A long absence

A big hello to all my blog friends, after a long time.

I know I've been completely M.I.A recently and haven't had time to update my blog, or drop by and read and comment of my favorite blogs.
Life has become super hectic these days, and it's just been one thing after another, and I haven't been able to keep up very well.

This is just a post to let all my friends know that I'm alive, still here and will be returning in full form very soon. Hopefully by next week. I have quite a few posts in the works for days now, and will be churning them out once I'm back.
I'm also gonna try and catch up on my dose of all the fabulous blogs I missed while I was gone .
Hope everyone had a nice thanksgiving weekend, and got their fill of shopping.
See you all soon !

Why the needless damage ??

Image source : toondo

The festive season is upon us, Indians in India and around the world are celebrating one of their biggest festivals... Diwali ! Happy Diwali to all my blog friends around the world !!
I've mentioned before on the blog, that I'm not much of a religious person, so for me festivals don't have a high religious significance, however that does not mean I don't celebrate them, I love celebrating any ocassion, big or small and festivals are no different. I love to celebrate them, including diwali and enjoy the festivities associated with it .

A decade of bliss

I rarely write about my personal life, because that is not what this blog is about , however this post is one of those few posts about my life. The event is such that I really felt like I should blog about it, just to document the momentous occasion in my life. It is the occasion of my 10th wedding anniversary. My marriage has completed 10 years this week. Although it seems like just yesterday that we were those two crazy kids (and we practically were just kids)  in love, without a care in the world, who decided that they wanted to spend their lives together.

Debate audience or lynch mob ?

America is nearing another election year. The race for 2012 seems to be getting hotter every passing day . I am a keen observer of US politics, it is a fascinating topic for me. America is a polarized nation when it comes to political views. Now that the elections are getting close, emotions are reaching a peak, and the nation seems more polarized than ever.
Currently the debates between the pool of possible candidates from the Republican party (GOP) who could contest against President Obama are on. These debates are an interesting watch in general, but this year there's a peculiar aspect of the debates that has made more people sit up and take notice.

Light a diya !

This is just a short post to let my blog friends know about a cool diwali feature that is available on the website NRI matters.
It is called light a diya. Since diwali is fast approaching, they've come up with an interesting little feature that can help us send diwali wishes to near and dear ones. Here's some more information about the application.

To Akka with love !

Image source : fotosearch

" Kuch log ek roz jo bichad jaate hain,
   woh hazaroon ke aane se milte nahin,
   Umra bhar chahe koi pukaara kare unka naam,
   Woh phir nahi aate, woh phir nahi aate "
  

These lines are from a well-known hindi  song , whenever I hear these lines, I'm reminded of my Akka.
Losing a loved one is probably the hardest event in anyone's life, and it was in mine too, but not only because I loved Akka, or she loved me, but also because she was one of the most extraordinary woman I'd ever met in my life, and had a big impact on me. She showered me with love, like only a mother can, she spoiled me silly like only a grandparent can, she taught me life lessons like only a teacher can and she got me to trust her and confide in her like only a friend can.
My friend, philosopher and guide, today I share with you, the story of one of the most important person of my life......Akka.

The breathtaking Canadian Rockies

This is a post to brag about where I live currently. Alberta is home to the  Canadian rockies , and one of my favorite things to do is explore the beauty of the rockies, they are beautiful and maginificent, and indeed breathtaking !
So in this post, I'd like to share with you some images of the lovely canadian rockies, hope you like them as much as I do.

A daughter is a blessing too !!!!

Image source : arthit

                               A daughter may outgrow your lap, but she will never outgrow your heart
                                                                                        ---- Author Unknown                                                                                                  
This sunday i.e the 25th of september 2011 was world daughter's day, as a daughter as well as the mother of a daughter, this day certainly is very special for me. It is the only formal occassion  to celebrate being a daughter or having one.
I am not one of those who think that daughters are better than sons or vice-versa. There's something unique and wonderful about all children, and god gives us children that we are supposed to and meant to have in our life, so be it a son or a daughter they bring a whole lotta joy into their parents lives .

