Ranjini Sharma Blogs

MY NOSY NOSE KNOWS!

2010-11-20T19:45:00.000-08:00

Originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

MY NOSY NOSE KNOWS!

They say opinions are like noses. Everybody has one.
I beg to disagree.
I have seen too many blank faces with no opinions whatsoever! You can always find one or two candidates during presidential debates with that classic deer-in-the-headlight stare when asked, “How do you plan to balance the nation’s budget?” The person's nose may twitch, but he or she will never give a satisfactory answer.

You could always stump someone by asking, "So, when did you stop being nosy?"

Unlike opinions, noses are ubiquitous. I have never come across a face without a nose, or at least a semblance of one. Even if a person loses this prominent appendage on the face, say due to an accident, you will still find remnants of that missing nose. Just like a fallen branch from a tree leaves its stump behind, you will find a stub of a nose with two holes left for breathing. It may not be a pretty sight, but it should be enough for the person's respiration until expiration.

Noses come in many shapes - some you are born with, while others may be acquired through plastic surgery. Nothing punctuates a face quite like the nose, literally.
Here are a few designs to prove that there is nothing plain about the nose on one's face:
First you have the 'Comma' nose, which in my opinion is commonly found on most ordinary faces.
Then you have the 'Exclamation' nose, which is basically a long stem culminating in a large spherical object.
A 'Semi Colon' nose indicates that you may have a deviated septum. A dysfunctional septum is not easy to live with.
If you happen to be the proud owner of a 'Colon' nose, well, that is nothing to be proud of! Your face will be scary for anyone standing inches from it!
A 'Question Mark' nose begs the question, "what happened to your nose?" If one chooses to cut off this nose to spite his face, it is highly understandable.
My sympathies however lie with the owner of a "Period" nose. Apart from the sheer discomfort of not possessing two properly functioning nostrils, that lone nostril of yours is an eyesore! It is time you replaced your period nose with a more contemporary one. Plastic surgery may be your only option.

Someone once said that a large nose is the mark of a witty, courteous, affable, generous and liberal man. No one said if the same applied to a woman.

When I was a young girl, I had an ordinary nose. It was a standard snout located approximately two inches from the top of my forehead, and a centimeter above my upper lip. It was an inch and a half in length with a gradual tapering downwards. It was so uninteresting that I hardly paid attention to its existence.

I refer to my nose in the past tense, not because I lost it, but because it metamorphosed into something that became the center of many conversations.

When I turned thirteen, I first realized that the view in front of me was being obstructed by a strange protuberance. A little squinting with both eyes (one eye squint would have worked too) revealed that there was a small bulge developing smack in the middle of my nose! What used to be a straight flat stem had run into a road bump of sorts! If my nose had stopped there, I would have continued being a busy thirteen year old without further distraction. But my nose had other ideas! As if to challenge Pinocchio, it decided to go on an uncontrolled growth sprout! I tried being as truthful as a thirteen year old girl could afford to be, but Nos(e)tradamus had a prophecy to fulfill! It wasn't too long before others started noticing my nose.

I come from a family of long snouts. Mine was probably a few millimeters longer than the others and so it attracted a lot of unwanted attention. Strangely enough, they were all positive comments. A long nose, it turned out, was considered to be a powerhouse of good luck!
"She will succeed in any task she undertakes," said my grandma. "Decorate it with a nice nose-ring," she ordered my mother!
Fortunately for me, my mother turned her nose up on that proposition.

"That nose is destined to go places," said my wise aunt with the short snout.
I just hoped it would not leave me behind!

It was not too long before I discovered to my dismay that my nose was destined not to go into certain places. Take for example the time when my family went on a tour to South India where drinking a cup of coffee is as routine as inhaling. My father stopped at a small coffee shop somewhere in Tamil Nadu and purchased four cups of strong, hot coffee. With flair, the barista poured coffee from an elevation of six feet down into a seemingly invisible container that was embedded within the palm of his right hand. It turned out to be a tiny stainless steel cup, or 'glass' as they call it. My father passed the cup into my hands with great care. His burly fingers were not able to find enough surface area to grab around the rim of the cup. Transferring this delicate steaming tumbler of coffee from his hand to my hand was perilous as he had to make room to accommodate my thin bony fingers too. The cup was approximately 2.3 inches tall with a diameter of 2.3 inches, give or take 0.1 inch...not that it would not have made any difference.

It was probably my first experience as a teenager with my newly acquired elongated schnoz. I lifted the cup to my mouth, but my nose decided to go for it first! The top part of the rim hit the tip of my nose, while the bottom part stopped at my upper lip. I looked around embarrassed hoping no one noticed my lack of hand-mouth coordination. It took me a few tries before I realized that small motor skills were not the problem here. The length of my nose was longer than the diameter of the cup. Being used to drinking from my mother's gigantic stainless steel tumbler, I felt that this cup was woefully deprived of steel. The rest of my long-nosed family did not seem to have any problems. My parents were both able to nudge their noses just enough to get the coffee down their throats. The only way for me to get the hot potion down the hatch was to place the rim on my lower lip and lift my head backwards as far as I could. It made me look like that insatiable angry movie star sitting at a bar, chugging down tiny shots of Vodka, in sheer frustration.
Lifting the cup forced me to gulp faster than I wanted to, but it got the job done.

Through the years, I discovered that there were a few other disadvantages to having a nose like mine. Hiding something right under my nose was the best place to conceal ‘it’ from me! "Follow your nose" was not exactly the best piece of advice given to me. Walking right into a glass door was just as bad as walking into a wall - my nose always took the beating. At least it protected the rest of my body by acting like an advanced warning system.
Licking my favorite food off the plate was a hassle, although I always managed to clean up the sauces by turning my head sideways and extending my tongue out by a few extra inches.
A long nose also came with wide nostrils. Turning up my nose, either with pride or in disdain, was not advisable without first giving a thorough scrubbing.

My Aunt's prediction about my nose 'taking me places' came true in 1990 when I got an opportunity to travel abroad for my very first full time job! I had worked hard to acquire the necessary skills and qualifications for a couple of years in order to get the job, but all my efforts went unnoticed. When I ran into an old classmate one day and shared the good news with her, instead of congratulating me, she quipped, "With a nose like that, I always knew that you would go abroad!" It was a blow directed to my face alright! My nose was now starting to steal commendations away from me, and I was stuck with it for life!

Over time I realized that the gargantuan package on my face had a few surprises stored for me as well.

I remember my first encounter with my mother-in-law who decided to sit right next to me, barely inches from my nose. Her intense scrutiny was making me fidgety, but my nose helped conceal half of my facial quivering from her piercing glances. I think she was satisfied with my attributes and gave me a passing grade to advance to the higher level of examination - that given by Mr. Microprocessor (who became my future husband). The higher level exam turned out to be far easier than I had expected. Mr. MP was himself the proud owner of a bow shaped nose, and he too had been the beneficiary of its good fortune. Being a thorough gentleman, he did not have the nose to sniff down an innocent girl right in front of her parents. I was able to escape without a scratch. The next day we agreed to marry each other and consolidate our powers by keeping both our noses to the grindstone.

Since then, I have reconciled and accepted my constant companion to lead me through thick and thin. I am still talking about my nose here!

A long nose with a longer rap-sheet does not make a tiny button sized nose angelic by any measure! There is no reason why someone with a cute nose cannot have an ugly disposition just like the rest of us. It is the right of every person, no matter the size of his/her nose, to pry into other people's business without any inhibition! A nose for bad news knows no bounds!

Say you are at a party, sitting in a corner, sipping your orange juice. You are hoping not to run into your estranged nasty friend 'A'. Lucky for you, she is not in town. But in comes your old friend 'B' who decides to share your cozy nook with you. She has got the looks and a nose to go with it - a small, narrow, adorable apparatus, symmetrically placed in the middle of her face. Do not be fooled by her alluring facade. Her little nose, not wanting to be ignored, suddenly jumps into action! It forces your friend 'B' to ask a very personal question knowing about your broken relationship with 'A'.
"So when did you last visit 'A', hmm?"
'B' knows very well not to ask this question, but her nose knows not!
You are aware that 'B' is well informed and fully enlightened about your stale relationships, but her perky nosiness still catches you off guard! You can even sense that she knows the right answer, but you decide to mumble anyway, "Mmm about five years."

"Ow that is a long time dear. Hope there is no problem between the two of you!"
She's holding her breath waiting to squeeze some juicy gossip out of you, but you will not budge. Very soon you will notice her face going red! The fact is that a tiny nose is not a good reservoir of sufficient oxygen for prolonged periods of respiration. Studies have shown that nosiness takes the wind out of a person! Lucky for you, she rushes out of the suffocating room to get a breath of fresh air without even waiting for your answer. You and your big reservoir of air are happy to inhale and exhale in relief!

Yes, we humans value our noses highly. Whenever it malfunctions, we panic. Shortness of breath or last breath may be the result of a struggling lung, but the emergency treatment only comes through the nose! The seasonal cold, however, can put most noses out of commission. A blockage of any size can cause a person to panic and blow the nose like a bellow to remove the obstacle quickly.

So when my son had a cold recently, I noticed that he continued to play his clarinet with his partially blocked nose. I asked him if he was having difficulty at all playing his instrument.

To my utter surprise, he replied in a calm voice, "Nah! I do not use my nose that much!"

What? I had never heard of anyone being so unemotional and disconnected from his nose! How could a wind instrument be played without the use of nature's own wind instrument? It turns out that most clarinetists suck air through the instrument itself and store it in their cheeks through a process called circular breathing.

In a second, my son had taken the notoriety out of this vain, puffed-up windbag called the nose! It was enough to make a plastic surgeon cry!

RELEASE THAT SQUIRREL!

2010-11-20T19:41:00.000-08:00

Originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

RELEASE THAT SQUIRREL!

As I had narrated in my previous blog – NEW HOME, OLD DWELLERS, it had been three full days since that unfortunate adolescent squirrel had fallen through an attic space of our new home, and lodged himself between two dry-walls right near our living room. It could have been a female squirrel for that matter; not that establishing gender has any extra benefit during a life or death situation. As I had also mentioned, I was planning to use a tried and proven method called ‘nagging’ to persuade my dear husband Mr. Micro Processor to drill a hole through the wall of our newly purchased home. The squirrel’s life was ebbing away, and I had to hasten the nagging process.

On the morning of the fourth day, I woke up early and started needling Mr. MP even before he got off the bed. “Here we are nice and cozy. I wonder what the temperature is between two gypsum sheets.”

Mr. MP pulled his two bed sheets a little closer to his face, staying clear from the topic. He even managed to produce a delicate audible snore, as if that was going to shut me up. Not being sure if he was really sleeping, I started making some sharp high-pitched chirpy sounds with my tongue. Noises like “tsk-tsk” and “chee-chee” have been proven to jar awake even a rock! They have the same annoying effects of a leaky faucet. Mr. MP however did not stir.

So I gave up pestering, just as any good wife should, and proceeded downstairs to check on the squirrel’s condition. I put my ear on the wall and heard a very weak stir! This was good news because I had one more day to work on securing his freedom! I had the confidence that my badgering would have its desired effects by the end of the day.

As I was making coffee, Mr. MP took his usual seat in front of his laptop. I attempted a little early morning spirituality, hoping it would percolate along with my coffee.

“The Bhagwat Gita talks about feeding the hungry before feeding yourself,” I said, trying to use subtle guilt inducing techniques without making direct references to a certain famished squirrel.

On one of his rare moments, Mr. MP actually lifted his face away from the laptop and responded, “The Bhagawat Gita says no such thing! That reminds me, since I am the Hungry One, what’s cooking for breakfast?”

During and after breakfast, I continued my attempts to keep the lines of diplomacy open by quoting random verses from Hinduism and Buddhism to promote animism and existentialism, not that I understood what I was talking! If the squirrel had been listening to our conversation, I am sure he would have sniveled in self-pity.

Another hour of relentless lectures continued.

“Alright, let’s do it,” declared Mr. MP suddenly to my surprise! He was actually listening to my senseless jabber all along, which was in stark contrast to all of those other times in the past when some of my real nuggets of wisdom went completely unheard. He did not seem the least bit annoyed! As I have said before, he had it in his heart to help annoying critters. He just needed a gentle reminder from a thoughtful wife. I was glad to be of assistance.

Anyway, not wanting to waste precious moments, I quickly provided MP with an array of kitchen knives for carving the hole through the dry wall. However, like a true engineer, he decided to go for a plain box cutter and my favorite Dosai spatula to get the drilling going. Along with these two essential tools, he also wanted me to keep my multipurpose back-scratcher ready, just in case plan one failed.

Being married for twenty years has its advantages – a very understanding and cooperative wife who knows exactly what her husband intends to do with the odd assemblage of thingamajigs - no questions asked!

By now, there was no discernable noise from the squirrel. Not sure about the final outcome, we marked a spot on the wall where we assumed the squirrel had lodged himself. A few skillful strokes with his muscular arms were all it took for MP to cut open a square piece of wall. Sadly, three inches by three inches was too small to determine the animal’s exact location. “Get me your handy-dandy make-up mirror,” ordered Mr. MP with a confidence worthy of NASA’s attention. I handed him my tiny foldable cosmetics mirror, which squeezed conveniently through the hole. It was pitch dark inside, and so MP used a flashlight to reflect off the mirror into the sanctum sanctorum of the foyer wall.

A couple of feet above our hole, Mr. MP spotted a long furry tail! It was lifeless and helpless, mainly because help was being attempted at the wrong place too! As we had suspected all along, this squirrel was hell bent on forcing us to drill at least one more hole into the wall. Mr. MP marked off approximate coordinates for his second hole, which was very close to the squirrel’s current position. After removing the second sliced piece of the wall, he pushed my mirror and his flashlight inside. A few inches above us, he clearly saw the squirrel perched on a half nibbled electric wire like an acrobat from cirque du soleil! It was not moving! Mr. MP was not sure if it was dead, and so he asked me to take a closer look.

If you remember from my previous blog (you would if you took notes), I had described the photo of another dead squirrel posted on a website. It was skinny and dirty with white paint powder covering its body due to its failed excavation attempts. That was the image I had in my mind.

I sat close to the mirror, wearing my reading glasses, to improve my chances of seeing this lost soul for whom I had spent the last several hours snarling at my dear husband.

Something did not fit the scene! Yes, the squirrel was perched on the wire motionless. But he seemed clean – a little too clean, if you ask me!

His eyes were wide open, which is not abnormal after death. I have seen a few dead humans who forgot to close their own eyes before dying. They needed someone else to close their eyes for them. This poor critter had no one to assist!

He never blinked, although I was not particularly sure if squirrels even blinked.

Strangely though, his eyes were glistening! This was unexpected of dead animals, since I had witnessed my own pet rabbit’s death a few years ago, and it had no gleam in its eyes whatsoever.

He had a cute pink button for a nose, and facial features that would make any mother proud!

Upon closer examination, I also noticed that the squirrel’s fur was well groomed - the kind of grooming that takes several hours for my cat Poppy to achieve…and God knows this squirrel had all those hours for himself!

Apart from all of the above indications of being a well-cared-for, well-groomed, twinkly-eyed squirrel, he still seemed as dead as a doornail.

No squirrel I know prepares to meet his Creator with such careful preparation, especially after going through starvation and dehydration! God never asked for a dead squirrel to present himself at St. Peter’s heavenly gate, with all of his fur neatly aligned in one direction. All reports indicate that Vaikunta also does not insist on good looks to secure entrance tickets, assuming that my proselytizing from outside the gypsum had convinced this squirrel to convert to Hinduism!

My conclusions based simply on the grooming aspect – THIS SQUIRREL WAS ALIVE! Nano Processor (my son i.e.) seconded my suspicions.

So Mr. Micro Processor decided to do one final test. He called it the ‘Tummy Scratching With Back Scratcher’ test. He pushed my back scratcher through the hole and gently teased the fur on the squirrel’s tummy.

That’s all it took!

With one giant leap for life, the squirrel jumped downwards and hopped out of the first hole instead of the second one! With huge wobbly strides, he scampered into the dining room searching for an outlet. The Processor family broke into jubilant celebration, clapping and congratulating each other, even as the poor animal was searching for the outdoors. He was definitely tired and weak from his 3-day ordeal, but the zeal to live had not escaped him.

As soon as we opened the front door, off he dashed into the woods, swearing to himself never again to fall through the attic of the Processor family! They would not let him die peacefully, and on top of that, he was forced to endure three days of nonstop philosophical gibberish from his nagging wife, Mrs. Mini Processor!

Being left with two holes right at the entrance to our home, we decided to leave them open, just in case any of his genetically challenged siblings decides to take the same plunge one of these days. In addition, we hired a critter controller, the only one in town, to come and seal all of the openings and inlets from outside the entire building - the total cost, $3000!

Not sure who was dumber here – the squirrel or the Multi Processors!

New House, Old Dwellers!

2010-11-20T19:37:00.000-08:00

Originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

New House, Old Dwellers!

The house hunters are hunting no more!

It has been six months since we purchased our new home and settled into it with great relief. The hassles of packing and unpacking left us feeling a bit battered and bruised. Although I was compelled to stow away all of my creative ideas into an old rucksack in the garage, nothing stopped me from producing dozens of imaginary blogs during these last few months. Even as I was organizing my closets and cupboards, I conjured up several scholarly blogs on intriguing topics like – Mending Broken Teacups, Weeding the Garden, Mismatched Socks, and Burnt Food etc. During these past few months, I also received numerous notes from my friends on Sulekha asking me gently to "return back right now," or lovingly expressing "missing your blogs." I tried hard to suppress my burning desire to put aside all of my daily duties and don the hat of an amateur (or is it immature) writer.

I am happy to say that my writing cap is back on my head as of this minute, whether it fits me or not!

****************

Our new house came with all the usual accouterments and one added bonus—our own attached private forest! Nothing compares to having a jungle of our own, and waking up every morning to the sounds of numerous birds outside our bedroom window. The word 'private' sounded thrilling at first as I imagined myself wearing a large bonnet and picking blackberries all summer long. Little did we know that our secluded Garden of Tranquility was not reserved for us exclusively! It was already home to a few entrenched creatures that had utter disregard to the concept of land ownership. A closed real-estate deal on our part did not constitute a relocation agreement on their part! Our run-ins with the stubborn tree-dwellers were interesting, but expensive.

"MOM," roared my teenager (Nano Processor, as we call him) one morning, as he was sitting near the kitchen's bay window, eating his slightly overdone sourdough bread. Seventeen at the time, our boy's bass/baritone vocals made it sound like an emergency. It was only the fourth day of residing in our new home, and our muscles were still raw. We had seen umpteen squirrels romping in our backyard, and the animal lover in me knew that I was in Critter Nirvana! I had gushed over every bushy-tailed antic, and guffawed over numerous squirrel fights visible from my kitchen. That morning, I was a bit irritated by Nano's continuing insistence that I should get to his window immediately. Yet another squirrel prank was not going to surprise me.

"Look over there," he said pointing to an area between the 'private' forest and our backyard lawn. About five feet from our window stood a full-grown enchanting stag! He had decent sized antlers and was over four feet tall. The handsome deer was posing majestically and pausing for us to take pictures of him.

Of course, we did NOT! We could not budge an inch in sheer amazement! We live smack in the middle of a city surrounded by freeways and highways that are typically found near residential areas. Our forest is actually open to our neighbors, who in turn have a secluded garden of their own. A lone deer finding its way into an urban setting is a big mystery!

I yelled out to my husband, Mr. Micro Processor, to get the camera and start capturing all the glory. He was upstairs and had a better vantage point than we had. He promptly responded, "YES," which sounded a bit suspicious to me, as seconds became minutes, because I did not hear any follow-up questions, such as, "where is the camera again," or "is the battery charged?"

I imagined a series of lovely pictures of the handsome deer munching on our lawn, as he strolled down our front driveway and calmly crossed the street. A surprised car driver halted his vehicle abruptly to allow the deer to walk past him, and to gain his own composure.
Mr. MP came down grinning.

"So did you take the photos," I asked him eagerly, as I could imagine myself blogging one day with all those attached deer jpegs.
"Nope," he said, "the memory was out!"
"Be careful when you are outside though," Mr. MP added, "Stags are dumb animals. They can come dangerously close when they are searching for partners.”
I turned to see if he was joking! Was he saying that this Jane Doe could be easily confused for Miss Doe the deer? If my ‘walking encyclopedia’ said so, I was going to believe him!

Hardly a week had gone by when a little commotion broke out near our living room within the house. Poppy, our cat, was staring at a blank wall with great focus. From behind the wall came a frantic scratching noise. The sound was coming from a space between two drywalls (which makes for a hollow wall). We wondered if a squirrel had somehow fallen down from the rooftop into what was distinctly its death trap. It would have fallen at least 20 feet from an open dormer. "Aw don't worry," said Mr. MP-Know-All. If it is a squirrel, it always knows how to go back the way it came."
A few hours later, it was clear that this critter was clueless about its own return journey.

It was a Friday morning, and we realized that if we did not resolve the problem before evening, we would not be able to find repair people over the weekend. We had not even established that it was indeed a squirrel. Nearly six hours into the ordeal, the mystery animal behind the wall gave a melancholic chirp. It seemed to be scratching desperately for a few minutes, and then resting for extended periods to regain energy. I tried to memorize the chirpy squeal and went on YouTube immediately. In the search box, I typed 'Squirrel Noises.' Sure enough, a few thousand videos popped up with all sorts of squirrel shenanigans, from surfboarding squirrels to flying squirrels! I also learned that squirrels came in many varieties, and their chirps were as varying as the hair on their bushy tails! Luckily, I was able to locate one YouTube squirrel that produced the exact chirp I was looking for. That was good enough for me.

