22 August 2024

That was unique!

Sharmila, Jay Jay and I were doing our usual evening stroll in downtown Alpharetta. And we saw this gentleman sitting down on the sidewalk. You give him a topic and he will write up a poem for you. And best part? Type it on his manual typewriter!! What a great set of skills!!

27 July 2024

This dog is incorrigible

Every evening at around 7 PM, Jay Jay will cozy up to me. Wherever I go in the house, he will follow me and make straight eye contact. Over time, I have realized that this means he wants to go to the downtown Alpharetta bars. All I have to do is say “Let’s go”. He immediately runs to the door downstairs and short of putting the leash on himself, he is ready to march out.

When Sharmila is not around, he will wait for me to close the garage door or lock the front door and then off he will go to his regular routine of putting his markers every few yards till we get to downtown and settle somewhere where he can look at all passersby.

When Sharmila is around, he goes thru a completely different behavior. As I have written before, he will not leave her behind at home under any circumstances. He will stay put till she comes out.

As you see here, I had closed the garage door to see if he would remember in his excitement of going for the walk. He remembered alright. Within two feet of stepping out, he realized that she was not with us. Without any hesitation, he promptly turned around, put his backside down on the driveway and kept staring at the blank garage door for her to come out. No amount of pulling on his leash would convince him.

When she finally opened the garage door, you can see how he trained his neck below and started peeking thru the gap to see if it was indeed she who was emerging.

Moment he saw her approaching us, he turned around and started cavorting to the trail with that quizzical look on his face like “what is taking you guys so long?”

20 July 2024

Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be any more

Walking back from the grocery store with a bag in my hand early in the morning, I had a few throwbacks to the days of growing up in India. I instinctively knew then that just like my dad, I would someday be walking to a grocery shop to do the shopping too. I had just not bargained it to be in America and certainly not me in shorts!

The picture down the street reminded me of those days in India too. There were many other folks going to and fro from the grocery shop and a few people out for their morning walks. Admittedly, if my dad did what many of them were doing, the neighborly kids would have walked up and asked “kaku, aapnar kaaney oi saada comma duto ki?” (“Uncle, what are those two white comma-looking things in your ears?”). For, everybody seemed to be walking and talking – and flailing their arms in what seemed, from a distance, like an animated discussion with nobody in particular. Even the homeless guy in front of the grocery shop was going “Stop doing that! THAT IS MY ACT!!”

The reason I had gone to the grocery shop this early was to grab a carton of barista milk. I was running low on my stock for the morning cappuccino. I came home and Sharmila, measuring me up from top to down, quickly asked

“Did you get the eggs?”

“No. You did not ask me to.”

“Yes, I told you last night.”

Those days, no sooner would have my dad come home than my mom would start pointing out he had missed some items from the list she had made for him. That list, as it turns out, did go with him to the market but never came out his pockets there. He worked from his memory and he ad libbed a few items.

Back to market he would go.

Life, I feel this morning, has gone one full cycle for me.

If only I had a cycle like my dad used to have to go to the market.

Oh! Wait!!