Residential Reptile

Overheard in a metro transit bus.


Passenger : It is getting colder isn't it.
Bus Driver : Yeah.. the winter is sure coming up..
Passenger : There was a power outage yesterday at our place.
Bus Driver  Really? That must have been terrible. How long was it out?
Passenger : Oh a couple of hours . It was OK, except my python was getting real cold .
Me (Thinking) :(This is one of those snake eating guys, I wouldn't have guessed! Poor guy must have had a real cold dinner because of the power cut.).
Passenger : You see , the cage heater stopped working.
Me (Thinking) :It is a real live DISCOVERY CHANNEL  TYPE PYTHON. Living in a house(eeeeeeeks) as a pet, may be he calls it Pythagoras or something.


Bus Driver : Interesting. So you have a python for a pet? What did you do then?
Passenger : Oh.I really wanted to get a cat. But my room mate was allergic to cats. So I got a python.
It is a sweet thing. Beleive me..


(At that point , I made a mental note to check with my apartment for the list of pets that they allowed to make sure that anything of the reptilian variety was  off the list.Also never to leave the apartment door open in case of a power outage if at all one happened at our place.)

P.S : Long break from blogging since I'm still getting used to my new glasses( I do soo hate wearing them)  .

Ten Facts about Minneapolis Metro Transit

Being without a drivers license in a foreign country , I am forced to use the public transport system to commute to work. After reading this blog about the public transport in India , felt like writing one about my experiences with the metro transit.

Metro Transit Facts :

#1 You will never be without a seat on a bus.

Till this date , I have never ever been without a seat in any of the metro transit buses. The trains may be ,  but the buses always have plenty of seats. In fact I have even had the whole bus to myself once or twice.

#2 Always have exact money to pay.You cannot buy a ticket unless you have exact change, but most drivers will let you have the benefit of the doubt and give you the ticket , once or twice  even if you don't have it. But it does get you a lot of stares from around the bus  (This applies only if there are people in the bus).

#3 If some one asks about your job , avoid the usual techno jargon like programmer , software  etc , Better still avoid the word software altogether and say that you work for

 so and so employer. With huge recession fears looming, you don't want people staring at you like you stole their job from them.

#4 There are weirdo vaynokkis in every land. I even had to endure a guy try to talk to me about cricket (duh!)  and he was not an Indian or Pakistani.

#5 The other women you see on the bus are either dressed like sluts or women in their fifties talking about their grand children.Exceptions are few and far between mostly being Asian women with multiple children or Indian software engineers who sleep till their destination is reached. Men who are not in their fifties or sixties are usually dressed in jeans that look like they are held up only by virtue of static electricity and over sized t shirts.

#6 If you want to make polite conversation with fellow passengers , stick to safe topics like weather (What crappy weather today) or angst at approaching winter . Family questions are a strict no.

#7. Sometimes , your bus might stop for a disabled person and if it does , be assured that your connection bus will be gone , for in this country disabled people on wheel chair get royal treatment. (Made me feel sorry for the same category in India where they are just bound to be pushed off by the huge rush of people in the bus stop.

#8 If  you see some one who is carrying many leaflets , act fast asleep , for the person is most probably  a zealous follower of some church who will talk to you for hours about joining them which will make you fall asleep anyway.

#9 Expect public displays of affection. If you are embarrassed by it , feigning sleep is the best option , but believe it or not , I have seen worse in Indian trains.

#10 Know exactly where to get down. Do not expect the driver or the fellow passengers to be able to help you because , 9 out of 10 times they won't know and even in the odd chance that they do know, they might misunderstand your accent and misdirect you.

Dance Dance Dance........

This was a post I have been wanting to write for the past 2 weeks , but have been postponing it for a while because of household hurries and worklife worries..So here goes..

Flash Back :
1988:(or may be 1989) I'm not really sure. I was 6 year old girl-just like all the other girls of her age.
I spent my time outside playing with friends, going for a ride on my new BSA Champ and watching the only cartoon shows that came on doordarshan.Mom had always wanted her daughter to dance and soon there was a dance teacher knocking the door every saturday and sunday morning.It was soon clear that I did not have any aptitude for dance and the frustration of teacher and student were evident. Soon I started waking up every sunday dreading my dance lesson and crying because I could not watch the mickey mouse
cartoon on doordarshan. Finally my dad who is as interested in the fine arts as an average mallu is in veg food, decided that spending 150 rupees a month on something that made his daughter cry every day was not worth it.Thus ended my brief stint with dance.

