Rita Reeeeta Rïëeeeta Iscreeeeeaaaaaaammmm !!!

The man, if you could call him that, with his pencil thin moustache and pants that hug his legs to show their bow, would come screaming towards you, pushing a small wooden box with a lid that was covered in an old cloth, with those four letters in big blue lettering, RITA.

This by far, is the best memory of our time at the beach, etched deep into my head.

As a small boy who would visit the Madras Marina beach with his mother, or granfather, the highlights would always be:

1. Eating Rita kuchchi ice (gelato on a stick?)
2. Flying a kaathadi (beach kite, the ones with two sets of boxes and a short triangular tail)
3. Collecting shells on the edge of the waves
4. standing in knee deep water in the waves
5. running around Gandhi statue
6. chasing my brother on the sand
7. watching the horses and camels as they gave rides to people (never rode on them)
8. playing catch with a tennis ball
9. eating soan papdi
10. bringing the beach home with us in our pants, shirts, bags etc. and getting a scolding for spreading sand over the entire house!

Later, we got Kwality ice creams showing up in a shinier plastic/metal box with a well defined lid, an umbrella on top, serving everything from the plain orange or grape to Chocobar and Choconut ice cream. Guess that was the end of Rita!

Anyways, it is time to pinch myself and return to the glorious present day Chennaipattinam. We managed to hit the Marina twice in the 10 days we spent at Madras. The first time, we ended up near the University, and that was not a pleasant experience. The sand is too dirty in this area and there are people throwing half eaten fish on the sand. You cannot walk bare feet in this part of the beach. In our house, we don't even consider that a trip to the beach. Yeah, we are picky. To me, my brother, and sister, the equation simply reads :

Beach = Gandhi statue!

By the time we made it to the waves, the MIL, SIL and her two kids dropped out at a halfway point, and it got dark when we really made it to the water. After a meager 10 minutes in the waves, we had to return because it was too dark. Still not a complete washout, but we blamed it on the call taxi who took forever to get from West Mambalam to the Marina!

The second time, we came to the beach from our house in Mandaveli, in all of 10 minutes. We used to walk/bike to the beach when we were kids and once in a while, use the 21 or 21N buses. Devanathan street, Pumping station, Matriculation School and Santhome, four stops in 10 minutes! (I have no idea if these bus numbers still exist, or if the buses stop at these places, but they do in my head and will do so for a long long time!)

We came early, with my brother and his family in his little Maruti, spent a lot of time on the waves, ran near Gandhi Selai for old times sake, ate Soan Papdi, watched the kids play, and finally made our way back after spending a good two hours at the beach!

Sadly, there was no "Rita" ice cream!

It is no secret that I love beaches and we are so glad that both Jr. and the Little One love the beach as much as daddy, if not more!

Outside of the wedding, this was the best day spent in Madras. I love California beaches because they are clean, but the water is too cold for us to stand in the waves. The Madras Marina, is nowhere as clean as it was when we were little kids, but is still not bad considering how many people live in the city now and how many visit the beach, but the water is just the right temperature for my feet!

And yes, there are pictures!

"Horsies", not the ones that give rides to kids, but we saw many of them!

The kids enjoying a spin on what we called the "ranga raatinam", except these days there are plastic cars and bikes and in those days there were wooden ducks or ponies. This was not on my top ten list because my parents would never let us go on the raatinams!

Jr. walking the little one and her cousin. Of all the people, I miss my nephew the most after returning to the states. Last year he was a six month old boy. This year, he is a two year old toddler! He called me ippa (his speak for Periappa) when I wore pants, and Anna (brother) when I wore shorts.

It was the greatest compliment to a guy who is worried about looking 42 when he is really not yet finished 36! My nephew would also call Sangeetha "aatha", because he heard me call her Sangeetha, and all he could manage was the "aatha" part, which means "mother"! San, my mom, my brother were all upset that I got to enjoy this!

Everytime he would scream "Anna, Anna, Annaaaaah!!" it brought an automatic smile to my lips! I really miss that kid now! Going forward, I plan to wear only shorts at home on future India trips.

Jr. decided to take up a job as "Boat Inspector" for a few minutes, but once she found that the boats smelled "eeewww", she ran back to us.

This beach is really a gift!

