Birthday with a bang!

Last year I happened to be in India for my birthday and spent the day with my college buddies. It was amazing. These guys made sure I had a great time.. even gave me birthday bum(p)s! 

To top things off, I had a nice glass of Mishrambu that was topped off, and it was the rangeen (colorful) type! Translation : it had bhang.. just enough to make me sing "happy birthday to me" by myself over and over again!  (Let it be known that, by buddy in the picture had the plain version)

 

After that, spent two days with my parents in severe weather conditions and miraculously made it out of Chennai before the heavens opened and shut down the airport! That was last year.. 

This year, the birthday was also celebrated with a literal "bang". On the whole, the day was full of ups and downs. It was one of those work days worth forgeting. Then things took a turn for the better and the evening turned out to be nicer than the morning. One mintue we were at Bhavikas having dinner, all smiles and we came home happy. Wrote a nice post about it, and while I was hitting the Publish button, there was another bang! This time it was an injury, which thankfully ended up being something recoverable. Went from happy to mad to happy to sad every 4 hours. 

We did manage to do a mini trip to LA to meet my sisters family. It was shorter trip compared to original expectations as my long weekend was reduced as I flew out sunday morning.  Spent a day at Universal studios and visited the Malibu temple on the way back home.

Was happy to see my sister and family after almost a year and a half and spend a day and a half with them!

The trip was worth it just for that one Photograph!

It was raining very heavily and we took 8 hours to make it back instead of the usual five. We were all glad to make it back in one piece after that drive. 

Was in two minds that night on going to Asia the next morning, but the family decided that I should be done with work travel for the year and they will manage with help from friends.

That morning my rudhraksha necklace broke and the beads came flying everywhere in the room. With construction going on, my odds of finding all the beadsl were slim. Also thought it was a bad omen of sorts. Given I like to challenge bad omens (pissing off my family and going against bad omens is a habit from childhood), decided that what has to happen will happen. So travel was on.

After searching for the beads everywhere, found 108 of the 109 beads. A rudhraksh is tied to your soul once you wear it for a long time and custom is that it gets burnt with you, when you are cremated.  Also wearing 108 beads instead of the 109 can make one dizzy, or so say spiritual gurus. I had no time to find the lost bead and rushed to the airport with a heavy heart.

There is something special about this necklace. It is made of seeds from the rudhraksh tree and is completely organic material in a silk thread, but it flags in the body scanner at the airport as metal, every time! The TSA agents always look surprised when I pull it out and they ask "is it on a metal thread and I go, NO! Silk thread". Somehow it must be absorbing millimeter waves or is magnetic. Either way, the fact that it absorbs radiation says there is more to it than I know. Maybe someone else who has the time can study the radiation absorbing properties of these beads!

The first thing I did after coming home from Asia, was launch a search for the missing bead, and found it! Tomorrow will be spent in remaking the necklace. 

There were many life lessons learned in the last week.

One : Should enjoy time with family, every chance I can get. All it takes is one mistep and things can go from happy to sad. 

Two: I might think of work as another home and colleagues as an extended family, but it may not be reciprocated. At the end of the day, work remains a means to an end and I should keep that perspective.

Three:  Should trust my gut feel on people and events. Even if my track record is not that great, at least I can own the fall out a 100%

Four: Should always remember Karma! It gets me, all the time!

Could write a chapter or mini book on all four of the above, but there are consequences which I am not going to be comfortable with. So will use the third and fourth lesson and leave it with this blog post!

Two birthdays.. very different experiences. A blog post that describes mood swings should end on a happy note. So here is a photo of the little one I took the day before my birthday which is as cheerful as the world gets for me!

That smile can keep me going to the moon and back.

This year(correction.. two years) I have travelled more than enough miles to go to the moon over hundreds of hours of flying and walking around airports and being driven to airports, hotels etc.    That smile can bring me back from any distance, in an instant!

Happiness is...

One of the traditions in our house is for the entire family go go have dinner in a place that is chosen by the person on their birthday.. 

People asked me "any fancy plans? going to some big name restaurant?" etc.. 

My family knew what my choice would be and promptly took me there..

The very first place I had food when I first came to visit California, a small family owned restaurant, that is still one of my favorite hangouts!

Still go there once a week almost to eat and say hi to the uncle and aunty there. 

Eating fresh rotis there with the family digging in.. and uncles heartfelt "ashirwad" made my day! He said "stay healthy" and repeated it thrice in case I didn't get the message the first time. 