Having resolved the identity of the animal, I went back on the Internet to read about their intelligence! If Mr. MP was to be believed, squirrels came with onboard GPS systems lodged between their tiny ears! Not so, said one Internet article. Falling through the attic was actually a well-established tradition among adolescent squirrels, and even among some elderly ones! One website also had a photo of an unfortunate dead squirrel, which had lodged itself behind a drywall, just like ours. Its skin had wrinkled due to dehydration and starvation. The pathetic looking soul had white paint dust all over the body, which was the result of its desperate excavations.

After seeing the depressing photo, Mr. MP instructed me to call wild life rescuers immediately. Even though it sounded a little extreme, I consented and called one such organization. "Ma'am," said the person, "we only rescue trapped Bald Eagles!" A bit embarrassed for making a mountain of a rodent issue, I decided to call a not-so-fancy drywall repairman.

It was still surprising to me that people specialized in such narrow areas like ‘Bald Eagle rescue,’ and nothing else! Don't they get a crash course in squirrel entrapment too? It is not such a big deal!

It was already Saturday morning by now, and the poor squirrel had been without food or water for 24 hours. So I called a local drywall repairman.

"Ma'am, it is very easy. Just cut open your drywall with a sharp tool, and remove the animal yourself. Most likely, it is an adolescent squirrel. They usually like to investigate their boundaries and fall down from attic spaces," said the helpful guy.

It meant only one thing - there was an entire family of troublesome squirrels living within our attic area!

A cursory examination of the squirrel’s exact movements indicated that it was canvassing the entire length of the wall, which meant that we had to make several holes in the wall by trial and error. If we did nothing, a dehydrated dead squirrel would make our house stinky for months. Either way, it was going to be a mess.

"Surgery on our brand new home! No way," exclaimed Mr. MP that evening. "Our expensive property is no match for a freeloading squirrel’s worthless life! Who told the rascal to share our home with us?"

Deep under his tough exterior, I knew that Mr. MP loved animals as much as I did. We bought the house knowing that we would enjoy the furry creatures around us. Mr. MP and I even pledged not to use pesticides or chemicals to kill our weeds. We were planning to grow an organic garden too.

Tearing up the foyer wall just a week after moving into the house, was tough for us, but not for the squirrel! By now, it was nibbling on electric cables for breakfast, wooden posts for lunch, and frosty gypsum for dessert. My own three square meals were not so easy to consume. Every morsel filled me with gnawing guilt. Somewhere deep down within the barrels of our house was an adolescent squirrel that was remorseful for being a disobedient child, and was preparing for impending death. How could I bite into my highly nutritious 7-grain bread laced with cilantro chutney, knowing well that insulated electric cables were not as tasty to a starving squirrel as its regular diet of those unidentified green berries atop our new backyard tree? I had watched many squirrels feeding nonstop during these last 30 hours. They all looked adorable, and I was sure that our prisoner was no different.

Sunday morning arrived, and Mr. MP was still hoping that the critter would leave on its own. Sadly, by then we could only hear faint noises from the wall. It was still alive, but barely.
That evening, our son was playing his Clarinet for a benefit concert. The recital hall was packed. As we sat through Francis Poulenc's Clarinet Sonata - the First Movement, I was thinking about our immobile critter who was hearing his own heart's last Sonata.

I glanced at Mr. MP who also appeared somber and unfocused on the concerto in front of him. Clearly, our thoughts were with our squirrel back home, as it was undergoing torture during its last hours.
It was too much to bear!

Ahimsa crossed my mind several times.

There was only one nonviolent way out of this pain - Nag!
Yes! I said NAG!

Some of its gentler versions include - pestering, bugging, grating, irritating, needling, vexing, picking on, or my favorite – driving up the wall.

Nagging rarely causes any physical pain or damage, and it always gets the job done!

No, I was not talking about nagging the poor squirrel...although a good long nag, if delivered effectively, should be able to kick-start even the most emaciated squirrel out of its hole. I could almost imagine the animal clawing its way back up the steep 20-foot wall, grumbling and cursing all females for their uncontrollable tongues, and saying, “Can’t a squirrel die peacefully these days without being bullied to back life!”

Obviously, language barrier prevented me from nagging this squirrel out of death successfully.

I was only talking about nagging Mr. MP until he agreed to punch holes into our brand new home!

I nagged him all right for the next thirteen and a half hours…with rests in between for nourishments, just to replenish my energy. Any wife worthy of her esteemed title should be able to badger her way through her husband's tough exterior and reach his inner core, wherein dwells that soft corner for rescuing trapped squirrels by damaging his own home! I was going to drill my way to that core and tug at his heartstrings, even if it took me three days! I just hoped that I would be able to save the furry soul before it was too late!

You would have to wait for my next blog - RELEASE THAT SQUIRREL!, to find out if the squirrel lived to tell its harrowing tale to other dimwitted family members. Until then, please do not hold your breath!

CAN I HAVE A GLASS OF WATER PLEASE?

2010-11-20T19:34:00.000-08:00

Originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

CAN I HAVE A GLASS OF WATER PLEASE?

"Can I have a glass of water please?"

Who hasn't asked this question?

"Can you get me a glass of water" is a bit more demanding.

"May I please have a glass of water" is a gentler version. Permutations aside, the need for water to be supplied by someone else is the common theme in all these questions.

Most human beings with access to drinking water would have made this humble request at one time or another. Those without access to water generally have other pressing needs. In addition, they probably do not find it necessary to own cups or glasses. Such deprived souls do not mind sipping water directly out of a cactus or an oasis whenever available.

Serving a glass of water remains one of the most challenging tasks to fulfill. So much responsibility lies on the quivering arms of the water suppliers that grown men…and women….are known drop water hither and thither for no explicable reason at all!

This tendency to depend on someone else to quench one's thirst is based on any of the following critical factors (if we can ignore boring reasons such as heat, parched throat, green chilies etc.):

1. How far the thirsty person is from the faucet.

2. How lethargic one is feeling at that moment.

3. An urgent curiosity to test a certain family member’s attentiveness, dedication, or balancing abilities.

In my opinion, the third factor is the most contentious one! It is routinely used by married couples to prove a point or to pass judgment on a spouse's motives. To clarify the last sentence without passing any judgment on the genders, men and women may have very different reasons to request that lifesaving glass of water. They may have different styles while placing that order too.

Some husbands quietly raise their bulky arms up in the air, without removing their eyeballs off their television sets, to signal to their wives for a goblet of water. Notice how the husband here assumes that the wife is devoutly staring at him for hours on end without blinking. If the wife happens to be busy, he tries to make grunting noises to get her attention. This method typically works, unless the wife is concurrently being harassed by four whimpering kids, in which case she might just retort, "Get off that couch, and get your own glass!"

A diplomatic husband would have learned the hard way that it is easier to grab his wife's attention with a sweet audible observation/request such as, "Is that a new dress? By the way, can you please pass a glass of water as you are sashaying out of the kitchen?" This has a 50 percent chance of working, hoping that the husband is not appreciating a twenty-year-old faded or frayed dress!

A disciplined husband has a better chance of getting his glass water, if he asks for it as soon as his plate of food is served. It will be considered a part of the meal and the wife will not feel misused. Generally, a wife understands her husband's need for water very well. When she serves water, the glass is usually full. The liquid's temperature always ranges from normal to cool, which makes for a satiating glass of water. She carefully chooses the height, weight and the shape of the glass or cup before serving.

I am a wife of twenty years, and I try very hard to fulfill that request from my husband to the best of my abilities.

However, when the wife asks for the very same glass of water from her husband, the entire exercise suddenly takes on a completely new dimension! Her order or request (depending on the tone of her voice) is likely to be messed up due to minor communication errors. Therefore, when she places her request, she tries to clarify it with as many details as possible to ensure that her water supply is perfect.

If she says, "Please pass me a TALL, CLEAN glass of COLD water SOON," she is trying to correct several glitches her husband made during his previous water delivery. The liquid measure of ‘tall glass’ is commonly used by the wife to test her husband's allegiance to herself, even if she never drinks it completely. It is highly possible that last time her husband, with all the best intentions, had probably searched through the kitchen cabinets for twenty minutes before finding a suitable cup. He loves his wife and does not want to disappoint her. However, he failed to notice a row of freshly cleaned tall glasses right in front of his nose. He must have accidentally located the tiniest cup on the topmost shelf, which was stashed away by his wife as a keepsake ornament, soon after their infant son had become a toddler! He probably held the 5-ounce cup under the faucet… without washing… filled it half with tepid water, and carried it over to his wife, but not before stopping to munch on a handful of potato chips.

She was probably blistering by then, either in extreme thirst or anger, since the entire operation had taken 25 minutes! It is also possible that she noticed unidentified objects floating in her measly supply of water, when she innocently held it against light.

Let us ignore the fireworks that would have definitely ensued!

So the next time her throat is parched, she tries a different approach; one that has served clever wives for ages — tugging at heartstrings while simultaneously nagging.

All peace-loving husbands please remember this golden nugget of advice — a wife's throat is never too parched for nagging!

She is comfortably perched on her soft sofa and does not want to budge. She has worked all day, served him a hot meal, and now she feels entitled to that glass of refreshing drink.

She starts by throwing this innocent comment in her husband's general direction, "I just choked on a twig of cilantro! I wonder if a glass of water is too much to ask!"

Surprisingly, her voice is quite strong for someone who just choked on a twig of cilantro, which is notoriously high in fiber!

Her husband is clueless!

She thinks he doesn't care.

In reality, he hasn't heard!

His brain only responds to direct sentences with subjects and predicates. He needs to hear his full name (which includes middle and last names).

He looks around the room wondering if the wife is speaking to someone other than him, even if there are only two humans present in the room at that moment!

His clueless face only makes her more belligerent.

"Does anyone care? No!" She pretends to talk to herself.

Her husband is certain that she is talking to herself!

Remember, he still does not understand the purpose of all this self-talk. Out of his own goodwill, he finally asks very gently, "Who are you talking to?"

"To the TV, my foot! Who do you think I am talking to?" She explodes to his surprise!

He turns to the TV.

He is surprised because she seems to be talking to a bottle of shampoo/conditioner that has remained static after a lengthy commercial.

"Yes, my Dear! Shampoo manufacturers can be heartless," he says, hoping to make sense of the meaningless conversation.

This time she looks him straight in the eye and says, "How long are you going to wait? I am dying here after choking! Can you get me a TALL, CLEAN glass of COLD water SOON?"

"Then why didn't you say so," he wonders aloud. He is truly processing the command for the first time. He is reminded of the fireworks from the last episode of 'Operation Fetch Water'.

Without further delay, he races to the kitchen. This time he aims not for a glass but for a jug! He fills it to the brim with half a gallon of icy-cold, crystal-clear water and rushes it to her eager hands. He evens spills a couple of ounces on her dress just to prove his promptness and obedience to her. After the generous offer, he mysteriously escapes into the computer room to install or delete files, unnecessarily.

Now she is sitting on the couch alone. She is balancing this massive pitcher in one hand, and a plate of that half-eaten yellow rice garnished with cilantro on the other. First, she drinks to her heart's content, which amounts to less than one-fourth of the water in the jug. She then searches for a stable place to set her heavy jug down with the rest of the water. She realizes that while rearranging furniture that morning, she had moved the end table at least eight feet away from her sofa! She had also redecorated her coffee table with so many vases, photos, and displays that there was not much room to keep even the tiniest of cups.

By now, she feels it is unfair to expect her to get off the comfortable seat just to put away the water. Her arms start to ache as she searches for any form of human activity in her vicinity. The only other human in her house is not hard of hearing, even though his actions may seriously raise that doubt. This time she decides to call out his full name in a voice that could use some reduction of volume through the process of dehydration.

She yells out, "Can you come and take this HEAVY, UNWIELDY BUCKET of SUPERCOOLED liquid from my hand! I am drowning!" When simple unadulterated nagging does not work, a bit of exaggeration always works like magic!

He rushes to aid her. Contrary to her dire cries for help, he is surprised to find her still able-bodied and completely dry! He takes the jug from her hand unable to understand how to serve water to her satisfaction.

She is unable to understand why he finds simple tasks so challenging.

He pledges to remain stone-deaf and save his wife from death, either due to water depletion or due to excessive water intoxication.

She pledges never to ask him for a glass of water ever again!

Peace reigns once more!

THE HOUSE HUNTERS - Mrs. Hummingbird and Family

2010-11-20T17:34:00.000-08:00

This blog was originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

THE HOUSE HUNTERS - Mrs. Hummingbird and Family

The house hunters have finally found their perfect cottage to dwell! The acquisition is final. This might be my last blog for this season! Starting next week, we will be packing and moving! I hope to get back to reading and writing as soon as possible.

The process however has revealed how fussy we humans are when it comes to choosing the ideal residential abode - Does the house have a shower on every level? Is it too close to that 60 ft Douglas Fir? Does it have windows directly facing the neighbors? What about the neighbors themselves? Are they the type that will tolerate occasional whirring noises from my Dosai grinder and my Chutney blender… in unison? All right, cacophony! How about the stove? Is it the wonderful gas stove that I crave? Or is it that fancy shiny flat glass-top hot plate which comes with a computerized brain of its own...you know, the type that turns off before my Upma water reaches boiling point! That’s a topic for another blog by itself!!

All the nail-biting heebie-jeebies made me wonder if other species are just as fastidious as humans are in their home-searching ventures. Why should they? They do not have to pay a worn out wood chip for their real estate! The human race, on the other hand, is required to ‘purchase’ its place of dwelling, since homesteading is outdated! All other animals simply crash into any available space or cranny to call it their own. Birds build their own bristly pads for free, while certain carnivorous mammals just snarl their way into the domains of those that are less intimidating. I have not heard of a lioness nagging her male counterpart about the ceiling height of their newly acquired cave being less than 9 ft. I guess oppressors cannot be choosers.Birds, however, get finicky before zeroing in on the perfect location. They are also very meticulous with their choice of building materials. If they miscalculate, chances are that their family would end up becoming mincemeat for a variety of cunning stalkers.

Let me tell you the story of a young hummingbird mother who, a few years ago, decided to build her little nest on my jasmine creeper. This was in our very first home in California. I had fallen in love with that house because of the jasmine creeper, which was in full bloom when we walked in for the first time. It was smack in front of the entrance and was so inviting that I did not bother scrutinizing the home for any of its follies. That house turned out to be very good for my family. Little did I know that, years later, another bird-brained female would also fall for that same jasmine plant!

Hummingbirds are native to the Americas. They are among the smallest of birds, the smallest being the Bee Hummingbirds. They can hover in mid-air by rapidly flapping their wings 12-90 times per second (depending on the species). They can also fly backwards, and are the only group of birds able to do so. Their English name derives from the characteristic hum made by their rapid wing beats. They can fly at speeds exceeding 15 m/s (54 km/h; 34 mph). (Source Wikipedia)

It was around 8:30 AM one morning when I was leaving for work. I stepped out of my house and walked straight into a neat little semi-sphere which hit me right on my nose. In her enthusiasm to build her nest, Mrs. Bird forgot that her locale was just 5 feet from the ground! It was right in front of our main door and clearly visible to any passing non-vegetarian predator! She was lucky that the first one to spot her clandestinely built nest was this vegetarian non-predator! I am all of 5 ft 3 inches tall. A little subtraction proves that my nose is 3 inches below the top of my head, or thereabouts (just thought you might want to know). It also proves how dimwitted that mother-to-be birdie was! No one in my family had observed the actual nest construction in progress. It seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. Over the next few days, we observed the female hummingbird hauling in a treasure-trove of strings, strands, and hair from blonde-haired women and brunettes. Her husband or boyfriend, assuming we do not know much about the matrimonial practices of hummingbirds, was not much help in the nest-building process. He probably was not smarter than her either because he never raised any objection about her choice for their family's perch.

My family however was mesmerized by the tiny mother's indomitable spirit and determination to create a fine settlement for her babies. A week later, they arrived, the eggs i.e.! It wasn't too hard to tell; all we had to do was walk out of our door, and there they were - two tiny eggs neatly stacked inside the tight fibrous nursery.

Hummingbirds are new to some of us from India. I managed to take several pictures and videos of their activities. I have posted a few photos below. The videos sadly are buried in my boxes somewhere.

The sight of the eggs in plain view converted me into an overprotective mama bird too! As soon as I heard someone or something approaching our home, I was on guard. I successfully shooed off anyone who showed the slightest interest in the new family's business, which turned out to be my son, most of the time! The proud parents did not seem to mind our daily human activities around their nest, but my cat Poppy's mere appearance sent them into a vibrating frenzy! Their wings used to create quite a windstorm when agitated. They made peculiar pecking noises with their slender long beaks and managed to intimidate Poppy, who had not bothered to hone his skills as a hunter-gatherer. He was not exactly craving avian meat either. Besides, the tiny birds would not have been a mouthful anyway. They were not worthy of a salmon eater's attention.

Below on another birthing event, Poppy can be seen testing a couple of sparrow parents who ended up scaring him successfully with their puffed up chests and loud chirps! Our cat can be seen in the bushes being held back with a blue leash by who else but me!

The other cats in our neighborhood were unable to reach the nest because the jasmine creeper was not sturdy enough for a catwalk. I was happy that the dangling creeper provided some form of protection. A few days later, the two baby hummingbirds hatched out of their shells. Their oily bodies glistened in the bright sunshine and increased the stress levels of all the caregivers, including myself. I commanded all members of my family, the remaining two i.e. - Mr. Microprocessor and Nano (my husband and son, for first time visitors to my blog), to take a longer trip around the house using our backdoor for commuting purposes. They obliged. I set a guard-stool by the nearest window and kept watch during the day, whenever I was home. The male hummingbird was lackadaisical about all the commotion around his nest. But the mother made numerous trips to all the local flowering plants to gather nectar. Her tiny wings fluttered thousands of times per day, making frequent trips to feed her young ones. She even brought home tiny insects. The entire feeding experience was amazing to watch. Nano decided to name the babies Rikki and Tikki. Their mother seemed to approve. The dad was nonchalant.

One day I noticed a flock of Blue Jays in our area. Blue Jays are very aggressive birds that measure 9 to 12 inches in length. They are extremely noisy and fast like fighter aircrafts. Just their presence during the week had frightened many smaller birds away. I began cursing our stupid hummingbird mother's choice of real estate. She was obviously a first-time mother. I was a first time mother too when I decided to make my hearth where the jasmine blossomed. In my case, Mr. MP had used all of his processors to make a wise choice before finalizing the purchase.

In an attempt to protect, I decided to camouflage the vulnerable nest myself with a few twigs and leaves. It seemed to work. Our little hummingbird family managed to escape the blue jays' menace. My constant vigil near the window may have helped. By now, the babies were able to sit upright for their feeding sessions.

It was a weekend. We humans have a life too - shopping, leaving for work, chauffeuring our own little one back and forth from school etc. It was becoming impossible to protect the babies from the elements. We had gone out shopping for an hour or so. When we returned, something was amiss on our driveway. I was shocked to find the neat little nest lying tattered on the ground along with a few branches. Rikki and Tikki were gone! Their parents were missing in action! It was heart wrenching when we realized that the brash blue jays had snacked on our hummingbird family leaving nothing to recover, not even the nest for a momento! We hoped that the parents had escaped, but we could not confirm since they never returned.

Nano constructed two crosses in memory of the two baby birds and stuck them under the jasmine creeper. Sadly, our offspring had used plain printer paper to build the crosses. They did not even last through the next morning's dew!

If the mother hummingbird had survived, I am sure she would have learned from the experience. Firstly, she would have ditched her useless spouse (or cohort). Assuming that not all males are that incompetent, she would have paired up with a humdinger of a hummingbird who would have given his bird-brained advice before she began her shoddy substandard construction.

Did we learn a lesson from all this?

Yes, two brains, however tiny, are better than one!

HOUSE HUNTERS GO UNDERGROUND

2009-08-24T20:57:00.000-07:00

This blog was originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm
Jul 9 2009

HOUSE HUNTERS GO UNDERGROUND

*My previous blog “The House Hunters” chronicles our house buying experience.*

******************************************************

It was the second month of our home hunting project.

“What curb-appeal!” Mr. Micro Processor (hubby, i.e.) exclaimed looking at a house, as we were driving around town during one of our expeditions.

“What curb and where is the house?” I wondered. For a house to appeal to any of my vital senses, it needs to be visible first.

“There,” he said, pointing next to the roadside. Barely visible from the ground was a large triangular façade of a Ranch style house.

MP and I were already having our first difference of opinion. I was not keen on a ranch this time around after having lived in one for 14 years. MP had agreed with me and promised never to consider them again.

So where was the difference of opinion you ask? Well, he was still admiring a ranch!

A Ranch style in the US is a sprawling single level house with a wrap-around garden. There is nothing bad about it since our first home was a ranch. We bought it when Nano was a toddler and we remained there for a decade and a half. This time we are planning to buy a traditional style, which is a 2 level house. We are renting one such home right now, and I have come to love the upstairs very much. Keeping windows open all day and viewing nature from a perch twenty feet above ground level is such a joy!

“You promised not to consider a ranch again,” I complained.

“But I was only admiring,” MP remarked, “What’s wrong in admiring something beautiful? It is only a house, not a girl!”

“Well, I refuse to look!” I stood my ground. In my opinion, looking leads to admiring, this in turn leads to acquiring. MP was breaking the first rule of how to avoid such temptations.

