Yesterday, as I drove Niktia to the bowling alley, she sat next to me in the car and the following conversation ensued:
She: Dad I got a good one (joke) for you. It works best if a guy says it.
Me: What? Try me.
She: I told my girlfriend that she had drawn her eyebrows too high.
Me: And?
She: She looked surprised.
Sometimes, she makes me proud 🙂 🙂
It was yet to be 4:30 AM. I was on my way to Portland airport to catch a flight back home. Called up mom and then my brother. As soon as my brother started talking, I could hear a yelling of “Jethu?” (which is what my nephews call me – it is the Bengali word denoting dad’s elder brother) and then I figured the nephews had snatched the phone from my brother and were talking all over themselves trying to tell me something very excitedly.
Once they had stopped to take a breath, I asked them to calm down and explain the whole thing from the beginning. What I gathered was the following – my sister-in-law is in China now for school work and my brother had brought the nephews to my parents house for a few days. So far, this was old news to me. I kept mechanically driving to the airport as they kept telling me what I already knew.
Then the conversation took a quick turn. Turns out that on Day 1 with grandparents, they got their heads shaved. Why would they get their heads shaved, I asked myself?? In our culture, that is the custom if one of your parents die – which clearly was not the case here – or perhaps if you had an attack of lice or something even more sinister – which would be a shame. In my confusion and surprise I missed my turn to the airport 🙂
It seems my dad told them the story about how when my brother got his head shaved at their age [Oh! yeah! in those days, as a kid, we used to get our heads shaved a few times. We used to be told that our hair would grow stronger and better; I have lived long enough to know that there is no truth to that advertising 🙂 ], my sister and I used to write with “dot pens” (ball point in today’s terminology) on his head. The nephews found that story very funny. Presumably, which was what my dad’s purpose was.
But then the two brothers started asking themselves how come they don’t get their heads shaved. Having not come up with any good reason, they approached my brother. Who had the same logical question every rational thinking dad would ask. I understand the younger one, in sheer desperation, came up with the following – “Jethu-r moton dekhtey laagbey, tai”. (“so that we can look like Jethu”).
My brother, apparently not convinced that the world has suffered enough with looks like mine, quickly obliged and a short trip to the local market later, they came back with this… ahem… “barber”ic act 🙂 My brother said that the whole day they had been waiting for my daily call to tell me about their moment of “crowning” glory.
Once I understood the whole story, I got in on it too. “When I come to India next end of June, we will all get shaved together and take a picture”, I offered. To which, the elder nephew protested. “What happened?”, I asked. He demurred that the kids in school would make fun of him. I figured they still use “dot-pens” in school these days 🙂
So, we opted for the second best course. They took pictures of themselves and sent them to me. A little stitches here and there, I was able to put together the following picture. Which should make you laugh in stitches.
Sometimes I worry if I am setting a low standard for my nephews…
I would love to share an article written by my young friend Rish Basu from Dallas. I have known Rish ever since he was a baby – and he does not want to talk any further details on that – but more importantly, I always thought of him as a very talented basketball player and a football player. I am certainly rooting for him to be a rare kid of Indian origin getting into a college with football scholarship (which is where he is probably headed). Speaking of kids of Indian origins, this is a great take on one game we seemingly are good at – spelling words (undoubtedly, much to the chagrin of the sales guys peddling spellcheck software).
In case there is any doubt about the relationship of Indian parents and their hapless Indian origin American born kids, the following story should put it to rest. I called up Rish’s mom – my dear personal, social and runner friend Mita and asked her if she could ask Rish if it would be okay for me to feature him and and his article on my blog. She replied affirmatively.
On a hunch, I called Rish the next day to check if she had asked him. I am going to leave the rest to your imagination and focus back on the real article – Rish’s plea to the Indian origin kids who seem to have made it their personal rites of passsage thru life to win the Spelling Bee 🙂
>>>>>> As Rish put it…..>>>>>>>
It’s about that time of the year again. The Scripps National Spelling Bee.
I know you’re probably wondering why a kid like me has any connection or affiliation with such a prestigious event for such incredibly talented kids.
And your queries are definitely justified.
As something I would classify as one of the greatest accomplishments in my life, I made it to the eighth grade spelling bee once from Mrs. Ferguson’s English class. However, my accomplishments were short-lived as my entire family witnessed my elimination in the first round because I spelled the word “enamel” as “animal”. And I don’t think any of my past English teachers at this school would be quick to name myself as the next, greatest English scholar of the 21st century.
So yes, you are correct in assuming that “Scripps National Spelling Bee” and “Rish Basu” should never be put in the same sentence (except right there).
But this column is a formal proposal to all the Indian-American kids who participate in the National Spelling Bee: please stop winning.
