The house story..

Its the same old story, different characters. Today is the gruhapravesha of a new flat that my parents bought almost an year ago. Its officially Darsh's flat, unofficially bought by my parents. The house that they live in now, which I usually call my home away from home, is also their own. So its not like I am missing a first-time event. We had the gruhapravesha of the current house almost 10 years back and ofcourse I was there for that. Moreover Sri and I celebrated our flat gruhapravesha, so yes there have been more than 1 gruhapraveshas in my life :-\.

And its not like I did not have any say in the whole thing. I was the one who insisted on not having the function while I was in India. You know how stressful these affairs are and I didn't want that to affect the time my parents spent with Snugli. Plus they'd certainly be running around to get things completed and we'd hardly spend any time together. Maybe that was selfish of me. Because on the flip side, had I been there, maybe I could have helped out in some things. Maybe I could have done some running around myself and given them a break. Or maybe I am giving myself a bit too much credit.

I don't know what I feel. One moment I am happy that they are having the function and everything is going great for them. Next moment I start thinking that they have never not had me around for any of the major functions before this one. I have always been there. It certainly feels very strange not being there. I am excited for them, but also there's some amount of melancholy. I tried distracting myself with various things, but haven't really been able to forget that I'm not there (as if thats so easy)..

But enough about me. Nanna gOLu iddidde (my woes are always there :-p). Its wonderful that they are having a reason to celebrate and I wish the new house brings them more happiness and many many more reasons to celebrate. May this joyous occasion be a step forward into new opportunities, new occasions of merriment and much more love and laughter...

I still wish I could have been there though..

Sigh..

Roses are red and violets are blue...

As promised in my last post, I'll be writing an essay about "My garden" today. Hehehehe, I promise to not make it sound like an essay :-D. There have been so many posts on others' blogs about their gardens and pictures of their flowers, that naturally I got jealous ;-). I already had a planted garden which had lots of flowers, I had also taken photos of the flowers and I still had not put up a post on it? Hmmmm. It was time to rectify the mistake :).

Some history before I say anything on my current garden. Gardening is not a hobby for me, it kind of is habitual. My parents are fond of gardening and since, we have mostly lived in independent houses which had land suitable for gardening, we always have had flowering plants and potted plants at our houses. So when my parents built their own house, obviously they left some space for gardening. Only its not a sophisticated compact garden, it has all sorts of plants/trees (its a have-it-all :-D). They have 2 coconut trees, 2 arekanut trees (no, my parents aren't farmers :-p), 2 avocado (butter fruit) trees, 2 guava trees, some banana saplings, many rose bushes, many hibiscus bushes, some curry-leaf plants, some crotons, some hedges and what not! They also have many potted plants and a space in the back where they have a papaya tree, colocasia and turmeric plants and a current vegetable plant (I think its avarekai as of now - we've had everything from brinjals to bittergourds there ;-) :-D). There's not too much space, so its kinda a mess, but I still love it, because its a haven for plants. Its almost as if no plant is refused shelter ;-).

I'd help out in trimming the hedges (there was no gardener available nearby) and watering the plants (whenever I got up early ;-), which was not often :-p). So I've always wanted to have a garden. After we came to US, we mostly lived in apartments, so a garden was not really an option. Even potted plants make a mess, so we didn't really want to buy any. But when we shifted to an independent house here in US, we had a lawn and some space in the back too. There was already a tree and a holly bush planted, but no flowers as such. So I started plotting :).

The gardening concept as such is very different in US as to what it is in India. There is huggggggggge sections allotted to gardening in supermarkets. There are lawnmowers, leaf-blowers, edge trimmers, various tools for gardening, seeds, potted plants, various types of soil and fertilizer mixes, plant food (:-D), weed/grass killers, insect killers and on and on and on. Since we had a lawn, one of our first purchases was a lawnmower due to the do-it-yourself policy. The first plants to arrive were 2 rose plants (potted), one red and another cream coloured. But buying plants means more buying ;-). We had to buy pots and then 2 bags of potting mix (its soil mixed with essential nutrients :-D). We also bought a jasmine plant (not the Indian variety I like :(, couldn't find that anywhere - we went to some 6 different nurseries) called Star jasmine and spearmint (pudina :-D). I meticulously planted these in the pots we bought using the potting mix. But I really wanted some sort of flowers planted in the lawns at the sides of the garage path. I looked and looked and was never satisfied with the plants and prices. Then the season of chrysanthemums (sevanthige hoovu) started :).

Here were flowers that were colourful and that had fragnance (believe me, fragnance is something thats not associated with most flowers available in US :-p). We bought 4 yellow, 4 orange and 2 pink chrysanthemums + 12 croton plants as fillers for inbetween. We also got pink and red geraniums. Next was planting time. So we even bought tools for the same. There was a seperate planting mix available for plants in grounds, so we bought that too :-p.