******************************************************

Many homes in this economy are going through foreclosure, which makes them problematic to buy until the legal wrangling is settled. To be safe, MP and I were only considering homes directly listed for sale by owners. We each created a list of desirable neighborhoods and homes. MP emailed one realtor for a personal showing of a home of his choice. The realtor agreed and we set out one evening for a visit. As always, I drove while MP did his superb navigation. We entered a wonderful lush green community of slightly older homes. The homes had unique styles and well kept gardens. Our house in question was once again invisible to my eyes, raising suspicion in my head that it was…maybe….a…Ranch!

Just then, MP started talking incessantly like a seasoned time-share salesman. “You will like this one. It is a custom-built house, 4500 Sq Ft, and the lot size is 20,000 Sq Ft! It has three levels and two wooden decks.”

I knew how much MP loved the word ‘custom-built’. In his opinion, a smart homeowner takes the initiative during the planning and construction of his home, making it long lasting and ‘custom-built’.

4500 Sq Ft on three levels seemed a bit large for any decent vacuum-wielding housekeeper, but at least this was not a Ranch. However, all the craning and wringing of my neck failed to reveal the house’s frontage. For a house with three levels, not even one stood out from the street. So we got down and approached the address. There slowly emerging from the curbside was the very same triangular façade we had seen earlier that week!

“But this is the same Ranch again!” I protested. MP assured me that it was unique, and I should give it a try. “Yes, it is a Ranch from the front, but a three-level from the backside,” he meekly revealed the secret. After seeing a child-like gleam in his eyes, I relented and we walked in. I have to admit, the neat garden in front and a Japanese style deck surprised me. The realtor of the house walked up to us and said subtly, “I have to warn you guys. The inside is a bit out-dated and decrepit.”

Mr. MP is a compassionate person. He is broad-minded and considerate too.

Why all the unnecessary praise at this juncture? Well, I have a point. The words, “out-dated and decrepit” should have been enough of a warning to any ordinary homebuyer! But MP was determined to give this old house a chance to prove itself innocent. So we proceeded inside. The house was built in the early 1970s and had a single owner who was also a mechanical engineer. The elderly man had since moved out of the residence and donated it to a local university, which was now the seller. According to the agent, the owner had built all of the additions during years of interior remodeling. We walked into an odd shaped living room, which immediately led to the kitchen and dining area at a raised level. Every piece of woodwork or framework had a personal touch.

Mr. MP was all starry eyed by now. In his mind, a house built by an engineer with his own two callused hands was an exceptional one. The realtor perceived MP’s intensifying interest by now and revealed one of many hidden secrets about the house. Right next to the kitchen was a hollow pillar through which the previous owner had assembled a mini motorized elevator to haul firewood or any other supplies up from the basement below. With the flip of a switch, one could haul heavy stuff up three stories!

“Interesting contraption, but what use is it for me?” I thought to myself. One look out the window confirmed our doubts that the house actually stood on top of a ravine. There were two large rickety decks in the precipitous backyard. We were on the main floor which was the top floor of this 4500 sq ft house, and we had barely seen 1200 of it. Realtor then took us to the second level of what was turning out to be an upside down design. We treaded downstairs through an eerie tunnel-like staircase. It was dark because the house had not been maintained for six months, and there were no light bulbs in place. The whole house smelled musty and distinctly 1970-ish.

“Don’t worry,” said a soothing voice in the dark. “It has not been cleaned recently, that’s all.”

It was not the realtor speaking! It was actually Mr. MP, who I could sense was in an increasingly benevolent mood. We had descended to the second floor which had a series of windowless corridors leading to the different bedrooms and bathrooms. The corridors were already having a claustrophobic effect on me. The dark, dingy, featureless tunnel was not helpful in distinguishing one room from the other.

After 10 minutes, we had still not covered even half the house! A simple subtraction in my mind told me that 2000 sq ft of the house was still waiting to be discovered…somewhere down in the basement! That was larger than many condos by size! As soon as we set foot in the basement, we noticed that the entire floor was unfinished with exposed wooden beams and pipes crisscrossing the ceiling. There were so many pipes and wires that we wondered what else the eccentric engineer had built down there. To our utter shock and surprise, the man had single-handedly constructed a solar water heater tank under two floors of his house! He had somehow even managed to lift an entire floor up by a couple of inches! The covered water tank was the size of a swimming pool and it supplied heating and cooling to the entire house through a series of pipes. It looked less than 10 years old, which meant that the man had built it in his late 60s or early 70s! He was a gutsy man!

The smell was intense and one look at the tank brought images of a dead cat floating! My curious kitty Poppy did not deserve a house like this! I decided then to walk out of the dungeon and looked around to beckon MP. He however was already bending over the machinery and pumping station in sheer awe and delight! “This is simply amazing! The guy’s a genius!” He was gushing profusely.

It seemed like MP’s benevolence had only increased with every floor’s descent. The basement had plenty of interconnected rooms, each dingier than the previous one. In the darkness, I located the staircase and started climbing back up. Being all alone in the eerie windowless musty corridor, I truly felt lost. There were 6 closed doors in front of me, and I was not able to locate the second staircase to return upstairs! After opening and shutting a few doors, I finally found it and raced back up. I could hear the two men talking from down below for another 10 minutes after which I heard one of them say, “Wait, I think my wife is lost! Ranjini? Ranjini!”

“I AM UP HERE!” I shouted through the firewood elevator shaft, which was the only plausible way for my voice to travel to netherworld.

I knew that this was not the house for us, and convincing MP was going to be a piece of cake; it would not require nagging, coaxing, or bullying tactics!

MP and the realtor came back. MP knew I was not at all pleased.

“Did you see, they even have a wine cellar?” He was trying to lift my spirits. Being a teetotaler, I did not succumb.

The realtor assured me that my reaction was actually similar to what other buyers had expressed.

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Back in the van, MP began lecturing about how an enterprising homeowner could convert it into a palace. Fortunately for me, we were not the enterprising type. We may be engineers, but our handiwork is limited to using screwdrivers and hammers only. This house needed a sane mind and some heavy machinery, preferably the bulldozer type!

“But what about my kitchen pantry,” I asked. A walk-in pantry is one of my basic requirements. It was distinctly absent from this anomalous house.

MP was not willing to accept that an engineer’s house could be that impractical.

“You could always use the elevator shaft as your pantry,” was his brilliant solution.

I could not imagine how a hollow pillar with the motorized lift could solve my pantry issue. He was quick to clarify, “store your spices etcetera in the basement, and haul them up when you want. You do not even have to lift a finger!”

“Really,” I asked, “so when I want some cumin, I walk all the way downstairs three stories, load my cumin packet into the elevator bucket, and then come back up to haul it?” A little sarcasm always helps.

“Don’t worry,” cajoled MP, “I was only suggesting the elevator for rice bags and such other heavier groceries. This home is not for me either. I was just curious, that’s all!”

Phew! Our opinions may be like noses, since we each have one. At least we were finally seeing eye to eye (I to I, that is).

THE HOUSE HUNTERS

2009-08-24T20:53:00.000-07:00

This blog was originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

THE HOUSE HUNTERS

Jun 23 2009

It is nice to be back after a long hiatus.

Our seventeen-year-old fledgling has finally graduated from high school (12^th grade) after weeks of final school projects, final music concerts, thrilling band competitions, stressful solo competitions, and winning / losing contests. Just when we thought of settling down after all the hustling and chauffeuring, several new projects heralded their arrival in no particular order of importance, such as college admissions, campus visits, and course selections. Everything culminated in a wonderful graduation ceremony last week. He even received a scholarship to join his chosen university.

Having completed the college related projects; we decided to embark on our house-hunting project. We hope our new home will be large enough to accommodate our six-footer and his assortment of cacophonous wind instruments, with a decent degree of separation between our earpieces and his mouthpiece. Since he is heading to our hometown university, we expect to see him frequently... which is more like every evening and the next morning! Therefore, proximity to college is an important criterion to remember. The process of searching for a home in America is not new to us. We owned our first home for 14 years and sold it in 2005. Back then, we were already hearing whispers of an American housing bust and a serious recession. To be safe, we postponed buying our next home for a few years. Looking at the economic woes of homeowners who invested at the peak of that housing market, our decision to rent was a wise one.

Of course, much of the credit goes to Mr. Micro Processor (dear husband, i.e.) and his monetary astuteness. However, when it comes to the actual selection process of our abode (or our motherboard), Mini ‘me’ Processor also has a keen sense of olfactory perception. No house can escape the scrutiny, which rivals that of a fussy mother-in-law! Nano, the teenager that he is, does not have any opinion since he has a tendency to simply take over the entire house without worrying about the blueprint per say.

In this blog and a couple of follow-up blogs, I would like to chronicle the interesting process as we hunt for our next home. The sometimes stressful, sometimes downright hilarious experience is simply too juicy to ignore.

When we bought our first home in 1993, there was no Internet-based home searching possible. Back then, we had hired a real estate agent and simply followed her advice. Not so now! Thanks to numerous real estate search tools at our fingertips, websites like Zillow, Trulia, Foreclosures.com, and the all-knowing Google with its wonderful ‘Street View’ and ‘Satellite View’, we have allowed our slender digits to do the walking. Just put a zip code into the search box, and thousands of homes pop up on the screen in all their glory. One can literally swoop down from the sky and zoom into any home and its backyard for a quick checkup. One can even take a virtual road trip down the residential streets!

These are extraordinary times in America with a home-foreclosure crisis so big that it has affected people’s lives, jobs, homes, businesses, and essentially wiped out their savings. Since we are also interested in checking out the foreclosed property listings, I went to one of the above-mentioned websites. After entering my choice of zip codes, square footage, and limit on the price, I hit ‘Search’. In spite of my strict filters, thousands of homes showed up on my page. Each home had a bunch of photos and an MLS number (Multiple Listing Service), which is a unique number assigned to each house and displayed on all real estate listings. For starters, I made a neat list of a dozen homes and waited for Mr. MP to filter it further.

I was a bit surprised when Mr. MP produced his own list, all with proper mapping coordinates and driving directions. “You drive and I’ll do the directing,” he said. The plan suited me well, as I am far-sighted and cannot read the small print on a city map. He struggles to read the distant street signs, and that’s where my vision comes in handy. Armed with packets of wheat cereals and salt crackers, we initiated our formal house hunt.

“Where are we going,” I asked, hoping to actually visit a few homes. I could not wait to see new kitchens and blank walls to display my artwork.

“Nowhere in particular,” he said. “I want to study the foreclosure crisis with my own two eyes. Let’s drive in a zigzag fashion around the neighborhoods and see what kinds of homes are foreclosed.”

The thought of zigzagging aimlessly was not on my agenda, but being the cooperative wife that I am, I agreed. What followed was a series of cryptic instructions by a bespectacled map-reader whose eyes remained glued to the large sheet in front of him. He was not keen on looking at the real streets in front. Mr. MP’s instructions went something like this - “Make a left here, then turn right, don’t be scared of the steep descent, put on the 2^nd gear and do not hit the brakes too much. You will wear them out. Keep going until you see a dead-end. Make a U-turn and park the van there.”

At least he trusted my driving. This is my 20^th year behind the wheels, after all.

I was impressed (have been for 20 years) by his ability to give perfect directions using just a mediocre map and that impressive GPS inside his brain. I do not possess that gift. My mental compass usually goes berserk after taking a couple of U-turns.

Pardon me for digressing a bit. Life is full of digressions after all.

Coming back to our current van stop, I looked out the window; Not one home within a quarter mile radius! Before I could interrogate MP about a slight miscommunication in his directions, he was out the vehicle. With a few “aha”, “ow”, “hmm” etc, he walked off onto the fields to inspect what looked like property lines drawn on the ground with the hopes of building a community of new homes. I realized instantly what he was up to. For the last few years now, he has been researching extensively the current housing crisis. Numerous homebuilders have gone bankrupt in recent months due to the recession in general. New buyers have not been able to borrow money as they did before. Thousands of families have gone broke due to shady sub-prime lending which essentially allowed people to buy more home than they could afford. Existing homeowners borrowed against the equity on their homes believing that their property values had gone up and will continue to rise. When the initial teaser interest rates went up, many could not afford to stay. Overnight, they left their homes with their belongings in family cars. Many others went broke simply due to over-borrowing, and pure ignorance about these loans. Huge expansive areas were abandoned with either half-built houses or none at all.

Next, we drove to another area of the city where beautiful mansions were listed as foreclosed. Some homes appeared to be in limbo status without a for-sale sign posted by either the original owner or the bank. Entire streets in other newer neighborhoods had for-sale signs as far as our eye could see, but no signs of life in them! All this was too interesting to Mr. MP who forgot that he had a wife and a van, both waiting to move. Since many homes had locks on them, MP was busy peeking in through the windows and circumambulating them for more thesis material.

“He better write a book after all his research,” I thought to myself as I waited for him to return. There were a few open houses in another neighborhood that day which I did not want to miss. Luckily for me, he returned and we set out to see some new homes.

Since land is a premium in a state where nature parks and greenbelts are valued, many new homes were built very close to one another. To classify them as single-family residences was a stretch. They were nothing but glorified condominiums, if you asked me!

We had flyers for all the homes on the street. “Impressive home, in a class by itself, backing into a forest,” screamed one advertisement. It was built in 2006 and was purchased by a realtor, simply for investment purposes. Such investors are known as ‘flippers’. He probably believed firmly that the prices would continue to skyrocket and he would be able to sell it for a tidy profit. In 2008-2009, his world toppled. With home prices crashing, his property had no takers after 6 months on the market. At one point, it was appraised at over $600,000. Today, it was struggling to sell at $450,000! It was a 3500 sq ft home, with 5 bedrooms on a 4999 sq ft lot. It gives you an idea of the cramped space on the outside. The inside was interesting to say the least.

These were brand new designs by high-end homebuilders, supposedly. The house had 3 stories. The main floor was actually the middle floor. In addition, the house had an upstairs and a downstairs basement. However, as soon as we walked into the main floor, I noticed an open toilet on the left. I did a double take wondering if we had accidentally wandered in through the back door. It was the entrance to the house, all right! I could instantly imagine myself as a host, greeting my visitors at the front door, with the open toilet visible in the background. The idea sounded a bit gross!

The real estate agent who was hosting the house approached us with a sweet smile. I asked her about the number of bathrooms in such a large house.

“2.1,” she replied! “2 whole baths on the top and bottom floors, but only a half bath on the main.” Generally, a half bath only has a sink and a commode, but no shower or bathtub. It is more like a powder room, which sounded inadequate considering that right next to it was a gourmet kitchen! I assumed that there was at least one whole bedroom (they may have a half bedroom, who knows?) on the same floor as the kitchen. But no…all the bedrooms were either upstairs or downstairs. The idea of having an elderly visitor hobbling up and down the stairs just to find a full bath and a bedroom sounded inhumane! Couldn’t they provide all the basic amenities on the same floor? What’s the harm in throwing an extra bathtub or a shower into the half bath? When did full-body cleanliness become a premium asset? Which idiot puts a toilet next to a kitchen? It made me wonder if the builder had bladder control issues. His routine would have been something like this—grab a beer, rush to the loo, scarf down a juicy steak, rush to the …well, you get the picture. He probably did not have a great relationship with his elderly parents either. (Nothing against male architects, but this builder was positively identified as a man by outside sources!)

Next to follow was the ‘Great Room’. It has become very popular in recent years among young families. It is a large expansive hall, which combines the living room, the family room, and the kitchen, all within one floor. It is supposed to enhance family unity and closeness, but I could smell a relationship flaw already. The thought of one family member frying spicy food in the kitchen, thereby producing thick fumes, with the other two trying desperately to watch TV in between incessant sneezing, did not appeal to my sense of family bonding. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer to have my kitchen isolated in one corner of the house. The kitchen, for a 3500 sqft home, seemed rather small! A lone granite counter and a cook’s island in the middle was the builder’s pathetic idea of a ‘Gourmet kitchen’. He was probably one of those ‘fix-a-dinner’ types, with little or no talent in cooking. One could purchase a frozen microwaveable dinner and call it a meal. “No wonder his unhealthy diet has resulted bladder control problems,” I thought to myself.

One look at the “garden” scared me. The house that claimed “backing into a forest” as one of its valuable assets had a jungle literally looming over the rooftop, with large 50 ft fir and pine trees threatening to topple during the next Pacific thunderstorm. A mere five feet of separation between man and jungle is not what I call as a tranquil home with green views. It was too close for comfort.

Fortunately, Mr. MC and I were of the same opinion—the house did not fit the Sharma family’s lifestyle. We eat a lot and we like to take showers, no matter what floor of the house it is! We decided to look for pastures with a little less greenery, and a full bath hopefully!

In my next report titled 'House Hunters Go Underground', I will describe our visits to a couple of bizarre homes. What is a house-hunting adventure without a visit to at least one spooky house, right?

FOOLING A NEWSPAPER READER!

2009-08-24T20:51:00.000-07:00

This blog was originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

Mar 24 2009 |

FOOLING A NEWSPAPER READER!

Are you aware that April 1 is fast approaching? May be it is time for you to focus your attention on someone in your family (or a friend) who reads the daily newspaper wrapper to wrapper, every single day! I bet the age of this person ranges somewhere between 58 to 103, since most of our younger folks these days probably flip through only a couple of sheets lackadaisically. If you want to pull a fast one on this unsuspecting, news-loving, elderly pacifist, then read on. Remember, this trick does NOT work on those who strictly read online publications!

In our family, my father was the only ardent worshipper of the daily newspaper. Every day, I watched him read this massive bundle without missing a sheet. I wanted to see how he would react if a few sheets really went ‘missing’. So, one April Fools’ day several years ago, I devised a very simple but effective game to play on Dad. The trick worked very well in its own quiet way, but I did not quite get the kind of fireworks I was expecting. A couple of years later, I tried the same trick on my uncle and the result was a resounding explosion!

Uncle was always a very jovial chirpy person who also had a habit of speaking his mind aloud, whether there was someone in the same room or not! You could call it muttering or grumbling, but talk he did! His self-talking habit made him the ideal candidate for this trick! Of course, he was also the perfect victim because he was a voracious reader. The Daily Digest was like a bowl of fresh sprouts for him…he did not let one seed go to waste! (He was extremely health conscious!)

On the day before All Fools’ Day, I had discussed my plan with Aunty who promised to play her part. All she had to do was try not to giggle audibly! The night of March 31, I located a pile of old newspapers in their house. From the stack, I selected one that was about seven days old. Flipping through the newspaper, I pulled out two of its center sheets (that would be four pages altogether). I checked to make sure that the pages appeared fairly new without any wrinkles or tears. I then saved them under my bed and waited for ‘The Day’ to fool my uncle.

The next morning, I got up early…very early because Uncle was always up before the cock struck ‘Doodle-doo’! I sneaked out quietly through the front door taking my 7-day old center sheets. I then collected that morning’s fresh delivery. Flipping it open, I removed its two new centerfold sheets, and replaced them with my old ones! Taking a quick glance at the arrangement, I neatly laid it back on the floor outside the front door and slipped back into the house. The reason for choosing something that was seven days old was to create just enough confusion without rising outright suspicion. You want them to remember the stories they read vaguely, but not be able to recall when exactly they read it!

My uncle had a habit of picking up the paper and then running a few errands before settling down on his favorite rattan chair. It gave Aunty and me just enough time to huddle in the kitchen and listen to some detonations about to begin in the living room. I stood by the kitchen door waiting for the first sound bytes to begin.

Uncle was all alone in the living room.

About 20 minutes into the reading, we heard the first noise!

“ALA THERI!”

For some strange reason, Uncle always preferred to begin his mild rebukes in Hindi even though they spoke Tamil at home!

Our relationship was a bit strange. Since I was working in their city, they had graciously welcomed me to live with them for a few months. Uncle generally spoke to me in English and Kannada. Aunty spoke to me in English and some Iyer Tamil because she did not speak Kannada. Since I understood some Tamil but could not speak, I used to reply in English. Between them, they spoke Tamil and they both knew Hindi very well. Somehow, we managed our three-way communication quite intelligently without major mishaps.

“The show is beginning,” said Aunty as we exchanged glances and smiles! A moment of quietness followed!

“Yeh Kyaaaa Hai,” was Uncle’s next query! Rather polite if you ask me!

It was followed by the noise of sheets shuffling back and forth! He was obviously getting mildly agitated by now. The pranksters in the kitchen tried hard to muffle all chuckles.

Silence for a few more minutes was interrupted by a loud, “IDIOTS!”

At least he was speaking English now!

It was obvious that he had hit on a couple of stories with absolutely no continuation. As for the centerfold essays, he had already read them…somewhere… he was not able to place his finger on exactly where!

“IDDDDDEEEUUUTS!” Uncle’s consonants and vowels were becoming highly stressed!

Uncle was not one to give up! “What’s the date today?”

I held my breath thinking my trick was up, but no! He actually read the front page’s date aloud and still proceeded back to those kooky center page stories, some of which appeared to be the same as last week!

‘Man stabs boss over promotion and absconds,’ read one of the headlines under city-beat! Uncle had clearly read this one last week and even remembered the man’s name – Gangadharan. It is not too often that you find multiple Gangadharans killing their bosses in the exact same fashion, during the same week! Mysteriously the details of this grisly murder bore an uncanny resemblance to last week’s mayhem!

Uncle roared, “That rascal had already killed his boss last week! What are they talking about?”

The thought of a serial killer employee stabbing his dead boss repeatedly must have touched Uncle’s Tamilian nerves!