Yes, that is a big part of the plan.. staying healthy!

Missing you brother..

It is going to be almost 22 years since my older cousin passed. This week more than anything, have been thinking about some conversations we had when I first came to the USA. 

The week I came here, my room mate and me went to stay with him for three days to get a crash course on living in the USA, student life in the USA, literally a crash course.. 

As a kid, did not get to spend too much time with him except the occasional one hour visits every few years but we had a special wavelength to communicate. A few weeks after we were settling in, he picked us up and took us to Allentown from Philadelphia and we were having a fun time.  

I was up early. He came down in his pyjamas and goes "Murali, paal vaanga poren da.. let's go!". It was me, Ganesh(his cousin) and my cousin with him still driving in pyjamas. I was meekly asking "you are coming dressed like that ? " and he goes "it is a local grocery store. just because I have to go drive to the place doesnt mean I have to wear my pants".. and the lessons continued!

On the way back home we are having a conversation and suddenly he goes "I want you to settle down here. I know you want to go back, but I don't think you are going to go back". 

Told him "as soon as I finish my Ph.D. I am going back to be a professor in India" and he gave me his all knowing laugh. He said "my advice to you if you want to stay on that? don't get a drivers license here". 

He said "you should get your parents here also someday!" and I laughed. This was like picking doorknobs for a castle in the clouds. . . 

We go back into the house and he says "give me a few minutes. I am going to give you something!"

After a few minutes he comes back and hands me a very worn out book and says "this is yours now. I cherished this book. Want you to have it. Read it and it might change your mind!"

It says Mali, Vandy 1979.. He got his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt and I am guessing Vandy stands for Vanderbilt. Mali, aka Balan came to the US in 1977. Do not know the history behind this book. Don't know who gave him that book or if he bought it. It was already 10+ years old at that point. (corrected the age of that book.. got it wrong first time)

Read that book that same weekend. While it made me appreciate the US of A in a different way, my mind was still not changed at that point. That book has travelled with me over the years and I am going to make Jr. and the little one read it someday. 

Recently there was an interesting discussion at a Navarathri party. It was the theroy that the USA belonging to the whites settlers who first came to this country.  It was an Indian guy who was not a citizen mentioning this and he was comparing the USA to a large company and he said that the latest employees of the company cannot except the same treatment as the founders and early employees. He was being sympathetic to some of his colleagues who genuinely felt that this was their advantage and put forward that analogy.

I found that interesting because my view of the USA is not that of an established company. If you say that about countries that have had an ancient culture and civilization and a predominantly homogenized population maybe.. like India, China, Egypt, you might have a point. The United States is like a startup. There are guys who came in with the seed (idea and money) and as the company grew, they went from Series A to B to C to.. In every round there are new investors (blood sweat and tears) and stake holders (folks buying into our economy), new folks come in to make a contribution to the company that are vital to moving it forward. Before you know it, it takes a village to make this company go on its course. The European folks who came there were series A, the Black folks  series B, the Asians series C...if you want to think about it that way.. and there are new waves of folks who will come and continue to make this country better. On a timescale of few hundred years, the USA is a startup and it is an evolving startup at that. Sure the series A stock holders get a better deal, but as new investors come in, there are new board members, new VP's, go ask any guy who has been part of a startup as it matures!

After that discussion, I was thinking "maybe I should go give this book to a bunch of folks". Did come home to read some pages of that book and was thinking about my brother again. May not have had quantity time with the dude, but defiintely had quality time. As I sit here typing this, it feels like he is right next to me grinning.. 

He is probably laughing at my drivers license, shaking his head and going "Told you so!"

Never miss a chance to say hi..

I had three days in India. One was to go shopping the day before Deepavali. One day was to celebrate Deepavali and visit relatives. One was to visit more relatives, pack (yes.. stuff as much as possible within one suitcase. Threw away old clothes which were worn on a business trip mind you, and replaced them with sweets and savories!) and do the other must do things.. 

Which was to visit two of my two favorite temples. Did a whirlwind visit to Kabali kovil on a rainy morning. 

 Have written many posts about this place.. it always brings back amazing memories, mostly of my grand father and mom and playing with my brother.. meeting my wife for the first time.. long list.. (read this old post and got happy tears thinking of grandpa)

Took a couple of snaps on the way out. The Gopuram has been freshly painted and the inside of the temple has got a face lift of sorts! 