The life of an IT wife

Image source : funinstore

If you came here thinking, this is a post about a -'Tag-you're it" game between wives, or a wives manual on how to become the 'It' wife, i.e the wife that has it all........then I'm sorry to disappoint you, it's about none of that, lol.
For those who may not know (what were you living under a rock somewhere??), IT stands for Information Technology,  or the computer software industry, or as many Indians consider it , the magical industry that has helped shape the careers of the millions of engineers churned out by the countless engineering colleges of India each year.

The changing face of the desi Dad

The desi dad has undergone some changes in recent years . No, I'm not talking about them getting pot bellied, or bald, or getting cosmetic surgery to change the way they look . Nor am I saying that the desi moms are changing partners often, LOL.
I am referring to the role the desi father played in his home . His role has undergone a paradigm shift in the recent past.

The Real Desi Housewives of Silicon Valley

This is an article of mine, which was published recently in the online magazine 'The NRI' .
As I said in my last post, that I would be informing you all, whenever I have something new that gets published. So here's my latest venture.

Of changes, milestones and gratitude

I have been a late and fairly recent entrant to blogging, have been reading some blogs regularly for over three years now, but somehow never thought of blogging myself. I thought I'd have nothing to write, I thought I have nothing worth saying, that anyone would like to pay attention to and come and read my posts...so just remained a blog reader....

Why sita sings the blues ?

Anyone who grew up during the 80's in India, during the era of doordarshan (i.e pre cable tv era) , has definitely seen the epics of Hindu mythology, which were made into television shows on doordarshan, i.e the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Both were hugely popular shows, causing deserted streets, during the air times, because of their popularity. These epics have a very big significance in the Hindu religion, why I am not exactly sure, but I've been told that they are important.  Recently I happened to come across a narration of the Ramayana, through a different angle, i.e from sita's angle. It is an animated satirical documentary film, by Nina Paley called sita sings the blues (warning : it is mature subject matter) . It explains the story of ramayana through the eyes of sita, while also having a parellel narrative of an American couple and their split, eventually relating the story of sita to the modern woman. It got me thinking about the story of Ramayana, and in turn about most of hindu mythology and it's treatment of women, from an angle I hadn't given much thought to before.

Group Dynamics of women

Image Source : This is your conscience

In my last post about the way female bonding is represented in Bollywood, one of the fellow bloggers Preeti, made an interesting comment about the whole issue of female bonding.
In my post I had alluded to the fact that in society many think that women are incapable of long standing, deep relationships. I have mixed feelings on this point. On one hand I do believe that women are totally capable of long, deep friendships, and can be honest and supportive to one another, but I also agree that this is more the case of one on one friendships or with a small and close group of few girls.

Where's the sisterly love bollywood ?

Image source : Prairie girl

I had heard some good reviews of the latest bollywood hit ' Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara ' (roughly translated is you only live once ) . Many of my friends were raving about it on facebook, and twitter, so I was super excited to see a good bollywood movie. Although the movie wasn't disappointing, beautiful locations, nice songs, good performances, overall a good bollywood movie, but one thing that kinda struck me was to see yet another movie dedicated to the close male friendship bond.
I guess I've seen one too many bollywood movies about  brotherly love, and male bonding, so the less than enthusiastic reaction, and, it begs the question in my mind, 'Where's the sisterly love, Bollywood ???'. Where are the movies showing similar close female bonds, with their girlfriends ?

Happy Independence day !!!

Image Source : Computer-wallpapers

                                                      Thankyou Blogadda !!
                                                                                                                  

This year the world's largest democracy celebrates it's 65th independence day. It was many moons ago on the 15th of august 1947, that India's freedom struggle against the British finally ended, and the British left India for good.
I am actually proud of what India has achieved since independence, considering that they'd been robbed of so much for so long, by the British, and also considering the humongous sized population and the kind of diversity there is in the nation.