Back to Present:

Later in life, I avoided any kind of dance including the mandatory to learn Thiruvathira knowing which is a
necessity in my community unless you want to look like a stupid in your own wedding video(Yep, it is a part of the welcoming ceremony to the groom's home or kudiveppu). I had been content (with a wee bit of envy I must admit) watching my friends perform amazing dances and win prizes in school and college, with my part limited to dressing them up and giving pep talk before the program. With great difficulty and ample help from my grandmother and aunts, I mastered one step of thiruvathira which helped me avoid looking like
a complete fool in the welcome thiruvathira at my husband's place.

Watching the ease with which my hubby's cousins danced , for the first time , I had a burning desire to be like them. To learn the dance. So when I got a chance to take part in an Onam program in Columbus, OH , I jumped on to it and found to my chagrin that to wish to learn is one thing , but having 2 left feet is quite another. Heart aches and body aches and 2 months later , I performed my first ever dance on stage. I wasn't quite so graceful, but it worked out. I could do the right steps.

This made me more ambitious, I wanted to try doing some other types of dance.But I didn't have the confidence to ask anybodyfor a chance as I was quite sure that nobody would have that much patience.
But this year, I gathered up courage and joined my friends for a cinematic dance. It was way difficult at first,
But good friends and a great teacher (who is a good friend too) and a supporting hubby can do wonders I was able to learn it , bit by bit , step by step.

And we put up an amazing show. It felt so happy to be part of such a winning combination that I felt this was the right thing to blog about to co-memorate the other achievement that I'm proud of- that of completing 50 blog posts.

My First Plane Journey

My journey started with the IA flight from Bangalore to Mumbai.I had two heavy suitcases neither of which I cud lift on my own. but luckily the the person at the baggage checkin counter helped me put it on the conveyor belt.After security clearance I had to wait quite some time before the plane finally arrived. It was interesting to note that atleast a third of the passengers had laptops with them.

Once in mumbai , there was the problem of going from the domestic terminal to the international terminal.I waited for myluggage to come.Here a fellow passenger helped me put my luggage on to the trolley.The trolley was much better than the bangalore one.So was able to move it around with ease.

Then I went to the place outside the domestic terminal where the airport's bus which takes passengers to the international terminal comes. There was a huge crowd there. I had to wait as three buses came, got occupied and went. Time was flying and it was already 11:00 .Baggage checkin had already started at the Delta Terminal.It was then that I got acquainted with Archana another H4 visa holderi who was also a passenger in the same plane to paris which I was to board.We became fast friends and luckily we were able to get the next bus to the international terminal.

There I was unlucky to get a defective trolley and had to get the help of an airport staff to get another trolley and put my luggage there for which he even asked a tip.There was a huge queue at the baggage checkin also.Archana turned out to be even more stupid than I was as she didn't even know her husband's address in the US. She had some problem as they as asked her to fill the address on the tag.

I had time then to just call Vinuettan and tell him that I was in mumbai.Also tried unni on mobile but there was no answer.Then after a brief wait , I boarded the flight to paris.It was quite a large flight and as I was exhausted , I fell asleep almost immediatly.When I woke up , they sereved some food which tasted ok.Then , they put a hindi movie 'Socha Na Tha' which was a usual hindi masala movie.The passenger sitting next to me was also an Indian software engineer and he said he was on the same flight to Atlanta as well.

As the plane landed in paris , the skies were very clear and I was able to clearly see the Eifel Tower from above and it is a great sight.Once we landed in paris , there was a bus to take us to the other gate where I had to board the flight to Alanta. As I was getting out of the flight , I was pleasantly surprised to see an Infoscion from my department -a fellow from tvm named shyam walking ahead. I caught up with him and was it turned out that he was travelling to Atlanta on the flight as well.Together we reached the terminal where we were to board the plane.At paris , I lost track of Archana as she had an Air France plane to catch which was at another terminal.The wait in paris was pretty long and I decided to use the international calling card number that vinuettan had given to call from a phone that I saw there. The first time I tried , it started saying something in French. I thought I would give it a try just once more . This time the message from the phone was in English and very clear "You have called the fireman". I didn't wait to hear any more I went and found a place as far from the phone as possible. Just in case some one came and asked who called the fireman.

There was a large queue to board the plane to atlanta and I found that many of the passengers on my previous flight were here too.My neighbour was a french fellow who seemed to wake up only when the drinks were served.He didn't know English and was asking if there was a transalation of the immigration and customs forms in French!!!