A stone base from the 7th century with freshly painted statutes on the top! The contrast is interesting and is pretty much symbolic of everything in Chennai, when I see it with my own filters of what is new and what is old!  I could spend hours with my kids, describing the stories those statutes tell, but that has to wait for another trip, when they visit the temple. 

Spent only 30 minutes inside, but Kabali always gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling on the inside, no matter how short the visit.

Until next time... 

The C word

** This post was written two years ago. I forgot to publish it. Kept searching the site for the post as I was so sure it was written... and realized that there was a reason the publish button was not hit at the time** Have done a rewrite of sorts..

Two years ago, when the India trip was coming to a close, my MIL was told by doctors in India that she most likely had Lympohoma. This was literally the day of her flight back. She decided to come here as planned and go through treatment here. The good news was that she had something but it was not lymphoma. The bad news was that she was poked and prodded for a good two weeks with bone marrow tests, repeated scans of every kind etc. and we were in the hospital a lot. 

This photograph was taken two years ago at Kaiser's Oncology ward when MIL and me were waiting (think it was first or second week of August). "They have nice wall colors"  is what I remember thinking while staring at the walls.

I was very busy with a presentation due for the Memory summit and we were taking turns with hospital visits. San does not like needles, and that translated to me going with MIL for all the tests. The night before the bone marrow test, I had gone to bed at 2AM, and the next morning had not shaved. The stress of the previous week (including that engine failure event on Cathay Pacific, a fight to Asia in the middle of a storm, work work and more work pressure)  was showing on my face. Had dark circles around my eyes. The MIL on the other hand was going through a "I am going to live like every day is my last day" phase. She got up, dressed nicely, wore her diamond earings, put on some makeup.. you get the idea.

We are sitting here waiting to be called in. A really nice nurse (think her name was Isabella..  still remember her name after 2 years. she was a really sweet person. I remember thinking "one has to have exceptional people skills to deal with the folks in this waiting room") walks out and goes "Suguna?" and we look at her. She walks to us, grabs me by the hand and goes "let's get this test done with sweetie. It will hurt, but we will try to be as quick as possible". 

My MIL and me were both laughing. She didn't get it first. Don't think she is used to folks smiling and laughing as a response to what she said. Then I told her "I am not the one for the test. She is!" and she said "I would not have guessed!"

After that test and more PET scans, they decided that she had enlarged lymph nodes but we have to go to a "wait and watch" strategy and there was no sign of Cancer in her bone marrow test. 

Then it did not stop there. The scan showed nodules everywhere in her body. So it was zeored down to three things. Tuberculosis, some other disease that affects farm workers in central valley caused by a fungus in the air or some such thing, a thrid unprounceable disease which had no proper detection or cure (I am not making this up).

That brings up the second incident within that same week. So we were sent to the lung infection disease department. As soon as we check in there, the nurse gave a single mask to the MIL. I thought "okay, they are taking a precaution because they don't want to get what she might have". Then I thought "but we are living with her and we are not wearing masks". So we go to the waiting room and the nurse is wearing a mask! 

I was asking the nurse, how come you are wearing a mask and she is wearing one and I am the only one without a mask. She did not even answe me.. mumbled something and said "doc will be in soon". The "doc" was also wearing a mask. I remember telling the MIL how scary it was to be the only maskless person in that office! She was laughing and I clicked this. By then she was happier that the Cancer diagnosis had given way to more complex things which were either curable or she was unlikely to have!

Eventually after two weeks of tests and follow ups, she has been going through a once in six month's scan to check the nodules. Apparently it is like a chess game. If they grow, the docs will attack it. If they attack first, the nodules might retalliate. This thing has become something of a background issue now as the MIL just goes about her routine. 

This taught us a lot of lessons on how anyone anytime is susceptible to cancer. 

My way of overcoming extreme stress was to see a lighter side in things.. Sometimes it is appropriate, other times, timing might not be right and I end up digging out an old unpublished post from two years ago..

We are all grateful that MIL ended up okay after those two weeks! We are also more conscious of one thing.. It is more important to do things you want to do and not procrastinate.. if there is a choice between eating healthy, exercising, praying, watching for your health and living in constant vigil vs. just focussing on things that make you happy... you pick the latter. Why? because no matter how healthy you eat or exercise or pray, the C word can get you. At least if you live happy, you have less regrets!

That was a persective change!