Curioser and curioser...

Those were the words of Alice as she begins exploring the strange happennings in Wondeland. I echo her emotions as I encounter equally strange people behaviours around me who i expect to behave in a certain fashion, but the response is quite different from the ordinary! Being a people's person- I'm really much interested in getting to the bottom of it all.
Like this friend of mine who calls only when she is in trouble eventhough she is calling after a full four months, dosent begin by asking how I am but begins rightaway lamenting and venting about her love situation- and she is suppossed to be one of my best friends! Hmm...thats curious! Another situation, where I called a friend of mine home for brunch- cooked ample portions of food and dessert and the friend left after sumptously eating and no thank you! Curiouser!! Even curioser- an acquaintance (not even a friend) dismisses my qualifications in the face of marriage and the duties of a housewife! ("What are you going to do with a Masters degree?You might as well have gone to a cooking course!"). Well..its interesting to meet this kind of people only so that it gets you thinking about their thought process. Human psychology is indeed sensitive ground and must be tread with utmost caution. There are some other people who will go into any length of self dismissal just to make the other person feel good. I wonder how can anyone go to an extent of putting oneself down to please another. That perosn must have a very low self esteem. It puts the receiver on extremely thin ground as the person needs to be well aware of the other person's though process and behave befit.
The most recent situation where I have gone Curiosest is when I happenned to meet a friend I used to regularly hang out with in my Grad school days and she calls me up to help a find a job. And mind you, she hasn't bothered to keep in touch the past 5 years. Siggghhhh---in spite of laughing it off, and practially bitching about it to my hubby for as many as a dozen times, I want to figure out why this keeps happenning with me! Why is it that inspite of me being nice to people unselfishly, we don;t seem to be on the same page!
What if I behaved in a similar fashion with people I knew. Would they still treat me the way they treat me now? Will i be scorned upon and bitched about behind my back?! I am indeed so curious to know why this keeps happenning with me! When discussed, I got different answers, "Well, do you know how your behaviour is perceived by others?" " What may be wrong in your eyes, may be right in someone else's opinion". "Whats so wrong in that anyways?" which makes me feel that probably human emotions and thoughts are extremely perceptive- could be interpreted by a number of people in a number of ways which makes me wonder- wow--the human race is quite surprising in their behaviour. There is no constant in behavior types and behavior is susceptible to change as frequently as the change in temperatures in downtown SF. Does it mean that all of us are alike in some way? yes we are- we are unable to predict our behaviour with a person we've known for a really long time and that our behaviours are amenable with time and situations! Isn't that Mad?!!!!


"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

So I guess I'll just have to deal with the situation and be Mad??!!!!!

Traveltrivia..

