"You have no right, appa!"

On a China trip a few years ago, I got upgraded to an "executive room" because all the other rooms were booked. Had shown up like clockwork every three weeks for a year and suddenly missed showing up at that hotel for two months (we tried another hotel but given my rash saga, we switched back to the one that works).

It is very much possible that the upgrade was to bring me back as a regular. In any case, the upgraded room had two rooms. Given I practically sleep on a flat surface, the largeness of the room doesn't make a difference to me. As long as there is no remnant of cigarette smoke in the room (yes, China hotels have folks frequently violating smoking rules as the fine is 500 RMB.. the hotels spray the room with some type of Febreeze and assign it as non-smoking room to the next guy who shows up.. like me!). The one thing that did make a difference was the bath tub instead of the stand in shower with some nice bath salt packets and the shampoo.

I got a sample back with me to show wife and kids. They also loved it.

 

Having been to France a few times by that point for business I knew the existance of L'ocittane. This shampoo was divine. On my next trip to France, we actually were in Provonce and there was a L'Occitane store and I got back large bottles of the stuff. 

Then on an India trip, got introduced to Pathanjali's Kesh Kranthi and the entire family switched to that shampoo. Not only did it make my hair feel and smell great, it also brought back memories of a different place and time from my childhood every time I took a shower!

On my last trip ended up in a different hotel and this time there was a shampoo called Le Grand Bain in the shower. The white plain plastic bottles did not say "brand name" but what caught my eye was the Vetiver. It is native to Tamil Nadu and we are used to it as children when grandma adds it to the shikakai powdered for home use as herbal shampoo! 

Now citron is also a smell we love as the most favorite pickle we eat, narthangai, is citron. This thing literally transported me. Okay, by now you are all sensing a theme here. I judge shampoos as though they are transporters on the Starship Enterprise. "This one took me to 1985.. but that one.. gives me memories from a time when I could not form words!" kind of thing..

So, I got some samples back. I have been in a lot of hotels on business and get to abuse my hair with all kinds of concoctions during those travels, but very rarely do I get some gems like this. 

When I told my kids about the shampoo the little one says "You have no right, Appa! you should not be talking about shampoos or any hair products" and Jr. chimes in and says "yeah. there are certain things you should simply stop commenting about!"

I still have some hair. It is not like I have gone totally bald and I do get to use a diverse array of crappy shampoos during my travels. 

There had to be a comeback for something like that.. a beard! Again this Jan and Feb, the beard is making a comeback of sorts. There is no pressure to look like my passport photo at airports for a few weeks and that means I can try.. again.. to grow a beard.

Again, my kids said "you have no right, appa!". What ?! It is my face. The wife and kids turned their faces away, made a few negative comments, put an embargo on kissing or even hugging for that matter and this went on for a week. 

Now that the beard has gone past the patchy phase, they are getting used to it.. or so I think! 

Have told them that the shampoo and conditioner are for the beard, not the hair and that brought a few chuckles and the little one was literally rolling on the floor laughing! 

The facial experiment will last a few more weeks. Till then "right or not", the beard stays! 

Amazon doesn't sell Le Grand Bain and turns out it is a Sheraton brand and it is available only through Sheraton. Shearton should stop doing the hotel business and go into the shampoo business if you ask me. This one is reaaaalllllllly good!

On a side note, my beard is somehow making me focus better in yoga class. Get improved tunnel vision when focussing on my own eyes in the mirror. If they will let me, I would like to wear a ski mask like a bank robber one day and go to yoga class. Maybe the beard hides the face and helps... just thinking about that experiment is making me smile. One has to do experiments to prove theories, no?! That is a post for another day..

Gay rights Bay rights, let talk Say rights first!

What started as a comment became longer than my usual posts. So instead of taking up space on the MM's box, decided to post it here!

Before we go into this post which is a response to my "right to comment" being questioned, a few things:

The blogosphere is not in any way representative of the general population. If bloggers views were to represent countries, cities, religion etc. it would provide a very skewed opinion because the average blogger is computer savvy, educated and is probably economically well off compared to the average citizen!

I usually stay away from strong statements, spiteful comments, flame wars, etc. simply because that is my way of "live and let live". I have learnt over the years that it is not wise to jump to conclusions based on what you see or hear, or feel on an impulse for that matter!

that said, here is the comment?!

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Would like to point out a few things w.r.t. this post and the comments:

1. Just like you are suppposed to have done certain things before you apparently get the right to write hindi movie reviews, you should have lived in two different countries for a big part of your life before you can comment on people with dual citizenship Dual Citizenship or Non Resident Status! People who have never left their birth country to live in another country should not pass judgement on motives or reasons for choosing dual citizenshipdual citizenship or Non Resident Status (same logic should apply, no?) There are many.. and they are not purely financial!

