Of Limca, lost and found

The past weekend was excellent weather-wise. Today, however, it was hot. Hot summers remind me of India in April and May, prior to the onset of monsoon and invariably my childhood. Funnily today I was craving for Limca, a lime and lemon flavored soda that is so Indian. After India opened her markets in 1992, Coca Cola bought the company that produced this popular Indian soda. I have a childhood story attached to Limca.

My paternal side of the family is extremely close knit. We would go on vacations together and invariably do a lot of activities together. My father is very close to his cousins so our trips included our extended family as well. We would go on vacations and short weekend trips. My parents are polar opposites; my mother was and still is extremely protective while my father always let his kids be independent. I was a daddy’s girl and always used to follow my father like a shadow.

When I was around eight, my family went on a weekend trip to Lonavla, a popular destination in the mountains. While returning home, my father’s car broke down and we decided to leave it there and take a train back home. My entire extended family, including uncles, aunts and cousins decided to take a train from Lonavla back to Bombay (it was not called Mumbai then). I remember that we had to get off at Karjat, a major rail terminus and take a connecting local train to our respective destinations. Our group consisted of 20-25 people and we were thoroughly enjoying ourselves singing songs, laughing and joking.

Karjat is famous for its vada pav, which is a fast food dish native to my state. My parents were strict and did not like us to eat street food especially food that had zero nutrition. My uncle, however, decided that there were no rules on a Sunday, which is a fun day, and treated all of us to that. After we were done eating, all but my father and I, walked away. The reason was that yours truly wanted another Limca. While my father was paying for it, I smartly suggested that I would walk by myself to where the group was waiting. My father asked me if I knew where they were and I rather confidently said yes. It was on the same platform but in the opposite direction of the cafeteria and I thought I was smart enough to go there by myself.

Unbeknown to me, the station announced the platform from where the train would depart and the group left to go to the correct platform. So I walk out of the cafeteria and along the length of the platform, to find that my group had already left in the interim. I ran back to the cafeteria to find my father gone as well. Before you think my father is irresponsible, he thought that I had reached the group while my mother thought that I was with him. They were in for a rude shock when they didn’t find their second born in the group. Within minutes the platform was deserted and there was not a soul in sight!

Despite my bravado, I was still an eight year old child. I did what any eight-year old would do, which was burst into tears. Suddenly a crowd gathered around me asking me questions as to who I was, where I lived and if I were lost. In that crowd was a group of tribal people, the Bhils, who insisted on taking me to my parent’s home. I had not seen Bhils in my life before and to see strange people speaking a strange form of Hindi was scary. I barely understood Hindi then so started crying even louder. I have to say that a child’s instincts are rather good and I had paid attention when my mother used to teach us to not speak to strangers or take anything from them or go with them. Therefore I stayed glued to the ground bawling on top of my lungs. In all probability the whole town of Karjat might have heard me.

Suddenly in the commotion, which I had caused, I hear a gentle voice ask me in Marathi, “Do you know where you live child?” I look up to see a beautiful Maharashtrian woman with peaches and cream complexion and deep green eyes. She had no make up on and was dressed in a pretty cotton saree, mangalsutra and bindi (I must say the Wikipedia entry has another fellow Maharashtrian of course with a lot of make-up). She was with a boy, probably her son, who was around my age. I was shaking and between my sobs, I tell her that I know my parents address and my home phone number. She asked me if I knew how to get home from the train station, and I nodded my head in agreement. Then she gently asked me if I wanted to first come with her to the station's office as she was confident that my parents must be worried sick and must be looking for me. I calmed down and agreed to go with her, when I heard another gentle voice calling my name. It was none other than my mother! I leapt across the crowd into her arms. She hugged and kissed me and we ran towards our waiting group. In her excitement she forgot to thank the lady. When she realized that, she turned around but the kind lady had already left. My mother for a long time after that used to feel bad that she had not thanked her. You know this incident is etched in my memory, however I don't remember if I even drank the second limca or what happened to it after I got lost.

