White Christmas

I don't celebrate Christmas in its traditional sense. But I enjoy the festive feeling. Snow on the ground, smell of burning firewood in fire place, hot coffee; they are all joyful. Decorating Christmas tree and buying gifts could be fun too. Even though there is no other tradition for me per se, there is one tradition that I have been following since the year I landed in US. And that is "White Christmas".

I watch White Christmas every year on Christmas day and enjoy Bing Crosby and Danny Kay and their songs and dances and the simple deed they do for their General Waverly. I love that movie, it always makes me feel that there are good people out there who do simple things to bring others joy. I first watched this movie on my first Christmas night in US, all alone in apartment, just feeling down and depressed. I just switched on TV and White Christmas was being aired. I started watching it and was totally glued to the TV. I loved the movie like anything. I felt happy and rejuvenated. Though it was not a white Christmas in the city but it became in my heart. Since, then I follow the tradition every year and watch this wonderful and classic tale of Christmas.

What else does it mean to celebrate any holiday? We celebrate to bring happiness and realize that we are not alone. White Christmas will always remain my tradition and I hope it will become your too!

Culture is in your blood

I just started reading Anita Desai's novel "Fasting, Feasting". I just finished her daughter's novel last week, The Inheritance of Loss. I enjoyed that one a lot. While reading the current novel, it suddenly dawned on me that though I have been reading non-Indian authors, both contemporary and classic, I feel closer to Indian authors and the stories they write. Some of the stories written by Indian authors actually have no bearing on my life at all or their themes are completely different than my experiences, but just the people they portray and the stories they tell, both before and after independence, are just closer to my heart.I don't agree with all their thoughts all the time, but I can understand why they write those stories.

Culture is so much in our blood. When I read " In the Convent of Little Flowers" by Indu Sundaresan, I felt as if I know these people. The stories may be fictional but the people she writes about are somewhere to be seen in India. And in her Taj-Mahal trilogy, I could see the Mogul raj and the Kings and Queen of Mogul Raj, as if I have known them all my life. I feel closer to them than Tudors :-) It's just that I have heard these stories all my life. And without even realizing they became a part of my inheritance and cultural identity.

Culture is in our blood and we can't deny it. I love O. Henry and 'Cop and the Anthem' might one of my all time favorite story but still when I read Yayati, I know him much more closely. Wodehouse's Jeeves is out of this world but still Janoba Rege is closer to my heart. It's just that something that one is born and brought up with, one can hardly forget. The people, the stories, the streets and the fights are so relevant to me till this day, that may I read tons of novels, these Indian authors I will always find relevant.

We can not deny our culture and heritage. Even when living in this beautiful country that is a melting pot of all cultures, my heritage is always with me. I don't have to shout it out or say anything about it at all or even celebrate it, I just know it in my heart.

Well, I am closer to writers and novelists, I wonder how others feel it? I know Beethoven's concertos are like God's music but still in the morning I listen to Bhimsen Joshi, by default :-)

Fall is here. I can smell it in the air. Air smells clean, crisp and cool. The leaves are already falling on the ground and turning into magnificent reds and yellows. The wind is almost cold. But there is still sun-light. The mornings are wet though.
Of course, they are. It has been raining almost non-stop for two days. But even with so much rain, it is still beautiful and divine. I take a look outside my window and see leaves blowing and turning and then falling softly on the grass. Few chipmunks running amok on the grass trying to find treats. When I step outside, I smile. The cool breeze on my face makes me happy. I see people pulling on their jackets and joggers carefully zipping up their wind-cheaters. Then I realize, it is cold, it is Fall.

Back in the house, the hardwood floors are quite cool and I need to wear socks now. I pull on my sweater and then just put my hands under warm flowing water in the kitchen. It feels nice. I think about switching on the gas heater. But decide against it. I say to myself, I can handle few more days without heater. My spirits are high and I put a kettle of tea. Then I think, how lucky I am to enjoy this gorgeous weather. I have never enjoyed the cold weather, how foolish of me. It's OK to get cold and it's OK to feel the chill down to my bones; once in while. The light outside is different. It goes from dark mornings to sunny afternoons to even darker nights. Day light is getting shorter and shorter. Any time there will be dark afternoons now.

