my big fat desi family
the issue with desi familes is that everyone and their mother is in your business. and you can never tell anyone anything, expecting them to keep a secret. and what follows is this convoluted chinese whispers, where someone will tell another something and they will tell something else to another someone and you end up hearing it from the fourth person and you are like what the hell when did i EVER say that. and coz families thrive on gossip, its great if you are on the receiving end of the gossip but if you are the gossip its the worst, coz then everyone and again their mother wants to know each and every detail of your oh-so happening life. will everyone please just let me be.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
your body is a wonderland
one of my favouritest things to do (when im in a good mood) is to dance in an elevator (empty of course!) with my ipod blasting the current flavour of the season. and then just when it stops at my floor or the ground floor i stop dancing and have a straight face but my eyes are still twinkling. sometimes i do that in the work elevator and only recently did i find out they have cameras installed in the elevator and im sure the security guards are probably having a good laugh. i dont care. great big of a deal :)
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
remember the time
so yesterday i saw a bit of the mj memorial and like most people i thought the last part where his daughter spoke was touching and extremely sad. i dont know of any worse feeling than losing a parent. and i cannot comment too much about whether mj was a good person or not. i dont know that. and since i was always taught never to speak ill about the dead (well alive too), i will avoid the shady aspects of his life and speak about the good. was the memorial too elaborate? yes i think so. it was a media and public frenzy.
i read many articles in his tribute, but there was really only one article which made sense to me ( i dont remember where i read it sadly) . but what the author was saying basically is people are not mourning so much a celebrity (who they didnt know and after a while after all the controversies we were beginning to ignore) but instead they are mourning their passing/passed childhood.
a lot of us associate our first taste of pop music to michael jackson. when i was growing up my sisters would record his and madonnas songs directly from the radio, the era before ipods, mp3s and affordable cds. in school i vividly remember i used to sit in front of a girl who had this mj binder with all the lyrics of his song, his posters and we would all peer over it during breaks. so for many of us its a passing of time, a time that we loved and felt comforted in and just like memories where we remember only the good and we try to block out the bad. we continue do the same with the memory of mj.
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i read many articles in his tribute, but there was really only one article which made sense to me ( i dont remember where i read it sadly) . but what the author was saying basically is people are not mourning so much a celebrity (who they didnt know and after a while after all the controversies we were beginning to ignore) but instead they are mourning their passing/passed childhood.
a lot of us associate our first taste of pop music to michael jackson. when i was growing up my sisters would record his and madonnas songs directly from the radio, the era before ipods, mp3s and affordable cds. in school i vividly remember i used to sit in front of a girl who had this mj binder with all the lyrics of his song, his posters and we would all peer over it during breaks. so for many of us its a passing of time, a time that we loved and felt comforted in and just like memories where we remember only the good and we try to block out the bad. we continue do the same with the memory of mj.
say what you need to say
for the long weekend i went to the carribean with my best friends. it was a much needed vacation. and despite all the work i had, despite my comp crashing an hour before i was leaving, despite colleagues not letting me leave, despite the fact that i was stuck in 40 mins of traffic in a part that would take me 2 mins to walk, despite the fact that i had to run across the gates to catch my plane (desi filmy style) with only 5 mins for the gates to close, despite the fact that i broke out in a gazillion zits coz of the stress only to find out that my flight was delayed, despite the fact that there were signs that it would rain the whole trip (it didnt), despite the fact that old san juan was quite a dead city and no one knows where all the tourists are gone, despite the fact that i hadnt swum in years let alone ever in the sea ( i finally did and completely enjoyed it), despite the fact that i had never ever gone kayaking, let alone in pitch darkness after sunset and when the tide is high and the scene looks right out of a scary movie like anaconda. despite the guide mentioning that 'hey there maybe little sharks in the water'. despite the fact that i got bitten ferociously (on my face!) by mosquites in the mangroves. despite all of this and more, this will probably go down as one of the best vacations of my life.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
MJ, rip.
at the chinese deli (again) , this time at a respectable time. reason of visit, severe craving of pocky chocolate dips. sort of like nutella.
anyway, the chinese grocer has become my 2 minute news byte guy. not only does he give me pertinent information about the economy in those 2 minutes, he also helps me identify whether the yellow fruit in container is mango and not peach.
cc : did you hear about michael jackson
me: no, what happened.
cc: he died today
me: what! no dont tell me when did this news come out. *i need to get a blackberry/iphone. when iphones become a free phone then i will succub and laugh at all the losers who shelled out full price*
cc: some hours ago
me: what happened?
cc: heart attack
me: where did he die in bahrain? (presuming cc knew where bahrain is)
cc: (apparently he does) no in LA
me: daym. thats sad.
cc: yea, even the rich cannot escape death
me: yea, the only certainity of life is death.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
love mera hit hit..na kar phir aisi kit pit
so the thing with parents visiting, you can never really gauge their definition of 'fun'. i mean you think certain things will be fun for parents. i.e a broadway show. its not. its all opera music. you picked the wrong broadway. phantom of the opera.
