See you all next year!

My dear blog friends...hope the coming year is fun-filled, very interesting, fruitful and prosperous to all of us! :) See you all next year!! :D

'shake in the New Year!

For quite some time now, i had been (and i still am) busy with my graduate school research work and i was increasingly getting bored of being so! :D Also, it had been quite long since I had any kind of food outside in a restaurant. So I started craving for "some different kinda food/drink"...basically any thing that we dont prepare regularly at home. I noticed that I had mango ice-cream in the fridge. Also, earlier this week, a friend who was visiting, had given me a box of Kaju rolls. A sudden inspiration and i decided to make milkshake out of these! :D So, to half a glass of cold whole milk (please dont ask me to use less fat/fat-free milk...i hate those things! :D), I added some 3 BIG scoops of mango ice-cream (I like thick milkshakes! :D) and 3 kaju rolls, which I softened by heating....mixed these nice n thick...added a dash of strawberry syrup on top for "dressing" and flavor...and relished it! hmmmmm.....yummmmy! :) :) Well! What r u ppl gaping at?!! :D

Wish you all a very interesting, yummy and fun-filled New Year 2008! :)

Long distance maapillai!

One of my friends who has come to the US for an onsite assignment recently got engaged (the girl is in Chennai) and is getting married in a couple of months. Part of a conversation between me and him:

...
...
me: ennoda varungaala anni kitta pesiniya?
friend: yeah
me: inimey unakku reliance bill rocketdhaan! :D
friend: zoooooooooooooooooooooom
me: nalla velai 50 daysla kalyanam!
pozhachey!
naethikki evlo neram?
friend: after 2 hours of talk she just asked, neenga epadi ennaya call panringa
me: :D
friend: yeah thats true
me: paavam da nee! :)
aana inga makkal irukkaanga,....
kalyanam nichayam aagi 10 months apram kalyanam date vechu!
avanga ambeldhaan! :D
friend: super
every cousin called me up and dukkam visarikura madri , visarichanga
me: :D
friend: :O
...
...

P.S: Due to me having a busy time I would be (as usual) taking quite some time to write my posts. For more explanations, please see my previous post: "I N T E R M I S S I O N" ;) :D

I N T E R M I S S I O N

"Rukaawat ke liye khed hai"..."Idaivelai"...A break in this blog show! Friends, Iam in the last couple of months before graduation, so, tons of workload for me right now. I thought I could still post some stuff once in a while, but that "some while" is becoming a loooong while now! :D Given this situation, I thought I would take a break from writing posts and let you know about this too, so that you can save the time of checking my blog to see if I have posted anything new :). Once Iam through with my graduation, I shall start writing posts again and shall leave a comment in your blogs informing this! :) But yeah, I would still be visiting all your blogs, reading your posts and commenting as usual. After all, you do know the proverb "All work and no break makes Raj a dull boy!", dont you? ;)

Welcome change!

The place: New Delhi. The day: The past Saturday. My friend and his family have gone to the house of a prospective alliance (Lemme call them PA in short). Just an informal visit. Since it was very cold outside, my friend had been wearing a sweater. Once inside the house, he felt warm and after a while started to sweat a bit. So he took off his sweater. So, the mother of the PA immediately asked the PA to reduce the heater temperature, because my friend was feeling hot! My friend got surprised and couldnt control laughing! :) After a while, the PA's parents gave stuff to my friends' parents and prostrated before them (for people who dont know..this is part of the old traditional ways). My friend's parents were taken aback. My friend and his parents were treated very respectfully and after they came back home, they even got a follow-up phone call from the PA's house. So, what is news about this whole thing and why am I blogging about it? All of it seems like normal, old traditional practice. Yes it does...only, my friend happens to be the brother of a girl, for whom the alliance was being sought!!! Gone are the days of "ponnu-paathufying" (non-Tamil folks...this is the traditional practice in which the guy and his parents go to the house of a prospective alliance and formally have a look at the bride). Nowadays, the girls are in such a demand (am sorry if someone feels offended for me having used the term "demand"...for want of a better word, am using this), that they set the terms and conditions...for example, in my friend's case, his parents said that if the girl gets married to this PA, then she would have to quit her job in Bangalore and come to Delhi and look for one there. It was just an observation and she was not trying to ask anything. But, the prospective groom's dad immediately said "No problem. If she doesnt want to quit, my son can shift his business to Bangalore"!!! This is just one of the several such instances i have seen in the past 1-2 years, all indicating a shift in the trend. Nowadays, the girls have the upper hand in match-making, which is certainly welcome change! :) So..all those girls out there who dont have a boyfriend and are gonna get married through the arranged marriage way....u have lotsa fun time coming your way! :D

New Yorkil Alaipayuthey!

