Mazha

We had been to Seattle to see the fall colors, well to be completely open about it, apart from the 4-5 red trees at the MS campus, we saw none of the colors! But we sure did see the (in)famous Seattle rain :) It was just like back home, the downpour was so heavy and so continuous and it was so good to be seeing the rains after quite a long time. But when I think about it, guess as everyone there and the facts say, it could be quite depressing if it rains most of the times a day like it does there. That day only, we all were too interested in just lazying at home there, not at all in the mood to go out anywhere at all, though we had made these big plans to cover the whole of downtown that day! I cant even imagine how people can get up in this rain and get ready and go to work/ school/ do anything at all for that matter.
The last two days, its been raining pretty good in the Bay Area. But unlike the Seattle rain, here it made us go out the whole day, driving in the freeways in this rain is really fun :) The whole place is so beautiful and clean once it starts raining. And it does not become as cold here as in Seattle, so the rain here is more like in Kerala, I must say - except that there is no thunder and lightning to add the spice, its America after all, no spices ;)

Angane Oronam Koodi!

The second Onam after wedding, the second Onam far from where Onam is celebrated with all awe and happiness and full of people... :( Its Uthradam today, the first Onam. Already missed the sadya and I am sitting at home here, not yet decided whether or not to work from home at least tom, for Onam!
Remembering the Onam we used to celebrate at home, I am not able to keep myself fully happy! This time even at home, poor parents and granny are all alone, with my sis and I being away from home... They are still celebrating it as Onam should not be missed! And here, all potlucks are on Sat, as its not a working day and its so convenient for all. Sigh!
Leaving this post uncompleted...
Wish everyone a very happy Onam, where ever you are... Kaanam vittum Onam unnane :)

Tarangini - www.pampans.com

After weeks of vigorous practice, hard work of more than some 70 people and with huge amount of commitment from each and every participant... Yes, we did it!!! :) :) :)
The theatre was full, there were numerous people left behind as they got late in buying tickets, which got sold out days before the event... The audience were mesmerized by the talent of Ms Nirmala Madhava and her group, aging between 1 year to more than 38 yrs! Yes, it was all worth each and every minute spent by each and every one of us... We did a really good job, which was proved by the standing ovation Ma'm got from the wonderful audience :)
It was the very first time for me, being in such a large group of professionals and performing in such an environment... I must say I had a great time with all of them!
Lemme tell you all a little bit about my role... I was there in two dances, one was in a contemporary piece, in which I was part of the "hunter group". Yeah, a real hunter, catching and eating up the sweet cute peaceful peacocks, swans, deers and even the poor beautiful nature girls! There were 10 of us and we had an awesome time, doing what pleased us on stage! And yes, it was a big hit, as as far as I know, no one in the audience expected this and have never ever seen anything like this!
And now coming to the major part I had to play... I was Hiranyakashipu, the father of Prahlada and the one mean, egotist demon who gets killed finally by Lord Vishnu's Narasimha avatar. Narasimha was none other than our ma'm, and my role was pretty hot! I had a complete make over, with a long wig, and a kingly mustache! And the role was pretty interestign, as it involved being received by the "gopikas" and ordering to kill my own son and fighting with the gorgeous Narasimha and finally getting killed!!!
I am happy that I was able to do complete justice from my side to the role and yes, the response from the audience was also pretty good... Now, I am waiting for my Ma'm to give me a feedback... Hopefully she is impressed! :)
So, now my life has again the beautiful presence of dance... I hope I will be able to learn more and dance more and enjoy more... I must say here that I really dont know how I could handle all this without Vikas at my side, supporting me for anything and everything... Ya ya, he says he wants an SLR and he wants a house and he wants a Merc!!! ;)

Dance baby Dance!

After giving up my training in classical dance when I was 15, due to several reasons with "no time" being the most prominent, I have never missed dancing... till I reached the US. When in India, I always used to find some reason or the other to dance... dancing cos of happiness, dancing to release my tension, dancing as my friends wanted me to, dancing as there is some program (and there is lesser number of people to participate!)... But once I got here, I realized thats what I miss most in my life! Thanks to my husband, without even telling my parents, I joined again for dance classes... :) I thought if not on stage at least I can dance once in a week...
& voila! A lil' more than a month after I joined, our academy (see http://pampans.com/) decided to give a performance and I can proudly say that I am a part of it :) This is going to be the very first of its kind that I am going to o in my life.. Something that I have been wanting to be a part of so badly from dunno when... The music is just fantastic and the choreography is mind blowing! Hope all goes fine and we can give a grand performance exceeding the expectations of the more than 600 viewers!