You guys have won the last ten National Spelling Bees – and also 12 of the last 15. To put the dominance of Indian-American kids at the Scripps National Spelling Bee into layman terms, the combined dominance of the Golden State Warriors, University of Connecticut women’s basketball team, and the 1995-1996 Chicago Bulls would still not achieve the level Indian-American kids have in the recent National Spelling Bees. So please, speaking on behalf of every other mediocre, barely above average Indian-American kid in the entire nation: give us a break!
Every year, my mom turns on the National Spelling Bee, and I hear the same, awe-struck statement from my mother: An Indian kid won the Spelling Bee again! If those middle schoolers can do it, you can do amazing things too!
So that is why I want you guys to stop winning. There’s too much pressure on kids like me who want to spend their weekends watching Netflix. Anyone who knows me is aware that I’m always up for a challenge but being compared to an American-Indian kid winning the Scripps National Spelling Bee is like being matched up against Tiger Woods in his prime. An unstoppable force.
And, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that my mother is watching kids who have basically dedicated their lives to spelling. While I was learning how to take my first step, they were spelling words. While I was watching cartoons, they were watching Spellbound. And by the time I was attending basketball camps over the summer as a six-year-old, they finished writing their fourth dictionary.
You get the point.
In a perfect world, I wouldn’t know anything about the National Spelling Bee, and the chances of ESPN being turned on at the Basu household come May 26th would be slim to none.
But recently, I figured out that one of our own, Sai Gunturi ’07, won the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 2003. As you could probably guess by now, Sai Gunturi was an Indian-American kid from St. Mark’s, who went through the similar pressures of this school as I am now. So maybe, just maybe, there is still hope for me of achieving something as great as Sai did back in 2003.
After all, using my mother’s mindset: if Sai can do it, so can I.
The good news is I managed to drop 8 pounds in 2 weeks (mostly by regulating diet and drinks and increasing running distances). The bad news is that I am one TSA agent asking me to raise my hands up from having a really embarrassing moment 🙂
I was explaining my problem of loose pants to Sharmila. Her solution – she being a woman – was for me to buy couple of new sets of trousers. My solution – me being an engineer – was to get my drill bit and make another hole in the belt.
While I was trying to do the whole drilling thing, she came out and demanded to know what was I doing. “Solving problems. Not buying solutions”, I said.
I think no dinner for me tonight. I better go back and drill another hole in my belt 🙂
Over dinner this evening:
Me: “I do not have any scheduled meetings in the morning. If you are free, we can go out for lunch.”
Sharmila: “No. The pest control guy will come at 10 am.”
Me: “Okay”
And the dinner proceeded.
After about half an hour (when Nikita declared she did not need any more help from me for her homework)…
Me: “Okay, then I am going to go upstairs and retire.”
She: “Are you going to sleep now?”
Me: “No. It is 9PM. I will probably catch up on some reading”
She: “Or you can help me clean up the kitchen”.
[She said this pointing to the one ketchup bottle that was still left after I had cleaned out all the dishes. I will leave the topic of irony here since more is to come]
Me: “I already did it” [as I put the solitary bottle left back in its place]
…and to add some twist to that I continued…
Me: “Now I am going to go upstairs and reflect on twenty three years of our marriage. By the way do you know how many years we have been married?”
Now, if you follow my blogposts regularly, you probably know by now that she absolutely cannot remember our birthdays, our anniversaries and all those good stuff. She will remember your face and name if she met you twenty years back, but she can’t figure out how many years we have been married! I got my twentieth anniversary gift on our nineteenth anniversary!
She knew I was just picking on her. So, she retorted – “I don’t know and I don’t want to know..”. I know she said that but in her mind, she was trying to start the subtraction process. You know how I knew that?
Because, about eight seconds later, she turned around and screamed “IT IS OUR ANNIVERSARY TOMORROW”!
And I stood there scratching my head wanting to ask her – “So, what was your first hint?” 🙂
The best part of twenty three years of marriage? Exactly this kind of moments of comic relief!!
We have a decision on the college!! After a careful selection process befitting how the pope is chosen, we seem to have come up with an answer.
I can’t wait to talk to my dad tomorrow morning about it. I have a vague idea how the conversation will go…
He: “So, she is going to the college near home”?
Me: “No”
He: “But did you not say that would be totally free?”
Me: “Yes. But she is not going there”
He: “Oh! Okay. Is she going to the one that is giving maximum scholarship?”
Me: “No”
He: “No? The one with the next highest scholarship?”
Me: “Not that one either”
He: “Hmmmm. So how much is this college giving where she is going?”
Me: “Actually this is the college that is giving no scholarship?”
A few moments of silence…
He: “What was the highest scholarship she was getting?”
Me: “I think the highest was $25K per year”
More silence as he struggles to multiply 25000 by 67 (exchange rate of dollar to rupee)
And then…
… that is when he is going to kill me 🙂
