Mridula's Tashan

Happy New Year!

2010-01-13T15:00:00.004-05:00

I know I am late, but hey! its still January! :) So, Happy New Year to all you folks out there. New year resolutions? what are they? :P. I had promised myself long time back that I would stay away from resolutions of any kind :D. So, no resolutions!

Like every year, 2010 has started with waiting for the Aussie open to start! haha! I can't wait. Will bore you guys more about that soon.

But lets talk about a different game for a change: Tarneeb. For those who don't know, its an Arabic card game me and my husband are crazy about. Guys! you must try that game. We are addicted to it, thanks to our wonderful Arabic friends Beaker and Dania and of course our desi gujju partner, Tanmay! yay! :). So if you are bored and are looking for some interesting card games to fill that space in, try Tarneeb and let me know if it managed to capture your interest like it did to me.

Ok.... gotta go for today.... will catch you all later. Meanwhile, try Tarneeb! :)

Long time no post! :D

2010-01-12T16:27:00.004-05:00

Looks like I have been away for ever! haha.... sorry guys! got very busy with GMAT and stuff..... But I got some news to share with you all!

First of all, as most of you now know, we bought a house. That means, we are in debt for the rest of our lives. But we figured rather than throwing all the money in the gutter as rent, we much rather buy a house (at least the house is going to be ours!) :).
So, here is the link to the floor plan of our house :). Its a town home.

Second, remember I was talking about taking GMAT (about an year ago)? Well..... I finally took my GMAT and got a decent score (710 to be precise). I will talk more about it if anyone wants to know :P.

My dad retired from work! So, that makes almost the whole family jobless now :). He retired on Dec 31st 2009. He was sad. I can imagine. I worked for Verizon just for a couple of years and the day I was leaving Verizon, I cried from 8am to 5pm. I just did not want to leave the job for anything in the world. But it was too late and THAT was my last day. Plus, I was leaving that job for marriage and a new life (which gave me some smiles that day). So, I can imagine how one would feel when he worked for close to 30 years for the same company and one fine day, its your LAST day at work and you have NOTHING on you plate anymore (work-wise)! its SAD! Anyways, I hope he finds stuff to keep him busy. Else, we will make him busy! :P

And..... my sister is here! She is visiting me for a MONTH! I love that! She will be here for a few more days and I think I will go to India with her to attend her marriage (psst.... secret! :))

Also.... we had our FIRST marriage anniversary and I made my husband buy me a cute dress :)...

I guess thats enough news for keeping you guys without any gossip for so long :P. Will write back later! (hopefully sooner this time!)

After Marriage, the computer seems heavier.....

2009-08-03T20:26:00.004-04:00

Yes; you heard it right. That was my observation over the weekend :P. Me and my husband went over to a friend's house to help him pack (coz hes moving..) and his mom was looking for someone to pack the computer and I volunteered to pack it all by myself. She was a bit surprised coz she thought that was a "guys" job and I, being a girl shouldn't lift such heavy stuff. But I was too sure of my ability and went ahead to pack the computer. I noticed something while packing. The computer ACTUALLY seemed heavier! I have lifted and packed computers many times before, but this one seemed really heavy. I further thought about it and I was trying to remember the last time I lifted really heavy stuff. I couldn't remember lifting anything heavy after marriage :). Obviously..... I had my husband by my side to help me lift heavy stuff..... I was disappointed with myself. Hugely disappointed. I basically lost the habit. But of course, I did manage to pack the computer :).

Why I talk about this today? Because I felt the need to tell myself that I need to be strong :). Its amazing how we differentiate work between genders. Lifting stuff, going to a bank, filling gas (trust me, after marriage, I religiously delegated this job to my husband coz I don't like to do it :) ) is definitely a guy's thing, no matter how easy or hard the work is. Similarly, cooking is a girls' job. Ask men and that is what you will hear (even though my husband cooks). The biggest disadvantage of this kind of division is that we will eventually end up forgetting what we knew how to do. Guys who stop cooking right after marriage totally end up forgetting how to cook as a result depend on their wives to feed them. Same with girls. We should never depend on someone else for something that we can accomplish on our own. That way, the computer will NEVER seem heavier! I learnt this lesson over the weekend :).

Thats all from me now.... will see you all later!

whats going on Aaj-Kal??

2009-08-02T08:59:00.003-04:00

Happy Friendship Day to all my friends and your friends also :P. Its nice to have a friendship day because it is one of those few days of the year when my friends definitely remember me (Joking guys!!!! :) )

Friendship Day is always going to special for me. Last year, me and my husband got engaged on friendship day, a reason why I have decided to celebrate our engagement anniversary on the friendship day every year. And I got flowers today!!! YAY!!!!! I love flowers (especially roses) :)

We watched Love Aaj Kal yesterday. I am very sad and upset coz I did not like the movie that much. It was OK..... but it was stunning to see how the young people today think.... which actually makes me feel old coz I don't think I think like Saif and Deepika. I actually quit my job as soon as I got married coz I wanted to live with my husband (and I am so glad I did that). There is something for all of us to think about regarding the movie though.. Long distance relationship. How can love be measured in terms of physical distance? something I never understood. And if you love your job more than you love the guy/girl, then obviously you do not love that person enough... It shouldn't be hard to decide. And common guys! I really think I am being practical (more practical than what Deepika and Saif were in the movie). It all comes down to a simple question: Is money more important than life? Or if I put it even more blankly, Is money life? I know loads of people of my generation think money is life. Its not their fault also... thats how the world they live in seems to work and its very sad. Your success in life is determined by the bucks you earn. That is so wrong. According to me, the most successful person is the world is the one who is the most happiest. You can earn billions and at the end of the day if you aren't happy, whats the whole point?

Anyways, they said "love aaj kal" was for the young and romantic at heart and I guess I am neither (makes me very sad coz I thought I was those things :) ). I did not like Deepika Padukone in the film (Sorry guys!) and I thought Saif Ali Khan looked old. yes; he does look old in the film. I loved that "Harleen" though (Giselle Monteiro... yeah! thats her name). She was cute and I heard she is from brazil. Sweet! we have Srilankans and Brazilians playing Indians in our movies now. Sounds silly given the size of Indian population (trust me, thats one thing we are known all over the world for : our population), the directors/producers could not find an Indian girl to play a normal punjaabi girl's role. Something to think about!

Thats it from me for now guys will catch you all later!

Fat!

2009-07-29T09:47:00.005-04:00

Being Fat! No... guys, don't go anywhere.... You should read this too even though this is more of a girls' topic.

Something we (mostly girls) keep hearing always.... oh! you have lost some weight. or, hmm... you did put on some weight since the last time I saw you! Trust me, I hear this almost everyday. Initially, I used to ignore it. Coz, I never understood what a big deal it is. Even now I don't understand, but I have learnt (from all the girls around me) that I should reciprocate and say yeah! I have been on diet. or yes.. I have been gorging on junk food. or No... I haven't really lost any weight.

But I wonder.... why is that the first topic anyone wants to talk about? As soon as you walk into a room (especially with women), this is what you hear. And why do guys only like girls who are thin and have a great body? I never understand this. I guess we all are slaves of our eyes. So, for us, what looks good is good.

Size ZERO. Such a big deal! Dudes and dudettes, let me tell you, there is nothing special about being size zero. Honestly, it does not matter.

I agree that being healthy is great and everybody is into fitness now, but I also feel this kind of talk often makes young girls feel they have to "lose" weight to look pretty and as a result they use the most unhealthy form of losing weight (which is of course "not eating at all"). This sometimes scares me.

I know my parents feel the same about me. They think I have lost a lot of weight off late and they think I am doing it the "unhealthy" way. But no... Actually I am eating very good food. I hardly let junk food make a home in my stomach. That is because I want to be active and healthy. It was not all about being thin. In one of my forthcoming posts, I will definitely talk about how you can lose those extra pounds in a healthy manner.

Honestly, I don't want to be thin. I want to be smart, intelligent, cheerful, happy, helpful, (and thousand more things before being "thin"). And I want to be talked about for those qualities in me... not for my size :D. Yes; I don't want to look attractive..... I want to be attractive (if you know the difference). I really want to see the day when a girl's size is one of the last things guys talk about and everybody sees things beyond the "outer" looks in girls.

Think about this guys and I will see you later!!!!!

No... Not waiting for the next grandslam :)

2009-07-28T20:15:00.003-04:00

Lots of people asked me this question... if I am waiting for the next grandslam to write a new blog entry. Actually... NO :). As you all know by now, I am super lazy. I was just going to "act" like July never happened :D. I am very disappointed by my laziness. Its not just about this blog... I am being lazy at everything.
Anyways, I watched Harry Potter and I liked it. I know many people who read the book did not like the movie much, because they "changed" many things. Agreed. But I honestly think the whole point of making a movie is to let people who haven't read the books also understand the story, something I think the previous movies lacked!
By the way, I became super-active on facebook. I love it! Its much better than Orkut. Those you aren't yet there must try it out.
Everything else going on great and I have decided that from now on, I will try to "invent" topics and write about them. Lets see how that goes.
But for now, see you later is all I got :)!

Mom's Birthday!

2009-07-10T12:28:00.005-04:00

Today is my mom's birthday. She says she has one more year to go before she turns 16 and we will believe that for now, no questions asked! :). So, we wish her a very happy Birthday.

I just realized that today is Friday! I know.... that tends to happen when you are usually home all day. But like everybody, I am always excited to welcome another weekend, though we do not have much on the planner yet.

More later guys!

Its all over!

2009-07-08T08:17:00.007-04:00

No No.... I am not stopping blogging (Sorry guys! :) ). I was actually talking about Wimbledon. I was (literally) glued to my computer screen until the 5th just watching the Wimbledon. So, Feddie is the king again, making his grand slam count 15 so far... While that is definitely a good news, I was very very sad for Andy Roddick. I think that guy played some awesome tennis over the last two weeks. He is handsome and plays great tennis! I think he played his best during the final. But, unfortunately lost. I wish wish wish and wish for him to win the US Open this year. So, Go Roddick!

Yep I was also a bit sad that Venus Williams lost, but thats ok. Serena was too good I guess :).

Also, we baked a chocolate cake on Sunday. I saw one nice recipe on the Internet and of course changed a few things and baked the cake. It was awesome. We should have taken a picture of the cake, but it was so apetizing that we couldn't wait to eat. So....... :).

Coming to the "latest" news off late, gay marriages have been legalised in Delhi, India. And Delhi thus had its first gay parade. Nice! :). Well.. really no coments :D. Good luck to all those who are "into" it. I have read some people's comments on this and they were hillarious. And all I got to say on that.... "God Bless India!" :).

Well on that note, I guess too much has been said for today and I take leave! Catch you guys later.

Weekend and Wimbledon!

2009-06-29T13:34:00.006-04:00

Let me start off today by providing you with some general knowledge.
Question: Who was the first person to win under the roof in center court wimbledon?
Answer: Dinara Safina. :)
Yes.... that history (for which many people were eagerly waiting, strangely) has been made :). Right now, Murray and Wawrika are battling out in that court under closed roof. Murray is trailing... it would be a shock if he loses, given his fan following! The center court looked awesome with that roof on. I loved it!

The weekend was nice. We bought a dining table and set up our house finally. Now our house is fully furnished (thanks to me :D). We also bought a BBQ, which is cool. We watched a meaningless movie (Transformers 2) on Saturday and I don't want to talk about that at all. I hate you for that, Tanmay :). Sunday was great! We had Bharath, Tanmay, Dania, Beaker and Zubair come home for dinner. I made some awesome food (or at least thats what I think) and we had some fun. Sorry, no pictures! We lost our camera somewhere :(.

Thats all for now... will catch you guys later! stay tuned!

Happy Birthday Dad!

2009-06-26T10:16:00.003-04:00

Yes, today is my dad's second of his two birthdays. haha! He always confuses us with his birth date. Anyways, for those of you who don't know, my dad is my most favorite person on earth. He has taught me most of everything I know. When people say positive things about me, I know its because of my parents and the way they brought me up. And when people think I am not so nice, I know thats just me :).

One of my friends observed that I use "anyways" a lot in my blog posts. So, I am going to make a conscious effort not to use "anyways" in any way. Haha.... lets try that one.

Wimbledon is going on full speed. Here is a list of what I liked and what I did not like so far at SW19:
I liked the way Williams sisters are winning. Go girls!
I did not like Maria Sharapova's exit. :(
I liked Roger Federer's outfit (its cool!)
I did not like Marat Safin's exit and I did not like the fact that this was his last wimbledon (yes.. we all like bad boys and who better than Safin?)
I liked Hewitt's win over Potro (Yeah! sometimes, you can't buy experience).
I did not like Sania Mirza losing the women's singles match (nevermind though.... she is playing doubles and mixed doubles too).
I liked Robin Solderling's interview (He always says good things about Feddie).
I did not like Venus Williams's leg being bandaged (Scares me... is she in pain? I hope not).
I liked the poem "The boredom of the Gods".

Most of all, I liked the fact that I can watch the matches for free on Internet! (hush hush!!!! don't ask me where.... :) ).

Well away from Wimbledon, I read nice things about the first big hindi movie releasing after the strike: New York. I am waiting to watch that one! I also want to watch Kambakth Ishq.

More later.... Now that I started seeing you guys regularly once again! :)

Father's Day: Belated, but no less special!

2009-06-24T14:13:00.010-04:00

"Everyday is a Father's day" that was my reply to my father-in-law when he asked me why I did not wish him on the D-day. Well, superficially it might sound like a blatant excuse, but I was really being honest. In spite of the letter to my mom on the mother's day on this blog (which went totally unnoticed by my mom), I must admit I am not a big fan of Fathers Day, Mothers Day and Valentines Day. We should celebrate these everyday (and yes, that's a hint to my husband that I expect gifts on daily basis... joking! :) )
Having said all that, I would still continue this post by wishing all the dads of the world a happy fathers' day! Most importantly to my dad and my father-in-law.
The Indian cricket team is touring West Indies and Jamaica presently and guess what my parents-in-law get to meet them (and maybe host them for an evening!). Yes, I am jealous! For once, I hate my husband's job coz that was the sole reason why I did not go. I had made all my plans to go and meet Sachin (well... I am happy he gave this tour a miss), Dhoni, Bhajji, Yuvi etc. But I guess these folks got to wait a bit more to meet me :P.
Here are some amazing pictures my parents-in-law took with the "heros" of India:

My husband can do much more justice to the story as he has more inside scoop than I do, so we will wait for his blog on the Indian Team's tour to Jamaica.

Until then..... see you guys later!

From French Open to Wimbledon

2009-06-23T10:39:00.006-04:00

Haha! I broke all my previous records of being irregular at blogging. So much so that some people even thought "Mridula's Tashan" is packed up! well.... not so easily!!!! :) I was just busy with moving into the new apartment first and then my mother-in-law visited us for about 10 days.

So, we have just settled in the new place now and I can re-start my "tashan-ing" :). What all happened while I was away? Well.... Feddie won the French Open. I agree it would have been awesome had he done that against Nadal, but hey... a victory is a victory is a victory... so, no complaints. And with that he has won all the grand slams at least once! Thank God! There are many people who would disagree with me, but for me FedEx (Federer Express) is the all time best Tennis Player. And yeah... he also "equalled" Pete Sampras's record for the highest grand slams, which he is ready to break in a few days from now. So... Go Feddie!!!!! And I also want Venus Williams to win the women's singles title at Wimbledon. I don't know if she will though.... and yeah... I am also sad that Rafa isn't playing Wimbledon this year.

