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}....

Look (a)like?

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 (couldn't resist the emoticon from yahoo :-D).

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 :).

Udupi Udaan :)

I was sad, I admit it. A perfectly good excuse not to write a post for almost 15 days :-p. Sadly, I can't put off writing a post forever based on that excuse. So its time for the posts of the India trip I promised and yet haven't been delivering. Its ironic as to how sometime ago I wouldn't have ideas for a post and hence couldn't post and now have loads of ideas but cannot post due to time/work constraints :-p. Anyways better get on with it :).

After the fateful Delhi trip that branded the visa on our passports, we were back in Bangalore. But certainly not to stay :-p. The very next day (or to be honest, night), we (Mom, Dad, Darsh, Susheela aunty, Hari uncle, Sri and me) set off to Udupi. The title is wrong, there is no way to fly to Udupi, but the drivers do drive the buses like they are flights. They are fast and the sudden turbulences are fairly common ;-). Thankfully, I had no trouble sleeping in the bus at all due to my jet lag. Only in the morning did I come to know that I had more reasons to be thankful. It seems the bus seats had bedbugs!! No one told those that they are supposed to live only in beds I suppose :-p. Anyways, looked like I didn't have any bites as such. These bedbugs are choosy man ;-).

The first day in Udupi i.e 4th May 2006, we spent fooling around. The heat was too much, as expected. But the house was cool and hence we spent time catching up with Gayathri aunty, Raaghu mava and Ammamma (my maternal granny). Evening, we headed to the beach.

To people in Udupi, beach implies the Vadabhandeshwara beach. There is also a beach at Malpe, but that one is stinky, believe me!! The fish stench is so bad that the only way to roam around there is with your nose blocked :-p. So, you are actually grateful if you have a cold when you are around there ;-). The first thing we did at the beach was to run to a churmuri stand. Churmuri is a variant of bhelpuri made specially in South Kanara, but I am not sure its not available elsewhere. After grabbing churmuri with both hands (we held the parents' ones too :-D), we headed towards the water where our parents were sitting and already enjoying thaali munji (I found out just today that they are called toddy palm fruits in English :-D, mainly because toddy is also collected from the same trees). We had a gala time eating, walking in water and snapping snaps :).













Just as we left the beach in a bus (private buses are plenty in Udupi, one goes another comes in the next minute :-D), the heavens opened up and it started pouring!! We had plans of going to to Diana, our favourite restaurant in Udupi, but it was still pouring when we got down at the bus stop. And we didn't even have an umbrella :-p. So we stood there almost an hour until the clouds showed us some pity and stopped throwing water at us. But Diana more than compensated for the rain, what with a delicious feast of bhel puri, cutlets, noodles and icecreams (Diana is famous for bhel,cutlet and dahi vada, but sadly dahi vada had already been gulumd, hehehe I mean consumed, by others by the time we went). We had no problems going back home at all.

Next day, May 5th 2006, we got up early morning, took head baths and headed to the first temple of the theertha-yaathra (:-D) in the Qualis that dad had booked. The Vishnumurthi temple at Aleyuru is a must in all our trips to Udupi as Vishnumurthi is the home-deity (manedevaru) of my parents (mine changed to Venkataramana after marriage). Our next temple of the day was the Anegudde Vinayaka temple of Kumbhashi. Mom had pledged the Akki kadubu seva here and we were able to fulfill the pooja accordingly :). The Akki Kadubu of South Kanara is a kind of idly cooked in containers made of coconut leaves. Its a very tedious process of making these containers. In the seva, about 100 (I think) of the Akki kadubus are made and offered to Lord Ganesha. After the pooja and mahamangalaarathi, we had a tasty lunch with the kadubu :).

Since the pooja and the lunch were over by noon, we decided to visit the Udupi Sri Krishna temple and retire for the day. There are 3 main temples in Udupi, even though we hear usually only about the Krishna temple. These are the Chandreshwara, Anantheshwara and Sri Krishna temple. Chandreshwara and Anantheshawara are Shiva temples (stating the obvious :-D). So we visited all 3, did some amount of shopping (flowers, hermaNe which is a complicated coconut grater for me to get to US) and left.

Later in the evening my little cousin Sanjana and me had a great time plucking Jaam fruit (also called Jambu fruit or Rose apple) from the tree at home. I didn't have a great time when huge red ants fell on to me from the tree I was trying to hit the fruits out of ;-). Nevertheless everyone enjoyed the fruits of my labour :-p. Hehehee :-D.