May has come by!

Yes, April flew like that and May has come by. April, the month where I have most of celebrations geared around, including bdays of more than 1 family member, quite a number of friends, and most recently (and most importantly??) my wedding anniversary. But the month of celebrations, the month of spring passed so very quietly with my mind so full of confusions and setbacks and lack of time! Its said that what ever you ask for, God gives it to you. He may not give it directly, but in a twisted way and it is for you find out ways to mend it and bring it to your liking. I hope this new phase of my life also is something I can mend and regain my faith in that!

"College Sucks"!!

Please dont be misled by the title of this post. This happens to be the profile pic of my college community I am part of in Orkut. As a matter of fact, there are several communities of my college and this is one of them, which has been created & moderated by "kids" I dont know personally. Though I am not an active member (speaking of which I am not one of any of them!), I do like visiting this particular one as I get to know all updates of whats happening in my college, the curriculum, the placement (whoa! this one just amazes me), the staff, the happenings, everything. I guess thats one good thing about these kiddos. They seem to update each and every thing in here, just opposite to whats happening with my batch's one, which has not seen a vote/ comment posted in years! :D
Now I am not saying that I luuuvvvvddd my college when I was studying there. But this profile pic really did hurt me! :( I felt its ok to have discussions/ forums/ comments in the community against the college, cos c'mon, "its after all a place to discuss your feelings". But putting a pic like this! Man, I was depressed :( I felt like removing myself from it, but then I saw that so many of my batch mates were there and again, I didn want to miss all the discussions & the up-to-date news there. Of course I can still read them without being a part of it, but then whats the point! If I am interested in whats happening there, I should have the courtesy to come out in the light and admit it!
I have posted a comment there asking if the profile pic is really needed. Now lets see whats going to happen with that! I dont really know the kids these days, mabbe they will think I am just an ol woman accusing them ;) But my question is, after all that you are going to be benefited from from being in the college and the simple fact that you whole heartedly joined the college in the first place, is this really needed?

Water water everywhere!!!

Miami beaches, phew! We got 2 days to spend here, thanks to Florida having nothing more to offer for a 7-day tour. And we never regretted it :) First day there, we spend our entire day in the cool, clear water. And it led to some important discoveries I never knew about myself. I am afraid of going too deep into the water :( :( :( I grew up with the Shangumukham beach in Trivandrum to my expense when ever I needed it and as far as I can remember, my pa & I were always in the water when ever we got to the beach! Even the southern-most tip of India - Kanyakumari , was not so far and we enjoyed it so very much there as well. And suddenly now, when I went to the North and South Miami beaches, I couldn force myself to got too deep into the water or to remain in the water for too long, even after hubby's persuasion and coaxing and what not! And I couldn bring myself to believe in that, and kept on trying to calm myself saying stupid things like "mabbe its just cos u dont know the Atlantic Ocean"!!! Have you ever experienced such a sudden change in ur interests/ aptitudes/ fears??
Anyways, coming back to what I started off... So, one day was full of beaching (of course bird-watching included ;) ) and getting ourselves "tanned"! The second day was spend roaming around the beautiful avenues and sitting on the sand, building moulds on my legs!
Here, I HAVE to mention the Collins Avenue, the center of attraction with almost all the designer labels I know of (and much more I have never heard ;)), the too crowded pathways with the hot-hotter-hottest gals & guys, the scooters with the coolest chicks vrooming around shouting in their highest shrilling voices and the hip restaurants, which of course we couldn go, thanks to the aroma of the seafood floating all across the streets.
And as they say, the beaches here are celebrity shooting spots :) And we did get a chance to see a photo-shoot, with the bare chested six-pack hunk in his faded jeans torn too very badly at his knees and his all the more handsome photographer. The hunk giving all sorts of poses, sitting-standing-lying down-rolling on the sand, and what not!!! And as soon as he left, I also did a photo shoot with my ___ pack hubby darling as my object of photography :D
In all, the experience I had there, phew!! Cant compare it with anything I have seen/ heard so far in my life!!! A must-go place for everyone who love water and for everyone who want to have some real fun & want to party real hard :)

Opa!!! Opa!!!

