unglad rags and obsessive cleaning disorder.... :P

Now that everything is finalized, tradition dictates that a lot of clothes must be bought. My parents, along with my uncle and aunt were here for the weekend.
I am not very particular about keeping things organized and my house does seem a bit dirty, maybe thats an illusion. Every time a lady comes to my house, she turns the house upside down and gets it 'cleaned', and claims that I keep my house in a very dirty state. At times, while cleaning , we do find a cockroach here and there, dead or alive. They too have a right to survival :) .
I understand their need to keep the house spic and span , so before their arrival, I cleaned the house ,the toilet and bathroom.
They came home and remarked that my house is better than the last time they visited. I was glad that they wouldn't start cleaning again. I went to get some provisions. When I came back, i saw all the doormats outside the house. I went in and saw the whole house being cleaned again. They some how managed to find more dirt and dust. (or perhaps they got it with them :P ).
After the cleaning session was over, we had one big bag of dirt and about a dozen dead cockroaches. I guess I'm not a good cleaner afterall.
But I must say, the house looked a lot cleaner after they cleaned the house and as per them it was 'livable' now.
They even got me to clean my bike.
The next item on the agenda was shopping for clothes. I am not fond of shopping. The last time I bought a shirt, the people who came along me had to wait for 2 hrs. I guess I'm very finicky about the color, texture and material. 
But what has to be done has to be done. I asked them to buy the shirt and pant for me using the size, but they wouldn't listen. I had go along with them.
We went to a store about 3 km away first. I looked at what they had to offer. I saw a thread coming out from here and there on one of the items, so i rejected it.
Then I didn't like the color of some of them, some were too translucent.
So after about 1 hr , I got what i wanted. My father too got bored. He started tinkering around with his phone. I  wasn't very sure, but I was getting bored and I decided to get what i had in my hand.
I was happy that now we could go home. But then they told me another pair is required. So we went to another store. This time I had select a shirt and a pant. I was thoroughly bored,  I saw a shirt that I somewhat liked and decided to get it.  Then came selecting the pant. I was asked to get some material and get it stitched. I went to the counter and one after another, he kept pulling out material from the shelf. This has a good fall, this color is good, the texture is good and so on and so forth. My father suggested a material and I immediately said yes. It saved me the trouble of selecting the material.
Now we could go back and do something more interesting. But alas, i was wrong again, it seemed that the tailor was on his way. He would be there in around 10 minutes.I kept pacing up and down, while my parents, uncle and aunt were having a chat with the owner. After half an hour he showed up. He asked me to try on a ready made pant, then again an option of pleats or no pleats. So i had to try on two pants. Why the hell do i need a tailor if he is going to copy a ready made pant. I almost reached critical mass. I would blow up anytime. I somehow calmed myself (or perhaps it was the AC duct above my head). He took some measurements and I answered his questions.
We left at 3Pm and came back at 730 PM.
I am glad that somehow my parents, uncle and aunt put up with me.

Match Maker Match Maker Find me a Match...

A song from the movie 'Fiddler on the roof'. As it happened , I went and met my match.
I'll leave the details of how I got to know my match, but I'll describe the event that unfolded after that. Our parents decided that we should meet. I agreed.
There were two meetings, one in her house and one in mine.
So here goes....
My father, mother, mama and me took a cab from our house to their house which was about 6km away. On the way we stopped to buy fruits, flowers and sweets. We kept our appointed time and reached at sharp 4PM. I was nervous when i got off the cab and made sure, i was behind my parents all the time. Her parents greeted us warmly and I was still a bit nervous. We came to the door step, and uncle asked us to go in with our shoes, I took a step inside and then turned around to see that my dad and mama taking of their shoes. I turned around and removed my shoes too. When i went in , we were asked to sit. I saw her sitting next to her mother, grandmother and aunt. I began to fell nervous all over again. I tried looking at her, but at the same time, I tried not looking her into the eye. I kept looking up and down, left and right. In the end, her father suggested that we speak in private. That was a huge relief. But i still asked her a question or two whist there.
We then went upstairs and had a chat. I was no longer nervous, we kept talking while aunty gave us delicious snacks. I asked her a lot of questions and she replied to all of them and vice versa. I didn't notice the time, and I got a message. I didn't bother checking, and we went on and on. Suddenly I got a missed call. It was from my dad. I then checked the message, which was sent half and hour ago, ' Come when you are done'. Well, it seems that we were talking for more than an hour and people downstairs ran out of topics. So we came down and I bade goodbye.
I had made up my mind....
The next day, I got a call, and she wanted to meet me regarding some clarifications. So we met in Coffee Day. If she could work?...I was okay with that. And then came the bouncer, She insisted that Tamil would be spoken at Home. I said Okay. ('You can speak in Tamil and I can reply in English' :P ). But in a way I was glad, I always wanted to learn my mother tongue. After a while she was looking out the door onto the main road, and I did the same. We spoke  a little in between gazing out at the main road. Perhaps we were out of topics.
It was late in the evening when I got to know that it was 'yes' from her too. So as per protocol, they needed to visit us at our place. I wasn't there, I missed the fun. My aunts from my father's side were there and one of them asked her to sing. I heard she sang well, my mother was all praises, and asked her to continue practicing.
Then they had the ceremony of exchanging plates and I am sure the plates were carrying something.
After all this was over, I got a call from my mami congratulating me,  and she filled me in with the details about the dates etc.
I don't know about her, but it was a nice experience for me.