“Yenna Ma Idhu?” It was a plea for my aunty to help explain the mystery. Aunt was already on her niece’s camp! We were holding our tummies trying to contain our laughter. When I had played this game on my father, he too had said ‘Ala Theri’, but then he quietly went outside to search for the missing sheets! A few minutes of silent contemplation followed after which I had blurted out the truth!

This time I was smarter. My trick was extracting more juice from Uncle than I expected!

Next, a barrage of advanced Tamil words followed, “ï¦ âé¢« è Þ¼è¢è¤ ø£ò¢? xÉÒ BàRÂóEäò <¯ûÎCEò®úÉ ÃªÉÂ n’ee engkE potain?”

“In Ingles, in English,” I whispered as words flew right over my head, through the kitchen window!

Uncle dumped the entire bundle on his side table. He stared at it for a few seconds and walked out of the house for a little inspection! He returned with a blank look on his face. That is when he noticed the different dates on the center pages.

“Aha! Who mixed up the sheets?”

Our time was up! My aunt and I walked out of the kitchen yelling “April Fool” and confessed. He laughed too and was a bit surprised that he actually fell for it! He always believed that he was above tricks!

A few years later, I played the same trick on my husband. However, Mr. Microprocessor’s cache memory recalled within nanoseconds that he had read the centerfolds’ contents on such and such a day at such and such a time! Before I could yell “April Foooo”, he was already interrogating his new wife to see if she had tampered with his morning paper!

I had to accept that some people were beyond the newspaper bait and switch plot.

I invite you to play this trick on your favorite newspaper reader and report the results to me. Now remember, this quackery only works once! The success of the same trick working every year is highly dependent on the victim’s long-term memory!

If you are lucky, you may find a chatty uncle like mine who will also give a running commentary as your game unfolds! Believe me, it is well worth your time tricking a gabby one!

A MAID UNMADE!

2009-08-24T20:44:00.000-07:00

This blog was originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

A MAID UNMADE!

Mar 12 2009 |

The following is a true story based on a strange encounter with a housemaid several years ago. I was then a teenager in high school.

My mother has always been fortunate to enjoy the indispensable services of maids most of her life. Plenty of merry maids have come and gone, but their contributions remain in our memories forever. Before I proceed with this story, I have to mention that my mother is one of the smartest women I know with a very high Intelligence Quotient… emphasizing the word ‘intelligence’ here! Not many humans have been able to hoodwink Mom and get away without facing sweet retribution from her!

My mother’s maids were always required to arrive with proper recommendations from acquaintances or neighbors and go through an intensive interview before being hired. Very few made the cut! Domestic help was a two-way street in our household. The maids also depended on my mother for their share of instant counseling, comforting, two hot meals a day, steady supply of spare saris, and a decent income. For some inexplicable reason, we have had several Nanjammas over the years! It was a popular name among the good-natured ones only! Mom never employed male servants for indoor chores. They were limited to the outdoors for adrenalin-filled jobs like picking ripe papayas from thin tall trees, or chopping branches from overgrown ones using very blunt axes! Somehow, they always got the jobs done and returned to Mom over the years, as she was a generous employer.

During a particular week, one of our beloved Nanjammas missed work due to an illness. For a day or two, we managed to tackle some of the chores grudgingly. By the third day, our lazy bones refused to cooperate. Mom started to sense a rising rebellion within her own family. So she decided to look for temporary help until Nanjamma returned, although she never trusted strangers to fill the coveted position in her company even for a day. Hoping to seek her neighbor’s maid for help, she went around our neighborhood. After a couple of hours of futile search, she returned home to rest on her front open porch. That was when she spotted a neatly dressed young couple walking by. They made eye contact and to her surprise approached her on their own accord! The woman was about 25 years of age and seemed chatty and friendly. Her male partner was of the same age. To Mom’s delight, the woman inquired if there was any housework for her at our place! Apparently, she was also a maid by profession and had lost her job with her previous employer. Delight quickly turned into caution since Mom was wary of complete strangers.

It was a holiday and I was at home. I remember overhearing Mom interviewing her to establish her identity and work experience. The young woman pointed her long slender arms generally in the direction of our neighbors’ homes, as if invoking their glowing recommendations by air! Her answers were so convincing that Mom decided to hire her for just one day. After all, what harm could a sweet-talking maiden do?

Mom instructed her to take the circuitous route around the outer periphery of our house since she felt uncomfortable letting the woman straight indoors. Her man had left by then. In the backyard, the new maid was asked to do the laundry first. Although our family’s roots are Tamilian, we never really spoke the language regularly at home. However, that never prevented my mother from speaking it whenever she wanted! Secret Tamil instructions were hurled at us, especially during emergencies with the hope that the stranger amidst us would not understand one word!

On that day, Mom turned to me and uttered the familiar magical words, “Pooney Paathko!” I knew exactly what she meant! “Watch the cat” in Tamil actually meant - “keep an eye on the stranger!” (Pooney=cat, paathko=watch)

I quickly took my position outside on a backyard bench. Sitting there, I watched the maid getting ready to wash clothes. With lots of flowers in her hair and a silk sari, she did not appear to be the maid type! Mom had stepped inside our house for a minute to collect some more clothes to wash. It was a costly mistake! Just before getting her slender fingers wet, the maid decided to remove her bangles to keep them safely on a window sill. She did so by mentioning it aloud, just to ensure my attention. Of course, my attention was that of a typical teenager… probably more interested in eyeing the nearby guava tree for ripe fruits! But I remember noticing casually that her precious trinkets seemed rather dull and artificial. Very soon, the woman got busy huffing and hissing while washing clothes. Mom was shuffling in and out of the back door busy with her own chores. Barely five minutes had gone by when our maid seemed a bit agitated over something. She was staring at the windowsill and muttering, “where did they go, where did they go?” I could not grasp what was happening until my Mom walked outside after hearing the commotion.

Seconds later, the woman was howling that her gold bangles had disappeared from the sill! I was astounded because my brain quickly recalled some plain glass or cheap metal bangles, but no gold! To my shock, she suddenly turned on me! Grabbing my arm, she insinuated that I had probably stolen and she wanted them back! The whole incident was unfolding at a super fast pace, and I did not know what was happening. However, Mom did! She realized that the smooth-talking maid was much more than just a rooky crook who had somehow sneaked past this “watchful” teenager’s eyes and swiped her own bangles to hide them somewhere! In a flash, Mom grabbed me away from the woman and shoved me indoors. Instructing me to lock from inside, she escorted the maid around our house to the front side. Minutes later, her accomplice (the male) arrived at the scene! Mom was shrewd enough to understand that she was looking at seasoned scoundrels who had contrived this plot and probably enacted it several times before. By now, the pair had started accusing us aloud, hoping to draw a crowd. They demanded the bangles back or compensation in cash! Unfortunately for mom, only a couple of onlookers paused out of curiosity, but none offered to help!

Sensing that she was pretty much on her own, my mother’s agile mind went on high alert! She managed to assure the two city slickers to wait while she returned indoors to find a solution. Once inside, she locked all doors to barricade us from them. The crooks outside were determined to make a fast buck! They started knocking and banging on all doors and windows to harass us in every possible way. It was a dangerous situation making us feel very helpless since my father was at work. In a jiffy, Mom hatched a little plot. Our home had a front enclosed vestibule or foyer, which was essentially a room with two doors, one of which was the main door itself and the other led to the inner living quarters. She told me to be ready to lock the inner door as soon as I heard her voice. To avoid creating any suspicion in their minds, she did not want me shutting it too early.
So I braced for war!

Mom then spoke to the couple from the window, demanding that the man should move away from the house all the way to the end of the street. Only then would she discuss the situation with the maid, since it was a matter between women. To our surprise, the man actually obliged! Opening the front door, she invited the woman alone inside the foyer. To entice her, Mom even displayed some cash in her hands. As soon as the woman stepped inside, Mom yelled to me, “Lock the door from inside!!!”

With that, I padlocked my door. Concurrently, quick as lightening, Mom escaped out of the front door and closed it shut. It was a self-lock door which essentially imprisoned our masquerading maid within the secure foyer!

For someone in her late forties/early fifties at the time, my mother was very agile on her feet. Quickly, she raced down the street in the opposite direction from the male accomplice and signaled a passing autorikshaw. She then headed straight to the nearest police station and convinced an entire group of officers to follow her. With one constable by her side in the same rikshaw and the rest following in their jeep, she returned home triumphantly. In the meantime, our female prisoner was banging on all doors and begging to be let go, minus her precious bangles or cash! The male crook was helpless and still fidgeting outside when the police arrived. I had retired to a room and hid there. The authorities had apparently received several complaints in recent months from many other families that had been duped by the duo into handing over cash! Strangely enough, no one until now had taken the extra step to seize or stop them. Someone with the acumen of my mother was the designated one to undertake such a task!

The man was quickly overpowered before he could escape. The police entered our foyer and swiftly handcuffed the sobbing damsel in distress! Dragging her out, they all huddled in the jeep and left. My mother came inside to assure me that things were now under control. She then took the extra effort of returning to the police station in the same rikshaw to lodge a written complaint!

Before leaving, she orally took out one last audible insurance policy with a commanding “Pooney Paathko” and took off with the friendly constable!

Mom had single-handedly warded off all the pilfering pooneys from our entire neighborhood!
There wasn’t much “pooney paathko-ing” left for me!

THE FABRICATION OF TEARS!

2009-08-24T20:41:00.000-07:00

This blog was originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

THE FABRICATION OF TEARS!

Feb 18 2009

Sobbing on cue is a highly refined art.
In my previous blog “READY..SET..CRY - TEARS OF SORROW”, we discussed the sympathy invoking quality of bona fide tears. Some expert lamenters may not always appear to have a sensible justification for their unpredictable wailing, but closer examination reveals profound premeditation behind every factitious teardrop. In the same context, I also explained how some perfectly healthy and mentally stable humans could not produce tears, unless they witnessed a cogent tragedy unfolding in front of them! You may belong to this group of parched & desiccated humans who might be missing all the advantages that come with shedding tears at will! Weeping is a breeze if only you learn the techniques along with the benefits of tear production. Tricking people with tears is so easy, only a fool would not even try to cry!

Fabricated tears must have an agenda. To wipe or not to wipe is the next question!
The answer depends on how perceptive you are and how badly you want to accomplish your goals! In my opinion, contrived tears must be left untouched until the final goal has been reached!

In this blog, I will try to discuss various ways of producing eye drops, (or at least pretending to sob) and advertising them for maximum publicity. Tear-à-tickle Analysis is a valid subject that I hope will be taught in colleges one day. Until then, we are on our own. Let us start with the assumption that you are an emotionless person who can only manage to produce a few droplets under duress.

Let us put those frugal tears to prudent use!

* Say you are a contestant in one of those universally televised beauty pageants, and you have just been crowned the winner! If you are a male contestant, no one pays any attention to you anyway. Whether your contest is televised or not, you can do the following — Inflate your chest muscles and grin shamelessly as they place the crown and sash on your imposing frame. Take a cougar’s swagger down the victory ramp, and you are done!

However, if you are a female beauty contestant who has just been declared the winner, there is an age-old, time-honored set of customary rules to follow during the actual crowning ceremony. First, you should appear to be thoroughly surprised, even if you had already sensed that your runner-up just lost the first place by giving the most immature answer to one of those highly intelligent questions by the judges such as, “if you were on Venus, how would you improve the lives of female aliens living there?” Your runner-up may have blurted out an asinine answer such as, “There are no aliens on Venus!” Just contain your excitement and pretend not to have sensed your own victory. As soon as they announce your name as the winner, open your eyes and mouth wide (without revealing your dental fillings). While the other girls are working feverishly to fix that silly crown on your head, lift your palms up to cover your face and eyes! There is a reason for it! Behind your hands, try to generate some teardrops as fast as you can. Any amount helps! I understand that you are extremely thrilled and would actually like to let out a loud guffaw and thump your fist on your chest to mock those losers next to you. But you would be considered an inconsiderate cackling witch if you ever did that! Contort your pretty face until it gets sufficiently grotesque. Unless you produce the minimal amount of tears required to smudge your black mascara all over your face, chances are that you may have broken that customary “weep after you sweep the crown” routine!

* Say you are an ill-tempered bully in your family who does not know how to get along with your “loved” ones. Say your beloved Aunt Sally is departing back to her hometown after an extensive stay in your home, during which time you made several insensitive and jealous comments to hurt her feelings deliberately. The final day has arrived, and it is time for you to drop her off at the airport. Suddenly your conscience starts to jab at your heart! You realize that your ‘beloved Aunty’ will be gone for good! Do not lose hope! I am sure you can muster a teardrop or two at the nick of time inside the airport lounge! If you cannot generate enough tears to cause a stream, simply turn your face to a light source and allow the drops stuck on your eye-line to glisten. Make sure not to blink until Aunt Sally gets a good look at your treasured droplets. Keep staring at her like a stunned animal and follow her every move with your wet eyeballs. Hopefully Aunty realizes your sudden change of heart and gives you a sympathetic pat, or even better, a hug! If she ignores your precious tears, then you are in deep trouble! A little bit of introspection may help relieve your pain.

* Say you are a priest who has just broken the trust of your congregation. Let us also add child molestation and financial misappropriations to the list of charges. Your day of atonement in front of your devoted congregation has arrived! You do not have an ounce of shame or embarrassment about what you have done. So you do not know where to begin, or how to extricate yourself from the quandary. Now you have been forced to appear in front of the crowd eagerly waiting for retribution and bloodshed!

Shed some tears instead! The miraculous effects of tears on even the most aggressive of mobs will amaze you! If your outrageous sins fail to induce those tears of guilt, then at least dwell on your current pathetic predicament! You have been caught! Your sorry plight is sure to bring out tears of self-pity, if not due to repentance or remorse! Face the crowd of devotees and parishioners boldly and raise your face upwards, as if glancing towards God himself. The idea is to let those high-wattage ceiling lights to reflect off the tears pouring down your face. Reporters with TV cameras will be taking close-ups of your face.

Mutter some emotionally charged words like, “Oh Lord, forgive thy son! I have sinned! I have betrayed all those who have trusted me. I do not want to whitewash my sin…...yeah, wash may be….with tears…, but I am as honest as I have always been!”

For years, you have trained that crowd of parishioners to forgive and forget everyone’s transgressions! Reconciliation flows through their blood, just as insincerity flows through your tears. They will exonerate you in no time. You may even be reinstated to your lofty pedestal of priesthood! Holy moly!

* Same trick is applicable if you are a politician who has just been entrapped in a corruption scandal, only to be outdone by your own infidelity scandal! To make matters worse, you have cheated on your devoted spouse of 32 years! You are now forced by your own political party of hypocrites to make a speech of contrition. Try an idea that has been tested and proven by scores of your debauched predecessors. Politicians swear by the effectiveness of the following shenanigan—

Call for an impromptu press conference. Convince your wife, however shocked and embarrassed she may be, to accompany you to that podium in front of hundreds of cameras from the international press. Force her to stand very close to you, holding your icky hands. Tilt your head slightly towards her….body language should always display compatibility. Look into her sad eyes, if possible, and then declare to the whole world, that you have “nobody to blame, but yourself”! (Duh!) In your case, tears may be very hard to manufacture, which is understandable considering that only soulless individuals become successful politicians. Simply continue to peer into her eyes and pout your lower lips ever so slightly. The glaring lights will exaggerate your minutest expression. Declare that you and your family have already done some deep soul-searching (even though the FBI only busted you 8 hours ago!). Plead with the nosey reporters to respect your family’s privacy, even though you only care about yourself. Hope and pray that your wife maintains eye contact with you without conveying her wrath or fury! What she does with you back home is your problem!

* Lastly, say you are a famous TV anchor on NBC’s morning show. During the Eight O’clock hour, strangely you shed some somber emotive tears upon reading a (distinctly hilarious) letter from the Bush daughters to the Obama daughters. Now your producer again wants you to repeat the sobbing during the Nine and Ten O’clock hours as well! Silly if you ask me, but you never know what appeals to millions of TV viewers out there! All you have to do is keep a tissue ready during the commercial break. As soon as the camera turns on, just pretend to dab below your eyes. That should be enough to fool the masses into thinking what a caring personality you are! Never miss a chance for self-promotion.

I could go on, but I better stop now. It has been a pleasure making you cry, but I hate watching you cry!

Would you please visit my previous blog “READY..SET..CRY - TEARS OF SORROW”? If you choose to ignore, you may actually drive me to tears! Is that what you really want?

READY..SET..CRY - TEARS OF SORROW!

2009-08-24T20:38:00.000-07:00

This blog was originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

READY..SET..CRY - TEARS OF SORROW!

Feb 12 2009

Tears come in many configurations—tears of joy, sorrow and the unexplained!
Trying to decipher them involves a deep understanding of human psychology. I do not claim expertise in this area, particularly because I am one of those dim-witted humans who cannot fully comprehend the purpose behind some of the highly erratic sobbing and strangely mistimed sniveling! Through a series of essays, I will attempt to understand this commonly used fluid expression of emotions.

Tears of deep sorrow always evoke sympathy. However empathizing with the tearful person requires you to produce some tangible tears of your own. This is easier said than done! Some people can also cry under stress, although I personally prefer being stone-faced and stoic while trying to rack my brains for ideas to extricate myself out of the stressful situation. The act of crying in its flawless form has a certain predictable methodology to it. Although the reason behind the floods may not always be the same, we are all familiar with the results. First, saline droplets form streamlined floods which gush down from the corners of both the eyes…although I have seen some people shed tears through only one eye, if the other is afflicted with a strange drying spell. The briny floods then slide down the cheeks past the crevices near the nose, dripping over (sometimes right through) the lips, then wetting the chin and spilling on anything in their path to create a puddle that gets wiped up immediately.

Purposeful tears can be justified based on the sad predicament of the individual prior to the actual secretion’s commencement. If grief procedures are correctly followed, the proper way to cry requires the gloomy individual to be emotionally affected in such a way that the brain first instructs the facial muscles to contort. Other humans (or animals) in the vicinity should be able to sense the sudden change in the contours of the crier’s face. Spontaneous tears follow, sometimes in torrents, sometimes in dismal trickles. In most cases, the person may cover the rather distorted face with one hand while trying desperately to search for a tissue or a handkerchief with the other. After dabbing those tears by completing the osmosis, the person looks around with an embarrassing smile as if surprised by that intense outburst. Blowing the nose with gusto concludes that episode, unless the situation worsens, in which case the entire process is repeated all over again, until the lachrymal glands refuse to cooperate with the inconsolable individual. At that moment, the torrents may cease inexplicably along with the sorrow itself!

Death can bring the worst of tears! One needs to have a certain connection with the dear departed soul in order to experience the full intensity of the gut-wrenching despondency. I remember my first experience with death. I was barely ten years old and was witnessing the tragic setting for the first time. It was an elderly family member in her late nineties. She had lived a fulfilling life surrounded by her large extended family of children, countless grandchildren, and friends. She died very peacefully in the midst of the same overpopulated assembly of loved ones. I had sensed that there was a certain protocol to follow. One by one, the kith and kin arrived. They immediately rushed over to the deceased elder and held her hands, after which they could be seen doubling over in sheer agony with plenty of tears wetting the very hands that were deathly cold! Some moistened the feet too. There was a line of mourners as they took turns. I was somewhere down the line watching and wondering how to react during my turn. The men bowed with respect, but amazingly many of them did not shed one drop! All of the female mourners on the other hand wept without fail, whether the rest of the ceremonial protocols were followed or not. I realized then that crying was absolutely essential and I was expected to copy the women. Try as hard as I may, I just could not squeeze out one measly teardrop! I was a thin dehydrated little girl those days, and tears are mostly made of H2O. I had known the expired elder quite well. She was a sweet soul who was highly respected within my family too. I remember her being generous to me whenever I visited her home. But none of her actions were evil or heartrending enough to make me want to cry. I had happy memories of her, and yet people were wailing louder and louder as my turn neared!

Not wanting to appear heartless, I decided to work on my emotions by thinking about sad things. I had to come up with something so convincingly sad that my brain could be fooled to command the initiation of tears at that exact moment when I too was expected to kneel down by the body and pick up one of those very soggy hands. There were only ten people ahead of me….I had to be quick! School was a good place to start. How about Physics, Chemistry and Biology? These terms had been newly introduced to my fifth grade central school class…..and I had no clue what they were! Forget the subjects; I did not even know what they meant! Ugh, the hassle of sitting through those classes was sad, really! Standing in the line of mourners, I was happy that I had finally found something to induce those tears! BUT it was simply NOT working! The reality was that I had discovered a way to ignore the teacher’s babbling to seek quiet solitude in those classes by doodling! Hence, I was not moved one bit! In fact, my thoughts actually resulted in a discernable nasty smile! I quickly turned my face away hoping no one spotted that inconsiderate hardened snicker!

Well, it was a do or die situation, and I was not the one dead! So I decided to contort my face. I had seen plenty of crybabies, and I knew exactly how their faces looked. I tried pouting the lower lip outwards….it is the first signal that a baby is about to cry! I scrunched my eyebrows down while trying to squeeze my cheeks by pumping air into them. Then I tried to compress my eyeballs to see if I could extract any liquid. Nope…nothing in there….not even one crocodile tear…although I am told that reptiles do not cry. Time was running out! I was now three criers away and was wedged behind two strange ladies. My parents had finished paying homage and were back in the crowd of onlookers…..and those onlookers were really studying every single mourner’s reaction intently! I wondered if the others standing in line behind me were already in tears, but no! Strangely, the whole business of crying had a mechanical symphonic orchestration to it! One minute they were in line somber-faced talking about the horrible city traffic, the next minute they were bending down crying!

