My Dearest Appayithathayi

Earlier today there was a phone call from India. We were having an afternoon nap. Without realizing that it was day and looking at the clock and seeing 1:30, I told my mom, "isn't it too early to call me for a birthday wish. how many times do I tell you to note time difference before waking me up too early? Call me later" and my mother goes "have bad news for you, and by the way, it is afternoon for you and it is 3 AM for me! Appa is not with us anymore".

My grandfather, who I call "Appa" (daddy) because I saw my mom and all her siblings call him Appa, named me Sundararaman because he was reading "Sundara Kaandam" from Ramayana the previous week. The name implies, Rama who belongs to Sundara (also known as Hanuman or Anjaneya). A pious man who always put family first, there are so many words that rush to my mind.

My grandpa has filled our lives with happiness, tried his best to teach us how to enjoy and appreciate life, handle difficult situations and has been a role model to all his kids and grand kids (which we will pass on to his great grand kids) on how to appreciate people, god, music, and culture.

More than anything, he taught every one how to love, cherish and appreciate one's spouse. In April, when I went to visit him (last time we met), was talking to a local auto rickshaw driver near Hotel Carnival..

Me: Adayar Sri Krishna Sweets ponum pa, variya? (have to go to Adayar, will you come?)

Driver : Jodi Thatha peran dhane nee? (you are "Jodi" grandpa's grandson right?)

Me : !!!

Driver : Unga thatha mudiyudho mudiyaliyo, patti kayya pudichu enga ponalum ezhuthukitte povaru, adhanaala naanga Jodi thathannu solluvom! (your grandpa holds on to your grandmas hand and takes her with him everywhere, irrespective of wheather she can or cannot walk. So we nicknamed him "Jodi" thatha .. which means "partner" by the way!).

He lived a full life. My paati, their 6 children and families which include 11 grand children and 5 great-grand children will all miss him and will definitely celebrate his life.

It feels sad that out of all those people, I am the only one who will not be there and have to go through a grieving process remotely. It is times like these that we need to have Star Trek like Transporters made available sooner. While the rest of them are all gathered in one place as I type this to cremate him, have put together a tribute to him on youtube.

Here is to my Dear Thatha...

We love you!

ps. this is a collection of photos and videos from what was available here. the sound in the background is his reciting Ramayana in 1993 for me. He gave me that tape so I could listen to him whenever I missed him!

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God, the matchmaker

Sometimes, when I catch a glimpse of my wife, as she is doing something in all seriousness as part of her daily routine, there is this feeling, that is a mixture of elation, pride, thankfulness followed by a flutter that is heartfelt.

There is no valid explanation for why we ended up together, or what makes us tick as a couple or why this woman is my world. That is what makes it all the more interesting. We also have reason to believe that our match was made by the matchmaking Guru himself!

Why does one bring up ones appreciation for his wife or marriage or the matchmaker right now?

The one thing that has kept me deeply distracted from my fathers hospitalization and all the phone calls to India is the visuals and the soundtrack from Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, the latest movie starring one of my all time favorite heroes, ShahRukh Khan.

The story of a boring average man, marrying a vivacious young girl due to fate and chance, trying to win her love by living a double life that is partly his usual boring self and partly his wifes flamboyant wannabe dance partner.

If you read the reviews for this movie, the first thing you will hear is, how lame the heroine must be for not being able to distinguish between her boring husband and her flirty dance partner, essentially the same guy with only a different hairstyle and a pencil thin moustache to disguise him.

You will also read about the stupidity of the hero in trying to test his wife to see if she will chose the boring guy over the dancer because her husband loves her deeply and it is for her to see that love and realize that.

Then the reviews will go on to praise SRK for his acting, the soundtrack, the confidence with which first time heroine Anushka Sharma has acted and danced, the comedy of Phatak, etc.

What is most interesting in this movie is the realism. Okay, realism in an SRK bollywood movie is mostly seen as an oxymoron by most. So, I will have to explain, that too with a personal perspective.

Once upon a time, a young lad who came to the USA about sixteen odd years ago was a hopeless romantic. He did not even know that he was the hopeless romantic type because he had no time for girls or women till then.

One fine day, he started writing poems and started dreaming with his eyes open. As a girl put it, he hit puberty at 22 and went from 16 to 22 in two weeks and still had to learn the difference between love and infatuation. That is when another girl read his poem and quoted a russian saying "good love breeds babies, bad love breeds poems". That just confused him a lot more. He started saying cliches like "Women!"

Being a Ph.D. student, any methodical attempts to systematically understand women, what they want, why they want, how they want, etc. ended up consistantly with singularities, infinite loops, moebius strips and more cliches.

At the same time another profound piece of advice from an elder cousin, "If a girl says she is interested in you, kisses you, even sleeps with you, it still doesn't mean she loves you. It just means she wanted to kiss you or sleep with you!". Hmm, with advice like that, the Ph.D. in love had its graduation date moved indefinitely.