6th May 2006, early morning we left to Herga Durgaparameshwari temple (some details on the temple are available here), which is the village deity (graamadevathe) for my parents to perform the auspicious Chandika Homa. The rituals starting with the sankalpa and later the homa went very well as we hoped. This is the temple:







The photos of the homa came out a bit dim thanks to not enough light inside the temple + not enough sense to use the camera flash on Darsh's part :-p.

After another delicious lunch (delicious lunches are usually the favourite and constant parts of Udupi and surrounding areas' trip :-D), we headed to the house in Herga (which is my native place) where my dad's cousins and doddamma live. We spent an enjoyable time there. I also grabbed a few of my favourite karande kai (its a sour berry that grows there - didn't find an English name for it anywhere) from the plants and enjoyed their taste after what seems a long time :).

After going home, I took photos of random things and people including one of my Ammamma here:




And that was it for the day :).

7th May 2006 was the last day in Udupi. Err, should I say Dharmasthala 'cause thats where we went to that day. Its about 2.5 hours drive from Udupi to Dharmasthala and thanks to our air-conditioned Qualis, we didn't feel the heat. We reached the Dharmasthala Sri Manjunatha temple only after 12 in the noon, which meant the Mahamangalaaarthi was over. We bought the ticket for the Rudraabhisheka and skipped endless queues through shortcut method thanks to my mom :-D. Mom lived in Dharmasthala with her sister and brother-in-law who were teachers there for quite some time in her childhood. The name "Rama teacher" (my doddamma) (Note that its Rama and not Raama) still wields a power over lots of people there, basically because most of them would have been her students at some point in time ;-). By the way, don't think of using this method next time you are in Dharmasthala, not because its copyrighted in any way, but because this method has to be used with the additional clause of speaking pure Tulu :-D. Otherwise its doomed to failure :-D. Don't worry, I don't know to speak Tulu either, though I can understand it :-D.

Anyways, later we were able to see Lord Manjunatha and do the sankalpa for the abhisheka. We also saw the idol of Ammavru (as Goddess Parvathi is referrred to there) and everything went satisfactorily. Wait, did I forget to mention that we had a delicious lunch there? Hehehe ;-). We set off immediately as we had to catch the bus to Bangalore in the night and we still had some amount of packing to do. But we did stop at a place in between to have some snacks. Me and dad went to have some tender coconut water. As I stood in the crowded junction, in the blistering heat, sipping tender coconut water and listening to my dad and the seller yapping away, I felt peaceful. I felt the way I never ever felt in US. I felt contented. What I felt just cannot be described in words. It was all so natural, oh-so-unrobotic (if there's such a word)...

Later in the night, after packing the goodies (varieties of papads, sandige and brinjals) brought for me by Raaghu Mava and the slurp slurp tasty Appi midi maavinakai uppinakai (Tender mango pickle) made by Gayathri aunty, we waved goodbye to them and to Udupi :). I carried the whole lot with me to US (except brinjals :-D) despite some looks of protest by Sri :-D.

I must add though that I was almost in tears as I said goodbye to Ammamma. She's already too old and she looked very weak to me. I really do hope I get to see her again :(.

And so ended the second phase of our India trip. Still to come are the Gruhapravesha, the Tirupathi and Hyderabad trips. Don't go anywhere ;-).

Encore :(

Encore


Just one more day, I wished I could be there
When the visit to loved ones was at its end
Why does the heart always long for an encore
Of if not a day, if not an hour, only a second?

Just one more embrace, I wished I could have,
Maybe then the open wound would not hurt as much.
Why does the heart always long for an encore
Of if not an embrace, if not a hug, only a touch?

Just one more visual, my eyes wished to see,
As I walked far and further away with forced limps.
Why does the heart always long for an encore
Of if not a visual, if not a view, only a glimpse?

Just one more tear drop fell without any compulsion,
Sadness engulfed me and my heart felt oh so sore.
Pain is one thing the heart certainly doesn't long for
Nevertheless for tears, its encore, encore and encore..

P.S. For those who did not guess from the tone of the poem, yes, I am back in US and right now, not very happy about it...

