Thursday, August 25, 2005

An advertisement and its consequence

He advertised in the paper "Wanted a beautiful bride, with long hair, willing to give up her job, if employed". So much for his meticulous search, he did manage to find a girl satisfying his advertisement. For rest of his life he had to deal with lice infection he got from his once beautiful wife; for, she had become one couch potato having no work to do.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Guess


This is in my photo collection. Can you guess what this is?

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Perseverance!


I collected some melon(cantalope) seeds; planted them in a pot and kept the pot in my balcony. That's all I did! The seeds found their way themselves.

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Shopping bags

Biscuit packet covers, vegetable bags, juice and milk cartons, instruction packages - all of them go to trash once you open the supplies. My 20-gallons-trash-can gets filled up in just 2 days.

I wonder how much stuff (plastic bags, bottles, thermocole, paper, etc...) we waste owing to the extra careful packaging that we are used to.

I still prefer Indian style of getting vegetables: take your own bag to the vegetable shop, fill it with all the groceries that you need for a day or two. I saw this in Budapest, Hungary (when I visited last fall). I saw people carrying big jute bags for shopping.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Lost in translation

Situation: You are in a country where English is not a common language. Wendors Vendors, bus drivers, taxi drivers, teachers do not speak any language that you know. Most of the sign boards, grocery labels, newspapers are not in the language which you can read.

How will you communicate?

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Solution, anybody?!

Situation: You have an officemate who wears a perfume that distracts you all the time. You have tried telling indirectly to that person in some conversation that some perfumes are distracting especially while at work. Condition more worse : if you have to work with that person most of the time.

What will you do?

Monday, August 08, 2005

Is this a mistake?

They had nothing to talk with each other. So much for marrying and to have gone for an honeymoon... So, she advised her younger sister to get to know her future husband before marrying.

Sunday, August 07, 2005

Listen to me :)

Kavitha and her husband had visitors - about 10 relatives from her husband's side. She was looking forward for their visit all week long, sitting and planning on what to cook for them, arranging towels, setting up their bedding etc. When they arrived, she was excited to serve them her meals but was toungue-tied to talk - for all they talked was politics - national politics and familly politics, and she had not much inputs on them. She found that her young niece Sruthi was interested in music and was learning quite a few varnams. So, after tea, when everyone were up, she switched on her keyboard, switched on her sruthi box and started singing with Sruthi. Everyone were spell-bound by her voice and were talking about Kavitha's voice and music for the rest of the stay :)

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Memorial for a child

Yesterday, we attended a memorial for a child and her grand-mother. Last year around this time, there was a gas leak in one of the university apartments that I stay. The whole apartment was ripped off, and so was the family that stayed in it. After a few days, on August 2nd, a young child in the family died after suffering from breathing toxic gasses just before the blast. After suffering with fire burns for one month , her grand-mother also passed away. The rest of the family (including the unborn sister of the child who died) survived.

The university did a lot of things to the apartments, like fixing gas monitors, changing stoves etc. since then, but the loss of the innocent people will not be forgotten.

It felt nice to hold a small candle in remembrance of the incident. Our university president presided over the function. All the child's friends - who had played with her had signed up cards for her. They are planning on building a butterfly park with flowering plants in memory of the child - a place where her friends can play in the future.

Monday, August 01, 2005

Stars

I wanted to be out during the night; but had the fear of the dark; until I looked up at the sky and tried to locate the constellations : Corona Borealis, Bootes, Cygnus, Lyra, Orion('s belt), to name a few. We moved to a place more dark to see the milky way, and located other constellations : Aquarius, Libra, Herculus, Leo, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor; admist lots of other stars - Twinkle, twinkle little stars that are million years old!.

Thursday, July 28, 2005

My Teacher

He came to class on a Saraswati Pooja day ... and he knew that we all would have come to college just for attendence. Yes, it was a full house, with none of us even with a pen or a paper. He starts a conversation about Topological objects. This led some curious students to ponder deeply, thinking out loud; confusing him quite. Then he talked more and we pondered more; this time everyone. This repeated for quite some while ... and we returned home satisfied for not having wasted our day! The next day, we open our topology text and read the topological theories that we derived on our minds the previous day. WOW I will never ever forget that incident.

PS : Topology is a (Mathematical) subject that deals with sets.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Invitation for an arranged marriage

''You know, my daughter Jaya works for xyz company, in abc,US. There is a temple in her city and she visits it ever week without fail" said a mother, ''We got a marriage propasal for her from the boy's parents. He did his MS in the same university as Jaya and works in xyz in the same city where Jaya stays; the boy is interested in music, just like Rama. So, we thought 'why not?, we have to be a little outward'. We have fixed the marriage on ---, please do come with all the members of the family ". In abc, US, Jaya and Ranjan invite all their friends for their wedding in India - the friends who saw them going around for 3 years.

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Who cleans your house?

Switch on any channel on a weekend. You see a lot of advertisements on cleaning. Woman moping the floor, scrubbing the tub, cleaning the dishes, arranging a cramped closet using 'save-space polithene bags'...advertising a wide range of products from vacuum cleaners, disinfectent to dish scrub! I do not know what the market technique is, but I take it that it is the 'lady' in most houses..."Mama's got the magic of Clorox bleach!" :)

Life is like a day

Fresh and light like the morning;
Heavy as the lunch;
Peaceful like the evening;
Dark as the night.

Busy during the day time;
Restful during the night time.

Is there a tommorow?

Friday, July 22, 2005

Marriage

She got married and left to stay with her husband's family in a far-off-land. She lived with his people in a city that her husband grew up. After some years, she visits her family back in her village...

Ending 1: only wishing if her husband had also come along.

Ending 2: not alone; but with her husband and kids.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Death

Some bid farewell, the rest stay for a while to tell the story.

Monday, July 18, 2005

Not the same!

The kid was good in science, botony in particular. It was an anatomy class. The kid drew a nice cross-section of human heart; with veins, articles and lobes shown with detail; not the same as his, for, his heart had an extra hole.

Saturday, July 16, 2005

Be Careful!

A cell rings in the classroom. The teacher says "Please switch off your cell pho..." and there rings her cell phone.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Humorous reply

It's been quite a while that I am in a graduate program. So, I hardly attend any departmental tea, departmental seminars, etc.

But the other day, I wanted to remind myself of the people around me. So, I went to the graduate lounge and saw another graduate student who joined with me in the graduate program. It is hard for me to start a conversation, but he asks me "Hey, How are you?". For this I reply, "Hey, good, How are you?". I don't stop there, but go on ... "are you thinking about graduating (soon)?". He immediately goes : "hmmm, yeah I have been thinking about graduating, it feels good...it will be in a couple of years". WOW, how good I feel now :)