Petite!

One month into our Bangalore trip, things began to change. The toughest exams were done. We had settled well into the house, figured out ways to get to places safely in time, and worked out efficient ways to get groceries and other essentials needed to run the house. Aloka and I both found ourselves with time to finally breathe and relax. 

With a month yet to go before we returned, I started searching for sports clubs where we could spend an hour daily. It wasn't easy. I wanted to swim, but Aloka doesn't swim. She wanted to go to a gym, but I hate those machines. Finally, I found a sports club called WE fitness that had both a gym and a heated swimming pool. And it was just 3 Km from the house, which translates to 20 minutes in an auto. Wonderful! 

But there was another problem. I hadn't brought my swimsuit with me. The lady at the club suggested a shop where I could go to buy one, so off I went to Options in Jayanagar. Having gone swinsuit shopping in the past in Singapore and Europe, I was cautious and ready for disappointment. But Options was true to its name. I could not believe my eyes when I was shown a whole stack of swimsuits to choose from. Most had sleeves, and some had attached pants! And size was no issue. They had sizes from small to 5XL. 

There were no bikinis on display. What I was being shown were burkinis minus the head covering! For a minute I wondered who these were for? Who were these sensible women who wanted so much coverage? For the swimsuit market to become so inclusive, there had to be huge demand (pun unintended). 

But then my thoughts became more centered on myself. Where had I come? This was my idea of heaven! 

I bought a black polka-dotted half-sleeved swimsuit with attached knee-length pants after making sure that I could get into it. Get into it? I should be more worried about my lady bits staying in place once I was in water, it was that comfortable. 

In the changing room at the club, I adjusted the swinsuit and looked in the mirror. All the jiggly pieces were in place and well-hidden. Of course, there is nothing one can do about the overall mass. The fat that is moved from one place has to land somewhere. I accepted that graciously.

I walked tentatively to the pool and was relieved that there was no one there. Luckily, the time-slot we were given, 1 to 2 pm, was the least busiest of the day. After 10 minutes or so, some more people came in. Everyone was rather big.  Given my size, I don't use these words lightly (again pun unintended). Everyone was in one or the other version of semi-burkinis, even the men! I caught myself staring open-mouthed at the swimmers. I call them swimmers but no one was swimming! They were walking in the water or contorting their bodies holding all sorts of styrofoam gadgets. 

Then realization slowly dawned on me. These folks were not here to swim, but to exercise. I later found out that such exercises were suitable for the very large people whose joints can't handle a regular gym. I was the only serious swimmer in that small group. 

I did my thing for the next 45 minutes or so, showing off a bit and being childishly competitive if I found another person doing a lap. When it was time to leave, I got out of the pool and walked unhurriedly and confidently towards the changing area, not covering myself with a towel as is my habit. 

And why not! For the first time in my life, I was the most petite person in a room! 

The One that Got Away!

After six days in Gobi desert and one whole day of driving, we finally reached the Princess camp high up in the Gorkhi Terelj National Park in Mongolia. From dry flat planes to rugged mountains, from browns and grays to gurgling rivulets and lush greens, from 40 degrees to -5 degrees, all in a period of 12 hours! 

The Princess camp was yet another Ger camp, no different from that in Gobi, except that it was freezing cold. There was a large coal heater with the chimney going out from the center of the Ger. Our hosts entered the Ger every few hours to reload the coal to keep us warm, while we tried to sleep. Their intrusion, initially shocking, was very soon welcomed! 

The next day, our guide told us we would be going for a picnic to an old ruin some 10 km away. There were horses for those who wanted to ride, much to the delight of Atreya and Shalini, and an ox-cart for those who couldn't- mom and me. By now it was snowing lightly. We wore sweaters and jackets offered to us by our very maternal hosts, all men by the way, but the cold was bone-chilling. They then trussed mom and me in a blanket each, with a rope tied around us to hold it in place. 

We were then picked up and placed on the ox-cart, the keyword being "on". Our seat was a flat plank of wood that was somehow attached to the yoke around the neck of the large black and white ox. There were no side railing or any back rest. Like everything that was thrown our way in this unusual fascinating country, we took it in our stride. 