My disenchantment with Raksha-Bandhan

Image source : yah.in

Many Indian homes will be celebrating the festival of  raksha bandhan or rakhi as it is usually called, in a few days. Sisters all over Indian homes, will tie a sacred thread on their brothers wrists, reminding him of his duty of protecting and loving them.
It is a beautiful tradition that celebrates the bond and love shared by brothers and sisters.
It has roots in hindu mythology, with many versions of it's origins, the most common one being the one where draupadi tore off a piece of cloth from her sari to tie up a bleeding wound on krishna's hand, and he in turn promises her to protect her and repay her debt down to the last thread, which he later follows through on, during the attemped disrobing of draupadi in the royal kingdom, when he magically appears and keeps adding fabric onto her sari, eventually saving her from getting disgraced.
Thus began the tradition of rakhi, or raksha bandhan (which roughly translated means a bond of protection) .

Just the two of us

The Delhi slutless walk

Image Source : Indian Express

It was a warm sunday morning in July, in Delhi, the capital of India, and a few hundred women and men took to the streets for something called a slut walk . For those of you, who haven't heard what this walk is, lemme tell you, it's nothing creepy, it's actually a women's movement. You can get a detailed account of this movement here .
In a nutshell, it started, when a Toronto cop made a statement saying, that women should avoid dressing up like sluts (i.e provocatively) so as to avoid getting victimized (raped/molested). This triggered a response in the form of thousands of women marching the streets of toronto (many dressed as so called 'sluts') with messages written on their body or holding placards reading things like 'Don't tell us (women) how to dress, tell men not to rape' . The movement spread like wildfire across the world with similar walks being held in multiple cities in the USA, england, australia, new-zealand, across europe, across south america, etc. Women everywhere were inspired to take a stand and make a statement about not accepting being branded as sluts for taking charge of their bodies and sexuality.

Amazing Vancouver !

I recently took a vacation to Vancouver, Canada. What an amazing city, such beauty all over, I'm so jealous of all those who get to live there, I would move there in a heartbeat. For now, here are some images from Vancouver.

View of downtown Vancouver from the hotel 'The Fairmont Vancouver'

The debt debate drama

Image source : ecorealty

Uncle sam seems to be facing a financial crisis. He's running out of money, and needs to borrow, problem is, he is already pretty deep in debt, and  there is a constitutional limit on how much he can borrow,  and has reached that limit. The Obama government, has approached the US congress to vote in favor of rising the debt ceiling, so it can borrow more, but the opposition party, isn't very much in favor of this, with little regard for the consequences. So we have on our hands a raging debate, heck an all out war going on in the country currently between the two parties of the country, i.e the democrats and the republicans. It's explained in a nutshell here

Will the real ABCD please stand up ?

(Image source : wikipedia )

The only reference I had to ABCD growing up was, while learning the alphabet . It was only after living in the USA for a while did I hear those letters in a different context. To those of you reading this, who may still be unaware of what these letters stand for......ABCD is an acronym for American Born Confused Desi. 
It is a phrase which is meant to describe the unique breed of people who are second generation Indian immigrants to the USA, i.e kids who are born in America to parents who are immigrants from India . It is supposedly used to describe the confused state of mind regarding their cultural identity of these category of people, in other words a confusion between their Indian-ness and their American-ness that exists in their minds .

East or West....Mom knows best !

Image source : joansheartart

A few months ago, I came across this interesting article . It is by Amy Chua, author of the book ' Battle hym of the Tiger Mother'. The article and the book caused quite a stir in the American parents' world . Blogosphere and parenting forums  everywhere lit up with reactions ranging from disappointment to disgust, to even calling her an abusive mother. The western world found it difficult to accept a parenting style so polar opposite to common parenting styles in their part of the world. While almost everyone seemed to universally reject her ideas and tried to distance themselves from her (even other asian mothers who said she was giving them a bad name), yet somehow her book remained on the Newyork Times best seller list, so certainly people out there wanted to know what she was talking about .  Here's  an interview of Amy Chua, after the backlash about her article and the book. The wall street journal even posted a rebuttal  article to Chua's article. I haven't read Chua's book (yet), but upon reading the article, I couldn't help but wonder, how I could substitute every place it said 'Chinese' in the article for 'Indian' and it would still be rather true.

