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6 years! ಆರು ವರ್ಷ! छह वर्ष! Cannot believe its 6 years since we said "I do" :-D.
Sometimes I wonder where all the time went, but other times I know that its time well spent. Every day has been a new adventure and as I have said many times here in my blog (and will say it lots more times in the future :-D), I am blessed to have the life that I have and the life-partner to go with it :). I always wondered (and even now I wonder) how I'll feel as the time goes by and the years pass - I have to admit, there has never been a dull moment so far or a moment of regret. Instead, even though every moment hasn't been exciting or happy, most moments have been promising and satisfying :).
Sometimes I wonder whether I appreciate him enough and other times I know he is my world. I know that there are many women with husbands who don't help them out enough or complain all the while even when helping. And then there are those who mistreat their women treating them like mindless slaves. Still more who don't consider women as equals or disregard their opinions. Its not that I don't thank my lucky stars that I have him, but maybe sometimes, just maybe I complain too much or expect more of him. Well, if you are used to good things, its natural to expect more good things :-D.
Sometimes I worry that I take him for granted, but other times I know he doesn't really mind it ;-). Again its not that I'm not grateful, but there are times when I think that some other woman is lucky, because their husbands ooze poetry about them or are very open about the love they have for them. Sri is not very expressive when it comes to some things and not very "romantic" in the word's true sense. Yeah I take the love he has for me granted too many times :). So here's another sappy, catchy song I've been in love with for quite sometime (its one of the tunes in my zumba dance class), especially for Sri :). The song's called "Say Hey" by Michael Franti :).
Thanks to MichaelFrantiVEVO for the video.
Just love this part from the song..
I've been to a lot of places all around the way
I've seen a lot of joy and I've seen a lot of pain
But I don't want to write a love song for the world,
I just want to write a song about a boy and a girl
and ofcourse this part :).
It seems like everywhere I go
The more I see, the less I know
But I know one thing that I love you
I love you, I love you, I love you.
And so the journey of a lifetime goes on :).
Today is the day Sri and I met 6 years ago. Wanted to do something special for that and thought of writing a poem. But when it comes to Sri, I have written so many poems that its very difficult to think of a non-repeating matter :-D. So well, I decided to write in Kannada this time. Its been a long time since I wrote a Kannada poem (probably more than 10-12 years back) and I have never written one for my blog, somehow never wanted to. Well, better late than never. I tried my level best to translate it into English but the feelings weren't being expressed as good, so this one is specially for the Kannada knowing readers of my blog :). You know who it is dedicated to :).
ನನ್ನವನೆ...
ಕನಸಿನ ನಾನಾ ಗೋಜಲುಗಳಿಂದ
ನನಸಾಗಿ ಇಳಿದು ಬಂದವನೆ.
ಮನಸಿನ ಕವಿತೆಯಲಿ ಬೆರೆತು ಅರಿತು
ಬಯಕೆ ಹೂಗುಚ್ಛವ ತಂದವನೆ.
ಮೆಲ್ಲನೆ ಮಾತಲಿ ಎಳೆದು ಸೆಳೆದು
ಹೃದಯದ ಬಾಗಿಲ ತೆರೆದವನೆ.
ಸಲ್ಲದ ನಾಚಿಕೆಯ ಬಂಧವ ಕಡಿದು
ಕೈಯಲ್ಲಿ ಕೈ ಹಿಡಿದು ಮೆರೆದವನೆ.
ಆತಂಕ ಆವೇಶಗಳ ಬಡೆದೋಡಿಸಿ
ನನ್ನೆದೆಯಲಿ ಪ್ರೀತಿಯ ಹಡೆದವನೆ.
ಸಂತಸ ದುಃಖಗಳ ಸಪ್ತಪದಿಯನ್ನು
ಹೆಜ್ಜೆಗೆ ಹೆಜ್ಜೆ ಇಟ್ಟು ನಡೆದವನೆ.
ನೋವು ನಲಿವಲ್ಲಿ ಬಾಳ ಸಂಗಾತಿಯಾದ
ಪ್ರಾಣ ಸ್ನೇಹಿತನು ನೀನವನೆ.
ಜೀವನದ ಅನೇಕ ಆಶ್ಚರ್ಯಗಳಲಿ
ನನ್ನ ಪಾಲಿನ ವಿಸ್ಮಯ ನನ್ನವನೆ.
Last but one post of the Back-to-five-years-ago series. This actually happened 5 years and 3 months ago in Feb 2005, but well, I couldn't really put up this in Feb, as things were beyond my control then. Well, better late than never :).
One of things you do after you get engaged and are about to get married is decide where to go on your honeymoon :-D. Well, my first choice was and is Switzerland (still haven't gotten that wish :-p), but any place in Europe is no fun at all in the month of Feb ;-). I hadn't been outside India except for a Nepal (Kathmandu and Pokhran) trip with my parents, so I said anything was fine. When Sri suggested South Africa, I have to admit I thought it strange. I mean I had never had SA in my have-to-see-in-my-lifetime-tick-mark list :-D. But well, as I found out more about it, the more I was excited :). So we thought we'll head to South Africa and then to Mauritius for a couple of days.