Listening to: "Hume tumse pyar kitna" by Kishore Kumar

"Suna Gum Judai Ka Uthate Hai Log
Jaane Zindagi Kaise Bitate Hai Log
Din Bhi Yaha To Lage Baras Ke Samaan
Hume Intezar Kitna Yeh Hum Nahi Jaante
Magar Jee Nahi Sakte Tumhare Bina"

Ek Delhi ko dekha tho aisa laga :-D

Yup, this is part 2 of my original "Ek Chennai ko dekha tho aisa laga..." post. Its been more than an year since I went for a visa stamping to Chennai. This is sort of a rehash of the same, only this time I went to Delhi for my L1 work permit and Sri for his H1.

It all started a long time ago, (well, not that long :-p), when we decided that we'll get our visas stamped in India rather than going out to Mexico or Canada. Which was why our trip got delayed again, again and again :-p. Finally, when Sri shifted his job and got his work permit transferred, we decided that we had to visit India and that was when we had to have our visas stamped. One good thing was that as an Indian citizen resident in US, we had the advantage of going to any of the 4 US consulates in India. We looked for appointments, but sadly, the earliest available was May 2nd 2006 in the New Delhi consulate. So, very obviously, the whole trip to India was planned such that we could finish the stamping as a first priority :).

And so, just after a day of landing in good, old, beloved Bangalore (:-D), we were off on a flight (again!!!) to Delhi on 1st May 2006 noon. God!! I had been on so many flights recently that I dreamt of flights and airports whenever I slept :-p. Anyways, this time we took a Sahara flight and yup, they served us lunch again :-D, though thankfuly, it was oil-free this time :).

Delhi airport was a rude shock! Its literally like an air-conditioned railway station. Bad stench, flies, stained seats, yuck!! I am not comparing it to international airports but Bangalore airport is oh-so-much-better man :). But I guess things should improve with the airport privatization. The heat outside was very bad (above 46 degree celcius!!!), but somehow we did manage to crawl into a pre-paid taxi and ride on to our hotel in SouthEx, which is very near to the US embassy in Delhi.

The infamous jet lag prevailed in both of us, so we were flat as soon as we reached the hotel room. By the time we got up, it was time for dinner already. We went out and roamed quite a bit, finding no restaurants whatsoever except a MacDonalds. Look at our luck :-p. But the US MacDonalds doesn't have a Veggie burger which we finally ended up having for dinner. Wonder whether they'll ever try to market it in US..

On the D-day, we both got ready early (were looking very smart in suits :-D), had breakfast at the hotel and left for the embassy at about 8:30 AM itself, though the appointment was at 9:45 AM. We reached the embassy at about 9 AM and I was wondering whether they would allow us inside (as in Chennai last year, they had allowed me only 15 min before the actual appointment time). But here they did. After showing our appointment print-outs and first round of security checks, we stood in the non-immigrant queue. The heat was still bearable, thankfully, as the sun was still low in the sky.

We both had a single appointment, so went to the first counter together. The first counter has Indians who do a preliminary check of your documents. Sri was wearing his sun glasses and was rudely remonstrated by the guy in the counter!! Wearing sun glasses was not right as they cannot see the comparison between the photo and the real person, but the guy could have been polite :-p. Well, nevertheless we were polite and smiled and apologized :-p. He also asked us to enter local addresses and proceed. And so the first hurdle was crossed :-D.

Next we faced another round of security checks and were let in into the room where we would be taking our visa interview together. But before the actual interview, we did have to give our index fingerprints which is a standard procedure. We had no trouble at all in the same and later were guided to the visa interview queue.

There were very less number of people in front of us and hence in no time, one of the consulate officers called us. Again her name I know not, so I will refer to her as Ms. American :). The conversation that ensued is as follows:

Ms. American: Hello
Us both: Hi, Good morning!
Ms. American: One of your petition is for H1 and another for L1 is it?
Us both: Yes.
Ms. American: {refering to me} Yours is the L1 right?
Me: Yes.
Ms. American: So what kind of work are you doing in US?
Me: The same as I was doing here in India. {I provide a brief description of my work}. Also, since my husband was posted in US, I got an option of working there.
Ms. American: {refering to Sri} And what do you do sir?
Sri: {States his role}.
Ms. American: And what does that mean?
Sri: {Gives a brief description of his role and duties associated}.
Ms. American: {refering to me} I see here that you went to US on a H4. So did you get a job there?
Me: No, I was already on job here and went to us on H4. Later my L1 work permit was processed and I got my L1. Until I got my permit, I was on leave which was for about 1.5 months. (This was an expected question and I had the leave papers also ready, but she didn't ask for those :-D).
Ms. American: {refering to Sri} Was your visa refused anytime? Maybe once?
Sri: No, but I was asked some extra documents, maybe payslips one time. But it was a long time back {grins}.
Ms. American: Not that long back {smiles}. {Refers to me} You have had only one visa stamped?
Me: Yes.
Ms. American: {refering to Sri} Where did you get your Masters degree?
Sri: In Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi.
Ms. American: Where are you staying in US currently?
Us both: Lexington, Kentucky.
Ms. American: Ok everything looks alright. I am going to keep all these. All the best to both of you in your careers {smiles}.
Us both: Thanks and good bye {smile}.