As I had booked for Asian Veg meals , I got some Indian food on this flight .This was also a nine hr flight which I almost entirely slept through.Though this flight actually had tv screens at each seat which we could chnage channels, my screen had some problems so could only see the movie that they put. During the flight , one movie which I partly saw when I woke up to take a meal was "Lara Croft Tomb Raider".Then as

Atlanta was nearing , I thought I would fill up the customs and immigration forms. The customs form is rather funny as it puts FoodStuffs,Insects in one option for us to tick in the list of items that we have in our baggage.As I had food stuffs but (hopefully) no insects , I was unsure abt what do do for that.In Atlanta time was only 2 hrs for the next flight and Immigration clearance queue was very long.There were arond 20 counters but it still took around one hr before I got immigration. The guy asked me why I was in Us and I said I was here to meet my husband. He made a big joke about it asking if I had ever met my husband..(ha ha) and then he asked me if I had any food. I said yes. I had banana chips. He laughed and asked if they were as sweet as I was and let me go.

At mumbai , they had told me that though customs and immigration would be at the first port of entry to the US , I could collect my luggage at albany . Just when I was about to find out where to board my next plane, I saw shyam coming with two large suitcases.He told me that even though they had told him that it was thru checkin , it seemed that the baggage had to be collected and put in the other converyor , based on the destination.I rused to where the bagage was coming in the conveyor belt and saw my luggage there. Again I got the help of another fellow passenger and got my stuff on a troley. There was a security clearance after which they told me that as the bag has food , I should go to the agricultural inspector.Time was running fast and I rushed to the agriculutural inspector's queue. They took out each annd every food item .But luckily didn't open anything. I put my luggage in the conveyor belt for my albany plane and then found that I had to take train to reach the Gate of departure. I rushed to the terminal just in time and the person at the plane said that I almost missed my flight'.

The flight to Albany was uneventful except for some chips and nuts that I got to eat which were very tasty.

At albany , I looked everywhere for vinuettan and decided that he had become late..

But just as I claimed my baggage I saw him ,sreechettan and eeshu(sreechettan's son) coming.It seems they had just gone to take the kid to the toilet. And that was the end of the journey....

My old 3310

As I was lazily snoozing the alarm on my iPhone in half woken slumber , a picture came to my mind.-My first cell phone , the Nokia 3310. It was big and blue and my constant companion for a good 6 years.It was back in 2003. India was a land where mobile phones were not so much in vogue as it is now. Incoming was also charged at around Rs 5 per min and even those select few blessed with the latest gadgetry hardly ever answered calls unless it was urgent.Then TRAI made incoming calls free. It was then that my mother, who wanted to keep tabs on her teenage daughter in college persuaded my dad to get me a cell phone. A small sleek (by the standards of the time) Nokia 3310. I was the least happy of the lot. Not only did I not want frequent calls from my mom asking where I was , but the fact was that being the scatter brain that I was , I was pretty confident that I would lose it somewhere in the course of the month.

But soon , for the first time in life , people started looking for me in hostel. I became an overnight celebrity as there were very few in the girls hostel who had cell phones .Hostel mates with boyfriends queued up to use my cell phone and in 2 years , the phone was witness of hundreds of hours of sugar coated puppy love.By the last year of college , cell phones became cheaper and more common and the use of my cell phone diminished considerably. It was then that I realised the power of the composer in the phone. I spent many fun hours trying desperately to create some new ring tones with not much success.

Later in 2004 when I got engaged and moved to Bangalore for my first job, the phone became a symbol of my new status as I was almost always on call with my fiance.Later the phone would also see a large number of international calls as my fiance moved to US and I emptied my pockets constantly to make expensive international calls.As the mobile world changed around ,me with people opting for sleeker and newer phones, I was looked at with disdain for holding on to my old phone.Do you use it to throw at stray dogs to keep them away was a common refrain I heard in those days. But I held on .. I had to change batteries three times and kept the phone which woke me up faithfully every day and kept me company all day long.

Everything has a life and life cycle and that was what I found out in 2006 , when I tried in vain to get the phone to charge up . It stubbornly refused to do so even after changing the battery and the charger and that was when I realised that it was the end of a long and eventful comradeship.

I got a Samsung 2310 after that and then a Nokia 3100 ,and now finally an IPhone.As I am gently touching the touch screen of the iPhone , I think of all those text messages hammered down into the hard keyboard of 3310. How times have changed.

A different Anniversary

I am almost back to my normal bubbly self after a hugely stressful week . My husband and I have been going through a gruelling work schedule leaving us even no time to really celebrate our sixth anniversary even.And there was this event that happened this week that I feel I need to write about.