The course of events of my being lost and found probably occurred in less than five minutes; however it seemed like an eternity in my and my parent’s mind. When I got back to the group everyone was relived that I was safe and sound. When the tense moments subsided, everyone was back to enjoying themselves and did what any self respecting older cousins would do, which is make me a butt of their jokes. To date the nickname “Limca” has stuck on! It is a term of endearment now, but every landmark moment in my life has been, “Oh our Limca is getting married” or “Oh our Limca is going to pursue her graduate studies. Please don’t get lost in the US.” The cousin who helped me set up my apartment as blogged in the previous post, was part of that group then. True to the spirit of the Limca tradition, he made fun of me when I decided to drive to Chicago from Ann Arbor to spend my first Christmas with him! I am not certain about this but knowing my mother, I can safely say that my father must have been in the doghouse for a pretty longtime after this incident.

My Jersey Biases

(I am very tired, so all you grammar nazis please forgive my typos and grammatical errors, if any.)

Last week was very hectic and intense for me professionally. The weekend before the last was hardly a weekend as I worked for 12 hours that Sunday. I had a deadline this past Friday and I was so paranoid about not meeting it that I worked on a Sunday. The religion of books say that even God rested on Sunday, but being a Hindu I can say that mine does not! Of course they say that it took six days to create the world but I believe in evolution, so why even discuss this. Thank God I don’t belong to the Bible belt because both my color and beliefs could have made me an easy target. I am not sure, just painting everything with a broad brush of generalization. Besides Bobby Jindal, a fellow desi is the Governor of Louisiana, so I am just being silly here. Those who think I am offensive, please stop reading now because its going to get even worse in the following sections.

When I moved to the great state of New Jersey from Michigan, my idea of the state was the industrial landscape of northern Jersey. I was really disappointed to move to Jersey after living in a great town like Ann Arbor. However now that I am here, I have come to appreciate it a lot. Besides I live in a very nice part of New Jersey so the varied landscape came as a pleasant surprise to me. However I had no idea that South Jersey was a different country altogether.

I am always nervous of my olive skin whenever I go to South Jersey, the home of the Pinelands and the Jersey devil. There is a reason for that. When I first moved to Jersey, I had asked my friend who along with his significant other participates in Triathlons about biking in the Pinelands. He looked at me incredulously and said, “You can go but if you hear banjo playing the background….keep pedaling and fast.” For those of you who don’t know or haven't followed the popular culture reference, he was alluding to the movie Deliverance.

Few years ago, I had to go on a site visit to a town in the Pinelands. I was very nervous about it. I was talking to K while I was in my car and expressed my trepidation. He said that I was completely paranoid. As long as I was there at daytime, he couldn’t see an issue with it. I kept the engine running the entire time so I could get the hell out of there if things got bad. I am concerned about the environment and hate those who keep engines idling, but then I want to be alive to enjoy the green earth so I made an exception here. I drove within the site boundaries and sat in the car taking notes. While I was minding my own business, a woman with a mullet and a flannel shirt came up to my window and tapped it. I was startled and jumped up. I roll ed down the window and greeted in my fake Jersey accent, “How you doin’?” She asked me what “youzz doin’ in these parts.” I said that I was there on behalf of *My company* . She said that “youzz people from college with your fancy degrees come in and tell us what to do.” I was nervous and K who was listening to the conversation was somewhat nervous as well. I responded rather calmly, “I ain’t got no fancy degree. I hear youzz…them rich people don’t know nothin’.” She replied, “damn right they don’t.” She smiled a toothless grin and yelled at her six kids, “Don’t y’all harass that nice lady.” NARROW ESCAPE! I thought that she might call me a “damn Benny” with my fake North Jersey accent. Thankfully I was left alone and continued what I sought to do. A few minutes later, as I was pulling out, a shirtless guy with man boobs and a paunch started running towards my car. I had no interest in engaging in a conversation with him so hit on the gas and got the hell out of there. For some reason he reminded me, paranoia personified, of the movie Deliverance. In case you are curious... NO…I don’t play no banjo and I ain't gonna squeal like no pig!

