License.

I recently met a person who'd cleared his CA driver's license the 5Th time around. That was one time higher than me. I thought I'd blog about the nightmare I called "acquiring a license to drive"
People who know me know that I am a girly girl. I never really bothered to learn to ride a bicycle or a bike. Let alone driving a two wheeler, I was paranoid about crossing the road. Now I am talking about the good old Indian roads where you just walk past all those lorries and city buses madly honking at you (and those honks fall into a bedlam of a gazillion honks that flood your ears while your eyes look at the expanse of a jam like traffic moving at a pace possible only in action movies!)and wish for a miracle to reach the other side of the road in a single piece.
I heard people quote intelligent sounding sentences. "you are a handicap if you cannot drive here" an older man opined. "except that no one will pity you"
Well, I think he was right.
I was bent upon getting a license more to get rid of the people who haunted me in my dreams asking "do you have a license yet?" than to get rid of the "handicap - no pity" situation.
Sarat didn't want to teach me. yeah, the cliche of the first quarrel with the spouse. We'd actually had our first quarrel already but he didn't agree anyway.
I scheduled for an instructor to come and teach me by patiently calling all the numbers I found in the yellow pages, zeroing on the most friendly sounding fellow.
The D day dawned and I got out for my first lesson, and the second and the third till I found the guts to drive all by myself. I'd taken a good 8 months and three instructors in the process of "learning" to drive and already flunked a test one of my instructors took me to in Hayward.
Then came the time when Sarat thought that I could do the driving all by myself.
My second test was a miserable failure that lasted a good three minutes. I drove out of the DMV and heard a guy honk from behind, before I reached the signal. The examiner thought I was too slow and the rest was history.
My third time was pretty cool I though. At least till the time we completed the whole test and got out of the car (which meant that there were no critical errors) but the anti climax was that I was too fast. The instructor, a young Asia woman, called my husband and told him about the escapade of a driving test and refused the license as she thought I'd not drive in the stipulated speed limits.
It was time for a new written test that was more like one of those reading comprehension tests in CAT. The questions started pouring. Every time a person saw a car in eye shot, they would ask me the million dollar question. "Sp do you have your license yet?"
God knows how I tried to avoid any and all conversations and people that had a potential to ask me THE question. I spent quiet a few sleepless nights, virtually driving in my dreams that I dreamt with my eyes wide opened while on my back, staring at the ceiling and trying to sleep.
"It has just two controls, the gas and the steering" a well meaning friend tried to cheer me up. "It is not rocket science" a relative observed.
I had to take it opon me to prove that I am not "fine motor skill" deprived. I tried for the fourth time, which, surprisingly turned out to be the final time, the lucky time, the celebrating time.
This was four years ago. I never go on long drives. My driving destinations on a regular basis are the Bart station, the mall, the grocery store, the library or a few places that fall under the jurisdiction of the city of Dublin and Pleasanton.
It is a relief to have a Driver license when a store manager asks for an identity, it is a blessing to have on those days when you want that Quiznos sandwich bad and there is no one around to drive you there. It is a privilege to have when you want to hit that store that has the most happening sale before the bargain queens hit it. Most of all it is a boon to have when someone asks "Can you drive?"

Translation.

A young boy's original thoughtfulness translated into Queen's English.

Tears - Dual role of happiness and sorrow.

I wish nothing is really lost in translation here!

Vanity or Sanity?

Okay, I should not have tried to rhyme just for the sake of rhyming and now since I am outta that one word title, I could as well think of fancier ones like those beloved bollywood titles. That reminds me of how RGV mocks those awfully long ones. "hum aap ke dil me rehte rehte aap se pyar kar baithe!!"
Anyway, let me stay on track.
Valentina is a very smart woman. She is a great mother, a professional, avid gardener and manages to read when ever possible after walking that 100 pound horse that she calls "Max" ( Who is actually an adorable chocolate lab) and watering her garden with a manual hose every evening.
Notwithstanding, she does some not so smart things sometimes. Like coloring a 20 month old's finger nails and toe nails with a bright fire engine red nail polish. Now it gets to a point of concern for me when that 20 month old in question is my own daughter.
And the not being smart doesn't stop there. She pulls a lip gloss out of her pocket and gives it to Aarti, who in all seriousness mocks applying it to her lips.
"okay, you'll not find her in the bookstore" My smart friend foresees my daughter's future for me. "she'll be in Sephora buying make up and taking up modelling assignments later on"
fast forward to yesterday's afternoon when I went to buy a book in the airport. Interestingly enough, Sephora is right next door to the bookstore. I walk out of the store and point at Sephora and tell my little Brother what valentina thinks about Aarti. "Good for her" My brother exclaims. "I hope she will grow up to be in Sephora since men want trophy wives. Not intelligent ones"
We get into an argument about that.
Later one he says " trophy is okay, but a woman really needs to be mature"
I think about the whole thing long after the incidents which triggered the thinking. What matters more? Looks? Brains? Maturity?
What ever the answer is, I hope Aarti grows up to be the only woman in history who is a Noble laureate (in some fancy subject like Nuclear Physics) and Miss Universe at the same time.
Well, well....I am a mom and every mom has the world's best child!

Late night profoundity.

Okay, I break my own rule of a single word title for lack of expression. Should mention Phillipa Gregory's expression though when she speaks about Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth 1.
"One Queen who broke her heart for love and an other who broke her soul trying to avoid it"
That one sentence was worth all those midnight hours of reading.
I am off to buy more of her books.

Quote.

Blessed are those who give with out remembering and take without forgetting!