The quest for love or at least a simpler understanding of what consituted love continued. Then came dancing! Ballroom dancing is complicated. The music and the motions are easy, it is the emotions that are difficult minefields.

Once a famous dance instructor, taught a group of dancers a very simple lesson, when we were in the UK for a dance competition. (Yes, you could get paid trips to the UK to compete in dance competitions). He asked all the men and women to line up on opposite sides of the floor. Then the women got to pick a random partner. The men held the women with a single hand hold and the women were asked to move around the men, while still in that hand hold.

He would ask the women to move close in normal hold (1 foot away), then get close within inches of each others face, make the woman move away and turn her back (3 feet away), walk behind the man and around him, etc. etc. He asked the women to describe the emotion they saw on the mens faces, that too after we switched partners a few times.

The statistic was overwhelming. The men smiled when the women drew close and showed sadness when the women went away. They were so transparent! What was really surprising was that the women also smiled when they came closer to the men and stopped smiling when they moved away.

That whole statistic might be skewed by the fact that everyone in that room was a ballroom dancer. It is like looking at a fishbowl and explaining how all fishes like the water, so take it for what it is worth.

Based on that above experiment, one should realize that irrespective of chemistry there is some emotion that comes through in dancing with a partner. To top things off, if that girl happens to be gorgeous, skimpily clad or both, you have to focus on the dancing and tone down on the emoting! That part is easy if you respect the woman. There is no "Rakhi" required!

Is there a higher probability of dance partners falling in love? Maybe, maybe not. Dancing with a person doesn't make you fall in love. Falling in love with a person might make you want to dance! That part comes from the heart. Will swear by it!

After surviving years of dancing with women, with only a few scars in my heart, I did find the one destined for me, far away from a dance floor. To this day, the Mrs. and me have not danced together, although she was my best critic.

When someone goes through an arranged marriage with another person they know very little about, barring a few simple things like

a. a smile that lights you up
b. a voice that sounds soothing
c. gorgeous
d. a dress sense that appeals to you
e. gorgeous
f. come to think of it, really gorgeous
g. shy
h. c., e., and f., all over again...

It takes some time to build that relationship, till you realize one fine day that you are indeed head over heels in love, and it is usually for none of the reasons cited above! One can only give the male perspective here, as the female perspective cannot be found, put in words or explained in any language known to man.

Somewhere in the process of building that relationship as a married man, a "family man", even a hopeless romantic gets so caught up with the daily grind that he can become the boring average person, who simply goes about doing his job, making ends meet, getting into a routine, smug in his knowledge of 1001 things you can do on a silicon wafer or 101 ways to change a diaper.

The romantic streak is still alive, but much like a candle wick sucking on that last drop of molten wax, with the flame barely visible. A flame that barely threatens your fingers and tempts you to extinguish it with a simple squeeze. It is a flame nevertheless and given some more wax it can recreate the magic of what it once was.

There is also something to be said about the tacit understanding that passes for love when two people spend a decade together. There is love in mundane things that are said or done, without being specified explicitly. There maybe some love, even in boredom and monotony.

Rab De, presented all this with an amazing realism. The thing that touched a cord was the difference between explicitly expressed love, the type where a guy gets a chance to sweep a woman off her feet, something that is unique because it is not a daily event, something on a grand scale that can make memories, lasting ones, in sharp contrast to implicit tacit love, that is unsaid, given without any expectations.

Unconditional love that is as true in its abstract grandeur even though it has no voilins playing in the backdrop or firecrackers lighting up the sky. A bond that two people can share in silence, a truth that is self consistant within two souls, without the requirement for any reinforcement from anyone else.

Take heart, for there is hope for boring men, who screamed romance openly a few years ago, but have now been delegated to dishwashing duties and diaper changing and somehow don't say "I love you!" enough times in a 24 hour day, but still have that small romantic spark alive in them.

All it takes is some hair gel, sunglasses, tight fitting clothes, take a chance on your dancing and you too can be Jodi No. 1, as long as the Missus co-operates. If she likes to wear spandex, even better!

Loved this movie, and that was easy being an SRK fan. He consistanly manages to make me teary eyed when it comes to sentimental love stories and his goofiness and dancing are a treat to watch. The music is amazing. Your feet just start moving automatically. In the fourteen times I have heard "Tujh mein rab dikhta hai", got goosebumps all 14 times.

Go see it. Just take the moustache/sunglass part in the same spirit as Lois Lane takes Clark Kent/Superman! and you might come out with a smile on your face, and that flame might flicker and grow slightly bigger.

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Love is in the air

It has been a month since the MIL fractured her leg, by simply stepping on a stone while walking Jr. back home from school. Don't be fooled by all that hoopla about the "stepping stones for success". All it takes is one small stone at the wrong place and success will be a distant dream. This post is not about the stone, or the leg for that matter. It is about Romance...

How does one get from a Mother in law's fractured leg to Romance? This sounds more complicated than the Kevin Bacon game, right?