India failed to qualify for the semis in the ICC T20 world cup and I was not sad... Honestly, I am not a BIG fan of the present Indian team (though I agree there are some awesome players in the team). I never thought I would not support India in a cricket match :D. I liked the finals between SL and Pak though... and yeah! kill me for supporting Pak! I know thats really silly, but I must confess I supported Pakistan. But come one guys! I guess at the end of the day, its just a cricket match series. Anyways.... this India-Pak thing is too sensitive of a topic for my blog here... so, lets leave it there. Austrailia not qualifying to play the super eights was a real blow! But guess what! I was happy they did not qualify..... But its unbelievable to think Aussies can lose. But I guess they do not have that many match winners anymore. What with Warne and Gilly retiring and winning the IPL cups. In a nutshell, it was nice to see a losing Aussie team. And of course Ireland Rocks! How much I wished they made it to the finals at least! :)

And like I mentioned earlier, my mother in law was here for about 10 days. We had some nice time with her. But my "busy" husband was too busy at work to spend some quality time with her. Anyways, 10 days was too short. I wish she was here for some more time. But I don't understand whats with our house thats so unwelcome :P. My sisters visited us for only 2 days in April and now my mother in law just 10 days..... will surely find out!

My dad got transferred to Hyderabad! YAY!!!! no more Patna. So, the last 6 months of his service will be in Hyderabad, which is super cool! Bye Bye Lallu Yadav!

Anyways, This blog was long enough for a come back... will come back again (sooner this time!)...

Ah! Long time!!!!

2009-06-05T10:08:00.002-04:00

Long time guys! was very busy with moving out and moving in! It was a nightmare!!! Not an easy task at all! Anyways, like they always say.... all is well that ends well. So, I really have no complaints.... We moved to a bigger and better place.... The moving was tiresome, but the best part is there were no accidents. I have to thank Bharath, Tanmay and Beaker for helping us out with moving!!!! Guys, I cannot thank you enough! You made the move so easy!!!! and for all others who are reading this blog, you know who to call when you need to move (Yeah... I have their phone numbers!).... joking!!!! lol!

We are still unpacking, though I must admit it is not as hard as it looked at first. We are slowly but steadily getting there.... just a few more boxes and a few more suitcases to open.... Yes; I got a wardrobe now! haha! my clothes will finally see the light of the day! They don't have to be struck in the darkness of the storage room anymore. Also, we bought a sofa set. So our house looks a bit furnished. All we need now is a dining table and we are all set!

One sad thing that happened is Rafa Nadal's exit from Roland Garros.... yeah... who would have thought the four-time defending champion will exit so early? But yeah.... anything can happen. I just hope Feddie wins!!!!

OK... I have to go now.... catch you guys later.... but heres a wise moment of the day:

Kaam krodh mad lobh ki jou lou man mein khan
Tau lou Pandit moorkhou Tulsi ek saman.

Meaning, when a person has a mind that is a mine of desire, anger, ego and greed, he will remain a fool irrespective of his qualifications.

So, say "bye" to all bad things!!! Catch you all later!

Moving out, Moving in!

2009-05-29T20:34:00.005-04:00

Ah! how hard is that? Or is it just me???? :) We are moving out of this place and moving into a new one on Monday! The exercise has kept me very busy. My husband gave me the hardest part: Packing the kitchen! Honestly, that is the hardest thing to do, given the fact that my husband threw all the original boxes away. Anyways, our packing is going on full speed.

What else is going on? Well.... French open amongst other things :). I am trying to squeeze in as many matches as I can. I like to watch Tennis too...... This time I hope, I hope Federer wins! Please God!!!!

Watching matches on the Internet is fun! That too for free..... thats double fun! haha.... I know thats bad... but I am not complaining!!!

Alright, just wanted to say hi to all..... Me goes back to packing..... Will catch you guys later!

IPL2: What it did for me!

2009-05-24T18:46:00.006-04:00

Note: I did not watch IPL1. Also, I had NEVER watched a 20-20 match before.

Watched the final match of IPL2 today... was very happy on one hand that my favorite team won and was sad also because it was the end of the tournament. I was a HUGE cricket fan when I was in India.... just lost interest in the game after the Ganguly-Chappell thing. Ah! my life's biggest fantasy is to slap Greg Chappell one day, really tight!

Anyways, moving on, this was the first twenty-twenty series I ever watched and it was special in more than one ways. For one, I never thought I would ever see Adam Gilchrist and Herschell Gibbs open an innings together. I got to see that in IPL! I never thought I would be sad when Kumble bowls Gilchrist out for a duck.... I was VERY VERY sad when that happened today. I never thought I would want Shah Rukh Khan to fail at something.... I did not want KKR to win IPL! Lastly, I did not think I would watch cricket again after India's dismal run at world cup 2007..... I watched IPL2! :)

What I liked the most about IPL or for that matter a twenty-twenty match is that it was fast. You do not have to waste a whole day over a match! I think that is what we end up doing (wasting a day) when we watch an ODI. I guess the 50 over matches will eventually die and definitely for a good reason. No one has so much time to waste in today's world. Everybody wants to make their bucks quick. It was nice to see some of the best players of the game entertain the audience. But the IPL I watched just cemented one point: Aussies are Aussies. They don't give up. Be it Shane Warne working wonders with a bunch of individuals or Adam Gilchrist(who needs no intro) or Mathew Hayden who scored the max runs in the tournament. They have been wonderful. Real heroes, real leaders and real match winners. And mind you... all are retired! so, hats off to them. This does not mean others did not do well. All said and done, I love Anil Kumble and I liked his performance. I think he deserved a better team though. RP Singh was the leading wicket taker and he was awesome too. Suresh Raina, Manish Pandey, Rohit Sharma all did well.

What I hated about the IPL were the strategy breaks in between innings. They were insane! They broke the rythm of the match. Everytime in the 11th over someone who has been playing superbly until before the break gets out. Sachin Tendulkar said, in his true sportsman spirit, "The strategy break went against us today, but hopefully it will work for us in the next match!". Nice thinking.... but I hate those breaks. They always go against the entertainment. I also think they should not play IPL every year. That kind of kills the value for it. They should play it like world cup. Maybe once in a number of years :).

I am still in the IPL mood... so will leave you guys to relax for now. I take cricket too much to heart. Anyways, here is something for you to think about: "If a book about failures doesn't sell, is it a success?"

CONGRESS! CONGRESS!! CONGRESS!!!

2009-05-20T19:04:00.007-04:00

I have always been a BJP fan. But, I am very happy congress won the election in the center this time. Yeah.... I have changed parties and I am a congress fan now. Reason? Only two words: Rahul Gandhi. Yes! he does it for me :). This man rocks and rocks big time! He means business (something very rare to find in a politician) and he lives for the country. I am very impressed by his public conduct (not a single wrong word) and his political agenda. He has all it takes to make a great leader.

Also, I am very unhappy Chandrababu Naidu lost :(. He is a nice leader. I don't like Y.S.R. He is so mean! Anyways.... donno what prompted people to vote for him.... I guess he supports corruption so much and people like such free money, so they vote for people like YSR. Sad, but true.

Chiranjeevi lost! :) I always thought he would lose. Why did he enter politics at all? He is an actor and he should be just there. He should not entertain political dreams. People love him. They like to watch him on screen. He should be happy with that and should keep making people smile.

Today, I also want to talk a bit about Tulsidas. Yes, I want to bore people! :) OK... I won't bore much, will keep it short. Tulsidas was a great philosopher. He is considered to be one of the greatest Hindu saints. He produced many literary works, most noted of them being Hanuman Chalisa and Tusli Ramayan (Also called Ramchartitra Manas). He was a Sanskrit scholar, but wrote mostly in Awadhi. Here is a "tulsi-doha" (couplet by tulsi das):

"Tulsi Tulsi sab kahe,Tulsi ban ki ghaas
Ho gayi kirpa Ram ki, to ban gaye Tulsidas"

Meaning, People keep praising me calling me 'Tulsi, Tulsi.' Tulsi though, is as insignificant as the grass in the forest. It is only when Lord Rama decided to bestow His grace on me that I became the famous Tulsidas.

we will see more of these in future. For now, bye bye!!!

A trip to Toronto!

2009-05-17T19:24:00.006-04:00

Yes... we went to Toronto yesterday (Me, My husband, Tanmay, Bharath, Beaker and Dania). We had great fun!!!!! for me, I felt like I was going from a town to a city. Toronto is HUGE!!!!!! It is so easy to get lost in that mess :D. Actually, we got lost too.... there was some miscommunication and we got lost for about 5 minutes. Of course we had a GPS that works :). So, it wasn't hard to find our way back (Mind you! it was the GPS which made us get lost too!). Anyways... we went to the wonderland. Went on many nice rides.... had some nice Indian food for dinner (Dania was eating Indian food for the first time and of course she found it very spicy). I think we Indians should cut down on the amount of spice we eat. hahaha... I should not be the one talking about spice coz I am someone who does not think "Thai Hot" is hot enough.

Anyways..... I want to cook some mild Indian food and treat Beaker and Dania one day..... thats my aim... donno if I will even be able to do it though..... I cook very spicy food :D. The drive back was crazy!!!!!! we reached home at 3am today and of course slept off soon. But I have decided that I will never go on long drives that demand driving in crazy hours of night. My husband of course argues that it saved him one day, but I disagree. Anything could have happened. One moment of sleep while driving can cause accidents and you might not see sunlight again! So yeah.... driving at nights is very dangerous especially when you had a long day and are tired. So, thats something I want to avoid in future!

Also, today marks our 1 year "meeting" anniversary. Haha! I and my husband met exactly an year back in Philadelphia. At that time I had no idea what that meeting was for! my parents bluffed me into meeting this guy, which was unfair coz the guy in question (my husband now) knew all about it! Anyways, my parents were right in thinking that had they told me in advance, I would have never gone. So, I am very glad this was kept a secret and I am very glad I went to meet him. Then of course like they say, rest is history! haha!!!!

2 more weeks and this apartment is not going to be the place we call home anymore. But we are moving to a better place, so I am happy. But moving is hell! So many things to think about. But I can do ANYTHING to get a little more wardrobe space. My clothes are all neatly packed and sitting inside suitcases in some wierd room in our "non-existant" basement. And yes.. I don't want that :). We have decided on our new bedroom set. My dad loved that bedroom set! He likes light colors. He thinks they give an aristrocratic look :). Anyways, I am happy he liked it. We have to buy an entertainment unit and a sofa set now and that will end the initial round of investment for our new home. YAY!!! :)

Thats all for today guys and girls.... will catch u later! for now... here is something that MIGHT tickle your funny bone :

How many IBM employees does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Answer: 10,000. one to hold up the light bulb, and 9,999 to turn the building around.

That was funny, but I hope IBM does not work like that! See you all later!!!!

Oops! was busy!!!!!

2009-05-12T17:53:00.005-04:00

Yes, and now, I get some time to breathe! What with the long drive to Philly over the weekend. It was tiring. Sometimes, I wish I owned a private aircraft :). Anyways, that dream might just remain a dream for this life time.

Philly was the usual. What was nice about it was that it was a bit warmer than Ottawa. Even nicer was the fact that I got to meet my sisters again! My mother-in-law was there too and my husband got an opportunity to be spoilt rotten :D. I am sure he loves that. We attended my husband's uncle's 60th birthday party and that was fun. Went out for lunch with my mother-in-law and her sister and my sisters :D and Hitha. That was fun too. The only thing that wasn't fun was the loooonnnnnggggg drive! And some unwanted experience at the border :(!

There is nothing more for today, am still tired and will catch you guys later! Here is a funny one for those "computer literates" (the illiterates aren't going to get the joke anyways :) ):

Compaq is considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to "Press Return Key" because of the many calls asking where the "Any" key is.

Happy Mothers Day to all the great moms in the world!

2009-05-10T08:06:00.008-04:00

And yeah! every mom is a great mom! But, everyone has his/her own most special mom and I have one too. And here is an open letter to the world's best mom.......

Maa,
I don't know where to start this letter. Like all mothers you have also sacrificed your life for your three children and here is my opportunity to thank you. I thank you mom (on behalf of Mrinali and Lakshmi too) for being very special. You made us whatever we are today. We were little with no sense when you brought us into this world and today we all are engineers, self-sufficient. We can talk 4 languages. We are liked wherever we go. Everybody thinks we are nice, all thanks to you! You always taught us the right things to do. You gave us all the freedom in the world to do whatever we liked to do. You always knew what was good for us even when we did not. You always made sure we do well. You gave us strength when we needed it the most. People think we are very strong girls. It is all because of you. Girls, in our country, are brought up in a certain stereotype way. But you have brought up your daughters exactly the way you would have brought up your sons (if you had any) and we love you for that! You gave us confidence and always made us believe that there is nothing in this world we cannot do. We hardly tell you how much we love you because we can never do enough justice to that. But we all love you maa and we are proud to be your daughters! On this mothers day, we wish to be at least 10% as good mothers as you are and we know it is hard to achieve. But who knows with your blessings, we might get there after all!

I would also like to thank my mother-in-law for being an awesome mom to my husband! She has really brought him up the best way. I also thank her for being a nice mom to me too!

Thats all I have got for today. See you guys later! Here is a funny one for the mothers day:

One early morning, a lady went in to wake up her son. "Wake up, sid. It's time to go to school!"
Sid: "But why Mom? I don't want to go."
Mom: "Give me two reasons why you don't want to go."
Sid: "Well, the kids hate me for one, and the teachers hate me, too!"
Mom: "Oh, that's no reason to not to go to school. Come on now and get ready."
Sid: "Give me two reasons why I should go to school."
Mom: "Well, for one, you're 52 years old. And for another, you're the Principal!"

haha!

Packing for a holiday!

2009-05-06T08:57:00.006-04:00

Its been a while since I have been on a road trip and I am very excited to pack my bags for a small trip to Philly! A two-day trip. There is a birthday party to attend and of course I also get to meet my sisters :). But 2 day trip is a very short one!

But its been a while since I have been to US. 4 months!!!! I was hardly out of US the last 6 years. US is like my country...... I grew up sooo much there. I learnt to be independent. That country made me what I am. So, its always going to be special. But I guess I should start feeling like a Canadian now :D. But I am so protected in Canada that it feels like I am in India. haha!

The trip also means a little "bye" to studies for these 3 days. My husband is taking his books along though.... he says he will study a bit while I am driving! huh? what a bore!

And the news is, I have taken my first step towards driving a manual car. I get to play around with the clutch and gears again! I was remembering a car driving school's teacher in India. He had this strange accent. He used to say, "Kalatch" for clutch! hehe!!!! Anyways, I took a class last week and then I drove my husband's car around a little bit. I am not yet that good, but I guess I surprised him initially coz he did not expect me to be able to drive! Anyways, where Mridula is concerned, surprises are bound to happen.