That was it!! Phew!! She didn't ask for any of the other documents that Sri had painfully put together. And we were out by 9:45 AM :-D. We both were grinning and gave hi-fives as we came out :). Went back to the hotel and called up both sets of parents to inform them the news :). Since our flight to Bangalore was after 8 PM in the night, Sri wanted to go sight-seeing. I wasn't really into it due to the heat. Also, since I didn't foresee the sight-seeing aspect, I had left the camera behind in Bangalore :(. After cribbing for sometime about the sad-no-camera situation, I finally agreed to go. We booked an air-conditioned Indica and checked out of the hotel.

Our first stop was the India Gate. It had been more than 8 years since I visited Delhi and I was stuck by how beautiful the monument is and how vast the grounds surrounding it are. Despite the fact that it was a Tuesday, the crowd thronged the place. The sun was terribly hot, yet we stayed there for sometime, roaming around the monument and reading some of the names of the soldiers who died in wars. Later we returned to the cool car to see the Rastrapathi bhavan, the Lok and Rajya Sabhas and the Parliament. Again, I chided myself for not bringing the camera along :(. Meanwhile, I was surprised at the similarity of the Government buildings of India and US. In Washington, the Washington monument is surrounded by the Official buildings, whereas in Delhi the India Gate is in the centre :). Wonder who copied who :-D.

It had already crossed noon and hence we headed towards AP bhavan to have a delicious Andhra style lunch. After lunch, we stopped at Paalika bazaar as I wanted to buy a marble masher, which has a bowl and a mashing rod and is useful for mashing elaichis etc. We didn't find what I wanted, but we did end up picking up some gifts for Sri's colleagues from the Cottage Emporium. Next we went to Jantar Mantar. The structures there are amazing and it seems one of them can measure the time, the accuracy being within half a second!! I wanted to know more but the information provided next to the structures just wasn't enough. Anyways, thank God, there's the internet :-p. I was able to satisfy some of my curiosity later through the Delhi Tourism website.

Next on the agenda was to see if our visa-stamped passports were available at a place mentioned in the US Consulate website. If they are available, you can collect them there itself for Rs. 50 each and avoid the hassles of courier services. Since we were leaving for Udupi almost immediately, we wanted to collect them. But sadly the passports hadn't yet arrived there in the shipping office at Nehru place and we were told that they will be available the next day, which was of no use to us. We were disappointed, but hey, we tried :-p. Since Nehru place is also the home to the famous Bahai Lotus temple, that became our next tourist destination.

One thing I forgot to mention was that, the previous day when we were about to land in Delhi, we were able to see the Lotus temple from the flight :). I remembered the temple as this very peaceful, beautiful place I had visited last time. The temple is still as beautiful but somehow the peace and quiet is gone. Despite being warned many times to be quiet and not make any noise inside the temple and to control their children, people were making some amount of noise which made the temple visit not quite nice. The crowd was also too big, maybe due to the summer vacation for the children. Some things and feelings cannot be helped, I guess..

Lastly we visited the Qutub Minar. I really wished for the umpteenth time that the Minar was open to public for climbing and that I could climb it, but the government has had to restrict the access to avoid further deterioration. We enjoyed the sights of the surrounding ruins and the Iron pillar. Just as we were about to leave, a sand storm hit the area. My God!! Dust everywhere, in eyes and in hair :-p. Its terrible when you are standing somewhere and are stuck because you just can't see anything and hence cannot move. Thankfully in matter of minutes (which actually seemed like an hour :-p), the winds subsided and we were able to return to the car. Heat and dust is an amazing combination. You should really try it sometime :-p.

That was Delhi for us. We left for the airport immediately and had to wait for a couple of hours for our Air Deccan flight in the sad (again) airport. It was the time for our jet lag to set in and so we both slept in the plane without even a single blink. By the time we reached Bangalore, it was about 11 PM and that was it.

