Time travel

Was browsing through old posts on the blog to see what we did for Varalakshmi Vratham week and also to check on my mother's theory that every Aavaniavittam week I have been sick.

Two things came out of that browsing..

1. My mom is right. No surprises there! Retired school teacher that she is, really no surprises there. . . 

2. We are very consistant in our way of handling mid August.

There has been a photo shoot of the kids every year since the little one was born! 

Made a collage of those photos from 2006 to 2013 

Click for a larger version.. 

One photo, so many memories!

Festive portrait week

The first two weeks of August are full of events for us. We have the Varalakshmi Nombu function where the women pray for their husbands well being followed by a home stress test for the husbands health with delicious food. The food instantly tests the workings of the stomach, liver, kidneys, pancreas and heart in one sitting! 

This is followed by Independence day wishing to Indian relatives and friends, attending local events in the US celebrating Indian Indpendence day (It is usually celebrated here as Fifteentho de Augusto for most folks with Kingfisher instead of Corona if you get the drift..)

This is followed by first day of school for the kids and all the excitement that comes with it!There is one Target in Cupertino where all the parents descend last minute to finish their back to school shopping and the place is as festive as Mardi Gras! 

Then comes Aavani Avittam where the guys change their threads, the women look gorgeous and the food trumps the Varalakshmi stress test. This one is for real. If you survive this feast, you are on your way to a good year. 

To round all this up there is Krishna's birthday, aka Gokulashtami which involves a lot of deep fried goodies and more great food! It is customary for us to go on some kind of long hike in some national park for Labor day to get back to normal. 

This year the festive season has started nicely. As usual I now have a doctor's visit this week thanks to a jaw locking problem. Do not know what it is with 2nd week of August and Hospital visits. My mom asked me on the phone "Usually you visit a doctor on Aaavani avittam week. Hope you are okay now!" That was Sunday monring and promptly I was at the doctors on Monday afternoon, and as it is with every year, this has nothing to do with the good food! 

This year the kids dressed up nice as usual and posed for portraits!

Here are some of the pictures..

This year they were very involved in the function. They gave the Haldi Kumkum to all their friends and took part in the celebration. This is a good sign if they are learning something from us!

More photos to come, if six pack sundar succesfully does his Aaaviavittam ... The next few days, I will be explaining to folks outside the yoga room to answer FAQ's of "hey, come your thread looks new?!" 

Language barrier

Last weekend my twitter feed was going non stop, and most of those tweets were #chennaiexpress, the new Shahrukh Khan movie. 

Most of these tweets were taking offense to how south Indians were stereotyped in this movie and how the Tamil spoken by the heroine and hero were offensive because no one who speaks Tamil actually talks like that.

Think Apu of Simpsons. Indian's don't speak like that. Apu stood for all Indians which was a higher level of sterotyping. My grad student friends would say hello to me in the Apu accent! Initially it was annoying, but then again, I leant do come back with some pretty good comments on my own.

The world hasnt moved much in 20 years of my staying in the US. Twenty years ago someone asked me "so you speak Indian?" and as late as three months ago, someone asked me the same question. One would assume that in a place where 1 in 5 people is Indian and Samosa and Tea are as staple as Pizza and Soda at any birthday party, folks would know that there is no language called "Indian"... but one assumes wrong!

Was very busy with work and that meant waiting to watch Chennai Express. Finally got to see it and thoroughly enjoyed it.  There are some prerequisites to enjoying this movie. 

1. You should be an SRK fan. 

2. You should have watched all his previous films (or some of the jokes are lost on you). I was laughing out so loud when he says "I have done this earlier too" while pulling the heroine into a moving train..

3. You should not be easily offended by stereotype jokes. Watching a lot of Russell Peters, Maz Jobrani, Ahmed Ahmed etc. helps. 

4. You should get the jokes!

All that said, I had no issues with SRK who was his usual self which is what I go to watch in an SRK movie. A goofy ham of a performance. The movie was abmling along nicely till they decided on a 10 minute fight scene at the end. Why? 

In the hands of a better director, this storyline would have made a better movie.. and maybe he/she would have dubbed the heoines Tamil dialogues and it would have been a bigger hit with South Indian folks as well!

Just when I was telling San that the movie was fun, the little one says "I have an episode of our favorite serial called The Littlest Pet Shop and you are going to love it!"

So they play me this on Netflix online and it was a laugh riot. SRK being spoofed on a kid's serial!

Hopefully you clicked on all those links and immunized yourself from getting angry at language sterotypes and then watch Chennai Express.

You might enjoy it!