A few hundred yards into the rough drive, with no arms free to prop ourselves up, we found ourselves less and less vertical and more and more horizontal on the wooden platform. With snow now drifting onto our faces and mouths, mom and I looked at each other helplessly. No promised beautiful scenery to be seen. All we could see was gray skies and each other's pitiable faces.

Suddenly, there was a jerk and a shout. The wooden platform stood at an odd angle. I managed to get my arms out of the blanket, propped myself up and turned around to see what the commotion was about. Our ox-cart was sans the ox! There was just the wooden plank somehow balanced on the slushy muddy path, with mom and me somehow still on it!

I could see our ox-cart driver running and shouting after the ox who had decided enough was enough. All this while we thought we were uncomfortable, but who knew that the ox was the real victim here, carrying us two through the snow and slush! 

It was a funny site seeing the ox running away, but not more than the site we presented to our horse riding friend and family, who could be heard laughing loudly and calling out to the driver. 

Noticing how precariously we were perched, the driver discontinued the ox chase and returned to help us. With no English-speaking guide nearby to translate for us, it was somehow agreed that he would carry mom on his back across the slushy path where the ox had abandoned us. While he did that, I shook off the blanket, hopped off the cart and made my way gingerly to dry land. No way I would let that man take on the burden of carrying me across, however sturdy he may be! Certainly, he couldn't be sturdier than the ox! 

After making sure we were safe, he once again ran to get the ox back, who was now happily chewing on some dry grass. After much pulling and cajoling, he was brought back to the cart and yoked again. We hopped back on top of the plank, this time with the blankets only loosely wrapped around us. 

I don't remember much of the ruins or the picnic, or the trip back, but this episode from 20 years ago of the ox shaking us off is as fresh in my mind as if it happened just yesterday. 

The ox-cart being readied for us! 

The ox that got away! 

The Grand Kainth Theft!

In and around our village, there are a number of wild pear trees. In local language, wild pear is called kainth. These trees turn the valley pink and white in spring, and are a delight to the eyes. We drive around the valley in March and April just to ooh and aah at their lovely blossoms. Their small round fruits ripen in early winter. I have sampled some in my jaunts to the nearby mountains and villages with Sonu. The ones that are fully ripe are sweet, though gritty. The ones that are not yet ripe are quite distasteful.  

It is not just us humans that prefer the ripe fruits. They are a favorite of birds of all kinds and much sought after. But there is one species of birds that is quite obsessed with kainth- the red-billed blue magpies, called lumb-puchhri or the long-tailed one in local language. These large long-tailed birds are somewhat pretty to look at, but as I learned over the years, are considered quite a nuisance by the farmers. They belong to the crow family, and much like crows, are surprisingly intelligent. 

Rather than compete with other birds for ripe kainth fruits, lumb-puchhris pick the fruits from the trees when they are still unripe and hide them in bushes or in mud in hidden corners, only to dig them out a few days later to enjoy their sweetness. Sometimes, they even hide the already ripened fruits so that they can relish them later. Delayed gratification! Dog in the manger? 

In November and December, you can see these birds flying with two or three fruits in their beaks, sometimes even entire branches, hiding them and then going back for some more.

Kainth Chors (pear thieves)- that's what I call them!

Over the years, I have seen this spectacle quite a few times from close quarters, while sipping tea at my friend's balcony. The wild pear tree in her front-yard is a popular target of  fruit theft by a pair of lumb-puchhris. Their hiding places for hiding/ripening these fruits is a large flower pot nearby, which is usually full of flowers. The birds expertly press some fruits into the soft mud in the pot and hide others inside the flowers and leaves. They then return a few days later and savour their goodies with much delight. 

But last November, there was much confusion and cacophony near their favorite hiding place. The birds were hopping around and screeching. They had dug up the flower pot and moved the bushes around several times, but there was no sign of their sweet treasure. The birds were hopping mad, literally and figuratively, and rightfully so! The thieves had been robbed of their loot!

The lady of the house, a quiet homebody, sat smugly on her balcony and watched the drama. There was a faint smile on her face, made sweeter by all the kainth fruits she had consumed over the last couple of days!

Note: All but the last picture are taken from the Internet. Copyright others'.The last picture is of Sonika's mother. Copyright and every other right- hers! 

Political Plants!

