Once upon a time....

There are days and times like this when I can't believe that I am a mother. I guess I expected to feel different and more responsible than the current carefree person who is chillax-ing on the recliner even though she has a kitchen full of dirty dishes and a room full of mess from baby toys to opened mail. 

I am probably not a very emotional person for my own sake. While most Indian brides would sob endlessly during the time of their "vidaii", I was just a tad sad and had no tears in my eyes. I did not shed a tear or feel gloomy when I was leaving my friends and family in India and moving to U.S. permanently. I did not cry like my mother when we were in the middle of an earthquake that threatened to take our lives, nor did I express any intense emotion once the earthquake was over and we had been moved to a safe location. I did not cry at any point in my own wedding and I did not cry when I was moving away to college, away from my family. I don't claim that I have never cried because I did cry a lot at my grandfather's funeral. I also cried a bucket full after watching the 9/11 documentary. I have cried while watching videos of social injustice. And I have cried a LOT when I realized that I had hurt someone unintentionally by my ignorance and immaturity. I *almost* cried when I got pulled over by a cop for no fault of mine. My mechanism to cope with grief is to forget about it. And I don't cry because I consider myself pretty strong and I think that I can take on anything that comes my way. However, things that are out of my control and happening to someone else are worth crying over. I also tend to forget about my sad phases every easily. Those sad memories stay in the background and are overshadowed by the current affairs or events. There were certainly times when I wondered if there was something wrong with me. While all other girls could cry effortlessly at ALL sad things, I could only cry for selective, truly sad things. I know now that this was foolish and that I was worrying in vain. I am actually proud of the fact that I am not overly emotional and can avoid feeling unnecessarily overwhelmed most times in my life!

1/19 - Landed in Madrid.. we were super tired when we landed, so we ended up taking a 4 hour nap and woke up refreshed in the evening. We were staying at the Westin Palace Hotel which worked out great in every way! It is centrally located to everything and is a very nice hotel. Anyway, we walked in the Arts district (the hotel is in the Arts district) and met up with Alap's family friend in the evening. She took us out for tapas to a place that also put on a Flamenco show. We were told that the food scene in Madrid is that you have tapas in one local restaurant, then you walk around for a bit and then go to another restaurant for more tapas, and so on. So we tried tapas at 3 different restaurants in that one night :P We were all vegetarians but you should have their cured ham. It's a very famous dish/snack there. One place you should visit is there local market called Mercado de San Miguel (http://www.spottedbylocals.com/madrid/mercado-de-san-miguel/) We did not opt for this option but if you go to Plaza Mayor (downtown square) during the day, then you can stop by their visitor center and take their guided tours by foot or tours by bus. I think the tours by foot were free. We had Alap's friend show us around since she also knew a ton about the city. You should also check out Puerta del Sol which is considered the heart of the country and where they have their iconic Bear and Tree statue. 1/20 - We took the train to Toledo and spent most of the day there. There is a neat El Greco museum and Alcazar there. 1/21 - We took a tour of the Royal Palace, the Royal gardens and saw the Egyptian temple from the 2nd B.C.. Also walked around and did some shopping. You will notice several El Cortes Ingles stores.. they're HUGE stores that have all sorts of American and European brand stuff. They have EVERYTHING from groceries to clothes to furniture, if you happen to need anything while you're there. 1/22 - We went to the Prado museum for first half of the day. We rushed through a lot of it. You should definitely check out the Prado Museum -- it has quite a few amazing paintings from different ages. We flew out to Barcelona the night of 22nd.

I am quite enraged and restive right now. And as bad as I feel for being so impatient and tempered, I can't get over the fact that three hours of my day were just wasted. That much time wasted while I had to meet a personal deadline, find time to do my daily exercise, spend time with my brother who had come home from college after a really long time and do all sorts of other things. But writing here and listening to new songs on Youtube has helped me calm my nerves down a lot. Phew!! I was burning up with rage inside otherwise (bad thing because I don't think it is a good idea for me to become so short tempered)

Alrighty, need to finish my work before I start getting mad at myself this time!!

PS: Tera Hone Laga from Ajab Prem Ki Gajab Kahani is awesome song!!