My kettle is done and I am sitting in the bed, with my warm comforter on my legs and Agatha Christie on my bed stand. I sip the tea and I enjoy Poirot's adventure. I realize how wonderful the life is. It's Fall and it is time to enjoy warm blanket, hot tea and cold weather.

A Small Town Girl at Heart

Pune, my city in India is no small town. A city with more than 3 million population, one of the biggest IT hubs in India, is crowded. Thankfully, when I was living in Pune, about 7 years ago it was not that crazy. And my home in Pune, is still at a quiet location. So my home definitely has a small town quiet feel. After moving to US, I landed up in Atlanta, another metro with millions of people. Though the county I lived in was a rich one, the apartment complex was not. So it has all its negatives including terrible apartments and crime. There was never a dull moment with criminals on lose and tenants enjoying music at 3am and of course smell of marijuana in the hallways. The school was in downtown Atlanta and must say I hated that area. I have seen way too much crime and heard about much more and I was done with big cities. And then I moved to Tempe.

Tempe is not exactly a small town but it is smaller compared to Phoenix. Tempe has the best of both worlds, all the educational and employment opportunities (ASU main campus is in Tempe) because it is in Phoenix metro area but a t the same time, the cozy feel of small town. We were in great terms with our neighbors. We would visit each other on Christmas, people would borrow things in kitchen and just come by to say "Hello". That's what I am talking about. Small town feel.

After living in Tempe for a while it was hard for me to adjust in DC (my all time favorite city in US) during my internship. I would tell V, that every time I open the door people are on my face. Tempe completely ruined me because of big streets and quite neighborhoods. I always thought how would I do in a big city? And then something beautiful happened. We moved to Ann Arbor, another small city but rich with culture. That's like a dream come true. I have all the amenities I need and with UMICH right at the corner, all the educational opportunities are there. There is always something to do. But without the chaos and crowds. I enjoy sitting outside and just looking at the birds and rabbits and occasional visitors like ducks and raccoons (racoons are visiting us more and more and they are a kind of mess and make much more )I enjoy the walks in downtown, visiting library and sometimes just hanging out in Borders. Even some of the Borders staff knows me now. I love this. I see people walking their dogs, they would stop and say "Hello" if they see you. Neighbors will help you if you need anything. It's wonderful. I like this cozy feeling.

I am definitely a small town girl at heart. Though I have lived in a big city, I always enjoyed the quiet times at my grandma's place in Saswad and now I get to enjoy this every day. I hope I land up in another beautiful town in future and enjoy the smell of air there!

Eating Beef

I have started eating beef. Yes, I finally did it. I have yet to explore the juicy stakes but nonetheless I am eating hot dogs and mind you I am loving them. Generally, people choose to go towards vegetarianism but I might be among the few who are heading towards "maukaterianism" (great phase I heard, meaning- eating anything you get at that moment). After being in US for almost 7 years, I strictly adhered to my preference of not eating beef. Nothing about religion per se, but since I am born and brought up in India, cows were holy to me. (When I told this to an American friend, he said only Indian cows are holy. American cows are tasty :-)) Jokes apart. But since a while I have been thinking about my eating habits and wondering why I had this mental block about beef and will it mean something if I eat it?

My family is not a vegetarian family. I ate meat since I was born. But of course, being in India meat was fish and chicken and occasionally mutton. I remember eating pork dogs once though. My mother started eating meat after she got married. She has a great attitude about it. She always says "I will try everything and if I don't like it, I won't eat it." I think this definitely influenced me when it came to trying different meats in US. But still I was particular about not eating beef. I had mistakenly had beef in chili since I had no clue what chili was. But knowingly I never ate it.

