India trip

Happy New Year everybody! I promise to improve the quality and quantity of posts that I make this year.

Last year ended with a visit back home to India, where needless to say I had a ton of fun, did loads of shopping and ate an unimaginable quantity of yummy food thus adding to my already heavy weight.

If I started writing about all the stuff I did, I could go on and on and so to spare everyone the misery of a mile-long post, I will aim to make is short and sweet thus:

• Visited Bangalore, Chennai and Ahmedabad (first time).
• Took a few minutes to get accustomed to the number of people who looked like me once I got off at the Bengaluru international airport.
• Weather was just perfect!
• Traffic in Bangalore was horrible horrible and more horrible!
• Cornered several times by my non-existent Kannada skills.
• Enjoyed pre-wedding get-togethers with my cousins and wedding celebrations of my cousin to the maximum possible extent.
• Loved mehendi, pattu podavais, malli poo and dressing up my daughter for all three sessions.
• Watched (and almost relished, I dare say) my husband get a typical madras bashai dose from a taxi driver as he tried his hand driving in nungambakkam after 4 years.
• My daughter loved the attention from the thathas, patis, kollu thatha-patis and innumerable uncles, aunts and cousins.
• Suprised that I enjoyed my Saravana stores shopping experience – I had a personal shopper and all that. Apparently there is a group of folks there who watch out for NRIs and the like and assign shopping assistants. Wondered how they identified me as an NRI when I was in a salwar and had malli poo in my hair. May be too much English to a 3 year old.
• Scared by the utter lack of time to enjoy life by my IT counterparts in India.
• Bought a small baby oil bottle, one mysore sandal soap and a bottle of shringar “chaandhu” at a Naadar kadai for Rs.97 and felt stupid for pulling out Rs.50 note.
• Celebrated a very traditional Karthikai at my in-laws in Madisar and everything. Ate a lot of kadalai urundais – don’t really care for the pori urundais.
• Went bonkers shopping for handicrafts in Ahmedabad.
• Ahmedabad is a nice city – no crowds, bearable traffic and easy parking.
• Shamelessly bought a lovely hand-embroidered diwan set for Rs. 500, then bought cushions, and now hunting for a diwan on the Ikea website. All “thalai keezhai”.. ya I know.
• Provided daily menus (not healthy ones, only tasty ones) and made my mother dish out everything I wanted to eat, thus adding several pounds
• Changed an unbearable number of yucky diapers because my daughter got a Rotavirus infection.
• Found a new hobby – playdough!
• Made sure I packed all 4 bags to the maximum possible extent and now struggling with trying to find a place for everything I bought.
• Bid reluctant bye-byes to everyone back home.
• Successfully answered the question – “I see a lot of H1Bs adjusting their status to Green card. Why do you think they do that?” asked by the immigration officer by saying “Everyone has their own reasons!”
• Happy to be back home and still have a job!
• Damn it’s cold!

Here are a few pics..

Suda suda Masala dosai in amma’s kitchen

Karthigai in Chennai

Ready for the Dum-Dum-Kalyanam

Playdough Daddy and Smrithi eating Dosa at the table

Update:

And how did I forget this??  I spoke to Maami quite a few times and felt like I had known her all my life!

Chicago ‘il Thirumanam – by popular demand

People I personally know who frequent the blog have been asking – ‘So, where is the post on the Chicago Thirumanam’. I’ve been toying with the idea of writing it, but thought people would be bored to read it. But, if you are interested, go ahead and read this, or don’t.

 The Chicago thirumanam went off really well, to everyone’s happiness and satisfaction during the thanksgiving weekend. Yes, it’s now more than a month.

We tried very hard to keep it as close as possible to what it would have been in India. Of course, many of the specimens mentioned in this post, were definitely missing.

We had 2 sessions – the previous evening was the Nischyathartham/Reception. That was followed by the wedding ceremony the next morning.

The crowd was close to 100 people. Most women turned up in silk sarees, and wore the jewellery they had access to in the US. The reception desk at the entrance was unmanned, because there were few young girls in the crowd, and those that could have done it, found it odd to stand by the entrance. All the same, we had a plate full of colourful daisies and sugar or chocolates to sweeten the guest’s mouth as they entered.

In true desi style, like all other desi parties, everything was delayed by a minimum of one hour. Thankfully, the priest who was skilled at either reciting quickly or conveniently omitting the extra frills, managed to have the thali tied, 2 minutes before the end of the muhurtham. Thanks to starting so late, our guest were in time to witness the ceremony too, else we might have had a handful of people, 80% of who would have been white-american. The poor chaps had no idea about the Indian Stretchable Time concept I guess.

In preparation for the wedding, some of the interesting things we did were:

Welcome Board & Vethalai Paaku  bags - The welcome board was handcrafted in exquisite Red gift wrapping paper and adorned by gold glitter to display the names of the bride and groom. No place for the word ‘Welcome’ when I finished. We made sure it was displayed outside the mantapam on both days.

The vethalai Pakku bags were white paper bags. We used half-page labels to print out the bride and groom’s names with the date of the wedding and Thank you written. We had it done in marroon and blue (for women and men). The stickers then were easily applied to the bag. In all I have to admit, it looked very professional. What went inside the bag was- For the men, apple and Bakshanam(Karasev and laddu) bag. For the women, there was manjal, kumkum, apple, ravikai thuni(blouse piece) and a gift.

Nischyathartham plates - Found $1 trays in the local dollar store. Filled them with an assortment of stuff and sealed and tied them with Cling wrap and red and gold ribbon.

Vratha Bakshanam - More $1 trays from dollar store.  No Kai-Murukku experts here, so managed Mul-Murukku in large sizes, Nukkal, Therati paal (from Ricotta cheese), Om-podi, Appam, and bought out Laddu and Mysore Pak.

So, that in brief is a little of what happened those two days.