Waiting to Fall

Its been a painful sunny week or so here in Lexington. With temperatures almost touching 100 degrees (fahrenheit thaan, celsius a vittu romba naalachu), I think this is the hottest summer that I have ever seen in my 4 years of Lexington life.
It was so scorching hot, that I couldnt get into my car @ 530 in the evening - the car felt like a hot oven and the steering wheel was too hot to handle. And before this heat wave, we had to bear with a "rainy week and a half" which sucked.

I have started missing the wintry days - the raw wind chill that hits your face once you step out, the ears that start to pain once you are out in the cold for a long time, the essentials - the leather jacket, shoes, full pants, gloves makes you look like a tamizh cinema villain dressed to kill. I run in 10 seconds the distance between my home and the mailbox in shorts, tshirt and just sandals, feeling bored to dress up just to see the junk mail that I receive. (email, phones thaan illa, snail mail koodavaa anuppa koodaathu yaaraavathu? or is that too much to ask?!)
But then as you would expect, I will definitely miss the summer in December. And it goes on a cycle.

The time between the summer and winter is the best part of my year in my opinion. Temperatures are mild and pleasant, you dont get rains that time of the year, the trees and scenery are picturesque, the colors vivid and rusty and school reopens here at the university (read as lot of ponnunga to look forward to :)

You can get an inkling of how things are going to be soon by looking at the trees. The leaves of the trees start to go pale yellow - an indication that that Fall times have just about begun, then to bright red to say out loud that it is starting to like this time of the year, it turns dark brown to ooze out the gloominess that fall is about to end and leaves fall out unable to withstand the cold winds and remain that way for another quarter of an year.

hmmmm! and thinking of Fall times of the year, I can't believe I am going to see the 5th Fall here in US. :(

Shame Shame!

Edit: From yesterday night till today @ lunch, I got 1 email. Enthuvoda poi paatha, athu naane oru group kku nethiku amucha email, athuvum one day late aa vanthu verupethiyathu!

Sari sari, dont be too worried that this would follow the pattern of Elixir, Vagary etc...
Intha blog is about the suffering of a man in his 25's looking for a partner to settle down in life, who recently got out of school & employed in the US, who lives in an apartment away from the university, who has probably grown a bit older to be still living in the university atmosphere, who has 600 day time minutes and unlimited nights, weekend minutes to call all the people he knows. He has email accounts with all the popular and leading email providers - gmail, yahoo, hotmail etc etc...

Scenes:
Reach work @ 9am:
Logged onto mail.yahoo.com, and you get to see Ignominy 1: -- You have 0 unread messages. "Its been 10 hours since I checked my mail and no one has even thought and emailed me?, How bad can that be!" Worstttt!.
Konja neram velai pannittu within an hour, manushanukku irukkura nappaasai la, poi thiruppi mail check panninaa same scene repeat.
Oru for loop pottu, ithe scene repeat aagum till like 3pm.

When you login @ 3pm, you would naturally think that "You have 0 unread messages" screen is going to pop up one more time, you see something in bold. Your heart leaps up for a moment and on seeing clearly, you see that it says "Bulk(2)". Okay atleast etho forward varuthe nnu ninachundu antha folder a open panninaa first email would be from 123greetings.com "Get great gifts for your lover" -- deiiiiiiiiiii! ventha punnila yen da vela paachareenga
(Translation tried : "heyyyyyyyyyyyyy! in cooked wound, why do you inject a spear?).
2nd email would read "Get bigger, make your wife happy", "ada paavingalaa, how do you know, you know!)

Email scene ippdiye pogum through the entire day. Ofcourse you do manage to get a mail or two everyday. The tricks that might work are:

1. Become a member of 4-5 yahoogroups and set it so that you get individual emails. (Intha daily digest/no email option choose panravanga ellaarukum nijamaave avvlo emails varuthaa?!) Anyways I never choose daily digest/no email option :)

2. Ithu puthu technique, blog ezhuthittu make sure when people comment, you get an email. Oru blog start panni, oru post ezhuthi athuku comment vidalaiya makkal, dont worry, innoru blog start pannu - athu kathaiya irukkalam, vera language la ezhuthalaam, illa etha pathi venumnaalum comment adikkalam...
Ithuvum work out aagalainaa, freee aa vidu email/blog ellaame Krishna Raama nnu poga vendiyathu thaan :(

Sari appadiye cell phone scene ku thaavuvom:
Minutes Plan: 600 minutes day time, unlimited weekends and nights.
Additional Features: Free Tmobile-Tmobile calling for 8$ a month (deiii, kaasu iruku nrathukkaga, kandapadi selavu seyyarathaa?)
Monthly bill varacha thaan stomach-burning aa irukum, used minutes - 100/600 minutes....
deiiiii, naan use panrathukku enakkaga konjam concession kuduthu 20$ a month nnu oru plan kudunga da pleaseeeeeee!

Nalla velai naan Cingular la illa, rollover nnu solli maasam maasam minutes vera accumulate aagum. ( Ithula avanga tag line : "Its your minutes, keep them" -- dei enaku venaam da aala vidu)
At the end of the year, Available minutes: 6000 minutes appadi nnu vanthu nikkum. Athuku bathila oru muzham kayiru use pannikkalam.