Seeing a lot of Parthenium, also known as congress plant, growing all around in the hills, my mother Chandrama Anand says:

There is a sudden explosion of congress grass here recently. Perhaps in response to the new BJP government in our state!

Witty, witty!

Arms of Another!

There must be a perfect man

for the perfect me, somewhere.

I can so imagine this deadly combination

A bit of him, a bit of her!

But every one I meet 

is good for only one thing or another.

One's banter is just right for me,

and another's ardor!  

Not best known for my patience,

Till I discover this elusive creature...

I, pity me, have to make do

with the intellect of one, and the arms of another. 

A Very Short Cut

Here's to the pleasure of belonging to a mixed family!

Growing up, our family had a Sunday routine of first visiting the paternal grandparents in Lajpat Nagar, followed by a visit to the maternal grandparents in South Ex. This routine was followed religiously every Sunday, except when we were travelling. What a nice thing my parents did, I realize now, but that's beside the point.

My bauji and bhabhiji were "theth" Punjabis and my nani a proud bengali. Both showed immense pleasure if we, the grand kids, spoke to them in their language. While my sister and I made efforts to learn a smattering of both the languages in order to please the grand folks, my brother couldn't be bothered. He was at once lazy and clever.

That's how he greeted his grandparents on Sundays.

At Lajpat Nagar: Bhabhiji, kee gull?
At South Ex: Nani, kee gaul?

The Little Magician

Aloka is turning into quite a magician. Here is her very original card trick!

Aloka: Nani, pick a card. Now check it carefully. Remember what card you have, okay?

Nani: Okay. 

Aloka: Now put it back with the other cards. 

(After nani puts the card back, the little magician shuffles the cards in her little hands with great difficulty)

Aloka: Now pick another card. Don't look, just pick a card, okay?

Nani: Okay, okay I won't look. 

(Nani takes a card without stealing a glance)

Aloka: Now look at the card. Is it a different card from before?

Nani: Yes, quite different!

Aloka: See, that's the magic!!!

The Tale of a Passport-Sized Photo

Today, I went to get my passport size photographs taken for opening a new bank account. To save time, I chose a shop right opposite the bank. It is important to say this because really, there was nothing at the outside of the shop to encourage a customer. It was a tiny hole in the wall place, with a dusty hand-written board that said PHOTOSTATE (yes, with an e). The only indication that it was also a photo-studio were a couple of framed pictures showing through the glass door.

I walked into the shop, no bigger than 6 feet by 8 feet. The man inside was busy stapling a bunch of sheets that he had obviously photostatted. After a brief nod to my request for photos, he ignored me totally. There was a bench with a very dirty velvet cover that I did not want to sit on, so I stood around, waiting for him to get done with stapling. It had to be a rushed job, because he was totally consumed with it and refused to multi-task to any extent. After sometime, he asked me to sit down on the bench, which I did with trepidation.

While waiting for him, I looked at various things inside the shop. The first thing that struck me were very bad pictures of people framed up. There was one of a stunned looking man, another slightly blurred one of a serious looking old woman, another over-exposed/faded one of a couple of kids, and one of a young man. That picture of the young man was the most amazing of all. It was totally blurred. I could make out the shape of the face and that the young man had a mustache, but the picture was majorly out of focus. An obvious mistake- even a child would tell you that- but lo and behold, it was framed in an ornate frame!

The second thing that struck me was a collection of really old looking cameras in a showcase. I mean each looked at least 10 years old and very dusty. Why would anyone display these cameras? I was reminded of Kanto, our gardener, who recently bought a second-hand canon camera and was so proud of it (until it broke down a month later). Maybe, this shop sells second-hand cameras, I thought to myself, but makes no bones about them being very second hand.

As I sat there admiring the pictures and cameras, and trying hard not to think of my clothes getting dirty on that bench, the stapling was done and the man took out his camera from its packaging. Quite an elaborate process that- first he took out a bulky black bag, then a cardboard box from inside it, then unwrapped some bubble wrap and finally took out a point-and-click camera. That's certainly a first-hand camera, I thought to myself. My photo was taken in a single shot and the man briefly smiled looking at the picture, implying the picture was good (or did it mean it was suitably blurred?).

