Queen of Dreams

"A dream is a telegram from the hidden world." - writes Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, author of the book. The book is about a lady of Indian origin struggling and longing to know more about her mother and her job - dream telling. A very compelling read. I could very well relate to the characters. The author lives partly in Houston - 2 hours from where I stay!

Tea spoon

A tea spoon is all one needs to make a cup of amazing chai unless one needs a strong tea. That's why I do not like tea bags that contain a lot of tea leaves. I prefer re-using the tea bags for a second time; but unfortunately out of habit, I throw them after the first use :(

PLEASE MAKE TEA BAGS WHICH CONTAIN JUST A TEA SPOON OF TEA.

Parineeta

If you have not watched it, watch it NOW. http://www.parineetathefilm.com/

Akshardham Swaminarayan Temple, Houston

The following are the images of the Akshardham Swaminarayan temple, Houson. One of them is an upright image; but the other is rotated 180 degrees. Identify them and give as many reasons for the same.

Green Lizard

I spotted this on a nice Saturday morning. It was trying to get back to the hibiscus plant below when I caught it on my cam. I was fast enough to run to my closet and grab the camera.

Expectation

I expect to pass in the exam, said the student. But what have you done for the same, said the teacher. The teacher's stand was fine. But I felt that the teacher could have helped the student long back - when the student's grades were suffering; after all it was the teacher's expectation that all her students learnt something in her class.

Wedding Reception

It was a big queue waiting to give presents, shake hands and pose for pictures. The couple thought "What the heck" and went to the middle of the crowd and started dancing for the beats of the "light" music troop that was playing.

Conflicting plans

They are old and worn out. They want to live their rest of their lives with their son, now that they feel that there is nothing in the world other than their son. The son's work involves travelling. And ...

What colour is the saree :)

Is there a way to find out the colour from black and white pictures?

Chocolate house

As a kid, he liked chocolates - like most kids. Not just "liked", but "adored", I must say. Each day, he would dream of a house of chocolates - chocolates hidden inside couches, beds, shelves and even in the bathrooms. Later on, in his life, he became a manager of a big chocolate company. He liked chocolates no more and did not want chocolates at home. But, he liked his job. :)

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.

What is this?

Guess

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

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.

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.

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?

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?

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.

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 :)

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.