Evolution

Boy: You make me want to believe in evolution
Girl: I have started questioning it myself since I met you.

Language Confooson

My cook says 'cleaning liquid kahaan gaya? yahaan kabaad mein tha last week'

And I thought, 'agar kabaad mein tha, to sahi jagah gaya hoga'

She speaks gujju and manages hindi and english but this time she meant cupboard. :)

Babel

A father hugging his nude teenage daughter in the balcony of a tokyo high rise.. and there is nothing incestuous about it. Absolutely brilliant movie written by Guillermo Arriaga, who also wrote Amores Perros and 21 gms. I almost chickened out in the middle of the movie cause I couldnt take the edgy stuff anymore.. was talking to the director in my head..'have mercy, dont do this, dont make it so difficult'
:) 'Must Watch' is my recommendation.

Childhood of my dreams.

Break of dawn. She was up before me. She was already out in the verandah cleaning the front yard and preparing it for the grand event. She only nudged me gently but let me sleep some more if I wanted to. Afterall the front yard has to wait for the princess to awaken even if it takes a while longer. At last when I was awake, I refused to brush so I could join her quickly. She was already peering at the notebook trying not to get any mud on it while looking at the details of the dots and the patterns. I had asked her to look at it once the night before but she said ' I dont think its complicated.. if I put my mind to it, I can do it.. maybe better than you.' and now.. look how shes struggling.. erasing, adding dots, rows.. columns.. phew.. amma why dont you just do as I say...

I had the task of joining the dots to make the pattern. I had already done it in my mind.. there is some light on the eastern horizon but not enough to let go of the lantern. The neighbours have started too. We must complete soon before the milkmen and paperwallahs start arriving... we need to finish our coloring and draw borders so they know they cannot encroach like last year. We did not want to adorn ours with the tyre marks again.. finally... she is done with the dots.. askew on one side.. but thats ok. I may just be able to correct it with my master technique of... well.. connecting the dots.

Ok.. here we go.. join them just like I have been revising in my head till now.. and now the form is becoming clearer with the early morning light.. We may have to reinforce the lines once more.. what with the morning mist dampening the powder. The all important task of choosing the colors was undertaken by her.. as usual one step ahead of me.. nudging me pushing me.. always with me. dearest amma. We fill the colors in .. the pink petals and the gray leaves ..grey? you ask? why not? its a good combination.. that of the evening skies. we make our own rules.. this is what makes us different..

Now the bright sunlight is upon us and we are beginning to sweat a little from all the effort.. but nothing matters now.. neither the heat.. nor the dirty feet and hands. Our project is done. We have the beautiful muggu (pattern) ready and its time to wash up and put on the new dress... let the neighbours sweat :)

Someone said today...

Happiness = Reality/Expectations

Lowering expectations is the Indian (Eastern) way.
Altering reality from time to time to match expectations is the Western way.
What must Indians caught between cultures do?

Vancouver

Went on a visa yatra last week as many an Indian is wont to do. The trick is in chosing the right venue to get this job done. One will realise this after filling one's passport with multiple stamps of F, H and L visa types. One can go to El Paso and rot, get captured by men in sombreros while crossing the shady border into Ciudad Juarez. Or.. one can go to Vancouver and spend a good amount of time gorging sea food and eyeing the scenic beauty

Anyways, I landed up in Vancouver on Sunday night for the appointment on Monday morning. I had to be at the consulate by 9 am. So I chose to get my beauty sleep and showed up there
before 9. There were already 50 people in the Q. There was one guard outside asking everyone to leave all the luggage behind and go in with only the papers needed (I suppose they would prefer if you are naked so they wont have to search at all) I was a lil upset but...whatcha gonna do? whatcha gonna do when they come for you?

While in line, made casual chit chat with the fellow gulti gang which made up 60% of the Indians who made up 60% of the total crowd. Once done with the formalities, all of us were asked to come back the next day to pick up the passport. So we had all the time in the world and we set out to check the place.