The only thing we missed is the Taj Mahal. Agra is about 2.5 hours from Delhi and there was no way we could have seen it as we had not planned for it. It would have been our first visit together there, but, well, there's always another time. Had it been this time, I'd have regretted it my whole life that I didn't have a camera with me ;-). Looks like all the things are well-planned by someone way above us ;-) :-D.

This happens only in...

See the troubles that poor me has to go through to write something on my blog :-p. I am writing this from a cyber cafe in Udupi and yup I reached safe and sound for a great reunion :))). I am going through the happiest moments of my life right now. Err, except the fact that the heat is so much that I'm sweating profusely all over the keyboard, sheeesh!!

Just thought I'll post a few observations on the trip back to India ;-).

1) We left early on Friday April 28th 2006 as we had to catch a flight from Cincinnati to New Jersey. Cincinnati itself is 1.5 hours away!! So Sri went to pick up a rental car he had booked. Since we had luggage (luggage is an understatement :-p) and no car was suiting our purpose, we got a free upgradation to a mini van!! This surely happens only in America :-D.

2) Ok we got checked in Cincinnati airport and our luggage was sent away :(. They checked it all the way to Bangalore :)). I think this too happens only in America, though me not sure ;-).

3) We climbed the plane and it went till the runway. Just when we thought everything was smooth, the flight halted and we were told there would be a delay of 1.5 hours. The pilot spoke in very low tones (which I thought was deliberate) and I couldn't hear the reason :-p. As for this, you can certainly guess where this happens :-p.

4) We reached Newark and we still had about 3 hours to go for the Air India flight :-p. We went to the counter and were issued boarding passes. It was only later we came to know that my seat was in one row and Sriram's was in another. Well, cursing the lady didn't help at all, but another girl travelling alone helped us by giving up her seat. Thanks lady, whoever you are. And as for the other lady, I wished I could strangle her :-p. Looks like this happens only in Air India!!

5) On aboard Air India flight which left thankfully on time, looks like the only job of the air hosts and hostesses is to feed the passengers. Totally from New Jersey to Bombay, we were fed 2 lunches and 2 dinners full of oil-rich food. It was almost as a witch fattening children for her dinner ;-). Not that I'm not grateful and this, I'm sure happens in all international flights :-D.

6) One of the saddest parts of the flight was the stop-over in Paris. We thought we'll be allowed some time in the airport though the stop-over time was only 1.5 hours. But sadly, they kept us in the plane!! And this was while the cleaning crew cleaned the plane over. I half expected the vacuum to be run over us too :-p. One lesson learnt was that we need some time in a stop-over to stretch our legs and freshen up. And I'm confused where this happens. So I'll leave the choice to you. Your choices are:

a) Only in Air India
b) Only in Paris (as the plane was in Paris at that point of time)
c) In America (as the plane was from America)
d) In India (Going there ;-) :-D)
e) All of the above :-D.

7) Landing in Bombay was one of the best feelings of my life. It was great to feel the balmy air again ;-). As soon as we were out, there were people shouting Hyderabad, Bangalore, Cochin and Chennai :-D. This was to direct people to the connecting flights :-D. Hehehehe. This happens only in India bhai :-D.

8) We were crowded into one place (where we were actually supposed to form queues). After about 15 min or so, suddenly, one lady said that people going to Riyadh had to shift into another line and poeple to Hyderabad had to join our line. One guy shouted that he had been standing in the wrong queue for 15 min and couldn't these people have informed us earlier? Sri and me were laughing at all this and I said to him that I missed all these things in America :-D. Boy, I really did ;-) :).Well, where else can such things happen? :).

9) I have another reason to hate the lady who issued our boarding passses at Newark. She issued passes to the flight from Bombay to Bangalore too. And screwed up again!! One of the seat numbers issued, didn't have a seat on the plane!! God!! After some stress and fuss, we settled down in 2 seats as, thankfully, the flight was not full and there were extra seats available. This was an Air India flight again and I have strong reasons to believe that this happens only in Air India :-p.

10) After landing in Bangalore (my excitement was feverish by this time), we cleared immigration without too much effort. The luggage arrival was a bit late, though the plane was on time. The customs was a breeze thanks to the Rs.100 + $1 note given to a guy ;-) :-D. Poor guy begged for a dollar note :-D. Corruption is everywhere but this happens only in ....

After crossing the customs the first people we saw were our parents. The smiles, the hugs, the tears wow, I can't describe them. And it was 4 AM in the April 30th morning. Parents and sibling coming to receive you at totally odd hours, yup, you guessed it right, this happens only in INDIA :-D.