On our week long trip to Florida, we drove for about 1600 miles (yes! My hubby is a voracious driver, I drove only the 10MPH-less than a mile drive thru the Daytona Beach). One signboard we passed quite a few no of times was the direction to "Opa Locka". And that became our catch phrase for the entire trip, it sounds really good wen u say it the "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" style..."Opa!!!"
At the time we saw the movie, we kept on wondering what the word meant, as they went on repeating the word in a really amusing way al thru the movie... And finally when I searched it in the all-powerful Google, it said... "no specific meaning"!!! :D (of course if u dig deeper u can find that there r several meanings to it, but this is the one fairly said almost everywhere...)
Another one I found was the Malay/ Chinese word lah.
Now I was wondering what words are there in our dear Malayalam that has "no specific meaning". Cant say adipoli/ kidu-kidilam belongs to that category as we all have assigned meanings to it! As they say, words in themselves have no meaning, they evolve!
For some of the new-gen words, u can see t-h-i-s (the author of this page says "these words bring out the Mallu in u!!! I wonder how I can call my mommy & pops Mallus now ;)). No I dont know why I am advertising it, but he has got a pretty good collection in there ;)
So guys, till we see again, Opa!!!

VDay

Yet another Valentine's Day, but this is not yet another love story ;)
In US, each & every channel seems to be so "enthused" abt this great day. There r tons of ads, special movies and even special dedicated movie sections in On Demand, with "Tips for ur VDay!!!"
So, coz of all these factors, I decided I sld b goin out to the malls & see directly wat all the janta here is up to. Another reason bein, one of my frnds here told me everythin is yet again on sale now, in honor of this day. Hence off we (Vikas & I) went to the nearest biggest mall, yesterday-the last Sunday bfr the day (of course he came for several other reasons ;) )
The confusion started right from (yes u got it!) the parking lot. Thr was a huge queue already formed in each of the numerous lines leadin to the parking lots. Finally after a lot of waitin & chasin, we got a lot far away from the entrance :D & I thought "whatever! Its not cold nemore!"
As usual, the mall was too full of all different kinds of people, and for the first time there, we saw loads of Indians as well (Well now u know the curiosity has gripped more people than me!). The mall itself didn look very different, just the usual window shoppers & real shoppers & stuf. But the shops, though they didn meet my great expectation, were nicely decorated. But the shop which was shoutin "look at me, its Valentine's" was (no surprises here!) the Hallmark. And we went inside that, and thr was all kinds of Valentine's cards & gifts & reduced price "2007 special" items, red & pink & hearts & love everywhere... :) But cldn find many people shoppin for their Valentine! The few who were there were after normal bday cards/ gifts!
And I thought aloud, this luks the same as in India also, if u go to Archies et al! :( So we went to another biggie clothes shop thr... The shop was well, yes, decorated, but modestly, with hearts & red gift boxes with red ribbons & cutie hearts & all... But thats it! Nothin more than that!
So, wats the moral of the story?? In my opinion even here, all the hype just seems to be made up by the media only! Will update u guys if there is any change next year when I hope I will be working & meetin more people!
Anyways, Happy Valentine's Day, 08 to all the couples & wannabe's out there... :) I am hopin to make it a smal lil special day! ;)

Back in US, back to being a housewife...!

After a lot of hardships trying to get a project to come back to US, going thru a lot of trainings, meeting so many new people, going on an All India Paryatan (well near to it!), 2 souls living almost alone for 3 whole months, here I am back in US, again on leave!!! Well yeah as almost all of my age ppl know, thats corporate life!
I have left my family, my lil sweety cuty cuddly bubbly chotu niece Gouri and my friends (here I mean the friends, almost all of whom I met after I reached Chennai, wow how the world around me is changin!), but yes I am back where I belong to! And a lot of changes happening in our life here, Vikas is quitting, Jan 31st is his last date in Infy. And I dont earn a penny :D Vikas has started attending interviews, now in a fix as to whether to change his technology and explore new arenas or to be 'stuck' in Teradata that has been his life (well almost completely!) for near to 5 years! And here I am in an even greater fix as I am really wondering if I really want to continue in a field I have zero interest in, but still I have got to do something. I feel like this unemployment is slowly taking off all the confidence in me. So in all, I am in a totally confused state and still enjoying all 7 days of all weeks to the max. Going for weekend outings (see www.roshini.name for proof!) or lavishly sleeping till 12:00 on weekends or reading totally junk (I mean it!!!) buks and eating whatever I can lay my hands on (God knows when everyone's doubt as to why I am not puttin on will be answered! ;) ) Wow... Heaven!!! :) And so then that adds to a new confusion, how will I cope when I do finally get some work to do!! :(
Thinking of all this, I do hope some of my friends come to near our place here... Poor Vikas must b really fed up of my thoughts :D ;)
So thats it for now (this blog was/is to prove to myself that I am surely showing justice to the blogspot space my blog is occupying. Arre yaar, I am keeping on updating my blog!!! :)
(Guess this blog sld have been named "confusions of an idle mind"! And yes, I am giving my usual disclaimer here... ;) )