What meaningful words??

Offsprings

It was a nice evening. We were celebrating Shailu's first time visit to the bay area after she had moved to Texas and had her second child, a second girl. We wanted all the kids to come and pose for the camera. All of us were startled, some of us aloud, and some of us silently, at the sight of all the kids gathered together.

It was a nice evening as I'd mentioned. An evening of reunion and celebration. An evening of home made food, over stimulated kids howling at the top of their lungs and running around and grouping together to pose for our cameras and in the process letting us all know how truly blessed we are by their presence in our families. An evening of conscious realisation of how cozy, lovey dovey couples became moms and dads and cherished life's better things.

Picture : Front most, Aarti in her traditional attire (orange parikini) Anvita in her purple Pj's, Pranavi seating left to her (in lavender top) Vivek the baby of the gang (in the baby chair)

Extreme right is Atharv (orange t shirt) Sivani is black and white and a "say cheese" smile. Priyanka, the lil girl standing(full head of hair) The guy in specs far away (kush) Nimeshika (behind Anvita) and Shailu holding her second daugher (Anishka)

Missing are Advaita, Swetha and Srinath.

Kindness.

A town in coastal AP, India. Mid 90s.
A young girl. Probably 18. very Attractive.
Lanky, long smooth hair and loose fitting clothes. Her oval face accented with a pouty mouth, what someone described as a painter's nose and shining eyes that are not very large. Her slim waist looking almost non-existent in that loose fitting dress.
She stopped at an ice cream booth with a group of people on a busy railway platform. Looked like a family, or probably friends. She looked like she lost a bet, or she was probably celebrating something over a cup of ice cream with those people around her.
She took those ice cream cups from the vendor, her slender hands with perfectly manicured fingers stood out, painted an unusual lavender shade. Almost purple, and handed them to people around her. Finally it was her turn to enjoy a cup of ice cream. She suddenly paused and took a long look at a lad, poorly dressed, behind a poor looking man, probably a traveller to the east in one of those passenger trains. She didn't seem lost in thought. She quickly grabbed another cup of ice cream, paid for it and bent over to hand it over to the lad that was watching her. The moment the little boy had the cup in his hand, he peeled off its lid and started enjoying the ice cream without giving her a second glance.
People around her said something to her. Some of them looked at her with admiration. She didn't seem to care, for she was lost in that moment, relishing that satisfied look on the little boy's face, whose dad could not have afforded that expensive treat for his son.
***

I was 5. May be 6. In first grade. I had a guy in our class who soon left the school. His uncle used to get him lunch during lunch breaks. His uncle, probably 25 ish at that time always treated me specially. He used to look around the class and come to me to say hi. A very kind person he was. The way he talked to me and looked at me made me feel shy, perhaps a little special. One day he carried with him a hand book that had "thumbs up" logo on the front. An all red book that fit in the palm of his hands. On one side were a series of pictures where the famous Kapil Dev was hitting a six on a ball. On the other side were pictures where he opens a thumbs up bottle, drinks it and lifts his thumb up in endorsement. The whole class went berserk at the sight of this book which mimicked these actions like these were played on a screen when the book was held snug in the palm and the pages were flipped at a speed. This man came to me and gave me the book, all for myself when a group of kids glanced at it longingly. That day I took that book home and showed it to my mom and had it as one of my prized possessions thought I didn't know much about cricket except that the man in the book endorsing thumb's up was Kapil Dev. It was sure a novelty item back then. This memory will never leave. I still remember the man. How he looked, the length of his hair touching the nape of his neck and his tall lanky body. For his kindness, I do not have an explanation. Probably just a liking for a five year old little girl.
***

Chiyo. The protagonist of Arthur Golden's novel "Memoirs of a Geisha".
One simple incident changes the course of her life. A gentleman stops to spend a few moments with a nine year old girl and buys her a couple of treats. The Girl, in Koyoto Japan, coming from a tipsy house by the sea, with a sealed fate to serve as a maid in her Okio because of an attempt she makes to embrace freedom.
The chairman gives her a coin and asks her to buy a treat. This little girl buys her treats and sacrifices the change that could have bought her rice and fish for a month in a prayer to be a geisha so that she could entertain the kind person that had stopped to spend a moment with her.
Chiyo becomes Sayuri in pursuit of her love.

Kindness, whether it is a teenager buying an ice cream for a little boy, a five year old girl moved by the affection of a perfect stranger or a protagonist form an oriental Cinderella like story choosing her path of life, is a very profound quality. I hope every one can be at the giving and receiving end of it to make this world a better place to live.

Monster

Morsel.

Parallel???

I am trying to think about what I am going to write while my fingers dance on the key-board. Hmm..let's see. Should I just go with the flow and see where the blog leads to? Let me try. I'll name it at the end. Hope that will be a little easier.
Okay, let me reproduce a teenager's poem. I am not sure how much I remember.
A song of melancholy,
A sigh of grief.
A hope withered away by the strong wind of ego.
My humble heart, heavy with thoughts of all sort.
The radiant byegone days.
They inspired me in many ways.
............
A fact that pierces my heart like a thunderbolt.
That you are far away from my reach
but courage is what my ....preach
For the future's store (is this Macy's or something??:- LOL)
my hopes I restore.
Life is not what I have thought
(scratching head)
and love is not the thoughts I have brought
from the false world of fantasies.
........
........
......(okay I give up)
(can't remember!!! Rolling eyes)

A tear down my cheek shines
And whispers to me we are parallel lines.


Yeah, I know very childish, amateur. I should refer to my journal and update the forgotten lines.