By now, I was in a hurry to get done. At my age, I don't care to see how I look in passport pictures- as long as it looks like me and meets its bureaucratic requirements, I am OK. So I didn't even bother to check it before it was printed. After a few minutes on the computer, he finally printed the set of 8 pictures and patiently cut each picture with a pair of scissors.

This photo of the photo doesn't do justice,
but you get the drift.

When I finally took a look at my picture, I was taken aback. This was not me! This was someone 10 years younger with flawless skin and no wrinkles! And two shades fairer! I am telling you no foundation I had ever used (and I have tried many) has had that kind of effect on my heavily pigmented middle-aged skin.

When I looked up enquiringly at the man, he smiled broadly and said "Thoda photoshop kar diya hai"!

That's the pleasure of living in a small town. And that's exactly the pain.

P.S.: Well, dear Mr. photographer, when you were at it, couldn't you have made those eyebrows a tad darker too?

Pop Anatomy!

During the 12-hour drive back home from Srinagar, mom and Aloka played many games, one of then being the anatomy game. This is how it went. 

Mom- Aloka, how many kidneys do you have? 
Aloka (confidently)- Two! 
Mom (with pride)- Very good. And where are these kidneys?
Aloka pointing to the middle of her chest- Here!
(Pop goes the proud nani's bubble. After a lot of laughter, the game continues. )

Mom- Aloka how many lungs do you have?
Aloka- Two! Right lung and left lung.
Mom (again with pride)- Wow that's great!
Aloka- One for eating and one for drinking.
(Pop, pop! There goes the bubble again)

Mom- What is the gall bladder for?
Aloka- What's that?
Mom- It's an organ that produces juices that help the liver...
Aloka- Juices? Nani, what flavour are those juices? Cranberry? Orange?
(Pop, pop, pop! That was the end of the anatomy class!)

Tragicomedy!

Mommy singing her favorite song "Mere sajan hain uss paar, mein iss paar, o mere manjhi abki baar..." At this point, Aloka interjects to say "modi sarkar"!!!

It was so funny that I had to ignore the tragedy!

"Pro"noun!

Mom, while teaching aloka sarvnam (pronouns in hindi), was making up sentences and asking Aloka to identify the sarvnam. I overheard this from the kitchen where I was making evening tea. 

Mom- Veh jaa rahay hain. 
Aloka - Veh

Mom- Tum yahan ao.
Aloka- Kahan aaon nani?
(Lots of laughter once Aloka understood it was just a sentence)

Mom- Mein bas kar rahi hun? 
Aloka- Why? What have I done?
(Some more laughter at Aloka's inability to separate content from intent)

Mom- Convert this to sarvnam. Aloka pagal hai.
Aloka- Mom, mom, nani is calling me pagal. I will not learn from her.

And thus ended the hindi lesson!

Fast Track!

Here is a conversation I had this morning with Aloka, my six-year old. Brought back memories of my own childhood, except that I went through similar scrutiny and evaluation of my mother when I was much older, closer to 12.

Aloka: Mom, do you want to fast on some days?
Me: Fast? No, I love food.
Aloka: But do you want to try?
Me: Why?
Aloka: Then you will become thin.
Me: Oh, do you think I am too fat?
Aloka: Yes. (Silence). But it suits you. It matches you.
Me: You mean you like my being fat?
Aloka: Yes. You are the most beautiful mother in the whole school.
Me: Really! Wow, what a nice thing to say!
Aloka: Hmm, but you must wear the clothes and jewelry I choose for you everyday.

She then went on to lay out the clothes and ear rings and bracelet and necklace that I must wear today when picking her up from school.

I tell you, I had rather fast a couple of times a week!

The Tale of Dry Cleaned Jacket!

After almost a year of living here, I finally felt the need for a dry cleaner- my black wool coat was a mess. So, I asked a friend for a nearby dry cleaner. Her response was cryptic- she asked what I wanted cleaned. When I told her it was a coat, she said "Ok, for your coat you can go to the dry cleaner opposite Sacred Heart. Don't go to him for sarees." I had never heard of such super specialization in dry cleaning but I didn't probe. Maybe I should have.

