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Monday, July 18, 2005

Happy Buddays

While I was thinking about ‘blog worthy’ topics to post, something that was funny and memorable, I realized nothing beats the gal palz birthday party escapades. Btw "Gal Palz" is what we have officially labeled ourselves, complete with branded merchandise ranging from T-shirts, collages declaring everlasting friendships to the customary yahoogroups. "Bindaas Babes" was also strongly rallied for, but then we wanted to keep it real.

Another topic I thought about that came a close second, was documenting how almost each one of us has been called someone’s mom at some point in time (and no, none of us are even remotely lurking around motherhood) …but since that issue is still a little raw I decided it was wise to stay out of it atleast for the time being. I am still recovering from that accusation from our 60 yr old neighbour. Considering she could'nt speak hindi or english to save her life, she butchered me with that one word. I console myself everyday- its not me ...its her !!.

Like every girlie groups (or boyie (?)- girlie groups...I would'nt know as I was always in girlie groups) surprise birthday celebrations have always been a conventional way to show we care. That or just the fact that 'ab ek ke liye party kiya tho sab ke liye party karna hi padega'. We usually stuck with the same protocol ...sometimes even the same wrapping paper- one of the advantageous of not having girls that ransack the whole box to open their gifts. Firstly there would be the spate of emails flying into the inbox at 50 mails/hour. This phase would typically range from a thanda Code Green to a catastrophic Code Red that would be directly proportional to number of days remaining to execute the surprise 'happy budday ritual'. The plan would be to barge into the victims’ room the minute the clock struck 12 and break into the traditional and offkey "happy birthday". This was never really a surprise because each of us knew the gang was standing right outside the door thanks to the loud whispers and the light from the tiny bonfire caused by the 20 something candles. The only time this turned out as a true surprise was when one of the girls playfully warned us not to bother wishing her at 12 and destroy her beauty sleep. Boy...was she surprised, when we obediently did'nt show up !!!

Over the years we have had countless parties. From plain-jane to wild-two-day-hangover kinds. We have had our disagreements over perfumes and photo frames, gift cards and gift receipts. But the memories of each and every person's birthday is still fresh in our minds. Ok maybe not every one of them ...but there are some that stick out:

There was the surprise, for which we drove 4 hours to Chicago, to wish the birthday girl. She had spent the entire day sulking. The drama queen, that she is, quite predictably wouldn’t stop talking about how 'surprised she was' when we all showed up with cakes, candles and confetti. We didn’t have the heart to tell her, we were more interested in her sis’s ghar ka khana and Sony TV not to mention her adorable niece.

Then there was the poolside grill party with bucketloads of chicken and paneer. It was memorable because this probably was our first attempt at doing a la-american pool party. After hours of unsuccessful attempts to light up the grill and seeing that junta had started munching on the raw paneer, entire crew moved back home. To cut a long story short, 3 hrs and a tornado-struck-smoke filled kitchen later, we had enough pav, paneer and chicken kababs to feed a village . The party was for a girl who would rather have sugar in her veins instead of blood. So there were 7 different sweet dishes (one for each day of her birthday week) and three cakes with one baked for the sole purpose of smearing on her face. We not only smother our love, we kill too with our cakes .

I know after reading all this you will sigh and remark “oh such loving and caring friends they are”!!!. Ahem ….I do beg to differ …we are as loving and as caring as a bunch of cannibals can be to a fat meaty human.

We had a treasure hunt party for a girl whose hair was almost set on fire on her birthday the year before …thanks to one very excited female with a candle and matches in her hand. This time we decided to make it fun for her as well. So we hid her gift and the clues to it were also hidden in all kinds of places from the toilet seat to the cereal box. So while she scurried about the house scratching her head for answers, we all busied ourselves with food and drinks.

Then there was the party for which we used the same food, which the birthday girl had made thinking she would surprise us instead. So she creates this elaborate spread and invites us over. Instead we ask her to stop by at our place and while she is on her way, two of us sneak into her place pick up everything she has cooked and bring it over for ‘our party’. Initially she was surprised at how familiar the aloo tasted. But then eventually her Prestige cooker gave it away.

