Approval Ratings - The fickle female !!

Recently I had mentioned that Visithra's approval rating with the Mrs. had gone up 400%.

This is the recent happening :

week 1 :

me : this girl writes a very matter of fact blog. nothing serious and very day to day !!
mrs : she has way too much time on her hands.

week 2 :

me : I want to post the family photo!
mrs: No. I dont want any more photos of me on the internet ..
me : one last time. then I will put it in yahoo photos from now on.
mrs: grrrrrrrrrrrr

week 3 :
me : did you see the comments on my blog for the photo that was removed ?
mrs: yeah. you see, that girl is right. you should not post family photos in the internet ..
me : since when did you start accepting visithra's comments ?!?

Lets flash back to late eighties :

year 1 :

me : meet my classmate/roomate..
mom : hello.. so you are their son huh ? i know them well personally..
me : this guy is my best friend ma .
mom : that is just great. do bring him to our home often. (to my friend)treat this like your home..

year 2 :

me : okay, i am all set to go back to college. have packed all the food for the two day train journey.
mom : here take this also for your friend.
me : i am sure his mom is going to load his bag full of eatables..
mom : he is like another son to me. you guys take care of each other so well. TAKE this. Dont say no..

year 3 :

mom : did i just smell cigarette smoke on him ?
me : maybe.
mom : what maybe ? YES or NO ?
me : YES. he started smoking just before the last semester ended.
mom : are you smoking too ?
me : NO. i start wheezing everytime there is smoke from the kitchen.. i will die if I smoke . you know better than that.
mom : He is no son of mine.. I dont want you to talk to that boy anymore..he will be a bad influence.
me : how come till yesterday he was like your son and today he is not ?if I start smoking tomorrow will you say the same thing about me.
mom : I am sorry. I shouldnt have said that. He is still like my son. Said that because I am upset that He started smoking.. that upset me more than the fact that you might start smoking. Pleae ask him to quit!

Ever wonder how women change their affiliations, views in a jiffy on hearing things they want to hear or do not want to hear ?

Just a thought. Female readers, dont flame this blog !! It is just something that struck me as a more than frequent happening..

I love You ..

Recently Raju had asked me in the comments:

"does this mean you know Barney songs as well ?"

Well here goes :




Yes, we are a happy family !!

ps. It was visithra who asked me .. not Raju..

The kiss of death !!

My buddy Greg forwarded this link to me..

Boyfriend has a peanut butter sandwich, kisses girlfriend an hour later, girl who happens to be allegic to peanuts dies !!

Greg forwarded it to me probably because he remembered that I am allergic to peanuts and sesame seeds..

Sometimes, allergies can be really frustrating.. you do not get the same treatment as the sick patients because on the surface you are a normal healthy person.. but in a few seconds, you can go from normal healthy to ER material !!

I usually carry tablets on my person everytime I eat outside or at any party where I do not know who is cooking. Of course my allergic reaction levels are not near death experiences, but I can start gasping for breath or get skin rashes.

The sad part is that it was never diagnosed when I was a kid. Mostly it was trial and error. I still remember that everytime my parents perform a prayer on the memorial day for my dad's parents, they used to give me these treats called "ellu urundais".. literally it means "seasame seed balls" and they were nothing but roasted sesame seeds made into balls with caramel!!

They were yummy, but disastrous for me. I always used to be sick for a week or two after these once a year ceremonies. Finally my parents figured out that there were certain foods that made me sick and they kept those items away from me. Now my wife is left to fight these allergies. She has pretty much given up a lot of things like "cooking in sesame seed oil" or making tamarind rice with peanuts in it.

We substitute vegetable oil for sesame oil and cashew nuts for peanuts !! Boy am I glad that I am not as allergic as that girl who died !! I will gladly eat the tablets and avoid some food items, and it is a good thing I wasnt into kissing girls who eat peanut butter sandwiches.. he he..

A tribute to ARR !

One of my favorite music directors, singers is AR Rahman.

ARR's music is popular in Tamizh and Hindi (he is also popular across the globe and has not restricted himself to film songs).

My three year old has never sat through any Hindi movie with us. We do not speak Hindi at home (only English and Tamizh). But we do listen to Hindi film songs in the van. She sang this yesterday and I happened to catch her on video.. there cannot be a greater tribute to a music director than this. A kid who does not know the language singing fluently .. more Power to his music!!

and here is a link to the original "yeh tara, woh tara".

Naming Ceremony !!

Most of you have been wondering

"Why is this guy writing like there is no tomorrow ?"

Well, work starts on monday and I have exactly 4 weeks to accomplish what I should have been doing from the beginning of this quarter and this, while still taking baby duty turns with a nocturnal baby !!

My notable absence from blogworld for the last day and a half was because we had a naming ceremony for the little one !

It is a south indian custom to have a naming ceremony for the baby on the 11th day after birth!! Yes, babies dont have names for the first 10 days. My birth certificate actually says "Name : Not mentioned " !!!!

It is always a little difficult to pull off Indian ceremonies in the United States. So we were a little flexible and we decided to do the ceremony much later so that the baby's uncle can participate as well, during the thanksgiving break. We had two names selected initially and were about to give that name to the birth registrar the day the baby was born when one of the names was hijacked by my mother and grandmother on a sentimental pretext!

The short summary of the ceremony is :

A prayer to lord Ganesha (remover of obstacles) to initiate proceedings.

A prayer to sanctify the home and purify it (logic was that the pregnant woman and new born bring germs, possible infections and so they used this ceremony to clean up the house.. In the United States that translates to 7 extra large loads of laundry!!)

This is followed by naming the baby (the mother gives the first name, the father and his parents give the second name and the mother gives another name). We didnt know about the third name and were happy to be able to give both our selected names and the one selected by my mother and grandmother. Both the father and mother say all three names in the baby's ear three times !

Then the priest makes the dad take his wedding ring, clean it, scoop out honey, ghee and yogurt using the ring and mix it and put it on the baby's lips !! The baby makes a face that the parents havent seen so far and that is when the priest says "this is when you breast feed the baby". . the logic here was that honey,ghee and yogurt were pure unadultrated materials in those days and therefore you start the baby off with pure stuff (of course if you read the label on the yogurt and butter used to make the ghee ?!?)

Then the baby's name is written by the dad on rice paddy (or wheat if you cant find rice paddy in any store in the bay area ) !! The paddy is then gifted in small portions to all the people who came to bless the baby.

Then the function concludes. The whole thing takes an hour and a half. But preparing for it was something. I tell you people, it is not easy searching for betel leaves or non-rotten whole coconuts and rice paddy in the winter in California... but we pulled it off in style ...We had invited one relative and two friends and the whole thing was a very small affair.


Yes, the good boy in the center doing the good stuff is ME!! I have many personalities.. this good boy persona is one of them..

Well that still doesnt explain the prolonged absence, does it ? At the end of the ceremony there is some great food ! One of the items was "vada" or "vadai" as you might call it (deep fried balls made from rice and lentils - the indian version of Falaffals!!). I ate a good many vadais and suffered the consequence.. A blog on that later..