So the next day, I went looking for the dry cleaner who was OK for coats. It was a small hole-in-the-wall shop right opposite the most famous school in our area. There, I was greeted by a middle-aged man who smiled and bowed as I approached. His smile stayed put as I showed him my coat and asked for it to be dry-cleaned. This is how the conversation went.

Me: When can I pick it up?
Man (smiling): When do you want it?
Me: When can you have it ready?
Man (smiling): Tomorrow
Me: Tomorrow morning?
Man (smiling): Tomorrow evening.
Both smiled at each other.
Me: Will you give me some receipt?
Man (smiling even more): Nahin ji, koi zaroorat nahin. (There's no need for that)
Me (feeling uncertain): How much will it cost me?
Man (smiling ear to ear): Koi na. Le lenge ji. (No problem. We'll take what's right.)
Me (totally flummoxed, but disarmed by all that smiling): Ok, thank you.

I went back for the coat two days later and found a little girl at the shop. When I asked her for her father, she asked me to take a seat on a bench and wait for 10 minutes while her father finished his breakfast. I had stuff to do, so I left. I returned the next day and the same man greeted me with an even bigger smile and a reproach that I was late- "Kab se tayyar hai ji, tussi aye nahin". He took out my coat from a cupboard and quickly wrapped it in newspaper (no plastic bags in HP) and handed to me. I made the payment and came back home.

A couple of days later, on a bitterly cold morning, I took out my coat from the newspaper wrapping with the intent of wearing it and was shocked to see that it was no coat but a kind of poncho. I had been given someone's else's clothing! I went down to mom's room to tell her but could not- I was laughing so hard. When I finally managed to tell her, she said that the same shop had mixed up her jacket too just last week, but she had noticed it right there and got her jacket back.

So, I went back to the shop. This time I found a tough-looking woman at the counter. When I told her what had happened, she said "Oh, this belongs to an Angrez (foreigner). She had come for this shawl yesterday and I searched and searched and finally told her we didn't have it. When she insisted that it was in my shop, I told her that was impossible but why not she checks thoroughly at home while I do the same in my shop"! Feeling total empathy for the Angrez, I asked what  her reaction to that proposed solution was. The lady said "O maan gayi ji"! (She agreed!)

Now, came operation Search-for-this-non-Angrez's-Coat. A lot of hangers were moved here and there, a lot of jackets were brought to me, and after a lot of "Is this your coat?" "Is that your coat?", she finally found my coat and gave it to me.

This time I checked and made sure it was indeed my coat before it was wrapped in a newspaper. As a parting advice, I told the lady to start tagging clothes and giving out receipts. To that she said "It is not needed. I never make a mistake. I was sick so my husband took over the shop for a few days. It's he who creates these problems. You see, he is not right in his head."!!!

She too can do it!

Our next door neighbors here use their house as a summer home. Last month, the entire family descended from Jammu and stayed over for about a month. Aloka was delighted to meet their 3 year old granddaughter Tuku, who in turn became Aloka's biggest fan, copying everything she did.

One of the things she copied was doing the hula hoop. Her version is to die for!

The Fan Call!

My mother's iPhone is filled with contacts. Nothing odd about it, except that most of them are first names only. Sometimes there are surnames too, but they are not of much use, believe me. In contrast, my contact list is filled with names like Sanjay Carpenter, Kapil Driver, Irene K Soka, Irene W. KP, Bryan M. HP etc. For those of you who think I overdo it, read on.

Well one morning, mom decides to call the husband of one of her friend's daughter to discuss purchase of fans etc for the house. His first name is Divyasheel, so she searches her phone and comes up with a number for Divyasheel Mahajan. I said his surname is not Mahajan, but she says "Aur kiska hoga? Waise bhi yahan sub log Mahajan hee hotay hain. Yehi hai uska number." Translation: "Who else could it be? In any case, everyone here is called Mahajan. This has to be his number." It sounded strange but this kind of logic is hard to defy by someone who has just moved into this town, so I acquiesced.

Having chosen the number, she hands me the phone to dial because this fan installation is my responsibility. The call was received by a woman, not a man as I had expected. Totally ruffled, as is my habit when things don't go as expected, I handed back the phone to mom, saying "It's a woman! You talk!". Had I been alone, I would have simply disconnected the phone without any explanation- that's how odd I am. 