It happened on Sunday 30th Jan . It was our sixth anniversary and I had just woken up and was making tea ,resolving to cook something much better than what I'd been doing the past week for breakfast and lunch , when hubby got a phone call from one of his team members. It wasn't unusual, since the whole team had been working day in and day out , and I had helped my husband and him for debugging a java requirement the previous night. Today how ever , he sounded really agitated and on the verge of a breakdown. I heard my husband asking him to come over to our place. I cursed inwardly. Why did this guy have to come over and work at our house on a Sunday morning , that too on our anniversary? But then , when I actually saw what a nervous wreck the guy looked like, my stance softened. I served coffee and also offered my suggestions to their web development problems.


As time dragged on ,and it was apparent that the problem was more psychological than technical. He pointedly refused to have any food and insisted that he was alright , when he looked as far from it as could be. We began to get worried and my husband suggested that they go out and buy lunch. After they bought lunch, I persuaded both of them to come and eat, and then as he tried to get up, fell flat down the carpeted floor unconscious. My husband revived him with water whilst I got our friends to come and help, and made him have food But the guy was a nervous wreck. He kept apologizing for causing us trouble and was on the verge of tears. My husband then took him home to his friend's place and left him there to take rest.


Nevertheless,the incident left many disturbing thoughts in my mind. Was IT causing so much pressure that it was causing nervous breakdowns in employees? Where the companies in their greed to meet unreasonable deadlines , making the employees (their golden egg laying geese) to work just too hard?My husband and others in his team had been working into the wee hours of the night to meet their expected goals.


I looked at my husband. He looked as disturbed as I did , and I knew it was more than meeting the project deadline that was causing it. I then decided that I wasn't going to give him any more pressure than he was already having, for not spending time with me. It was an anniversary sans celebrations , but it was not going to be one without love and understanding.

Little Hearts-A story from school

It was a day in kodaikanal in 1998.Two bored girls were walking around the kodaikanal wondering what they were doing there. It was the last day of a week long science camp with geeks from all over India. It was finally over and they were giving us the last day off to explore the place. The whole lot of be-spectacled black hole loving set of bujis were making a crowded conversation about bernauli's theorem with respect to the lake or something of that sort..The girls made a quick escape and were soon walking along a different path. They were checking their pockets to see if they had any money to rent bicycles when a young boy who was probably only 5 or 6 approached them trying to sell a packet of little hearts biscuits. Neither of the girls liked the biscuit he was selling , much less the fact that he was trying his best to force them to buy one of the packets. They walked away to another place , but the child was persistant. A good half an hour later the girls found themselves with a packet of little hearts for which they had paid much more than its cost. But they felt good about themselves about helping the young child.

My husband bought little hearts biscuit the other day and that made me remember this story that happened long ago.

New Year at Brainerd- A Travelogue

ഒരു അടിപൊളി യാത്ര കഴിഞ്ഞു തിരിചെത്തിയപ്പോഴാണ് ഇനി ഒരു യാത്രാവിവരണം ആയാലോ എന്ന ആശയം മനസ്സില്‍ ഉദിച്ചത്.

പത്തു പേരടങ്ങിയ ഒരു സാമാന്യം വലിയ സംഘമായിരുന്നു ഞങ്ങളുടേത്.

അഞ്ചു കുടുംബങ്ങള്‍ -ഹര്‍ഷ &സുബിത് ,ശ്രീജിത്ത് & ആതിര ,വീണ & സുബ്ബു ,രാധിക,സംയുക്ത & ഭദ്രന്‍ ചേട്ടന്‍ ,പിന്നെ ഞങ്ങളും (സുനിത ,വിജയ്‌ & മനുകുട്ടന്‍ ).തലേ ദിവസം കാലേ കൂടി എല്ലാരും രോസ്വില്ലിലെത്തി.പിറ്റെന്നത്തെക്കുള്ള ഭക്ഷണം എല്ലാരും ചേര്‍ന്ന് പാകം ചെയ്തു . ഞൊടിയിടയില്‍ ഇഡലിയും, ഉപ്പുമാവും പുളിയോഗുരവും റെടിയായി.പിറ്റേന്ന് പത്തു മണിയായപ്പോള്‍ ഞങ്ങള്‍ അവിടെ നിന്ന് തിരിച്ചു.കുറച്ചു ദൂരം ചെന്നപ്പോഴാണ് വിനുഎട്ടന്‍ ക്യാമറ കാറില്‍ വെച്ച് മറന്ന കാര്യം ഓര്‍ത്തത്‌. പിന്നെ തിരിച്ചു പോയി അതെടുക്കാന്‍ ചെന്നപ്പോളാണ്‌ കാര്‍ പൂട്ടാന്‍ മറന്ന കാഴ്ച ഞങ്ങള്‍ കണ്ടത്. കാറും കാറിലെ സാധനങ്ങളും നഷ്ടപെടാത്തത്തിനും തിരിച്ചു വന്നു നോക്കാന്‍ തോന്നിച്ചതിനും ഈശ്വരനോട് നന്ദി പറഞ്ഞുകൊണ്ട് ഞങ്ങള്‍ വീണ്ടും യാത്ര ആരംഭിച്ചു .

