Upon reviewing all my blogposts (also FB posts), it would appear that this year I have been mostly
(a) making cocktails
(b) running in colorful clothes
Presumably (b) was done in circles due to the consumption of (a).
Ergo, as you can imagine, “It has been a great year. Thanks for being part of it.” 🙂
Remember all those fun experiences when my in-laws were visiting us? And the recent funny realization of how wise my FIL is in not giving into my MIL’s demand for a new TV (and instead get her cataract removed? 🙂 )
Well, there was another mini-episode yesterday. I called up my FIL last morning regarding some paperwork related to his accident and surgery while in US. He seemed audibly upset over the phone. I asked him if he was distracted with something.
“I am not sure if it was such a great thing to get your masi’s (that is what I call my MIL) cataract removed”. he said.
“Why?”, I asked, worried that there might have been some post-op complications. Which would be terrible since her other eye is non-functional from a very early age.
“Well, because of that, I am getting yelled at the whole day”, he somberly replied. I had no idea why would somebody yell at him for getting the cataract removed.
This is what I learnt as I pressed him on. Evidently, my mother in law can see crystal clear – so to speak – that everything in the house is NOT being put back in their right places after he uses them. She can now clearly spot the cobwebs on the wall and the dust spots on the floor. All those days of making short shrift of house cleaning has come to a screeching halt for my FIL and the housemaid. Hence all the yelling…
Barely able to conceal my laughter and then wisening up, I enquired “At what age do you get cataract?”.
“Oh! Seventy or so”, he said.
“Twenty five more years…”, I mused to myself as I subtracted Sharmila’s age and put my phone down 🙂
I was driving back home from Atlanta airport last evening. The office traffic had not picked up yet and so I was speeding thru. As I switched from I85N to GA400 N, I found myself behind this vehicle which had an ad painted all over its back proclaiming “AAA batteries delivered and installed”. (I could not take a picture since I was driving but I Googled at home and sure enough there was a picture of a similar vehicle available on the internet).
I was really confused. How fat and lazy have we become in this country that we need help to put in those small – less than one inch – batteries in our TV remotes and flash lights? We need service for that? And there are businesses surviving trying to offer that service? Evidently, they are making enough money to buy a truck!
A few minutes later, I passed the truck and was trying to see how the driver (presumably owner of the business; I did not think this could be that big of a business to support multiple employees) looked. And that is when I saw the large, iconic, immediately recognizable, red “AAA” (Automobile Association of America”) logo brightly painted on the door. Of course, this was a AAA truck trying to sell and deliver car batteries to roadside people stuck with dead batteries.
Why they would not put the “AAA” logo behind – or better still use the logo instead of writing out the letters “AAA” in the sentence starting “AAA batteries”, I do not know.
In any case, sanity returned. We are not that fat and lazy in this country, I concluded – as I put the car in cruise control mode and sipped my double caramel frappuccino loaded with whipped cream that I had picked up from the airport Starbucks 🙂
You probably remember my inlaws’ trip to Atlanta and some of the hilarious stories. Here is one more from today…
Last night, it seems, Puerto Rico got overrun by the Indians! Around evening time, we noticed a sudden spike of Indians on the streets, hotels, beaches and so on. That reminded us how every Thanksgiving week when we go to South America / Central America / Caribbean to celebrate Sharmila’s birthday, we also run into a lot of Indian guests the evening before Thanksgiving.
At the risk of stereotyping.. ah, who am I kidding? To stereotype a lot, you know those are Indian folks and not locals by a few tell tale signs – for example, all those people gathered around the large chessboard on the floor by the hotel pool early in the morning egging their kids on for the next move? Indians, for sure 🙂
Second, we tend to be very loud in public places. We are not parents of the ilk that would get up from their lobby chairs to tell their wayward young kid gently to not go out of the hotel doors. We yell from across the lobby “Ay, Rajesh! Bahaar mat jaana. Bahaar bhaloo hai”. (Don’t go out. There is a bear outside). Obviously it is a bear sick and tired of the cold up north and decided to get to the Caribbean 🙂
Finally, all those people – especially ladies – getting into the beach after sunset in their jeans just as everybody is walking out? That is us, Indians!! 🙂
Joking aside, over the years, as I have talked to a lot of them and tried to create some intersections, I have learnt that it is pretty much the same set of reasons why Indians in US travel so much during Thanksgiving. First, Thanksgiving is a celebration of family. Most of us, immigrants, tend to not have any family to get together with in this side of the world.
Second, we are also unified in our common fear of the cold. We just do not like cold. A few days of no work during the advent of winter is as good reason as any to hightail it to the warmer beaches.
Finally, Thanksgiving is the glorious season of overeating turkeys. We are the vegetarians. You do the math. 🙂
