Didn't find it?
RSS feed from Feedburner

 Subscribe to this Blog ?

 

Sundar Narayanan's Travelog

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

 

Just another spider on the web
Squarespace
Powered by Squarespace
Archives
Blog Index
The journal that this archive was targeting has been deleted. Please update your configuration.
Navigation

Entries in conversations (20)

Sunday
Mar142010

A small but wonderful heart

Was putting Jr. and the little one to bed last night.

It was a long day for me and they both knew I was dead tired. Also mom and grandma were out watching a movie.

So Jr. decides to break out of our usual Ragam quiz routine and sings "Giridhara gopala" for me. My eyes almost closed and I dozed off and they nudged me back.

Me : someday when I am old and lying in a hospital bed, will you two sing giridhara gopala for me just like you did now?

LO : why are you going to go back to the hospital?

Me : No. I am not talking about now. this is a lot of years from now when I am older and you are also older and you probably have kids of your own. Then?

Jr.: what if we forget this song?

Me: we have your youtube video right? just bring it to my ears and play it for me if you forget the song

LO: We won't forget the song. maybe we can have our kids sing to you just like we sing to Grandma right now on videochat?

Me : (this girl correlates things just like I do.. this is truly amazing to see how she connects things).. Yes. you can do that.

Jr. : But what if we have boys instead of girls?

Me : You have a boy in your music class don't you? you can teach boys to sing. Daddy is a boy and he is teaching you, no?

Jr. : But what if they are not interested?

Me : you can get them interested. keep singing to them and encourage them. tell them they are doing good. really good.

LO : Daddy, I love you. I really don't want you to go to a hospital when you are older.

Me : okay, enough of this topic. just remember we talked about you singing for me okay. let's all go to bed and sleep for now.

The little one's face when she said it made me so guilty for even bringing this up. Sometimes we say things without thinking through the consequences, especially when we are tired.

With little kids, you are never sure how far they understand what concepts at what age.

For now, the conversation is forgotten or is being made light of and the girls are back to being their giggly selves.

.

Monday
Feb022009

The past and the present

Just after picking up Jr. from school:

Jr. : There is a book fair in my school.

Me : When?

Jr. : You won't give me money anyways right!?

Me : Okay. This time, WILL give you some money.

Jr. : My teacher says I need some bills. like phone bills or something to buy the books.

Me : ????? I think she meant dollar bills.

Jr. : yes, right.. she said we can only bring dollar bills. no Indian bills, no Canadian bills either!

Me : (thinking...at least I tell Jr. no money to her face. disappointing the kid by giving foreign exchange is not right) She is right! You need dollar bills.

LO : (chips in from behind) how about Seattle bills?

Jr. : No silly. Only California bills!

Me : (laughing) Same bills in Seattle and California kids. It is the US Dollar!

Jr. thinks that people give us dollar bills when we finish shopping at the local grocery store! We use cards whenever we go buy gas, groceries, costco shop, etc.

The only time Jr. sees money change hands is when we ask for cash back after buying groceries, which usually is to buy tickets at the desi movie theater and Jr. never witenesses that transaction where we hand over the money! Took me a few days to understand why she thought that and explain the concept of money vs. cards.

We came home to another conversation

Jr. : Daddy is going to give me some money to buy books amma!

San : why? you have all the books you want from the library

Jr. : No. I want to buy some books to keep forever.

San : how much is he giving you?

Jr. : Ten dollars

San : You get four. Which book are you going to buy.

Jr. : this one (pulls a catalog and shows some spongebob squarepants book). I have already read it!

San : What ?! You should buy a book you have not read yet.

Jr. : I like that book. So I want to have it in our house.

(by now I am wondering where this is going to go, as we listen to the same CD over and over again.. maybe Jr. likes to read the same book over and over again?)

San : Why do you want to buy a book that you have already finished reading? Why don't you buy a new book?

Jr. : (realizing that she cannot argue her way out with mom, changes the tone)Actually I have only read the cover of that book and the first few pages. Haven't read it fully!

San : (now laughing) I didnt just become "____" (Voldemortage) without crossing six. I was six years old once too you know. You cannot fool me!

Jr. : (giggles and finally decides on a new book that was four bucks!)

Sometimes I am glad that my wife was six years old at one point and remembers everything. She seems to be more ready for a growing Jr. than I am!

We do buy them books, every now and then. They got books for Christmas presents, birthday presents, when they really pestered us to buy something at the Mall recently, etc.

Believe it or not, we are allowed to check out, upto 21 books at a time in the Library and they have a reallllllly nice collection of young reader books and you can keep them for upto 3 weeks. Also, Jr. has been going through 3-4 books a day in the last three weeks as part of a reading program and is really hooked.

My best memories of college or school are at the Library!

When we were in middle school every wednesday we would get to check out one book and return it the following wednesday. Couldn't wait for that day and we would stand in line after school, to get the next 3 investigators, hardy boys etc.. and before you know it, it was Jules Verne, Conan Doyle and Earl Stanley Gardner and we exited high school!

