Monday, December 15, 2008

"You guys make a cute pair"

I've noticed this phrase in many couple's albums. I might have blurted this phrase out myself many a time. Lately I've been wondering, what the hell, everyone says this to each other irrespective of whether they mean it or not!

"You look great together", "You make a cute pair", "Sweet looking couple", "You guys are the perfect couple" - jeez, what a bunch of crap, especially when the guy has six packs and the girl has a double chin, or when the girl is a skinny short middle-school looking person and the guy is tall and mature. Sometimes it's an obvious mismatch, yet you hear people say "Ooh you look so good together".

When I recently blurted this out to a couple I know (they definitely did look good together), I was wondering out to him, and he had a good theory. People are mind-washed into saying things especially when the couple is a newly wed. Makes sense. But hey, I've seen some pictures of people well into marriage, and there again I find the same old hypocrisy - lies.

No offense to anyone, I sure have meant every compliment I've given, but if I haven't given you a compliment, then you know what I mean! *wink wink*

Memoirs of a part of me

It's gloomy and cold. The eerie silence is broken by the sounds of sleet and hard rain against my window. I close my eyes and see visions of home, back in India. Beautiful summer vacations at my maternal grandmother's home. I imagine the aroma of hot fried "medu vadais", a staple snack at Paati's home, made especially for me. I relive those precious moments of laughter and playing with my cousins at Paati's terrace.

I can clearly see a younger version of my grandfather travelling all the way from Tambaram to Besant Nagar to spend time with us. They never had the comforts of luxury and always travelled by bus. I'm stricken with guilt that we never visited them often when we should have. There's a tear drop in my eye for all the times Thatha came home in a crowded Chennai bus.

And I open my eyes to the present, where my mom warns me over a Yahoo! chat window that they're getting older and older and that Thatha had fainted in his living room. How I wish I could visit them! I haven't forgotten a single beautiful memory with my precious grandparents. My grandmother is the most amazing woman I've ever known - gentle, kind, generous, and so hard working. At this age, they still live alone - she cooks, cleans, shops... and she's so kind hearted she couldn't wish the worst even for an enemy... of course, she has no enemies.

I miss them so much. Married and now in the US, when I can't fry a "medu vadai" properly, or when I don't want to venture into deep frying "bakshanams", or even when I'm just generally getting accustomed to this new role in life, I always think of these wonderful people who passed down everything they know to my mom, and she in turn to me.

We love you thatha and paati, and we'll pray you won't give up on us and will be around when we come visiting India next time around.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Noisy Neighbours!

No one, not anyone out there, can have noisier neighbours than us! Having a fireplace is a nice thing, but the biggest con is having to sit in your living room listening to all the muffled crap that goes on downstairs - predominantly Hindi crap. As I type right now, they're being atrociously loud. I wonder how none of our American neighbours have complained about this to maintenance yet.

Sometimes, S and I feel like banging on their door and asking them to keep it low. Sometimes I just feel like rattling at the fireplace and scare the living daylights out of them...

Just to get some payback, I'm going to have a baby and make my kid jump all day long, giving them a perennial headache... watch out noisy neighbours, my kid's going to bring you down. *muahahahhahaha*