Onions!

I felt elated after enjoying Dal and Rice. I enjoyed it because I made it. I have an arrangement with a Household to provide food. However, the person who cooks is out of town for a few days. I never cook, In fact I loath it. This perhaps stems from my previous unsuccessful attempts at cooking the aforementioned Dish. Eating outside, is an option but I didn't feel like doing that today. Moreover, the restaurants near my place need to understand that certain people enjoy nutritious food rather than a overdose of oil and 'Masala'. So I reluctantly decided to cook. I called up my mother and asked her for the list of ingredients and the procedure.
I then made my way to the nearest Market. The list didn't look intimidating. Onions, tomatoes, Curry Leaves and Green Chillies. The other items in the list were available in hermetically sealed packets. I had a tough time selecting items that weren't available in packets. Selecting Green Chillies was fairly straight forward. All the green chillies in the carton looked the same. So I just picked up a few, visually inspecting them for any blemishes. Next came Tomatoes. The market seemed to have lots of tomatoes. So I stood in front of these cartons. Some of them red, while others looked as though the red color has faded. I was confused as to which to select. I then decided that I shall randomly select Tomatoes and visually inspect them and then if they pass the visual inspection test, I shall test them for softness. I had a gut feeling that it shouldn't be too soft. So after 10 minutes or so i zeroed in on 4 tomatoes. Next came Onions. I went to the area where onions were kept. To my chagrin the whole lot failed the visual inspection test. I stood there for a full 5 minutes wondering what  I should do. The last time I came shopping for tomatoes, I had a nice aunty help me. She looked at my confused face and helped me with the selection. That was perhaps a year ago.
I kept staring at the lot of onions, hoping that some aunty would turn up again to help or at least someone would select onions and all i had to do was follow his actions. But, 15 minutes on, no one came. The storekeeper came to my rescue, he loaded the carton with a fresh lot. I wouldn't say that the fresh lot passed my stringent visual inspection test, But I was fed up of standing there, so i selected a few.
 At home I diligently followed the procedure.
I avoided the mistake of roasting the dal before cooking it. I did that last time and  I kept waiting for it to pressure cook and in the end it was the pressure cooker that got cooked, not the dal.
I chopped the onions, and tomatoes, soaked the dal for half an hour and  pressure cooked the dal , put the pressure cooked dal on a frying pan after frying the garnish and guess what, it came out well . It was slightly bland. But unlike my previous attempts, it was cooked. (Oh and I forgot the Curry Leaves)
' Try Try and Try till you succeed' is true beyond doubt. 

My Experiments with Ethyl Alcohol

I am writing this post while drinking a chilled Budweiser. I used to dislike alcohol, in fact I detested it. All that changed after a trip to Goa. My college mates and I went to Goa on a week long vacation. All of them work in the IT field and reside in Chennai. A week in Goa sounded fun, and it sure was. We went to a lot of beaches and and a nearby discotheque. In the discotheque I started liking beer, it was complementary with the entrance fee. I had beer before, a different brand, and after One sip I poured the beer into the sink. The brand that I got here tasted different.  A fun moment I remember was driving from the beach to the hotel in a two wheeler in nothing but my swimming trunks. That drive really showed me what convective heat transfer is all about. We frequented bars and restaurants. In Goa you would find that almost all restaurants offer alcoholic beverages. So I tried many drinks. On on occasion I tried to emulate the second most well know punch line of James bond, ' Martini- Shaken, Not Stirred  '. It looked magnificent , in a martini glass and a tooth pick on top of it resembling a high tension trampoline rope with olives. I took a sip and my reaction was - Yuck! , How the hell can he drink this poison. I gulped it, like one would gulp bitter medicine. I had enough for that night.
On another ocassion we went to the beach, and my friends, all of them booze gourmets, ordered drinks. I didn't want to left behind so I ordered Rum and Coke. The first gulp, was like hot lava flowing through my esophagus and then reaching my stomach. I felt a bit dizzy, and then I slowly gulped it all. Trance Music in the background, and a soothing breeze from the beach, I was enjoying. That combination was damn good.
In the end  all of us had a lot of fun.
 