For those who dont understand Tamil, the title talks about "Alaipayuthey (Tamil movie) in New York".

I happened to watch a video on Yahoo News titled "Subway Love at First Sight". It is about a guy in New York, who found his love while travelling in the Subway (New York underground train)! :) Looks like he didnt have the guts to approach her right then and by the time courage got into him, his love got off the train! :D So, he created a website www.nygirlofmydreams.com, dedicated to the girl and drew a picture of her (cute one!) detailing her dress, hair style, etc. He mentioned his contact details and made an appeal for anyone to contact him with her details! And soon they got in touch and are happily in love with each other! :) Doesnt it sound like a New York adaptation of Alaipayuthey?! :D

For those who are interested to know more, apart from the site URL above, here's the Yahoo Video: Subway Love at First Sight and related Yahoo News article: New Yorkers rally to help online romeo.

Do I miss India!

I miss India for a lottt of reasons. And a new reason cropped up a few days ago! :) I was (again) travelling by a shuttle bus service and it stopped at a hotel to drop/pick up people. I got down and informed the driver that I wanted to go to the restroom (toilet) and shall be back soon. I come back, to find the bus leaving the hotel gates!! Luckily, the bus company had a desk/office at the hotel, and so those folks radioed the driver and I was picked up 10 mins later! :D Once I was back in the bus, I could not help contrasting the situation with that in India. Imagine the same scenario where we get out of a bus in India to go to the toilet or to buy stuff. Even if the driver starts the bus without us, those who would have been sitting around us would immediately shout out and inform the driver that someone is missing! :) Despite the fact that there were people around me when I had left the bus, no one took notice of my absence (my bags were still lying in my place). Each one was minding his or her own business!! While minding one's own work is nice, this is the limits! :D And the funny part was I recollected my last post "Heaven on Earth" and thought, "Yeah, but what are these devils doing in heaven?!" :D

P.S: Wish you all a very Happy Diwali! One more reason why I miss India! :) Think of us who are missing out on all this fun while u burst 'em crackers! :)

Heaven on Earth

Picture this: A semi-cloudy day. You are travelling by road. The weather is very pleasant. On either sides you see mountains in the backdrop. The farthest ones in the darkest shades of blue...while the blue lightens as the distance of the mountains reduces. The lushest green meadows/farmlands that you could have ever seen...in the foreground of the scene. As you drive down, some of these farms have sheep grazing here and there, some have horses and some have cows. Of course, trees every now and then in full Fall (Autumn) bloom..that means Iam talking of trees with colors like red, maroon, pink, yellow, orange, and other colors. Top it with the sun rays streaking through the clouds. A heavenly sight indeed! It was breathtaking! A sight which I saw a few days back, when I was travelling on that highway. I soooo wanted to take pictures of the scene but unfortunately, my camera was stashed away in my luggage which was in the boot of the shuttle I was riding on! :( In less than 12 hours, I shall be going down that road again. Hopefully, heavens-permitting, I can have the same glimpse again and this time, my camera would be with me to capture every single moment of it!

The Centurion!

Yippee! I visited my profile today and saw that it has crossed 100 profile views (My visit today was 101st!) :)

Oh well...who wud know that probably half of it was by my own self! ;) :D

Here's wishing Vishy

Congratulations to Viswanathan Anand for winning the World Chess Championship in Mexico City on Saturday!! He retains the World No. 1 rank now. Way to go Anand! :)

Dont know how many of us even know about this news...a stark contrast compared to the news of India winning the T-20 World cup! :(

A few links discussing this news:

BBC News: Anand is new world chess champion
The Hindu: Anand breaches the magic mark
Earthtimes.org: Anand only player above 2800 in new chess list

Image Courtesy: Gulf Times

Of music, food and love

Shakespeare's quote from Twelfth Night:

"If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die."