First, where does one get the freshest and best sea food in town? The vancouver city guide picked up at the information counter in the Airport helped. Got a list of good restos around the hotel (which was also in downtown) and went to have lunch. Inspite of having to deal with work at lunch, it was pleasant. Surprisingly it was an Irish place with lots of memorabilia of sea travel and Coldplay playing in the background.

Post lunch, got a tip from the hotel shuttle guy that a walk along sea side would take one into Stanley Park which is one of the main attractions in Vancouver. So went along and it turned out to be quite a walk. But it was worth the effort since we got to see some wildlife and visit the aquarium in the park just in time before they closed for the day. What I liked best is the Amazonian rainforest bit. Its humid and hot and you can see the some wild snakes and birds. Here are some pics from the walk and the aquarium.

This is a Scarlet Ibis ... for the birdlover in you.

By the time I got out of the park, I had already walked around 6 miles that day. But good
food always gets the spirit and feet going. So walked another mile or so to eat some authentic Malaysian sea food and to check the shops in downtown which are on the way to the resto. There is one main street in downtown called Robson St where all the shopping is concentrated. You can usually find throngs of tourists here. The resto itself served Assamese sea food hot pot (!!) which was yum.

The next day, stayed back in the hotel and worked till about lunch hour. Then got out to get some coffee at this place called Artigianos which btw kicks Starbuck's a&^% anyday. The interesting thing is that in the busiest street in downtown Vancouver there are about 15 Starbucks stores and some of them right across from one another. But Artigianos is a thriving coffee place which actually has better coffee. After a quick lunch and passport business, went out to get to the top of Vancouver Lookout which offers a view of the city and surroundings. Its no space needle, but it gives a good view of the city.

Apparently on a clear day one can see as far as some Islands on the US Pacific coast. I got a good look of the city itself ...

then went over to the historical gas town (derives its name from a certain John Gassy) There is a one of a kind steam clock in gastown which seemed to attract lot of attention. The city itself was named Vancouver (after a certain Captain George Vancouver of the British Royal Navy) Gastown as you might agree would not have sounded very appealing. After walking around this place for a bit, headed out to another of the seafood restos which sounded promising. If you like sea food and dont mind spending some extra cash, this is a must try place. Its called Kettle of fish and it is awesome

On wednesday, sent out some vague emails first thing in the morning... and assured that no one would bother me for the rest of the day, had a quick lunch and more of the delicious Artigianos coffee, before heading out to take a boat ride in the Burrard Inlet (between downtown and North Vancouver). It was a nice day contrary to what yahoo weather predicted (took the prediction seriously and carried an umbrella. darn it.)




After the pleasant boat ride, went back to the hotel, took some rest, sent out more vague emails with confusing analysis of the previous email responses and headed out to North Vancouver.

One has to cross the burrard inlet to reach north vancouver. Chose the sea bus for the crossing (big bus type thing, that takes about 10 mins to cross the water). One of things to check out is the Capilano Suspension Bridge. Went there and realised that it was very commercialised. But crossed the bridge since we were at it. There isn't much to see after the crossing except the bridge itself which feels pretty shaky while you are on it and the beautiful scenary underneath.

After that, went back to downtown and headed over to an Indian resto called 'Vijs' which had very good reviews in the AA magazine that incidentally had Eric McCormick of 'Will and Grace' talking about Vancouver in this edition. The resto turned out to be pretty good as was the host who is a very friendly guy. Came back to the hotel, did some work late night, called it a day and headed over to Dallas on Thu, back to the heat and Jack FM among other things.

Udukulon - What it is?

Be patient, gentle reader. Knowledge comes to those who can think in two languages at a time.

I mentioned to N~ the other day about how I skipped showers when I was sick during childhood.. I would always get a french bath with Udukulon. He thought a bit and said 'oh!, so you have always been French ...' Its Eau de Cologne gultified. I still say Udukulon because it feels more real :)