Now is the Durga Puja time – the biggest celebration for Bengalis worldwide sans when Sourav hit a century. Yesterday, I thought I will explain some tidbits about Puja to 8-year old Nikita. So, at the Puja hall, I grabbed Nikita and her two friends who were running around and took them to where the idols were and asked them if they can find the vehicles of the gods. Now, for the uninitiated (which broadly includes me too 🙂 ), by our culture and religion, we have a lot of gods and goddesses. (and that is not even counting the fact that every Bengali parent thinks their sons and daughters are gods and goddesses by their own right 🙂 ). I think all of them (at least the most prominent ones) have a “vehicle” that they use to go around in.

About five of them are celebrated during Durga Puja. In of itself, if I remember correctly, the celebration is of the seniormost goddess Durga (representing the good force) killing the villain Mahisasur (representing the evil force). She did have an unfair advantage in that she had ten arms – so she could carry a lot more arms and ammunition than Mahisasur. In the Puja, she is graced by her two sons – Ganesh (who has an elephant’s head – that is a whole another story) who represents prosperity, success, general well being and such, Karthik (I think he is the god of handsomeness or something like that) and two daughters – Saraswati (goddess of music, art and literature) and Lakshmi (goddess of wealth).

Enough of the background. So, I asked them to find out the “vehicles” for the gods. Hint was to find the idols of small animals laying around the feet of the gods and goddesses.They were delighted to find out that Ganesh went around on a mouse, Lakshmi on an owl, Durga on a lion, Saraswati on a swan and Karthik on a peacock. Finally, they asked about a slain buffalo that was lying around. And they learnt that that was the vehicle for Mahisasur.

At night, I quizzed Nikita on the gods and vehicles and this is what she said (word for word) …

“The elephant god has a mouse. The goddess that makes all the money has an owl. Durga has a lion. The good looking god as a peacock and the goddess with the guitar has a swan”. Thought for a few more seconds and added: “… and the bad guys went around on buffaloes”

That was hilarious!

Aschhe bochhor abar hobey!!

I chanced upon one of those endless fights between Sharmila and our 14-year old Natasha. Except, this time I walked up to Tasha and asked her – “See what I go thru? It has been only 14 years for you. It has been 20 years for me”, hoping to get some sympathy from her.
Without even as much as batting an eyelid she said “Tough luck! I will out of here in 4 years. You have another 20 years to go” 🙂
Now I am worried 🙂 🙂

So, Nikita came back home from her dancing lesson, extremely excited. She ran upstairs fast, hunted me down and loudly started explaining how her mom had nearly lost her iPad. In gory detail, she told me how mom borrowed her iPad to keep herself busy when she was dancing but left it when she was helping her with the ghungroos at the end of the dance lesson. Anyways, ten minutes of panic (after they realized it in the car) later, they found out that the teacher had seen it and safely locked it up. And she was nice enough to come back, reopen the class and hand the ipad back over to Nikita.

After the carefully detailed explanation that were interspersed with numerous “She nearly lost my iPad”, Nikita looked at me expectantly. I coolly asked her “So, what did you learn from this episode?”. Her face went red – she was livid. She was expecting that her mom should be in trouble.

Finally, she got a hold of herself and said “Never to trust mommy with my stuff” and stormed off.

Came back in 10 seconds and finished her sentiment. “… or you with fairness”.

If she was not mad already, I would have laughed my head off 🙂

Sharmila and I were showing Nikita her sonogram and pictures from right after she was born. She had some of the most curious and hilarious questions.

She looked at her really pale picture a few minutes after birth, looked at me straight and asked “I was born an American”? ( I am like “Of course. What did you think?” It took me a second to realize she thought she was born white 🙂 )

She pointed to a clip near her navel. So I explained how she got oxygen before birth, the umbilical cord after birth and all that. She listened intently and then said “You mean to say you cut my ‘extension’ cord”? 🙂

Funny!

Just dropped Natasha at some High School Math competition. Also known as the Saturday Morning Asian Kids Get Together 🙂 The greatest attraction was the grand spectacle of their parents’ parking skills. Every parking was a 19-point attempt – invariably settling down after crossing the white line. 🙂 All this, if they decided not to double park, i.e. !!

This is too funny. (Unless you follow NFL, the humor might be lost)

Five years I have been parking my car at the North Gold parking at Atlanta airport every single week. Have seen a lot of things – but an open wine bottle – pretty costly at that – with almost all the wine still in it – that is a first!!
Evidently, I have been missing all the real tailgate parties 🙂
I hope there will be some cheese left in front of my car when I return 🙂

And if it was not a party, then what were they thinking? If there is anything more dangerous than drinking and driving, it is drinking and parking. Accidents cause people 🙂 🙂

Today is “wacky socks” day at school for Nikita. I am always delighted by the luxuries of life kids of our generation enjoy. Most of my school life, I had just one pair of socks. I suspect though, after the passage of certain time, they also became wacky :-).
As I came down the stairs this morning, I saw Nikita at the breakfast nook with these socks on. Just to get her charged up a little early in the morning, I loudly said “They live up to their name alright”.
She kept her calm – except as I passed her, I heard her muttering under her breath – “This, from the guy who shaves his head” 🙂

Touche again!

I love the NFL this year. It is like there are three teams playing against each other – the home team, the visiting team and the replacement refs! 🙂

This morning, I overheard Natasha (14 years) talking to her mom about some friend of hers breaking up with her boyfriend. I was half following the conversation when I heard her say “.. Boys are so mushy mushy”. In a valiant effort to defend my brethren, I immediately threw the penalty flag and engaged myself in the conversation. “What do mean boys are mushy mushy”, I ventured to ask. The response, befitting any self righteous teenager (which I think means all of them ), was swift and garrulous 🙂 The flurry of words ended with something like “… He was overdoing the boyfriend thing”. Not to be cowed down, I pressed on

I: “How do you know when he is “overdoing” it?”.

Tasha: “Well, when the boy becomes possessive”.

I: “All boys become possessive of their girlfriends. I know I was”.

Tasha: “And see how well they turned out for you”.

Touche!

[Mentally, I was like “Dang it, Rajib, next time stick to engaging in verbal duels with Nikita (8 years). You cannot out speak a teenager and it is absolutely pointless to do so with the wife anyways. Invariably it will end with a sigh and a “Fine” which means you have inevitably reached the point where it is anything but” :-)]