Soan Papdi.... mmmmmmmmmmmm... yummy... ate as much as I could and went to instant heaven! Hundreds of thousands of Indians live in California and all they could think of is build temples and have concerts with Amitabh and family! Bah! Someone needs to worry about sprinkling the local beaches with Soan Papdi-walas! Maybe that someone is me?

The little one, is really a beach person, like her dad! Just refused to come out of the waves. Reminded me of, well.. Me!

A mom and daughters moment...

If you happen to live in Chennai, you have no idea how blessed you are! You have the Marina, and living in so called "sunny" California, on the coast, we still envy you!

You have THE Marina!!! Go on, go to the beach and take a bow!

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India lives in Villages?!

The recent India trip time distribution was as follows:

Time at parents place : 7 days
Time at Sans Grandparents place : 1 day
Time at Marriage hall : 2 days
Travel : 1 day

While on the face of it, there appears to be a gross discrepancy in the way disproportionate time was spent in my parents place, let us assure the readers that of the 7 days spent at parents place more than 70% of the time was spent travelling between Mandaiveli and West Mambalam using a route that even I would not have imagined possible. Let me explain that in graphic detail.

As a guy who used to get lost within his own one bedroom apartment, within every locality we lived in, yours truly had a tendency to wander around. I used to miss exits on the freeway and claim to the Mrs. that we were taking "the scenic route", an excuse that would get me a smile and a dimple in her chin in those early years of marriage, compared to the "gas vikkara velayile..." (gas price being what it is...) lecture I get today... where was I? Hmm.. getting lost!!!

Even the guy who gets lost with this kind of consistancy, would not take a route to West Mambalam from Mandaiveli that involves taking a right on Chamiers road, geting on to Anna Salai via Cenatoph road, then going through the entire pondy bazaar just to get to Doraiswamy subway! What used to take us 30 minutes, now took an hour and 20 minutes, not to mention having to hear complaints from every auto dude about rising petrol prices, the longer distances, government policy, how no one knows which route is one way in which direction anymore, how cops are exploiting the new one ways to gouge unsuspecting auto drivers etc.

To top this, you see the guys in autos frantically screaming to the auto drivers urging them to drive as fast as they can, as one approached panagal park for fear that the women folk might just jump out of the stagnant auto, into Nalli's, Pothy's, RMKV's, Prince Jewelry or what have you at that corner! The reason, why guys always sit on the open side of the autorickshaw when rounding the south Indian Saree capital, finally dawned on me! Enough about traffic.

Now that we are back on track, lets say the probability density function of the Narayanan electron cloud around Madras was more likely to be :

Time at parents place : 2 days
Time at Sans Grandparents place : 1 day
Time at Marriage hall : 2 days
Travel : 1 day
Time spent in Madras Auto : 5 days

The only abberation in the cloud is the 1 day travel spent outside of the city, which actually happens to be the focus of this post. You can clap now, as though the title has been mentioned, in the middle of a Vijayakant movie!

We were not yet out of jet lag after reaching Madras when we were whisked away in a 13 seater A/C van booked by my FIL to take us to Anandhathandavapuram and back within one day!

Let's break that down for the non-Tamizhian folks... Ananda(happy)-thandava(dance)-puram(place). Literally, the place where lord Shiva did the "happy dance"!, with his wife Parvathi, of course (it is one of the few temples where the goddess is sitting on the lap of the god). With that in perspective, one is open to interpreting the "happy dance" part, as gods are always an inspiration, but that is outside the scope of this blog, which considers parenting as part of its staple!

The trip was promised as a safe, fast and comfortable one by the in-laws. While it was fast and comfortable, it was nowhere safe, especially if you sat on the front passenger seat with your four year old nephew on your lap.

While the kid thought he was in some real life video game, dodging cars, trucks and government buses coming head on towards you, on the wrong side of the road only to careen away in the last split second to pass a speeding bullock cart, the adults were screaming at the driver to go safely, who in turn was cursing the other drivers in "pure thoroughbred" -"thooya" Tamizh, unmindful of the octagenarians, ladies (or both) who were travelling within the same confined space.

The BIL and me, being the only young men?! in the van, learnt a lot of new "gaalis" which make us "current" w.r.t. Madras, sorry Chennai slang!

We even had a thirty minute break when our van encountered a fallen tree in the middle of the Highway. The locals came with saws and a mover to clear it. The kids had fun watching the proceedings, while goverment bus drivers decided to gridlock the road by trying to check out the happenings by coming on the wrong side of the road.