or you think lunch near the river where yachts are docked will be scenic in crowded manhattan. turns out they are serving hard core amrikan food. and not the good kind. and its raining. so again flop idea.. even desi food cant save the day when the odds are against you. i took my mom to this gujurati place downtown, and as a hardcore non vegetarian this isnt exactly my choice, bu i know my mom likes it. but i have eaten at that place before and its pretty unique compared to the rest of the desi places in new york. but we were super tired and after their dozen appetizers (yea each different form the other), we were beat and couldnt eat anymore. i am a big fan of chole baturei but couldnt finish one mini batura either.so what i had built up all day turned out to be a total flop coz my mom was in jet lag mode and nearly fell asleep on the dinner table. but what made my day was the server who was from turkmenistan ( in my head i was like who where? - i have become the cliched american - only im not american), so she goes i have a kind face and kind way of talking and i look like her cousin. that really zapped me and made me very happy. my mom now thinks im like my dad - bas bolnei ki der hai, and hawa mein urtei hai hum.
anyhoo, i went to a netowrking event last week with a couple of friends. me and my friend and her husband. me and my friend sooo lack the normal casual cool networking gene, we sound enforced and frankly im usually having an out of body experience where im going to myself "stupid stupid stop talking" . or on the other hand weird awkard silence are usually teppered with my thoughts on the lines of "stupid stupid say something". so anyway i didnt have any agenda as such, but i thought it would be good to talk to some new people. so, i spoke to a guy who works in a hedge fund but looks like he works for google. (ie think rolled out of bed and came to work). i was also surprised to know that he works on the trading floor, not to be mean or anything, just being brutally honest ,nerdy geeky people on the trading floor are kept well away from clients (anyone read liars poker) , unless your group is intentionally geeky nerdy and in that case you are the prized posession. but mostly its the latter. this is done since you are unkempt (ie not presentable), you prefer it this way,in fact i hve a friend who is like i wish i could just go my whole life not speaking to any client. my friend is a director at an investment bank. so anyway there was someone who worked for electric company, and i was like what-what my dumb desi blonde gene kicking in (no offence to real blondes) anyway apparently having an electric meter where you read your own meter and know exactly what is using what is damn expensive. its a good idea though. apparently now working in energy companies is cool.
in other random news i was watching obama's group discussion today. the program name, prescription something of that sorts. it was really interesting actually for someone who is a pseudo-medico. by that i mean someone in your family is a doctor such that you think you never need to see a doctor since you can self treat yourself. doesnt matter that your own family who are doctors, go to see other doctors. yes, i belong to that breed. anyway, so apparently getting a medical degree here is super expensive and you can rack up something like 300K in tuition. and there was an interesting point made by atul gawande in one of his books where he mentions the average time to recover the tuition costs for a medico is far greater than the time for say someone in finance. and in order to repay your costs quickly, you end up super specializing -coz thats where the money is. and there in lies the crux of the matter, too many specialists and too few gps. so too many unnecessary costs. and very little prevention.
maybe they should lax the the US entrance exams for gps. every desi doctor will then jump ship. and that will blow up the healthcare sector and at that point i will be shorting it.
Read more...
or you think lunch near the river where yachts are docked will be scenic in crowded manhattan. turns out they are serving hard core amrikan food. and not the good kind. and its raining. so again flop idea.. even desi food cant save the day when the odds are against you. i took my mom to this gujurati place downtown, and as a hardcore non vegetarian this isnt exactly my choice, bu i know my mom likes it. but i have eaten at that place before and its pretty unique compared to the rest of the desi places in new york. but we were super tired and after their dozen appetizers (yea each different form the other), we were beat and couldnt eat anymore. i am a big fan of chole baturei but couldnt finish one mini batura either.so what i had built up all day turned out to be a total flop coz my mom was in jet lag mode and nearly fell asleep on the dinner table. but what made my day was the server who was from turkmenistan ( in my head i was like who where? - i have become the cliched american - only im not american), so she goes i have a kind face and kind way of talking and i look like her cousin. that really zapped me and made me very happy. my mom now thinks im like my dad - bas bolnei ki der hai, and hawa mein urtei hai hum.
anyhoo, i went to a netowrking event last week with a couple of friends. me and my friend and her husband. me and my friend sooo lack the normal casual cool networking gene, we sound enforced and frankly im usually having an out of body experience where im going to myself "stupid stupid stop talking" . or on the other hand weird awkard silence are usually teppered with my thoughts on the lines of "stupid stupid say something". so anyway i didnt have any agenda as such, but i thought it would be good to talk to some new people. so, i spoke to a guy who works in a hedge fund but looks like he works for google. (ie think rolled out of bed and came to work). i was also surprised to know that he works on the trading floor, not to be mean or anything, just being brutally honest ,nerdy geeky people on the trading floor are kept well away from clients (anyone read liars poker) , unless your group is intentionally geeky nerdy and in that case you are the prized posession. but mostly its the latter. this is done since you are unkempt (ie not presentable), you prefer it this way,in fact i hve a friend who is like i wish i could just go my whole life not speaking to any client. my friend is a director at an investment bank. so anyway there was someone who worked for electric company, and i was like what-what my dumb desi blonde gene kicking in (no offence to real blondes) anyway apparently having an electric meter where you read your own meter and know exactly what is using what is damn expensive. its a good idea though. apparently now working in energy companies is cool.
