Mr. Bird's favorite place

We plan on getting to 1000 books as quickly as we can.

Early Weekend

We had a couple of days of pure sloth. It is such comforting to take off a random day of the week from work, stay in and mosey around. And it is more comforting to do it again the next day.  I shamelessly feigned injury and a physio appoinrment (both half truths) and skipped meetings and classes.  Ah! The privileges of graduate school life.  I told HG that it will stop when I get the big job.

What is the big job? It's the job after the PhD, of course. In my head, it's blown up a bit beyond proportion. The be-all and end-all culmination of 11 years of academic training. Some part of me knows that it's only the beginning.  True research happens when you are alone, with no advisor to go check with. Alone in the dark alleys of the unknown where everything could fit if you squint your eye but you know it's not even close to the truth.  I heard a very simple, torn-down definition of research the other day from a stats prof.  It's when you face something you have never seen before - and you start first by not being scared. You trust your skills and your intuition and begin.

Anyway, where was I?

Yeah it was Constable's birthday. And HG cooked us an excellent yummy dinner with a beef slow cooked to perfection, kappa, fish curry, rice and paratha.  Did I forget to mention gulab jamun?  Evening one we drank at home. Evening two we drank outside. I do feel for HG, trying to get along with a few borrrowed friends, all the while missing her real ones. Whenever, Constable's wife was telling us about her Girls Night out parties, HG feels twangs of loneliness.

We do find ways to have fun though.  Our latest is a series of balancing bottle acts.

We never stay the same

Today, as I climbed the stairs up to my office, a kid about 20 or so dressed in a suit asked if he could borrow a pen.  Since I was always losing pens, I had made it a point to keep one always in the laptop bag.

After some digging, I took out this particular laptop pen and gave it to him.  He walked away with it calmly.  I was confused - surely he was going to give me the pen back. What if it was a favorite pen?  He didn't even ask if I wanted it back.

The old bird, with his enormous wordly patience, would have hesitated.  Excuses and reasons would have been made in the other's defense.

This was getting to be something other than about the pen.

I followed him into a room where other formally dressed kids were writing what appeared to be an exam.  I saw him go to the proctor, sign himself in and turn around when I caught his eye.

Hey, know what? Keep the pen.

He shamefacedly grinned.

That Time of the Year

Yes, its that time of the year again. And this time, it's the one that makes me three decades old.  I don't have a problem per so about getting older.  It's just that I've been feeling pretty banged up recently, what with two back to back injuries and all that. So yes, when the day came around, I did feel a bit old if only in the aching parts of the body.

But.. but...

My wife made sure that it's been my best ever. She had a tough task, what with 29 of them birthday days to beat.  Not that they were all spectacular.  In fact, her being here would have made it special.  But oh boy, did she knock this one out of the park. There were suprises after suprises.  All of them extremely unexpected.

My real birthday came two days after my 'star' birthday - you know - the one where the mother looks at the Malayalam calender and declares a date.  So friday - star birthday, Sat - bars close late, Sun - real birthday = a weekend of celebrations. The suprises were evenly distributed too.  For example, we walked into a grocery store on Friday right after I got off class. I was headed to the wine section when I was stopped by the wife, who sternly told me no alcohol on star birthdays. I stood looking at her with my mouth open.  She's never pulled the religious card on me, ever.  So I muttered and told her I was suprised at her change of attitude. We reach home, and I discover tons of food in the kitchen.  LIKE TONS! All of my favorite dishes were tastefully matched with other dishes to make it one big family package of a menu where every food item got along with every other.  And payasam. And..there was beer in the fridge.  I gave my giggling wife two seconds of a head-start before I chased her.

Saturday was drinking night.  A bunch of people toasted to my general health, and there again another suprise.  The wife had custom ordered a cake. There it was with 30 candles lit.  30 trick candles so that you blow and blow to get it out only to have it spark up again. The irony is that I had bought these candles myself a long time ago only to have forgotten it's existence. In short, I looked like an out-of-breath fish. The wife, of course, was giggling.

Sunday was the quiet day.  We saw Dhobi Ghat. And liked it. A lot. We spend it with no one else but each other.  I would have had it no other way.

If only I can keep this woman giggling for the rest of her life..

About damn time

After spending 10+ years doing stuff on computers, I finally find out how and actually build a website.

Now I understand how illiterate guys make it in the world.

Candidate for The Daily WTF

"Hello,

Thank you for your email. You have reached me during a peak time in the office. I will answer your email as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience and understanding! 

Thank you,

..."

I was contemplating going down to this person's office.

AAAagh - Part 2

Part 1 is here

We all thought there wouldn't be a part-2. But ..there is. No sooner did we reach Frankfurt that we saw our connecting flight to Muscat was canceled. Our first reaction was - wait, that can't be right.  The airport was functioning, since we just landed in to this place and this place was definitely Frankfurt.  Planes landing equals airport working, right? Well, the runways are closed, they said. So that meant that the flight was canceled because they couldn't clear some runways, they said. We will put you on the waiting list to the next flight to Dubai, they said.  Waiting list? To Dubai? How are we supposed to go from there to Muscat? Oh, they said, there should be flights there that you can get at ticketing where there will be no 5 hour waiting queue. Like the one here in Frankfurt.

OK We'll take it. Waiting list. pssh, with the kind of luck we're having I was mentally preparing for a night's stay at the airport.


Just then, our luck decided to show up.  They were tons of people who didn't show up to the Dubai flight cuz they were stuck somewhere else.  So we got in, and I collapsed in relief on HGs shoulder.  HG, poor HG, who was near tears. Anyway, we got in on the flight, along with other kindred spirits such as a Calgary girl who spend 20 hours at the airport and an Indian dude who was with us. We got to Dubai and after some smooth talking from Mr. Bird, we get on the next flight and finally reached Muscat after 4 days of travel.

You know what the kicker part is? Our luggage showed up as well, loyally following our random flights to random airports. We totally did not expect that.

And now we are here, among family with all their love and the familiar smells and the immensely warm food and beds.  And we celebrated the dad's birthday today.

And tomorrow is our anniversary.

Most people I talked to (and whom HG talked to) gave us wise-wisdom words on how the first or the first two or the first three years will be the toughest.  After that, they said, it'll be all OK. I braced myself for these 'tough' years.  But it has nothing like these premonitions. Maybe because we treat each other extremely well. We take care of each other, supporting the wishes and weaving around differences with a something that is distinctly becoming natural. We treat each other so well that the knowledge that this person loves me stays within us. And when we do fight, we somehow always restrain from delivering that extra punch that could hurt.  Of course we fight. Heck, am the usual mouth off. And my tendency to dismiss some things is becoming quiet obvious. But there's so much clarity around us that my hitherto quelled intuitions immediately gives me warning signs.  And she, she's just as natural and true and sensible as they come - a person so connected with intuitions and movements that it's little surprise that she writes well.  As someone who's been pretending for so long and who just recently discovered what being true meant, this quality of hers astonishes me. I will always look up to her.