One fine day, we started off. I had planned precisely what plants go where, so we both started digging holes and planted 22 plants distibuted between the 2 sides of the garage path :). The geraniums, we decided to keep as it is (jn their containers)and not plant :). Since one side did look a bit empty, we even got a small stand and a hanging pot containing white, blue and red petunia flowered plants to hang on the stand. The flowers bloomed for sometime and then all faded away. Well, the plants do look better in shops, but this was the limit. But slowly, after days of pruning and watering, the flowers bloomed again. Meanwhile I bought 2 more yellow crysanthemum plants and put them in the pots. So totally we own 6 potted plants, 2 geranium 6-each potted sets and 22 plants on ground. Here's a comparison on how the house as such looked earlier to now (the photo angle is a bit different, so kindly adjust :-D).




The individual sides look like this:








As for the flowers, as I mentioned in my Deepawali post, they have been a total joy to me. They look oh-so-good! Its a plus that I have been able to make garlands and we have been able to use them in festivals and poojas :).




I made the above picture myself using Paint Shp Pro. It did take some time, but it came out nice. It cannot really be called a collage, but its a collection of snaps. You can see the individual snaps at flickr here. Well, I am having a 2-way hobby here - gardening + photography :-D. I daily water the plants, prune them often and Sri's role is to mow the lawn regularly.

Whats next for my garden? Tulips!! We already have bought Tulip bulbs pertaining to various colours. The bulbs need to be planted in autumn for them to flower in spring. We still haven't done that, so our next task is going to be, yup, you guessed it, digging holes again and planting them :). But its getting too cold to be outside for long hours and we are biding our time.

Sadly the flowers are not going to last long. There was a slight snowfall just a day ago (it happened in the night, so we didn't see the snow fall. Got up and went outside to water the plants and there was a thin sheet of snow on the grass and the flowers) and this is going to increase as days pass. My potted plants are all going inside the garage at night. But nothing can be done for the ones in the ground. Hopefully the supermarket will have some material to protect the roots of the plants (I'm sure it will ;-) :-D), for them to survive the winter.

Ok the essay is done :). Hopefully I'll have a post on the blooming tulips next spring :).


Where flowers bloom so does hope - Lady Bird Johnson.

Flowers are not made by singing "Oh, how beautiful," and sitting in the shade - Rudyard Kipling.

Flowers leave some of their fragrance in the hand that bestows them - Chinese proverb.

Home Sweet Home :)

It all started before I even met Sri. As I have mentioned before, its one of the biggest coincidences of our lives :). He had booked an apartment before he met me and after he did meet me, it turned out that the apartment he had booked, was almost right behind my parents' place, not even a Km away!! We actually got teased a lot on this. My parents were happy about it, as they thought they can see their daughter regularly after marriage (I thought I could wave out from my balcony to mom as the apartment was visible from her kitchen).

But fate had different plans in 2 ways. One was obviously us moving to US and the second was that several other apartments arose in a matter of months between my parents' house and our apartment. The second one pales in comparison to the first, doesn't it? ;-(. Some things cannot be helped..

The apartment building got completed slowly, somewhat behind schedule because of court cases (as usual if there is land, there are always people who claim it as theirs :-p). But we still thought the registration would get done soon. Since we were here, dad got the responsibility and he had to dash around for it. But all his efforts were in vain, as the formalities never really did get completed until we actually landed there. So one of the first things was to get the registration done (the other was the visa in Delhi). Well, that completed, all that was left to do was the Gruhapravesha or the house warming ceremony. This is how the buiding looks from outside (the reason for the shabbiness of the photo is because it is taken from the plan, and not the real photo. There is no way to take a proper photo from outside because of the surrounding buildings):




The gruhapravesha was planned way before we landed in India. Hence most of the formalities of engaging a Poojari, adige bhattaru (cook) and the chairs/tables etc was taken care of by, who else :-p, my mom and dad. But to our credit, we did take care of the last minute cleaning of the house, getting some lights/fans for the house ('cause it was very hot) and making the final arrangements before the pooja.

10th May 2006:

The first of the poojas started on 10th May evening. It absolutely coincided with the electricity going poof and the start of the first few drops of rain. The pooja was no problem but the cook did have some problems as the rain kind of fell on the place they had the pendal put, despite the fact that it was in basement. Moreover there were no lights in the basement. Thanks to dad and Puttanna kakka (my chikkappa), some of the problems did get solved.

Meanwhile the pooja went on in the first floor which is where we had our house. We didn't have electric lights, but we could manage with the deepas lit for the pooja. So we started off with the sankalpa for the Rakshogna Homa which is done first to ward off evil powers when a shubha kaarya is going on :). The main Pujari was Adigaru who also was the one who conducted our marriage :). There were also about 4-5 colleagues (hehehe) of his who were helping out.