That is all there is for today, but while I go on my long drive, here are 10 things, I read, you shouldn't say to a cop who pulls you over (But, I am really tempted to try some of these...):
1. I cant reach my license unless you hold my beer

2. Sorry officer, I didn't realize my radar detector wasn't plugged in

3. Aren't you the guy from the village people?

4. You must've been doin about 125 mph to keep up with me! good job!

5. Excuse me, is stick 'em up hyphenated?

6. I thought you had to be in relatively good physical condition to be a police officer

7. I was going to be a cop, but I decided to finish high school instead.

8. You're not gonna check the trunk are you?

9. Is it true that people become cops because they are too dumb to work at McDonalds?

10. Well, when I reached down to pick up my bag of crack, my gun fell out of my lap and got lodged between the brake pedal and the gas pedal, forcing me to speed out of control...

See You guys! :)

KKR : The Angels could not save the Knights!

2009-05-05T08:44:00.005-04:00

The day Shah Rukh Khan announced a TV show to hunt for girls to cheer lead his KKR team, I figured one thing out: KKR is gonna lose and lose big time! Reason? The fact that he spends valuable money and more valuable time on things like cheerleading. Guys! someone ought to "teach" my hero that cricket is not about the glamour. Agreed, KKR's theme song is the best. KKR's costume is outstanding. KKR's cheerleaders (may be) very good. But all that matters very little when your team fails to win matches. All that the team could win was an incomplete match by the D/L method. Of all the matches they played!!! Of course Shah Rukh is not the only person to be blamed, given the fact that he is not a cricketer and he cannot be responsible for his team's poor poor bat and ball performance at the IPL. But, I hold him highly responsible for this poor show. I will tell you why.

He has a gargantuan team consisting of about 57 players. Does he need that many in the first place? Anyways, even if he thought he did, I did not see any use that he has put that many players to so far. He always plays those 11 losers, maybe a couple others. But majority of those 57 players have been the bench warmers since the start of the tour and they will remain that.

Someone needs to really sit him down and tell him that changing the captain from Sourav to McCullum was NEVER going to help. That guy is a big time loser! What Shah Rukh needed to change was the TEAM. Get better players. Players who are born winners and who will perform under pressure. After all, that is what 20-20 matches are all about: performing under pressure. You get a couple of bad overs and you are under pressure. This is not a test match!

Like I mentioned in the beggining, he wasted a lot of his valuable time on things that are on the "glamour" side of the game, which are nice to see, but not really useful. He would have benifitted a lot more had he spent that time in learning more about cricket and devising a strategy to tackle the oponents. By "strategy", I mean the worst case strategy. Think what will you do when you are losing! because, you don't want to lose.

He shouldn't have gone back to India when his team is losing. OK. He went to vote! So, he should go, vote and come back! He should be there to tell his team: Look, its ok! demorolizing the players will do no good for sure!

There are many more "wrongs" about Shah Rukh Khan's team for IPL (read the confused coach and his confused "four-captain" policy). I agree that it is very easy to sit back and say whats wrong while it is really hard to be in his (Shah Rukh's) shoes. So, I will not talk about it anymore.

Of course every experience in life is a learning experience and I know that Shah Rukh Khan is an intelligent man at the end of the day. So, hopefully we will see KKR accomplish something great in coming years.

For now, its a "BYE" from me, but before I go, heres is a funny one on cricket:

A Husband makes a call to the Hospital to know about his pregnant Wife. But accidentally the call went to a cricket Stadium.

He asked ” What is the condition?”

He fainted after What he heard….

Guess What the reply was??

It is…
7 are already out…
3 more will be out by Lunch…
and… The First one was a DUCK…

lol!!! have a nice day, everyone!!!!

Do I recommend marriage?

2009-05-01T14:09:00.012-04:00

My friend asked me this today coz her parents were "groom-hunting" for her :D. It was funny she asked me that coz I just told my husband (this morning) that I still do not feel like I am married! Its been about 5 months now and I still don't feel like "married" "married"! Of course my husband took all the credit (like always) and said, "Yeah, thats because I don't create problems for you and I always give you your space". I agree :). He makes everything easy for me and I love him to death!!!!!

So, I don't think I am the right person to answer my friend's question. I am just one of those "lucky" few, for whom things did not really change so drastically after marriage. But there have been changes. There have been some changes that I liked, some that I did not. No complaints though.... But I think that is what marriage is all about. Few laughs, few tears and few challenges. All that matters in the end is, are you happy? Or would you rather be unmarried. There wasn't a single moment in these five months when I felt I would rather be unmarried! So, I am happy.
Would that be why I would recommend marriage to everybody? I don't know. I think it is all about finding the right guy/girl and thats where it starts and ends. Also, Mr.Right does not mean an ideal guy. Honestly, there is no "ideal" guy in this world. It basically means, someone who is right for you. If you find that person, YES! GET MARRIED, you will have a ball! haha.... else, wait wait wait until you find. No point in compromising, like I always say :). If you do, "marriage" won't remain a word any more.... it will become a sentence... probably a life sentence (OK.. a poor one!) :P.

There is nothing wrong in talking to a few guys/girls and trying to see if your wavelengths match. Be polite, and be nice. If you don't think it will work out, just say that to him/her. No big deal. Don't worry about hurting the person. You will hurt him/her more if you get married to him/her against your wishes. I said NO so many times! You don't get married to every guy you talk to :). So, be patient and true to yourself. Everything else, will fall in place! (Gosh! I never thought I will be going around giving out suggestions about marriage!).

OK! enough of my bakwaas.... My dad joined my "followers" list on my blog! I am so happy!!!! I love him! He is my favorite!!! Will write more about him some other time...... Coz if I start that, it won't end.....

Also, there is "somebody" who thinks I am making my life public by publishing my blogs. I would say, "take a chill pill!" If you think these blogs are all I am about, you are HIGHLY mistaken! Publishing these blogs is just a way for me to write down some of my thoughts and opinions. So, my blogs will continue :D!

That is all I got for today, will see you guys same place, some other day! For now, a couple of jokes on marriage...

A lady inserted an "ad" in the classifieds: "Husband wanted". Next day she received hundreds of letters. They all said the same thing: "You can have mine."
haha! I wasn't one of them! :D.

But here is one my husband will totally agree with:
"A woman has the last word in any argument. Anything a man says after that is the begining of a new argument."

The VIP darshan at Tirupati

2009-04-29T10:36:00.006-04:00

Had a small talk with Anoop about it this morning and I wanted to write :). First of all, what is Tirupati? Like many know, it is a pilgrim city in Andhra Pradesh, India. Why is it special? Because it is the home of Tirumala Venkateswara Temple. What is special about that temple? We, Srivaishnavites, apart from millions of other people, feel that is where God lives! You ask God for anything there, you will get it! Thats the belief of everyone who visits the temple. To a large extent, it is true. As a result of that, he is the second richest God in the world today. Full points to him! The temple is beautiful and is worth every bit of the energy you spend to get there. Having said that, I would also say if your heart is true and if you really need something, he (God) will give it to you, regardless of your visit to any holy place.

What disturbs me most about it though, is the VIP darshan. I mean, how can someone be a VIP in front of God? I am sorry, but I have to disagree. The VIPs get to see the God within an hour of their entrance into the temple, while it would take about 5 or 6 hours for someone who is not a VIP. The question here is, who is a VIP? All celebrities, people with high-profile jobs, etc. That is so unfortunate. Why are they VIPs? According to me, VIPs should be the people who are less fortunate. Little children who cannot wait for that long in a line, because they are hungry! Old people who can't stand in a queue and poor people who can rather spend their time earning their daily bread (this is such a sensitive issue!). There is no reason why Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan deserve a quick short-cut. Just because they have been fortunate enough to earn bit more bucks than what we do, does not make them VIPs. At least not in a temple. After all, all the money they earn is also God-given. Why flaunt it right in front of him? I would say, go flaunt it somewhere else. If security is your issue, don't go to places where you don't think you will be secure. Thats my take on it!

I have been to Tirupati many times. But, I never knew how the VIP darshan thing works. After my marriage when we went to Tirupati, I saw how commercialized the place was! I was shocked! This time, we were VIPs (I don't know why). We had to tell lies (like I am somebody's son, someone's nephew etc) to find accommodation and of course for the VIP darshan. While we spent a long time (about 5 minutes, which is a long time according to the standards there!) looking at God's idol, I wondered how much he would approve of the way and the means I used to stand there in the first place. I could not ask him for anything. Simply because, I did not think I was right. Honestly, I felt terrible. But on my way out, I had promised myself: I will never repeat this. I am not going to lie or fake again. At least, not in matters like this. When I stand in front of God, I want to hold my head high and be able to talk to him. I do not want to feel like a thief, murderer or a liar.

Thats about it for today! Tanmay missed the "joke of the day" last time. I am not in a mood to joke today as well. So, next time, I will try to come up with lighter stuff!

Bye to all for now!!!!!

What a day of cricket!!!!!!!

2009-04-23T15:35:00.005-04:00

An awesome day of entertainment for all cricket fans all over the world! I for one could NOT look away from the computer screen where the match was playing! I am sure many people living in this part of the world and are not laid off YET envied me :). For once, I liked not having a job... haha! Both the matches were AWESOME. Especially the one between the Knights and the Royals. There was a twist every few overs, until the last ball. Just when you thought the Royals had a huge edge and would win the contest, Dada came and played like a dream (well... I love him) and then, he got out in the penultimate ball like a nightmare. The last ball had a new batsman on the crease and he had to score 2 runs off 1 ball. He scored just one run and the game was tied. Then was the super over, which resulted in the Knights losing badly!!!! But the game was nothing short of power-packed entertainment.
Well, apart from the matches, what keeps IPL entertaining is the fake IPL player who claims himself to be a Knight Rider...... haha.... I don't know if he is one or not, but he is very funny. He called Ajit Agarkar "kaan moolo" because Agarkar has big ears and I was just looking at Agarkar's ears all through the match! lol.... that was very funny.
What is not funny is the way everybody related to the Slumdog Millionaire star Rubina Ali is fighting for her now. Ah! now everybody wants her. Now! since she is a goose that lays golden eggs. DISGUSTING!!!!!!
That is all I have got for today, catch you guys later!!!!

Short and sweet!

2009-04-22T16:27:00.009-04:00

Thats what I call the new 20-20 version of cricket (maybe its not new anymore!). Very entertaining!!!! Everyone comes out and hits his best shots and exits, which is very good. ODIs sometimes get really boring and dragging. But of course I love cricket... so, I can watch ANY match!
Nice to see Rahul Dravid transform himself to every form of cricket with such ease. I remember his early days of one-day cricket. He was pathetic!!!! But of course that was history and really long back! He has been in great form for a very long time since.

One batsman of the current lot (read young generation) who was really impressive was Rohit Sharma. He was awesome! I think he will be our next VVS Laxman or maybe our next "The great wall of India" (read Rahul Dravid). Good luck to the young man!
We finally found a new apartment to move into! looks like my prayers have paid off :). The 2-bedroom apt we found is very close to where we live right now and what is better.... its right next to Walmart and the grocery store!!!! Right opposite to a bank! A good find (I congratulate myself)! But of course moms always talk about "vaastu" and the auspicious days to move into a new house. Looks like May31st, which is a Sunday, is not auspicious. We will have to move on Tuesday, which is a working day!!!! Have to work around that one :) Maybe my dad will help me with some loophole (I wish!!! my dad of all people! he defenitely ain't going to help me find LOOPHOLES! :) ).
Terrorists in Pakistan and LTTE problems in Sri Lanka! how protected are we! :). Very bad!!!! Its high time Pakistan takes a stand against terrorists. Having Taliban troupes march into Islamabad and pretending like all the terrorists live in India is the height of negligence and the height of living in denial. Its not funny anymore! Its time they revolt against the bad forces!!!!
Anyways... thats all for the day, catch you guys tomorrow. But before I sign off, maybe you will like this joke:
After his divorce a man realized that poker isn't the only game that starts with holding hands and ends with a staggering financial loss.
haha!!! see you guys later!

Am back!!!!!

2009-04-20T18:06:00.009-04:00

Long break! but hey... am back!!!! I was very very busy with miscellaneous stuff. I had to get my package ready to apply for immigration. God! this one is a never-ending saga. I can actually write about 10 days worth of screenplay regarding "the making of my application package for Canadian Immigration!" I know that you guys have far more better things to do than read my screenplay about silly immigration stuff, so I won't bore you with details :). Other than that, husband is home a lot now a days and that is awesome (really!!! i mean it :) ). So, spending some time with him and of course watching IPL and no... I am not supporting Kolkata Knight Riders (for a change, though it was sad to see SRK's sad face when KKR lost their first match). Right now, my favorite team is Mumbai Indians, but I still have to see a few more matches to decide whom I will support.
Lookout for a nice apartment is still going on.... I really want to find one soon. Its dragging so much! Ottawa has no good apartments :( and thats sad. So, my prayer for today... "Please God! find me a decent place to live in!"
All else going on great..... I now understand a lot more about JAVA than what I did an year back and that I call an improvement. According to me, you should ALWAYS compete with yourself, except when you are playing a game where you improvement is defined by somebody else's performance also. For example, your victory is defined by someone's loss. And when you play such games, you do only to WIN. That is my mantra. Never play for timepass. ALWAYS PLAY TO WIN! Don't be happy you came second.
Thats all for today, I promise I will come back sooner this time :D. But before I leave, one nice way to start you day so that it ends on a good note.
Instructions to start the day rightly:
1. Open a new file in your PC.
2. Name it "George W. Bush".
3. Send it to the trash.
4. Empty the trash.
5. Your PC will ask you: "Do you really want to get rid of George W. Bush?"
6. Answer calmly "Yes" pressing firmly on the mouse's button.
haha! that way you go to bed knowing you did at least one thing right during the day! :)

Baal Atyachaar!!!!!

2009-04-15T22:41:00.019-04:00

For those who don't know Hindi, I am talking about child-abuse in India in this post. I know its like a dramatic turn for my blog coz I generally write about the "rosy" side of life. But I guess its time to get a bit real. I had mentioned in my first blog post that I will write about everything that is good, bad, ugly and beautiful. I have written a lot of the good things, some bad things and of course some beautiful stuff. Now, its time to write about something "ugly", and I mean it in the truest sense of the word! What can get more ugly than killing innocence? In my opinion, that is the most heinous crime one can ever commit.

Child labor, beating up children, punishing them for silly reasons, torturing them etc, all these kill the innocence, the ability to dream and the ability to learn in children. I recently read a report about a child who was punished in school (for some lame reason) in Delhi. Her teacher banged her head against the wall and made her stand in the sun for a couple of hours. The little girl collapsed in the sun and is now in a state of comma. How ugly can it get? 10 year old girls, 11 year old girls raped and killed by their teachers! isn't it shocking? It is disgusting. If reading this piece of news sends you goosebumps, think of those children who suffer this kind of abuse on a daily basis. What will they learn? What will they teach youngsters tomorrow?
I am not a fan of the movie Slumdog Millionaire. But, one thing that strikes me about that movie is the way they showed the slum kids. The depiction was true. Very true.... to the extent of being sad. All this in a country that boasts of huge number of religions and thousands of Gods! What is the use of all those religions, saints, Gods, Goddesses if they cannot protect the most important and most vulnerable section of human population? Little children are like angels. They are the personification of love and dreams. They teach you how easy it is to laugh and smile. They show you reality in its truest and rarest forms. They show you the colors of life and yet are colorless most of the time, especially the unfortunate ones you see on the streets everyday if you were to walk on the roads in India.
At the end of the day you sit back and ask yourself, why are they punished? They don't choose who they should be born to, they don't choose which caste/religion they want to belong to, they don't choose which language they would speak, they don't choose which city or country they want to be born in, they don't choose their parents' jobs or income..... THEY HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO CHOICE! So, they are NOT at fault. They did not do ANYTHING wrong. Yet, they are humiliated, punished and looked down upon.

