Desi 'light'-packers - Episode 1!

Friday 04:15AM
Apr 6, 2007
Paris, France


The two walked out of Hotel Elysees Mermoz, Off Champs Elysees, hand-in-hand with not a worry in the world, feeling as independent as a bird on its flight, with a very exciting plan on their heads, as light as their bags. They boarded a metro train to Haussmann Saint-Lazare from St. Philippe Du Roule, from where they took another train to reach Gallieni. The two reached the ticket counter and bought tickets to board a 07:30 AM Eurolines Coach Service to Amsterdam, Holland.

"I am still not able to believe we are doing this" said one to another

" Yes, we are!" he said.

"Why did I ever buy myself into this plan? " she asked.

He laughed at her admiringly, combing his hair, ruffled by the brisk early morning breeze, with his fingers, which has become habitual.

"If we are going to pull this off, it is going to be a memorable one!", he said.

"Yes ", she replied excitedly and both exchanged excited looks.

"Tickets please", shouted the coach driver. He verified the tickets, helped passengers one by one, to board the coach.

"Here we go! I think we are crazy!", she said.

"I think so too!", he said and took her hand to sit beside her.

And the coach took off sharp at 07:30 towards the early morning sunrise, which showed, what a fine typical spring day it is bound to be! Spring in Europe is nothing but pure bliss! The sprintness in the breeze, brings a fresh inner feeling for walkers, striding by the innocent looking flowers exhibiting their bewitching smile as a bloom! She was looking outside the window watching all these sights trying to take-in and register every pixel of beauty spread in-front of her eye.

"Our eyes are a thousand Digital SLR's put together! I always wonder God's creations... our eyes, the beauty that lies in front of us! ", she said, eyes still outside the window busy capturing whatever it can.

"Why do you say that?", he asked, puzzled.

"When you hold a camera to take a picture of the frame which lies ahead, you will notice how panoramic our eye-view is and how little can these digital state-of-the-art man made machines , pack to a single shot!", she answered.

"Phew! I've realised this many times... but Kudos! beautifully worded!", he said appreciatively.

She turned away from the window still wide-eyed to smile at him. "Thank you!"

Brussels city center

The 10 hour journey continued through the picturesque town of Lille in France , then through Brussels and the industrial town Antwerpen in Belgium with light conversations between the two and a lot of sight-seeing. When the coach wsa nearing the border of Holland, excitement had started mounting again already! The two had travelled to Amsterdam before, the previous year and were so fond of this country for the spellbinding scenic beauty, the helpful people and the careless lifestyle.... And oh! Who can forget the windmills? ......

Ho! Ho!..... Holland!

To be continued...

Paatum naane Bha(Paa)vamum naane...

"Akhila nanna paadaraye! Paatu class la serthu vidaren". And there began the countless days of paatu class with the least amount of interest that could be spared for it, eventhough I was reasonably good in singing. "Nanna sruthi nikkaradhe, innikke serthudungo" were the words, I think, I would have never meant to forget, when my Paatu master Mr. K told on the day of Vijayadasami, to my mom and thatha ( my maternal grand-father). My thatha, happy and full of pride did as much publicity to this matter, as possible, adding to my misery.

Then came navarathiri golus, marriages where-in I was made to sing asking"Nee paatu kathundrukkiye, krishnar mela oru paatu paadu" which I would try to escape saying that I dont have my book at present, or that I have a bad throat, I dont know any songs on Krishnar, would go in vain. The agony I went through during those times were un-wordable. The situation rose to a peak when my bro's mrudhangam master would ask me to sing for him and my bro, to practise jadhi for the songs and for 'karpanajadhi'. My bro was damn good at it, that I started getting an interest singing for him. But still, golus and family get-togethers were still a no-no, where i wud get the center of attraction to sing. My mom would also teach me small songs and 'thukdas' which were composed by my patti(my paternal grand mother).

My paatu master would arrange for a kacheri on the day of Vijayadhasami every year with great violinists and mrudhangists, to get the feel of how to sing in co-ordination with them.
Every student and student groups would have to perform a mini kacheri with a small 'thani aavarthanam' for mrudhangam, each a slot of 45 mins to an hour! I learnt the format of a kacheri only with this practise! Everyone hearing the kacheri would appreciate me but still, I was one very non-interested person.

But, ask me to sing any ARR's or Anu Malik or anyone, I was always ready! I went through the agony of paatu class for a little over 2 and a half years till one fine day I was told not to sing for 6 months following a surgery in my abdomen. That was the end of my paatu class and the beginning of cassette and CD class days which were predominantly ARR, Jatin Lalit, Ilayaraja, Nandeem Shravan. I would just memorise each and every song and sing along with the cassette/CD, much to the fury of my dad-mom!

This continued to my college days and everyone appreciated the fact that I had a good voice and I could give life to the song. Even here I didn't give much thought or interest to singing. I started working after my college and there came a full-stop to my paatu. I became so busy that I could barely spend some time with my parents Due to the lack of practise and listening, my singing became not-very good to worse and even bad. When I met my hubby and found out that he is interested in music and would love to hear me sing, that is where I really got stung! Yes, I used to sing during the initial days of my marriage. That stopped too, due to no-reason at all! Now that, when I listen to MSS, Maharajapurm Santhanam, Semmangudi, Ariyakkudi, Hyd. brothers, I wish, I could sing ! But alas, even I loathe my voice. Paavam naan! Paatu class continue pannindu irundhirukalaam!

Home searching, made easy!

