29 May 2014

Creating Road-Blogs: President for a day

Driving on a long road trip with three high school girls in the back and one elementary school girl in front has its own perks. Some of the most hilarious discussions are going on. Sharmila and the inlaws – not to speak of the dog – in the car behind are so missing this…

Example:
Me: So, Jordan, if you were the President for a day what would you do?
Jordan: I would change the school system to be like the ones in Finland.
Me: How so?
Jordan: They pay their students to go to school.

Before I could internalize what I just learnt, Almudina interjected “You cannot do that. That is a state issue. You have no power over that”!!

Ah! High school and those social sciences classes!!!

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29 May 2014

Art imitating life!

One of the coolest things about weekends and my time offs is that Niki and I get to do “projects” (her word, not mine). Today, she chose “cleaning car”. Not only did she help in cleaning my car – hosing, waxing, leather and glass treatment, she then decided to draw what we were doing!!!

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28 May 2014

Nikispeak : Are you being stalked?

Just came home to a really irate Nikita. Evidently, Sharmila had showed her the press release and she had read every word of it. Moment I opened the door to step in, she demanded to know “Mister, all these days you told me you work in technology. But looks like you were doing fraud. How come you never told me? Are you ashamed of yourself?”. I looked at Sharmila helplessly, not knowing what hit me. She mentioned about the PR and I was able to quickly put two and two together.

Barely suppressing my laughter, I explained – “No, we used technology to catch fraudsters,  not to commit fraud”. Somewhat incredulous, she demanded to know next “How come your new company knows so much about you? Are they stalking you?”. “No, they are doing no such thing,” I assured her, emptying my pockets into the kitchen drawer.

“Well, then there is only one explanation. Your new company is already your Facebook friend”!! At this point, I had had my share of fun. So, I readily admitted “Indeed, that is true”. “One day, you will get into trouble making friends with strangers”, she warned. Then, she stomped out of the kitchen with her little feet and went up to her room 🙂

Ah! The small pleasures in life. Why do they grow up so fast?

Category: Humor, My Family | 5 Comments on Nikispeak : Are you being stalked?
24 May 2014

Winding down on Friday evening

Strictly speaking it was not that tough a week – given that I am winding down from one job and getting ready for another. But it was still good to listen to Nazrulgeeti with my father in law. Played the tabla for a couple of hours and he chose some of the old classical Nazrulgeetis for this evening. Wish my sister was here. In the late seventies, she used to sing these songs and I used to play the tabla with her then…

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23 May 2014

FIL-MIL Mehfil. Her verdict.

We are at Wolf Mountain Winery. Mother in law is engulfed by people her age group tasting and drinking wine. She surveyed her surroundings and summarized “Glass Glass sob kinchhe aar dhok dhok korey khachche” 🙂
I have no good way of translating this….

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23 May 2014

Intersection point – of a different kind

Remember how I had written in December last year, that my father in law was totally inspired by my intersection point concept and I was able to get him to meet a old colleague of his after 55 years? Well, today, he got to meet somebody after “minimum 40 years”. They could not remember when they met last, but it was certainly before he was in his forties.

The intersection was created in a weird way. When we first moved to Atlanta, we did not know anybody here. A Bengali friend of ours from Dallas had kindly introduced us to a friend of hers from her housing complex in Bombay, I believe, who lived in Atlanta. And that is how we got to know Abhijeet and Rupa. Subsequently, during discussions with Abhijeet, the name “Amlagorah” or “Humgorh” or something as vague as that (they are tiny villages in West Bengal) was mentioned.

And I knew those names!!! Sure enough, turned out Abhijeet, in his very early childhood, had visited my father-in-law’s house in his village. The big reason to remember? My father in law owned a rifle which was on display at their house. So, Abhijeet immediately remembered the “rifle baari” (“rifle house”). Turns out Abhijeet’s dad’s mamabari (maternal uncle’s house) was in Amlagorah and he went there every summer with his family. He called his maternal uncle “mama” and when he visited the “rifle baari”, he called my father in law “mama” too.

Many many moons later, we caught both of them visiting their son/son-in-law in Atlanta and the intersection point was created over lunch in a local Indian restaurant today!!!

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20 May 2014

FIL-MIL Mehfil – Stone Mountain

Took the inlaws up to the top of the Stone Mountain today. They were pretty thrilled with the whole experience but in that hot sun with temperatures in the eighties, the ubiquitous sweater and the jacket never came off.

As thrilled as my mother in law was, she saw a parallel in India with everything she saw. The dense trees in the park? Just like Chandrakona. (I have no idea where that is). The larger-than-life carvings of Confederate soldiers on the mountain face? “Just like Sivaji”!!!! Even the bareback shape of the mountain reminded her of the shape of a rhino she had once seen in India!! It was hilarious as well as instructive to see how human brains essentially learn by drawing linear relationships with known data points it has learnt before!!

Meanwhile, my father in law went to the cafe on the top and asked the lady if they had coffee. She replied in the negative. Somewhat disappointed but not totally despondent, my father in law, in one of those “Let them have cake” moment declared “Okay, I will have tea”!! The lady gave a long stare and said “Sir, we have soda”. I hurriedly stepped in before he interpreted soda as what he uses to clean utensils in India and explained – “They have coke”. “With ice?” he asked. “Sure”, I said. “Then I will wait and have lunch at home”, he declared!

Dang! I had forgotten he was wearing a jacket!!! 🙂

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19 May 2014

Enjoying the evening with the inlaws

Getting to know the inlaws’ history. We lit a fire outside, sat in the rains and traced my mother-in-law’s history. Armed with Google Maps, Wikipedia and the Search engine on the iPad, I have tracked down her pre-K school in Humgorh (remote village in Midnapur district), middle school in Khardaha and high school in Barrackpore. She is stunned by the satellite images of her school.

Made another promise. When I go to drop them in India, I will make sure she can go back in history and actually see her schools about six decades later !!!

There are indeed more moments to be created !!!

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