India has the maximum under-15 population in the world. So rich and yet so poor! how ironic!!!!

PS: If you are an Indian and could read this blog, you are one of those blessed few who has had the unique opportunity to exercise his/her right to education. Trust me, you are blessed! You have no right to complain.

Sachin Tendulkar's wax statue: Was it a bit too late?

2009-04-14T15:44:00.015-04:00

Aishwarya Rai, Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan already have their wax statues at the Madame Tussauds. Sachin Tendulkar follows. But, according to me, the only person in the above list who is more deserving of the honor than Sachin Tendulkar is, is Amitabh Bachchan.

Aishwarya Rai, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan....... just boils down to a simple question: Is bollywood overrated? I am a HUGE HUGE Shah Rukh Khan fan, I LOVE Salman Khan and I hate Aishwarya Rai from the bottom of my heart. But, I feel that Sachin is more deserving of the honor than the three. Because, he personifies sports and sporting spirit in India. My sister's most favorite quote states, "If cricket is a religion, Sachin is the God!" Mind you! I am NOT a die-hard Sachin Tendulkar fan. But, my tastes and emotions apart, what is right is right. What is Shah Rukh Khan the God of? Why is Salman Khan there? I know no good reason!!! And folks! Aishwarya Rai is NOT the Godess of beauty. She is so plastic. I am sure there is no difference between her and her wax statue. Both are expressionless. Also, there are so many others who are more deserving than the bollywood stars. Thank God! Sachin is a cricketer. Had he been in any other field (though equally good), we wouldn't have even known his name.... forget about the statue. Why don't we see Abdul Kalam there? Is Salman Khan greater than Kalam? If you answer an "yes", I am sure you are joking. So, while I am happy that Sachin will now find a place at the Madame Tussuads, I also feel it was a bit too late. I am also sad that there are many other deserving people who should have gotten there ahead of these folks! So yeah.... Bollywood is highly overrated (at least, according to me).

Anyways, It was very interesting to note how humble Sachin is. This is what he had to say about his wax statue: "I am not a person who normally reacts easily to anything. But when I and my family saw it, something identical to myself, my reaction was something different. I have not reacted like that before, my reaction was special. It was so real, it was fantastic. But I am glad it does not breathe." So sweet!!!!!!!

On another note, spring is in here in full force and I am loving that! :) The sky adorned with those beautiful birds, the green grass, people walking on the streets, etc.... Its beautiful out there and I am sure it is going to get even better in the coming weeks. So, you guys will see many pictures of me on my blog! haha!!! I can't wait to wear some nice clothes!!! I hate burying myself in a pair of jeans and a thick jacket.

Well.... am now signing off for today, catch you guys later! But, before I go, some funny stuff:

Johnny: Daddy, are caterpillars good to eat?
Father: Have I not told you never to mention such things during meals!
Mother: Why did you say that, Junior? Why did you ask the question?
Johnny: It's because I saw one on daddy's lettuce, but now it's gone.

hahaha! so, ALWAYS watch what you are putting in your mouth! :)

I beat my husband at Tennis!!!!!!!!! (twice! 2-0!!!!)

2009-04-11T08:33:00.007-04:00

FINALLY!!!!! not once, but twice :). I am very happy. Feels like my hard work finally paid off......

My mom was not happy with my remarks on L K Advani in my last post. She thought his supporters will take some action on me! haha!!! take a chill pill mom! :) After all, we are a part of the largest democracy in the world!

Finally, I filed for my tax returns in the US for 2008. It is the most boring thing in the year for me to do. I hate filling forms and I get some or the other form to fill on a daily basis. Anyways, the good news out of filling those forms for the tax returns is that I make some good money, which is quite cool. Since I don't have a job, any money coming my way is very welcome :D.

My sister came and took my car away with her and now I am car-less (just created the word! :) ). I miss my car so much. I did not drive it much when it was here, but there was always certain assurance that if I need to go out, I can. Now, that is not possible. My husband's car is not automatic gears. That is disturbing. I have to learn that one now. What is funnier is that my husband thinks I have no knowledge of driving a geared vehicle. Yes, Chandana, Mrinalini, Lakshmi, Deepika, Anoop, you guys are allowed to laugh! :) coz, thats what I do too! haha!!!!! My husband misunderestimates me! sorry Bush!!!! I just love that word! :D. But I don't really blame my husband. He never saw me drive my dad's scooter on the road like an awara! I miss those days though.... my dad sometimes went to work in his office vehicle and left his scooter home. I used to drive it all over the place (with my mom sitting behind me) and parked it back before my dad reached home. But I got caught many times. Somehow, my dad always figured it out!!! (maybe just the way I parked the vehicle!) but he never scolded me or beat me up! :)

Its long weekend and me and my husband are chilling at home. Its nice to see him home for an extended period of time :). We are doing nothing. Just watching movies, eating and chilling. Of course we played tennis and he lost :P.

OK enough of bore for the day! As I sign off, I think its been a while since we have had any Kabir moments, so, here I go.....

Sayeen Itna Deejiye, Ja Mein Kutumb Samaye
Main Bhi Bhookha Na Rahun, Sadhu Na Bhookha Jaye

Meaning, O God, just give me enough to envelop my clan. Neither should I suffer cravings nor the visitor should go unfed.

Hurling Shoes!!!!!!!

2009-04-07T19:34:00.006-04:00

Looks like the journalist who threw shoes at George Bush has already become a role model and has started inspiring people around the globe. I just read a report about an Indian journalist hurling a shoe at Chidambaram at a press conference. I don't know if Chidambaram deserved it or not, but I think most of the politicians around the world deserve that kind of treatment. Well... we should not misunderestimate Bush. He worked very hard for it (getting the shoe hurled on him) and therefore, definitely deserved it :). If you ask me, LK Advani should be the next in the line.... (don't go tell him though..).
Anyways.... winter is gone and there is some sun in my blog now :). Let me know if you guys liked it! I got bored of black!!!! Also my fishes!!!! Let me know if you liked them too..... you can feed them.. haha.... just click anywhere in that area and food will appear and my fishes will eat the food. Don't overfeed them though.. they might die. I am guilty of that. No... not these fishes, but I overfed a fish my roommate was petting and the poor thing (the fish) died! It was very sad :(.
Nothing much going on my end.... had plans to visit Philly this weekend, but that got canceled. So, home home all weekend! I get some nice time in hand to bore my husband... hehe.
As we part for today, here is my funny little joke:

TEACHER: If you had one dollar and you asked your father for another, how many 
dollars would you have? 
VINCENT: One dollar. 
TEACHER(sadly): You don't know your arithmetic. 
VINCENT(sadly): You don't know my father.      

haha.... so true of many of our fathers! and until next time, see ya!

Baseball mania and oh yeah... Elections in India!!!!!!

2009-04-06T22:56:00.006-04:00

Yep! Baseball mania hit me now :D...... Since I am a pro at Tennis in wii, I started playing baseball. Now I understand the game (at least I think I do :P). Its quite interesting. Of course, very much like cricket. For a cricket fan like me ( I don't think I should call myself that anymore coz I don't watch cricket now a days), it was not very hard to pick the concept. I was very confused in the beginning though. My target is to become a pro at baseball too. I am already half way up there and it does not look all that difficult.
On a more impressive note, it is interesting to see all the celebrities in India taking time out of their busy schedules and preaching to everybody the importance of casting their vote. So much that, Aamir Khan, who will be in Montana at the time of elections, is going to fly back to India just for one day and cast his vote. Isn't that really something? I guess we (read NRIs) should take a leaf out of his book and fly to India to vote... haha..... I know.... quite far-fetched! I don't understand one thing though : when everyone is a lafanga (read fraud), who do we cast our vote for? and does our vote really matter in this case? I don't mean to demoralize the youth of India, but its something I don't understand. Everybody talks about how we need change in India, but we time and again elect the same corrupt people to power. Its not our fault. How do we know someone is corrupt or not? From where I stand, every politician (at least in India) looks corrupt to me. All are hungry for power and money and no one really wants to do any good. I saw some videos of politicians fighting and it was SHAMEFUL to say the least.
Anyways, I heard about the ADR (Association for Domestic Reforms). It seems they are responsible for collecting information from the election commission on all the candidates who are contesting elections (like their educational qualifications, wealth, criminal record, etc) so that the public knows who they are voting for. Again, sounds interesting and impressive, but I am sure our Maha-Netas can find a way out of everything. Again, not being pessimistic, but lets wait and watch. Their website looks promissing though. Just skim through if you have the time.
Well... I guess too much has been said for today, I keep rest of my thoughts for another day :D, but leave you guys with a glimpse of our new miss Indias. They are beautiful (guys should tell me what they think :D), but we have to wait and watch for any action from their end. Until then, good luck to them and good night to you all! :)

A fun weekend!

2009-04-06T09:27:00.007-04:00

Weekend was fun! My husband and my sisters planned a surprise for me. My sisters were going to come to visit us and it was supposed to be a surprise for me. It would have really worked out the way it was planned. My husband and my sisters did manage to keep this away from me until the D-day. But the surprise was spoiled on the D-day (read Friday the 3rd of April!). Only if my husband did not bother so much about cleaning the house at 5am on Friday....... the surprise would have worked. But Friday morning, my husband woke up at 5am and told me that the cleaning of the house could not wait for one more day :D. I did not see any good decent reason why it could not wait for a day more. I managed to put him back to sleep at that time. He again woke up at 8 and declared he would go to work an hour late coz he had to clean the house. That totally left me clueless. I could not understand what was wrong with him. Why would he want to miss work and clean the house. It became worse when he asked me to clean the kitchen that very moment. Small arguments ended in me crying, when he finally HAD to reveal the truth. haha.... that was the spoiler!
But it was a lot of fun. I spent some very nice quality time with my sisters over the weekend. Something I hadn't really done since my marriage. It is surprising how you think marriage distances you from your family. And it is untrue. They are the people you have grown up with and that connection will always remain. I hit off with my sisters instantly. That was nice :). It was nice to see them bond nicely with my husband. There were no inhibitions and no secrecy. They talked to him like they talk to me and he was also very nice to them. I loved that!
Anyways... here are some pictures.....

Thats all I have got for now.... so, I leave you with this "Bush" joke:

Question: "What proof do you have that Iraq has Weapons of Mass Destruction?"
Colin Powell: "We kept the receipts."

haha.... I am sure they did!!!!!!! :)

I baked my first bread!!!!!! :)

2009-04-02T13:32:00.022-04:00

Yay!!! finally, I managed to bake a bread all on my own! no... its not an April fool prank :D. Though, I did NOT forget to fool my husband first thing in the morning yesterday. I told him that I had burnt my finger while cooking for him and he believed and I waited for him to act a bit worried and then said "APRIL FOOL!" haha..... I tried to fool my mom also.... it backfired on me though. I said "April fool" and she said "I became a fool the day I gave birth to you!" DARN!!!!!!! :).... Yeah... we won't talk about that!!!!! :D

Anyways.... back to my baking sucess.... I baked a plain wheat bread yesterday and it was not bad at all.... I have pictures to prove with!!!

So yeah! just been busy with that.... Recipe requests will be hounored! :)

Tomorrow is Lord Rama's (an incarnation of lord Vishnu) birthday. Its funny to think of God's birthday coz "God" is not technically born. But it is the day he set foot in this world to get rid of some evil forces. So, we celebrate his birthday, just like we celebrate ours. No.... he does not like cakes or breads. He likes a couple of things called vadapappu and panakam. So, I am all set to make those for him. I always do that, religiously, every year and this year is going to be no exception.

For those who have been struggling with defining God, just think of him as a force that keeps you up. I read in Venkat's blog that God is similar to a superman. I would just say (and its just my take on religion and God) God is only the "super" part of a superman. No... he is NOT a man. He is not a mayavi (a magician). He is the maya (the magic). He might have taken incarnations(according to the Hindu mythology, at least) time and again on earth, like I said to fight evil. So, when he does that, it really makes sense for him to come down and look like what everybody else looks like. Also, there are some incarnations of God (in this case, Lord Vishnu) which are not the form of a man. God is that power that makes extraordinary things in our lives happen. There are many things that happen in our lives on a daily basis, some of them totally beyond our control. He controls those things. It is nice to believe that there is some force or power above (or below) watching our every step, controlling the fruits of our actions. And talking about "logic" makes no sense to me. Don't go searching for "logic" behind the "God" theory. Coz, if you and I could figure that out, we would be him! I do not believe in the "religion" theory, I think there is just one force that guides us all. But, like all others, I would like to name that force (Lord Rama, in my case) so that I can have a one-on-one connection with it. I like to give that force a gender and a form so that I can identify with that force better and concentrate more. I think of that force as a person and talk to him on a daily basis (coz, its only people we can talk to and identify with). It just makes everything easier to digest and understand.We all are picture-oriented. When I say "banana", a picture of that fruit comes in our mind and we associate our minds with it and thus can concentrate better. Imagine not knowing what a banana looks like.... hard! :) Imagine me talking about something that cannot be seen/felt/touched. Those things are a bit harder to understand, though maybe more logical.

Having said all that, I would still say, to each his own. So, this works for me and I stick to my belief. It might not work for many and might sound illogical for lots out there. They should stick with their belief of "God does not exist or exists in a different way" theory. coz, at the end of the day, we all are selfish individuals and we always stick with what works for us. Well, we have to accept facts as they are and we cannot change them to work for us. But what we believe always depends on us and what works for us, and in turn our beliefs define us. So, there you go! :)

For tomorrow, just keep chanting the following:

Sri Rama Rama Rameti, Rame Raame Manorame, Sahasra Nama Tat Tulyam, Rama Nama Varanane

Meaning, I meditate upon Sri Ram as Sri Rama Rama Rama, the thrice recital of Rama’s name is equal to Recitation of the thousand names of Lord Vishnu.

I keep chanting that regularly and it gives me immense peace of mind (yeah! it again is all about what works for you).

Here is me taking leave. Will catch you all later! :)

New appartment search: Draining me!!!!!!!

2009-03-31T14:50:00.002-04:00

MUHUHUHUHHAHAHAHAHH

i have access to your account

-anonymous husband.

haha..... yeah that was my husband hacking my account, trying to "read" a non-existing, un-published blog..... :) so yeah... he was APRIL FOOLed (of course a day in advance!). The concept of April fool has always been unclear to me though. A fool is a fool is a fool! be it April or May or December :)! But its nice to beleive and nice to remind all the fools that like we honor mothers with a mothers day, fathers with a father's day, we honor fools too with a fools day! haha.

