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I just completed reading The Namesake by Jhuma Lahiri. A very nicely written book. Relations are portrayed beautifully. But what caught my attention was the concept behind nick names. In North India its common to have Nick names like monu,sonu, guddi, etc. In South India, you may have multiple names, but all the names will be meaningful ones. For e.g., Sita is the name given by elders, in school she will be Gayatri. But in Bengalis, it is a custom to have a bhalo naam and a daak naam. Bhalo naam is the formal name by which one would be known in school or college or office. Daak naam is the pet name ones family keeps. Selecting this pet name in itself is a task. And these names are weird, Bulty, Rumi, Budi and so on. But there lies a deeper meaning to this tradition. These names are meant to make one realize that life is not always serious, life is not just about struggle, life is not just about running for survival. Life at times is just for one self. Life is sweet cute and meanin...

Story of my Origin - born Tamilian, celebrated my first birthday in Kerala, spent rest of 15 years in NCR, next 9 years were spent in Karnataka, married to a Malayali and back to NCR. This not only makes me multi cultured, but also multilingual. I'm good with Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu and Hindi. So are my parents. Now this capability has also landed us many a times in a funny situation. To state some of them, when my mother had just began learning Hindi, she used to goto super market and ask for Moti(pearl) instead of Methi. My granny had a great broken Hindi vocabulary. Once she went on a rikshaw and udhar jao was the only words she used in giving directions, every now and then poking rikshaw puller's back. Granny dear's Hindi was responsible for driving away 3 of our maids. My dad till date has a confusion on 'main, hum,tu,aap'. Once a colleague of his asked him where their boss was, my dad being an expert in Hindi (or so he thought) said hum aagaye ,pa...

Most of the work we do has a common attribute that it is both 'art n science'. But I learnt it post marriage that even cutting of vegetables involves art and science. Before marriage my visits to the land of vegetables and spices was limited to demanding mom to make something to satisfy my taste buds. Then there were some days when mom was not well, so me and dad took over her department. But instead of kitchen, it ended up becoming a laboratory with all sorts of combination of spices and vegetables. I guess instead of getting better, my mom must have felt insecure leaving her kingdom in hands of paupers. Cutting of vegetables was never a big deal for us. It was quick and we considered it to be a no brainer task. Post marriage my MIL asked me to cut vegetables. So here I was, cutting the vegetables. My MIL must have seen it more like slaughter. She saw my work and simply smiled and went back to work. Mothers are born teachers. My MIL is no different. She taught me that the ...

1-Jan-2016 New Year's eve. Our home was bustling with laughter and chit chat. Our cousins had come down and we were discussing good old days. Eldest of us started telling the kids (next gen) about how we used to celebrate New year during our childhood. In sometime, we had our dinner. The food tasted so good. Then we started playing charades and Antakshari . Every now and then someone would come up with an anecdote about someone in the family and it triggered a series of stories. It was nearing 12 and we were all sitting together singing some of our favorite songs. And then the countdown began. Party popper, cake, lights all set and then 'Happy New Year' in unison. Photo session, cake smearing and a bit of eating and then back to talking talking and talking. Everything was perfect and I was loving every moment of it. But there was something which was silently watching all this. Something which probably felt left out. And yes I'm happy we had ignored it. I had a Happy...

I remember my childhood when in summers there was a specific time and duration for what we call 'power cut' in late evening. And that was time we all used to wait for. Our parents made sure we completed our homework by then, all their house hold work completed. When the moment came, lights went off everywhere. And an uproar of 'light gayiiiiii' was heard across. All the kids were out on the street. The only lights were candles at home, oil lit lamps at temples, moon and star shine. Hide and seek was best played like this. All the ladies used to gather and gossip, men used to discuss politics or office. Balconies and streets were filled with people. Everyone knew everyone. Teenage gangs played Antakshari and most of the time it was boys v/s girls version. If one was slightly more knowledgeable and wanted to show off, planets, stars, bikes were discussed. There were some days when we didn't go to play, but used to sit with mom dad and granny and listen to a story or...

Great minds have said the following things "Life is a complete circle." ,"Karma is a full circle. You get back what you give". I have a prophesy - "Gifts also follow a full circle- at times you get back what you give. Most of the times, it is the gift which you find least useful" As you read this, many of you would be able to relate to the same. Some of you might have planned the Gift-Re-Cycle , while some of you would have been mere observers and some of the lucky ones amongst us would have been at the receiving end. Where we get back what we gave! We had a grand party last year, celebrating my uncle and aunt's 50th marriage Anniversary. The best part of such parties is the gift unwrapping ceremony. We added some masala to this ceremony. The entire family had to guess the name of the 'gifter' and the kind of relation they had with uncle n aunt. And so began the game. It all began nicely. Happy new, never-seen-earlier gifts, useful ones. Then...

Yesterday I had been to my cousin's place who has a 2 years old daughter. It's interesting to see the way the kid has grown. Every day she has a new thing to learn. Now like every 'proud' parent, my cousin started to play the 'tell me who is this' game with the kid. The kid answered patiently and happily coz every answer was followed with applauds. An hour later, we had a new visitor. The neighborhood aunty. She re-started the 'tell me who is this' game. And the kid continued answering with a smile. This made me get into a kids shoe and think of what he/she might be thinking at each age. Let me start with age Zero to 1 year. My parents hug and kiss me, I absolutely love it. I feel wanted. But why do they not talk properly? 'Mela thota baby thoyega,ghummi dayega ' . What the hell!! I do understand the language. Anywayz next comes the uncle next door, I was happy the first time he came and got me a gift. But was followed by a 'lu lu lu lu...