I am back! Back after an eon of exciting, life-changing events. Back from a black hole where all my time and energy got sucked into grabbing on to the roller coaster ride of life. And back because I missed the quick remediation of a muddled head as soon as I start laying out my thoughts in a legible form in front of me. I have been using Twitter and texting to disclose my feelings from time to time, but have always wished I could blog on my phone or buy a mental translator that could type up my thoughts and post them online.

So anyway, just wanted to let the blogosphere know that I am back and back like a smoker who tried to quit but couldn't resist staying away from her addiction for too long! And although I don't have much to say this time, I just wanted to put it out there that I miss my blog friends and I should plan to visit their pages soon!!

Later amigos (and random visitors)!

My love story sounds like the screenplay of a Bollywood movie. As clichéd as it may sound, it did make me believe in the ‘Someone somewhere is made for you’ theory. Or maybe that love is blind and confusing.

Rewind back to early August of 2008 and you would see my parents anxious about the lack of a “suitable” match for their only daughter who has now graduated from college and entered the real world. They were super afraid of relatives using ‘over twenty-five years of age’ and ‘unmarried’ phrases in the same line for me. My parents are not orthodox, but they are certainly traditional as might be evident from their inflexible demands of finding a highly educated (read as doctors and PhDs only), good looking (fair skinned preferred), intelligent, cultured (never has spiky gelled hair), Gujarati Brahmin boy whose family is from the same hometown (or should I say village of North Gujarat) as them. Trust me, I had no qualms about any of these requirements, but of course, I had to have my own constraints so that I would not end up with a doctor from India who would then come here and study while I worked. I wanted “the guy” to have studied and lived in the US for at least four years, have an enamoring profile with a down-to-earth and pleasant personality, AND had to absolutely enjoy dancing as a hobby. I had described all these requirements for my match to a few friends when it came up in conversation and they had all sympathetically admitted the infinitesimally small probability of finding a guy who met all the criteria. I wasn’t concerned though – I wanted to keep my independence for at least another couple of years before falling into the quagmire of in-laws and household responsibilities.

To be continued....

Reading news from all over is my new addiction. Not having internet at home only makes it worse..

Getting married is like being forced to grow up, not necessarily in a bad way though.

20 Funny, Clueless, Weird, And Existential Google Keyword Searches
by Rob Garner , Wednesday, April 8, 2009

A couple of weeks ago, I lost my keys and must have searched my entire house and car at least three times trying to find them. After that last round of searching, I plopped down in a chair in front of my computer, exasperated. With an open search box in my peripheral vision, I continued to ponder where they might have possibly gone. At that moment, I could have used something like a Google Key Finder. Imagine an RFID setup for the keychain, combined with a more detailed version of Google Latitude (complete with a home floor plan), and then I'd type in "where did I put my keys" and be on my way.

Then I wondered, had anyone actually ever entered "where did I put my keys" into a search box? I went to the Google Keyword Tool to find out. Sure enough, there was a search for "where did I put my keys" with an average of 72 searches per month. Another variation was "have you seen my keys" with an average of 22 searches per month. No keys, but perhaps they felt a little better venting into the search box.

As I continued perusing the Google Keyword Tool, there were a number of other dead-end and clueless searches to be found. Among the other lost items people rely on the Google search gods to find:
- "Where did I put my glasses" with an average of 320 searches per month.
- "Have you seen my stapler" with an average of 390 searches per month.

Realizing that there may be more of these to be found, I went seeking other terms, and scored big time:
- "Who is buried in Grant's tomb" was entered 1,000 times per month on average. The joke is over before the results even hit the screen.
- "What is the number for 911" averaged 36 searches per month. For their own safety's sake, let's hope they figured this out.

But wait - there's even more. A search for "what is" yielded the following gems:
- "What is my name?" was searched 40,500 times per month. Is it a song, perhaps? Maybe they woke up after a rough night out on the town that landed them in front a Google search box? Or maybe there is an epidemic of amnesia?
- "What is my religion" got 320 searches per month. I don't even know what to say about this, other than it strikes me completely strange that someone would legitimately type this into a search box.