How many of us love travelling, going on vacation to exotic locales and just exploring nature's bounty! What a cliche' ...everyone does! lol.. Well,,just the prospect of getting out and enjoying oneself is always a welcome treat along with all the fun and frolic that's part of the package. What makes the cream of the holiday are the after travel story anecdotes that make up all the fun of the holiday! Even the most boring incidents when narrated with the background and perceptions of others makes the most interesting and funny conversations. Like there was this time when we were flying from Melbourne to Sydney (which have a time zone difference of 45 mins). The plane was suppossed to leave melbourne at 8:20 and reach sydney at 8:33. I had this old but very nice amicable lady sitting beside me, who was really surprised when the time announcement was made! She turns to me and goes, "Excuse me, but how is it possible that we reach Sydney so soon within 10 mins?". i tried to explain to her the time difference and she was blinking stars at me and she never got it! Finally I told her that this was an express flight and it went really fast which actually convinced her! My friend and me were guffawing about it! There are also some very funny announcements that stewards make when landing and taking off. I was flying South West sometime ago to Denver and this flight attendent just after landing says, "Thank you for flying SouthWest Airlines. We hope you enjoyed giving us the business as much as we enjoyed taking you for a ride." hehehheh!! There was yet another time when soon as we got onto the flight, the flight attendent came forward to give us a demonstration about the use of seat belts and oxygen masks. This child was sitting bseide me and is asking its mommy pointing at the Flight attendent giving the demonstration, "Hey Mommy, thats a very cute doll, although a bit bigger than other dolls I have! Will you buy her for me?" The mommy goes, "But baby, she is a very expensive doll". The child replies saying, "Huh!! I dont believe that, that doll cannot even move her lips. She has a recorded voice saying everything for her!!" hhooohooooo!!! Twas quite phunny!! This other time, when we were driving to lake tahoe from the bay area, what was suppossed to be a 5 hr drive, turned out to be a 9 hr drive because of traffic snarls and snow! There was one haul up where two trucks had actually spun over and caused a go-slow for 2 and a half hours. For 2 and a half hours we were sitting in our car, not moving an inch and it was snowing outside.At the end of one hour, I lost patience and I ask my friend," Aren't you getting irritated?" he goes, "Well,,there is nothign i can do about it". I say, "Well,,I'm getting mighty irritated." He goes," So what are you going to do about it?" I say,"Well, we should probably call the cops and ask them to do a copter lift and move the trucks out of our way so that we can go ahead." He hands me his cell phone and says, "Go ahead!" I said, "Oh---well...cant you call?" he said, "No. if you want to, you can." which totally shut me up! But looking back it just sounds soo funny!!! This another friend of ours, on the onwards trip to Tahoe had the mis-fortune of losing his beany when he had put down the glass to get some fresh air! "Oh damn,,,my beany flew away! Can we turn around and go hunt for it", he seriously asks my friend who said a vehement NO when he thought of combing the air and the freeway full of cars for a beany!!

Any thoughts or similar stories to share????
Post them up!!!!!!!!

Epicure or Foodie?????????

I sometimes wonder why my husband says "I'm eating , eating all the time like a glutton"! Is it becasue I enjoy the edible favors bestowed on my taste buds or is it because his tongue is just thick enough not to feel the sensual pleasure of food melting in the mouth and the pleasure u just cant avoid! As I was growing up, I was taught never to say No to food! I was brought up feasting on lovely dosas and uttapams and kootu and rotti. As I travelled and discovered other interesting cuisines I began to savor other lovely tastes of the tamali, the burrito, the fritters, and the lovely papaya salad! And i argue saying, I'm not eating all the time, all the time coz I'm a glutton. I consider myself a Foodie. he says, "But you're not an epicure?"

There is a lot of difference between an epicure and foodie. When I say epicure, a picture of a snobbish person who travels just to savor food at frightfully expensive restaurants and gives a muted satisfaction at having sampled the very smallest portion of grilled salmon comes to mind. Thats not what I am , or not what I ever want to be. Now, a foodie is soo different. The Oxford dictionary refers to a foodie as "someone who has an ardent or refined interest in food". The Oxford Dictionary omits though why the person has such an interest in food! It dosent discuss the food cravings that a typical foodie encounters! A foodie, in my opinion is a person who understands his food needs and cravings well and knows how to and with what to satisfy it. A foodie has this unquenchable hunger for trying out something new and understanding what goes into its processing and making. A foodie is not necessarily a plump and stodgy person, but is one who is able to strike a balance between the taste of food and its nutritious value. One who is able to dvelve into what goes into making it so tasty and if it is good enough for the system to be permissible. A foodie is not a glutton. Gluttony is characteristic of people who are ready to eat anything and almost everything and who dont know what they want. But they actually eat everything they want and dont want in excess.

So being a foodie is good- being a glutton is not. This is merely an attempt to try and get my husband interested in becoming a foodie. Coz once you start becoming a foodie, you start looking at what you eat, knowing what you eat, liking what you eat and most importantly just EAT!!!!

Consider this situation. After a hard days work of 8 hrs being bombarded by paperwork, meetings and phone calls, when all you want to do is get home and you are going to be traveling the BART at 5pm and its a 45 minute ride and all you want to do is listen to your ipod or be content reading your fav author you expect your co-passengers to be in the same situation, or NOT?! This school kid probably in his early twenties who has an exceptionally loud voice is discussing history and other very booring mundane topics is actually eating into your song on the ipod! And its not just a one day situation- its an everyday situation. No matter, which carriage I board, the guy and his school mates are always around.I even once chose a carriage after making sure this character was not around, but after 2 stations went by, there he was emerging out of the compartment door and once again began chattering.Oh gosh---its a difficult Bart ride with this character in the background with the bommerang voice. What would anyone in my situation done??

