Expecting some one!

Now that we are days away from having a little one, totally new emotions are taking roots. Dont know how it would look, will it cry or be one of the happy babies who smile all the time?

What are all the myriad things I know I should have known by now about welcoming and bringing up the little one? I am at a loss.

Mani seems pretty confident and knows a lot. I am riding on happy emotions to guide me through what I would need to do.

Keeping fingers crossed and smiles on our faces, we wait for the baby to arrive sometime in June. 

Hottest April I remember in Bhubaneswar

Bhubaneswar is boiling hot.

Coupled with the humidity, the higher-than-40 temperatures are really sapping all the energy out of me and I find myself tired when I come back home. 

I think I see a real correlation between the declining greenery and the increasing temperatures of this area. Also the good old sleepy town of Bhubaneswar is turning into a concrete jungle.

It no longer feels like the quaint sleepy town, I used to visit during my summer vacations in the ninties. The cool evening breeze after 4 used to erase all traces of a hot summer day.

Where are we headed. I worry about the mryiads of people who are destined to lose their lives to heat stroke this summer. 

Whose is Mumbai?

The recent tensions involving animosity towards people from out of Maharastra has really left most people embarassed, shocked and incredulous, as well as sad.

Are these the same people who proudly mention that Mumbai is the costliest office space in the world?

Are these the same people who aspire to make Mumbai the gateway to the east due to its strategic location?

Are these the same people who do not understand immigration is the lifeblood of growth and a method to allow the best of the best to contribute towards making a city, a nation thrive and prosper?

Your comments are invited to stir up a healthy debate on this. I as a non-Marathi would like to understand the background behind such thought process.

Understanding this aspect of why a fraction of people still beleive in the concept of Maharastra as a separate entity from India would provide a background to new comers to first understand what was the historical reason behind this mind set and what are the current day dynamics that necessitate this quasi-protectionist outcry?

I would ask any body with a back ground on the "Mumbai for Marathas" concept to give a background to me and all who read this and provide a starting ground for debate to capture the pulse of public opinion on this topic.

-- Manas

Saat Patti ki Watt

What started as a perfectly innocent weekend card game soon turned into a devious cat and mouse game of outwitting each other and sometimes oneself..

Well let me take a step back and show the BIG picture so that you know where we are..

A long weekend caught us by surprise and here we were coming home on a Friday evening with the prospect of 3 days at our dispense.

AJ and Ron crashed in for some timepass and Friday evening dinner was some wonderful leg pieces of BOBAAL chicken cooked by Mani..

Come Satuday early morning (read 12 noon) .. While AJ and Ron decided to push on to Milford to provide company to sis-n-law during the next 3 days (BIG B was out at office trying to implement some stuff his geeks had cooked up), we found ourselves tossing a couple of comforters in the back of a CRV and walked out of our house.

A lovely afternoon it was, on Milford parkway and we made good time to Railroad Vihar while bhabhi almost got lost in some by lane near her house.

We settled down to a game of e-darts while wolfing down a pack of delicious sweet-n-salted popcorn. I remember Mani lobbing a few straight from the carpet into her mouth.

After running out of patience with darts we made a dish of panipoori before settling down to a new game of cards we had learnt called SAAT PATTI.

The whole objective of the game was to loose all your cards in hand after distributing them in round-robin fashion. One had to start with a seven of hearts followed by next numbers in series one up or one down) or a seven of another suite.

Soon losing trust in lady luck to hand us our wins, the ever-competetive spirits at the table started hoarding sevens and othe numbers in hand till loosing all other cards effectively holding up most others.
That was a game 2 could play and soon we ended up having no body playing any card!!

From then on it was a game of who would play nice guy and loose, loose patience and loose or simply hold on to all cards and loose big time!!

It lasted till we had to think of antitrust laws to break the impasse, and then some way around the antitrust laws!

The whole thing turned into a game of chess and we squeezed every bit of humanity from that game.

By 1 am we were exhausted.

-- Manas