You must be aware by now that I have moved quiet recently to the great big umrika and having a blast here... not just alive and kicking !But when we were about to move here, we started getting anxious about the daunting task of searching a nice, commutable, safe place to live. We had been going through various places in and around San Francisco via internet thanks to the citydata info and shortlisting places to live for months and finally settled on three. Then came the search for the apartments nearby the train stations as we will not have a car for sometime . We had shortlisted those too from the information given by our friends and all time best friend internet. We had called all the apartments to fix an appointment from the next day of our arrival . The day after we arrived, we caught a train to the place where I live now, Dublin to view the apartments. The first appointment for us was in the morning. As our journey to SFO was just the previous day, we had Jetlag which made us get up wide awake early (3:30AM). We had very well made it here for the first appointment and saw the apartments they had to offer. It was a brand new construction and I dunno why, but new constructions normally attract me. The house was very nice and we both particularly liked one of the floorplans they gave us.

After the viewing was complete, we were enquiring the apartment people about the nearest grocery store, shopping mall, Indian groceries if any, etc., We were informed that we have a shopping mall nearby, 2 Safeways which is a grocery supermarket in CA(only in CA, I think so!) , a Walmart, 3 Indian grocries within the radius of 2 miles. We were also informed that the shopping mall is just 0.5 miles away and that we cud walk! Overjoyed, we got the directions and started to walk, we wud have walked more than 0.5 miles, the shopping mall still insight, we found none of the roads leading to them. We asked another passerby, and he informed us that we are walking in the right direction and it is another about 0.5 miles away. We finally reached the mall, walking under the blazing hot sun for around 45 mins.

We just suthi paathufied all of the shops and my husband was making me familiar with the American store names like Bestbuy, OldNavy, JC Penney, Mervyns, Macys, BedBath and Beyond etc., etc., We would have walked for another 2 hours and finally tired of travel, jetlag, walking and everything, we just wanted to catch a taxi back to the train station to get us back to San Francisco! When we came out to the flood of cars, we couldn't find even one taxi! Arreee yaaar! in India if there is something like a big shop, then ppl wud have even constructed a taxi stand! But here, eventhough I was warned about the country of no-public-transport a hundred times by my hubby himself, his bro-sis, my cousins.... I think I was too pampered in London to have a-minute-a-train-to-the-place-you-want-to-go style of transportation. We finally decided to go and talk to an old couple by the coffee shop about our situation. We told them that we dont even have the number or a mobile fone to call for a taxi. They were very kind to offer us help and called for a taxi on behalf of us! It does not stop there! When they saw us waiting for the taxi for nearly 20 mins the old lady, offered us a drop to the train station which she did very happily.She said that she is living in this place for the past 40 years and she has found no other place this good! We were floored by her help. Can you guess what we did next? We signed the apartment the next day! This is the only apartment we viewed and we are very happy now that we made this decision! With the view of Mount Diablo from your balcony and very nice people around what more could one ask for?

These are some of the photos taken from my balcony for the views I have mentioned!

It is a west facing balcony... and the sunset is un-imaginable... will post some good fotos of 'em later.

My travels....

Hello everyone,

Work was keeping me away from my computer. So I could not blog. I was just thinking about my travels through Europe for the past few days. I have travelled a little bit in mainland Europe when I was living in England. It is a beautiful country to live. The people in Europe have great sense of beauty. The houses they build -beautiful is an understatement. They decorate their houses in a very aesthetic way, have great sense for colours, great attention to detail (for eg., nowhere you can see a spot of paint extra when they paint). The houses and everything may be small when compared to US, but the way they keep it looking sparkling clean and tidy, during all times of the day, will tell you how much house-proud they are. The sense of beauty doesn't stop just with the house and the interior decoration, it extends to anything and everything they do....even the tiniest miniscule thing like gift wrapping. One will be astonished to see the care they take in doing even little things. I think the nature and its beauty, the rivers, breathtaking mountains and landscapes, has given people the inspiration to look beautiful ( which ofcourse is in their genes ) , keep, make or build anything beautiful. I think , they have taken nature as their way of life.

English people are very punctual. If they want to make an appointment at 3 o' clock in the afternoon, they reach the place at 2:58, wait for two minutes and then will press your calling bell on dot at three. This is a great thing to learn from them. French are very sharp and clever. They understand what you are about to say even before completing your sentence. One can ask ' Whats a big deal about it?' Most of the french are not that fluent in english. They can understand with only hints from the English we speak which is an extraordinary capability according to me. Dutch people are the most helpful and optimistic I have ever seen. They are very sweet, very very perfect as in the quote 'dutch precision' fully justified. Greek are the most intelligent i have seen. Oooooooooh we actually started to read greek when we were there for just 5 days in the country. Very few people know English and the speed at which they comprehend is amazing and the way they explain back to us makes you dumb! They are too good at mathematics and geometry. Then Swisssssss..... what can I say, with the mixture of French and German , the country looks all charged with positive energy... just enter Zurich airport and you will never feel like coming back! the ppl are sooo helpful, you will never believe, there was a stranger, who gave us a lift to the station Interlaken Ost, when we missed a bus early in the morning deviating from his office route for 10 kms..... this made us feel really good about them.

My memory train would not stop..... wherever we go we have a lot to learn about that country, the place, the people, their culture, which gives us the true insight of what the place is all about .... its a lot different from reading in books and newspapers!

I will continue about the countries and their natural beauty whenever I get some time to blog. Thanks a lot again for reading. Enjoy your day!