I had to solve the problem smartly. Instead of going alone, I decided to latch on to the two ladies and use them as a cover from all those gawkers. As the threesome approached the body, the two women suddenly descended down into a heap, kneeling and prostrating on the floor! I felt utterly exposed! I then decided to descend myself and hide my drought stricken face behind the women’s hinds, which wasn’t too hard since they both were humongous in size! How I managed to wriggle out of that uncomfortable situation, I do not know. It was the day I learned that tears of sorrow needed one essential component—Sorrow!

Not all situations are depressing enough to make one miserable. Some people can cry all of the time, but not all people can cry at any appointed time!

Timing those precious tears is everything!

My next essay is going to understand those mistimed tears. Who knows if they are really genuine!!

SNOW IN MY BACKYARD FOR 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

2009-08-24T20:34:00.000-07:00

This blog was originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

SNOW IN MY BACKYARD FOR 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

Dec 24 2008

Global warming is definitely not happening in my neighborhood!
It has been snowing for the last 12 days in my beautiful city of Portland, Oregon. The Arctic Blast of 2008 is actually one of the heaviest snowstorms in 40 years! It snows here every year, and the experience is usually enjoyable with some of the best snow flurries in the Pacific Northwest. But the sudden transition from a beautiful autumn to this blizzard has caught everyone by surprise. The flurries began on a fine afternoon on December 14. Local television stations started broadcasting emergency news around the clock covering the dangerous situations on the roads and freeways in particular. School closings were announced everyday all of last week on the bottom of the TV screens making kids (including the older kind) jump up and down in glee! Here are some photos chronicling the season along with a few anecdotes (in captions) from my neck of the woods. Hope you will enjoy this as much as I enjoyed capturing the beauty for my own album.

1. Below is my street on a nice fall day in the end of October. The bright yellow / orange glow from the leaves lit up our homes.

2. Below: Our home's backyard is open to a wonderful nature trail which is about 2 miles long. It is preserved and maintained very well by the county. This is the view from my bedroom window upstairs directly facing one of two ponds in the front!

3. Below: Less than a month ago, I captured this huge Heron (a pond bird) straight in front of my window.

4. Below: December 14th, the snow began around 2 PM in the afternoon.

5. Below: The sun tried to peek, but looked spooky!

6. Below: Local TV stations have looked something like this for days. Funny anecdote - one TV reporter speaking from the scene of breaking news complained that she was hungry for a warm breakfast. Within minutes, a viewer put on tire chains and drove up to her with a supply of fresh hot breakfast! Another received a warm cap. There are volunteers from a program called Meals-on-Wheels carrying food to elderly around the city who may not be able to get around.

7. Below: This groom was to be married the day before Christmas. He got stranded at the airport for days. The temperatures were as low as 16 degrees F or -8 degrees C. Wedding arrangements had all been made! Not sure if he made it.

8. Below: The city has a wonderful network of trains and trams. But when the last Arctic blast happened 40 years ago, these trains were not even running! So, they froze on their tracks halting all operations.

9. Below: Our personal transportation vehicles were themselves buried in about 5 inches of snow. This street view from my other bedroom is a sea of white! Beautiful, but a lot of work for people heading to....work!

10. Below: With the streets fully encrusted with hard ice, our neighbors stayed put.

11. Below: Glimpse of our front porch.

12. Below: Shrubs in our garden along with the lawn look ethereal. This is the view from my living room. Vacation is where my home is!

13. Below: Does this look right out of a postcard or what?!!

14. Below: Well, it was time to get to work! I am trying to shovel snow off my driveway using a California garden rake! Not a smart idea! But the stores ran out of snow showels. So it was all spades, rakes, brooms, mops and whatever else we could find!

15. Below: My able bodied 'kid' wanted to help and build a teenager's version of a snowman in the process. After about 20 minutes, he came back saying, "why do people bother to plough snow? What a waste of time!"

16. Below: Mr. Microprocessor on the other hand had to get down to business. The front wheels of our van get snow chains after county made it compulsory. Let's just say that chaining a tire is not such a micro process!

16. Below: The pond view from our bedroom window. It is now completely frozen.

17. Below: Families make the best of the slopes behind our fences. With boards, they came to slide.

18. Below: A close-up of the frozen pond down the trail.

18. Below: My Christmas tree is decorated by nature! I couldn't have done a better job myself!

19. Below: The same lone hungry Heron is back only to find his favorite pond frozen. He's now sitting on it!

20. Below: The blizzard in action captured in all its fury!

21. Below: This eerie vision of the same nature trail at night shows the mysterious orange radiant glow! This is not during sunset. This is around 10:30 PM at night!

22. Below: Some ornamental plants (do not know the name) have this cute white cap of snow on their heads!

23. Below: A walk around our neighborhood. Streets in front of homes are not ploughed in our city.

24. Below: Our local strip-mall. The blizzard did not stop people from driving to the malls and grocery stores!

25. Below: The walk back is a long and winding road of white powder!

26. Below: The red board says "New Homes For Sale". The housing market is definitely frozen!

27. Below: I went for a stroll to the pond behind my home. As I approached it, a large family of hungry ducks waddled up to me quacking for food. I felt guilty for coming empty handed and ran back to my house to fetch buns and breads. They came to my feet with no fear.

28. Below: Do you see the ducks on the pond? They are walking ON it! With their pond frozen solid, they were famished.Food fights broke out as I threw crumbs. Lawless ducks!

29. Below: This Raven along with Blue Jays and sparrows came to my garden. So I threw them bread and some Indian seeds like dried peas, daals etc. To my surprise, they went for American store bread only! This guy had 4 pieces in his mouth at one time! The Indian seeds still remain buried.

30. Below: Just a glimpse of the entire stretch from upstairs window in the midst of the storm. Awesome to watch it unfold!

31. Below: The slopes on our backyard trails were prime ski spots for all the neighborhood kids and grown-ups alike!

32. Below: In spite of the weather, our neighborhood stores joined together in putting up this community Christmas tree with all the decorations! This is a short walk from our home, and it is worth the walk.

Hope I did not bore you all with this lengthy photo blog. I had too many photos to share, but I had to pick just a few!
I WISH YOU ALL A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The Vanity-less Bag

2009-08-24T20:31:00.000-07:00

This blog was originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

The Vanity-less Bag

Dec 11 2008

They call it the 'Vanity Bag'!
Vanity?
What vanity?

There is no such thing as vanity in a bag! Have you looked inside my bag lately? It looks like a badly mismanaged Federal Food Program in there! The term “Vanity Bag” is such a trumped-up misnomer! The world would be a better place if only we could trap vanity within the narrow confines of a bag. Since my bags are filled to capacity with indispensable lifesavers, my drooping shoulders unceremoniously dropped Miss Vanity by the wayside! If I am stranded on a snowy mountain, I am confident that my handbag (minus vanity) could help me survive for days with enough sustenance to keep me nourished until help arrives!

Like many women, I have accumulated handbags of all shapes and sizes over the years. No matter what the occasion, there is a bag or purse exclusively dedicated for it. In spite of it, I always end up carrying ‘purses’ that resemble overstuffed airline duffle bags! I am perplexed when I see a petite woman trotting on the sidewalk wearing stilettos, carrying a tiny trendy handbag that looks more like a man’s wallet with straps! I would feel naked holding such a tiny thing next to my body! What could she possibly be carrying in that insignificant pouch? She might be able to pull out money or lipstick on a whim, but isn’t there a loftier purpose to women blessed with bulky bags? If she were like me, she would be setting aside one entire weekend organizing her bag like the Red Cross preparing for a major disaster relief! Never mind that it takes eternity to excavate the appropriate gear from the depths of the knapsack. It is the thought that counts. Isn’t it the job of a devoted wife and mother to make sure that her family never runs out of essential accouterments, even if the family was on its way to visit good old Grandma living across the street?

Last month, I was strolling around town like a camel lugging its sack in some Moroccan marketplace. A straw has to break the camel’s back sometime! Just as I shoved my hand into my bag to extract my sunglasses, the strap snapped into two and plop fell my purse on the sidewalk! It was very embarrassing when four pedestrians struggled to gather and re-stuff my belongings back into my purse. It felt like the birthing process in reverse gear! I tried to pretend that this baby did not belong to me, but it was too late. There were smirks all around me!

It was time to return some sanity into my vanity!

The Handbag handicap

I came back home to reassess my handbag and take inventory. As I started unpacking, the following items mysteriously appeared from the bottomless abyss of that purse. Along with the quintessential things that every woman should carry, I had a few extra things.

Each item below had a noble purpose when they were originally packed and I had a perfectly good defense for each one of them:

* Tissues – 2o sheets: A leaky nose rarely waits! It may take three full minutes to pull out one partially torn tissue, but it sure brings relief to a red nose in an instant.

* Sturdy paper towels – 10 sheets: For hubby whose nose just can’t stand flimsy tissues.

* A quarter pound Chewing gum and extra strength Peppermint: Absolutely cardinal for those times when we are compelled to sit through an entire Christmas concert, listening to Jingle Bells and Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer for the 10,000^th time! Keeps us awake and prevents bad breath, supposedly. Hard to tell, since our busy mouths never seem to rest long enough to accumulate bad breath!

* Combs and brushes: Needed urgently on concert days when my son dressed in black tuxedo with bow tie and cummerbund suddenly realizes in the car that his hair resembles the husk of a dehydrated coconut!

* Foldable umbrella, three sets of scarves/mufflers and gloves: A well-packed bag should be a small world with a self-contained climate control system. You never know what kind of weather is awaiting you outside. You may never find what you need when you are drenched in sleet, but it is comforting and cozy to know that you have protective gear in there…somewhere.

* Shopping lists: For a self-proclaimed list freak, I have a list for every activity known to humanity! I pulled out 16 shopping lists dating all the way from February 1996 to October 2008! Nearly all the lists had “Buy Foldable Umbrella” in them!

* Handwritten telephone book: I have neatly listed at least 55 names of friends and family, however distant. This is very important just in case I lose my way while driving back home from my regular grocery store. Cousin Subbu sitting in San Jose may not exactly be able to guide me through Portland’s streets (some 600 miles away), but he can surely call our mutual friend Sara residing in San Francisco, who has my husband’s work number written in her diary. She could send a SRS (Save Ranjini’s Soul) to hubby, who could then guide me through my cell phone. Why not call my husband directly, you ask? I think I forgot to jot down his number!

* Cell Phone: Darned thing! Finally found it after all these days! It was deeply entrenched between my wallet and flashlight! I had heard it ringing periodically, especially when I was lost on the streets of Portland, but I was never able to locate it! The batteries are probably dead by now.

* Alcoholic wipes: Greatest invention since sliced bread! About the size of a handkerchief, it can be used to wipe hands, eyeglasses and the windshield, in that particular order (reverse could be unhygienic, since windshields usually have squished dead bugs sticking to them). I had an entire packet of 100 wipes, unopened! No one had asked for it in all these years! We had managed to devour plenty of peanut butter jelly sandwiches without ever wiping our stained hands, and survived to lead healthy lives. But I never left home without them. Speaking of sandwiches……

* Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches: You never know when hypoglycemia may strike! These days, I carry three pairs of these nutritious sandwiches wrapped in aluminum foil. I rarely have a problem finding snacks in my bag!

***********************************************

Sadly, there were too many goodies to let go, but my mind was made up! I decided to forfeit all my belongings along with the overstretched handbag which was already bursting at the seams. In its place, I chose a dainty little pouch to hold a wallet, one tissue, a cell phone, and nothing more! I was even able to carry the ensemble on one fingertip and do the catwalk successfully! What a relief it was for frail shoulders which had developed calluses after years of abuse. No one would miss all the junk… right?

Last Sunday, we set out for a city tour in our family van. Just as we approached the very first traffic light, Mr. Microprocessor (hubby, i.e.) realized that his glasses needed cleaning!

Mr. MP: Can you pass one alcoholic wipe?

Mrs: What alcoholic wipe?

Mr. MP: You know….that box of wipes you have in your purse.

Mrs: Oh that one! Well, I do not carry that merchandise any more! They never worked very well anyway.

Mr. MP: What’s there to work? They are plain alcoholic wipes!

Mrs: But my Dad never needed them for his glasses! He just used the ends of his Dhothi, and kept them spic and span!

Mr. MP: Well…since I can’t reach the ends of your Dad’s Dhothi, what am I supposed to do now?

Mrs: Use the insides of your sleeves. They work just fine, if not better! Here…hand me the glasses. I will clean them with my sleeves.

Mr. MP: Hurry up…the light has turned green!

From the backseat…

Son: I am hungry!

Mom: But we left home just 2 minutes ago!

Son: Just hand me that peanut butter sandwich from your handbag, that’s all I ask!

Mom: I do not carry that brand of sandwiches anymore!

Son: What do you mean by brand? They are just plain PB & J!

Mom: Grrrrrr! That’s it! Turn the van back home! I’ve got some serious packing to do!

FROM POPPY TO MR. OBAMA

2009-08-24T20:22:00.000-07:00

This blog was originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

FROM POPPY TO MR. OBAMA

Nov 18 2008

Dear President-Elect Obama,

Nah! Since Mom has promised to mail this letter to the White House after your January inauguration, let me refer to you directly….

Dear President Obama, You may not know me, although I wonder how you could have missed me! I was the one relaxing on my Daddy's comfy sofa in front of the TV all through this year, while you were busy blaring your campaign speeches at me!

Coming to the point, my name is Sharma.....Poppy Sharma. If you think it sounds seedy, let me remind you that President Bush's Daddy's nickname was also Poppy! Let me also point out that my last name Sharma rhymes with Obama...so there! I am named after my luxurious coat, which is similarly colored to the American Poppy seeds with a blend of Grey, Black, and White spilled all over. My Mom was speculating on a suitable name for me one evening as she was searching through her spice rack while making dinner!
"Poppy shall be your name," she declared, turning to her cute baby, that's me, who was eagerly waiting with wide eyes and ears to be christened over the kitchen counter behind a dozen other spices. The name stuck!

Sorry, I digressed.

Did I mention I am a cat...an adorable one at that? Why would a house cat write to the leader of the free world?

I call it "The Audacity of Hope for Rejected Cats"!

Mr. Obama, you broke my heart on election night when you promised your darling young daughters that they, quote, have earned their new puppy, unquote! Normally I do not listen to campaign speeches very keenly, particularly when I am in the middle of my beauty sleeps. But the mere mention of the word 'puppy' in your acceptance speech jarred me awake that night! You have not only embraced the vilest of domesticated pets, you have, in one sentence, condemned the entire Feline family to obscurity! Oh, the shame, the utter indignity we kitties have to endure! Sure, we seem self-centered most of the times, and we are somewhat frugal in dispensing our limited stock of affection, but that’s only because we are staunch conservatives who believe that too much endearment can add to global warming! It doesn't mean that we do not care for our extended family of (featherbrained) humans! Take one look at my symmetric feline facial features and tell me if you have met any dog cuter than me!

I cannot believe that even after your rival Mr. John McCain unleashed his attack dog, Ms. Sarah Palin, loose on you for two whole months, you are still courting the idea of adopting a dog! She practically drooled over the thought of occupying the White House one day! Moreover, Sarah Palin is not even half as shrewd as me! Fortunately, her running mate John McCain was too old to run and you won the race!

Puppy indeed!
Because of this gross oversight, I have taken the responsibility on behalf of all illiterate cats to introduce myself to you, and to charm you into believing that cats are in fact the rightful heirs to the White House title - 'The First Pet'.

My Mom likes to claim that she is an avid blogger on this Indian blog site called Sulekha, when in reality she has very little time to blog. In order to keep her viewership up, she has trained me to pussyfoot on the keyboard and produce blogs on her behalf. During this last year, I have churned out literary master pieces on catchy topics like mosquitoes, itching, scratching and a few paw-licking recipes on Sulekha. Because of this intensive training, I am able to pound this letter to you simply by moseying on my keyboard while tormenting this mouse.

Let me discuss my list of attributes as I introduce myself to you. If you like what you read, I am confident that you and Mrs. Obama will adopt a cat in a jiffy!

Orphan Kitty Adoption: This is a fairly simple process. All you have to do is visit any kitty shelter in Washington DC. Leave the rest to savvy kitties and their magnetic charm! Six years ago, I was a two-month old orphan when my Mom (the two-legged one, i.e.) arrived at my animal shelter with her two-footed son. They were inspecting other kittens in cages. To allure them over to my cage, all I had to do was to push my paw through the wires and pull off the official nametag with my retractable claws. It’s amazing how this lone act of mine was enough to melt the hearts of those two unsuspecting cat-lovers! In a minute, I was pulled out of the cage by the custodian and introduced to my future Mom and brother. They were captivated as I crawled over their shoulders and tickled their nostrils with my whiskers. The next minute, adoption papers were signed and I was shipped off for my vaccinations—yes, the nurses poked and prodded every aperture in my body until I was immunized to every manmade disease imaginable! In the meantime, my new Mom was required to raise her right hand and take an oath in front of a sheriff, promising never to let me out of her house! That rule sucks! But hey, no hard feelings!

Feline Toilet Training: If you adopt a cat instead of a dog, you never have to interrupt your daily White House briefings to walk your pet with a leash for that compulsory Exercising-While-Peeing-On-Fire-Hydrant routine. On the other hand, if you accidentally locked a cat overnight in your Oval Office, your oval carpet will continue to retain the smells of all the 43 ex-Presidents intact! To give you an example—I was brought home with great pomp and show from the shelter on the day I was adopted! Little did I know that my Mom had forgotten to keep a litter box ready for me! She did not even know what kitty litter was, and could not imagine that a furry bundle like me would like to take a dainty leak occasionally! So, I threatened to poo…I’ve got to use my executive language here….I mean defecate by ‘pretending’ to set my rear on her spotless sofa. That’s when she panicked and went shopping to purchase my toiletries. I waited for hours and hours holding on to my tiny bladder, not wanting to betray my new family’s trust by percolating everywhere. I could have technically gone bonkers and sprayed in all the rooms of my new home, but no! Tabbies like myself are highly refined and sophisticated. Mom arrived 4 hours later from Walmart with a large container that looked like a coffin and set a tray with kitty litter spread inside. As soon as she set my furry posterior in, I relieved myself for what seemed like eternity! There's an elegant cat for you!

Beauty and Charm: Cats have been seducing humans for centuries with the mere flick of a paw or a lick with that pink tongue! Mr. Obama, let me make a deal with you—since I cannot guarantee that any other tabby will be as beautiful as me, please feel free to invite me, Poppy Sharma, over to the White House for just one month. My parents can work out this sweet arrangement with you since it is my patriotic duty to help my President in this hour of petty needs.

I am quite a charmer, and by the time I am done displaying my feline wares at your First House, you will veto every bill in sight just to be with me! Marketing myself to the Sharmas was not an easy task since my life depended on it! Cats are supposed to come equipped with “nine lives,” but I somehow exhausted at least eight of them in quick succession! In one month, I had gotten myself into series of catastrophic calamities that were enough to have me de-clawed and de-adopted, if not for my Mom's crush over me! My naughty resume at that time looked something like this:
*Snagged a claw behind hot refrigerator!
*Hung precariously from a curtain rod, only to discover that the nearest piece of flat land was 20 feet below!
*Chased a large cat around the block, until both of our directions reversed by 180 degrees!
*Dangled myself with my collar from a hook until I dropped down naked, i.e., no more collar. It’s funny how one thin neck collar alone can dress or undress pets!
*Disobeyed Mom, jumped over the fence to chase a black cat, got lost in Coyote land for several minutes, only to be found by Mom, cowering under a bush. Mom tried to grab, but deranged kitty scratched his own Mama’s arm bloody, after which she brought me back home by my scruff and whacked my disobedient tooshie, which I dodged successfully due to my tremendous speed and agility! Nowadays, Mom takes me out only with a leash….I may be the only cat in this city who is walked with a leash!

Amazingly, to make up for my indiscretions, all I had to do was purr and meow my Mom into believing that she was at fault for accidentally leaving the backdoor open! Moms can be such naïve simpletons!

If I have persuaded you with this convincing piece of Kitt-Lit, it shows how a learned cat like me can change the mind this country’s first Black President, who won a historic election to the White House from the same state as Abraham Lincoln! Here’s what I will do for you, since I am ready and able to hold the offices of kitty cabinet from Day 1:

*Upon arriving at the White House on Air Force One, (which I assume is going to be the mode of transportation for the First Pet, albeit a temporary pet), I shall get to work immediately to clear entire 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue of any pesky rats that may be equipped with Russian spy cameras!

*Then, I shall aspire for nothing less than to sleep in that famous Lincoln bedroom for my 18-hour siestas. This will be followed by 3 hours of intense self-grooming, since I believe in putting my best salivated paw forward at all times.

The picture below proves that I am the legendary naturally-tuxedoed Mackerel Tabby! See the "M" on my forehead! One of my ancestors supposedly kept Baby Jesus warm, although I personally like to keep myself warm before catering to others’ needs.

As you can see below, I also look amazing on my Mom’s lawn!

I would have looked taller, if only my Dad had mowed the lawn!

Therefore, 2 hours of my day will be spent on White House lawns, providing ample photo-ops to your esteemed WH Press. I hear they have nothing better to do most of the year! The First Family’s mutual admiration club meetings will have to be crammed into the remaining 1 hour in the middle of the night, during which time you and Mrs. Obama along with your two girls shall be allowed to pet my head, strictly limiting your hand movements between my ears, never to venture below my shoulder blades at all times. To this act of affection, I shall reciprocate miserly with a tender caress using all 24 whiskers, accompanied by a constant vibrating purr, to which you will respond with an adequate “Oooh” and “Awww”, both not to exceed 30 seconds each.