The BHU library was just plain amazing. You could just drown youself in an ocean of books in that place and be happy and contented browsing, reading.. what memories!

The libraries in the US were better, what with computerized VAX search tools of the entire catalog! Took a part time job shelving books on saturday and sunday for minimum wage when I was in grad school. It was great because I would get to reshelve the books, remember which ones to check out later and read them during the week and also get paid for it.

Wish Jr. takes to the library like her dad. She is guaranteed to have fun!

ps. Voldermort-age = the age that cannot be spoken
.

Friday
Jun062008

Conversations with my brother

My brother is here! He came here for just three weeks. Before you know it, his trip is coming to an end and he is going back to India.

The best part of his trip was that I got to talk to him for 40 mins in the morning and forty minutes in the evening while driving to work and back (he became my carpool buddy, as his client was just 0.5 miles from my office!). Have not had a chance to talk to him this long in the last ten years where during our India trips, there would always be a lot of background noise, interruptions and just plain lack of opportunity for us to talk. After I got married and he got married and started families, it was pretty much impossible to talk.

There are only two guys who have that kind of rapport with me. The kind where you can finish the other persons sentence. My brother and Dr. Durga (who is currently absconding).

My brother does not read my blog. He thinks it is an abomination that should be stopped. "How can a person put such personal thoughts into free space?" he asks me. The only answer I give him is "Because, I can!". He nods his head in disbelief.

We have had our share of jokes. So here are some things that lightened my day.

Apparently they are opening a new saravana stores in Adyar which has the potential to clog the entire area. His fear was that it would take him 40 minutes to get from the steet to his house via Saravana Stores. When I asked him what this is all about his response "Do you know you can get anything, anything in Saravana stores? Their jingo should be "komanaththilirundhu Koorai pudavai mudhal anaiththum kidaikkum". ( கொமணத்தில் இருந்து கூரை புடவை முதல் அனைத்தும் கிடைக்கும்!) ie., We sell everything from a loin cloth to a wedding sari . That cracked me up.

When I picked him up outside his office, he kept waiting. A car was also waiting. Finally he crossed the road. I asked him why it took him so long to cross the road and he said "I was waiting Indian style for the car to go. He was waiting American style for the pedestrian to go! I still cannot get over the fact that people in cars wait for pedestrians here! It is just unbelievable." I just smiled.

Then we had a long long continued discussion over my being the only Ph.D. in the family( maternal) or the only one who is not in the IT field! He had an interesting concept that definitely did not strike me, till he put it that way. We did an analysis of the professions of our parents, uncles and aunts, and our professions and our cousins. In effect they are all doing the same jobs. Here is my excel spreadsheet summary..


If you notice one thing on my parents generation, everyone gravitated towards a Government Job! (My mother, her brother and four sisters all work(ed) for the government!)

My grandfather was a finance clerk and my grandma was a homemaker. They had six kids! They grew up in very difficult circumstances. They studied, and tried to get placed in the one job that guaranteed stability and financial security, a government job! When I graduated and wanted to come to the US to do my Ph.D., my uncle gave me a long lecture which started with

"Sundaram.. akkadannu oru bank exama ezhudinoma, sivanennu oru bank udhyogaththa paathundomannu irukkama ennaththukku da inda America Gimerica ellam? Avan chandra mandalaththukku aal anupparanam. Inge jananga sOthtukke vazhi illama thavikkaradhu! PaNatha vachchundu enna pannaradhunnu theriyaadha alayaraanunga, ange poi nee enna da panna pore! etc. etc." and the entire family pretty much pitched in with a "thatasathu" (which is along the lines of an Amen or Insallah or "so be it"!).

For those of you Tamizhs and non-Tamizhs here is the verbage and its english translation..

சுந்தரம், அக்கடானு ஒரு பேங்க் எக்ஸாம் எழுதினோமா, சிவனேன்னு ஒரு பேங்க் உத்யோகத்த பாத்துண்டோமானு இருக்காம என்னத்துக்குடா இந்த அமெரிக்கா கிமேரிக்கா எல்லாம்? அவன் சந்திர மண்டலத்துக்கு ஆள் அனுப்பரானாம்! இங்கே ஜனங்க சோத்துக்கே வழி இல்லாம தவிக்கறது! பணத்த வச்சுண்டு என்ன பண்ணறதுன்னு தெரியாத அலையறாங்க, அங்கே பொய் நீ என்ன டா பண்ண போறே ? ......

Sundaram, instead of simply writing a bank exam and settling down in a bank job, why do you need all this America Gimerica stuff? Americans are sending people to the moon, while people are dying of starvation here! They have a lot of money and don't know what to do with it. What are you going to do in a country like that? .....

It would always drive me nuts when people hold the ability to blend in with the crowd and being average, as some kind of virtue! As it so happened, I did not write a bank exam four years after getting through the IIT entrance and graduating with a B.Tech in Metallurgy, although it would have made the entire family proud. Thank god for small favors!