When I went back to work the next morning, I repeated this conversation to my colleagues who were in splits. I was informed that once upon a time KKK was rather active there. Sure enough I ain’t going to no such town anywhere in the United States unless I have my favorite Shiv Sainiks or Bajrang Dal with me! (For you non-desis, these are far-right wing Indian factions. Before you stop visiting my blog...please I am only kidding!) The moral of the story is that there are crazy people everywhere in the world.

Manoj: Telemarketer Elite - Short Film

This is hilarious! How many of us here in the United States get calls from a "Matt" who sounds more like a "Manoj"....I got this from my friend Lotus. I couldn't stop laughing. Next time someone from my country calls you...this clip will provide you some comic relief. Instead of getting annoyed you might just smile!

Like we say, "Vee are like this onnly...absolutely and pproximately!"

Lost in Joisey

Have you ever watched Chevy Chase’s movie National Lampoon’s Vacation and thought to yourself that it was so far fetched to even be true, especially the scene when they get lost in the desert in Arizona. You must be wondering where I am going with this story, trust me, I do have a story. A few days ago I was driving to work. Quite like this morning it was a nice crisp morning, the birds were chirping, the air was romantic but of course I was going to work! There is nothing romantic about going to work and basically doing geeky stuff.

I usually take this particular Interstate for about 20 miles and then take the County roads. As I slowed down on the exit ramp, which incidentally curves rather sharply, I saw this woman standing beside her car waving furiously. It was about 7AM and she looked like she was dressed for an important meeting or a job interview. She looked completely distressed. I had cranked my window open so heard her scream “Please stop….please stop and help me.” She almost ran in front of my car which freaked me out but like a Good Samaritan I stopped to ask her what was wrong? From her accent, she appeared to be a foreigner though not from my part of the world or continent. She asked me where this particular interstate led. I said that she was traveling to the east and that it eventually led to the Jersey Shore. She panicked and said that she wanted to go to Connecticut! I told her that she was driving in a totally wrong direction. At the same time I checked in the rear view mirror to see two cars waiting behind me rather patiently. I told her to move away so I could pull into the shoulder to allow the other cars to pass and not get delayed like yours truly.

So then I told her that she had to take the NJ Turnpike but that she missed that exit and she had driven almost 15 miles in a different direction. While I was explaining how she could continue and take the northbound Garden State Parkway which eventually met with the Turnpike in North Jersey, she looked past me and loudly yelled, “Don’t worry I am only asking for directions.” I looked through the side view mirror to see an unmarked cop car with flashing lights parked right behind my car. The cop got out of the car and asked me if something was wrong. I told him that she was lost and she had stopped me to ask for directions. The cop smiled and told me that he thought from a distance that we had an accident and that the other woman was aggressively intimidating me! At that very moment, the cop and I asked her simultaneously, “Where are your maps?” She explained to us that she had her windows open and the printouts of the route map just flew out of the window and she didn’t have her bearings and being out of state had no idea where she was! So I requested the cop to give her proper directions so I could leave. The woman was so overwhelmed that she told the cop, "This lady is an angel….was the only one who stopped to help….God Bless you etc.” (I said to myself….stop you are embarrassing me but do go on)

After I left I couldn’t stop laughing and called K to tell him what happened. For some reason that woman’s predicament reminded me of Chevy Chase in that movie. K’s first reaction was that I shouldn’t randomly stop like this as it might not be safe as I didn’t know who the woman might be. I replied that it was 7:15 AM and from her overall appearance that woman, wearing a business suit, clearly didn’t look like someone who would mug commuters!