Soon the tree was gone, but the traffic was jammed in both directions! More choice epithets were used by the drivers on both sides, as the vehicles moved through surrounding marshes to continue on the adventure. The brigaspathi who started the jam, even obliged us with a picture!

Once we hit the villages though, it was pretty. Not many people in sight, a glorious calm, rice fields and greenery everywhere, the occasional hut with a few goats tethered outside, a few chickens running around and the naked toddlers running around behind the chickens! Pity we were on a schedule. Could have exhausted a 2GB memory card right there.

We went on to the little "kula deivam" temple at the edge of the village. The last time we visited the place was in 2001. This time the water tank was empty, but the greenery was still all around. We all got to bathe in the temple, then pray, eat food cooked for the prayer and then leave.

The best part at the end, was when the little one and daddy both asked the priest "where is the rest room?" and his reply was "inge adhellam kidayadhu. appidiye vayakattu pakkam pongo!" (there is no such thing here, just go around to the edge of the paddy field and do your business!). The little one, brave girl that she is, watched the chickens and goats and did her business. Luckily, no one took pictures of a sheepish daddy walking around paddy fields, in his dhoti with a mug of water in his hand, Vijayakant style!

The trip was a blast. It almost felt like Vijayakant was travelling with us the whole time in various get-ups because there was a poster of him every 10 feet, all the way from the village entrance back ot Chennai City, in village clothes, in military fatigues, in police uniform, looking tech savvy with rimless glasses and a cell phone, etc. etc.

What is a post about a trip without pictures? Here they are...

A place for good tea somewhere near Dhindivanam

If a tree falls...

The man with a plan!

The kids, looking visibly distraught at the first part of the roller coaster ride. Coming from US and Australia, where bumps are used as speed breakers, they were surprised by the drivers using the bumps as speed enhancers, by launching vehicles into the air!

Welcome to Pondy!

The speeding bullock cart with a top speed of 6 mph between two vehicles with a top speed of 60 mph. But the bullocks would give the Toyota Prius a run for the money what with the 60 mph vechicles consuming gas while the 6 mph bullocks, producing gas! Think the bullock carts are here to stay on the highways for a long time to come, because at the end of the day, it is all economics!

The nephew doing "peela" jadoo using a nimbu on the little one!

The village goats, a typical scene

The other avatar of Daddy Narayanan...

Posing inside the temple

Tickets to India for family of four : 6000 dollars
Renting a van to Anandatandavapuram : 600 dollars
Chasing your cousin in a village temple : Priceless

On the way back, we stopped at Vaidheeswaran Kovil to visit the temple, and the Mrs., on a whim, decided to check out her Naadi Astrology prediction.

That is where we stop today and continue tomorrow...

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A busy fortnight

Our hands were tied (or dyed rather) for the last two weeks...

First an apology to all readers who read this blog.

Had to go to India on a 11 day trip to attend the BIL's wedding.

We had a ton of fun! The short and hectic trip (which was spent in Chennai except for a one day trip to the village in Anandathandavapuram) with two little kids was interesting and tiring to say the least.

Our house here in the US was being worked on and we did not want to publicise our going away to the world. My brothers place in Chennai was being worked on as well and they had moved to our old home.

It was nice for 6 adults and 3 kids to stay in a two bedroom flat and it got back so many memories from thirty years ago when we were little kids and we had three-four generations of folks in two or three rooms. There was no landline or internet though and that made it impossible to post anything.

The whole trip got back a flood of memories. There is something to be said about staying in the same room where you had the proverbial "first night" after marriage, except you have two kids lying between you and your wife and the entire room smells of DEET! Rest assured there will be a ton of posts in the next two weeks.

The wedding was awesome and we now have a new addition to the extended family and the new Mami has been given an A+ grade by Jr. and the little one!

We now have a new perspective on Chennai, India, Weddings, traffic, travel, life in general!

Cannot wait to write about it.

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The smell of School !

I guess school is going to start soon! That means every store has a "school" sale with things from notebooks, backpacks, shoes, down to the toilet items we found for "dorm" residents.

While the stores are busy selling anything and everything in the name of a "back to school" sale, what interested me was the smells as we walked through a section of the local Target store.