Lets come back to my brothers observation, which has to do with the N+2 generation. We were all raised in a lower middle class background where at least one or both parents were government servants, but the paychecks were not big, the houses were rented and anything that you did not need absolutely, you just did not get! We were trained to understand the financial circumstances of the family and were taught that if we wanted to at least have the standard of living that our parents had, we better start loving that big fat Bank exam book that our uncle and aunts used to use as pillows!

The funny thing was that there were people around us who were way more well to do than anyone in our family. They would never be used as role models or examples simply because they were in "risky" professions, were "probably" not earning an honest living simply by the amount of money they made, or branded as people who had "no respect for the right combination of money and values"!

Save for me, the rest of the siblings and cousins all got nice degrees in everything from BITS Pilani, REC Trichy, Venkateswara college, Crescent, Meenakshi, St. Josephs, etc. and they all write code for a living!

The bro's point being, given a choice my uncles and aunts would pass on their hard earned government jobs to their kids, were it not for the fact that most or all of their jobs are being replaced by Computers! In effect the N+2 has taken the job of the N+1. The bank tellers son is now writing the Log In screen for Citibank and the Auditors son is writing code for some International Auditing firm! Today's version of a teller job is an IT job! (this is strictly in context of the examples in this post. I am not generalizing all IT jobs as the logical evolution of the Clerical job from the previous generation).

If you think about it, it does make sense. In India's current job market, a job with Infosys, TCS, CTS, Wipro or HCL gives you the same sense of stability and financial security as the government jobs of State Bank, Indian Bank, Canera Bank, Syndicate Bank, Dena Bank of yore! In those days a "government job" meant a better mate in the arranged marriage system. Today the "IT" job has the same effect!

As for a Ph.D in Materials, it still sticks out like a sore thumb! The conversation now veers to "See, we can get jobs anywhere in the world. But can you have a semiconductor fab in India? Maybe in another 20 years. Maybe never! What is the use of doing all this work, if you cannot come back to India?" and I respond with "I am very happy with what I do here and have no plans to come back as of now! We will cross that bridge if we ever come to it."

It almost appears as though, yours truly doesn't speak the same "language" as the rest of the family!

If only I could converse with them in C++, assembly language or Java?!

.

Thursday
Aug162007

A conversation..

M: So how are things ?
Me : Busy. life goes on !
M: So how is San doing ?
Me : Using a combination of dieting, exercise and starvation she is back to her pre pregnancy weight. She is happy!
M: How are you doing ?
Me : I am back to her full term weight! My tummy looks like it is due any moment!

and so life goes!

Saturday
Feb032007

Two conversations..

1995 : (first trip back in India after two years in US)

auto driver : Sir, give me 25 rupees
dad : we agreed on 20 rupees. that is what you are getting.
driver (looks at me) : sir, tell your dad to be nice and not make a big deal out of 5 rupees.
me : why argue over this. just give him 25 ! (thinking along the lines of the anon commenter in the previous post!)
dad : (totally pissed and disappointed with his son) no. deal is a deal. 5 rupees is a lot of money! I told you to come by bus.. you insisted on auto. just get inside the house..
neighbour : Sir, rendu varushaththulaye unga payyanukku evvalo pana thimiru ! (in two years your son has become so arrogant with new found money).. this when I was a student still trying to make ends meet with my stipend !
Then dad and neighbour uncle go on to give me a lecture on why If I give the guy 25 rupees then everyone will expect 25 rupees as the new norm from my house and everyone in the 6 apartments we have in common !!

that was the end of my conversation with autowallahs for that trip..

later in life, I grew up and as a routine I bargain for things (including at the local toyota maintanence facility - which I did write about last year).. It doesnt matter where.. unless there is a meter or a system (like Yellow cabs in the US or the Mumbai autos and taxis), I will bargain !!

When a guy asks you 80 rupees for a trip that normally costs 70, you can give in (especially if the route has more traffic, he has to make too many U turns or if he will have difficulty in getting his next customer at your drop off point).. but 120 rupees for a 70 rupee trip ? you are getting ripped off and that shouldnt be encouraged in any country!!

Any guy who tries to rip you off should not be rewarded with an extra 50 INR so he can enjoy a nice meal !!! He should be taught the importance of making an honest living !

Second Conversation :

Jr. : Why are those people dancing ?
me : someone died and they are taking the dead person away
Jr. : why ?
me : why are they taking dead person away ?
Jr. : no. Why are they dancing ?
me : I dont know. I will find out and tell you..

She had this weird experession on her face for some time..

I thought about it and realized why ?

Dorothy (our pet fish) dies.. we are sad (because dorothy was a nice fish who didnt harm anyone)
Mosquito (in Mumbai) was killed by Jr. for first time and we rejoiced on the death (because Mosquito was a bad guy )

now , these people are rejoicing over this dead person ! could it be that he was a bad guy ?

Clearly, I need to get some clear understanding on the dancing in front of body subject.. before I can explain things to Jr..

That will be my homework for tomorrow..

Still enjoying Chennai. Today was pondy bazaar day!! Whew !! You pray to all the gods you know, close your eyes and stand in front of RMKV and before you know it the crowd drops you in front of what you want to buy.. more on that magic later..

Page 1 ... 1 2 3 4