*My chow time can be demanding since I am finicky about specific flavors. Sure, we kitties have never seen an ocean or a river for generations, but our taste buds crave for nothing but the best freshwater Salmon and the moistest Ocean Whitefish Tuna Entrées. My Mom, who happens to be a vegetarian (no wonder she lacks brawn…or is it the brain?), spends at least an hour down on her knees in the Pet aisle, searching for those exact flavors requested by me! Please instruct your White House Chef to prepare pâtés of my choice and serve them on crystal pedestals.

*As a bonus, I promise to defend you from those VIP Heads of States coming from any of the Axis-of-Evil nations or other rogue countries. In the blink of an eye (assuming you can blink like Ms. Palin), I will charge at their expensive Dolce Gabbana shoes from underneath the conference table at 200 miles/hour, and then immediately bolt back to my plush bed! This unprovoked attack combined with uncalled-for intimidation from a menacing kitty should keep them wincing in sheer fear and succumb to all your demands!

At the end of my term, I demand that you send me back to Mama Sharma’s in a Presidential limousine, followed closely by your famous secret service motorcade. Come to think of it, I believe I am entitled to a lifetime of security since I will be known as the Ex-First Pet! That should keep my neighbor’s Rottweiler at bay!

I hope this humble, down-to-earth, modest, unassuming cat has proselytized you into worshipping felines forever, and I hope you have been sufficiently brainwashed into believing that dogs have no place whatsoever in the Obama White House.

Your Audaciously Hopeful Kitty,

Poppy Sharma

Meow! Please check my other imposing portraits taken by my adoring fans below:

1. Adorable Acrobat doing the California-style sunbathing on stairs!

2. The Nimble Twinkle-pawed Dancer!

GUILT-FREE JAMUN FOR DIWALI

2008-10-21T15:14:00.001-07:00

This blog was originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

GUILT-FREE JAMUN FOR DIWALI

My friends, it has been a long time since I posted a good functional recipe. It’s not because I am gastronomically challenged; quite the contrary. Yours truly is a highly sought-after chef! I am just not keen on elaborating exactly who all are seeking me, but suffice to say that two of the neediest and the most charming people I know appreciate my constant presence in the chef’s corner, which happens to be nestled right in between my living and dining rooms—darn it!

I frequently experiment with various recipes and techniques without reservations. In fact, my kitchen is a veritable laboratory of everything that is a health-nut’s dream! I possess every tool that was invented, discovered, rediscovered, reinvented, or pulled off the market by experts who have nothing better to do, or have some of the smartest moneymaking schemes out there! Sadly, I always fall for their tricks! I have to admit that not all of the tools / gadgets in my kitchen perform to my expectation or imagination.

Not so this time! A few months ago, I was taking a stroll through a large pharmacy. I fortuitously wandered into an array of kitchen gadgets elegantly displayed on the shelves. Hidden among a dozen non-stick skillets was a special pan that brought back a flood of memories from my childhood! It was a cast-iron skillet / pan with seven holes in it—a pan that I had resisted purchasing in India several times. I used to dread carrying it all the way to US in my overburdened suitcase. Nevertheless, I had been dreaming about it for ages, hoping to savor those warm spherical sweet balls made with a mixture of rice + jaggery + banana. This time it was beckoning me from a shelf within my reach, right here in the US of A!

My husband is a very sweet man!

Why the sudden adoration? Hold on, it relates!

He accommodates all of my “essential” purchases, especially because he happens to be one of the two charming aforementioned chef-seekers. So, I walked out of the store that day with my new purchase and could not wait to decipher those numerous brainwaves bombarding me from the moment I saw the pan. All sorts of (hypothetically) delicious fat-free goodies crossed my mind! I could visualize them roasting on my new ‘holey’ skillet…cholesterol-free…well baked until brown…piled high on a plate, surrounded by all sorts of dips and chutneys.

On the top of my list of likely candidates was the non-fried Vada. It was a hit!

The next one to follow was Potato Bonda….yum!

The Onion Pakora….so-so, but I refuse to blame ‘The Holey One’ for it!

Confident after a series of successes, I embarked on attempting my first dessert recipe— The Guilt-free Jamun. You have probably never heard of it. It’s not your fault because this one took birth just this last weekend…in my kitchen. I am sharing it fresh off my oven, sizzling hot!

Before beginning my culinary demonstration below, first let me say to any self-respecting Jamun lover out there who is cringing at the thought of a ‘non-fried’ jamun instead of the usual deep fried, thick, gooey, sticky, syrupy ones that he/she may have relished over the years—hold on to your judgmental horses for one moment here! The one I am proposing is no ordinary jamun! It has a noble purpose, and it tastes heavenly, if I should say so myself! This particular Diwali recipe is being conveyed with great affection and best wishes from the bottom of my concerned heart to yours, via your clogged arteries and veins. Seriously, it is time to flush out some of your accumulated cholesterol with a few non-fried-non-tried versions of some of our traditionally popular Indian delicacies.

Without further adieu, here is my recipe for The Guilt-free Jamun:

Firstly, you are better off purchasing a nonstick skillet as shown below. However, your grandma’s old cast iron skillet will do, i.e., if you know how to extricate yourself from sticky situations.

The Actual Ingredients and Procedure:

One packet of any commercial Jamun mix.

A half cup of milk powder, also known as dry milk or dehydrated milk. The purpose is to stiffen the jamuns so they can withstand the upcoming onslaught of heat, syrup, and what not.

Sugar syrup needs to get going! So, depending on your taste and consistency for your syrup, measure approximately 3 to 4 cups of water and equal quantity of sugar in a large pot and start boiling. After about 25 minutes, once the syrup is ready, add powdered cardamom and rose water for flavor.

Next, place the skillet on your stove at very low heat. This being cast iron; the skillet will heat up uniformly and retain the heat consistently throughout the process. If you have the nonstick kind, make sure you spray or spread regular vegetable oil all over the holes while heating. A little goes a long way.

Mix the dry ingredients delicately with a tablespoon of softened low fat or nonfat shortening (like Crisco), using a fork. Then start adding a cup of water (or as needed) until you form a (cake) batter…not a dough!!!

Pay attention here….this is the trick to baking on the Holey Skillet! The batter should be about the consistency of Idli batter… thick but droppable with a spoon. The reason for this watery consistency (unlike those Jamun balls you are used to making) is because the batter has to adhere to the pan and swell, but the top of the ball should NOT start drying yet! A dry jamun will not bake well on a skillet!

Hope you have already sprayed vegetable oil on the hot skillet before the next step. Now go ahead, pick a generous dollop of the batter, and drop into each hole. A reasonably low heat is the key. Once the bottom has finished browning, you can gently turn the balls around with chopsticks, toothpicks or just about anything pokey you can find, and bake the other side. This time, since you were carefully following my instructions, the jamun hopefully has enough wetness to adhere to the pan and cook well on the other side. Try not to turn over too early because you want them to brown well.

When both sides are browned, gently drop the jamun balls into the syrup. They soak the syrup and fatten up pretty fast!

If you have followed my instructions diligently, here’s what your non-fried, nonfat, heart-healthy jamun should look like:

Yeah I know! You are probably wondering—why so many variations of brown? Friends, this is what I call ‘Jamuns without racial, ethnic, or cultural differences, all uniting for one cause, which is to satisfy those who are discriminating connoisseurs of ethnic gourmet delights of color”!

Okay, that's a mouthful, but here’s the truth!

Well you see Sir/Ma’am….I goofed!

I was too eager to peek under several of the jamuns while they were still happily baking, just to see what they looked like! In the process, each of the light-skinned jamuns had been unceremoniously lifted off their uncooked bottoms! This explains the lighter shades of brown. Do not worry; they tasted just fine!

Anyway, coming back to the final stages of my recipe—serve these jamuns “delicately” into cups along with some syrup. I cannot stress the word “delicately” enough! These jamuns are highly sensitive to touch and movement! I have never met a more temperamental jamun before!

Do not lose hope! They taste just the same as your grandma’s fried jamuns! I PROMISE! Devour them up promptly! They will all vanish along with your guilt before you can wish—

“Happy Diwali and Deepavali to One and All!”

AM I WORRYING ENOUGH?

2008-10-16T14:19:00.000-07:00

This blog was originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

Copyright © 2008 Ranjini Sharma All Rights Reserved

AM I WORRYING ENOUGH?

Is there something I do not know?

What I do not know cannot hurt, right?

Should I simply worry anyway?

AM I WORRIED STIFF?

Last Monday (Oct 6, 2008), I woke up very early to turn on the TV for my early morning ‘breaking’ news. Let’s face it, that’s the only way we get news in

America

. It breaks all day! Some channels permanently display red bold italicized “BREAKING NEWS” on the left side of the screen to keep us in a perpetual state alertness! My calmness broke to smithereens a dozen years back when we first subscribed to CNN! Anyway, I turned on my TV while keeping only my left eye open, which is a good way to conserve whatever little sleep I have left without losing my level of wariness. I was only hoping to hear more Sarah Palin gaffes that morning! Let me be honest—I just cannot get enough of her!

Instead, Jim Cramer of CNBC’s ‘Mad Money’ program was on NBC’s early morning show looking grim! With eyeballs wide open, jovial Jim actually looked serious! Peering straight into morning anchor Ann Curry’s eyes, he said, "Whatever money you may need for the next five years, please take it out of the stock market…... Right now…... This week. I do not believe that you should risk those assets in the stock market."

She looked shocked and asked him again, “Are you paw-sitive?”

“Yes,” he nodded, looking morose!

I noticed my husband walking past the TV carrying his toothbrush from one bathroom to another— a ritual he does every morning.

“Is he correct,” I asked, wondering why hubby was not as perturbed as I was.

“Don’t worry, we’re okay,” he said calmly. Strangely, that was all I needed to continue with my regular channel-surfing-while-napping routine. I quickly flipped through ABC, CBS, CNBC and CNN to see if ‘Sarah the Maverick’ was on any of them. Nah uh! Instead, bald headed highly wrinkled men occupied all corners of split screens, talking in terrified tones. In one voice, they all concurred with old Jimmy’s dismal fiscal predictions. It had an eerie semblance to 911 or the first day of Iraq war! Their bloodshot sleepless eyes forced my right eyelid wide open!

My husband walked the opposite direction this time carrying the electric shaver back to the first bathroom. He was simply too calm! It did not seem healthy!

The stock markets in Asia had started plummeting and the one on Wall Street had no idea what was in store for them that day. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had just appointed Neel ‘Cash Carry’ as “the” person to oversee the 700 billion dollar bailout of America. 700 billion was quickly upgraded to a trillion!

“They simply will not have a rescue program in time to save America. No one knows how to fix it. Let’s face it – we were wrong! It is now a global crisis!” said one Harvard professor.

“Can you pack lunch,” rang hubby’s voice from the second bathroom. Somehow, I had missed his return pilgrimage back from the first one.

“I think we are missing something,” I complained. “Aren’t we too serene, tranquil, unperturbed….? I cannot believe we are going about our daily routines without a second look at those esteemed economists who are predicting dire consequences!”

“Pour the coffee into the thermos and pack a snack for late afternoon. Cut out the Rusk and carrots for today. I have a dental appointment.” The sonorous voice of hubby came from deep inside one of the closets.

By the time I turned on the coffee maker, there was breaking news on top of breaking news! This time the bearded guy came on CNN announcing that

Iceland

was filing for bankruptcy!

Iceland

It’s a country!

Supposedly, they did fine as long as they were hauling smelly fish from high seas. But the moment they got the smell of wealth, they ended up freezing assets instead of fish.

This story was barely under way when another breaking story broke the one that was in the process of being broken!

A man in Los Angeles had shot his entire family and then himself over the weekend due to his financial woes! Turns out, he was from India…South India to be precise! This was hitting too close to home! This guy was so worried, he simply decided to eradicate his family! And yet….and yet people around us carried on as if nothing had happened. I looked out the window to see if my home was the only one standing on our street. Nope! The neighbors’ walls were visible! Men and women in crisp ironed clothes walked in and out their front doors collecting their morning newspapers and jumping into their cars leaving for work. There were gas-guzzling SUVs, gleaming Porches, boring BMWs and dusty Toyotas rolling by as always. There were kids in expensive Nikes and trendy clothes waiting to catch their school buses. There were ducks fighting over whatever ducks normally fight over.

Where was the frenzy? Are they hurting? They said so on TV! There should be moving trucks and for-sale signs up and down the street! However, it was an ordinary morning so far!

But…but, wasn’t I already worried? There have been plenty of things to worry about, lately! The fact that America is in turmoil was not lost on us. Believe me, that’s all we have been talking about for the last 3 years around our dinner (and breakfast) table. My very own bespectacled hubby, Mr. Microprocessor, had been breaking it to me slowly over the last few years that the US was hurtling towards an economic debacle that would result in a deep recession, mired in global credit crisis, all due to the home foreclosure crisis! Yes, Mr. MP had kept me in a steady state of ‘worriedness’ all along. Most of our dinner table conferences were dedicated to keeping our ‘worry reflexes’ alive and kicking.

I wonder whether the guy who killed his family ever consider summoning his wife and kids for a conference around their dinner table to dish out his deepest worries. “My Dear Family, I was thinking of two options here for our future –

1. Would you prefer living on a little farm outside Apple Valley where you can milk your own cow and grow your own vegetables for the rest of your lives, OR 2. Would you prefer a high-speed ballistic missile aimed at your innocent unsuspecting heads so you never have to worry about anything again?”

I bet his family would have quickly opted for the first one..... after calling their family psychiatrist!

Mr. MP and I had listened to everything our respective papas taught us—“ live within your means, stretch your arm no further than your sleeve will reach (Walmart clothes fit better in this regard compared to Abercrombie and Fitch), stretch your legs according to your coverlet (this one sounds better in Kannada), he who gathers money little by little makes it grow (a savings account in a standard bank is the way to do it), save for an icy day (I think they said rainy, but what’s the difference?), do not keep up with the Joneses (unless they are jogging around the park)”...and on and on.

Feeling secure that we had made no financial blunders, I conveniently switched all of my mind’s worrying channels towards other pressing issues ranging from the humdrum to the paramount!

My humdrum list of worries on any given day looks like this:

- At lunchtime, worry about rising cost of food forcing schools to cut down on number of pizza slices our kids can eat during lunch

- At 3:00 PM, worry about shoddy substandard high school science and math curriculum

- At 5:30 PM, while driving son back to school for football match, worry about being stuck behind a slow riding bicyclist, peddling at 10 miles/hour on that long stretch of single lane byway, with son egging me from the backseat to drive faster

- At 7:00 PM right after a heavy dinner, start worrying about what to eat for tomorrow’s lunch

- At 11:45 PM when lights are off, worry about increasing gas prices forcing soccer moms to give up their mini vans and switch over to mini coupes instead

- Occasionally throughout the day, worry about pending work, incomplete projects, piling laundry, dirty dishes, browning lawn, diabetes, cholesterol and my cat jumping at me from underneath the sofa scaring my daylights out!

My paramount list of worries looks like this (in no particular order of time or urgency, because these are going to last a lifetime):

- Worry about healthcare unavailability for the elderly (parents i.e.)

- Worry about healthcare unavailability when we become elderly

- Worry about teeming numbers of humans wiped out due to food shortages resulting from increased ethanol production

- Worry about hungry polar bears starving and dying due to global warming

- Worry about apes and elephants being driven out of their habitat by rogue humans

- Worry about substandard high school science and math curriculum again, in case I run out of newer things to worry about!

Yes my friends, my trough of worries is already overflowing. Now they tell me that I should turn up the floods a notch! I am already exhausted! Just 10 days ago, I was so worried about the 700 million dollar bailout package that I called all my local Representatives and Senators and urged them to vote no, or else risk losing my vote! Within 5 days, one Senator actually replied back with a letter justifying his approval of the biggest bailout in American history! (I am attaching it below).

His letter genuinely tried to comfort me.

Not sure if he succeeded because I am now worried about what it is that I am NOT worrying about! Have to add that to my checklist!

Loose ‘N Lose

2008-09-28T15:38:00.000-07:00

This blog was originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

Loose ‘N Lose

Will the correct word please stand up?

“To loose or not to lose” is not really a legitimate question!

In fact, it could be grammatically or dramatically incorrect depending on your sad predicament! Today, I will give you plenty of examples to clear up your uptight mind just in case you have been an innocent perpetrator of this hideous mix-up. An extra ‘O’ is all it takes to lose a loyal reader and make a mockery of a serious writer! The writer in you could simply be trying to describe a personal loss. Let’s face it; losing anything is a tragedy, and I can completely empathize with you. However, when you start sprinkling ‘O’s generously without any self-control, you may be forcing me to laugh at you! I will never lose sleep trying to decipher your literary masterpiece if you happen to lose your train of thought right in the middle of your story. But when you use “loose” instead of “lose”, it tells me loud and clear that your train’s main compartment is misplaced! Sadly, your loose interpretation of this complex language leaves me with the impression that you are simply engaging in some loose talk! Many competent writers make this comedy of errors all the time. I admit, I do not have any expertise in advising you one way or the other. I am not an authority on lost words or souls. For all you know, by the time I reach the end of this blog, I could be losing this battle of words. I am a humble engineer who has learned her English loosely.

If I am already losing you with my jargon, just loosen up and stay with me. On the other hand, if I am loosing you, that means you were on my leash, and now I am letting you escape! To lose a dog makes one sad, but a loose dog makes everyone mad! For a moment, forget the dictionary’s definition of these two italicized words. It can be ‘o’ so perplexing, if not totally frustrating. Allow me to help you in my own unschooled way. Let’s not lose any more time since a loose watch can cost you in time and dime.

Repeat after me—“Lose” indicates loss, while “loose” indicates relaxed unrestrained slackness (when loosely translated). You could be a loser if you exchange one for the other! You could actually lose a lot by just losing an 'O'! It is perfectly romantic to lose your heart, but never ever lose your head. A loose head is that ghastly sight one gets to see at the gallows when someone is trying to hang loose. A loose head is a lost life, but a loose heart can always be transplanted by a heart-lung machine or by someone else’s compatible heart. Just make sure you wait for that person to lose his/her life first before yanking the healthy heart out. Or else, you could be party to murder! To lose your mind is less gory. If you lose your marbles you will only exhibit strange forgetful behavior, but totally losing it is pure insanity on the loose! If that happens, just loosen up those bulging veins in your neck and cool down a little. Your loose tongue can result in loss of face in a public place, but being a loose cannon makes you into a reckless individual who can send a head flying (along with the torso). Loss of face is a lot harder to replace than a loose face. A loose face simply requires plastic surgery to tighten up those loose ends. However, you may lose a shirt while indulging in such a costly procedure. I am not talking about loose buttons here. Loosening of the strings may be responsible for loss of buttons leading to loss of modesty, but loosening your purse strings for plastic surgery can really send your loose change down the drain. Loosening the pipes is not going to help retrieve your money. In fact, it may end up costing you more than that loss of face in the first place. It’s a lose-lose situation anyway you look at it.

It doesn’t take much to lose your balance. Although leaning against a table with a loose screw will do the job pronto, it’s the unstable screw in your head that really speeds up the process. This sudden loss of verticality can also happen when you lose consciousness. It is not the same as a loose state of consciousness, which indicates loss of awareness, which may result in you losing your character! A loose character has to lose character first in order to become the loose one!

No point losing one’s hair over it; just tighten up your moral restraint if you do not want to lose your honor or integrity.

Speaking of losing hair—we all know that loose hair is the primary cause for hair loss. Trying to reverse the process may require the use of stiff glue! Loosely put, you could stick loose hair back to your scalp by arranging tufts of tresses with an adhesive to cleverly to cover-up the loss. Make sure you use a good quality adhesive if you do not want to lose your hair all over again. You could achieve a natural look and save money by picking up your own fallen hair off the bathroom floor and sticking it back to your head. Do not forget to give it a good wash with shampoo and conditioner before permanently bonding it to your scalp. Or else, you may end up looking like a dust bunny!

To look good, you also need to lose weight. Please do not tell me that you go to the gym to loose weight! It sounds a bit radical because it means that you literally dropping blubber all over the gym’s floor. A slippery floor is a health hazard. Dropping loose weights can also break bones! So, try to lose your weight the old-fashioned way through diet and relaxed exercises. Laxness always helps to bring your blood pressure down. Uncontrolled laxness, however, can bring more than just your BP down. In fact, it can be downright embarrassing in public! For example, it is hard to tell if a lax towel is worse than a loose bowel. You could quickly use the same towel to mop up that mess, but if you lose your bowel, you need to look for a surgeon urgently.

If you lose your edge, you could lose your job. Let your inhibitions loose and try a new profession. You can never loose a job unless you are the moron who let go of the rope harness that dangled you precariously from the side of a building, while you were on the job as an exterior painter. Loss of height in this case invariably leads to prolonged unemployment. Immobility due to broken bones needs immediate medical attention. When you lose motion this way, describe your plight to the medical personnel accurately. Please, for heaven’s sake, do not make a bad situation worse by using the word ‘loose’ here! Believe me, diarrhea is not exactly your worry in that sorry state! Verbal amnesia could cause further vexation.

This brings us to the end of today’s lesson. My friends, I was only trying to help. I hope you will never lose sight of the enormous difference between loose and lose. If you still think you are loosing sight, just pop your eyeballs back into their sockets!