Moral of the Story: It is worth investing in a GPS System if your car doesn’t already have one OR the cheaper aternative would be to not roll down the windows on a windy day!

Biking

After almost two weeks K and I took our bikes this evening to the park. We went late at around 7:30 PM and biked for about 10 miles. It was a glorious evening with the temperature around 65 degrees. We were wearing track pants and a jacket. Everyone was dressed similar to us except this group of extremely fit cyclists who looked like Lance Armstrong’s clones and probably were training. That was a very nice sight and so easy on the eye…of course my eye. Poor K didn’t have much eye candy this evening.


This evening was such a welcome change weatherwise from the heat wave two weeks ago. We were in the park then and I saw this guy jogging shirtless with very short shorts. He was pale and peeling and had such a flabby body. It was the most disgusting sight I had ever seen. He reminded me of the Seinfeld episode of “bro.” He needed to be jailed for indecent exposure. Perhaps he could be Paris Hilton’s cell mate. That would be punishment for both albeit a more severe one for Poor Miss Rich Girl. The media needs to give the poor girl a break….like all she did was like get a DUI or something and like drive with a suspended license. She probably thought that "suspended" was some new hot accessory like suspenders, which by the way aren't hot except only when Larry King wears them!

By the way for someone as shallow as Paris, it is “so not hot to see someone so like faaat” while for the guy….well perhaps not so much a punishment for him except of course if he is a language nazi and has to face Paris’s severely limited vocabulary consisting of exclusively expressions such as, “that’s hot” “that’s not hot” “it so like not hot.”

By the way I cannot understand why people who are not in the best of shapes like to show off their flab. Is there is secret competition as to who is flabbier or has the most cellulite? Is there an award for it and is it any good? If so, someone please let me know because I may stand a chance too.

My boring life

A few days ago on my morning commute I was listening to this piece on NPR about a war widow who lost her husband last year in Iraq. She moved with her child to her late husband’s hometown in New Hampshire. She spoke about how she kept his memory alive and made quilts out of his shirts etc. It moved me to tears and I started crying. At the signal a car pulled beside me and the guy was staring at me with a very quizzical look. At that time I realized that it must be really strange to see a grown woman behind the wheel, dressed clearly to go to work but crying like a child. Maybe I am a petulant child who still refuses to grow up. Who knows? By the way, I hate commuting and would rather prefer telecommuting at least once a week. Given the soaring gas prices and the associated price hikes; in my opinion this would be an environmentally as well as an economically win-win situation.

Speaking of driving, I must tell you that people in Jersey even after the governor’s horrible accident and miraculous recovery, haven’t learnt their lesson. They still drive like maniacs. Just the other day I was driving to work when some idiot in a sedan changed lanes without looking and caused a pick up truck to drive off the freeway into the grass median separating the east bound and west bound traffic. Thank God it was a grass median and hence a very horrible accident was averted. I was an eye witness albeit at a VERY SAFE DISTANCE. I slowed down to let the poor guy enter back into the freeway, when the idiot behind me slammed on his horn. In case you are curious, I had gradually slowed down to 65 mph from 75 mph…IN AN 65 mph ZONE!!!!! Then the ass flips a bird at me and zooms off only to be stopped by the cops for speeding….AHHH SWEET REVENGE!!!! Being a daily commuter I kind of know where the usual hiding places are and there are a whole lot of them on that particular stretch. These days they don’t drive the typical cruisers, but instead I have seen a few SUV’s patrolling the highway. By the way the guy, who flipped the bird at me, looked like a love-child of Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump. In fact I am not even certain about the gender as it seemed very ambiguous….like the character in one of SNL’s sketches.

So then I got off the freeway on to the County roads with a posted limit of 50 mph. I was doing around 60 mph when I noticed a cop car make a turn and follow right behind me. I panicked and slowed down to exactly 50 mph and actually turned cruise control on, a function I seldom use! If you are driving through safe towns where the cops have nothing to do but hand out speeding tickets like they were going out of fashion, it makes sense to use cruise control. I am followed by the cop for at least 10 miles and then he makes a turn….YIPEEE.