The Resilient spirit of Mumbai ??

  Image source : New statesman

My dear Mumbai is hurt again. India's commercial capital was rocked on Wednesday by a series of 3 blasts at 3 major hotspots of the city. Read the full report here .
Growing up in a city which was such a favorite terror target wasn't exactly easy, every now and then the incidents would remind us of the dangers lurking around us. I still remember the very first time my city was injured 12th March 1993, when a series of 13 blasts rocked the city to it's core, as a school going girl then, I couldn't fully grasp the gravity of the situation or why it had happened, but the tension was palpable.
Then in the years that followed, Mumbai has seen around 13 attacks, some worse than others, but each one a hole in city's spirit, the worst one being in 2008, when the city was literally hijacked for days, at the whims of some lunatics, from across the border .
Yet it was always somehow, seen that Mumbaikar's had a tough exterior, they could bounce back from the worst travesty and resume life as they knew it. This was touted as the 'resilient' spirit of the city.

Mirror Mirror on the wall....Who's the fairest...???

.....Of them all.
Strangely enough this dialogue where fairness is used as a word interchangeable for beauty is not from any bollywood movie of India. The fairness fixation of Indians is a well-known phenomenon, and much has been said and discussed on the topic. My reason for making a post on it, is mainly triggered by a few posts I recently read on blogs by western women, who couldn't fathom this obsession of Indians.
The first post was this, followed by another post here . My reply on the first post essentially triggered the second blogger to blog about the topic. I had poured my heart out over the topic on the two blogs, so I felt that maybe I too should blog about the topic in my blog to present my point of view about this confusing and puzzling obsession.

O Canada !!

Happy Canada Day to all fellow Canadians !!  Also, happy 4rth of july for my fellow Americans .
It was my first time celebrating it (since I'm new here ), and I really enjoyed it .
I know most of my posts talk about US, and that's because I've lived there for the past 8 years, and am fairly new to Canada, and still just getting to know the country, so this post is a break from my posts about life in US.
Today I'll share with you some images from the Canada day celebration from my neck of the woods.

Desi life in Videsh

This post is more of a continuation of my older post,  The melting pot that is America , this post deals with how majority of desis live in the US, and what life we have there .
I my earlier post, I focused mostly on desis interaction with Americans, in this post I shall talk about how desis in US interact with other desis.
The Indian American community in US has grown quite a bit, especially in the last decade, since outsourcing took off in a big way, as a result in most big cities in US, there usually is a pretty good size desi population present.
How easy it is, to find other desis to hang out with varies from place to place, IMO, the best places when it comes to this are most of the east coast like the tri state are, Philadelphia, NC, DC and surrounding areas, etc, then bay area most definitely, it has a vibrant asian scene overall, but also has huge desi presence, mostly due to silicon valley proximity, Chicago also has decent sized population, TX is another huge desi hub, Houston, Dallas, Austin, all places have sizeable presence of desi population, and if you're a desi who happens to live in any of these areas, then you'd have no problems finding desis to hang out with, and chances are that within a month of moving to any of these places, you'd  have your weekends filled with socializing activities, and could actually want a breather from them .

The melting pot that is America

It is often said that America is one big melting pot, and I've often wondered what that means ?

Does it mean that as in a melting pot, everything must lose it's original shape/form.color etc, and become one, likewise those who choose to come here/live here, must lose their uniqueness, or cultural identity, in order to become one with the rest of the country .