I think I will break loose and vamoose before you lose your temper. On the other hand, if you have a loose temper, then I need to duck and take cover! No point losing sanity over this stupid old language!

Bye! Hold on.........by the way, I got a note from Sulekha telling me that this blog has been showcased! But guess what.....I have been searching all of Sulekha's popular showcases, but I have not found this poor blog anywhere! Watch out, Loose 'N Lose is one the loose somewhere!
Check this note from The Team:

Sulekha Network

Sub: Your blog entry has been showcased on Sulekha Blogs

Dear R-Sharma,

Your blog entry Loose 'N Lose has been showcased in the Category Featured Blog Entries on General Blogs

Thank you for being a star blogger on Sulekha Expressions! We hope you keep posting on Sulekha Blogs with the same enthusiasm and fervour!

A Letter from the White House!

2008-09-28T15:36:00.000-07:00

This blog was originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

A Letter from the White House!

The doorbell rang. It was the postal woman!
Normally, she would drive up to our driveway and deposit letters in our mailbox. This was probably something important! As soon as I opened the door, she pushed a large brown envelope into my hands. With a beaming face, she started pointing to the ‘From” address. The words jumped out at me!!

THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, DC 20502

I was thoroughly surprised and quickly opened it. However, I was extra careful not to rip it in haste because one never knows when such approbations may come in handy. Inside was a large portrait of the then (and the current) President of United States, Mr. George W. Bush himself! Along with his photo was a neatly typed letter stamped with the President’s golden White House seal! Why did the President of United States suddenly mail a letter clearly addressed to us? Was he wooing us back? How did he know that we had just jumped ship from being loyal to his Republican Party to becoming Democrats? It took me a while to recall the origins of that letter!

It all started in the year 2000 when my parents were visiting

USA

to spend a few months with us. A month before their scheduled departure back to India, my son pleaded with them to stay. My parents tried to pacify the sad eight-year old by explaining that they had to return before their visas expired. Casually or jokingly, they instigated this idea that President Bush alone could help them stay, if he wanted! That was enough—my son quickly researched the postal address of the White House. He wasted no time tearing a piece of 4x5 inch paper and writing a letter to the President of the United States of America! Using just a regular pencil and a regular kid’s slapdash handwriting, he explained exactly what his grandparents needed to remain in the United States legally—quite simply the President’s permission! I remember him licking a stamp and mailing it immediately. Sadly, my parents returned to

India

shortly thereafter and everything was forgotten, until the year 2001 when this envelope arrived from Mr. Bush himself addressed directly to my son’s name on the outside. The letter made absolutely no reference to my son’s earnest request. Instead, it was written to a ‘Dear Student” with some general advice and good wishes. The White House office had sent a generic reply simply by judging my son’s letter on handwriting alone, and not the content!

My son was excited nonetheless! We all were! I carefully framed the letter, envelope and the portrait on my wall. It was an instant attraction inviting curious glances and doubts from my guests. “No, I am not a Republican” always seemed to put them at ease!

Fast-forward a couple of years—I decided to take a Digital Imaging class at a local college. Among the projects requiring a formal in-class presentation was one assignment asking students to improve an existing portrait using Adobe Photoshop. The large photo on my wall was quite naturally my first pick! How could I miss it? I scanned it into Photoshop and instantly instantiated Mr. George W. Bush into digital format on my screen!

There he is! Would you look at that smile!
Well, I had to get to work!
Using Photoshop’s zoom lens, I wasted no time magnifying and scanning Mr. Bush for imperfections! After all, that was my project’s agenda! This photograph was the perfect specimen for my debut as the President’s personal digital make-up artist. With all due respect to the President, his face was badly in need of re-touching. His image…ahem…the photo had a lot of potential for improvement. An attractive appearance easily leads to higher approval ratings on any given day! I was going to restore this hard working executive to his pre-election visage when he probably had more time to groom himself in relative peace. Keep in mind that back then September 11 had not happened. But Mr. Bush’s face was already showing signs of stressful wear and tear!

His photographer, no doubt, had done a great job with his camera. The high-resolution photo gave me tons of pixels to peer through and decipher. I moved my digital

glass all over the President with great reverence and a dash of nosiness! Right off the bat, I discovered tiny hair growth under his nostrils! He must have rushed from his dressing room to the Oval office in a hurry for this quickie session with the photographer! I would have recommended my Dad’s old-fashioned razor for a closer shave, but he probably used an electric shaver. Further inspection of Mr. Bush’s face revealed several superficial blemishes. On that day, the President definitely had an oily face. A thorough wash with Mysore Sandal soap would have solved that problem in a jiffy!

Then I zoomed straight into his grin. His teeth! Didn’t his mommy tell him to brush and floss twice a day? He had yellowish teeth and was in urgent need of a teeth whitener! Closer zooming revealed a dirty little secret! One front tooth was shorter than the other! Call me fussy, but I was only following classroom instructions to discover deformities!

Hovering over his head, I discovered a sorry state of affairs! Many creases and wrinkles were visible on his forehead and below his eyeballs. His eyes were reddish and his eyebrows were "Bushy"! If there was ever an eyebrow badly in need of shaping, this was it! I even found signs of gray in there!

That faint (dull) twinkle did not fool me! Even though the country was not yet in a war, he already looked too wary!
I wonder what his close-up portrait of 2008 looks like! With all those political analysts haranguing him in the media, with military commanders confusing him thoroughly during his daily briefings, and with the rising US death toll….those rumpled crow’s feet under his eyes must be as cavernous as his Vice President’s subterranean approval rating!

Well Sir, I present Mrs. Sharma to your rescue!

BACKGROUND MODIFICATION:
Using Photoshop’s ‘Magic Wand’ and ‘Quick-Mask’ tools, I started to work on Mr. Bush’s background….I do not mean his background, since that would require a behemoth remodeling, starting from his upbringing to his current qualifications, which is the work of his Creator only! I simply focused on enlarging the US flag so it gets more attention. I brightened and sharpened Old Glory’s Red, White and Blue. I ‘Texturized’ the fabric with ‘Burlap’ to reflect its strength.
One should never lose sight of a person’s background because it puts the onus on the real object in focus—Mr. Bush…i.e., his photo, I mean.
I was planning to use paintbrushes and colors to camouflage most of his flaws; but the procedure has a tendency to stain anything in its proximity. Improving his image and correcting his imperfections without blemishing the flag was not an easy task! So I had to separate him from the flag temporarily! Duplicates of the original Mr. Bush were created. The ‘Clone’ tool was easier to work with compared to the real person.

I waved the ‘Magic Wand’ to select Mr. Bush’s neck minus his hair, so I could blur all signs of aging and return it to its youthful state. After all, only a strong neck can support a heavy head. Then I brightened up his necktie to match the color of the flag. He had a White collared shirt on. I toyed with the idea of giving him a Blue shirt using my ‘Paint Brush’ and ‘Color Palette’ to make him seem more approachable to the Blue-collared workers of America. But then, remembering his dedication and loyalty towards Big Oil executives, I decided to retain the White collar instead. No matter how unpopular, a Digital Imaging software should only reflect the truth, as it cannot alter what’s inside someone’s heart!

FACE-LIFT TO REMOVE WRINKLES, SPOTS AND YELLOW COLOR:
Using the ‘Healing brush’, I set forth to work on Mr. Bush’s weathered face. He had many dark brown and red spots on his forehead! I should not blame him for all his flushed discoloration. Being the Demand..…er..…Commander-in-Chief, he is required to rouge up everything from the budget to deficit, and in between! I then used the ‘Patch’ tool extensively to cover lines, wrinkles and creases from forehead and from under both eyes, and a ‘Post-Wrinkles’ snapshot was created.
The History brush helped retouch areas that were responsible for producing the wrinkles. One should not go overboard when peeling layers. You never know what history can unravel! Areas of his oily skin were erased by grafting his own skin from less oily areas. Yellow lines and yellow hues were softened to give Mr. Decider a healthy glow. If only he had puffed using some good old Talcum powder before sitting down for this photo session, I would not be buffing this hard!

TEETH RECONSTRUCTION AND WHITENING PROCEDURE:
One incisor tooth in the front of Mr. Bush’s pearly ‘yellows’ was shorter than its counterpart. A slight gap appeared when he smiled. Since perfectly aligned set of teeth reduces the chances of fibbing between teeth inadvertently, I quickly reconstructed the shorter tooth by cloning its better-looking sibling!

White House chef may be able to explain the President’s diet. However, his yellowing was definitely not due to excessive turmeric in his food! I needed the Sponge tool dipped in baking soda to burnish his teeth and give it a natural brightness.

TWINKLING EYES: The President's eyes looked red and tired. I have heard that a healthy flooding of tears everyday may help wash off all talk-sins…sorry, I think I misspelled here…it should be toxins! But tear-generation may be challenging for Mr. Bush, since lachrymal glands require the right mix of empathy and compassion to get activated. Crocodile tears do not work well in this case. So I made it easy for him. With the swish of my ‘Dodge’ tool, I was able to add a slight sparkle to both eyes and restore the white. He can remain detached and unsympathetic for now!

HAIR-ERASING TECHNIQUES:
Strands of hair on the President’s forehead were yanked… along with the roots… to give his face a well-needed lift. His nose-hair had to be pulled out using the ‘Healing Tool’. Now it was time to erase his age! The leader of the most powerful nation on earth needs to keep his gray to demand some respect, just in case he loses it with misconstrued ideas. At the same time, he should not look so old that the aging population of

America

might start relying on him for moral support! In order to balance both issues, I decided to give him hints of gray without erasing the mousy browns.

EYEBROWS: Alas, if only I could use the good old Asian eyebrow threading technique on these bushes! But third-world ideas may not appeal to Mr. President. So, using the Patch tool, I reduced his bushy brows to give cleaner and leaner brows. You do not want any Bush to look mean, believe me! Using the Clone tool, I was able to remove the gray strands.

This was it! I stood back and looked at it one last time.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the new and improved George W. Bush!
First, a close-up……………

And now for the final unveiling! I had easily shaved 20 years from Mr. Bush!

Doesn’t he look absolutely fabulous and dandy!!

The next day, I took the whole ensemble back to my class. For comparison, I also carried the original framed portrait with me. I had prepared slides with all the images and my presentation went extremely well. The entire class erupted into chuckles and giggles all through my presentation. There were pats on my back from both Democrats and Republicans in that room. My Instructor could not control his appreciation. He declared that he would use my project as an example for his future Photoshop classes. The last time I checked, he was still using my project as a demo!

However, there was still one last portrait left! I did not even know it existed on my CD until I switched on my last slide! And boy was I surprised!! This one really brought the class to its feet that day for a standing ovation!

Let me explain…..

Unbeknownst to me, my cat had mysteriously added this last portrait into my presentation!

Yeah, my cat!! Poppy did it! Any doubts?

You see, while I was “Photoshopping” Mr. Bush’s face, my kitty was observing my every move keenly. He was a bit irritated every time I caressed Mr. Bush’s face with great deal of admiration! He did not seem to appreciate the idea that, I, a registered Democrat was spending so much time actually trying to improve Mr. Bush’s image and reputation! So, when I was not around, Poppy decided to embellish my project with his own two paws (as the third and the fourth are usually busy scratching).

Usurping my computer, Kitty knew exactly how to Re-Dodge, Re-Patch, Re-Hash, Re-Write-History and Re-Store Mr. Bush’s original image!

When he was done, he saved this file as “Demo-Cat’s Version” and burned it into my CD!

Innocently, I opened this file also during my class presentation. The whole class burst at the seams laughing and guffawing! Here is what they saw…

Poppy really went overboard with those highlighting tools, don’t you think? Well, it was too late! The whole world had seen it! Even the ‘Patch’ tool was incapable of fixing this cat-astrophe!

Wait! Hold on! My son is telling me something from downstairs….

”What is it Ani….speak louder? You mean to tell me that Poppy was not even born in 2001 when this portrait was created?!!”

Darn!

Can’t we blame a shoddy homework on an unborn pet anymore? What is this world coming to?

PANDORA'S POX!

2008-09-28T15:31:00.000-07:00

This blog was originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

Pandora’s Pox

This blog was Showcased and Featured on Sulekha August 5 2008

It was an ordinary Monday morning about six months ago.

Mr. Microprocessor (my hubby, i.e.) came downstairs for breakfast before leaving for work. I noticed that he had a forlorn look, which was accentuated by his unshaven face. As I was preparing coffee, I kept hearing a low moan and a tired groan coming from his general direction.

“Are you feeling well,” I asked, thinking he had a fever or some other discomfort.

“Come here and take a look,” he said, sticking his pink tongue out to my surprise!

He pointed his big finger to a minuscule little white speck on the side of his tongue. “That’s what’s bothering me,” he said.

His response to that speck’s sudden appearance seemed like an over-reaction, if you ask me! Frankly, it looked like a little piece of dry yoghurt or coconut sticking to the side.

“I think I will skip breakfast today,” he declared valiantly.

“Wow, this has never happened before,” I thought to myself, going about my early morning chores. Hubby continued staring at his laptop with the occasional audible huffs and puffs. It was getting past 9:00 AM, but he was not budging!

“I am not going to work today,” he disclosed.

“All for a speck,” I asked. He nodded.

Men are weak, I thought to myself. Their pain tolerance at times seems to be levels below that of a teething toddler! Women can hobble around with a painful knee plus a raging temperature and still produce a 2-course meal, albeit with reheated leftovers from the refrigerator!

A quick check of his temperature revealed nothing! There was no other visible sign of ailment.

Day 2 arrived as Mr. Microprocessor descended from the stairs looking more like a melancholic poet searching in vain for inspiration! His disheveled face peppered with hairy stubs was quite convincing. A quick check of his face and tongue revealed nothing!

“I do not feel like going to work again. But I am hungry today and my mouth is craving for some Moong Dal Jaggery Payasa* like my grandma used to make,” he said suddenly!

A tall order cooking like his grandma whom I have never met, but a healthy choice no doubt!

“While you are at it, also make that Spinach Moong Dal soup with Basmati Rice,” came a subsequent request.

Hmmm! Strange combination of symptoms, I thought. He was still groaning, but at least he had an appetite! I brewed both the concoctions according my standard recipe book and served. With a humphff and a grumff, he managed to eat reluctantly.

By Day 3, he realized that a visit to the doctor was mandatory. Before leaving, he placed a new lunch order for some spicy tangy Tamarind Soup and the same Moong Dal Jaggery Payasa* again!

I knew several diseases quite intimately, but never had I seen one that displayed no other symptoms but a white rash on the tongue and an appetite for gourmet food!

“Aye, aye Sir,” I said, as he set off to the clinic. An hour later, he was back with a smile on his face and a new level of energy!

“Thrush,” he declared. “That’s what it’s called! Let me research this damn thing!” All sources on Google indicated that it was an oral fungal infection.

However, two days of treatment with Thrush medications produced no results. Instead, he had suddenly developed red rashes all over his body, or so it seemed. Closer examination revealed that the rashes were mysteriously on the left half of his body only! He was up pacing the room all night in pain.

During the day however, he seemed to display extraordinary interests in unique and puzzling topics!

Let me explain.

Early that morning, Mr. Microprocessor, still maintaining the same frequency of groans, went straight to his laptop. There he was furiously researching not Thrush, but “Melkote Vairamudi Utsavam”!

***This is a festival which takes place in South India once a year with the town deity bedecked in brilliant diamond crown and chest armor. ***

It would have been understandable, if only the one gawking was not sitting thousands of miles away with red rashes waiting to be deciphered! Keep in mind that he has never shown any interest in diamonds or Vairamudi before! A long lecture on Vairamudi was immediately followed by a discourse on real estate, subprime lending and the foreclosure crisis in

America

I tried to be a patient listener.

By noon his Thrush was only getting worse! He had developed a couple of red boils on the left side of his face, especially on top of his lips!

That was it! I decided to drive him to the doctor myself and accompany him to the doctor’s room. However, this time his doctor had a perplexed look on his face. He disclosed that he might have been wrong the first time! This looked like a case of childhood Chicken Pox on the return. It had a new name in adults — “Shingles”! (Shingles is a disease that affects nerves and causes severe pain and blisters) Apparently, it only returns once in a lifetime to those who had Chicken Pox as children, and dominates only the left side of the body! My husband already had Chicken Pox as a kid!

“Nothing to worry! With a couple of tablets, you should feel fine in a day or two,” the doctor assured. “However, it is very contagious and sometimes downright dangerous to adults who never had Chicken Pox in their childhood. I hope your family has received Chicken Pox vaccinations by now!”

My husband replied immediately, “Our son has received all his vaccinations, but……...”

……..There was a pause while two pairs of eyes sluggishly turned towards me. I was sitting by the door looking timidly at both of them.

I NEVER HAD CHICKEN POX IN MY CHILDHOOD!

No poxed-up chicken had ever dared to cross my path! True, chickens have nothing to do with it, but who cares? I had been afflicted with every pestiferous malady known to modern humanity, except for the itchy CP! To add to the dilemma, I had no clue if I had ever been vaccinated for CP. From what I understood, there was no Chicken Pox vaccination available until the late 1980s! My childhood had expired long before that!

The doctor did not want to take any chances. Without a second look at my husband, all of his attention seemed to turn to me!

“We need to do a blood test immediately to see if your body is immune to CP. In the meantime, please keep your distance from our Shingles patient here. At home, do not use the same towels or share bed linens,” he advised.

One minute I was a nice healthy wife dutifully chauffeuring her ailing husband to the clinic, and the next minute I had been downgraded to a prospective patient who was going to be subjected to a test! To top that, I felt perfectly healthy!

Immediately after submitting my precious few ounces of vital fluid to the labs, we returned home as fast as I could drive. This time, I took over the laptop!

It was Google time, baby!

I started researching the following keywords—“Victims of Shingles”, “Chicken Pox in adults”, “Symptoms of CP in adults who were never vaccinated or afflicted by CP in childhood”, “Blissfully unaware of the existence of Chicken Pox”….and so on.

What I found on the Internet was alarming!

***************************************************************************

Each year, about 200,000 of the millions of people who contract chickenpox become seriously ill with complications such as pneumonia or encephalitis (inflammation of the brain). About 2,000 of these die. Adults who get chicken pox usually have a much more severe & prolonged case than children. The rate of hospitalization for chickenpox is almost 900% higher in adults than in children. Adults infected for the first time are more than 20 times likely to die from this disease. To avoid this, parents in US hold Chicken Pox parties just to get their kids infected when they are young!……Source Internet
***************************************************************************

I got up dazed and stupefied! Unknowingly, I had already spent many days under the same roof with Shingles, sharing the same linens under the impression that it was simply a misinterpreted case of white acne on the tongue! This could not be happening to me! I had always been a weak duckling! Oh, my sweet husband of 18 years and my angelic son of 16 years! How could I drop them like an overheated handle-less Cast Iron skillet and leave with a bang? I still had too much to do!

That afternoon when my son came home, we narrated the entire sad story. He looked at me with clenched jaws and questioning eyes. I knew he would worry about his mother’s health. After all, I was the only mom he had!

“Good that you told me! Now, can you both stay away from me for a few days until all this is settled? I have a school show to perform next week, and I don’t want no stinking Chicken Pox,” he said with a sweet apologetic smile! Double negatives tend show up during serious negotiations!

My blood test results had to wait for a few more days because of a couple of holidays in between. The incubation period if I had contracted the virus was about 6 to 12 days. A Skype call to my parents in India to inquire if I had ever received CP vaccinations revealed nothing new. They did not remember either.

The next few days at home looked like this –

Mr. Microprocessor’s red boils on the left side of his face were erupting into ugly puss-filled sores. Thankfully, because of his new medications, his aches and pains had already started to vanish and his appetite had greatly improved!

Sweet Six-teenager had Googled and Youtubed anything and everything that remotely sounded like Chicken or Pox! He knew he was immune, but he was not taking any chances! He started going around the house shamelessly practicing full-blown untouchability in broad daylight! He had turned the clock back fifty years! He inspected all surfaces and wiped them thoroughly with alcoholic wipes. He scrubbed down laptops, keyboards, steering wheels (since he was a new driver), and even bathroom faucets! If we had touched it, he had to wipe it! After taking all the necessary precautions, he finally turned to me with sad look in his eyes and asked, “You should have gotten vaccinated along with me! Nothing is going to happen to you, right Mom?” I knew he was a sweet soul somewhere behind his pimpled face.

During those days, I was moping around the house, dreading the arrival of that first rash, or worse - the brain fever! I knew it was only a matter of time. Instead of waiting for the inevitable, I decided to create a checklist of all the preparations one would reasonably make before embarking on any long journey…especially the kind where a return trip was not guaranteed! My list looked something like this in random order of importance –

1. “Write captions to all family photos starting from the year 1990 to 2008”.

2. “Post all home videos of son starting from his diaper days to his last week’s recital on Google for lasting memories”.

3. “Prepare enough Rasam and Sambhar powders to last for at least six months so that the two surviving men could prepare some good South Indian meals while continuing their mourning process on a full stomach”.

4. “Take hubby (boils and all) around the house for an informal tour to show where all the essential items were hidden”.

5. “Call parents, but pretend like everything’s okay”.

The day of my lab results arrived. My husband went along with me for his follow-up with the doctor. At this stage, the less said about his facial boils, the better — not a pretty picture! We walked into the clinic’s reception lounge and noticed that it was unusually busy. It was embarrassing walking in front of a seated audience knowing well that all eyes would be on the red boils and nothing else. To add to the discomfort, my husband was required to approach the front desk and make his presence known to the clerk (and everyone else!), which always seems to be at a higher decibel level than reasonably necessary. To my surprise, no one in the room lifted an eye! People seemed to be engrossed in their own worlds and no one noticed us. Feeling snug and secure, we huddled in one corner sofa, awaiting our turn.