We are moving out of this single bedroom apartment in June... YAY!!!! I can't wait! This apartment is tiny. There is no room for my clothes in here and I NEED a walk-in closet when we move into our new place. Thats my only rule :D. But I think I will be a bit nostalgic after I move out of this apartment, coz there are too many nice memories of my newly-married life in here. But, since I get to take the best part of those memories (read, my husband) with me, I guess I will be OK. But like I said, the search is draining me! There seem to be no good apartments in Ottawa that fit the bill. Well, my husband has his own demands and I have mine too. And it is getting harder by the end of the day to find a decent place to move into. But the search is still on and I will keep you guys posted!

On another brighter note.... the spring is in here and all the snow is gone! wow!!!!! nice to see bright shiny days ahead! I think I should take the snow flakes off my blog too :D. Maybe I should put in some sunshine! lol...

There is nothing much to share really, so, I end this post right here, but with a Poor Joke:

Q: what is the name of the Sardar who wins every music competition?
(highlight below for the answer)
A: Surjeet (Sur + Jeet)! haha!!!!!!!

BYE BYE!!!! catch you guys later!!!!!!

Crash Course???? big joke! :D

2009-03-26T22:02:00.003-04:00

I hate crash courses! Learn JAVA in 21 days....... Thats either a big joke or it means, for 21 days we do nothing except learning JAVA. coz, I have been working for the last month and a half and I am not even half done. Agreed I don't spend that much time on it (like I don't do it 24X7) and I am too particular about the details and the concepts, but thats the only way I know. How else will you learn something? Just by heart a couple of formulae and some interview questions? Thats just waste of time, in my opinion. "Crash" means, to break or fall into peices. And I think that will happen for sure if you depend on the Crash courses! Anyways..... thats (JAVA) what is keeping me busy now a days.

I am a PRO now! at tennis in wii! :) I feel like playing against Roger Federer! haha!!!! I am sure i'll win :D.

Hope things are going OK with you guys. Tomorrow is Ugadi, so happy ugadi to all the telugu people out there! Ugadi is telugu new years and one of the most awaited festivals in the andhra-land!

I end today with a silly (read poor) joke:

A scientist disconnected his doorbell..

Why?? (highlight below for the answer)

Because...he wanted to win the No-bell prize!

And yes.... I am running away!!!!!!!!!!! catch you guys later! :)

Our source says..........

2009-03-25T18:20:00.008-04:00

I have been reading a lot of gossip these days (I love to read Indian filmy gossip... sorry! :) ) and one strange thing really caught my attention over and over again. The three words "Our source says". They seem to make any kind of outrageous gossip believable. Using that "source", which I am very very sure does not really exist in most cases, the journalists can write just about ANYTHING! The "source" is mightier than the pen and the sword put together! Write any crap and attribute it to a source close to the actor and people will believe it. You can safely say that the "source" does not want to be revealed. Well.. of course... how can you reveal when there is nothing to be revealed, silly? Isn't it really cheap? Its disgusting. Just think how wrong such irresponsible reporting could go..... It could even break relationships. You can just say, "Our source says Star A does not want to work with Star B". Even if that report was a blatant lie (which, in high probability, it is), it has a high potential to break the relationship between the two people and may be many more. I feel very bad for all the stars, but kya kareein, I guess they pay that to be who they are. So, it should be their problem and not mine..... :D. And anyways, I like to be cheap sometimes and I must admit that gossip keeps me entertained :P.

Well, for all those wondering where I disappered to over the past few days and why I did not write, I was lazy!!!! :). And, I really had nothing to write and I was also giving you guys a break! (no... I was not high..... just in case you thought so reading my previous post). There wasn't much going on, except my JAVA studying and playing wii. Well, I guess I am doing the latter much better now coz I am almost a pro now. Just a few more points and I'll be a pro. Something I have been playing for for the last couple of weeks. So, I am very happy! I hope to reach my milestone soon (read becoming a tennis pro on wii).

Well, my lazy and useless sisters were supposed to come over for some weekend, but they still haven't made up their minds and I hate them!

Here is my Kabir moment of the day:
Jab Tun Aaya Jagat Mein, Log Hanse Tu Roye
Aise Karni Na Kari, Pache Hanse Sab Koye

Meaning, when you came into this world, people laughed and you cried. But make sure when you leave the world no one laughs.

Very easy to do.... just be nice, clean, honest, wise, smart, punctual, down to earth, proactive, helpful, thankful, hygienic, etc etc etc... :D!

Yeah... I only like people who have all those qualities in them.... now, don't ask me why I like my husband! Love is blind!!!!! :P... haha! Kidding!!!!! my husband is awesome! :)
Here is me signing off for today. But, there is one question that I would love to ask though..... Do our ear drums vibrate when sound waves enter the ear? The geeks can answer :) And I will see you all later!

A great fruit cake recipie (I think guys will love this one)

2009-03-20T15:33:00.007-04:00

OK... I read this on the Internet and found it really funny. So, I thought I will share it with you all. I am sure the guys are going to like it more than the girls..... Sorry ladiez loog... haha!

A great fruit cake recipie

You'll need the following: a cup of water, a cup of sugar, four large eggs, two cups of dried fruit, a teaspoon of baking soda, a teaspoon of salt, a cup of brown sugar, lemon juice, nuts, and a bottle of whisky.

Sample the whisky to check for quality.

Take a large bowl. Check the whisky again. To be sure it is the highest quality, pour one level cup and drink. Repeat. Turn on the electric mixer, beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add one teaspoon of sugar and beat again.

Make sure the whisky is still okay. Cry another tup. Turn off the mixer. Break two leggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit. Mix on the turner. If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers pry it loose with a drewscriver.

Sample the whisky to check for tonsisticity. Next, sift two cups of salt. Or something. Who cares? Check the whisky. Now sift the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add one table. Spoon. Of sugar or something. Whatever you can find.

Grease the oven. Turn the cake tin to 350 degrees. Don't forget to beat off the turner. Throw the bowl out of the window, check the whisky again and go to bed.

Job (Search, fish, hunt.....)

2009-03-19T22:26:00.005-04:00

Its around 10:30pm but the husband is still busy at work (working, he says) :). So, I get some time to catch up with you guys. A good news first..... I kind of got a hang on the tennis game in Wii. I am not sure if I can defeat my husband at it yet, but there is a huge improvement in my hand-to-eye coordination :D. I can now beat the computer at least once, a feat which I worked very hard to reach!

I updated my resume today, after a lot of procrastination. Just felt a bit tired of joblessness and decided to take the first step away from it. Steve and Kent were very kind and accepted to be my references. So, the next logical step is to start looking out for jobs (I know... recession :( ). But lets see.... from where I stand, I don't really have much to lose. Worst, I won't find a job and Its as good as now. So, I think I can only get to a better position from here. So, I should try. At least I can get an idea of the job market and I can figure out where I stand. I have never been "interviewed" in my life yet, so I guess I seriously need some exercise on that front. I need to experience the not-so-rosy world of job interviews.

I have to go help Beaker drop his car (somewhere.... I don't know where???). I have to follow him to wherever he is dropping his car and give him a ride back home. I dread that..... Not the ride back home, but following him. First of all, I am not very good at following someone on the road and secondly, I know how Beaker drives :P. He drives like lightning!!!!!!!! too fast for me (and a bit rash too, to put it very gently), but hopefully I can make it :).

So, while I sign off, here is something that MIGHT make you laugh:

Boy: I'm not rich like Rahul, I don't even have a big car like Rahul, but I really Love You!
Girl: I love you too, but tell me more about Rahul.

lol! I guess that is how the world works today!!!!!

Stupid Mridula :D

2009-03-18T18:57:00.005-04:00

Yesterday was bad! I parked my car in the wrong spot and my husband came back from work at the right time to save it from being towed away :(. We still had to pay 85 bucks!!!! how stupid can I be? I was mad with myself all evening. Of course, I cried for a while :D. It was all not because we had to pay $85. But what all could have happened? My car could have been towed away and I wouldn't even know. I don't take the car out everyday. So, I shudder to think what would have happened had they towed it away. We would have needed to spend much more than those $85. My husband says, I should be happy coz I learnt my lesson in just about a hundred bucks. Maybe he is right. But imagine, if I cannot even park a car properly, what am I good for? I was very very angry with myself. I just feel I don't deserve to own a car. I don't earn even a cent and I waste my husband's money. I hate that! Am I sounding silly and stupid? Maybe I am... but anyways, my sister will come in around 2 weeks time and take my car with her. I am sure she can put it to a better use and take better care of it.

On a more happy note, today is my mother-in-law's birthday. I hope she had fun and I wish her many many more happy birthdays :). I tried frantically over the last two days to send her a cake, but no shop in Jamaica was going to deliver a cake. How bad! I think I will bake her a cake when she comes here (I don't know if she will like it though... :D).

Cooking and JAVA are the two things that are keeping me busy (of course other than phone calls). I am trying my hand at Thai recipes. I tried to make the green curry today. I don't know how it turned out.... I am waiting to find out :). Waiting for the jeera rice to be ready. Its sitting in the rice cooker. I wonder how the combination of jeera rice and Thai green curry is going to be. No harm in trying, I guess. The least, I will learn not to try that again! haha! my poor husband. He is the scape goat. I try all my culinary skills on him. He does not complain, but still..... :).

More later.... until then, think about this : Why the number 11 not pronounced onety one? I wonder why...... any ideas?

Deepika!

2009-03-16T14:25:00.013-04:00

Deepika says, I talk about everyone on this blog, but I never talk about her. So, this post is all about her! Deepika is Anoop's sister and Anoop is my best friend. I have known him for about ten years now. He has always been nice to me. We both share a great rappot. He was very instrumental in my GRE preparation. I can see someone turning RED! lol! lol! lol! So, Deepika... do you still want me to write about you? :D
Well.... on a more serious note (not that the above-mentioned things aren't seriously true), Deepika is a wonderful girl. When I first met her I never knew that the little acquintance we shared that day would transform into years of friendship. She is one of my closest friends today. She is the only one I really talk to almost on a daily basis.
There are many memories with Deepika spread over the last several years. I still remember how she used to feel bad when I used to call her home, talked to her brother and hang up. I was very mean, something I never really realize until she pointed out to me. She is someone who always likes to keep company. She is always there, if you need her (in true sense) and that is a great quality. I don't know many people who are like that. In fact, now that I think about it, I don't really know anybody who is so selfless. I am sure you too can at most COUNT the number of such people you know on your fingers. Therefore, she rocks!:)
The one outstanding quality about her is the way she demands attention. Boy! you can never forget or ignore her! I haven't been able to do it even once in ten long years. She always keeps in touch and always calls to say "Hey! whats up!" :) She makes sure you don't forget her and that, according to me, is awesome. In this fast-paced world where people forget to call others or are too busy to keep in touch with near and dear ones, we DO need more and many more Deepikas around. I was so silly and stupid that I did not even invite her properly for my engagement. She did not care. She still came and stole the show. She is someone with an attitude "I-DON'T-CARE-IF-YOU-FORGET-ME! I-WILL-KEEP-IN-TOUCH!". Isn't that lovely? I think it is :).
I always joke that she annoys me, but honestly, if she stops talking to me, I will definetly miss her! I am sure she will never do that though. Do I take her too much for granted? Maybe Yes; But who do you really take for granted in life? You take only those people for granted who mean the most to you (you can correct me if you think otherwise). I always want to be there for her no matter what.
So, here is me dedicating my first poor joke to Deepika!

Q: What do u call a cylinder of radius "z" units and height "a" units?

think! think! think!
(highlight below for the answer and explanation)

Ans: - Pizza!

Volume of cylinder= Pi * r * r * h
=>pi*z*z* a
=Pizza
Hence Proved.

OK now... before you come hit me with whatever is in you hands, I am running for my life..... hahaha..... (BTW... this was just the start of my poor joke series... there is more to come!)

15th March 2009 (I just could not think of a title!) :P

2009-03-15T15:33:00.011-04:00

Yesterday was Steve's birthday. So, Happy Birthday Steve!!! (just could not blog yesterday, though I did remember). Steve (Steve Mahon) was my boss at Verizon. Well... not really my boss, but I always considered him that, though my boss was also awesome! Steve will always be special. I learnt so much from him that it would not really be an exaggeration if I say whatever I know that can help me make some money (Message Broker, XML, XSLT etc), is all thanks to him! Steve, YOU ROCK (and you know that) :). I just want to get somewhere professionally. Somewhere such that when Steve finds out, he should be proud of me. He should be able to proudly say..."Oh yeah! she worked for me and she was so bad! She knew nothing. I taught her everything!" :). I hope that day comes!

It was also Aamir Khan's birthday yesterday. He turned 44! but still looks young (like 24.. haha!) :). He is too cute and sweet to ever look old. Just that he needs to hone his talking skills a bit and not talk much about Shah Rukh Khan. Otherwise, he is awesome! Whenever he tries to run Shah Rukh down, he ends up running himself down. Maybe I shouldn't be saying all this while I am wishing him a Happy Birthday!

Weekend was mostly studying. Bharath and Tanmay came down on Saturday. We had nice fun gaming (wii and xbox). And Touch Wood, My JAVA preparation is going great guns! I am very happy with that. GMAT sucks tough! Still trying to figure many things out. I hope to get somewhere soon.

I watched Bommarillu (a telugu movie) over the weekend after some repeated requests from my friends. They thought I was a lot like Genelia in the movie. To all those who thought so, Thank You very much! I guess the one thing about me that I found strikingly common with her was the non stop chatter . I can't stop talking and I could see that she couldn't wait to start talking (but I still feel I don't talk that much)! And yeah.. I do like to believe in silly things like if you bang your head with someone else's once, you will get horns! haha! So, bang your head twice! :P. And yeah! I am not as good looking as her, but we both have curly hair and we both like poor jokes! hehe. On that note, I think I should open my stack of poor jokes sometime on this website (thanks to Anoop, I know many now :D).

I will do that some other time, so keep checking this space. For now, we will remember our wise Kabir who said,

Aisee baani Boliye, Man Ka Aapa Khoye
Apna Tan Sheetal Kare, Auran Ko Sukh Hoye

Meaning, we should always speak words without pride and ego. Such words that keep our body and mind calm and give the listeners some joy. Isn't that a nice thought?

As we part today, I have something else as well for you guys to think about (see..... I make your brain cells function!): Can u cry under water? I would say, try! and let me know :).

wii (My new boyfriend)!

2009-03-13T13:57:00.006-04:00

Thanks to Tanmay, we have a wii at home now! My husband and I are going crazy over it :). We played many tennis games (most of which I lost) and we played bowling (which I won!). I just want to say that it rocks and it rocks big time :). I started loving it. I am working hard towards practicing tennis. I hate to lose and my husband defeated me in every tennis game we played so far :(. Tonight, I WILL WIN!

All else is going on great. Mrinalini and Lakshmi got their Canadian visitor's VISA. I am looking forward to spending time with them :). That is my favorite thing in the world to do.... talking to my sisters!

Sashi must be a married man by now. I can't wait to ask him "How is married life?" :). Yeah... I hate that question! It sounds like people are having fun now that you are married and your independence has been taken away from you. But, like all others, I like to be on the giving(asking) end and heres my first chance after marriage :D. So of course, I don't want to miss out on that one. Its like ragging! we love to ask all stupid and silly questions, but hate to answer :) !!!!