After thinking about it for a long time, I realized that I am unnecessarily restricting myself thinking that eating beef is bad. (It could be for health reasons, but my dilemma has been a moral one.) I eat pork and love then why not beef? It has nothing to do with God. I know that God doesn't care about what I eat. But still the cultural impact was so strong that at times I would urge V not to eat it. Now, I find that hilarious.

Even after enjoying pork and beef sausages I won't be eating it all the time. My diet still contains vegetables, fruits and white meat. But I want to expand my choices. Since I saw Julie and Julia, I wanted to eat Beef Bourguigno , Julia Child's Beef Bourguigno! Perhaps this prompted me to rethink about my "not eating beef mentality". As a food lover, I feel I should be open to all cuisines and foods to make my life richer and interesting.

So now since all you know about my new adventure, any suggestions for great first stake?

The Joneses

I just finished watching the movie "The Joneses" starring David Duvcohny and Demi Moore. And I must say, I am surprised in a wonderful way because of the originality and thoughtfulness the director and script writer has put in it. I would hope many of you would watch it and be as delighted as I am. I don't want to ruin the movie by giving the details (but I probably would as I would be ranting about our system right away). The movie made me think about our fictitious culture overtly obsessed with appearances. For a very long time now, all of us have fallen pray to the lifestyle portrayed by the media and the TV shows and the movies where everyone looks beautiful and hip and is rich has lot of stuff. Who is the best salesman who can sell sugar to a diabetic!

When the financial crisis started rolling, we blamed the banks and wall street managers who gave out tons of sub-prime loans to undeserving people who could not pay for the stuff they bought (houses, cars and other nonsense)leading to unpaid mortgages and too many unpaid loans. It was a crime however, I am equally disappointed with people who thought they could afford all the stuff at 50,000 per annum salary. Why does everyone need a 4 bedroom house and two car garage and huge garden? Why does everyone need big cars, latest gizmo and prada bag? We are trying to compete with those so called idols on television, who don;t really have to buy the stuff they show on TV. The unattainable standards of richness and beauty and fashion are driving people crazy into the large sums of debt. The nation is in a trillion dollar debt, no wonder. We are always buying something that we don't need. It's a free country and if someone has to buy himself to bankruptcy he is allowed to. But at what cost? DO we want people buying unnecessary goods and eventually defaulting on loans that the banks have to bear the burden of? This leads to spiraling debt cycle and the nations pays the price.

I think the movie makes a wonderful comment on this issue by showing just one family and it's lifestyle. It made me think. Why don;t we make our own rules, when it comes to our own life? I will buy what I can afford. Why can't spending time with family , cooking at home, working in community garden, talking to friends, reading books make our life rich? Why do we need every little thing the market offer? There is always going to be a new gadget in the market and latest fashion trends by Prada. What we need to do is get only that thing which makes our life more meaningful and I think most of us will that thing is never available in market and it is "Family"!

For last few weeks, the article that Yale Law Professor Amy Chua wrote has been circulating and has created an immense debate about "what is good parenting?" Now, Amy Chua has also published a book about her parenting style and I think this new debate has been a good publicity for her book. Of course, there are people on the both sides of the issue. Amy Chua's article brings out some good points about parenting and some extreme ones. It is her parenting and really we can only say that's her choice. We can not debate if it is right or wrong. We can choose our own styles when it comes to our children. The article and the debate made me think about my childhood and my parents.

Like many other parents I know, my parents had some flexible rules and some strict rules. Growing up we had to go to school regularly, do homework and get into extracurricular activities. I definitely enjoyed the extracurricular activities and studying was fun sometimes. I don't really remember me or my sister cringing about doing our work. We were always among the good students, may times topped our class. Ambition 'to be someone' was inculcated through talks and examples. But I don't remember the times when my parents went crazy about their expectations or resorted to horrible punishments. Of course, some times I might have felt, that they were too tough or demanding. But looking back now, I feel they struck a good balance between love and punishment. I think being a girl, there was never a hitting incidence involved but thinking, something I do might make them angry, was enough for me behave as they said.