“Mr. Sh…,” the nurse called. As hubby ambled past the crowded space, he greeted her with a resounding booming voice, “Hello, how are you?” Once again, nobody lifted a head, as he was ushered away into a room! This clinic was sensitive to patients' privacy.

I had to wait for my turn. After about 15 minutes, the nurse came out along with my husband and pronounced my name accurately. I got up eagerly hoping to listen to the blood test’s revelations behind closed doors. To my surprise, Ms. Nurse stood her ground like the Rock of Gibraltar facing the whole crowd seated in the lobby! Beaming ear to ear, she announced right there for all and sundry to behold, “Mrs. Sharma! Congratulations! You are immune to Chicken Pox! You are clean! Yippee!”

As soon as she uttered those words, every ailing man, chatting woman, snickering teenager, frolicking child and colicky infant who had hitherto been sitting dispassionately, suddenly turned towards me! Gritting my teeth, I blurted a “thank you” and turned around sheepishly to leave. As I walked across the room red-faced, several pairs of inspecting eyeballs followed me out the door. Walking right next to me was Mr. Microprocessor, smiling with his head up high, his boils up higher, and not a care in the world!

The pox was now back in the box!

Glossary:

Payasa: A sweet porridge or pudding. Kheer.
Moong Dal: A variety of split green beans.
Jaggery: Sugarcane extract. Equivalent of brown sugar.

CURTAINING THE MOSQUITO!

2008-09-28T15:27:00.000-07:00

This blog was originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

CURTAINING THE MOSQUITO!

(This blog was showcased in the Featured Blog Entries on Sulekha Blogs on Tue, May 20, 2008!)

This is Part 3 of my series on the subject of Itching, Twitching and Scratching.

Part 1 was titled “A TWITCH IN TIME SAVES AN ITCH!”
Part 2 was titled “MY REUNION WITH THE MOSQUITO!”

You can ingest each part independently without any ill effects. However, I beg and plead with you to not waste Parts 1 and 2 because they were lovingly formulated to provide you some vital nourishment, you poor bitten anemic souls! So, please don’t deny yourselves simple pleasures by starving!

Do, read! It ain’t easy making a living these days concocting humor. You will be supporting a noble cause! Me!

*******************************************************************************************

The Mosquito Net or the Mosquito Curtain is a remarkable work of art in my humble opinion. This canopy of delicate craftsmanship is a sanctuary and a safe haven for those who wish to seek refuge from the plundering ravaging serenading flying beasts called mosquitoes. The curtain’s sole purpose on this planet is to net these invincible insects. In the process, it promotes peaceful slumber around the infested world, particularly in Bangalore where sleep deprived residents do not have the energy to engage in daily aerobics, violence, or bloodshed. Besides, it does not contaminate the air and is environmentally friendly.

In the 1980s, my parents had moved to the outskirts of Bangalore into their brand new home with hopes of getting away from the population explosion and pollution of the bustling metropolis. But they ran smack into a wasteland where nothing went to waste, thanks to massive mosquitoes. Those were particularly vicious insects with commando style training. I had just joined Engineering at that time. Studying 15 subjects simply meant one thing…..I was in a constant state of rest, which appeals to most mosquitoes in constant state of motion.

Engineering Design and Drawing was a tough subject to tackle in particular. Trying to flick mosquitoes while sketching complex machinery results in dysfunctional designs. The perpetual twitching and itching drained my ability to concentrate. Whenever I had to tackle the most intricate part of the drawings, I would hear the familiar buzz next to my ear. If I ignored it, invariably I would receive a bite. If I lifted my freshly sharpened #2 pencil off my drawing sheet to scratch, I never knew where to continue again. Many times, desperation forced me to throw blows around mercilessly with my precious T-Square! It seemed like those mosquitoes worked double-shifts in that neighborhood, and I was determined to deny them their bloody wages. That is when I decided to use the mosquito curtain as my residence within the residence.

My parents innocently supported my idea of erecting a net permanently on their piece of real estate. What started as an escape during the late evenings on college days, quickly turned into a 24 hour incarceration during holidays! I would pile all my books under the net along with an electric fan. Food and drinks were either transported or supplied to the tent. I happily moved my drawing board and T-Square in there too! I wielded that 48 inch tool within the narrow confines of the tent like a Karate player. Never once did I drop it for an emergency itch. If my favorite TV show was coming up, viola, I was in the living room erecting my personal auditorium right on the family sofa! If I had a tough exam on my busy schedule, I was back into my own room with my portable study! The mosquitoes had no chance of getting to me. I was able to establish my portable domicile anywhere in the house, except the bathroom of course! Bathrooms and toilets were not the most favorite places for mosquitoes to hang around, thanks to the overwhelming smell of perfumed soaps or the lingering presence of other unsophisticated odors. Bangalore’s mosquitoes have highly evolved eclectic tastes.

My curtaining skills were nothing short of perfection. With four corners rigidly fastened to posts or anchors on the wall, it was a sight to behold! A proper upright net must not have a single sag or snag. The edges were neatly tucked underneath the mattress sides leaving no room for even a starving thin mosquito to squeeze in through any undiscovered hole. I thought of all possible ambush scenarios and took adequate precautions to defeat their every single pugnacious agenda! I even laid pillows around the border to keep a distance between my elbows and the curtain’s vertical walls. I did not want to inadvertently lend my elbow or arms to be nibbled from the outside, because at any given time of the day, there were families of refugee mosquitoes huddled on the net outside, waiting for me to fumble at least once.

Over the years, my curtain’s color alternated between pink and blue. This was to confuse those among the mosquitoes that were considered connoisseurs with discerning taste and an insatiable craving for gender specific diets. I could see dozens of frustrated and tired helicopters landing and taking off all day long. The working class mosquitoes were exploited for all their worth and they were putting in long hours. Their commanders were probably planning air raids to break down my fortress, but not a chance! If one qualified mosquito was dispatched to spy on my (in)activities under the curtain, I always had my Fluid Mechanics textbook ready to mash the juice out of him by dashing it on his head, which ensured instant death…not that there was a great deal of separation between his head and torso! (I have not met a female spy mosquito yet.) Of course, the result would be a bloody mess on the inner walls of my curtain. Sometimes my curtain would collapse partially due to the impact, but I was unflustered.

I celebrated the death of each one of them bugs with the cackle of an evil witch waiting for the next stubborn mosquito to fall into her cauldron. I never directly touched those mucky buggers because I abhor blood on one’s hands, especially mine. Once in a while, a highly agile mosquito was able to escape the ricocheted book from colliding with his slender body by lodging himself safely in one corner of the net. That brave mosquito would then be awarded my special punishment called the “Mushquito” treatment. For this to be properly rendered, I had to emerge from my curtain, which was a rare event in itself, and I would approach the mosquito’s resting place from the outside looking in. Other mosquitoes considered this as a sign of distinction and honor. They would stand aside and watch in hushed horror. Then, taking the two walls of the curtain in the palms of my hand, I would crush the mosquito to mush! I did not particularly enjoy this form of cruel and unusual punishment because it was essentially a double-edged sword. Cleaning this crime scene meant washing the curtain soon, which invariably denied me my habitat for 2 whole days until it dried. During summer however, residing under a wet curtain was a treat!

Every time there was a power cut, I would light up a candle or the kerosene lamp, if we had run out of batteries for the electric flashlight. The inflamed device would then ceremoniously enter my inflammable cotton or synthetic curtain without fear of fire or carbon monoxide poisoning! Such was my determination to keep my meager supply of the red vital sap to myself and deny the flying suckers their daily blood. But, I was not happy with my self-imposed incarceration. I wanted to be free to roam around the house without fear of persistent persecution by puny pests. I always had a penchant for innovative ideas. However, there was one crazy design that I fantasized for years. I called it the “Full-body Bridal Veil”. Being a Hindu girl, it was strange that I loved the Christian bride’s veil. Its mosquito curtain-like texture was what attracted me the most! Of course, visibility was an added attraction with netted fabrics. A Hindu bride’s Dharmavaram veil just couldn’t match with the gossamer airy quality of the Christian bride’s veil. What’s more; I wanted to wear it all day and I used to imagine myself going about the house, doing chores, studying wherever I wanted without having to set up a tent everywhere I went! Mosquitoes would have definitely declined blood from a bride who looked like this all day!

Cartoon By Ranjini Sharma

This idea, sadly, never became a reality due to insufficient time and resources. So I spent many years under the standard rectangular mosquito net—come heat or cold, power-cut or water-shortage, flies or guests etc. Speaking of guests, I would always emerge out of my abode for a brief moment, smile at them, exchange greetings hurriedly, and then hunker down in my tent. There was always a good excuse to escape, such as an upcoming test or an incomplete project. My escape kept me away from boring chit-chat as well. I could never understand how all other mortals could sit calmly around the living room jabbering while getting jabbed by that many mosquitoes!

When I finally completed my studies and emerged out of my protective cocoon, my parents recognized me as that mystical creature they had spotted at times, rushing from the kitchen to the bathroom like a fox chased by a bee! They had a homecoming party to celebrate that momentous occasion, even though I had never left their home!

Eventually, I got a job and immigrated to that part of

America

where I was able to peacefully coexist with plenty of other distinguished insects without the gustatory harassment by that discriminating bloodsucker called the Mosquito!

As I mentioned in my first blog, I have pickled a few more of my incredibly scratchy essays on the topic of Itching and Twitching. Hope to sooth your irritated membranes with my stories.

Part 1 was titled “A TWITCH IN TIME SAVES AN ITCH!”

Part 2 was titled “MY REUNION WITH THE MOSQUITO!”

MY REUNION WITH THE MOSQUITO!

2008-09-28T15:23:00.000-07:00

This blog was originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

MY REUNION WITH THE MOSQUITO!

Part 2 of my series on the subject of Itching, Twitching and Scratching.

Part 1 was titled “A TWITCH IN TIME SAVES AN ITCH!” Each part can be read independently although I highly recommend reading Part 1 in which I have tried to define the words “Itch”, “Twitch” and “Scratch” as accurately as humanely possible.

For the purpose of this blog, I would like to redefine the word “Itch” as a sudden sensation that forces a person start scratching shamelessly.

The word “Scratch” is a desperate attempt to massage and heal a recently delivered or preexisting puncture with the help of anything in sight.

The word “Twitch” basically means to dance before an itch. This word’s several incarnations will be discussed all through the series.

*************************************************************************************

How can I write an entire series on the subject of itching without attributing some of its painful contributions to the incomparable mosquito?

After living in

America

for several years, I can safely claim that I have never been bitten by a mosquito in this country. I personally have not even seen the silhouette of a mosquito here. All my memories of torture by the Insecta class are from my days in the famed city of Bangalore, or Bengalooru as it is called now.

Bengalooru is Boom Town, they say!

Old wine in new bottle, I say!

Bangalore just carried over its resident mosquitoes, pushing them forth into the new era without retraining them. My recent visit to Bengalooru exposed me to swifter biting machines that delivered stings even more expeditiously. Their meanness was apparent as soon as I landed at Bangalore International Airport. As I stood in the long line awaiting my turn at the customs, I received my first complimentary dose of insect propellant right through my thick Argyle socks.

Since I was encountering the mosquitoes after a long gap, I responded to their generosity with a curious mix of nostalgia and irritation. A particularly potent cocktail mix was delivered to penetrate my ankle. I prostrated at once to reach that spot! It was too late to twitch before this itch. Besides, ankles are not exactly twitchable! I was bending down to scratch with bare fingers at regular intervals since I did not have a tool sharp enough to attack that spot with accuracy. My fellow travelers assumed that my repeated obeisance was due to the joy of touching my motherland. I then tried to reach the itch with my other foot, but at least four of my co-passengers were curiously watching my odd hopscotch dance. So I ceased temporarily to think of something else. I had my passport and slippery customs declaration forms in one hand. My other arm was straining to cajole a dysfunctional cart laden with two and a half heavy suitcases.

Finally, I reached the customs officer’s desk. Just when he uttered the words “Can I see your passport please”, the recurring stinging sensation sent me descending down, defying gravity, right behind his tall desk. With a perplexed look, he must have wondered if I was desperately trying to sneak past all customs officials to escape into the wilderness of the metropolis, never to be found! But little did he know that I had snatched a wonderful pointy ink pen right off his desk and was busy scratching my ankle in full gusto!

Just as he was about to dispatch some unfriendly officers to locate me, I bounced right back up with his pen and a satisfied grin. I handed him all my documents.

Bangalore Customs

A Cartoon By Ranjini Sharma

My parents were at the airport to receive me.

After reaching home at 1:45 AM, we quickly exchanged vital pleasantries and got ready to hit the beds. Having received my first injection at the airport, I realized that my stay was not going to be as relaxing as I had originally hoped. However, I noticed that my father did not have a mosquito curtain over his bed. My mother too was settling down without any protection.

“Don’t you need mosquito nets,” I asked.

“We donated all the mosquito nets since we do not need them anymore! We do not have that many mosquitoes these days,” my father said from under the blanket.

“I agree,” sounded my mom’s muffled voice from the same place. They reassured me that I would not need a net either! The speed with which they tunneled under their blankets was unsettling. The stillness in their home was a bit eerie. I looked around the rooms with my eyes partially open to sharpen my focus. Not one mosquito in sight!

Dad’s strange choice of words, “not that many mosquitoes these days” reverberated inside my brain a couple of times. Why would they be willing to share their residence with even a few flying insects? Are mosquitoes simply too busy feasting on millions of locals to even care to bite foreigners. Feeling uneasy about the prospect of meeting an occasional visiting mosquito overnight, I went to bed without the net.

Back in the eighties, I used to reside in my mosquito curtain. I practically spent a majority of my teenage years underneath the net! I tackled engineering subjects from under there. My parents did not even know their daughter during all those years! When I finally emerged from my self-imposed cocoon, I was a changed animal. Soon after, I left town and my parents were left behind!

It was 2:45 AM when I suddenly heard high pitched music in the dark! “Strange,” I thought to myself, “Fusion is the latest rage, but this tune sounds familiar and old!”

It had a weird Doppler effect similar to an approaching Luna passing in front & departing gradually. Suddenly the music stopped! That’s when I felt the sting right on my left cheek! My left hand mercilessly rose up all by itself and slapped me! The rude awakening disclosed the reality—Mosquitoes were actually reigning the house. My poor parents were simply impervious to mosquito bites or probably too drugged to feel the pain.

I was not going to let another cunning mosquito bite me! They do not call me the ‘Queen of Twitching’ for nothing! Since it was too late to wake up Dad and ask for a net, I decided to improvise. Pulling the blanket right over my head, I tucked the sides of the shroud underneath my body to completely seal myself. The Acrylic blanket originally sent from America was essentially airtight and I felt like a warm Tortilla (it’s what they call a plain old Chapatti in Mexico!) stuffed with refried beans. Suddenly I sensed the sting of hot Salsa!

It couldn’t be! In my frenzy to roll myself, I had secured one lone mosquito snuggly under my very blanket! That was the beginning of an uncomfortable night. It first bit my forehead, and then nipped my right foot! I quickly opened one side of my blanket to let the raging stranger out of my tent. I could not tell if that lone ranger hung on to the inside of my blanket while I was shaking around. However by lifting my blanket, I had inadvertently invited a few more of his hungry siblings inside! They went right into business, hogging down on the choicest cheeks and the juiciest of my ten slender fingers, attacking them individually! I felt instantaneous lumps rising all over! I twitched and kicked, but to no avail. Critters wouldn’t budge!

When daylight finally arrived, I broached the subject of mosquitoes to my parents who seemed busier than usual with their morning chores. They avoided my gaze when I confronted them with true figures relating to the residential mosquito population.

With his mouth full of toothpaste, my dad asked one simple question, “What mosquito?”

My mom pretended not to be too concerned while stirring Upma (you know, it’s that nutritious wheat gruel from South India). “They don’t bother me! Am I not looking hale and hearty at seventy?” Her question was rational, but I wondered why they both seemed so blasé or even flaky.

Soon, it was time to unpack my suitcases. I had carried a whole host of health foods from USA. I unraveled multiple packages of protein powders; varieties of whole grain bread flours; sachets of sugar free this and fat free that. I had also transported loads of dry pastas made from the highly nutritious Durham wheat. I announced that I would make some Angel-hair pasta for lunch, dressed in a rich tomato sauce, flavored with Basil and Oregano leaves. My parents were salivating at the thought of trying something new since they were tired of their mundane diet of Idlis and Dosais.

Typically, Angel-hair pasta is about 12 inches long and always served that way. Come lunchtime, a pot of steaming pasta was ready in a jiffy. I served them into 3 bowls. Slippery pasta drenched with sauce can only be eaten with forks since chopsticks are for the adventurous. I was in no mood for adventures after spending a whole night with masquerading gangs of mosquitoes, not to mention the impending jet-lag that was going to hit me at 12 noon sharp! Lunch had to be consumed fast.

I looked around for forks, but all I found was a large collection of blunt bent spoons. Mysteriously, there was not one fork in sight! I remembered buying my mother a large collection of sturdy Italian forks when she visited us in America. They were long strong stainless steel implements custom-made to pick up Angel-hair pasta with ease. I looked inside all the cupboards and crannies, but could not find any; not even one disabled fork with missing prongs!

My mom quickly dismissed the search declaring that it would take a few days to locate the forks! “We do not eat noodles or any of its cousins you know! What use are forks for us old folks?” She sounded like a defendant trying to dodge probing questions.

I stared at the bowls of knotted pasta piled into entangled mounds. My scrumptious tomato sauce thickened with corn starch was only going to make each pasta string that much more slippery and elusive to eat!

“Here,” said my father, handing me three overused dull spoons. “We eat everything with these!”

Their enthusiastic confidence was funny, but their pasta eating session was going to get downright hilarious. I decided to let my own bowl simmer down to watch them tackle the foot-long pasta strings with their pint sized spoons. My mother went first. She stuck her spoon into the hill of pasta and yanked out a healthy spoonful. She delicately balanced 4 strings on the spoon and transported it close to her mouth. Just before she could close her lips, all four strings slipped right back where they started! She looked around a bit embarrassed, but continued with her excavation. In the meantime, my dad was trying to tackle the same batch of finicky pasta using his trembling right hand (he’s 79, you know!).

This was getting even more interesting by the minute!

All I could hear was him muttering the following words with a smile intended to hide his exasperation – “Ala theri”, “Saala”, “Huh theri”, “Ninn Ajji na Badiya”… and so on. Translated to English, he was essentially mouthing the following, “whack your grandma!” It was obviously directed at the ensnared utensil. Not one string had mounted his wobbly spoon even after 4 minutes!

I did not even try to repeat their sorry feat. I discarded the spoon and dug into my bowl with two primary fingers. I lifted loads of pasta strings like a Caterpillar earthmover. Lifting my head up to face the ceiling with my mouth wide open, I deposited the first installment safely inside. My parents watched in amazement. They followed suit and very soon all three of us were checking the ceiling (and its peeling paint) as we emptied several deliveries of the tasty pasta into our respective mouths. Parents definitely enjoyed the novelty and wanted more.

Later that day, I decided to look for the forks because I had several packets of pasta to consume in two months. I summoned KaaLamma, the maid, and asked her if she knew anything about the missing forks. She came closer to me a whispered, “Look under Amma’s bed!” When my mother was not around, I sneaked into the bedroom and lifted her mattress. Lo and behold, there were three shiny forks buried there! I flipped the other side and there were 5 more! My complete set of 8 Italian forks was spread underneath my mother’s own bed along with an assortment of other sharp weapons!

“What are they doing here,” I asked my mother who walked in.

“It’s the mosquitoes, okay! So I lied! They have been bugging me all day and all night! I depend on those forks to scratch myself in bed! I need all 8 so I don’t have to grope in the dark! Is that a crime?” She was almost in tears!

“Why not use mosquito nets,” I asked.

This time, both parents chanted together, “WE DON’T HAVE ANY NETS!!”

“Why not buy?” I had to ask.

I noticed that Kaalamma who was bursting to say something! She suddenly blurted, “look under Appa’s mattress!”

“Shhhh!!!!” My parents tried to shush her. It was too late!

The missing forks mystery was now deepening and burgeoning into something more sinister! I walked over to my Dad’s mattress and lifted it. Voila! There were three huge mosquito curtains neatly folded, hidden under four spare blankets!

“What’s all this? And why have you both been lying?” I was Sherlock Holmes after solving the crime!

“She made me do it!” Dad quickly pointed towards Mom. “She asked me to hide the curtains and tolerate mosquitoes during the duration of your stay!! And I hate the chemical smell of mosquito coils.”

I looked at Mom.

“Please don’t imprison yourself in the mosquito curtain again!!” pleaded my mother, out of the blue! This time she really started to cry!
“We are afraid that you will reenter the NET all over again and remain there until your departure from Bangalore! We only see you once in a couple of years! How can we allow you to infiltrate ‘The Cocoon’ and not see you for two whole months? I was resigned to scratching myself with those useless forks! We sacrificed the curtains for your sake so you will not leave our sight, okay! Boo hoo hooo!”

Now I understood their shenanigans! Their intentions were noble! After all, I was to blame for their insecurities. My affair with the mosquito curtain is a long one. In fact, I will dedicate an exclusive blog to “Curtaining the Mosquitoes” in Part 3 of this series.

So long folks!

Part 1 can be read here - "A Twitch In Time Saves An Itch!"