Gold and Beautiful

So... our move did not go as planned.. But what the heck!!! We still moved in our new home and are living there, enjoying every minute of it!!! Whenever I told people that we were buying a condo, everyone seemed to have just one question.. why a condo? why not a house?? esplly in India... Not sure what the attraction towards bungalows is!!! Never got it... Ever since I was a child, skyscrapers (high-rises, for Americans :-)) always fascinated me and I always wanted to live in one. That is probably the reason why I love our Thane home so much more than our Dombivli home, even though I lived there for only an year. It's an interesting coincidence that the topic for my TOEFL essay was Apartments vs. Homes..... not kidding!!! Anyways, right now we are loving the weekend walks at Piedmont Park, enjoying the view of Atlanta's skyline as we have our morning breakfast and coffee and evening chai and snacks in our balcony (and at all other times from every room!!!). Can't wait to ge...

If you want to save time you should take a flight to go from Kingston to Montego Bay. But if you want to experience the country, a bus ride from Kingston to MB also works great!! The ride constantly reminded me of home (in India)..... Shreyas said he had never been to a country that is poor and not his home... neither had I. So this was a different experience. Moreover since the climate is so similar, the vegetation is also the same. I was exhilarated at the site of sitafal in a small stall on the road that was similar to the ghats between Mumbai and Pune. And of course the Gulmohar tree!!! Gosh!! It's been ages since I had seen one... MB was pretty much a touristy place with beaches, restaurants (that served average food for above avg price) and quite some stuff to do. We avoided the beaches and water sports (you can do them in Florida here!!!) and went for bamboo rafting on a river instead. Extremely serene and relaxing. Obviously had to do some shopping. I had to buy my fridge m...

This year seems to be good for me (that phase is going to end soon though, have been maintaining a low profile at work)... Luckily for us, Shreyas got a teeny weeny project at Jamaica and we got to enjoy a weekend here... It is almost as if the need arose only so that we could visit :-) Anyways, the experience at immigration was similar to Mumbai... the heat, the long lines... the only difference being that the # of passengers at Mumbai is huge as compared to this place. This just seemed inefficient to me. The cabbie was real nice giving me a quick tour of the place and pointing out places of interest... We decided to try some authentic cuisine and more than the food what stayed with us was the cocktail!!! All drinks on the menu had rum and these were really strong drinks!!! I have never tasted so much rum in a drink before. As a matter of fact all the fruity cocktails that I have had so far are so mild, that I would have probably not even been able to identify rum :-) :-) Anyways, off...

This was my in-flight movie and the first Aamir Khan movie that I had not seen (and was not keen on watching). I was actually in India when the movie released 6 months back, but somehow didn't feel like watching it. Now that I have seen it I am totally disappointed. It's an exact, frame-to-frame copy of the original Ghajini. Aamir Khan as the handsome, sophisticated business tycoon was great, but Aamir Khan as the angry protagonist was a total disappointment. I never thought I would say this, but Surya was much better (I remember a friend saying "You are actually watching a movie where the hero's name is "Surya" ?"). I saw the original almost 3 years back during Katrina, so I don't exactly remember if the admiration for Surya was because of his performance in Ghajini or was it a leftover adulation from "Kaaka Kaaka" (This one's really worth watching... I swear!!)... Either ways the Hindi version was nowhere close to the original even th...

So I saw this movie with my cousins back home and recommend it to every Marathi speaking Maharashtrian.... It does have a protagonist who preaches more than I prefer, but the message is something I really believe in. I love the part where Shivaji Raje says: Don't blame outsiders for your bad situation. You are responsible for your stunted growth.... This reminds me of an incident at Louisiana Tech. One of my acquaintances (who was from north) once complained that all our Indian Association functions had tons of Telugu performances and none in Hindi. That was his reason for boycotting the functions, after all it was Indian Association not Telugu Association. I asked him why hadn't he ever participated in any of the events, choreographed or directed a performance or performed himself? That way we could have Hindi performances. If the non-Telugu speaking population was not going to participate, how can they blame others for doing what they like to do? I did make my point successfu...

Year: 1996 Location: Kirti Group Tuitions, Dombivli (E) Scene: I was in the 12th grade and was going to Pabrekar Sir for PCMB tuitions. One day after class he was talking to all the girls in my class, a real small number and said something like: Don't let guys distract you... चांगला शिका, मुलांची लाइन लागेल :-) Nothing extraordinary.... Being pushed for good grades and education was nothing new to me..... It was present everywhere, except at home (lucky me..... everybody should have my parents!!!!). I ddin't need him to tell me about guys! Year: 2009 Location: Somewhere in Andheri Scene: My cousin and I were talking and she mentioned a sister-in-law who was past the average age of marriage (among Maharashtrians), worked in IT, drew a very good salary, did not have a boyfriend and was trying for an arranged marriage. Following are the "responses" she got: Guy: I don't want a girl who earns more than I do. Guy's mom: We don't want a girl from IT. They have...

I went to a saree shop yesterday, a fancy saree store in a mostly gujju neighborhood, I would guess owned by a gujju.... The moment we went in and sat down and spoke in Marathi, the guy understood almost everything about our needs.... Like he was a mindreader :-) He showed us sarees in a wide range (cost-based), but not a single saree was out of our budget. 4 women were sitting right next to us and he was showing them sarees that cost 4 times more than what I was checking out.. Needeless to say they were all speaking in Gujarati :-) The guy knew I was going to buy only 1 saree, he still made me shortlist around 15 (we were tired, but he did not want to give up.... It's usually the other way around... You have to keep asking for more designs and styles!!!). He draped more than 10 sarees on me and then finally when I could not select one from the final 2 shortlisted, he called another salesman and they both literally draped the sarees around them so I could get a better idea. It was ...