As the poojaris started off the homa, we sat for another pooja called the Vaastu pooja. Vaastu Pooja consists of worship of the Vaastu Devata, the deities directions East, West, North, South, North-East, South-East, North-West & South-West and 49 other deities residing in Vaastu, which bring Health, Wealth, Peace, Prosperity & Happiness.







The rangoli that the one of the poojaris drew is so pretty, isn't it? Pity it lasted only for 2 days..

After the Vaastu pooja, we continued on with the Rakshogna Homa, the holy smoke of which is supposed to spread throughout the home and get rid of anything thats evil. Pollution you say? Well it is. But it is also peace of the mind in another way :).




Smokkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkking eh? ;-). The pooja went on pretty long after which everyone of us had our dinner and retired for the day :).

11th May 2006:

Early morning next day was the actual gruhapravesha :). I wore a saree that my MIL gave me and was ready by about 7 AM!! The gruhapravesha consists of a pooja in front of the main door and later, kicking a tumbler full of rice with the right leg before entering the house (well, not as exciting as it sounds, a tumbler is not a football, nor are you supposed to kick it like one :-p). The fun part is that the lady of the house (thats me, me, me :-D) gets to enter the house first ;-) :-D.







After the gruhapravesha, next we had the haalu-ukso programme. The milk boiling and flowing over ceremony indicates the invitation and arrival of Goddess Lakshmi into the house :).







Meanwhile, there were problems again for the cook as there was no electricity. Dad, mom and Puttanna kakka had to run around to get many things done. People who actually should have been treated royally as VIP guests, ended up getting all the work done. But again, as I repeatedly have been saying, some things cannot be helped and thanks to them, some of the problems did get solved. Well, whats a ride without a few bumps eh? ;-).

To go ahead with the poojas, next came the Gana Homa. My favourite God is Lord Ganesha and it was my wish that this pooja be done. After the gruhapravesha, I changed into a saree given by mom (again a ritual) and sat for the Gana homa.




Next in the pipeline (:-D) was the Sathyanarayana pooja. There is always a feel-good factor associated with this pooja :) and we were glad when everything went off well and got completed on time.




Thats when everyone brought out the goodies ;-). We got pretty gifts from friends and relatives. After a fabulous lunch, everyone headed to their homes. There were a couple of relatives who visited us in the evening, but that was it. I was really happy that a couple of really close friends could make it to the function :). It did rain on the gruhapravesha day too, but it was basically in the evening. But some friends were unable to come in the evening as promised before because of the rain. Par chaltha he :).

And so our house warming ceremony came to an end {sigh}. Hmmmm house warming eh? Does a house really get warmed by just a function, I wonder! Doesn't it require to have human warmth, joys and sorrows to really warm it? We are really lucky, aren't we to have a house there in India while we live far away from it in US? :( :'(.

Whats really ironic is that as soon as we landed here, our lease ended and yup, we shifted to a new house here. With the same UHAUL story as before, we landed in this house, only this time we shifted to an independent house and not an apartment. Also this time, thankfully there was no snow to hinder our move in any way.




Yup, this is our house here in US. I have one room here exclusively as an office and I'm very happy with the house. If I am so happy, then why can't I help but remember the "Home Sweet Home" in India which has become the "Home Away From Home" for us right now? {sigh}....

Moooooing to new pastures :-D

Well what can I say? We have already moo(v)ed to a new apartment ;-). But the process of shifting is unlike any shifting I've seen in India. In India, we have 2 options. One book a matador van and move all the stuff into it. The driver drives to the new place and you move all the stuff out. You can opt to hire some labour for the moving. The second, you book one of these packers and movers who do everything for you, with a bit of a higher cost. Here in US, both are available, but the cost of manual labour is very high, no matter whether its about driving for only about 5 miles or carrying stuff in/out. So most people living in US prefer only one thing, U-HAUL.

As the name suggests, you haul all your stuff. They just rent out either a container which you can tag along with your car, or a min-van, or other different size trucks according to your stuff requirements. The fact that the renting itself costs a lot, is another thing altogether. But its of lesser cost than anything else.

When Sri first told me about it, believe me I was scared. Not for myself, but a truck is a huge thing on road. Just a small turn and you can hit a poor car. I asked him repeatedly "Are you sure about this?" as he was the one who was driving :-D. So many times, that probably he got fed up with me, but he never showed it. What he did show was a kid-like amazement at the thought of driving a truck. I guess every boy's dream is to drive a truck :-D. I have never seen that kind of enthuasism on his face before, not even when we bungee-jumped :-D. Though I was reluctant, I said "Ok this is another adventure" and went for it. This is the truck we drove - a 14' Thrifty Mover:




Not a very good photo, I know. Its taken from the uhaul website. I wanted to take a picture of it, but our camera was packed somewhere, so couldn't. Anyways, thankfully it was a bit smaller than I expected, I really thought we were going to drive one the size of an Indian lorry. This one was a bit bigger than one of our Indian tempos :-o ;-).

