelling through which you don't want to take a bathroom or ciggy break lest you miss something important.

The husband mentioned how Khuda ke liye is a bold movie to make especially in a country like Pakistan. Even Meetu of withoutgivingthemovieaway was of the same opinion. I fail to understand why. Despite touching upon issues like double standards, violence and abuse against women and racial/cultural prejudices of the west and conservatives in a religion, at no point does the movie speak ill of Islam. It does use the most popular of Islam preachings such as teetotalism, preventing marriages into other faiths etc but at no point does the movie come across as anti-islam. If anything, Naseeruddin Shah's character speaks in defence of the religion. The take home message from the movie according to me was that no religion preaches bad things. Its just the way the religious teachings are interpreted that makes people do good or bad things. And if anything, I was very surprised that a movie like Aamir got away without any trouble. Remember Bombay, Black Friday and many other movies that had a terror plot?

Overall, both movies are a must watch if you like movies that try to break away from the candy floss romance formula.

On an aside, while I love Wikipedia, its annoying that the Aamir movie page has entire scene-by-scene details including the climax. I noticed that I best enjoy a movie when I know absolutely nothing about it. The more reviews I read, the more my expectation of the movie rises.

Home Alone

Staying alone at home while the husband was traveling for work, I have discovered

...that it is not that hard to eat alone at a restaurant. Granted it is a small eatery in a corner where you have to bus your own table. But with a book in hand, it is a piece of cake to order your food, wait for it to be ready and eat it, all without having the company of another soul.

...that it is really hard for me to survive without internet and TV. I need one of the two unless I am sleeping or in the bathroom.

...that watching 8 back to back episodes of Law and Order SVU scares you enough to not be able to go even to the bathroom when it is dark. There such creeps in this world I tell you.

...that I can make a sandwich complete with onions and tomatoes during TV show breaks. It sucks that they dont have breaks in between episodes anymore. Its always after an episode starts but thank god for title music and end credits.

...that you can survive 3days without any in-person human interaction and still manage to stay sane enough to write about it. I couldn't even catchup with people on the phone coz we ran out of minutes on our phones. Oh wait, does ordering food at the restaurant count?

...that a dinner of cereal and brownies is fun.

...that I cannot for my life figure out what Tharoor's point is in his new book the Elephant, the Tiger and the Cellphone. About 100 pages into the book and I see he uses his favorite metaphorical writing, talks bollywood, politics, families and rants about hindutva. Pardon me but I cannot understand where he is going with all that cliched writing.

On an aside: Tharoor writes that former first lady Mrs. Shankar Dayal Sharma was a big fan of Swabhimaan, one of India's first soaps. Apparently she made sure her entourage recorded every episode of the show to ensure that she did not miss even a single episode in the process of delivering her first-lady duties. I remember running home right after school to catch the show and had a big crush on Rohit Roy. I am dying to watch the show again and cannot find it anywhere online. Does anybody know where Mrs. Sharma lives now? Maybe I can borrow her tapes.

10 ka dum

Chandni has called me bakra and tagged me to reveal 10 of my secrets. So here we go in no particular order.

1. I act like I am always in control in the kitchen. I believe recipes aren't meant to be taken too seriously. One quick glance at the recipe and I decide how I want to make it my style even if it spells disaster.
2. I obsess over my footwear. I need to wear shoes that are well co-ordinated with the rest of my outfit otherwise, I feel like everybody is staring at my shoes and shaking their heads in disapproval.
3. I never wanted to be a child and thought of myself as an adult. As far back as I can remember, I always thought I grew-up enough.Only when I look at myself back in time I realize how childish I was and how much growing up I still need to do.
4. I think being liberal is fashionable. Somehow being conservative seems so dull and boring.
5. I cannot win a spelling bee contest even to save my life. I am a terrible speller and can never be thankful enough to spell check!
6. For the longest time, I believed beauty and brains dont come together. I thought I was a rare exception until I met women who were both more beautiful and more intelligent than I was.
7. I have a constant fear of obesity. As a child, I remember reading an article about a woman who woke up in the morning and found herself heavier by some insane number of pounds. It haunts me to this day and thankfully keeps me away from most calorie bombs.
8. I am a hypochondriac.
   
9. I spend insane amounts of time window shopping on the internet. And nothing fancy or designer for me. I hangout at the safe Oldnavys and JCPs for the fear that I might fall in love with something I cannot afford.
10. I hate documents that are not justified. I cannot bring myself to read badly formatted articles either.
    

Phew!!! That wasnt too hard. Now comes the fun part. I demand to know 10 secrets from
Silvara
The Mad Momma
Good day Sunshine
Niyara
Blue Bike
Cacophoenix
and anyone who feels like confessing some of those secrets!

The Big Move

It finally happened!! The husband and I finally moved in together. I took a break from school to move in with the husband hoping he would be done in school by the end of summer. Well it actually happened two weeks ago. But thats how long it took for me to complete moving, setting up the new place, cleaning up the old place, catching up on my Google Reader and finally moving my ass to write.

Living with the husband has been lots if fun so far. Its like playing Home Sweet Home except with real furniture and a real husband who does not go-to and return-from work in a flash. Deciding on the furnishings (mostly convincing the husband that my ideas are right), setting up the furniture and making the place live-able has been much more fun than I imagined. In the process, I realised how much I want our new home to look like my parents' place. Especially with little things like arranging fridge magnets, books and clothes the way my mother did it. Being the foodies we are, grocery shopping and visits to the local farmers market has been our favorite weekend activity. We have had plenty of cooking adventures and baking disasters. Our kitchen has been learning lots of new languages from around the world mostly with a 'spicy' accent. And booze is flowing freely than ever. The husband used to allow himself a drink only on weekends but now wine and beer have become everyday fair. We are trying to recycle as much as possible (yeah we finally got those reusable shopping bags) along with reducing our electricity consumption as much as possible. To bring on the summer spirit, we even have a few flowering plants, spinach, mint and tomatoes planted in pots.

When we decided on moving in together, we have agreed that the husband would take care of all the money matters while I run the show. But now I am getting a taste of how it is to be dependent on someone even if it is your significant other and I dont like it. Although it is very difficult for me to finish shopping and not take my wallet out to pay, I feel like I have the husband dependent on me as well. I know where most things in the house are and the husband often comes to me asking where to find something. This in some strange way gives me a sadistic pleasure. It is not like the husband cannot or will not find it without me. But just the thought that I make his life easier gives me that much needed boost.

In a nutshell, it has been a lot of fun to set up our own little nest and live in it together. Now all we have to do is finish school, find real jobs and buy a house for ourselves.