Happy Dassera!
Living in a foreign environment has me going nuts...Missing India has become second to breathing..now, before I get over dramatic with my post....Let me get to what I sat down to write. Previous experiences with people, places and things is what shapes a person's thinking. It is nice to see fellow Indians celebrate our festivals with appreciable enthusiasm. A common thought I get to hear is that, we get more religious and "wanting to preserve our tradition" while we are away. It is more like appreciating amma's simple rasam and kootu meal while in a hostel .....Things are different when you live out of your secure environment. It is true that you live where your next meal is destined for you. Also, it is difficult to say that we choose what we want in life, if we could, then why would so many of us crib day in and day out about missing home but having to live here for money and of course the living standards.


It is more of a vicious cycle, any amount of arguments will not work. It is nothing new that our generation is out of their home town. May be each one of our parents has moved out of their turf for a career, in my case from pallakad to hyderabad. My father still misses his home and smells and feel of pallakad. How different are we? Just that, the far off land is more accessible now, we are here. It been a thing as old as the mankind itself, may be we need to look at the aspect of staying back in the "America" as another migration for growth. It is each one's destiny where they end up living. If you are planning to go back home, it is just because may be you are supposed to be there!...my friends argue about destiny and say we choose our life... I dont want to argue on that...for each his own....it is just that they think they choose thats all!

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avial and rasam!!

It has been a long time since I had penned anything down. God knows how time flies!!

Or coming to think of it, I seem to have a gift...the art of whiling away time not doing anything!! just nothing!!..I have to admit, I am kind of jealous of people who have their life all figured out...lol....I swing from being a totally contented person to someone how is feeling a lot of turmoil with in...Nothing to do with what is wrong with me ...it is more to do with things which I realise are wrong and I am incapable to change!

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PLASTIC BITES!!

This time more than any thing personal to contribute , I thought I would jot down these pointers I found online.

Facts about Plastic Bags

• About 2.5 billion plastic shopping bags are used every year. That’s about 2,500 bags used per family per year per city (say pune or hyd)
  
• Plastic bags are made from oil, a finite resource. By using reusable bags during our shopping trips, we will use fewer plastic bags and help to conserve earth’s resources.

• Plastic bags thrown away as litter, dirty our public places, rivers and canals, and may even clog up drains, and this would lead to stagnant water and mosquito breeding.

• Plastic bags litter despoils nature trails, beaches and even chokes up mangroves and poses a threat to marine lives.

• If each family uses one less plastic bag a week, a small city like pune could save more than 50 million bags each year so imagine what that could do to a city like Mumbai.

Apart from these, not to mention the numerous other major crisis situations such as diminishing fertility of soil, depleting potable water sources, increased toxins in every other form. I might sound too anti plastic, but is it not sensible to avoid the cause rather than look for cure?

Let us consider a few intellectuals arguing about the concept of recycling, my request to them - PLEASE WAKE UP TO REALITY. Is it not a drain on our time,effort, money and resource to clean or recycle the plastic we use and add poisonous fumes to the already polluted air?

Every one is blessed with common sense. Lets shed our myopic view about things and think long term.........it would help our children to have a safer future. Let me add, they will have a future if we let the earth remain habitable or should I say, if we let the earth remain in the first place.

Please make an effort to understand this before putting your head into anything complex. Life is surely beyond the work desk and home and the next meal. Yes, I do agree that when food and other basic necessities are a question mark, we tend to get short sighted. But humans are intelligent beings and can think beyond hunting for food. Guess I am not wrong in assuming that we can do our bit.

Small things such as carrying your own bag is not as major as fighting for saving the tiger. But we need to understand that everything is interlinked and nothing can remain isolated on the planet. What we do comes right back to us.

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Visit to Asel Adams Museum

Now ....getting to some serious topics......last week I had been to Peoria, the Ansal Adams museum....felt good about the drive out of the campus......you can know more on Ansal Adams....@....http://www.zpub.com/sf/history/adams.html


As such US is a baby nation....my city , mana bhagyanagar is a lot older than this country itself....FYI...hyderabad, is 400+ years old city....infact to see and get a feel of how antique places/things in India can be, visit my sasuma's blog...
http://www.shamalakrishnan.blogspot.com

...and u'll see what I mean...

Now coming to US history.....Native Indians are the natives of this part of the continent....the rest of them have their roots in Europe and Africa, so they are as good as we can be..... just that they landed here a few years before we did........Its a different feel to see how things belonging to the 1800's are considered old and antique here....my family must be having nick-nacks which are older than that in my family home in kumbakonam......