വാശി ഏറിയ അന്താക്ഷരി മത്സരത്തിനു ശേഷം സുബ്ബു വളരെ രസകരമായ ഒരു കളി കൊണ്ട് വന്നു.എല്ലാവരും കൂടെ ഓരോ ഓരോ വാക്യങ്ങള്‍ പറഞ്ഞു ഒരു കഥ ഉണ്ടാക്കുക.ശ്രീജിത്താണ് കഥക്ക് തുടക്കമിട്ടത്. ശ്രീജിത് വിജയും കൂടെ സ്കി ചെയ്തതില്‍ നിന്ന് തുടങ്ങിയ ആ കഥ ഒരു കൊലപാതകവും , ആത്മഹത്യ ശ്രമവും പ്രണയവും നിറഞ്ഞ ഒരു ത്രില്ലെര്‍ ആയി മാറി. സഞ്ചാരികള്‍ ‍ എല്ലാരും കഥാപാത്രങ്ങള്‍ ആയി മാറി മറഞ്ഞ ആ കഥ അവസാനിച്ചപ്പോളെക്കും ഞങ്ങള്‍ ഗുല്‍ ലയ്കില്‍ എത്തിയിരുന്നു.

     അവിടെ ചെന്ന് ഞങ്ങള്‍ സ്നോ മൊബയില്‍ വാടകയ്ക്കെടുത്തു .രണ്ടു സ്നോ മോബയിലുകളും നാല് സെറ്റ് സ്നോ ഗിയറും ആണ് എടുത്തത്‌. കുട്ടികള്‍ക്ക് ഭക്ഷണം കൊടുക്കനുള്ളവരും പിന്നെ ഗര്‍ഭിണിയായ ഹര്ഷയും കാബിനിലേക്ക്‌ പോയപ്പോള്‍ ശ്രീജിത്ത്‌, ആതിര , സുബ്ബു, വീണ തുടങ്ങിയവര്‍ സ്നോ മൊബയില്‍ ഓടിക്കാന്‍ പോയി. കാബിന്‍ വളരെ വിശാലമായ ഒരു വീട് പോലെ തന്ന ആയിരുന്നു. നാല് ബെട്രൂമുകളും വലിയ ഒരു ഹാളും അടുക്കളയും ,8 പേര്‍ക്കിരിക്കാവുന്ന വലിയ ഒരു തീന്‍ മേശയും അവിടെ ഉണ്ടായിരുന്നു.അവിടെ ചെന്ന് ഞങ്ങള്‍ ഇഡലിയും ചമ്മന്തിയും ആതിര ഉണ്ടാക്കിയ സ്വാദിഷ്ടമായ സാമ്പാറും കഴിച്ചു.സ്നോ മൊബയില്‍ ചെയ്യാന്‍ പോയവര്‍ തിരിച്ചെത്തി വസ്ത്ര വിധാനങ്ങള്‍ അടുത്ത സെറ്റിനു കൈമാറി.കുട്ടികളെ മറ്റുള്ളവരെ ഏല്പിച്ചു സുനിത, വിജയും , രാധിക ,ഭദ്രനും സ്നൌമോബയില്‍ ഓടിക്കാന്‍ പോയി.അതിനു ശേഷം പല യാത്രകളിലായി എല്ലാവരും വീണ്ടും വീണ്ടും സ്നോ മോബിലിംഗ് ആസ്വദിച്ചു. ഒരിക്കല്‍ ആ യന്ത്രം സ്നൌയില്‍ കുടുങ്ങി പോയെങ്കിലും വലിയ പ്രശ്നങ്ങള്‍ ഇല്ലാതെ അധികാരികളെ വിളിച്ചു അത് പരിഹരിക്കാന്‍ കഴിഞ്ഞു. മഞ്ഞു പെയ്യുന്നതൊന്നും വക വെയ്ക്കാതെ 70 ഇലും മറ്റും കുതിച്ചു പാഞ്ഞ ഞങ്ങള്‍ നിശ്ചിതമായ ആറു മണിക്കൂറും ഉപയോഗിച്ച ശേഷം യന്ത്രങ്ങള്‍ തിരിച്ചെല്‍പ്പി ച്ചു . അതിനു മുന്പായി രസകരമായി പോസ്‌ ചെയ്തു ഫോട്ടോ എടുക്കാനും ഞങ്ങള്‍ മറന്നില്ല.ആതിരയെ പൊക്കി എടുത്ത ശ്രീജിത്തും ,മികച്ച യോ പോസുകള്‍ ചെയ്ത വീണ സുബ്ബുവും , മോഡേണ്‍ ശകുന്തലയായിപോസ്‌ ചെയ്ത സുനിതയും എല്ലാവരെയും രസിപ്പിച്ചു.