I definitely would say that my parents made us think independently. When we were in college, many of their "have to do" s kind of vanished. We had some rules when it came to friends. We were supposed to bring all our new friends home. My parents have always been quite popular with both our friends and our friends would visit them even when we were not be there. I think at the age of 16 when I did not know how to judge people, this rule worked really well. It was kind of silent approval from parents to our friends and we never felt it was wrong or weird. As I grew older, I knew who I would take home, boys and girls included.

I definitely give 100% credit to my parents' decision to support me when I decided to pursue B.A. after 10th grade. Almost all my classmates from school opted for engineering and I knew my father wanted me to do the same. You know, how Indian mind set works. But I knew it was not for me. There were some opinion clashes but in the end I did what I wanted to do and I am extremely grateful to my parents that they support me till date even when professionally I am struggling.

Love for arts, languages, reading. theater, politics and most importantly public service is my parents gift to me. Till date , like most of the girls I have to call my mother to tell her when I see a new movie or read a new book or enjoy new theater production. Does it mean that we never had any disagreements? Hell no! I would fight with them about too many things. Like when they did not want me to continue to be a part of the theater team after the first year in college. I was so mad and upset, but after few days when the whole theater group ended up being a big political joint, I thanked them about their decision. I could never do anything if parents told me not to do. Initially it was fear of their anger and later on it was fear of making them upset or unhappy.

Small things and infractions are going to happen in any relationship. But the kind of close nit family we have, it's worth it. I don't know how others grew up, but as for me it was wonderful and happening and democratic at times. So even if some "happy child" philosophers would not agree with my parents choice of do's and don'ts; I agree with them 100%. I know that I am who I am because of them. Sacrificing a little bit of sleepovers or no theater times, was worth it!

A great setback to Democracy

On Sunday, January 9, 2010; Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in a meeting with her constituents in Tucson, AZ. Six other people including a Federal Judge in Arizona were dead and the congresswoman now lies in coma. The shooter was captured and is facing both state and federal charges. This news will be in air for next many weeks and pundits from all political parties and news reporters will tear the issue into the pieces using party politics, gun control, immigration and the other possible issues they can find. There will be discussion about whether the shooter is mentally ill or what was his motivation in spite many videos he posted on youtube about his ideas and thoughts. Sarah Palin's "Map" will become overtly famous and republicans will call names to all those who resort to violence. This whole drama will end as soon as we find new issue to chew on such as "Is Obama an American Citizen" or " will my taxes go down now that Republicans are getting back to power" and all those life changing and most serious issues. Hopefully, Giffords will recover and be back at her job in Washington.

I am speechless. Not frustrated, not horrified, just Speechless. The country that takes a great pride in its Democratic values and principles just saw how flimsy those values are getting or should I say the country saw no one cares about the Democracy as along as they can get few minutes of time on television or radio and use partisan politics to get elected. As Paul Krugman wonderfully wrote in his opinion piece in NY Times Climate of Hate, the time has come for the politicians to retrospect about the use of language when they are denouncing their opponents. I mean all politicians. I don't care if you are a liberal or a conservative, if you instigate your voters enough to make them kill someone, you are responsible for their actions.

I truly believe in democracy as the only method to govern any country. It is not the most perfect method but it is the only method that ensures that every single vote counts and every single opinion is heard. But when every single vote is only politically motivated, I have a problem. I believe that freedom of speech is the greatest gift that any constitution can provide. But how far do we want to take that gift? With great gifts comes great responsibility. The great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. used this gift to motivate millions of supporters to march towards "Freedom" in peace. Unfortunately, those kind of leaders are now almost extinct.