I shall talk more about US history in days to come....The Ansel Adams museum was ok....pictures were good. The photographer has managed to capture the hues and colors of US during his time.......looked more like our max meuller bhavan and a display of a set of pictures......dont mean to sound overtly critical but thats true.....I dont want to get to being cynical about how things are not taken care of in India.....coz I am working towards that and will do it some day very soon.....I have seen most of my friends and family visit a foreign land and end up saying...WE HAVE MORE HISTORY IN INDIA...arre haan bhai! we do, to come to think of it, how much of our time goes into creating a website or say spend our earnings to atleast send ur parents to those places in India...or in promoting our art / crafts...that helps not complaining......now, now i dont want to be the granny....we are smart enuf to think of ways to improve things..just that we dont have TIME to spare........for things beyond our nose.........lol


That reminds me....how many of us think, leave alone doing anything, about conserving water, electricity or say even the pollution in general, the simplest thing we can do is to start taking our own shopping bag, and refuse to buy veggies in extra polythene packing, we can do atleast that!..............the person at the counter will not kill u if you refuse to take their plastic bags......thats basic we can do to not suffocate our EARTH with non-biodegradable stuff..all complain but few have the TIME to think constructively...we need to wake u before its too late.....our planet is what we have on loan from our future generations.........WE DONT OWN IT.............give this a thought..........better than wasting time on vetti paychu.

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Holi ..colours and much more.....

Its holi today....missed home .....though I don't play with colours, I do like the flavour of a festival around me....vadai and payasam, avial, rasam, appalam; a standard festive menu......miss ammaz food....i have two ammaz now, amma and mamiyaar..two amazing cooks.....hmm, the various flavours eminating from their kitchens and the lip smacking food...i really miss home...chalo got to go now......too much of food talk and food for thought.......let me be more detailed in my next post

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Back to the apartment

Its been quite some time since i left for st louis....had a real long break from snow, sunflower and much more....wanst able to handle things alone...it was getting difficult....maybe if i was fit and going, things would have been different..i still see flashes of springfield as it was in 2001-2002....clover as it was, people, commons and the path to the brookens....seems like a real long time, people have changed, things have changed, so did the indian crowd here. It feels like a different generation altogether....or maybe i have grown up thats all.... Cant say if i feel ok being back or am i just trying to get on with things put forth for me.....its like trying to win lost battles....maybe it would happen with me or maybe .???.....

Interesting facts about being back...hmmm.....let me think...got to being a student again.....Coming to UI my see like a no-big-deal for many...got to hear a lot about it...but little do these kids realise that reaching here could have been a challenge for many.....anycase, for each his own.....I guess i am too tired to think, to feel or to respond any more.....as you grower older each passing day brings in a different perspective to life...its how smart we are to grab and grow when opportunity is put forth... and by growth i did not mean on a superficial level..

there are no right or wrong ways to do things.....now...not in a mood to write further..i feel i havent done this right....doesnt sound new !!!

chalo then........

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Phew...racing against time

socha chalo bahuth din ho gaye haain kuch lika nahi....abh likne baiti tho soch rahi hoon kya likoon...

isi contemplation mein shabdh nikal aaye, tho sochna chod diya typing shuru kiya...abh hum ka bathayein...yaha kya chal raha hai..haal ekdum be haal hai...hum idhar pathi udhar...lekin phooti kismatva bhi kaahe satha rahi hai....bhagwan hee jaane....woh gana yaad aya..lambi judayi....gaa loon......nahi nahi ...doosre flat vale bhaag ayenge...becharoon ko is kadake ki tand mein kaahe sathana....heart mar lethe hai...hheheheh...

abh chalo mood nahi raha.. kal kuch aur sochke likthe hai..teekh hai na...kuch accha..kuch smart....

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Missing home :-)

Its been a cold day outside, I got up late and wanted to start studying but ended up delaying things as usual. Thankfuly i am done with my work due for the day...now coming to the weather...I am in st louis right now...its pretty cold outside.

Hey by the way blogging doesn't come naturally to me. Just got inspired by my kid sister to start off with a page for myself...she writes damn cute stuff...things she writes sounds and looks just like her..smart and cute.....psst..she doesn't know I could say these things for her....she has put in her pics from germany...looks like a damn neat place..i have been really wanting a trip to Europe one day with my hubby dear in the tow....


My stay in the US till date has had me racing against time to finish my assignments..thanks to my procrastinations(phew ..why did i ever use this huge word)....maybe could have delayed using it in the post..heheeh......



I am not in the school campus that makes a huge difference as I am not alone in my apartment It was kind of freaking me out for sometime..now i guess i'm ok.....I live in sunflower...name sounds nice..the aparment is not bad!!...just kidding ..its nice place to be..just that i miss my dude around me...this is what its like right now from my apartment stairs...

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for starters :-)

I have been thinking of blogging for a long time now ...I was caught up with assignments, submissions and studying and more studying ...phew!!..im lovinit of course ;-)...had been a student a long time ago getting into the mode is still a huge effort for me....just got a call from anju.....she is in LA ...my friend from teens....seems like a long time now......chalo i must be going now....promise ..i will be back soon....with some more good stuff...

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