On a more constructive note, I was reading some hindi poetry (thats what I do for fun) and I was reminded of an old doha (couplet) by one of the greatest saints of all times, Kabir Das. He was born in a weaver's family and was also a weaver by profession. He had no formal education at all, but he composed gems. It was really impressive how he almost re-wrote all of Bhagwad Gita's second chapter in just two lines. Here is the doha:

Mayaa mari naa man mara, mar mar gaye shareer,
Aasha trishna naa mari, keh gaye das Kabir.

which means,
Illusions, heart, hopes or mirages never die. The only thing the dies is the body!

Very well written... I must say! I would love to share more of his wonderful writings, but will do in instalments. Neither do I want to get bored nor do I want to bore you :)!

And today is Friday, the 13th! So, hopefully its going all right for you all! :D

Good Luck, Sashi!

2009-03-12T11:08:00.014-04:00

I guess marriage is the order of the day! My husband wrote a blog post on arranged marriages yesterday and one of my best best friends, Sashi, is getting married tomorrow (yeah! arranged marriage) :).

I have never met the "lucky" Soumya (the girl Sashi is getting married to) but she better be nice.... coz Sashi is one of the best guys I have ever met in my life. He is one of my bestest friends and he will always remain one, because he is very true and nice. I have known him for almost 6 years now and he hasn't changed a bit. He is still as nice as he was when I first met him in the Simrall hall, Mississippi State University. When you meet him, you will never know how smart or intelligent he really is coz he covers all that up with his innocent i-don't-know-how-you-add-two-real-numbers look. Trust me, he is a real genious and a 4.0. Yeah! thats his masters GPA and believe me, he took the toughest courses in the Electrical Engineering department. I know, coz I took them too and I was not that good. Not just me, I don't know anybody in my batch or a couple of my previous batches who managed a 4.0 with courses like that. But his feet is always firmly rooted to the ground. He lets people joke on him, he joins them when they have the laugh!

He is an awesome friend to have. Honestly, he is one of my best friends in the world. Whenever I was bored or whenever I felt useless, he was the one I always called. I knew I could call him anytime, day or night (preferably night, as he is a night owl), and he will listen to what I have got to say for as long as I want to talk. There were times I called him everyday and there were times I did not call him for weeks, but he never complained. He would still listen to me talk! My other friends would ask me why I did not call them for weeks and why am I suddenly calling them just to rant. Sashi never asked me anything like that. He would listen to all my office gossip, all my school gossip, my marriage gossip, everything!

I must mention a couple of incidents that starred him and would always remain in both our memories (and many other people's too). Once, I invited him over to my place for dinner. This was way back in 2004, when I did not really know how to turn the stove on! But I wanted to treat him with the food I cooked. He gladly accepted the invitation and came over :). My cooking was terrible. I made a sweet (for the first time in my life). The sweet had turned out spicy coz I added some spice in there, by mistake! None of my roommates even touched it. All my friends laughed and said they did not want to eat my spicy-sweet. I was heart-broken as that was one of my first attempts at cooking. I really felt I will never be able to cook. But Sashi ate a cup full of it. I am sure he hated the taste too (though I never asked him about that), but he ate it and smiled at me and went away. I was very happy. I told myself that there is one person in this world who will eat what you cook even if it is the worst thing. That was his friendship! Today, when my husband tell me that I am a good cook (yeah, sometimes he is generous), I always remember how I started off and I think of that friend who ate what I cooked when I was the worst cook in the world. I actually told many people that if there is anyone who can really comment on my cooking skills, it is Sashi. There was one more incident when he went to India and I had spread a news that he was getting married. Everybody believed me coz I was his only good friend at that point in time. And by the time he returned, everybody was ready to congratulate him. He was shocked! But, he was not angry with me. He knew I was just having a laugh and he laughed out loud too! Then, I went around telling people that he wasn't really married :P. I was amazed at how lightly he took the whole episode. Maybe, anyone else in that place would have been really angry with me or yelled at me or worse, stopped talking to me (worse for them, of course :D). These were only two of the many occasions when I tried to irritate him. There were numerous other occasions when I woke him up in the middle of his sleep, asked him the world's worst questions or shared a very bad joke with him. I gave him 1001 occasions to hate me, but I am so glad he never really did and he is still my friend.

Sashi, heres my garam-masala-paayasam-toast on your "second" marriage :P ---- Tomorrow is one of most important days in your life and I wish you all the good and all the best things. Today, as you get ready for the marriage, I am very happy for you and I wish you a very long happy life with Soumya and of course lots of fun and laugh. Like I always say, thats all there is worth living for! If you don't laugh, you are wasting your life. And if you ever fall short of reasons to laugh, you are most welcome to call me! :D

The purpose, story and the celebration of Holi!

2009-03-11T13:13:00.007-04:00

Happy Holi to all! I am always all for celebration. Holi is a great occasion to celebrate colors in our own way. It is India's national festival and we all love to drench ourselves in those zillions of colors. Well, any color is a fashion on the Holi day, which is the coolest thing about this festival.

It is funny that while we follow the most fun and interesting things about these festivals, we forget the main cause and the main purpose of the celebration. The religious significance of the festival of Holi is to mark the burning of self-conceit, selfishness, greed, lust, hatred, in fact all the undesirable demoniac tendencies, propensities, thoughts and behaviors.The victory of good over bad. So, if you really want to celebrate Holi, celebrate it in spirit as well. Think of some bad qualities that you have (I am sure, we all have many) and decide to do away with it. Tell yourself something like, "I won't be jealous of anyone from today" and try to practice that. That is the real celebration of Holi.

I know that most of us Indians have managed to globalize ourselves. We don't even know WHY holi is celebrated. So, here is the story..... There was once an evil King, by name Hiranyakashpa. He did a lot of penance and got himself a boon, which made him almost immortal (He had demanded that he should not be killed during day or night; inside the home or outside, not on earth or on sky; neither by a man nor an animal; neither by astra nor by shastra. He was very evil and asked everybody to pray to him. But his son, Prahalada was a great devotee of lord Vishnu and he always prayed to lord Vishnu. Of course, Hiranyakashpa did not like that one bit and tried in many ways to kill his son. But the son was always protected by the universal protector (lord Vishnu). In one of those attempts, the evil king made his son sit on Holika's (Hiranyakashpa's sister) lap in the fire. Holika had a magic shawl that would always protect her from burning. Prahalada prayed to lord Vishnu and the magic shawl flew away from Holika and covered Prahalda. This way, Holika was burned to ashes and Prahalada survived. The burning of Holika is celebrated as Holi. Of course the evil king was also later on finally killed by lord Vishnu himself.

On a more studious note, I have re-started learning JAVA and I am spending quite a bit of my time on it. Now, my GMAT preparation is on the back burner. How I wish I could be a little more disciplined! Well... I just hope it comes to me.... sooner or later! :) But on a very bright note, I can write small JAVA programs (yeah! the ones that really work) now. I am sooo happy I am getting better! Yeppie!!!!!! :)

Happy Women's Day!

2009-03-08T10:01:00.012-04:00

Happy women's day to all those women out there (including me! haha!). I know we work so hard all day, all year that we most definitely need a day in our honor. But the funny thing is, most of us spend the women's day just like any normal day. Yes, including me! I did not do anything special on women's day, though I feel I should have done something. Like maybe, make the husband cook, make him do laundry, while I go shopping (of course with his money) and then relax in the spa (since shopping is hard work, we DO need to relax). WOW! I am getting ideas. Not bad! I can put them to practice in 2010. But darn! I don't want to wait for an year now. So, I will talk to my husband and create my own women's day. I think just one day in an year is not fair at all. We should have a special day dedicated to us once a week! what say?

Sometimes I feel, being a woman is the toughest job in the world to do! really! Now that I have experience on both sides of the game, may be I would much rather be like a man; i.e, have someone cook for me while I chill out at the work place! No... I don't mean men don't work hard, but thats more fun. At least the job I had was a lot of fun (I was pampered like hell! Thank You, Steve!). I am soooo looking forward to go out to work again. Just a matter of time......... :).

Do I come across as a very sad wife toiling all day to keep her husband happy? Well... am actually not. I am chilling and enjoying every part of my life as a house-wife (especially in this economy!). Though there were times in the recent past (not too recent) when I really wished I wasn't a girl, that was only because of frustration. I am very happy to be a girl and that is all I want to be (if there is a next life). I have the best husband in the world and a happy life with no big worries (other than thinking about how to chill today :) ) TOUCH WOOD! I cannot ask for more! I better keep knocking on the wood :D.

And I end this blog with the most famous quote from my most favorite woman in this world (of course outside the family). When 17-year old Sushmita Sen was asked in front of the Universe "What, in your opinion, is the essence of a woman?", she said: "Just being a woman is God's gift. The origin of a child is a mother, a woman. Woman is sharing, she shows a man what sharing, caring and loving is all about. That is the essence of a woman." Yes! with that, she won the Ms.Universe crown and who would not want to be a woman after hearing that answer? Sometimes, beauty comes with brains. And sometimes, you hardly notice the beauty because the brains always take the center stage. I want to be that kind of a woman!

Happy Birthday Mrinalini! :D

2009-03-07T11:18:00.003-05:00

Today is Mrinalini's birthday. I wish her all the best things in life....... I wish her lots of sleep coz her favorite thing to do is to sleep! :) haha!

Mrinalini, here you go... (Birthday song for you!)

Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday to you!
You look like a Monkey,
And you live in the zoo.....
Happy Birthday to you!

haha.... enjoy!

Dadagiri!

2009-03-03T23:48:00.010-05:00

Yes; I lifted my today's blog title from somewhere! I just could not resist.... am sorry!!!! :)
For those non-bollywood people, here is the latest gossip from the bolly-town: Amrita Arora and Ayesha Takia got married! Well.... not to each other (see! bad minds!!!!), but to Shakeel Ladak and Farhaan Azmi respectively. Amrita Arora is Malaika Arora's sister. Maliaka Arora is Arbaaz Khan's wife and Arbaaz Khan is Salmaan Khan's brother! And if you don't know who Salmaan Khan is, GOOGLE! :D. Unfortunately Ayesha Takia is not related to any of the other film personalities, so if you don't know who she is, GOOGLE! haha! So yeah! Heres wishing them a very happy married life!
Mrinalini and Lakshmi are planning to visit Ottawa! I can't wait to see them! I am sooooooooo very excited. But its very cold out here and we probably won't really go out that much! Still, spending time with my sisters is my favorite thing to do in life. Nothing compares to family! what say?
I also saw the Oye!it's Friday! episode that was aired on my birthday. It featured DADA (Sourav Ganguly)!!!! yep! a true birthday gift :). But it was painful to see my hero being treated like a joker. Seriously, he was asked questions about the kind of cheer leaders he was looking for for his team in the IPL. Clearly, he was very very uncomfortable talking about it. Poor guy!
What I like the most about Ganguly is his fighting spirit. His 'I WILL COME BACK' attitude. Agreed, every sports person plays only to win, but how you take a defeat and what, in your opinion, is a defeat matters a lot. That really defines your personality as a sports man or a sports woman. Of all the sports men that I have seen, I love Ganguly the most. I will tell you why. I agree that he is not the greatest batsman ever (Sachin is light years ahead), but Ganguly was not a bad batsman. He was the fastest 6000, 7000, 8000 and 9000 runs scorer in the history of ODI cricket, quite a big deal. I like Ganguly because he not only had that awesome attitude on the pitch, but he also imparted that fire onto a generation of cricketers. He created fighters out of a very passive team. He created winners from a pack losers. He created sportsmen from a pile of batsmen and bowlers. He taught them that merely playing a sport does not make you a sportsman. You need the right attitude and the right spirit.
I still remember when Ganguly was made the captain, the Indian cricket team was in a terrible mess. The match-fixing scandals added to it. The team either had players who were pretty unpolished and new or those who were very experienced and ready to retire (except, of course, Sachin and maybe Kumble). Ganguly had a challenge and how he handled it! India made to finals of the 2003 world cup. He was most successful captain Indian cricket had ever seen. I am sure all that was possible only because the team was awesome, but if there was any one single person who deserved the most credit, it was Sourav Ganguly. He was a captain par excellence.
His comeback when everyone had written him off was the biggest example of his fighting spirit. Many people talk about the never say die attitude, but how many really exhibit it? Ganguly was one of those few. He was a tiger, always ready to roar. For me, he defines victory!
Shahrukh Khan said in one of his interviews "Sports teaches you how to lose, but does not teach you to be a loser!" how very correct!

Zucchini Chutney (On demand!)

2009-03-01T23:58:00.009-05:00

OK... Krithika and Mrinalini, here you go....... (I sooooo became a house wife! :) )

Ingredients:
2 zucchini
3 to 4 small green chilli (depending on how spicy you want)
1 and a half tbl spoon ginger paste (you can use fresh ginger... i like that!)
1/2 tsp jeera
2 tbsp of urad dal (split black lentils)
Oil
Salt to taste
1 tsp of mustard
Curry leaves
1 red chilli - broken

Method:
Peel and cut the zucchini into cubes (size does not really matter coz you will make a paste finally)
In a pan roast the urad dal without oil. Set aside.
Add very little oil in the pan and fry the zucchini and green chillies until zucchini is a tender.
Transfer the urad dal, raw jeera and zucchini and green chillies to a blender.
Add very little water, ginger paste and blend to a paste and add salt to taste.
Season with mustard, curry leaves and red chillies.

Surprise!!!!!!

2009-03-01T10:47:00.010-05:00

Yesterday was awesome! We toiled all morning cleaning the house up :(. I hate cleaning, but we have to do it.... isn't it? Well, after we spent majority of the day setting our home right, my husband took me out to return some DVDs and pick up a NIC card for his friend from BestBuy. We went to bestbuy and my husband got a call form his friend telling him that he does not need that card anymore :(. So, we just roamed around BestBuy for a while and returned home and there was a SURPRISE! I saw a cake in the middle of our living room and the room was decorated. His friends were hiding in the kitchen! wow!!!!!! It was a plesant surprise! :) Then, I cut the cake and we went out for dinner to a Mexican place (I gorged on the food. I hadn't eaten any mexican food, except of course taco bell, in a very long time!). We came back home, danced
like maniacs and played a couple of card games and called it a day! what a day!!!!!! Thank You Bharath, Tanmay, Beaker, Dania, Azmeen!

Happy Birthday! :)

2009-02-28T09:06:00.020-05:00

Well..... to myself, belated! But today is Balaji's birthday! So, Happy Birthday to him!!!!!!!!
Yesterday was my Birthday and for some reason, my birthday is always my favorite day of the year. I am always very happy on my birthday, even if I don't do anything. I pamper myself a lot on my birthday generally. I cut a little cake(sorry! no pic!) at 12:00 am and kick started my birthday with a couple of gifts from my husband and a phone call from my parents. The gifts were very cute and I love my husband! I chilled at home pretty much all day, talked endless phone calls (reminding me yet again how lucky I am to have friends and family to care for me), made the world's worst banana bread (yeah! sometimes, I suck at cooking. I will try it out again though.....), cleaned the house (that was really bad!!!!!! I had many heavy suitcases to lift to put in the storage), pampered myself for a while and chilled with my husband after he came back home. This was my first birthday after my marriage and therefore, very special. We went out for dinner at a Thai restaurant. The food was AWESOME!!!!!!! We both loved the food. It was so nice to eat something 'Thai Hot' after a really long time!
A big thank you to all those who wished me on my birthday! Here are a some pictures and a video. So, enjoy!!!!!!!! (The video is dedicated to Lakshmi!)