Most of the times I am in the zone and talking to my husband, not anything romantic but mundane stuff like, “We need to clean up our place,” OR “We really need to cook these days,” etc., sometimes I am complaining about how things suck while other times he is complaining about how I suck, which makes me tell him how the whole world except him sucks! So this has been my life so far. How about you? Anything exciting you might want to share in the comments section…..please do….this way I can live vicariously through you.

Noo Joisey...you dunno nothin' about it

This is an old photo and as you all know that Corzine is the present governor who had a horrible accident last month and is now convalescing.

New Jersey gets such a bad rap from the rest of the country. When I got a job here, I used to be teased by quite a few of my classmates from grad school that I will be moving to “The Garbage State” instead of “The Garden State.” I think this phrase is due to the industrial sites located close to New York, which are such a part of the landscape of North Jersey. I chose to work here because there are quite a few urban planning initiatives in this State (after California). I hate writing anything about my work or profession on this blog as it is supposed to be irreverent and a platform to pen my thoughts. Besides I am not really all that smart to have anything intelligent to say or write and I don't want any of my readers to know that.

Anyway I had to work this Saturday morning. I know it sucks but it is a choice I have made so I am not going to complain at all. I had to drive to South Jersey for a meeting. As per Mapquest I could have taken two interstates but instead of following a route that is like the two sides of a triangle, I preferred to take the diagonal, which were two County roads. Who knew that the boring elementary school geometry would have such practical applicability? Anyway I woke up early in the morning and drove a total of 100 miles. At this time I could go on about lack of public transit and the environmental costs of driving but then again I really don’t want to bore anyone with all this nonsense.

It was a beautiful morning and was such a wonderful drive; I passed a winery, few farms, stalls selling fresh produce, horse farms, lush green expanse of lands and then the beautiful New Jersey Pineland areas. South Jersey is such a contrast to North Jersey. The people are lot friendlier, laidback and also drive very slowly, which can be annoying especially when you have to reach on time and have to follow a Sunday driver on a two lane highway, waiting for the two solid yellow lines to become a single dashed line! A lot of people were on their bicycles and from their overall appearance seemed like serious riders. Although there are road signs, you have to pay close attention in order to not miss your turns.

Last month I went to that part of Jersey for the first time with my coworker. He came along with me to introduce me to the people as I am a brand new addition to this company. We decided to drive together in my car and I had taken all the directions and maps. Since I was behind the wheel, I told him that I preferred taking the back roads and that he might want to navigate. We had never spoken to each other during office hours so were more like nodding acquaintances. We started chatting and found that we had a lot of things in common. We were so engrossed in our conversations that both of us missed a turn and got lost and landed up middle of nowhere but had so many maps in my car that we managed to reach our destination albeit five minutes earlier than the scheduled time! We had nicknames for all the landmarks we missed, which were basically a WAWA, a WAWA with a gas station and then a strip mall. I must say Suburbia is a curse that New Jersey hasn’t been able to shake off.

This time, I was by myself and I was very conscious of my skin color in a homogenous white population, so I didn’t want to get lost and hear “Them foreigners don’t know no American roads.” I am just joking; no one ever said that to me. However I have been told this by someone, “Them foreigners with their fancy education come and take our jobs.” Yes, this was said to me four years ago by a burly man with a mullet, a tattoo, flannel shirt, jeans and BO that was accumulated due to weeks of not bathing! I wanted to laugh out loud at the comment but was too scared that he might just punch me in my face. Instead I pretended to not understand no English and needless to say that I am alive to write this post! Anyway I didn’t get lost today and had a wonderful drive as I knew from my previous experience at which Wawa to go through the light and at which WAWA to make a turn to the right.