But oddness runs in our blood- it just takes different forms in different family members. This is the conversation that followed between my mother and Divyasheel. I only heard one side of it, but it was enough to send me into a paroxysm of uncontrolled laughter. Total ROFL. 

Uhh hello is Divyasheel there?

...

Oh, you are Divyasheel!  I am Dr. Chandrama Anand speaking. 

(At this stage, any reasonable person would have apologized for dialing a wrong number, but my mother's curiosity had been piqued and she had to find out who it was!)

...

Yes yes, I am fine. How are you?

(After of course making some small talk! )

...

Ok Divyasheel, where are you?
(Subtle are we?)

...

Hmm I see, at home. Ok listen, just where do you live?  Dharamshala?
(That didn't work. No time for subtlety anymore!)

...

Chandigarh? Oh I see! Hmm...I mean, how do we know each other?

(OMG! Let it be mom! After all, you are the one who called her!)

...

Oh! Dental college. Yes yes now I remember. How are you?
(Ok this is the real small talk, unlike the fake one earlier! )

...

...

Yes yes. We will meet sometime when I come to Chandigarh. 

(Yeah right!)

...

Ok. Now I will go. I had just called, you know. Bye beta! 

(Yes yes you had just called, we know, and by now even she knows, without knowing who you were talking to!)

I can only imagine what the poor girl thought of the entire conversation. Did I mention it was pretty early in the morning, like 7:30 am, when this conversation happened.

How was the rest of your day Divyasheel Mahajan of the Dental College?

Pious Chipmunks!

Aloka: Mom what are chipmunks?
Me: Some kind of animals. I have only seen in cartoons. 
Aloka: Noooo! You have seen them. We saw in Mcleod Ganj. They were walking there wearing red and orange clothes.
Me: Ooohh! You mean monks, not chipmunks!! 

After laughing for a couple of minutes, the conversation continues. 

Me: They are people who are devoted to Buddha. They spend their time praying. They don't have any wife or kids or a home.
Aloka: Oh poor people, tsk tsk, they have nothing. But I know why they don't want kids. Kids make a lot of noise (to illustrate she makes some sounds like wah wah bah bah) and talk non-stop like me.
Me: That's right. They make too much noise. Would you like to be a monk when you grow up?
Aloka: No. I don't like their clothes. 

The Darned PC Ghost!

Many people are impressed by my 75-year old mother's tech-savviness. She has been using the computer for years for work, email and games (in the reverse order of importance and time spent), and is a proud owner and an avid user of an iPad. However, only some people know of her deeper connection to PCs. You see, she personally knows a PC ghost!

Earlier this week, she decided to download hundreds of pictures of her latest Singapore trip from her camera onto her PC. She was at her desk for hours at a stretch, because she not only downloads the pictures, but views each of them carefully as they are downloaded, calls whoever is around to see them, and discusses the finer points of the picture and any related incident that happened that day in great detail. In the last couple of hours, I had been summoned several times to see this or that, and to nod when she ooh'd and aah'd at some picture.

Puja, Puja, see this one, isn't it just superb? Just look at the detail in this one! Where else did we go on this day?  How different Aloka is looking here. This is the pitcher plant. What was the name of the restaurant? Wow look at the fantastic colors! See this one you took and look how nice it's come out! Etc...

By the time she called me again, I was at the end of my extra-elongated tether. I just pretended to not hear her and kept doing what I was doing i.e. sun bathing in the veranda. So she sought me out! She looked particularly upset. According to her, she had spent hours arranging her downloaded photographs in carefully named folders and suddenly three of the folders had vanished! I wish I could somehow capture her actions and words as she described the process of arranging the pictures in folders- how she selected each picture ("I made each picture name blue"), then dragged it (arm stretched high above her head), and dropped it into the folder (arm reaching down). 

I told her that folders do not vanish and that it must be somewhere in her computer. She says there is nothing anywhere cause she has searched for it using the search assistant already. Then she adds a baffling statement "It asked me if I wanted to send something to the recycle bin and I said yes"!  She had not clue what she had send to the recycle bin, but never mind that, my tech-savvy mom had already searched the recycle bin as well and not found anything. Not wanting to get up from my sunny perch, I asked her to download the pictures again from the camera, but dear mom had been super organized for once and had deleted the photos from the camera as soon as they were downloaded. Even that didn't move me. Then came a statement that finally forced me to go inside to her PC. "It's vanished. All my effort of all morning lost. It's all the work of this ghost that wants to trouble me"!!!