Weekdays aavathu office, work nnu poidum, intha weekend thaan bore. Nijamaa solren, last weekend the first call that I got was on Sunday afternoon. Appadiye pathari adichu eduthu antha paiyan kitte (pinna ponnaa call panna poraa?) "deiii unaku naan endrendrum kadamai pattu irukken da" nnu urugi sonnen...Avan avanoda soga kathaiya sonnan avvlo than.

Some funny ones that I heard from PB:

3rd person: "unga veetu keezhe yaaru irukka?"
PB: "moonu cell phone irukku!" :)

(3 girls live in the apartment and they talk over the phone all the time)
That brings us to an inevitable question -
"If the girls are speaking over phone all the time and naturally they speak with guys most of the time, where are the guys who talk with the gals? Enaku therinje - D, PB, VJ, naan (naanaavathu konjam parava illa ;) ellaam vethuku ukkaanthu irukkom. (Kay, Vasu ellam enga kooda thaan irunthaanga, aana ippo ellam rekkai mulachu paranthutaanga... :)

Onnume puriyala ulagathulaaa... Ennathaan nadakumo theriyallee....

ps1: Nethiku night lenthu inniku afternoon varaikum no mails to me ( no office emails as well :)
ps2: Inniku morning lenthu Vijay mattum call panni irukkaan... ( Athuvum he was returning my call :)

Swiftnews blog's up

Swiftnews

Vagaries of Mind

You read the papers first thing in the morning. Yet again, it is a suicide terrorist attack. Hundreds feared killed, more injured. Every news channel beaming pictures of people killed, people bleeding blood, firefighters helping people rescue. You pick up the phone immediately, call your niece to make sure she is doing ok. You heave a sigh of relief that her family is safe, feel sad for the rest of people and get on with work.

Time - The Elixir of Life

The person who gave him blood, education, shelter, food passed away last year. The elixir of life wiped away all the sad feeling he had.

Her best friend from childhood - she used to play with him after school, she could see her spirits lifting up on seeing him, she loved the affectionate kisses that she gave her pup, died of an unknown ailment last year. The elixir of life shredded all despairing thoughts she had.

He always dreamed of being at the service of people and thought what better profession than a doctor. He worked hard, did well in the exams and still fell short of a seat in a reputed medical institution. The elixir of life consoled him and eventually he became a software engineer.

His room mate at college - the one person whom he felt comfortable to confess his personal ambitions, his love interests, reasons on why he doesnt like someone - died of a tragic drowning incident sometime back. The elixir of life made him get over it.

The one person who would understand all her concerns, the one relationship that she thought would last a lifetime, the "warmth" that she enjoyed in the company of this one guy, this one guy of hers who utters "I Love You" just to see the twinkle in her eyes and the blush in her face - their relationship broke up for all the wrong reasons and she was filled with tears and a thinking of there is no tomorrow. Once again, the elixir of life dried her tears, brought to her vision what life would be without him.

Why does this "elixir of life" take care of everything from our past?
How can all our cherished, dark, haunting, unexpressible memories be hidden and forgotten inside of ourselves like the lonely desert plant in a sand storm?
To me, Time - "The Elixir of life" makes you get over things, forget the past, makes you believe you can do it better this time, makes you understand that it is not the end of the world even if you lose a precious one - And that is why I whole-heartedly think this "Time" is GOD to me and I trust it the most to make me better.

Direct Dil Se...

First things first. Its Independence Day long weekend here in the US and as always everyone has their own plans. For me, it is the same usual drive to North Carolina where my brother lives. It is a 500 mile drive from Lexington, KY and it is really long and tiring especially if its all you who is driving. That being said the drive had its own moments - the West Virginia part of the drive is mountainous but nevertheless really scenic. For a stretch of 10 miles you travel amidst the fog. At 75mph you get kissed on the forehead by one cloud (fog that is) and it passes by for the next one.

Long, lone drives could sometimes be good - you can get to talk with yourself about some idiosyncrasies that you still carry after 26 years in earth, sing aloud without having to worry about shruthi and thaalam and ofcourse shame?! (that you dont sing as well as some of your friends can!), and on the lighter side take restroom breaks when you really want to and not force a restroom break on yourself just because your friend had to "you know".
Everytime I drive this 500 mile, 8 hour course to NC, I always think " Next time I am not going to put myself into this hassle of tiring drive but instead going to fly", but then it ends up with me driving.
And I listened to songs all throughout - Tamil, Hindi, English (FM radio) sparring sometime calling friends with conversations like " I am here, where are you?, How is your drive?, What did you eat?". Yesterday's best song while on the drive was "Jee khar dekhta rahoon, Kitna sonaa thuje rab ne banayaaa" from Raja Hindustani. Who said you have to be in love for you to like these kind of songs, I just fell in love with the song.

I am having a gala of a time so far - two lovely angels (my nieces), anna, manni, manni's amma cooking, SUN TV, sumptuous lunch @ Udipi today comprising of Idli, Vada, Set Dosai, Channa Batura, Masala Dosai, Carrot Halwa and the list goes on endlessly....

To take a kutti nap after a weekend lunch is too tempting and I go off to the sleep mode of my Eat-Sleep-Eat-Watch TV cycle.

Later...