Not only that, when I met Sri I told him that I want to bungee jump once in my life. Well, his wedding gift to me was a bungee jumping chance in SA :-D. We decided that we'll go and then take it from there. We never told either set of parents that we were even considering anything like that :-D. The secrecy was fun and if we didn't jump, then they would never even know about it ;-).
We got married on Feb 4th, spent the next couple of days in Hyderabad (where we had another reception ceremony) and were back to Bangalore on 12th. We had the flight to Johannesburg the very next day on 13th.
I always say that you don't know a person until you have lived with him/her. So basically we learnt each others' quirks only on this trip and it was enlightening to say the least :-D. On the flight (I think it was 5 hours long), I woke up to see that Sri wasn't in his seat. After waiting for more than half an hour, I started getting worried thinking he maybe having some stomach problems. Then I get up and look back and guess what I found. My hubby found some empty seats and was sleeping quite comfortably :-D, hehehee :)). Yeah I did try to strangle his neck once he got up, just because he got me so worried ;-).
We landed in Johannesburg on the 14th of Feb and flew to Capetown from there. We took a walk around the hotel and we visited the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront at the Table Bay. The table bay faces the huge Table mountain and its simply a beautiful place. The waterfront was like any pier you see in US, but since I was seeing a pier for the first time, everything was fun. I think we had lunch at a Thai place, another first :). All in all we roamed around the place for quite a while. Another surprising thing then was that the sun didn't set till about 7:30 Pm which was a big deal for me than. I remember being so thrilled that the sun is high up in the sky at about 6 PM :-D.
The next day we went on a tour of Capetown and surroundings. Our first stop was the table mountain. The mountain is named so, because it has a level plateau (of about 3 km side to side) and has cliffs named Devil's peak and Lion's head. You can see 3 main things from the top - almost the entire Cape town (with the table bay), Robben island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for almost 27 years and Signal hill which acted like a lighthouse for many years there. The signal hill is famous for the noon gun (which is fired at precisely 12 in the noon).
We climbed on to a rope-way and got to the top. The weather was another plus point of SA. It was very pleasant even at the top and we spent a long time walking around and seeing the views all around.
After that we got down and went to the Cape point. We took the Flying Dutchman Funicular (an uphill railway) to an old lighthouse and then had to climb steep steps to get to a place where the Cape point could be seen. They even had markings in various directions showing how far it was to various places in the world from there (I remember New Delhi being one of the places, but I certainly don't remember the distance :-D).
From there we got down and moved a short distance to get to Cape of Good Hope. Unlike what many people think, the cape is not the Southern tip of Africa (we thought wrong too!), but it is the extreme southwestern tip of Africa. The cape point as well as the Cape of Good hope are both in the the extreme southwestern peninsula of Africa, while Cape Agulhas is the actual southernmost tip.
I felt pretty proud to have visited one of the most talked about places in history :). We went on to visit a penguins colony in Boulders beach and then had lunch there near the beach. Spent some time near the beach and just like that our tour of cape town was over :).
On 16th Feb, we rented and car and started driving (well, actually Sri rented and drove the car :-D). Our plan was to drive to Port Elizabeth and visit a couple of places on the way. 
I had never been on a self-driving trip before and didn't really get the charm of it until we did this. The comfort of stopping anywhere you want and visit any place for how much ever time you want to is something else and somehow the trip has been the basis for all the driving trips we have gone on here in the US (hope to continue the same once we are back in India). We stopped for lunch at a place called Mossel Bay (Point B on the map) and spent some time at the beach there. Then drove to Oudtshoorn (Point C) where we'd stop for the night.
The hotel at Oudtshoorn was named La Plume and right opposite to it across the road was an ostrich farm. The big tall birds were majestic and they were oh so curious about the two of us (we were the only people lurking around). We knew that their kicks are pretty powerful and wondered whether the fences could actually stop them ;-). Still I wanted to pet them :-D. Well, I did get my wish the next day :-D.
Next day, 17th Feb early morning we headed to the Cango Caves. The caves were beautiful and we had loads of fun since we took the adventure tour of the cave.
The adventure tour was another extreme thing I have done in my life. It had climbing precarious steps, moving sideways in narrow spaces, crawling and sliding through natural rock openings. It was absolutely thrilling :-D. You can see the entire tour here on this page :-D.
We next went to Cango Ostrich farm, where I got to feed an ostrich :). The ostrich eggs are so strong that they can bear lots of weight on them (we both took turns to stand on a set of eggs!). Well, we could have also ridden an ostrich, but both of us said no to that (I wonder why now :-D).
We had a good time and then visited the Cango wildlife ranch which was right across the road from the farm. It was a pretty normal zoo except that we could pay and touch leopard cubs/tiger cubs if we wanted to. I really wanted to, but it was pretty expensive, so couldn't :-\. From there on we drove to our hotel in a place called Wilderness. The route from Oudtshoorn to Wilderness was on mountainous region, so it made for awesome views on the way.
We reached Wilderness in the evening and went to Knysna (point D) to take a sunset cruise at the bay there :). Knysna is pronounced "Nice na" which was apt for the place :-D.
We came back and stayed at Wilderness. Our hotel was right next to a beach and I remember going there in the dark, sitting on a couple of steps in light rain with Sri and feeling really blessed to be there :).