It was weird. I can easily understand one thought process jumping over to another, in my head. It is almost routine, as is obvious by the rambling in this space.

Have you, ever had a smell jump over and create a flashback smell in your head? It happened to me. I was in the notebook section and was taking a whiff of that smell which for some reason reminded me of those little erasers we used to have in 1st standard. The little orange or green ones, which have an outer shell that looks like a hippo or elephant or rhino, and you open the animal in the middle and inside is a nice cylindrical scented eraser! Remember those?

So there I am, in the middle of this aisle, with my nose held high, trying to savor that smell for a few more fleeting seconds, when all of a sudden, there is a smell jump! I suddenly smell fresh notebooks and brown paper, the ones we used to cover all our 192 page classwork and homework notebooks with, just two days before school started. That instantly brought a flood of memories.

Till I can remember, our school used to give out the books from the "school book store", three or four days before school started. This way we could cover all the texts, notebooks etc, with brown paper covers. These large sheets of brown paper would cover at least 4 of the 192 page std notebooks. Later in life they introduced the long "Assignment" notebook, which would make sure that we wasted enough of this paper.

My parents would theorize that the school must be in cahoots with the brown paper manufacturer association because they would mandate all kids wrap the notebooks! If we did not comply, we would get "blackmarks". Yes! you got that right. There was a chart in every classroom called the "Blackmark chart". 10 signatures from the teachers, and you get to go to the principals office!

In different sections, this chart would show different trends. In rooms where the kids were all dorks and extremely competitive, the chart would be near empty! In rooms where kids would pride themselves on getting in trouble, it would be a race to get to the maximum limit of 30, at which point you got to stand outside the principals office the whole day, get the occasional insult from the PT master and life would go on!

As usual, I digress! What were we talking about? Ah, yes, the smell of 30% fresh notebooks, 30% brownpaper, mixed with another 10% of glue (the green goopy maida flour glue!). Add to that the smells of new plastic lined school bags from the local "Amma Fancy store", new Bata canvas shoes, the unique smell of white shoe polish that we would apply in multiple coats, the smell of the new school belt, the smell of school uniforms, fresh from the "Artland" tailor shop, etc. etc., and you start wondering "Looks like it was not a bad childhood after all. So many great memories!".

Well, I even get a flashback smell, of the dreaded hair full of coconut oil, which my mom or aunts or grandma (in some cases all of them) would come and apply to support me on my first day of school, which would instantly turn me into mosquito man (kid you not, you could visibly see a mosquito halo around my head with all that oil) and make my friends joke, "enna da, ennai kadaiyave thalaiyile thookindu vare?" (What gives? It looks like you are carrying an entire oil store on your head!).

Just as those memories vanished into the background, saw that Jr. was smelling everything as well, just like dear old daddy!

Hopefully, we made her childhood experience of getting ready for school a memorable one. Who knows, a few decades from now, there might be a Jr. blogpost on school shopping and the smell of school supplies at Target!

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Traffic

Saw this cover story in the latest Businessweek. The article was jointly written by a person in the USA and one in Mumbai, about Bangalore. So, I am sure there will be debates on the post.

After my recent experience in India, I have started proof reading my posts. Just to make sure that anything that I write that has even a slight tinge of negativity is explained fully in context!

While I was in India, I had mentioned the traffic jam caused by a dead body procession during peak time (5:30 PM!). Had also promised the video clip as part of a long video of the entire India experience. Have to disappoint the readers on that mega video. I recently changed jobs and it has been a very busy month. Posting photoblogs takes only a few minutes but editing 60 or so video clips and making a mini movie is a time consuming exercise. Hope it will happen sometime next month!

So here is the video of the traffic jam by itself:

I wanted to post this because, we typically blame Politician's motorcades, public utilities digging up roads or religious gatherings for Traffic problems. This is a tricky one though! You have to get the dead body out and it has to be at a certain time (after consulting the stars etc.) and the guys have to carry it on their shoulders! That means they need a pedestrian route that does not impact traffic!!

There is a pedestrian walkway on either side of this subway, but it is not wide enough for four guys carrying a body. Guess this is one thing the city planning guys have to take into consideration as part of their overpass (flyover) building strategy!!

Normally, I would have been very pissed off with the whole proceedings, while sitting in that auto, were it not for Jr.'s questions for which I didnt have any answers!