Enter "Baekku"sphere:

"If music be the food of love, deafen me;
Give me none of it, that, malnourishing,
The appetite may starve, and so die."

or another one:
"If music be the food of love, I wish I was born deaf".

P.S.: Is that why, though I have tons of GBs of songs with me, I never listen to any?! :D

Tragedy of sorts (or lets say...comedy of sorts)

With a group of my friends, I was planning to watch the movie "Superbad" today. I heard from some of my friends that its a good movie. Some half an hour before movie-time I was chatting with a friend of mine and I asked her if she had watched it. Her reaction was "aiyooo...kodumai...lol" and then she added "maybe guys like it". I didnt understand then, but when i went for the movie, I understood what she meant. Every single sentence right from the time i entered the movie hall (i was a few minutes late) was infested with obscene words! Even for a guys-only group, it would have been difficult, because of the too-much obscene language. Considering that we were a mixed group, we felt very very inconvenient watching it. 5 mins...thats it, couldnt tolerate it more than that. Here's the hilarious part. We wanted to shift to a different hall, so I went out as if to drink water to check what other movies were playing and decide on one. I get back into the hall, we decide the next one. Then we went out and told the theater staff that we didnt wanna watch the movie because it had already started and we would see it later and that we wanted to shift to a different movie now! :D Must have sounded very dumb...but the guy took it and let us shift. So we shifted to a different hall that was screening "Good Luck Chuck", which had already started some 20 mins ago. From the looks of the poster outside, it looked like a romantic-comedy. So we decided to take the "risk"! :D But no sooner did we sit to watch that movie, did we understand that this was as bad a movie! :) Again, we get out, see that the only other movie that might not be this "risky" would be "Eastern Promises", a suspense movie. But the next show was only at 9:40 and it was only 8 then. So we tell the staff again, that we dont like this movie and we would like to come at 9:40 to watch the other movie! :D Deep inside, we were laughing at ourselves for giving such lame excuses...he he! :) Finally, we ended up watching the movie and it turned out to be "safe" and ok! :D
Moral of the story: Before you go for a movie, check for the reviews/story thoroughly...otherwise, you could end up watching a Super Bad movie and end up making yourselves a laughing stock! :D

The gift of the gab

Well...the initial intent with which I started my blog was to keep track of The Hindu Crossword puzzle clues...Iam a geek, so what else can u expect from me?! :D

But yeah, then I came to the land of Uncle Sam to do my Masters and stopped even that much of blogging (pardon me, but for want of a better word, I used blogging to indicate the posts that I published with Crossword clues)....and then....something happened and a few months later, I thought I should register it somewhere and wrote it here, as my previous blog posting.

Iam not too much of a writer neither am I too much of a speaker. How does one do it? I mean, how is it that some people are able to talk whenever/wherever they want...and how is it that people write blogs...all so wonderful and nice to read (ahem, this includes the blogs of the only 2 readers of my previous post! :D. Thanks much you two, who read my previous blog...it is always nice to get a bit of encouragement!:D).

Here are my views on blogging better:
* You need to start reading more. Read novels, news, magazines, blogs, etc. Then, you would get opportunities/ideas to write blogs
* You need to talk with your friends a lot more and listen to them...you might get ideas there too
* Peer Pressure: Phew!! Do I know better! Personally, my motivation for writing this blog is because ALL of my readers wanted me to post something new (he he...Iam not joking/exaggerating...I have 2 readers and both wanted new post from me...so thats ALL of my readers! :P)

"local language": En mandaila irukkura kidneykku therinja matter ivlodhaan...
please let me know if u have more ideas..or if u think my ideas r not correct...so that I can start blogging more! :D

P.S: Wanted to write one more blog post...but shall do it one at a time now...after I get inputs for this posting...so yay! I have a topic for my next posting too! :D

Life and Contradictions

About a year and a half back, one not-so-fine day :), I put together this 2-liner...where else but a blog to pen this down? :)

Life and Contradictions:

"Oh the contradiction that is life!
Smile on lips...and tears in eyes!!"