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There are elections in India. The only thing we were looking forward to, was to see the incumbent Congress party go. Looks like that is happening. 

We have been getting updates from supporters of different parties on the Facebook feed more than from any news media. This morning, decided to see what Google news presented for me and here it was (link)

Now for someone who is not that much into Indian History and knows Nehru as Jawaharlal Nehru and Gandhi as Mahatma Gandhi... 

Ok, I know the desi's who read this are going "not possible", but seriously! Today's American textbooks have three pages for Indian political history. Not much mention is there of the fact that Indira Gandhi, who gets mentioned as the first woman prime minister of India is not related to the Mahatma. People put two and two and come up with four!

In all of Indian history, this move by Indira to marry a dude with the same last name as Mahatma Gandhi, was probably the most brilliant branding or marketing idea! 

In South INdian families we stopped using caste or religious sub sect related last names post Indian Independence. Then folks started using their fathers first name as their last name, as "expanded initials". That is why I am now Sundar Narayanan instead of Sundar Iyer. My fathers first name is now my last name. Still it made sense in a way that we were all part of the Narayanan family. Unlike family names in the US, this gets to be tricky. My wife does not want to take my fathers first name as her last name. She was okay with being Sangeetha Sundar (which is how it works in India if a woman wanted to change her last name, she took her husbands first name!) and that also made sense.  

This is a common issue in desi families when they apply for a US passport. They all want to fill out one customs form and have the same last name but cannot agree on one. So the new trend is that the entire family changes their name to the old system. Either go with sect, subsect names or their Gothrams(lineage) in Brahmin families. 

If we ever cross that bridge, we should take a page from Indira and find a "nice" family name to change to!

"If little girls had Brains!" - How autocorrect is ruining inflight entertainment

On a recent United flight they played a Sandra Bullock Movie called The Heat.

There is a scene in this movie where the cop character played by Melissa McCarthy, is searching for the police chief's "balls". She is searching everywhere in the office and even annoucnes to the rest of the police force "has anyone seen the captains balls? they are small, tiny, the size of ball bearings? no.. they are the size of little girl balls, IF little girls do have balls!"

Or at least that is what I remember seeing in the trailer!

For some strange reason, United decides to play this movie in a flight that does not have personal TV screens. Why they would do that is beyond me as it is an R rated movie that is not appropriate for kids staring at the big screens, given all the language in the movie.

For a worse reason, they decide to "autocorrect" the dialogues in the movie.

I am not sure if this was United's doing or Fox pictures doing, but it was a bad call. They replaced words like shit with stuff, other four letter expletives with kids choice of abuses and the worst choice was to replace "balls" with "brains"! 

There I was half asleep, trying to fight my stomach convulsions trying to divert myself, put on headphones to see what the movie was about and the first dialogue I hear ? 

"they are the size of little girl brains.. if little girls had brains!" and it just pissed me off. Was thinking "why won't little girls have brains! My girls are smart. How insulting is that for any little girl who happens to be on this plane? what are they thinking?!" and then it came to me that the original script was not this. 

United seriously needs to rethink its movie choices and they need to stop this autochange feature. Given the new dialogue was in Melissa McCarthy's voice, I am surprised she would do a voiceover for a dialogue that needlessly ridicules girls!

That special month.. that special day!

November is almost over.

Three birthdays done and one more to go, in this family of all November borns.

First was the little ones birthday, which was celebrated the usual style with a small group of her school friends, sister and cousins at a local "paint your own ceramic" place. She had fun, getting two dresses for her birthday, dressing up, distributing cup cakes etc. We are going to miss this phase soon as our little girl is already eight and has a mind of her own. 

Next was Jr.'s turn. She had a deal. If we skipped a birthday party (which we were not planning to have in the first palce.. we had told her "you get a big party for 10th, then 13th and 16th.. nothing inbetween!") she will get my hand me down iPhone and I get to spend the 200+ bucks to upgrade to a new iPhone. So we ate out at a place of her choice and called it a Happy birthday. There are no birthday photos this year for Jr. ! Here she is, all grown up, at the little one's party. 

My birthday gift to her was a book "Indian Melodies for the Alto Saxophone" which had western notation for most of the entire Carnatic music series with Geethams, Varnams and some Keerthanais. The best part is that the book came with a CD where Kadri Gopalnath performs the lessons on an Alto Sax, so we know what it is supposed to sound like. Jr.' loves it compared to Daddy's hand written notations. We strongly recommend this book for other folks who are learning Saxophone in the Western style trying to do Carnatic music songs. There will be a video of her doing some songs later this week if she works on it. I call her "Nagubaby" in hopes that she will play one of my favorites "Nagumomu" and so far she is givng me the nasty look. 

It was going to be a hit or miss for my birthday as my travel plans were in flux. Last minute we found that I was going to make it back home, just before my birthday. The family was all happy with that news. There is always the plans and reality. Got a massive food poisoning event at the last meal on the trip, that pretty much wiped me out. It was a miracle that I made it back, on a long flight, all weak and throwing up. 

Got out of bed to throw up and saw it was 2AM. Wished myself a happy birthday and went back to sleep. My entire birthday was a blur. Mostly slept through it on a Gatorade and water diet. This is the first time I opened a birthday with throwing up. Well, there is a first time for everything!

The last few days has seen some improvement with bread and yogurt rice becoming part of the diet and so far they have stayed down. It is going to be a long and slow road to recovering from this one as my ability to smell or taste things is gone. 

Even with all this going on, life is not without a lighter side. A few days ago, I felt barely alive and was half asleep fighting my stomach and lying down. It felt like a dream. A small hand reached out into the comforter, pulls out my right thumb, presses it down somewhere and places my hand carefully back in position. When I woke up, realized it was the little one "opening" my iPhone using my thumb print, to play games! Reminded me of the villains in old Tamizh movies who get the dying man's thumb print on a document that wills away his farm!

We are now down to San's birthday which involves "more travel" as part of the birthday gift. Prayers are already in effect for me with family and friends so I recover fast. Someday I will write a book for folks with food allergies as a "travel guide". In the meantime, it is time to go back to sleep and get back to normal!