I'll be a Monkey's Uncle

 I remember clearly, it was in 8th grade that I had vehemently opposed the idea of working in the government. But here I am doing exactly that.
Big Names, Bigger Aims but all I left with is shattered dreams. My perception about my organization was extremely high. I also believed that in this particular organization people would be righteous,  but I have landed smack into the middle of unrighteous people. There are a few exceptions. I have never seen a place so mis-managed. I somehow feel that the place where I work is a Gulag and the person incharge is no different than Stalin. I am unable to get my mind off that place, even during week ends. I keep remembereing unfair events and the fact that automation is the prerogative of a single individual. I wish somehow I could get my mind off what happens at work.
I am still hanging on because some one said that 'hope is audacious'.

Food !

In a pensioner's paradise it is extremely difficult for a bachelor to get three square meals a day. I tried cooking but that didn't work out. I managed to blow up my cooker on one occasion and on another occasion the food was uncooked or overcooked, and it ended up in the sewer. I spent 6 months eating here and there, in fancy restaurants and cheap restaurants. I managed to get hold of a family that supplied food to needy bachelor's like me. I could get home cooked food every day in the morning and the evening. I traveled 10 km on my bike every day to get those meals.
I recently changed to another family, closer to my place.
Finding a Tamil family that provided home made food made me feel lucky. The food is good no doubt but certain things amuse me.
Whenever I go to their house, morning or evening, they turn on a Tamil channel. Perhaps I should tell them that my Tamil is as bad as my cooking. But then waiting there for 10-15 minutes and watching Tamil programs would do no harm. There are 4 members in the family, the parents and the children. Somehow every time I come, their daughter goes into hiding. I am not sure if it my 'Boyish charm' ;) that makes the lady shy or the opposite or maybe it is the instruction of the parents. Traditional Tamil families do tend to be a bit conservative. I don't blame them. Parents are always wary of the girl child. I think after living in Chennai for 4 years I've got accustomed to it. Coming back to the serials , I remember watching one long time back with my grandmother while having dinner. I almost laughed when I saw the same serial with the same girl(i think 'aunty' should be the appropriate word) who was trying her best to get married.(she was attmepting to do so for the past , I think 3 years).
The most amusing part was when a bunch on aunties were crying for god knows what reason. Bigamy is the norm in these serials. I somehow tried to control my laughter and took my packed dinner. I hope the aunty who gives me food or none of her family members read this entry or else, I will be blowing up pressure cookers again.

The Ordeal

I was to leave for Mumbai to attend an interview, that was postponed by almost 6 months. I left Mysore on the 6th of February by bus, and as usual i got late. Luckily the bus was also late. The journey was uneventful and the conductor doing his best to play movies with an Imdb rating of less than 3. Suddenly I realized that i had forgotten my laptop charger at home, and i had to spend 2 weeks in Mumbai, for an interview with all the study material in my laptop. I reached Mumbai the next day and went to my office. An additional charger would cost 7k. I didn't know what to do and i spent two days reading in the Computer Lab. Then I met a friend also from Mysore, he had the same charger, and he gave me his charger, till my interview got over. This act of selflessness, I will never forget.
For interviews like these, we meet people who are experts in the field in which I am working. So I met them many times and had discussions. During one of those discussions, I realized that certain mundane tasks in Engineering are actually very interesting.
The day finally came, and as usual, I reached just in time. (I am not complementing myself here). In fact i reached after my experts and Divisional representative. I waited nervously outside for my turn and finally the bell rang and I was summoned inside. It seemed like 10 minutes, but when I came out,people told me that I had been inside for over an hour. I waited anxiously for my experts to come and tell me the result. 'It was Good. congratulations! ' was what one of the experts said. I was relieved and overjoyed. Actually more relieved than overjoyed. In fact I had trouble believing him, so i went to him as he was waiting for the elevator and asked him again. He laughed and said ," how many time do i tell you? , you cleared. " .
I certainly was happy that day. I had slogged a lot, and being me, I was very nervous. That was some relief. Better than the relief, you get after a trip to the throne, when the stomach is bad.
I thanked everyone and boarded the bus to Mysore next day. That journey was uneventful and the conductor played some Kannada movie. By the looks of it the name would have been ' The serpent Queen and the Half Clad King.' I chose to look outside with the volume of my music player high enough to avoid listening to the incoherent babble. That's what you call a language that you don't understand. No offense!
I reached Mysore and went to office after a shower. With that trip, I think I will not have to visit Mumbai again for another 3 - 4 years.