വൈകുന്നേരം അവിടെ ഉള്ള ന്യൂ ഇയര്‍ പാര്‍ടിക്ക് പോകണോ എന്ന് ആലോചിച്ചെങ്കിലും പിന്നീട് എല്ലാരും കൂടെ കാബിനില്‍ തന്നെ ന്യൂ ഇയര്‍ ആഖോഷിക്കാന്‍ തീരുമാനിച്ചു. രാത്രി വൈകുന്നതു വരെ ബ്ലുഫ്ഫ് കളിക്കുകയും അതിനു ശേഷം കുറച്ചു നേരം സംസാരിച്ചിരിക്കുകയും ചെയ്തു. ഈ സമയമത്രയും പല തമാശകള്‍ പറഞ്ഞു ഭദ്രന്‍ ചേട്ടന്‍ എല്ലാവരെയും രസിപ്പിച്ചു.2011 തുടങ്ങുന്നത് ഗണപതിയെ കണി കണ്ടിട്ടാവണം എന്നാ വീണയുടെ ആഗ്രഹം കേട്ടപ്പോള്‍ എല്ലാവര്ക്കും അത് ഒരു നല്ല ഐഡിയ ആയി തോന്നി. പുതു വര്‍ഷത്തിനു ഇത്രയും നല്ല ഒരു തുടക്കം കിട്ടാനുണ്ടോ ?. 11:59 ഇന് എല്ലാവരും കണ്ണടച്ചു 12:00 മണിക്ക് വിഘ്നേശ്വരനെ കണികണ്ടു എല്ലാവരും പുതു വത്സരം ആരംഭിച്ചു. പിന്നീട് ഗ്രൂപ്പ്‌ ഫോട്ടോ എടുത്ത ശേഷം ഡംബ് ശരടെസു കളിച്ചു.അതിനു ശേഷം ക്ഷീണിതരായി എല്ലാരും ഉറങ്ങാന്‍ കിടന്നു.

പിറ്റേന്ന് രാവിലെ ഫോട്ടോ സെഷനുകള്‍ ആയിരുന്നു. എല്ലാരും തണുപ്പെല്ലാം മറന്നു ജാക്കെട്ടുകള്‍ ഊരി വെച്ച് മഞ്ഞില്‍ ഫോട്ടോസെടുത്തു .അതിനു ശേഷം എല്ലാരും ക്രാഗുന്‍സിനോട് വിട പറഞ്ഞു സ്കി ഗുല്‍ രേസോര്ടിലേക്ക് തിരിച്ചു. അവിടെ രണ്ടു സ്കി കിറ്റും നാല് സ്നോ ട്യുബിംഗ് പാസും എടുത്ത ഞങ്ങള്‍ ദിവസം മുഴുവനും അവിടെ ചിലവഴിച്ചു.മഞ്ഞു മൂടിയ ഒരു കൊച്ചു കുന്നിന്‍ മുകളില്‍ നിന്ന് താഴേക്ക്‌ ഒരു ട്യുബില്‍ ഉരസി വരുന്നതാണ് ട്യുബിംഗ്. സ്കിയിംഗ് ആകട്ടെ രണ്ടു വടികളില്‍ കാലു തിരുകി കുന്നിന്‍ മുകളില്‍ നിന്ന് താഴേക്ക്‌ വരുന്നതും. ഹര്‍ഷ ഒഴിച്ചു എല്ലാരും ടുബിങ്ങിലും സ്കിയിങ്ങിലും മുഴുകിയപ്പോള്‍ അവള്‍ സംയുക്ടയെയും മനുവിനെയും നോക്കി .തണുപ്പ് വളരെ കൂടുതല്‍ ആയതിനാല്‍ അവരെ പുറത്തു കൊണ്ട് പോയെങ്കിലും വേഗം തന്നെ അകത്തു കൊണ്ട് വരേണ്ടി വന്നിരുന്നു.ഇതെല്ലം ചെയ്യുകയും ഫോട്ടോ എടുക്കുകയും ചെയ്തു സമയം പോയത് ആരും അറിഞ്ഞില്ല. വിശന്നും ക്ഷീണിച്ചും എല്ലാരും തിരിച്ചെത്തിയപ്പോള്‍ സമയം ആറു മണി ആയിരുന്നു.

