This is when you know America has a food problem. Just found out that May is the National Burger Month!
Really? We celebrate all mothers for one day. We celebrate all our fallen soldiers for one day. And for burgers, we keep the whole month? That too one that has not 28, not 30 but the max of 31 days?
God help us. And the cows 🙂
Getting my mother in law introduced to touchscreen is an awesome experience. A few days back, one of our friends had downloaded the YuppTV app on an iPad at our home and shown them how to watch streaming Bengali channels on it.
The whole concept of touching a sophisticated machinery like iPad is proving to be very scary to my MIL. This evening I came home and was a little surprised that she was not watching TV shows on iPad (she does that for endless hours).
“ki holo? Aaj TV dekchhen na?” (What happened? Not watching tv tonight?).
She was really scared and upset when she said “ami bodh hoy ota noshto korey felechhi” (I thinking I messed up the iPad)
“Maaney?”, I asked. (What is that supposed to mean?)
“Amar hath thekey ektu sorey gechhilo. Screen to puro bhenge bnekey gelo”. She thought when the iPad screen turned around (I assume she had tilted it), the physical screen came unhinged and got twisted!!!! 🙂
Half an hour later, I was again in the living room. This time saw her poring into the iPad but I could see that she was on the main screen. I asked her what happened. Why was she not watching something?
“Norchhe”, she said. (Things are moving)
I was like what do you mean “Norchhe”? Upon investigation found out that all the app icons were jiggling!! I assume she kept her finger on the YuppTV app for too long.
Anyways, I laughed out and told her next time to ask anyone of us to help her.
And I noticed that she had a lot of apps open. Obviously, she had tried a few more things before she got them to jiggle 🙂 I asked her to hang on and started to kill the apps one after the other. She watched me as I flicked the apps off the screen and then got her show started.
She helplessly looked at me and said “Thheley diley sorey jachhe e abar ki re baba” 🙂 (It moves when you push it, what kind of a thing is this?)
I am having second thoughts of gifting them an iPad before they leave for India!!
Ok, this one does not involve my inlaws, for a change 🙂
Some of you who know our house in Milton probably also realize that our property line backs into Summit Hill Elementary school – which is where Nikita goes. You cannot see the school from our house since there is a good five acres of forest in our property but you sure can hear all the commotion of a playground with kids in it during all hours. Which is, by the way, one of the best sounds you can hear in the mornings. The mind goes back to my own school days and the pure fun kids have on the play field with nary a worry.
You can then well understand my consternation when I heard a fire engine clanging from what seemed to be the direction of the school this morning. I tried to figure out whether it was one of the drills for the kids but the noise persisted for some time. With all the scary and unfortunate incidents in various schools, of course, the parent’s mind in me immediately got worried and started jumping to worst case scenarios. Illogical fears started creeping in. I remembered dropping Nikita in the morning and she was dressed smartly for the day – it was Career Day in her school. She was excited to be an Interior Designer and was carrying carpet pieces, measuring tape and such with her. I was feeling sorry if all that excitement got canceled due to whatever it is that had happened for which the fire engine had to be called.
I was anyways on my way out for a doctor’s appointment. I rerouted myself so as to drive on the road where her school is. I was totally relieved that there were no swarms of cop cars near the campus or road blocks. However, I also noticed a big fountain of water – it seemed like they were trying to douse something. Because of a small mound, I could not see any of the action – just the high water spout. The good news is that the water was being thrown AWAY from the school building. I figured out, in the worst case scenario, it is grass fire (although it is too early in the season) or a car on fire.
And so I drove on. At the next STOP sign, I saw an ambulance coming towards me (headed in the direction of the school) with the lights lit up! I could not help myself anymore. I panicked and called up Sharmila and asked her to call up the school to find out what was going on.
A few minutes later, Sharmila called back, extremely irritated. Evidently the folks at the front desk had a hearty laugh. In fact, they said “it is very cute that you were concerned”.
Turns out that the school had arranged for the local fire engine and emergency services to come and demo to the aspiring students on what a career in emergency services entails!!
Ha! Ha! I am so glad I made her call up the school 🙂
Today is New Year’s Day for us Bengalis. If you were not aware, we, the Bengalis originate from a small state in the eastern part of India appropriately called “West Bengal” (and also Bangladesh).
You might be wondering why do we celebrate New Year’s in the middle of April. To understand that, you have to understand the top three characteristics of us Bengalis.
First, and foremost, we hate cold weather. “Thanda legey jaabey” (Thou shalt catch a cold) is the most commonly uttered full Bengali sentence. By far. The mercury has to hover somewhere around 80 degrees and we promptly adorn our heads with monkey caps (kind of a prehistoric version of ski mask). With a pompom on the top, to boot! Most of January we are under our “lep toshak” (quilts). Way too deep to come out and consider even remotely celebrating New Year’s. Mid April, on the other hand is nice and toasty in the high 80s. Which, is the perfect weather to come out and celebrate. A half sweater goes fine with that weather and celebrations.
Second, we are a little overwhelmed by the concept of New Year’s resolutions made on January 1st. Especially, since 73% of all such resolutions somehow need us to be in the gym. Gyms and us get along as well as the Kardashians and the concept of staying married. We simply don’t understand the unholy haste to sweat ourselves to death in the gym. We get enough practice in our crowded buses and trying to chase the crows away from the food on our balconies. We are doing just fine with our rice and rosogolla, thank you very much!
And third, we need our regular festivals and the associated one week casual leave from work every month. When it comes to actually working and the work hours, the French have nothing on us. We scoff at the concept that they waste their parliament’s valuable time passing laws limiting work to only 20 hours a week. That way we are very self reliant. We do that ourselves without needing any stupid laws to help us. For every month we have our earmarked festival – New Year’s in Jan, Saraswati Pujo in Feb, Dol in March, Pochise Boisakh in May and so on and so forth. April is the only month we had nothing. And thus, we chose April – and to be fair to the bordering months, we chose bang in the middle of the month of April to celebrate our New Year’s!
There! You have it now!!
This time it was after security check in Orlando airport. Nikita and I went thru TSA PreCheck and breezed thru in fifteen seconds. As we were waiting for Sharmila and Natasha to clear thru the normal security lines, I jokingly suggested to Nikita “Let’s take the train and go to the terminal. They have their boarding passes with them. They can always come there by themselves”.
She got extremely concerned by my attitude. “Dad, you have no heart”!
And in three seconds added, “Just like your hair”
🙂
Niki and I were discussing geometry as we waited at the airport. We were talking about octagons when she excitedly said “You know dad, how I remember that octagon has eight sides”? I asked her “How”?
“Remember octo-mom? She had eight babies. That’s how”, she said!
And in my mind I went “I wish I had such props to remember my math when I was growing up” 🙂