The next day was the D-day. We went to the Bloukrans bridge where a company called Face Adrenalin operates the world's third highest bungy jump (it was the world's highest when we went there - 216m). We didn't even know whether we'd do it until we went there. I remember seeing the bridge and muttering on the way to myself that I must be crazy :-D. We actually wanted to jump in tandem (harnessed together :-D), but sadly they had only solo jumps. We paid up and then there was no going back :-D.
I was the second person to jump off the bridge that particular morning, the first being a member of the operating team (Sri conveniently dumping the honour on me by saying "Ladies first" :-p). We were bound with harnesses while the team members told us how exactly the jump would happen. People have the tendency to hold their breaths and they told us that we have to try and breathe :-D. I remember being crazy scared all the time, I guess the expression on my face says it all :-D.
I still get goosebumps watching the video :-D. It has been the most amazing experience of my life so far. There is about 7 seconds of pure terror and when the rope (which is elastic) pulls you back, thats when you know you are alive and the adrenaline rush after that is huggggggge ;-). They pulled me up and I was jumping up and down :-D. Next was Sri's turn :).
I still tease him saying that he didn't actually jump, but the guys there pushed him :-D. Here's us all ecstatic :).
We didn't really know what to do with the adrenaline, so we immediately went to the Tsitsikamma National Park where we hiked it off :). We took the waterfall trail which is almost 3 km one way (so hiked for 5-6 km in total) and we had to literally climb rocks to reach the water fall. And it was beautiful. The water fall faces the ocean and it makes for a wonderful view. Here's me sitting in front of the ocean..
Sri was sitting facing me with the waterfall behind him, so you can imagine the scenery :).
Well, we went back to Wilderness for the night and next morning drove to Port Elizabeth. From there, we flew to Johannesburg and stayed the night there at a Casino (don't remember the name sadly :-D). Still don't know how or why it happened, but we were upgraded to one of the highest suites there :-D. And the suite was like a huge mansion. Man, some things you never forget :-D.
Next morning, 20th Feb,our 6-day SA trip came to an end as we flew to Mauritius. Somehow Mauritius felt like a letdown after SA, mainly because of the weather. It was very humid and sultry weather. Sounds nice ;-) :-D, but believe me, it was uncomfortable after being in such pleasant weather all over SA. We had a package tour for Mauritius which included stay in a hotel called Les Cocotiers which had a beach and a 3-day tour. The beaches there surprised me with the serene water and almost no waves. Its almost like the island is actually in a lake :).
The first day tour consisted of going to the Grand Baie (Grand Bay) which was a pier and had the typical attractions of a pier. 
The tour had about 6 couples all Indian and all on their honeymoon :-D. Yeah it was a love fest alright :-D. From there we went to the Pamplemousses Garden, which is seen in most Indian movie songs :-D. We even saw trees planted by various Indian prime ministers and presidents there :-D.
And that was that for the day. The next day we went to several places. We saw Dutch ruins, a model ship making factory and a Lord Shiva temple. We also visited the Chamarel Waterfall..
And then went to a dormant volcano crater known as Trou aux Cerfs. Well it didn't look anything like a volcano :-D.
Supposedly this volcano could become active at any time within the next thousand years :-O.
Our next stop was the 7-coloured earth. This was fascinating - at first look it looked like a mud dump, but its actually volcanic sand reflecting off different shades of colours..
We do look tired, don't we? :). That was it for the day.
The next day was the pièce de résistance :-D. We were taken to this beautiful island called Île aux Cerfs (french meaning "deer") by boat. The island had beautiful blue clear water and white sands. We really enjoyed the water and the environment. Though it was crowded and there were no deer to be found, it was still pristine and lovely :). No photos though :(.
Well, the next 2 days we could do what we wanted, but we basically lounged at the hotel and relaxed. I wanted to go para-sailing and do another activity called undersea walking, but well, I twisted my ankle a bit when playing on the beach (it wasn't as bad as it sounds), so Sri absolutely refused the para-sailing idea :-D. Meanwhile we didn't have water shoes and the water in the deer island as well as our hotel had these sharp thorns (don't know what they were) and somehow Sri had these multiple thorns embedded into his foot. So he became a total baby about it and hence we couldn't go undersea walking either :-p. I spent one whole evening tending to the thorns in his foot :-p. Romantic, isn't it? :-D.
I have to admit, we did enjoy a couple of beautiful sunsets at the hotel beach :).
And then we returned to reality, hehehe :)). Back to Bangalore and to our lives together. But soon, we had to move to US and the initial years were something of a long honeymoon ;-).
I still remember how weird I used to feel when calling Sri my husband at that time - the word tasted so new and different :-D. And the phase certainly wasn't all fun - I had never been away from my parents so long, away from my country so long. There was also lot of initial adjustments to each other going on, so there were some weird phases around :-D. It was certainly a period of transition :). Also we did tell our parents about the bungy once we came back and got nicely scolded, hehehe :). I love telling people "We bungee-jumped on our honeymoon" purely for the shock value and the expressions on their faces, hehehe :))).
Writing this post has been more fun than I thought it would be. I had to research quite a bit because we don't have the itineraries anymore and we don't have photos of every place we went to. So I kept asking Sri, did we stay here or there. Did we go here first or there? :-D. Since Mauritius has a French influence, I didn't know the names of most places we went to :-D. With internet, its not impossible to find out stuff these days, thank God :). I loved reliving the memories and got all nostalgic. Has it really been 5 years already? And we have a toddler too! Time sure feels like a whirlwind sometimes :-\.