My Birthday Dress...........

My Husband (Yeah! my biggest gift... haha!)

And Here is the video :)............

The year that was!!!!!

2009-02-26T23:51:00.009-05:00

Well, like they say, Ring out the old and Ring in the new! Today marks the end of a very eventful year in my life. I guess I should say, THE most eventful year in my life so far. On February 27th 2008, I was eating the cake sent to me by my best friend (Thanks again, Anoop!), and I was thinking about the year that was to follow. However hard I thought, all I could envision was working in the same company and living in the same apartment, maybe with a larger closet (which was already hard to manage), and a new roommate. I went to work that day and my colleagues wished me 'Happy Birthday' and one of them asked me,
"So, how old are you?"
I said (very proudly), "26".
"How does it feel to be 26?"
"Oh! I feel like a grand mom!!!!"
"You are not married?"
I said, "No... I am happy!" :)
All that has changed. I no more work for Verizon Business and I no more am happy (just joking!!!!). I am very very happy. Last year was a true roller coaster ride. It was fun. I worked for almost an year with the world's most amazing people to work with (Thank You Steve, Lonnie, Chris and Kent!), my parents visited US for the first time ever, I met the most amazing guy in the world (the one who makes me laugh the most and who does not want to laugh?), got married to him, extended my family circle filling it up with the most amazing in-laws, visited India (after a really long time!), met Chandana and Anoop (my bestest friend), my sister graduated making her the fourth engineer (well... a graduate! :D) in the house, she got a job, got my Canadian visitor's VISA, got my US H1-B stamped, moved to a new country (Canada!), and I am finding all the time in the world for myself! huh!!!!! I hadn't even dreamt of any of these on the 27th of February 2008 and the date is back now! with a new year :) !!!!!
In the past year, my life has changed and how!!!!!! It changed me as a person. I am sure.. for good! :)
Some dates in the past year that will be etched in my memory forever:

2008
February 27th : Happy Birthday!!!! :)
March 7th : Mrinalini turned 25 (Silver Jubilee!) :)
May 13 : My parents entered US!
May 17th : I met Sai Kilambi :D
May 18th : Lakshmi graduated.
May 25th : Lakshmi got her first full-time job.
June 15th : I talked to my husband on the phone for the first time.
June 26th : Dad's Birthday.
June 29th : Met my husband again.
June 30th : Spent my first full-day with my husband and cemented the alliance.
July 10th : Mom's Birthday.
August 3rd : Got engaged (booked!).
August 22nd : (very very very special for an amazing secret reason).
September 16th : Got my US VISA (H1-B) successfully stamped in Vancouver.
September 24th : (Very very special for a secret reason).
October 9th : Lakshmi turns 23!
November 14th : My last day at Verizon Business :(
November 18th : Left to India to get married.
November 24th : My husband's first birthday after I entered his life.
December 12th : My marriage.
December 13th : Marriage reception.
December 14th : Went to Shiridi for the first time ever.
December 17th : On a honey moon to Kerala.
December 20th : Spent an awesome day on a houseboat in Kerala.
December 23rd : Visted Tirupathi.
December 31st : Ended 2008 with my husband.
2009
January 8th : Reached Canada.
February 26th : Ended the year with my husband!!!!!!

WOW!!!!! what an year! I should add a few pictures and I will.... maybe sometime later on!

I will be 27 tomorrow, and I am very excited to see whats in store. I am signing off now and will catch you all when I am 27! haha!!!

Do they give Oscars for big losers?

2009-02-26T10:21:00.003-05:00

I guess that is the only category I deserve an Oscar in!!!!!!!!!! I am very disappointed with my GMAT preparation. My quantitative ability has improved by bounds (I just had to work on some concepts), but I am very bad at Verbal.

Sentence correction is cool. I am not yet 100% there, but am sure to get there. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, its just a matter of time before I reach there. Critical Reasoning sometimes bowls me out, sometimes stumps me and sometimes catches me leg before wicket, but mostly, I manage sixes and fours. And the good thing is, with every test, I am getting a bit better. Reading Comprehension is a nightmare! I am spending way too much time and getting all answers wrong. I guess my whole foundation and my thinking process are both wrong. This is something I need to really focus on for the next week or so and really get better at. I think I lack the concentration. Its been a while since I had to comprehend something I read. For the normal gossip stuff I read everyday on indiafm.com, there is nothing to comprehend! :)

There is one awesome book for GMAT sentence correction section and that is the Manhattan GMAT book. It is super! Everyone who read that book had only good things to say about it. I think all those who want to take the test should read it at least once. That is sure to boast your score.

I have taken a couple of paper-based tests and I am very happy to say that I am answering the quant section pretty quickly and making very very few mistakes, which is good. Of course I am still making some very silly mistakes, but those are minimal and I am working towards improving myself at it. Verbal, lets not talk about it yet. :D :D

All said and done, I know that I can only improve from here and I cannot get worse. So, lets see whats in store!

Will be back with more updates on my prep! Until then, bye bye.

A Veggie (by choice too)!

2009-02-25T12:01:00.005-05:00

I like food and I like animals. I mix my love for food and my love for animals and eat healthy vegetarian food, coz the love is different; food is to eat, animals are to pet and look at!

HARD CORE MEAT-EATERS!!!! STAY AWAY FROM THIS POST! :D

I was always like this; eggless! Haha…. That is what some of my friends like to call me. Coz I am always asking the question: "Does this contain egg or meat?" Yes…. I will not eat your birthday cake, unless you can vouch for the fact that there is no egg in it. I know... how fussy! Well, that's just me. People are sometimes shocked to know that I lived in the United States for more than 5 years, most of that time with room-mates, and still managed to keep myself away from egg and meat. I don't get that. What is so shocking? If I don't eat egg or meat, I don't. It's as simple as that. Fortunately, I don't crave for junk food also. I am very happy eating the sprouts I grow at home every day: D.

When I first landed in the US, I did not know that some people think egg is vegetarian. After two days of horrible food in the airplane, I landed in Atlanta on 31st July 2003. I was so hungry that I was going to eat anything I could lay my hands on. I saw a Chinese place. I said "Vegetarian Fried Rice". Surprise!!! My veggie fried rice had egg in it and I did not even know it was egg, until one of my friends looked at it and told me that the white thing in my fried rice was egg. I hadn't even tasted it. I gave it away to her, coz she eats egg. I felt really bad. I did not have any more money left on me to buy fried rice, this time with no egg. And I was hungry. And I had to spend the whole night in the world's busiest airport with no money and no food. That night could have changed me, if it had to. For a while, I hated myself. I had never before slept hungry. I had a flight next morning to Starkville, Mississippi. By the time I reached Mississippi and reached my new home, I was almost dead. But there was food in the kitchen (thanks Gayathri! That is one meal I can never forget!). Nice Indian food (pappu annam). And I ate like I had never eaten before. I ate like a pig. That evening, when I was thinking about it, it gave me immense pride that I did not eat the egg fried rice. I had managed. But, I am my favorite person in the world. So, I was kind of disappointed that I had to keep myself hungry all night long. So, I promised myself that I would never sleep hungry, no matter what. At the same time, I would not eat egg or meat. So far, I have been able to keep that promise up and I am very happy about it.

I am tired of answering people who ask me "why don't you eat eggs or meat?" Well.... that's me, I guess. While I was working at Verizon Business, a colleague of mine was once making fun of me asking me if I do not eat meat because I think that the animal I am eating could have once been my great grand parent or something. He asked me that question because he knew that I am a follower of Hindu religion and I believe in the theory of rebirth. Funny! No. I do not have to go that far to think what that animal could have been in its last birth. Can't you see? It was a living thing, walking and running in this very birth! It was killed for no fault of it's, just so that it can be fed to you! That whole thought gives me enough goose bumps. I do not have to think about its previous births. When I walk across the 'meat-section' at the food store, something in me dies an instant death. I feel like I am walking in an abattoir. That is why I do not eat meat. People ask me if I don't eat meat because I am born in a Brahmin family and I can't eat meat. No. I have many friends who are born in Brahmin families and still eat meat. It is not that I CAN'T. I just DON'T. There is a huge difference between the two. I am really glad my parents made a choice for me while I was young and never fed me meat. Now, I can make a choice for myself. Still, I wouldn't want to touch meat. If I were to be reborn I would love to be reborn to the same set of parents and would love to lead a meatless and eggless life all over again.

Unintentionally, I added a lot of tofu and soymilk in my diet in the past couple of years and I love it (my husband says I am growing stronger! Hahaha!). Now, I am inclined to move towards a vegan lifestyle. I am going to try and see how it goes : D.

People argue that killing plants is also murder. Maybe yes; but, plants do not have a nervous system and so, they do not feel the pain. And in any case, it takes 16 pounds of vegetable matter, or grains, to yield one pound of meat. So, even if I am killing plants, I kill far fewer plants than what a meat-eater does. So, yeah! I am proud of being a carrot-murderer!

Above all, I believe in the mantra that health is wealth, and according to research, Vegetarians also have far lower rates of death from heart disease, blood cholesterol levels, blood pressure, hypertension, type 2 (adult-onset) diabetes, prostate cancer, colon cancer etc. And there is really no good reason for me to eat meat! :)

Slumdog Trillionaire

2009-02-23T08:18:00.010-05:00

Lets not say anything! Words will insult his achievement. I guess this picture says it all and more. Lets just clap for him coz he has made our day very special! :)

Jai Ho!

2009-02-22T11:37:00.025-05:00

ratti-ratti sachi maine jaan gawaai hai,
nach-nach koyaloon pe raat bitaayi hai.
akhiyoon ki need maine phoonke se udaa di,
gin-gin taare maine ungali jalaayi hai!

BEST PICTURE, BEST DIRECTOR, BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY, BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY, BEST EDITING, BEST ORIGINAL SCORE, BEST ORIGINAL SONG(''Jai Ho'' and ''O Saya''), BEST SOUND EDITING, BEST SOUND MIXING! Does Slumdog Millionaire deserve all the nominations? Well, it is a highly debatable question. Does it deserve to win those awards? Some may say "yes", whereas others may feel "its not fair". But who said life is fair? No. It is not. Having said that, I still want Slumdog Millionaire to win all the awards. If not anything, it will give India and Indian films some publicity, which is a good thing. But do we need this kind of publicity? I think yes. We need all the publicity we can get. Coz in the end, publicity is publicity; good or bad! Agreed, Slumdog is not the best movie I have ever seen. Agreed, I do not agree with half the scenes in the movie (how did he know all the answers? many of them are questionable and need some explanation), Agreed, they really showed India in a poor light. But, I am not the only person living in this world and if there are people (whose taste matters more than mine does) who have watched the movie and loved it and if the movie winning some awards does some good to the country that has shown me this world, why shouldn't I celebrate it? I think I should. And I will cheer for Slumdog Millionaire coz there have been worse movies in the past that have won awards and after all, Slumdog is not a bad movie at all!

A.R.Rehman : Slumdog Millionaire!

Of all the nominees, if there is one person for whom I am selflessly cheering for, today, its A.R.Rehman. He is a master! Honestly, if there is anyone from the Indian film industry who really deserves an Oscar, its him. He deserves every award he wins and probably more. His music inspires millions. It makes the world dance and its terrific! He should get an award for every song he composes. I think the awards should feel blessed that they are reaching him, not the other way round :). Jai Ho is an amazing song (I am so happy Subash Ghai rejected it for Yuvraaj) and I am sure it is going to win. It will be a moment of such pride when A.R.Rehman walks on the stage to receive the award! I can't wait to watch. I also cannot wait to watch Sukhwinder Singh's and A.R.Rehman's performance. Sukhwinder Singh is my favorite singer. I can happily die hearing him sing. Yeah.... thats how I would want to die. Right next to my husband, hearing Sukhwinder Singh's song, and of course with lord Ram's name in my heart and mind and Bhagwad Gita in my hand. How morbid!!!!!!!! And why am I even talking about this? No. I don't want to die. I want to live for ever, ever and ever! I have so many things to say and so many more blog entries to write! :D

So, today as I cheer for A.R.Rehman, you either follow me (if you have heard 'Jai Ho') or go hear the song!

Happy Wedding Anniversary Mom and Dad!

2009-02-22T08:40:00.013-05:00

Today was the day, 28 years ago. My dad and my mom got married and sacrificed their happiness for ever (haha.... joke). But yeah... Today is my parents' 28th wedding anniversary and I wish them all the happiness in the world. My dad and my mom are total opposites. My dad is calm and composed, where as my mom is very active. I guess theirs was a case of "opposites attract". Well, maybe they did not have much of a choice :P. Theirs was a purely arranged marriage. So much so that my mom says she saw my dad for the first time during their marriage! wow!!!!! If I had to meet my husband for the first time at my wedding hall, I would have run away! I mean, how can you get married to someone you absolutely don't know? I know what my mom means when she says I am very lucky. At least I got to meet my husband before we got married. At least I got to talk to him everyday endlessly on phone (I know! poor guy!) before we actually tied the knot. My mom is definitely going to think I am lucky! :).

Well, times have changed and with time, people have changed. Call it western influence or a by-product of education, this is one good change. It is nice that Indian boys and girls today get a chance to choose their life-partners. Parents are more open minded today, than they were at any other point of time in the past. Yes; I am lucky. I at least got to say "NO" to about 50 guys before I said yes to marrying my husband. If I had to get married to the first guy my parents choose for me (with due respect to him), I would have chocked to death! We had nothing in common. And that, I found out only when I talked to him. Well, sometimes, communication helps. But the matter became real serious when I started rejecting boys left, right and center. My parents, who are so supportive (they are probably the most supportive parents in the world), started coming under the neighbors' and relatives' influence (you know how people in India are... always ready to gossip), and started asking me questions: "What is wrong with this guy? Why are you saying NO this time? Do you have a boy friend? You are going older day by day (of course!). Do you know what everybody is talking?(should I really care?)" Gimme a break! No. I was not rejecting them because they were bad. It was because I, for one, was not really ready (if you know what I mean) and secondly those guys and I had nothing in common or I thought I will have a boring life if I marry him. Thank God! I met my husband. Anyways, I was not going to compromise. And why should I? I honestly think, the only reason why you should ever get married is because you found the right person. Yes. There should be NO other reason for getting married (read your age, money, external pressure etc). I have a friend, who got married recently. She had the worst ever reason on earth to get married (I hope she isn't reading this!). But seriously, what would you say if I told you she got married because she had nothing else to do? Nothing else to do???? Girl! go out and watch a movie, get pampered at the spa, enroll yourself in the gym, Study something, or fine.. date someone! But you don't get MARRIED because you have nothing else to do! God save the world! :)

Well... that was something to think about! Here's wishing my parents a very happy wedding anniversary and until next time, bye bye!