Bombay to Bangkok?!!

Anyone saw the recent Nagesh Kukkunoor Movie- Bombay to bangkok! Quite hilarious and very nicely depicted in the usual Kukkunoor ishtyle! His usual hero Shreyas has been mis-approriately cast for some scenes though which tried as hard as possible, but failed to bring out his sex appeal even with gruesome kissing scenes. For me, Shreyas has always been the Iqbal character- silent, sweet and persistent. So I dont know what Nagesh was thinking when he depicted Shreyas topless going to a massage parlor in Thailand and tring to say, "Kappkhun Kaa"...and trying to romance the masseuse. It totally threw me off--Shreyas Talpade kissing a Thai girl...ummm...it dosen't quite suit his character that he was trying to build in Bollywood. But there were some quite hilarious scenes in the movie- the sardar: Rash, who was in eternal humor and who trying to humorize the movie was quite enjoyable. The Thai girl was needless to say- quite pretty and graceful.The movie was all in all an interesting journey for a bawarchi from the Mumbai sadaks to the Bangkok rastas!! The song of , "We are same same , no different", catches the tunes of many! Apart from that- quite a hilarious watch if you close your eyes to Talpade's kissing scenes!

Toto Chan's Page

Q: Why do people create Blogs?
A: So that other Blogs get to know them?
Well,,,I guess people blog for a variety of reasons- To get rid of boredom, to express themselves when nobody else wants to listen to them, to establish to others the"Hey,,I can be a blogger too" kinda spirit. Some people can surprisingly just not get off the keyboard- all they wanna do is just type and type away to glory. Seriously I knew this chap who was blogging all the time just coz he loved to type- and guess where he ended up- teaching at a University about "Blogging Skills"..! I don't believe blogging skills exist per say. All one needs to possess is the ability to continuously recollect the most boring incidents in life and paint them in dramatic colors which will make a bored idiot surfing the net grin and smile! (u think that dosen't happen? think again!!) Why else do peopple blog? Am sure some of you might say I love writing, I love talking, I love expressing myself-- But come on -- those reasons are what everyone gives! You are different now,,aren't ya?! if you are- you need to come up with the truth about why you blog and what makes you wanna blog more. Let me see--The reason why I blog is that i don't have enough time to talk about happennings in my life to the people who matter. I blog coz its my vent to the outside world- my friends and my family whom I talk to 'now and then'. The 'Now and Then' syndrome is defined as,"If and only if I have time in the week after I've finished a hard weeks work, after a long commute on the BART, after soothing all the head aches and the body aches, after if I ever get a chance to relax". The 'Now and Then' syndrome happnes once a week if at all and persists for 1/24th of the day. See....See!! Now if it weren't for all those people who matter to me, I'd be another of those insufferable professionals who are continuously working at their desks with laptops and paper and reports bottling up their lives in one tiny brain! So the most important reason why I blog is coz of the people I know and who matter to me.
Now that we've got that across, I'd be interested to see some answers or responses as to why you blog.
If anyone is wondering about the title of my Blog- its my fav character in all the books I've ever read. its a must-read for all who love to re-live their childhoods in stories. if you enjoyed floating paperboats in the monsoon, if you enjoyed listening to granmamma's stories and saying "Please granny, once more", if you loved going to school and doing things which were not suppossed to be done yet you still did it purely becoz it made you happy, you will love this book.
Its called, "Totto Chan- the little girl by the window"- by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi.
if any of you want to add comments- more than welcome.


PS:---And if any of you are still looking for something to read tomorrow, make sure you do Not bookmark me and come back and read what i've posted new on my blog. Coz I have this anti-blogging software that I use to hack into your personal space and invade every cranny of it. LOL.