Well, I really wanted to write this post as this was a major part of our relationship. Once more post in the BTFYA series and I'm done. It should be up soon :).
Fate certainly had other plans :). At this particular time 5 years ago (it was about 5-6 PM in the evening when Sri and his parents came home to "see" me), I had no clue that my life was about to change in a very drastic manner. I was tired of seeing the same old guys who were hardly compatible and thought that this would be another re-telecast. There must have been a little hope somewhere, but I don't really remember that now. So I was looking forward more to the trip to my chikkappa's house (for the Deepawali Balipadyami celebrations) than to the guy-seeing ceremony. So to say that Sri was a pleasant surprise just doesn't seem enough - he was so much more than that :-D.
We talked lots and lots about ourselves (imagine we had to decide to commit to a person in a matter of about 2 hours alone in a room just an eavesdrop away from our parents :-D) and one of the things that impressed me was that he was encouraging about my so-called trekking adventures, sharing that he had done hang-gliding in Himachal Pradesh (albeit with an instructor). That part was certainly good - taking limited risks ;-). I am still a bit jealous that I haven't done it yet ;-). It was the most positive guy-seeing experience I ever had, but somehow I blocked off the decision making process. Maybe because it was so positive, something in me just didn't want to believe he was a great guy and wanted to confirm it by seeing him again. Some switch in my brain flipped to "meet-again" and refused to continue the signal to any sort of decision :-D.
I did learn a lot of things that day but I learnt more from then on as time went by and even now, each day is a revelation :). So here are my enlightenments -
I feel very strange when I write these types of posts. Whereas you get to know me through my blog, you get to know Sri through only my version of him and the way I feel about him. Its as if you are not getting to know the person but someone's idea of a person. Weird :-\.
Anyways, as you can see, I found my tall, dimpled, sophisticated, ever-listening, respectful, enigmatic, non-preachy, forgetful, patient and wonderful-father-material man, 5 years ago on this very day and learnt the difference between infatuation and love :). I have many blessings in my life that I count daily and am very much grateful for and Sri is the greatest blessing of them all :). This is how Saturday the 13th actually turned out to be the luckiest day of my life :-D (coincidentally today's Friday the 13th :-D).Happy 5th day-we-met anniversary my love :)
First of all, yes, I am on vacation. No, I'm not logging in from where I am (then it wouldn't be a vacation, would it? :-p). I wrote the posts on Friday and set a publishing time, so that you guys wouldn't miss me ;-) (as if!), hehehee. Actually the reason is that I can pester you even when I am away. Double fun :-D.
Now coming to the title of the blog, no, I'm not starting another blog. I hardly find the time to update the one I have :-p. But my better-half (hey, i think I'm the better half here :-p), has decided to blog. Imagine my surprise and happiness when Sri told me about it. I thought my dream of him writing a series of mushy posts for me (like I did for him) was finally coming true. Alas (with a filmy style back-hand on my forehead), that was not to be..
He's writing a technical blog, here it is if you want to check it out - Bubhutsa. Don't worry if you don't understand half of the things he's talking about, I don't either :-D. I have just decided to assume that he's writing a mushy post for me in a code language ;-).
Hey, a girl can always hope ;-) :)).
He is the tolerance to my impatience.
He is the clarity to my absurdity.
He is the calmness to my excitement.
He is the sweetness to my causticity.
He is the composure to my agitation.
He is the sanity to my madness.
He is the silence to my chatter.
He is the action to my laziness.
He is the certainty to my indecision.
He is the safety to my vulnerability.
He is the elegance to my awkwardness.
He is the strength to my fragility.
He is the balm to my soul.
Happy 32nd birthday my hubby, my friend, my soulmate :).
Little did we know 4 years ago..
that the marriage maze would be this fun :)).
4 years done and a lifetime to go!
Happy wedding anniversary my love :).
Here in my blog, I have written several posts (4 including this one) about the first time Sri and I met. Well, today is the D-day, so as you have started to expect from me, I had to write a post. But this time I wanted to tell you how we met (I realized only now that I haven't really talked about that :-p).
We actually met through the internet! Those who are familiar with the previous posts will disbelieve me, accusing me of lying saying "You said it was an arranged marriage". Yes it is, but it was arranged through the internet :-D. Well, as the modern searching for a guy method, we registered in Kannadamatrimony.com. The point is that though we registered under dad's name, it was usually me and mom who did the checking and contacting. This is not a story about how many profiles we contacted and how many we heard back from, but let me tell you they were many in number :-\.
And so we contacted this profile (the profiles didn't have names, only numbers) and since it didn't have a photo associated, we asked for a photo, all under my dad's name of course ;-). And we got a photo. To this day I don't know why he sent that photo, it was not a very good one (he says it was the only one handy). He looked very thin in it and you couldn't really make out his face that properly. Lets just say it was not flattering in any way at all. But we didn't want to decide without meeting the guy, so we gave further details to go ahead in the process.