Blogger Templates : Fun and Fights

2009-02-18T15:34:00.020-05:00

Just a thought to start with, before moving on to today's topic: It is very interesting how beauty plays a major role in our liking or disliking something (at least the first impression). Everything else is secondary. The more attractive something looks, the more we are attracted towards it. I see this beauty-bias everywhere. Maybe because that is the first thing we are inherently trained to observe. I don't hate it, but it does turn me off sometimes and I end up thinking why is it such a big deal. Honestly, I was never really a look-savvy person. Of course, I do comment on how beautiful or ugly someone or something is, but I would not really base my judgment on it, unless it is a beauty competition. In any case, I would choose brains over beauty any day. Bimbos turn me off instantly. For how long can plain good looks keep someone attracted? Well, if you are a guy, your instant answer would be, "forever!"(trust me! I know how guys think!). I would only say..... "Grow up!" :). I feel beauty of mind is harder to achieve. And like the old saying goes, "Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder". So, there is nothing called absolute beauty. It is always relative. And I love the fact that God made us all different and gave us different tastes. Its so boring to be like everyone else!!!!!

On a different note, the blog-bug bit me and my husband in a huge way! We are constantly talking about blogs :). That is our major pastime these days. When we have nothing to do we write our blogs. Actually, we keep typing up our blogs even if we have other things to do :). We were looking at some blogs and we loved the templates that were used. And as you all can see, I changed quite a few things in my blog. Changed the layout and downloaded some cool widgets. I loved these snowflakes the most though (they are better viewed on the Internet Explorer)! I had to do a lot of xml and html coding. It was cool. Its been a while since I did some xml coding and it felt good :). I was reminded of my life at Verizon Business. It was very nostalgic. My husband also tried to change his blog's xml code and screwed something up. I felt bad for him :(, but really, the whole situation was funny. He spent around three hours trying to fix the mess and I was here, laughing. He did not like it one bit and he stopped talking to me. That was mean! Even I stopped talking. But it was I who made up in the end. By the way, while I was searching for some nice template for my blog, I found these cool websites, from where you can download templates for free. Some of them are really amazing!!!! I did not really download the templates and use them, but I downloaded them to see the code and change my template code accordingly (incorporating the stuff I liked and rejecting what I did not like in those templates). But, you can actually use those templates right away. Here are some websites that have some incredible blogger templates:
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/50-most-beautiful-blogger-templates/
http://www.finalsense.com/services/blog_templates/
http://blogspottemplates.blogspot.com/
http://mashable.com/2008/05/17/70-plus-new-and-beautiful-blogger-templates/

My GMAT preparation is gathering some momentum again and I am happy about it. I still need to spend some hours (may be days) on the Reading Comprehension section though. It is the toughest topic for me now. Well, am off to study and you can go check out the cool blog templates!

Snow Tubing!!!!!

2009-02-17T09:22:00.022-05:00

Yep! Yesterday was "Family Day" and we went snow tubing at Mount Pakenham. I wonder what a family day is, though. I guess in this fast-paced world, people don't find real proper time to spend with their families. So, they get a family day (basically a day off) to bond and chill with family! But the funny thing is, my husband went to work for an hour even on the family day :). That could be largely because he considers his work team a part of his "extended" family :P. He will kill me for this one! (and mind you..... am not complaining!)

Picture: Me on a donut :D

Anyways, snow tubing was fun. For those who don't know what snow tubing is, it is simply sitting on a donut and sliding down a hill of snow :). It is fun the first two or three times, but then it gets boring. I think this is some kind of a recreational activity for kids. Skiing is definitely more fun and its on the top of my list right now. I just need to find time. The last time I skied was in Colorado (the most beautiful place to ski) in the winter of 2007. I got my first skiing lessons back then. That was awesome!

Sometimes, reality bothers me a lot. I tell myself time and again that I am wasting a lot of time. But, I do nothing about it. For example, the last time I really spent some quality time studying for my GMAT exam was on 12th and today is 17th. So, i wasted five complete days. Five days of my life, that will never come back to me. I hate it. I know there is very little use of cribbing about it here, but I couldn't stop myself. Honestly, I really want to crack it. It is not that I don't have the interest. I just don't feel the drive sometimes and that scares me a lot. I do not want to let my husband or my parents down, but I fear that will happen when I screw up my GMAT. See.... I am always thinking in the wrong direction. I should be thinking about how I can keep myself more focused and motivated. Instead, I am worrying about what would happen if I fail. So, no more negative thinking. God! please give me more strength to concentrate and 'Beat the GMAT'! :)

OK... me off to do some puja, cook for my husband and study for some time. Meanwhile, here are a couple of videos showing me snow tubing with my husband. Hope you enjoy these!

Snow tubing alone

Snow tubing with my husband.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2009-02-14T16:32:00.018-05:00

I know.... belated!!!! But honestly, when you are in love, everyday is a Valentine's day. I like the concept of Valentine's day. I think it is really cool to celebrate love. And really, you don't need a boy friend or a girl friend or a husband or a wife to celebrate the day. All you need is love. I strongly believe in this. If you don't celebrate yourself, nobody will celebrate you. And what a waste of life if its not celebrated! I have never had a valentine (this is my first year with my husband), but I always enjoyed valentines day. I go and buy some cute and good stuff for myself (I bought something for myself this year too), shop a lot, watch some nice movie (yeah some girly movie). Yep! that's how I treat myself. I guess to each his own, so do whatever suits you. Do whatever you like doing best. Coz, you live only once. So, don't ever compromise on fun. That is all there is worth living for. Try to make someone smile.... that would light up your day. I promise!

2009 is special, coz for the first time ever, I have a valentine to celebrate the day with. It is definitely a nice feeling and a great change. I cannot believe I took almost 27 years to find someone :). People have new year resolutions. But I used to make resolutions on Valentines day. I would see all my friends busy with their boy friends or girl friends on that day and declare "OK... My Valentine's day resolution is to find someone by the next Valentine's day." How desparate na! But I really said that when I was 23 and 24. Nothing happened :(!Finally I gave up hopes and I guess that did it! YAY!!!!! Well, I had loads of fun this Valentine's day. Me and my husband exchanged cards (he bought me flowers too.. yeah red roses!!!! I love those!). Then, we relaxed and how :). I always like to relax at home. Just watch a movie, eat some good food and chill at home. We watched a Hindi movie, Amal. It was a cool movie.... a serious one though. It is about a man who left all the property he owned (believe me.... he had 300 million) not to any of his three children, but to an auto rickshaw driver. funny.. huh?? I am not here to spoil movies for you, so go watch the movie. Its really cool. It has got some really good actors and its not a long movie. Those were some good reasons to watch Amal.

I also watched Raaz-2 today. It was scary! Well.... some scenes were really scary. The story was OK. Kangana Ranaut as usual did a good job and Emraan Hashmi was good too. Adhyayan Suman looked a bit raw, but was OK. It is a watchable movie, but only once. Its not too bad. For those who don't know, Kangana and Adhyayan Suman are a real life couple.... So, yeah guys!!!!!! bad luck! I would say, just keep your eyes (and heart) open for the next hot thing! Who knows.... cupid might strike!

Too sleepy to write any more.... So, here wishing everyone loads of love on Valentine's day. You go watch the movies and I will see you later!

Happy Presidents Day!

2009-02-12T12:19:00.007-05:00

Today, I start by saluting United States of America's 16th president, Mr.Abraham Lincoln. We must remember him on his birthday, the Presidents Day. He was consistently voted as America's best president (I sooo want Obama to steal that title from him :) ). Lincoln stood for abolition of slavery. How bad is slavery. Imagine being someone's slave. It disgusts me. How can one person be a property of someone else? Even the thought makes me sick. I hate people who treat other people or animals as their slaves. On presidents day 2009, let us promise, to God and to ourselves, that we will treat living things as living things. Let us show some respect for life.

Today is Usha Peddamma and Pedanana's wedding anniversary. Usha peddamma is my mom's sister and she is next only to our mom for the three of us (me and my sisters). We wish her and Peddanana a very happy wedding anniversary. Hope they have many more in store!

Am too tired today to write anymore.... so, see you all later!!!!!!!

Of enemies, unwanted guests, confusion and inspiration!

2009-02-11T14:26:00.011-05:00

SLEEP --- My biggest enemy today. Sure, my cognitive performance would decrease with fewer than eight hours of sleep. But how helpful is more than ten hours of sleep per day? I think that's poisonous. And in any case, sleeping at the wrong time, is nothing but a waste of time. Especially when I have loads of other things to worry about. My GMAT preparation is taking the biggest beating. Very surprisingly, even though I am home all day and don't have really much to do except maybe a bit of cooking, I am unable to find quality time to study. This is absurd. I was never like this. I always followed a certain sleeping and waking up time and never really slept for more than 8 hours. So, this sleeping spree is bothering me a lot. I definitely need to do something about it. BAD! BAD! BAD!

Bedbugs suck the life out of you at nights (literally)!!!!!! I hate them..... though I don't know how they found their way into our house in the first place..... and here we are..... giving them all the respect we would give any guest. We let them sleep in our bedroom last night (on that comfortable bed) and we slept in the living room :). I am only glad that I don't have to feed them or keep them entertained with my gossips. On a serious note though..... we are making all the arrangements to bid them a nasty farewell. But that's so much work! gotto pack all clothes in bags and arrange them in the middle of the room (I wonder why!!!). The murderers (pests control people) come on Friday and feed our guests poison (pesticide). So, yeah! trying to get geared up. No.... that is not how we plan to treat all our guests. See..... I know how people think and jump to conclusions!!! :)

I am so confused with the theory of permutation and combination!!!!!! Something's really wrong with me. I just don't get it right. Maybe, all I need is a bit of practice. But it is frustrating to learn something all over again. I was very good at solving these at one point..... Anyways, I plan to dedicate the rest of my day to Combinatorial Analysis :). And for those who forgot the basics of permutation and combination (like I did), here are the formulae (or formulas):

Number of permutations of ‘n’ different things taken ‘r’ at a time is given by,
nPr = n!/(n-r)!

Number of Combination of ‘n’ different things, taken ‘r’ at a time is given by,
nCr= n! /( r ! x (n-r)! )

Did I bore enough?

On a more interesting note, I was reading something and was amazed to see how much nature inspires writing, especially poetry. Haiku is a Japanese form of nature-oriented poetry (based on nature). It is short, just three lines long. The first line consisting of five syllables, second line of seven and the third line again five. Well, the word limit is just not my style. Coz you cannot ask for a poetry with a word limit. That sounds cruel to me! But, I saw some amazing lines and got inspired to write a few... So, here I go (I know I can do better, but no time! :) )

jump better than many can
Mischief in eyes and mimick in style
Religion to reality they rock!

OK.... another one:

With wings many can fly,
Without wings and air, I take off
And touch the star-studded sky!

So, from now for as long as I can keep you thinking...... SAYONARA!!!!!!!

GMAT!!!!!!!!

2009-02-09T08:42:00.001-05:00

Yeah.... thats the order of the day and thats the plan. Take GMAT in May and crack it! :) GMAT is a long-postponed plan. Every time, I thought of taking the test, I was busy with something else. Basically, I lacked the motivation. My dad keeps telling me how important it is to keep studying. I think he is right. Else, we get stagnated and we loose confidence in ourselves. He has been asking me to take the GMAT for a while now, and he will be the happiest person in the world now coz it is finally happening. If I crack it, he will be happier. And of course, my husband's support makes all the difference in the world. I guess I really need that extra push I get from him. Like I said, I always lacked the motivation. He is a great support and a great motivator and I love him.

I just started preparing for it and I realized how bad my quant skills are. I forgot everything. Its been a while since I did some math and now when I am required to solve some simple math problems (really simple), I am cutting a sorry face. Either I do not understand the question or I make some silly mistakes. This really needs to be fixed. If I need a good score on GMAT, I cannot take quant lightly. Something my husband said last night really makes sense. I was cribbing about my poor math performance in GMAT practice tests and he said "Give some time and some respect for the subject". I guess he is right. That is what I lack. Respect for the subject. I think GMAT quant is simple and silly. I should change that mind set first if I want to get anywhere. No question is silly. The moment we think something to be beneath our level, we screw it up. I should work hard. Practice, Practice and Practice!!!!!!!!!

On an more "quantitative" note, I took my first powerprep test as a GMAT diagnostic and scored 670 (Quant 48, Verbal 34) out of 800, which I do not think is bad. I guess that is a good start and I can only IMPROVE from there, which sounds very promising! I have decided to solve each and every question in the Official Guide. I guess that is going to be a good start. I need to plan my preparation. I guess that is the key ----- PLANNING. I have loads of time.... as much as I need and I have all the support in the world. I just need to make sure I utilize them properly.

On a lighter note, yesterday I made Chilli Paneer for my husband (courtesy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjRQdZPS8Kc ). He loved it. All I did was follow the recipe, step by step. The only change I made was use silken tofu to mix the paneer pieces in the flour instead of using water. Next time, I am going to use TOFU instead of paneer. I guess that is more healthy. My husband will hate it (he loves paneer) :P. But health is wealth :D.

I hate blogging!!!!!!!

2009-02-07T13:07:00.001-05:00

Yes! you read it right. Am too lazy to blog. And honestly, I never thought I had the time or the inclination to blog. I always considered blogging a waste of time and energy. But now, since I am newly married (a month and twenty six days to be precise) and a housewife who stays home all day, I decided I should try things I have never tried before. Like cooking, cleaning the house, waiting for the husband to come home, roaming aimlessly in my car all over the place, blogging and gymming. I have been mastering the first four for quite some time now, and am definitely on my way to be professional at that. I still haven't been able to persuade myself about the sixth thing in my list (gymming). And today, I decided I will start the fifth one. I am not sure for how long I can keep this up, but I am going to try. Not because I like to blog but because I want to experience it. I want to see what it takes to be a regular blogger. who knows maybe I'll start liking it one day!

What can an electrical engineer who worked in the software field for around 2 years write about? The only thing I can promise is that this is not going to be a TECH ADDA! I think there are lot many interesting things about me than my boring career talk (which never really takes off). Like, I love Hindi movies and I am a huge big time Shah Rukh Khan fan :). No.... don't run away. I won't lecture you about him either. I love cricket, but we really won't talk much about it coz my cric talk never ends :). Yeah! I am a wife and honestly, you don't want to know how it feels to be a wife. coz, if you are one, you already know how it feels like and if you are not a wife, I join all the wives in the world and envy you!!!! (jokes). So now you know my sense of humor sucks! It really does... big time in all the four languages I can speak: Hindi, English, Telugu and Tamil (yes, in the order of proficiency). And now I am big time into some cooking.... but I find it boring to talk about what I cooked and what you cooked. And I love to write... sometimes fan fictions (yeah... am one of those million Harry Potterers), sometimes poetry and sometimes just some random stuff. I am a Piscean, so, of course I like to day-dream. By now, you should know that this blog is going to be just another stream of scattered thoughts. A mix and match of my dreams and reality, my likes and dislikes, the world I like and the world I live in (mind you! they are very different and thats my biggest confusion in life), and all that is good, bad and ugly (should I also add 'beautiful' to that list? I think I should). All this and more in my style aka in Mridula's Tashan!

My two sisters, my dad and my mum have always been the most influential people in my life. And now the new additions to the list are my husband and my parents-in-law. So, that completes the list of the most important people in my life today (of course after Shah Rukh Khan and Sourav Ganguly.... joke again!). And I dedicate whatever I write in future in this blog to the seven of them.