Actually it is very simple. The MIL is a regular reader of novels in the Romance section of the library and on every visit, she grabs, nay, gently picks a dozen of these tender books. The titles range from extremely sappy to heavily scientific and sometimes even bordering on the forensic, but the covers are almost always a dead giveaway.

The covers feature a topless dude with a woman showing ample cleavage(Did NOT get that reversed on accident!), usually wrapped around him with a rose that varies in position, sometimes in his hand, her hand, his mouth, etc. etc. Sometimes the woman is in full bridal dress and the guy is still a topless hunk and the background seems to be some tropical island! The covers and the descriptions of the story line on the back, do not have much logic and for some reason remind you of T. Rajendar movies!

One gets to learn that men on these covers had to have been airbrushed before the books went into print. Seriously, if you do not believe me, please check out the romance novel section in your local public library!

It so happened that the MIL was done with her last dozen and wanted me to return her books. Having done many things as a dutiful son in law, when your MIL is not able to move, questions like "Can you get some things from the garage? Can you get me some medicine? Can you get me my crutches?" were a piece of cake! "Can you return my books in the library?" came the question and the obvious answer was "No problem. Give me that."

That is when she dropped the bombshell. With pleading eyes she asked, "While you are there, can you get me some more of these books? I can tell you exactly where they are in the library!"

On first thought did not understand why she had to be so apologetic in tone when asking me that question. The little one and me were going to visit the library to get our dose of kids videos and DVD's anyway. What was the big deal? "Sure, no problem!" came the answer.

Only when I walked into the Romance section (2nd floor, make a right, then a left and walk all the way to the corner.. as per MIL's precise directions) did I realize what Bhasmasura must have felt, after he let Mohini lure him into certain death!

There were no men in the Romance section! The MIL might have as well given me directions to go into the ladies restroom in the library. Old chinese grandmas were giving me the look! My only defense was the little one, who kept talking and attracted more attention to her daddy trying to decide the best method to pick romance novels for his mother in law to read.

Two things need to be clarified here.

1. Even if one is a self proclaimed very liberal democrat, one feels a certain awkwardness when in new territory like this.

2. If I had to go the science and technology section and pick the best books on certain subjects, the process would have been fast and had reasonable success. Even if one has a romantic streak in him and has successfully "romanced"?! his wife for almost a decade, these novel covers and the titles do not tell you much about the quality of what is inside. They all look the same! "Death by moonlight" , "Emma's Secret" and "Spymaster" all have similar guys and babes on the cover!

There was only one thing left to do! Ask the little one to do "eenie meenie mynie mo. catch the lover by the toe!". Just when we were about to apply that algorithm on the top shelf of books, a sudden brainwave struck daddy! The Dewey catalog stickers had nice little red hearts on them and they were worn out to varying degrees!

All we had to do was pick the books with many hearts and pick books with really worn out stickers (more people must have read them or possibly judging by the crowd there, re-read them or re-re-read them!).

Within the next 30 seconds, a half dozen books were picked, tucked under one arm while the little one was bundled under the other arm and we walked out to the self checkout counter.

A few more folks had amused looks on their faces with my selection of books as I checked them out with a sheepish grin. The MIL of course oblivious of our little adventures, thanked me and the little one for getting her a fresh supply!

The best part of the whole deal was that the MIL has now declared "All the books you picked were excellent! How did you manage to pick consistantly good books? Almost all the time 30% of the books I get are only so...so!"

Now she knows my secret!

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Love

When you just come and hug your sister instead of posing for the photo like you were asked to do..

It turns it into a Kodak .. err. Canon moment!

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Love at best - The Prequel !!

If you read the previous post, you probably had a good laugh at my expense.

There is more to it than meets the nose!

Last weekend we were at the local temple. We apply ash or vermillion(kumkum) on our forehead when we go into the temple as a mark of respect for the gods.

Both Jr. and the little one usually insist on "myself Daddy.. MYSELF!". In other words, they would like to dip their finger into the ash or vermillion(kumkum) bowl and apply it on their own forehead. Add to it the fact that the little one is a blankie baby and she will smear the stuff on her forehead as well as on any adult who makes the mistake of carrying her while inside the temple.

If you see an Indian family driving back from Livermore with all their faces painted like Circus clowns in red and white, it is probably ours!

Now, back to last weekends events. Just as we were about to leave the temple, the little one saw her reflection on the van window!. She was running low on ash! and started throwing a tantrum outside the temple.

" I want to go back in and get more reevudhi! (kidspeak for sacred ash)" she cried. In an attempt to avoid her making a racket inside the temple, I gave her some of the Kumkum and ash from my forehead!

She gave me a kiss and a big hug and promptly rubbed it all back on my T-shirt.

Only yesterday we had this flashback and realized why she thought it was a loving gesture to transfer vicks to my nose.

Daddy transfers ash and kumkum.. baby transfers vicks and mucous! We are even!

Now we need to have a "kumkum transfer = good, vicks transfer = bad" conversation. It may be beyond my capability to explain that or beyond hers to understand!

We will see....

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