His father even called dad and talked for quite sometime. But later we didn't hear from them at all, so we thought that he must have agreed to marry somebody else and to be frank, it wasn't really surprising. This kind of a thing keeps happening. But what was actually happening at his end was that his maternal grandfather passed away and obviously it wasn't really the right time for them to proceed. Moreover, Sri was on one of his innumerable short trips to the US, so they had decided to continue only once he came back to India. And yes, in his side, though he had registered under his dad's name, it was him and later his mom that was doing all the mailing ;-).
So suddenly in November, we got this call saying "the boy" was in India in Hyderabad, but they'd be coming to Bangalore and would we be okay to meet. We decided on Saturday, Nov 13th 2004 which was also the 3rd day of Deepawali that year. We planned to meet them and then be off to Ramnagar to my Chikkappa's place for Deepawali celebrations. They were delayed since they were coming from Rajajinagar (I really hated it when the boys' family would make us wait :-p) and they finally arrived at around 6 PM, I think. Well then we talked and I didn't decide, but he said "Yes" immediately and all that :-p (I remember him talking and talking and me thinking "We are getting late, c'mon enough already" :-D, hehehehehe).
And so we met and you know the rest. Or do you? ;-) >:-) :-D.
Some "facts":
Its still difficult to believe that its been 4 years since I first met him! The journey so far has had its share of ups and downs, lefts and rights, norths and souths and easts and wests and what not :-D. But I wouldn't want anyone else as my co-traveller and thats the truth :).Happy "first-meet" anniversary Sri :)
Another mushy post from me, sorry..Missing you..
Its not that I cannot see without you,
But you are my eyes' first choice..
Its not that I cannot hear without you,
But my ears long to hear your voice..
Its not that I cannot talk without you,
But my words wish to reach your ears..
Its not that I cannot eat without you,
But few morsels and hunger disappears..
Its not that I cannot smile without you,
But even my joy is somewhat strained..
Its not that I cannot feel without you,
In fact my feelings are too unrestrained..
Its not that I cannot breathe without you,
But my nose yearns for your fragrance..
Its not that I cannot live without you,
But my whole being misses your presence..
Sometimes I find myself singing this song without my knowledge - "Na jaane kyon" from the movie Choti is baath..
Thanks to YouTube and user ilovehrishida for the video.
Wohi hein dagar, Wohi hein safar,
Hein nahi, Saath mere magar, Ab mera humsafar,
Idhar udhar doonde nazar, Wohi hein dagar..
Kaha gayi shaame madh bhari?
Woh mere, mere woh din gaye kidhar?
Na jaane kyon hota hein ye zindagi ke saath,
Achaanak ye mann, kisike jaane ke baad,
Kare fir uski yaad, choti choti si baath..
Na jaane kyon..
Sigh :(((. 2 more weeks until Sri lands here :(((. But on a lighter note, the line about my hunger "disappearing" is a blatant lie. I'm a hungry mama-shark since I have a little shark dependent on me :-D.
Today on your birthday, I thought I'd get you cake, but..
Then I thought I'd atleast get some candles, but they all ran away!
Well, I'd have given you flowers, but I guessed you'd misunderstand..
I did think about a surprise gift, but I didn't know whether you'd like it..
So I got you this :-D.
Hehehee :)). Happy Birthday Sriram, my love :).
Well, not me :-D. Not yet anyways, 3 more years to go ;-). Sriram turns 30 today! Hurray :)). So on this special day, I compiled an evolution chart just for him :).
And what does he have to say on this occasion?
Hehehehehe :)).
Won't be posting a long senti post like last year's, just want to say:
"Happy Birthday" means much more
Than have a happy day.
Within these words lie lots of things
I never get to say.
It means I love you first of all,
Then thanks for all you do.
It means you mean a lot to me,
And that I'm proud of you.
But most of all, I guess it means
That I am thinking of you
on this very special day,
Happy Birthday.
- Poem taken from Tokenz.
He had been looking for the one for a long time. He had searched and searched. He had researched, looked at all positives and negatives, the advantages and the disadvantages. He had asked for advice from some knowledgable ones and also referred to other available knowledge databases. And finally had zeroed in on the one. But there never seemed an auspicious moment for the one to actually arrive in his life. The auspicious moment was because of the cost factor associated :-p.
Does the above paragraph look familiar? Thats because I copied and pasted it straight from my "A new love of my life ;-)" post with only changes being from "I" to "He" and from "my" to "his". Why? Because it applies aptly. The new love of my life then was our camera and the new love of Sri's life now is our brand new SUV :). Though Sri has owned a couple of cars before, they have all been 2nd hands and the old Nissan sentra we have now is actually 3rd hand!! So this is our (as well as his) first new car (well, Sri hates it if I refer to the SUV as car, as its obviously bigger and sleeker :-D).
Car shopping in general is an experience in the US (probably anywhere for that matter :-p). And my hubby is a research freak which is definitely a good thing when it comes to car shopping as such. He had been researching for months before zeroing in on the Toyota Highlander.
One major rule in buying a car is that you wait until almost the end of the year to buy the current year's model. So the next year's model will already be in the market and hence you get discounts on the current year one. It helped that the 2007 Toyota highlander was in no way different from the 2006 one. No major improvements. Now that decided, we only had to look out for a deal. Thanksgiving weekend is always a great time for deals. Since last week was Thanksgiving, it all started then.