in other random news i was watching obama's group discussion today. the program name, prescription something of that sorts. it was really interesting actually for someone who is a pseudo-medico. by that i mean someone in your family is a doctor such that you think you never need to see a doctor since you can self treat yourself. doesnt matter that your own family who are doctors, go to see other doctors. yes, i belong to that breed. anyway, so apparently getting a medical degree here is super expensive and you can rack up something like 300K in tuition. and there was an interesting point made by atul gawande in one of his books where he mentions the average time to recover the tuition costs for a medico is far greater than the time for say someone in finance. and in order to repay your costs quickly, you end up super specializing -coz thats where the money is. and there in lies the crux of the matter, too many specialists and too few gps. so too many unnecessary costs. and very little prevention.
maybe they should lax the the US entrance exams for gps. every desi doctor will then jump ship. and that will blow up the healthcare sector and at that point i will be shorting it.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
baat meri suniye tau zara.
its exactly 12 am. my mom is going to be here tommorow (yay). the downside is that means my apartment has to be super clean in 6 hours. considering how tiny my studio is, i should be done in 3. correct?
hell no, when your mom is visiting its not equivalent to friends dropping by - this requires deep cleaning. shit, i feel like im in undergrad now where im scrambling to tidy my room, during random hall checks. i cant remember on whose blog but i did read this list of things you should not be doing if you are over 25. needless to say im doing pretty much everything on the pre25 list. well mostly anyway. anyway, one of them is not living in a dump/hell hole.
ok i exaggerate, its not really really a hellhole but its not one of those typical girly flowery smelling appartments (well not yet anyway). which reminds me i have to get flowers. all hail 24 hour deliveries that are stocked with lilies. most of the time my appartment smells of practically nothing. and its never dirt but like junk and usually stacks and stacks of papers, thanks to my packrat attitude where i lug around everything that i have possibly owned in these last 4 years. plus my whole what if i need this one day, i have stacks of research papers some that i have never read and probably will never read but i just keep them for 'just in case'. just in case i read them. in fact, i have drawers of 'just in case' stuff and i just thrashed quite a bit of stuff. so now i have no stress balls to squeeze just in case i have a meltdown.
i have this phobia that i will throw out something super important so i become a collector of everything from a ticket stub to a free massage coupon dated eons ago, which i will never use and can't use now since its expired. once in a while, i need an intervention (ie mom visits - friends coming over - depending on the type of friend and their length of stay- requires anything from the range of doing nothing to a little facelift. but when its moms then you really need to go at it. there is nothing like the feeling of your mom walking into your appartment and going "dil khush hogaya dekh kar". hahahahah. but the best best thing is when my sibling visits, she completely waxes out my bathroom tub such that i feel like i moved in yesterday. my brother in law changes the lightbulbs, fixes the clogging in bathroom, and changes my watch clocks, which are always an hour ahead or behind, thanks to stupid daylight savings. the perks of having family, i tell you.
anyway have to get back to cleaning the fridge. i cant wait for my mom to be here.
have a great weekend everyone.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
yunhi chala chal
i just realized how my life in new york posts have upstaged my life in dubai posts. and i just realized technically its been 9 years since i first came to US as an undergrad. ok i haven't been here for all of those 9 years, minus two years, if i really had to be precise. 7 years, still a long time. somehow it still doesn't feel like home. it just feels like i'm waiting for my next move, which i honestly don't know where it will be. perhaps san francisco, perhaps sydney, perhaps frankfurt, perhaps mumbai.
despite all that, i think perhaps ill still find my way back to dubai. something in me tells me that. only i just don't want it to be right now, coz i feel that would be my last destination. and i would be completely relunctant to move. perhaps i feel like this here since i don't stay in a city for too long, moving for undergrad, grad, work. i might end up the longest in new york but it still doesn't feel like home home. speaking to some relatives who will be naturalized in a year or so, i asked would you surrender your indian passport? without a moment's hesitation they wer elike yes, and hadn't even given any thought to it before i brought it up. i guess i envy them in a way since they have decided for themselves what is home.
Read more...
despite all that, i think perhaps ill still find my way back to dubai. something in me tells me that. only i just don't want it to be right now, coz i feel that would be my last destination. and i would be completely relunctant to move. perhaps i feel like this here since i don't stay in a city for too long, moving for undergrad, grad, work. i might end up the longest in new york but it still doesn't feel like home home. speaking to some relatives who will be naturalized in a year or so, i asked would you surrender your indian passport? without a moment's hesitation they wer elike yes, and hadn't even given any thought to it before i brought it up. i guess i envy them in a way since they have decided for themselves what is home.
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