For some reason this reminded me of the time that K, his friend A and I had taken a road trip to the Southern part of India. We went through all the inside routes of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka where the milestones were in Telugu and Kannada respectively. Of course none of us spoke any of those languages and none of the villagers spoke any Hindi (India's national language), Marathi (language pertaining to the State of Maharashtra where we belong) or English. Yet we found our way around with them pointing furiously to the left and telling us, “Go right and then straight sir.” I must add that we knew one sentence in Telugu, “Bhassha iley,” which means we don’t speak the language. Of course K knew quite a few colorful phrases which were generously bestowed on the bus drivers and truck drivers depending on the license plates of the vehicles. At that time I looked at my husband with renewed awe because I did know that he could speak quite a few Indian languages but I didn’t know until then that he could cuss….not to mention the fact that he could cuss in so many different languages!

Public Toilets

I have an absolute disdain for public toilets and try to avoid them as much as possible. I keep imagining that people who might have used the space before me might have all these various diseases, which I might contract. I know it’s the hypochondriac in me talking! Maybe it has got to do with my growing years in India. Everyone knows that public toilets in India are not the best. Of course that is applicable more in rural areas than in cities or urban centers. Anyway due to that I never leave my home for work until all my business is taken care of. There is no way I will be caught dead using my office toilet! My bathroom is a place of tranquility and meditation. I have candles, paintings that are effective on bowel movements (I am just making this up!) and magazines to read. I also have my radio set to NPR. So all in all, the atmosphere is conducive to….err …morning ablutions.

K and I used to take a lot of road trips in India and several times I have made K check the men’s room so that I could use them in lieu of women’s restrooms. This idiosyncrasy of mine amuses K to no end. I think since men have an option of a stall or a urinal and basically most men are lazy and are exhibitionists (oops I have alienated all my male readers including my spouse), they seldom use the stalls; therefore those are pretty clean. I found this out years ago when my friends and I had to do a study of a rural hospital for one of our class projects in architecture school. It was located in a remote village, which had a substantial adivasi (tribal) population. My friends and I left early in the morning in one of my friend’s car. En route we found that the ladies toilets were really disgusting but the guys in our group informed us that the stalls in the men’s room were very clean. That for me was an important piece of information, which I never forgot!

Anyway I happened to read this post on Dan’s blog two weeks ago, where he has wrote about proper etiquette in men’s restrooms. Those rules don’t apply to women (women have their own set of rules as specified in the companion post, which is linked from Dan's post) as they have their own stalls and can do their business in total privacy. His post reminded me about a funny incident that took place at my work sometime back. I walked into my office’s restroom. As always it took me few minutes to put in sheets of toilet paper over the seat protection sheet (again it’s the hypochondriac in me) and just as I was about to go on with what I sought to do, I heard someone in the next stall groan, “Oh my God…Jesus….Oh my…Aah…Oh God.” At that very moment I also heard a distinct buzzing sound. I froze and thought to myself that although the stalls offer privacy it is still a public space.

I rushed out of the stall in total disgust and found to my great relief, one of my coworkers brushing her teeth with a spin brush (hence the buzzing sound). She looked at me and whispered, “Who the hell is groaning in the next stall?” At that very moment the door to the stall opened and we found a woman walk out with her eyes glued to the floor and groaning “Oh my God….Jesus….” and a few other incoherent words. She didn't make eye contact with us and walked past us without even glancing in our direction. We didn’t know who she was but later found out that she was a new employee who is a complete whack job! She is extremely strange and walks around the building with her eyes glued to the floor and talks to herself. She could be a character in one of SNL’s sketches or even have her own show on Comedy Central. I told my coworker what I had suspected and we both could not stop laughing!

Signs

Someone emailed this to me. I thought the images were rather funny therefore including the ones that I found the funniest!

The site where they have been obtained from is mentioned on the images.


Art of entering?





Interesting proposition!


Come explore the scenic vistas



Evil Rubbbish from the Axis of Evil?





Why? Do they bite? Is the bite rabid?