Now car-buying can be pretty tricky. There are some hidden discounts that the customer can actually get, but if he/she has no knownledge of the same, then the dealer may not actually give the discount. In short, you have to ask for it to get it :-\. Not only that, the dealer agent can be extremely pushy and can actually manage to push something onto you which was probably not the thing you wanted. So Sri warned me multiple times on how to make some negative comments, so that we get exactly what we want :). Ok points noted. The only thing remaining was actually visiting a showroom and buying one.
The first time we went to a showroom was pretty fun. They didn't have the exact specifications of what we wanted, but they could get it from an out-of-state dealer (they don't go to the nearby dealers as its not profitable to any one of them). We could get a test drive on a higher edition (test drive is fascinating here, you can actually keep a car for overnight before you decide to buy it or not) and we made some negative comments appropriately :-p. After which came the haggling :).
Haggling for a car here is like the bargaining we do in markets (santhe) in India. Its literally "I'll take it if you give it to me for $___"!!! It was really an enjoyable experience. After about an hour of haggling, we agreed on a price and the dealer agreed to get the car for us from another state. We couldn't believe that we had booked a deal on the first visit to the showroom, 'cause its not supposed to work like that :-D.
Anyways we were looking for a black coloured one and 2 days later they called us to inform that they couldn't find a black one and they had a white one instead. So we thought of looking some more and landed in another showroom. They didn't have the exact specifications either, but the whole experience wasn't as good as the first one. It felt like they weren't really trying to bring us what we wanted.
Well, since my hubby is a total enthusiast in such things, we decided to (more like he pulled me into) driving to a nearby town called Richmond and visiting a showroom. The dealers there were even worse! They didn't have anything we wanted, they said so, didn't bother trying for anything and almost literally pushed us out :-D. Sri again managed to convince me into visiting a couple of showrooms in other towns and thats where we headed this saturday.
Meanwhile the 1st showroom dealer called us and let us know that even the white one was gone and our only option would be a 2007 model which would cost a 1000 bucks more!! And yes, I'm talking dollars! That was a considerable difference, since Sri had planned for a loan and all that. We were kind of disappointed, but hopeful of finding some other deal. So saturday morning first we headed to Frankfort. There the dealer attitude was pretty good. They didn't have any 2006 models either, so we discussed 2007 models and they didn't hesitate giving us a final figure on a 2007 model. There wasn't much haggling and we were grateful for that. We said we'd get back on that and got out.
Next we headed to Louisville to see our final 2 showrooms. But luckily the first one we visited had a 2006 model. Only it wasn't black, it wasn't white either, but metallic blue. The colour was pleasing and since I was thinking that as a second option after black, it was agreeable for both of us. Again some amount of bargaining ensued, after which a deal was finalized. While we worked out the financial details for the loan etc, the SUV was cleaned, pumped with gas (thats what they call petrol) and brought to us nice and shiny :). The whole process took about 4 hours!!
Here's our brand new SUV. The photos are taken at a different place and time as we really didn't think we would be buying a car that day and hence I forgot to take the camera with me.
After everything was over, we took the SUV to the Louiville temple and got a pooja done. I missed the camera all the more :-p. After that we had a nice 1 hour drive back home :).
It was really nice to see some sort of excitement on Sri's face after a long time. He's so calm that usually you can't make it out at all :-p :-D. Also I am so proud of Sri and glad that he was able to achieve his dream car (correction SUV :-D) at this point of our lives :). And I am grateful for the power of internet for we could show it to both our parents that day itself on webcam. Its really nice to be able to share your joy with loved ones :).
No Comparison
Though you always stand strongly beside me,
I cannot compare you to an enormous tree..
'Cause trees do get uprooted in heavy storms,
They bend, they break and they fall to debris..
Though you protect me with a graceful flair,
I cannot compare you to the all-permeating air..
'Cause even pure air turns dangerous sometimes,
Vicious poisonous gases lurking in its lair..
Though you do follow me no matter where I go.
I cannot compare you to a faithful shadow..
'Cause a shadow too disappears on cloudy days,
Today it is there, but not there tomorrow..
Though you stick with me, thick and thin through,
Be it laughter or tears, be it old or new..
There is nothing I can compare you to, my dear,
'Cause there's simply no comparison to you..
So who do I look like?
If you ask my mom, she'll say I look like my dad and if you ask my friends, they say I look like my mom :-D. But I am not talking about that. I just took another of those online tests for curiosity sake and look who I turned out to look like :-p.
Huh? Salma Hayek and Madonna? Wow ;-). Never knew I had so much potential :-D. I tried with another photo and guess what?
I look like Kajol (51%), Geena Davis (46%), Celine Dion (45%) and Halle Berry (51%) :-p.
Well the curious me obviously didn't stop there :-D. I ran 2 of Sri's photos and these are the results I got:
Sri also looks like Nick Carter of "Backstreet boys" (71%),and Orlando Bloom (45%) ;-).
Well, call it a coincidence, I have been a fan of Michael Schumacher for years. So maybe I saw something of him when I said yes to marriage with Sri :-p :-D. But was never a fan of Nick of Backstreet boys though, was fond of Brian more than him :-p. Surprisingly Nick's face matches with Sri's more than anybody else's. Recently have started watching a serial "Prison Break" in which Wentworth Miller is the hero. And I think the guy is absolutely fabulous, wowwie stuff ;-). I have become a PB buff because of him (more details about the serial here). Hmmm makes me wonder. Maybe I see something of Sri in him ;-) :-D. Hehehee :)).