പിന്നീട് ടാകോ ബെല്ലില്‍ നിന്ന് ഭക്ഷണം കഴിച്ചപ്പോഴാണ് എല്ലാവര്‍ക്കും ആശ്വാസം ആയതു. അതിനു ശേഷം വണ്ടിയില്‍ ഇരുന്നു അശ്വമേധം കളിച്ചു. എന്നാല്‍ സാധാരണയില്‍ നിന്ന് വിരുദ്ധമായി സിനിമ പേരുകള്‍ വെച്ചാണ്‌ കളിച്ചത്.രസകരമായ ആ കളിയില്‍ ആര്‍ക്കും കണ്ടു പിടിക്കാനാവാത്ത സിനിമ ആലോചിച്ചു രാധിക വിജയി ആയി. കളി തീര്‍ന്നപ്പോളേക്കും വീട് എത്തിയിരുന്നു .അവിസ്മരണീയമായ ഒരു വിനോദയാത്ര തന്നെ ആയിരുന്നു അത് .യാത്രയെ കുറിച്ച് അയവിറക്കികൊണ്ട് കുറച്ചു സമയം വീണയുടെ വീട്ടില്‍ ഇരുന്ന ശേഷം എല്ലാവരും സ്വ ഗൃഹങ്ങളിക്ക് മടങ്ങി പോയി.

2010- A recap

2010 was arguably one of the most fun years of my life. It was only the second in 5 years of married life that we spent in the same place.-Us being the migratory birds that we are.Minneapolis and 2010 gave us the peace,fun and friends that had been missing in our life for some time now.


January: 2010 started with a bang with us (ettan, me , amma and manu) leaving for grand marias to join our friends there. It was a very enjoyable 2 days of excitement and fun.After a lot of tension over a delayed EAD card and 2 job offers,January ended with us completing 5 years of married life.

February:My EAD card finally arrived and my dream of working in US was finally realized. The temperatures were absymally low ,but that did little to dampen my spirits as I started travelling by bus all by myself to and from my new job. Manu on the otherhand started his daycare and was not enjoying it one tiny bit.

March:March was a month of get togethers and brthdays.Our gang was now huge and each weekend was looked forward to eagery for the food and fun and frolic that it brought.


April:April came with vishu.We placed a vishukkani at home and manu got his first vishu kaineetam from his acha.The vishu potluck in traditional kerala style attire brought back memories of a distant homeland.


May:May was the month I had been looking forward to as my parents came to visit us.as we hadn't done much site seeing in minneapolis ourselves, we discovered minneapolis together visiting the cherry and spoon, mall of america and minnehaha falls.

June:June was a truly relaxing month with my parents .Ettan enjoyed excellent food cooked by my mom and manu had a great time playing with his grnd parents.Cricket season started for ettan and he was playing cricket on weekends.

July:July witnessed another great trip-this time to Las Vegas and Grand Canyon, Us , some of our friends and my parents.It was an amazing trip.July also brought me one of the best birthdays I had in a loong time.the traditional cake smashing and food and having soo many friends made my birthday memorable not for the number of candles I would have blown , but the number of people who were there with me when I did that.

August:August was a busy month , with thiruvathira practice , skit practice and lots and lots of cricket.all the practice paid off and it was a grand show at KCF onam celebrations at the end of the month.Altogether ,tt was an exhausting , but satisfying month.

September:A trip to LA marked the start of september and though it was only us , we had a relaxed and peaceful trip.We enjoyed seeing the whales at san diego and the amazing sights at universal.Back at MN , we were dissapointed that our trip to kerala got cancelled , but cricket and potluck were daily activities.