"Why am I" also turned up a nice list of stemmed oddities. These two were my favorites:
- "Why am I hot" netted 9,900 searches per month. This phrase is one of two things: A use of the search box as the new "mirror on the wall" for those puzzled by their own hotness, or a question posed by people unaware of the methods of cool air circulation.
- "Why am I always so hot" was searched 36 times per month on average. These people are not just hot, they're always so hot, and they don't know why. Maybe they should go to the front page of Google Hot Trends, and keep hitting refresh until their name appears, and then they will know.
(No, refreshing the page will not make a name come up in Google Hot Trends).

Other "why am I" searches often turn up information that might actually satisfy the searcher, but are still interesting nonetheless. These include:
- "Why I am so tired" - 5,400 searches per month.
- "Why am I sneezing so much" - 16 searches per month.
- "Why am I so broke" - 16 searches per month.

On the existential side of things, the following searches stemmed from (and included) "I am":
- "I am" - 7,480,000 searches per month.
- "I am here" - 550,000 searches per month.
- "I am me" - 201,000 searches per month.

Along the more intellectual side, "what is the meaning of life" has an average of 22,200 monthly searches. Of course when I think about the meaning of life, I think Monty Python, and also found the stemmed phrase, "what is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?" with 1,590 searches per month. But did they mean African, or European?

Many people who lost their mojo rely on Google to get it back. "Who stole my mojo?" yields 91 searches per month. And for others, Google is also the trusted source for finding stolen dogs ("Who stole my dog?" averaged 12 searches per month).

It's possible that some of these folks may be hitting the wrong box, presumably mistaking search for a chat, or IM client. But for the others, it's much more interesting to leave it to the imagination to decide.

What leader are you quiz..

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

English Bloopers!

I definitely don't think my english is bad, but every now and then I will say something inappropriate to the occasion, and hence there is this conscious effort on my part to reduce the blooper blunders.

One that I remember right now is...
- "A few days back,..."

Back is supposed to refer to position and NOT TIME!! So the correct english is "a few days ago" sheesh!

- "Nice meeting you.." when the Senior Manager told me that we'd be in touch.

Hah.. Such a bad response! Even though the syntax is correct, my logic isn't! This was the second time I was meeting her and I knew I would be emailing her some materials, so it would have been more appropriate to say some other generic greeting like "Have a nice day, talk to you later". Bah, Baloney again!!

- More of these faux-pases when I remember them... Right now, I am just glad to get off work on a Friday! :)

Do you believe in soulmates? In finding the one who was made for you? Do you think marriages are made in heaven? What is your take on the arranged marriage gig for Indian families?

Along with these questions, I also have some news for you. Are you ready to get shocked? If you are, then you should know that I just found my match. The families have decided to have an engagement ceremony as soon as they can settle on a good muharat. Only time will tell if I found a soul-mate, but I definitely think I found a highly compatible match, which was surprising given their rare nature imposed by my family's requirements.

And think not you can
Direct the course of love,
For love,
If it finds you worthy,
Directs your course.


~ Khalil Gibran


Hmmm....

Show me the money!

Our current economical situation has gained too much press and maybe for good reason! I have been totally hooked to following new developments in the economic world and I seriously pray that President elect Obama or the Fed and the populace can start cranking the monetary flow again!

Will the person who comes on my blog from Evanston please reveal him/her-self? :)

A Leap of Faith

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
E. B. White

Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well.
Josh Billings

Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.
Albert Einstein

People who are sensible about love are incapable of it.
Douglas Yates
Unfortunately, I might fall in this category!

People change and forget to tell each other.
Lillian Hellman

A relationship, I think, is like a shark, you know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark.
Woody Allen

The Neo-Vedanta website has links to some really good articles around spirituality. I have read most of their collection about Swami Vivekanand, and I am always inspired by people like him who can find a deeper meaning in life and have devoted themselves for the selfless service of other less fortunate beings.

It is amusing to see how one's beliefs change over the years - I, for one, went from being indifferent to an athiest, then becoming an agnostic, and now becoming a believer. Who knows what Truth is for sure? :)


"Whosoever comes to Me; through whatever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to Me"
- Bhagwad Gita

I definitely think that there is something terribly wrong with American food, and I have proof!!