Anyways I honestly think all this is silly, utter nonsense. What are we supposed to get from all this? A false sense of pride just because I look like a celebrity, of all people? I don't really understand 
But it was sort of fun though :). If you are interested in knowing what you look like ;-), try the online Face Recognition Demo hosted by My Heritage :). By the way, the sad part is you have to register to access it :-p. Don't worry, this is NOT a prank in which the software after loads of searching displays a chimpanzee and says you look like it ;-) :)).
Yeah, yeah I do remember the Gruhapravesha post, that'll be coming up next :).
Another mushy post from me. Kya kare? I can't help it and I cannot be blamed if these days fall so close to each other ;-).
Twenty-nine years ago, a baby was born. Then it didn't know that after 29 years it'd become a man so wonderful, a man so patient and a man so caring. It didn't know that it was made for me and I wasn't even born then ;-). The baby grew up in Andhra Pradesh never knowing that its gal was to be born in Karnataka :). Later the young boy was in various places in Andhra. The young man he became, he studied in far away Ranchi, did his first job in Delhi, even went to US meanwhile. This was when fate planned to bring him nearer to his destined gal. He came to work in Bangalore. But still it was almost 2 years after he was in Bangalore that he met his gal, that too through an arranged marriage :). How strange can life get?
I made it pretty obvious already, so you know who I'm talking about. Yup, today is Sriram's 29th birthday. Last year I didn't have a blog to write anything about him. Even if I did, wonder what I'd have written about him 'cause I was still getting adjusted to him and to being apart from my parents. But today I've known him for about 1.5 years. Time has flown fast :).
I remember about 2.5 years ago, one of my friends asked me what kind of a man I'd want to marry. I said all the usual words "Tall, handsome, caring, fun to be with" :-D. Yeah, I wanted him to be tall and there was a specification too - min 5'8". Why? Because I am 5'5", plus I used to wear platforms of atleast 2", so that made it 5'7", plus 1" so that he looks taller than me :-D. And I had met a handsome but serious guy before in the so called girl-seeing ceremonies and that was precisely the type of guy I couldn't marry.
But there were other things that I didn't tell my friend. I am fond of ragging people and pulling their leg. I wanted a guy who could take my jokes in his stride. I knew I was capable of taking jokes, but would he? Again I had met another guy who wasn't able to take a leg-pulling from me and had resorted to nasty comments. I also wanted a guy who I would be able to converse intelligently with and never run out of topics. Thats whats life about, isn't it? A long conversation :). What more, I wanted a guy who could understand my passion for music and could sing very well (I'm pretty sure you'd be saying "arey what all more does this girl want!!"). And I got Sri.
As I said, I got Sri. I got a guy who is 5'10". A guy who doesn't judge me by appearance (don't know if he'll change later :-p). Doesn't care whether I wear a saree, salwar kameez or jeans. Doesn't lose his temper no matter how much I try to rile him up (that can be frustrating ;-) :-D). Is patience-personified no matter how fussy I am or how angry :). Is understanding whether its PMS time or not ;-). Is helpful, is kind, is caring, is concerned. Is adventurous and is fun to be with. A person who loves life, just like me. Who cracks jokes on my expense, but always takes the ragging I do to him in the right spirit :).
But (yes, there has to be a but ;-) :-D), in the last point I was disappointed, Sri can't sing a song for rupee's worth. He always gets the tune and the lyrics wrong. So whenever he sings, I have to think atleast for a few minutes to figure out which song he's singing :-D. But (again), he listens to any song I sing and I do have a habit of bursting into a song now and then :). He supports me in my singing and encourages me to practice. And thats more than enough :).
Since a past couple of days, he's been quipping on how he's becoming old. And he's only 29. Hmmmm since I'm only 3 years younger to him, I really wonder what that makes me :-p :-D. Anyways, today is his birthday and yup here's a wish all dedicated to him... Happy Birthday Sriram!
A life full of love and joy,
A heart full of youth and dreams,
May this birthday bring you
A multitude of new esteems!
Little moments of pleasure,
Many seconds of new wonders,
May this birthday bring you
Bright days and no thunders!
Sorrows vanished forever,
Happiness in lots many ways,
May this birthday bring you
Hundreds of more birthdays!!
Happy Birthday Sweetheart :).
How many of us believe in fate? I'm pretty sure many of us do. Its so good to believe that whatever we do is not controlled by us, but is all pre-determined, isn't it? Makes us feel a little bit irresponsible. You don't have to think too much about what you are doing and why you are doing it. Just go with the flow..
But what if there's no fate? What if the decisions you take each and every moment are changing something in the future? Yup I'm talking about chaos theory. So our destiny is purely controlled by our actions. A simple decision like today I'll go to market to buy vegetables, maybe changing my life drastically. Scary, isn't it?