How far we want to let these political warmongers lead us? As Krugman says, as long as it brings money and time on TV, the politicians will say anything. When a commoner like me says something irresponsibly the result is me getting in trouble. But when a leader says something irresponsibly, the result is the country getting in trouble. And worse thing is, all this speech is not against some external enemy, it is against internal opponents who are viewed by thousands of the followers as "enemy". The beauty of democracy lies in the ability of having multitude of opinions. We need difference of opinions to make sure that the people don't get carried away by one side. Unfortunately, debate and arguments are no longer in the congress they are coming into our houses and into our lives. Why is that someone who has a different political opinion can never be your friend? If politics a business, why can't they argue and fight in congress and still be respectful of each other and mention that loudly to the constituents? The business of "spreading fear" is not good and the result is decided by a bullet than by a vote.

I cried blood tears over this. I am a champion of freedom for all. But I am also champion of freedom with great responsibility. Freedom is not an entitlement, it's an opportunity many do not get in their lifetime. With every bullet freedom vanishes in air and democracy dies a little bit more.

I really pray that congresswoman will get better soon and the nation will retrospect, even for a moment and see what we are giving up to achieve what!

God, Faith etc...

Are you a believer? I have been asked that questions a few times and other times I asked this question to few others. I have friends who consider themselves atheists and we always have discussions about God and religion and other aspects of faith in general. This country which is definitely founded on Judeo-Christian principles, definitely looks at faith from a certain point of view. However, it is interesting to see the change in public opinion, particularly the generation between 18-40 when it comes to the matters of faith or more particularly matters of religion. Percentage of atheists is definitely on the rise and I think percentage of people questioning the aspects of religion is also on the rise. Now, this particular post is not about exploring the changing nature of religion in society, but it is about my own thinking about the matter.

Being born and brought up in India, I have been exposed to many different religions and many religious practices. However, my parents were never "ritualistic". Of course, they do believe in God and have learnt Bhagwadgeeta and enjoy the more literary aspect of the religious texts. But I do not remember many incidents when me and my sister had to follow religious traditions. We celebrated all the festivals and my father did poojas. But it was never hard and fast and we were allowed to ask questions and often disagree with parents about religious traditions. I will definitely say my parents are believers but hardly religious.

I always distinguish between religious people and the believers. Religious people, as I have seen in my family and around follow all the rules and regulations without questioning any of it. I most definitely know that many customs and rituals in Hindu traditions have particular significance that has nothing to do with God. However, unfortunately people who call themselves very traditional and religious hardly know about such significance and I object to that. Many of Hindu customs and festivals are based on cycle of nature and weather and have environmental significance. Such as Vatapaurnima when women pray to Banyan tree for long life their husbands. Now, it's good to spend time in a garden full of Banyan trees and it also gave an opportunity to women (before they became independent) to spend time with friends away from household chores. There were many tress in forest 100 years ago. However, now the Vatapaurnima does not provide that cultural and environmental significance any more (there are no Banyan tress to begin with). But religious people often do not know about the background of such days and still continue practicing them. Of course, if you enjoy such days then it's wonderful. But many times I have seen people scrapping pennies to celebrate such days or fulfill such rituals. Fasting is a good thing but fasting for nine days when you are working full time is not exactly a health advice I will give anyone. This is where I have problem with religion and champions of religion.

I am a believer and I do feel good when I say my prayers and read philosophy. But I don't really care about the rituals. For that matter, when we got married in India, we did only four rituals that I had faith in. I think religion has nothing to do with God. In fact, if there is God I don't need a big bureaucracy to answer to before I can reach him. I believe that my understanding of God and my sense of safety is completely between God and me. I don't need elaborate ceremonies to prove to me that I am doing this to appease God. Since I believe in "Karma- Sindhhanta", I know I reap what I sow. So that completely cuts down all the unnecessary middlemen between me and God.

Being a person of faith gives me great comfort. I pray because it makes me feel better. Faith has nothing to do with religion. I remember this from one of the novels I read a while ago "I don't know any religion. All I know is God".