October:We celebrated manu's birthday twice, once with just the three of us at lake itasca and the second-a party with around a 100 people.Without the help of friends, such a huge party could never be realised.Halloween came and went , but as manurefused to wear his costume for even long enough to click a photo,it wasn't much fun.

Novemeber:Novemeber was a month of birthdays, every weekend having one or more birthday parties. It was also the month of birth of Devesh one of the most eagerly awaited babies in the gang.Thanksgiving saw us become proud owners a TV and a laptop.It was a real experience to see people queeing up in front of shops and putting up tents for me , where as for ettan it was first hand experience to stand in the cold negative temperatures to get the TV that he wanted.


December :December started with ettan getting the surpise of his life as we arranged a surprise party for his birtdhay.It also saw one of the most relaxed holidays that ettan and I had in a long time. We both had around 10 days of vactaion. We sent Manu to daycare and had the whole day for ourselves.For the first time in years, we sat down to enjoy good books,movies and even made a snow man.We also had 2 christmas parties with friends and went bowling.The year ended on a euphoric note with our trip to brinerd and a day of snow mobiling fun.

Old anecdote from college hostel

Ever since I started my blog at infy long ago, I had wanted to jot down small anecdotes of different people I had met in different stages of my life and one person who I always wanted to write about before she disappeared from my memory forever was our engineering college hostel and its warden (Nighty Thalla).

Hajira Bivi was one person who you couldn't forget easily. She was almost always dressed in a night gown with a shawl covering her part of her hair..and falling lazily around her rake thin shoulders, haunting the stairs and corridors of the hostel with a sour expression most of the time.The name was coined by would be romeos stalking the hostel who invariably got her at her angriest sour faced expressions.

In all the time that I studied for engineering , Cochin University never had hostels for BTech students , and we were all left to the mercy of private hostel owners who charged exorbitant rates for jam packed rooms and meager meals.But with its apartment converted structure and sweet talking owner, the suburban hostel had seemed like one of the better evils of the lot at first glance.

The initial honey moon period soon ran out and soon I began to find that vegetarian food just meant no non vegetarian (albeit the occasional bug in the food) and not necessarily any of nutritious stuff that we were supposed to get. Hajira warden who was super sweet initially started finding fault with us for no reason and soon , she would start stalking the staircases at night to catch people who were awake late night and report them to the hostel owner. Soon , we found that people who got along well with her seldom got reported while people who got her ire , got reported for minor matters like reaching 2 mins late after the 6:00 PM curfew. At 6:00 PM , she would wait at the hostel gates to see who were late and woe betide anyone who got caught.

During this time , somehow she started telling a few of us about herself, how this job was the only way she could support her family and this endeared her to us in-spite of all her faults. After all those were part of her job.But then some strange things began to happen. Things began to disappear. Small things like audio cassette tapes at first, but then things like watches , even money.These missing things were seldom heard of afterwards , until some one saw all of them in a bag in her room. Sometimes, long after something disappeared, she would return the things to its rightful owner citing that she found it somewhere. Many of the hostelites secretly thought that she might be a kleptomaniac who takes things and then returns them  after months.But she was sweet in many ways , and on one occasion , even let me and three of my friends in at 6:30 pm when we had a true emergency.

Soon afterwards, she was removed from her warden post supposedly for some misappropriation and we had a new dragon of a warden. We thought that was the last that we would hear about her , but that was not the case.During that time, yours truly and some of her friends decided to move into a rented house and almost paid the advance , but for some reason, the house owners backed off from giving us the apartment at the last minute. Later we found that a character assassination had been made and by none other than our Nighty Thalla..which prevented the house owners from renting it to us. She was very much there in the neighborhood and was hoping that we would join the new hostel that she had just started .

Then the story of the egg black magic or "Motta matnthravadam" happened. and it seemed to me at that time one of the funniest stories of the time. One evening , our new warden came running to our room and said , "You know , I 've known it all along. This place is jinxed". We thought she was being a bit too silly , but were eager to hear the story. "I went to the church priest and he confirmed ." She continued. It seemed that the from the day she joined for the new post , she was having a head ache and illnesses. When she finally had it checked by a priest, he told her that she had been a victim of ,hmm what else other than "motta manthravadam" by the old warden.. The idea of our Biwi casting a spell on the new warden was so funny that it was the topic of hostel dinners for weeks.But black magic or not , she could do nothing much to influence many people to join her hostel and soon I heard that she had left for her home town permanently.

Some times, I have wondered what became of her, and though we have cursed her a good many times while we were at the hostel, in my heart of hearts , I wish her well.