I cannot even begin to mention how wicked we can get towards those who return our hard searched gifts. There are some who have suffered our wrath and all attempts at explaining are just lame. You may hate the color of the dress; the silver chain might get all seriously twisted up; the perfume may make you smell like a skunk. Just because we also gave you a gift receipt doesn’t mean you use it…we just wanted to be nice, we don’t really mean it. Some of them have learned to outwit the gang ...or so they think. Every time we ask her about the jacket we gifted last year, she casually remarks, “Actually na, I have been thinking of wearing it …just waiting for the right occasion”. Hmmm...we need to raid her closet soon.

I may sit and mourn about my increasing age for the rest of the year, but for that one-day I couldn’t be happier celebrating it in the company of these lady goondas ...hey thats a nice name to put on the next group T-shirt.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Precious Nothings

They say english is a funny language where noses run and socks smell . But when it comes to the GalPalz mouthing off what remotely resembles english with hindi thrown in liberally (not just the shudh common Hinglish , but one thats peppered with banarasi, marathi, baangali, and madrasi) , the end product is as comprehensible to the common man as Swahili. This is inspite of the fact that we do have a Grammar Police in our midst forever correcting our P's and R's . We even had our own month long G8 summit to debate the pronounciation of the word 'Cabin' . Yeah ordinarily cabin is not a debatable word you would think...but then we aren't exactly ordinary girls either :-).

So over the years, all this verbal goobledygook has transformed into a whole new language with sentences and phrases which the group understands perfectly and sometimes even uses it to communicate with other mortals. Needless to say all we get back in response is baffled looks, wide open mouths and unblinking stares. So if any of you guys happen to overhear conversations that go like this...you can confidently go up to them and say "hi, wait let me guess ....you are doing your PhD in Univ of Iowa and you are part of a group called GalPalz" and if she happens to be this short, chatty and loud girl ...then boldly throw in a "and your name is S ?" .

So how bizarre do we really sound ? Here's a trailer ...

"music khel na" (literal translation of "play the music")

"photo nikal na" ....(no it does not mean remove photos from the album...you dufus ...she is asking you to click her photo !!! )

"hey wo log chale gaye kya " ? "Haan wo log chal basse ."
(Geez, stop wailing and join them if you miss them so much !!)

"I am having a 'take out' moment" ....(that irresistable desire to order take out ...usually hits around 5-7 pm when we are at our hungriest and laziest. We are trying to get the owners at China Star and Taco Bell to start a special order line for us called "express lane 5-7 pm" )

"no, not yut"....(our efforts at fixing this are still ongoing ..."yet as in bet ...not but"...uffff !!!)

"I am wearing punjabi dress to the potluck" (thats the 80's mumbaiyya version of Salwar Kameez and we must be the only group alive that still uses this ancient word).

And then there are adopted sentences like "Kaa Jaani , Zindagi life ban gayi , Galti se Mistake ho gaya" , which are gaining popularity in other circles too. Phew ! that's one less clueless person we will have to explain our selves to.

I think I will keep updating this post to include all the (un)quotable quotes , and then just publish it as "The Dummies Guide to Understanding GalPalz" !!!

Monday, July 04, 2005

Back to the Nature

After almost 2 weeks of hot and muggy weather this friday was perfect, and the weekend according to KCRG TV-9 was going to be fabulous. Friday evening ...actually more like midafternoon (can’t say why, but past 3 pm on a friday the lab starts feeling like an overcrowded perspiring mumbai local in summer… I just need to get out !!) ...the gang settles down at the house after a successful raid of the local Indian grocery store procurring everything edible from kachoris to kadhai paneer.

Being with these folks for four years I have come to realize that the situation on a friday evening is highly unstable and unpredictable. There is no telling who comes up with what to do over the weekend. And this being the July 4th weekend, which meant another day to procrastinate the work deadlines to, ... one can only imagine!!! And so we decided to go Camping. You know head back to the woods, rough it out, be one with nature...yada yada yada.

I must admit I have never been too much of a nature freak. Don’t get me wrong …I am all for the trees, the greenery and giving them their space and all that …but when it comes down to actually doing all that camping and heavy duty hiking and trekking through the mosquito infested trails …thanks but no thanks. I enjoy my bug-free, air-conditioned house on a hot summer day a little too much. But you see the other thing I didn’t tell you about me was that I can be quite a pushover. Besides, the convincing power of the girls can put even those telemarketers to shame (thanks to whom, I am now in a ‘credit protection plan’ which charges me more than my monthly credit card charges).