Most of the times I do believe in fate. Its fate that I have parents like mine. Its fate that I have friends like I have. Its fate that I chose to study engineering. Its fate that Sriram came into my life. Its all fate :). But sometimes, just sometimes when I am taking a drastic step, I start wondering whether I am changing my life. I believe that all that happens, happens for the good (so in one way pushing all my decisions again on fate :-D), but when I can see a clear path that I could have gone on, thats when I wonder. What if I had taken that fork in the path instead of the one I'm going on...
This thought first came into my mind when I had decided to leave my first company for the second. My first company gave me a carrot of sending me onsite just when I was leaving. But my decision had been made to join the second. And that decision has turned out to be wonderful in many ways since then. But at that point, I could clearly see another path I could have taken i.e staying with the first company and going onsite. If I believe in fate, then I was meant to join the second company. But if, if by any chance, my destiny was in my hands, then I took a right decison which is still working out for me so well. What if I had made the wrong choice? Or was the other decision a wrong choice? Maybe my life would have been equally well then too. Who knows!!
Surprisingly I never felt the fork in the path when I married Sri. If you think about it, I could have not married him and my life could have gone in a totally different path. But I never thought of not marrying him. I never thought of the other path, so I believe its fate :-D. Some weird logic huh? :-D
Again, when Sri was offered a choice to come to U.S on a project, he asked me whether I was comfy with the whole thing. I just told him that whatever decision he takes would be fine with me. But again, I could feel the fork, where we could have stayed in India or could have come to U.S. Very strange, the way the mind works sometimes. But what if, I had stayed in India? Would I have been so close to Sri, like I am today? Now I know that I love my parents and miss them a lot. Had I been there, would I have been aware of some things that I am more aware of now? I don't know.
Ok, why did this topic come up suddenly now after all these days? Thats because we recently encountered another fork in the path. Since we came to US, our plan was for Sri to look for a job here. And 2 weeks ago, the job came and fell into his lap without him even making huge efforts. Do you call that fate? ;-) :-D. There's actually not much change. We'll continue to be here in Lexington, KY. So there's no house change either. Even if he had continued in his current company, we'd have been here in US for about 3 years and that plan hasn't changed. So why do I define it as a fork? Just because maybe, just maybe, had he continued in his current company, Sri might have been asked to do a project in Bangalore. Maybe we could have gone there and stayed there for some time. So many maybes {sighs}. Now its sure that we'll be here for 3 years. We are planning a vacation to Bangalore, but its not the same as going there for good :(.
The new job is a wonderful career move for Sri and yup, logically everything's turning out good. If its fate, its wonderful. Even if we are controlling our destiny, I know we are making the right choice. So why does the mind think about forks in the path etc? I guess sometimes we just need a reason to be unhappy. Probably one of human being's variables is always equal to not being content. Thats the way God's software works...
Yup another poem. This time a very simple one to say how grateful I am to have Sri in my life. Last year, same day i.e 13th November 2004, almost at the same time (Its about 6:30 to 7:00 PM in India now), I met Sri for the first time. Ours was a typical arranged marriage and he came to "see" me :-D. Now he has to see me everyday whether he wants to or not :-p :-D. The great man asked me questions per questions and said yes to his parents immediately after departing from my house!! I remember being stumped as I hadn't even decided whether to say Yes or No!! I took about a week, met him again after a week and later said Yes. So the equation isHis impulsive decision = My thought-out decision
==> A bakra and a bakri were trapped together 3 months later :-D
Hehehee. This poem is dedicated to my Sriram and all the joy he has brought into my life :).
Then we met....
Was it only an year ago
That I didn't even know you?
Then we met and life changed,
As if it was always meant to.
I was confused, lonely and
Searching for a soul mate.
Then we met and it was as though
A surprising turn around of fate.
I admit now that at first
I was fully apprehensive..
Then we met again and simply
Was I no more ever pensive..
I knew you were the one
and a decision was made.
Then we met again and again
And later vows were said..
Now I'm glad, so happy
That we are man and wife.
Then we met, now we are bound
Together with love for life..
Then we met and the rest is history.. Oops, err, the rest is the present and the future we have together :).
Isn't it strange how one person becomes more important than all the people in your life put together? That too, in a matter of just a few months!! A total stranger who you hadn't even seen a couple of months ago, is all of a sudden the center of your life!!! How weirder can life get??
I can't believe I didn't know Sri till Nov 13th 2005. I still sometimes can't believe I am married to him now ;-) I mean, how do things work out this way? Is it, as they say, that "Marriages are made in heaven"? Were we meant to be together? You just can't believe some of the coincidences in our case. Please believe me when I say, I am telling the truth, only the truth and nothing but the truth!!
These are the ones I know, maybe there are many such coincidences that we haven't figured out yet! Does this indicate a pattern or is all of these just a coincidence? Who knows!! I'm not an all-knowing-genius to comment on the same. I'm just speculating on the weird ways of fate and karma and all that ;-) Also, I have to have something to fill my blog with ;-) :-D :-)).
When this person who was a total stranger just a few months ago, has to be away from you for a while, why does it feel as if you are torn apart? Yep, Sri is in a place far far away and I miss him so bad :( He left on Saturday and he called a couple of times already. Still, its a terrible feeling to be away from him :( How come he has gotten to me in such a short time? And they say arranged marriages have no charm :-p My life's become a movie drama now and I don't really know how I'm supposed to behave anymore
Listening to: Now You're Gone by Whitesnake :(((((