I also grew up in a country with a lot of diversity, yes it wasn't people from different countries per se, but anyone who knows how India was formed after independence knows that most of the states now, were actually separate kingdom's or regions all together, so there was a lot of difference among them, this is one of the reason, why Indians still don't always identify themselves as one block (they do so politically, but on a micro level, among themselves, not quite).
If one Indians meets another, (especially if they are out of India) they are almost certain to ask the question which part of India are you from ? There's quite a bit of cultural diversity between different regions, also there are people practicing a whole variety of religions, Hinduism being the main one, but apart from that Christianity, Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, etc. So diversity is nothing new to me .So I thought that America wouldn't be all that different for me to adjust to either, it'll be diverse, just on a more widespread level .

Nostalgia

Came across this video on youtube, and thought I'd share it here :

So what makes an Ideal Indian wife, anyway ?

There's a famous sanskrit shloka , presumably from one of the vedas (presumably, coz I have zero knowledge of the vedas), it lists the qualities an ideal Indian wife should possess, and goes like this :

" Karyeshu Dasi, Karaneshu Manthri,
  Bhojeshu Mata, Shayaneshu Rambha,
  Roopeshu Lakshmi, Kshamayeshu Dharitri,
  Satkarma Nari, Kuladharma Patni "

Allow me to elaborate on it's meaning, for your enlightenment :)

When mother's turn monsters

They say " Because god couldn't be everywhere, he made mothers " . Motherhood is a very important part of most women's life . I know women who say that they were put on this earth to be mothers. I too feel like one of them, the day the doctors handed that tiny little delicate darling in my hands is the most memorable day of my life, I was changed in an instant, never to go back to what I was before that moment . Everything inside me felt like protecting this vulnerable, defenseless little baby in my hands, the world was a bad place, and only I could keep her safe . I imagine, this is close to what other mothers feel as well, it's part of being a new mother, part oxytocin gushing through your brain doing it's job .

Money, Indian parents and a sense of entitlement

" Na biwi na baccha na baap bada na bhaiyya,
   The whole thing is that ,
   Ke bhaiyya sabse bada rupaiyya"
Translation : 'Nor your wife, kid, father or brother, is as important as money' !!
Wait a minute, this isn't some new age philosophy I'm spitting out, it's a famous bollywood song from the 70's.
It's a satirical song which describes how money is taking precedence over relationships in modern times .

To be or not to be?

Not discussing Shakespeare here, I'm taking about whether to remain a stay at home mom (SAHM) or not ?

A little background first. I'm a post-graduate, with a professional qualification . I worked briefly in India for a leading bank. Then moved to US, luckily was on a visa type at first that allowed me to work, even though I was on a dependent visa. Got a job within 2 months of landing, I worked for roughly 3-4 years on that visa, in couple of different banks in US . Can't say I really prospered in my career, because even though, I got superb feedback from my employers and was offered more responsibility and higher positions in almost every job, but I couldn't really accept the promotions, due to us moving all the time, I didn't wanna in good faith, accept a promotion, knowing that a few months down the line, I'm gonna be quitting that job, to move to a different city .

Home is where the heart is ?

I was listening to this lovely song by 'Michael Buble' the other day called 'Home', and it got me thinking, does home as a concept stay constant in our minds, or is it ever evolving, ever changing or is it some fixated notion in our minds, which we keep going back too ? People jump through a lot of hoops to make a home , home-ownership remains an important step in a couple's life . If a couple happens to get a divorce, then who gets the home is also usually an important issue . In the current era of home foreclosures and such, it brings even more focus to the concept of home and what it means to different people .

Hello blog land

A big hello to all in blog land.
I'm here to join the ranks with all of you who love to write/read blogs and exchange ideas and opinions back and forth.
I hope this blog will allow me to connect with many of you out there, who are in a similar situation to me ( living in a different culture and trying to adapt to it, while staying true to your own)  or anyone who's trying to balance different cultural influences in their lives, and make some new friends in the process .
A little about me :
I was born and raised in Mumbai, India, moved to US around 7-8 years ago, mainly due to hubby's work, have recently moved to Canada, let's see how this new adventure in our lives turns out .
See you all soon .