Needless to say I decided to give camping a try, mainly because it would be just one night and above all there were toilets in the campground. There was no way I was going all ‘natural’ to answer nature’s call! The excitement was so high that everyone wanted to head out friday evening itself, problem was that it was already 9pm, and we still hadn’t figured out which state park to crash into... and oh yes, we would be needing at least a tent. In ten minutes we were picking out camping supplies at Wal-Mart. We selected a pretty yellow and blue tent to fit 4 people (that diagrammatically showed the best sleeping arrangement to fit all four ...three vertical-one horizontal). The sales chap gave us all one look and not so subtly hinted that the tent probably would be too small for us. …Baaah humbug …what did he know? We filled up the shopping cart with sleeping bags, charcoal, lighter fluids, skewers, ice packs, veggies, drinks, chips, corn and what not. That’s the thing about girls…our idea of roughing it out is Maggie and sandwiches instead of a nine course meal. By the time we were leaving, we had bags that occupied 1/4th of my huge living room…that too because it was just for a night.

And we headed off to the Wapsipinicon State Park, which was supposed to be a 45 min drive on the interstate…that is if we had taken the right interstate. We passed through the Wapsi camp, the Pinicon campgrounds, but no Wapsipinicon in sight!!! Finally we were at the park, thanks to a map and numerous calls (yeah we are girls …we do ask for directions) to a very puzzled campground caretaker – puzzled considering it was only about 50 miles and there were only two ways from Iowa City to the park. We didn’t tell him that we also had driving directions from mapquest and google. The park was like most American State Parks …quite generic. But once you get inside, nothing beats that cool crisp air, thick green foliage of the tall trees and the freshly mowed grass that smells divine. All that coupled to the jasmine smelling freshener in the car and I was promptly transported to Kerala with momentary flashes of homesickness.

Pitching up the tent was a cakewalk…partly because I know squat about raising a tent, so I helped out by staying out and occasionally made myself useful by hammering here and there and holding on to whatever I was told to. Sometimes its better to have only one girl who knows what she’s doing...too many smart ass cooks can indeed spoil the broth. Then came the gargantuan task of starting the fire, which we got down to after we ambled down a trail collecting half dry sticks for the fire. By the end of the trail I had more cobwebs on me than firewood. Starting the fire was no biggie either …problem came when we had to keep it on long enough to boil the water, grill the veggies and the fish. Suddenly I have a newfound respect for the Neanderthal. After a grueling session of keeping the fires lit and smoking our eyeballs out, we reached the stage of the smoldering white charcoal, which I was told is the final goal every Neanderthal aspired for. Finally we sat down to a feast that tasted like ambrosia…grilled veggies with nimbu and chat masala sprinkled on them, hot spicy Maggie, grilled fish. …Yummm good food!!

Topped the night off lying in the open grass, chomping down sweet bhutta, gazing at the spectacular display of stars and showing off our half-baked knowledge of astronomy to each other. Then came the stories…I usually don’t believe in ghosts and spirits, but when you are in the middle of all that nature at night, trust me, even a raccoon will freak you out (no serious, I went nuts on seeing one). Even though we slept fitfully that night, we got up feeling as fresh as the morning dew. After the usual tug of war between man, err …women and fire …we had garam chai and toasted egg sandwiches. I told ya …we live/camp to eat…and then go on a guilt trip about weight issues. But this time we decided we should instead do one short trail before we headed back home. The trail lead us through dense conifers which opened into a wide open green prairie on a hilltop (yes, contrary to popular notion, Iowa is not as flat as a pancake). It’s true when people say that nature brings out the animal in you …there were some among us who turned into monkeys munching on suspicious looking berries, while others plucked every wild flower in site. Thankfully they were still alive the last time I checked. I was on high alert for poison ivy the entire trail…and since I didn’t recognize one, my friends spent half their time assuring me “that is not poison ivy, its just fern”. After photo sessions of tree stumps and ‘bleeding mushrooms’ (I christened one pretty looking thing in red…will upload the pic soon), it was time to head back to civilization. As much as we were sad about leaving the park, we were really glad too...we still had monday off.

In conclusion the trip was a lot of fun, all that food was hot and smokin’, and the memories. …simply priceless.

And oh yeah …nature rocks !!!