2. If it is possible for people of this world to absorb different cultures and relish it, be it eating pizza for lunch, noodles for dinner and vaththa kozhambu for the next days lunch, or for that matter being able to celebrate Diwali and Halloween in succesion with equal vigor and happiness, there is no reason why these people cannot choose to love two lands equally!

As for "war", yes, it is a big question. As part of taking a US Citizenship, you do have to take an oath (and say it and mean it) where you definitely promise to take sides with the US if it goes to War with your previous homeland. On a personal note, it was the one sticking point for someone like me taking US citizenship. But I said it and meant it, because a long time ago, decided that dual citizenship or not, this is now my home. It was said with fond hopes of that event never happening, but it was said. That does not necessarily make one a traitor or anti-Indian or anything!

Let's take religion for example. God forbid (no pun intended here) if there are Hindu Christian riots in Delhi, what would you do? Take sides at some fundamental level? Is that even a nice or fair question to ask someone? Based on that hypothetical question and a hypothetical answer, is it okay to go pass judgement on an entire class of people?

Please read, this post.

Life takes you places and no one knows what is in store for anyone. All we can hope for is to make the world a better place. Fundamentally there is more bad in religion than good. God did not create religion, man did and for the most part, to further his own interest, but good people can see through that and co-exist. A good christian = a good hindu= a good muslim = a good person! In the event of making certain fundamental choices of right or wrong a good person, irrespective of religion, will make the same call.

I am also surprised by the fact that one is "expected to live in a country" to be able to say anything even slightly negative about that country. (apparently it is okay for anyone to say good things!)

Forget people who have taken dual citizenship, looks like even the non resident Indians have no right to comment on India, if this is true!

That bothers me. It has always bothered me and I have to speak up for my words to be heard!

A conversation this week over phone:

Me: happy diwali , how are you?
Relative: happy diwali. doing okay. What have Americans done? They are collapsing the entire world! Greenspan cooly makes a press statement saying blah blah blah..
Me: !!! (is he expecting me to apologize as an American?)

yet over many similar conversations when I have said something even slightly negative of how things are in terms of infrastructure I am told:

"you are not living here. so what do you care. don't complain. you mind your business where you are!"

Do my parents not live in India?
Do all my relatives not live in India?
Do I not spend at least 1/12 th of my year in India?
Do things that happen in India, not affect me?
When I hear about bomb blasts in Ahmedabad or Varanasi do I just go about my business or worry about family and friends?

Every time I say something about "how things could be better" it is not a "complaint". There is a word in Tamizh for this "aadangam". "oru aagangaththula sollaren". I wish I could translate that word. It is almost like a longing wish that things were different, and that wish is there because you have seen that things can be different, there are solutions and those solutions work.

It is like going to a village without electricity and you know if they had solar panels they could have electricity for at least critical needs! If you say that out loud, you are "complaining about India", "have no right to say things about lack of electricity in villages in India" etc. because:

1. you don't live in India
2. you don't live in a village
3. you are not going to personally take all your savings and convert them to solar panels in Indian villages.

To all of the above, I say "Bah!" (and the funny thing is that the bloggers who question my comment do not live in Villages or are not going to do what they ask me to do either!)

If you write about such a thing as a solar panel, how it works, how it can be cost effective and spread the awareness for the solution, maybe the people in power or the people who put those people in power would consider that approach! It is said with an "aadangam", not with an intent to criticize!

"Improvement" is change in a postive direction. If one suggests improvement, that means "Change"! A very simple statement, but it can be construed differently by different people.

Folks who understand the need for change, embrace it. The rest say things like "you are trying to make fun of the current state of affairs. what right have you? etc. etc."

The world is very polarized today.

If a vegetarian tells a person who eats meat that it is wrong to kill another creature... it sparks a debate

If a person who eats meat, tries to tell a vegetarian not to have an abortion... that sparks another debate

If a meat eating, pro-life civilian asks a vegetarian pro-choice military person, how he can actually pull the trigger and take a human life, that sparks another debate

The world is also very funny today!

The only thing that will get us through is, live and let live!

And that is "tolerance"

Tolerance is the ability to hear what Indian people who live outside have to say about India, and vice versa!

and for the record, I will say

"India is my country" **(OCI which means Overseas Citizen of India apparently does not mean Citizen in any sense of the word. See Lak's comment. So that might leave the statement as questionable at best. Based on that I can make that past tense, but the next sentence still holds true!)

You cannot take what is Indian, or what is American and separate it out of me!

ps. Anyone can write a review. How good a review is depends on the reviewers understanding of the subject matter! A person who is Indian only by blood writing a crappy review in poor taste of a Hindi Movie or Indian youth is wrong. Trying to say NRI's and dual citizens have no right to make comments by extension is equally wrong. That is the summary of this post, in case you are wondering!

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