I first tried looking visually for the folder names on the desktop. There were hundreds of file icons on the desktop- all the photos that she hadn't yet organized were sitting on the darn desktop. I am telling you I haven't seen anything like that in my life. It was mind boggling. So I decided to search for folders using the folder name she had used (Atreyas passing out parade). Nothing. I changed the search keyword to Atreya and still nothing. Not wanting to be spooked, I opened the explorer window and looked at the file names instead of the icons. And bingo! There it was! I called her over and showed it to her. And also showed her why the search couldn't find it- she had spelled Atreya's names as Atryea while naming the folder!

I then asked her if she can now stop blaming the PC ghost for all her troubles. But she refused point blank saying - "It is all because of that darn ghost that the name was typed wrong"!!!

Of Birds and Bees!

The other day, over a post-lunch chat with some Singaporean team members, the topic of sex education came up. We were all having a laugh over how you can guess a person's age by just listening to how they first got their sex education. The one's born in 90's learned directly from the Internet, those in 80's learned in formal school programs, and those in 70's from friends. Since I was the only one in the group born in 1960's, all eyes turned to me as they asked me how I found out about the birds and bees. Well this is how!

I learned it all from a book that my loving mom had bought for my older sister to keep her company in a train ride to Chandigarh, where she was going to study. No, my mother was not one of those who believed in being friends with her teenage kids and talking openly about sex and stuff. She bought the book because it looked like a regular romance novel set in medieval times, harmless like the Mills and Boon's books (with a whole lot of sardonic grins and just one kiss at the end) that we used to read as teens. It was only when my sister came home for holidays that she revealed how wonderfully educational that book really was! I remember my mother's reactions as she picked the book and read parts of it- she would cluck and shake her head, and say "haw hai" every now and then! She could not stop talking about how much she regretted buying such trash for her own daughter.

I, 13 or 14 at that time, was forbidden from reading the book, but like everything else I was forbidden from doing, I did surreptitiously. That's how I learned to fly like a bird, and buzz like a bee! 

Hi I am Gina!

Just saw a check-in update by a friend for Trattoria La Vigna. I did a double take because for a second, I had read it as Trattoria La Vagina! It reminded me of an episode many years ago.

In 2007 or so, we were developing an e-learning course for a big pharma company. The topic was a new type of Intra-Uterine Device (IUD). The purpose was to teach sales folks enough about it so they could sell it effectively.

 For some reason, the client was fixated on having a female mascot in the course. He rejected our initial design ideas and said that he wanted to somehow depict the IUD as the mascot. A tall order indeed, believe me- this IUD didn't look remotely like a human figure. After some more trials, my super creative team managed to create a pretty woman with flowing hair and a seductive look, somehow anchored on a IUD. Yes, that's right, she was one-legged.

Then came the quest for a name. Many were suggested, but the one we all loved, but never shared with the customer, was Gina Vee!

All of us in the office were RFOL'ing imagining this one-legged sexy woman floating in and saying seductively in James Bond style "Hi, I'm Gina. Vee Gina!". 

A Political Mystery with Extra-Large Under...err..tones

My brother Arun's home is a black hole for all clothes. Anything you wash and dry on the lines gets picked up and wrapped in a huge pile of clothes kept in a secret room, which is later sorted by whoever needs their clothes. Sometimes this sorting is delayed- as a result, there may be three or four huge piles of washed clothes at a time, any one of which could contain the piece of clothing you may be seeking.

Wary of this, I am usually quick to pick off my clothes from the lines as soon as they dry, and put them straight into my suitcase. One winter day, however, I forgot to pick up the undergarments I had washed the night before. As dreaded, they were nowhere to be found the next morning. Panic ensued as I started going through the piles of washed clothes in search of them.

Seeing my frantic state, my brother, referring not so subtly to the size of the undergarments I was looking for, quipped- "This is like a US political mystery. You know panta-gone!"

(See also:  http://accidentalceostrategicmom.blogspot.sg/2012/02/who-was-that-for.html)