We had started packing everything on Friday, 9th December 2005 night, so we had only last minute fridge-items packing remaining. Moreover since we were moving to an apartment inside the same town, no elaborate packing was required. On Saturday, 10th Decemeber 2005 morning, Sri went to the U-HAUL office to get the truck. I couldn't resist taking one last photo of the lawn in front of our house as I had taken one similar in the summer before. So here's the summer one:




Here's the one I took, before we shifted, at the same place:




Look at the bare trees!! And yup, thats snow on the lawn. It had snowed the previous night, but thankfully the day was bright and sunny. Still we did have a couple of difficulties as we moved our things from the house to the truck. One was that the house was in first floor, so the stairs were one big hurdle (or several hurdles :-D). The second was that we had to walk quite a bit to the parking lot. The paths were a bit slippery due to ice formation. But somehow we did manage do get most of the stuff into the truck. The only really heavy items we own are the bed parts i.e the bed itself and the box its kept in. These we had to double up (i.e me holding one end and Sri another) and transfer them to the truck. Rest were all ok. I am so thankful that apartments here come with a refrigerator, washer and drier. Otherwise, I don't know how in the world we'd have managed to carry those!!

After moving all the stuff came the adventure part. I was a bit apprehensive as I sat next to Sri in the front of the truck, but it was much easier than I imagined. The lanes are very clearly defined on the roads of US and hence Sri found it pretty easy to manage the truck within a lane. Moreover it seems that all the other people driving in cars recognize an U-HAUL truck when they see one and keep their distance :-D. I guess they have a right to be more apprehensive than I was :-D. Anyways the move was very smooth and we didn't encounter any hinderances as such :).

After we reached the new apartment, it was pretty easy to move stuff inside as the house is in the ground floor and right next to the parking lot. We dumped all the stuff inside (only kept the fridge items inside the fridge) and were off to U-HAUL to give the truck back. We returned the truck, finished all pricing formalities, had lunch at the nearest Pizza Hut and went back to the old apartment.

To clean it up ;-). Most of the apartments in US (I think, all) are owned by a group rather than a person. So they clean it, repaint it and rent it out immediately to somebody else. And if there's major cleaning/carpet replacing required then all that cost is cut from the deposit the previous resident would have paid. So we had to make sure that the kitchen and bathroom counters were all shining. Basically, make sure that the house looks and feels clean. We didn't have any carpet stains, so that was good. We finished some of the cleaning and completed the rest the next day.

Meanwhile, we didn't finish it on the same day since the internet guy had fixed up that time with us for the internet connection at the new apartment. So as soon as we reached the new house, he came along and was done with it. That was the best part of the move. The internet/phone were working in a matter of hours ;-) :-D. Then we still had the unpacking to do. But we finished almost everything within the end of saturday. Phew!! But it was worth it :). And here's the photo of the new house:




The new apartment name is SteepleChase apartments :). And we live in the ground floor, right side apartment on the photo :). Everything's settled now and is as comfy as it can get. So that was it, yet another adventure to yet another perfect end :).

Smoke without a fire ;-)

Have to write about a worrying experience I had on Tuesday evening.

I had put oil on heat for frying something. The oil was emitting some smoke. I wasn't too worried as the oil was a lot used and I just switched on the exhaust on high mode. But as as soon as I put the bittergourd I wanted to fry into the oil, the container just emitted a burst of smoke. Before I knew it, the fire alarm in the house started ringing (there was no fire anywhere, damn it! There are only electric stoves here!!). Sri immediately opened all the windows, switched the AC to full blast and opened the door. The alarm rang for about 5 times and then all was quiet...

Now my worries started. Will the fire department be coming? If so, will they accept that it was just a little bit of smoke? Will they fine us for a false alarm? Sri said they usually just take a signature saying there is no problem and they return, but he didn't have any experience of it either. I could see he was tensed (he even went near the parking lot to receive and send them back from there itself) and that made me even more nervous. After pacing and worrying for about 10-15 min, there was still no sign of any fire engine. I was surprised. I mean, if its a real fire situation, shouldn't the fire engine be coming within 10 min? Sri also agreed with me and said that they are probably not coming. Since the alarm didn't ring continuously and stopped almost immediately, I guess, they realized that it probably was not a fire.

Phew!! Anyways, I think I'll remember the ten tense minutes all my life (I've made sure of that by putting it here on my blog) :-D

My Lexington home

Okay I uploaded my new home photos. Click on the pic below to see my new home :) Again offer available only for some days :-D