125 years of Indian national Congress

Just listened to the speech by Sonia Gandhi at the 125th anniversary celebrations , sounded funny. Mahatma Gandhi got us freedom, Nehru build the country, Indira did something else and Rajiv took us to the 21st century. What were Sardar vallabhai Patel, lal bahadur Shastri and narasimha Rao doing? Or are they being erased from history books so that only the current Gandhis end up in history. I think even Mahatma Gandhi's name was mentioned because of his surname. Then again we need to be thankful for small mercies, priyanka's children were not mentioned.

Maybe we deserve this, after all we put up with them, vote for them and listen to their shit so if they make us eat shit then it is only our reward.

Made with Chocolate

Unlike me, my six year old son is dark brown and he is forever comparing his colour to mine and his other fair skinned friends.

"Amma, remember Jamal in Slum Dog Millionaire, he was dark skinned like me when small but turned peach skinned when he became big, so I will also become peach coloured when I become big", he said. At times like this when he is always thinking up ways to hope for a fair skin later in life, I sit down and explain all about how skin colour does not matter and how your brains matter blah blah blah. This was getting me nowhere and then I told him the story of how dark skins are made. 
You see God makes us out of mud and breathes life into us (the only kind he is familiar with is sand which is plenty in the desert).  God makes people out of golden sand, which makes people fair skinned but some people he loves more than the others and when he makes them he adds chocolate to make them sweet and depending upon how much God loves each person, the quantity of chocolate added varies. The more He loves someone, the more chocolate He adds and the darker skinned the person is. 

The only problem is when my son confidently repeats this story to everyone and the fair skinned children start crying and their mothers end up having to make up some other story to stop the crying. Then again all children including my son are always licking him to see if he really tastes sweet or like chocolate. 

Being nice sucks

When i had just joined AND Data in Pune, I started on a salary of Rs. 3500/- It was a small salary, almost like no salary in a city like Pune where everything is expensive. The vegetables are sold in units of "Pav" which is quarter kilos and usually cost as much as a kilo in other places. Anyway, I was too poor and had to get away from home and my family who were driving me mad. At AND Data, breakfast and lunch as provided by the company so my food problem was mostly taken care of and for dinner I would pretend that I was on a diet to lose weight. It worked or at least I think it worked, because no one commented on it. But i used to be so hungry then, so very hungry that I thought I was going mad. Then I found out that bread did not cost much and with a packet of cheese that I rationed at one slice a day, I managed to partly silence my empty stomach. During that time too my parents thought I ought to be sending money home and i did, every month around Rs. 1000/- after which I had nothing with me till salary came next month. I used a pay around Rs. 700 0r 800 as rent and remaining Rs. 300 was what was left for food. As weekends were holidays, I had to buy food then and I subsisted on a diet of rice and yogurt.

That was ten years back and even now my parents are waiting every month for the check to arrive which I youngest sister has been paying for the last 6 years. She will stop this month because she has lost her job and then what. How do people turn into leaches like this after a time I can't understand. All these years nearly twenty years now, one of us daughters have fed them, clothed them and taken care of their medical needs and now the excuse, theirs and the worlds, is that they are old and need to be taken care of. My mother is 64 now and father passed away a couple of years back at 64. So from the age of 44 and 47 they have depended on us to provide for them. And I am finally fed up with being the dutiful Indian child who takes care of people who just wants to bleed me dry.

Rain in dubai

Yesterday it rained in Dubai and Sharjah. It certainly brought winter and hope the weather continues. I t is cool and nice outside and once the sky clears and the grey mood lifts, it will be great. i do not know if it is the rain and the grey weather or is it something Joe said, i am depressed. I was all sunny and bright and happy and then Joe went into his usual ,once in while, tirade against me, my family and the problems my side of the family keeps having and I was plunged into dark dark world. 

 Suddenly all positive thought and feeling goes out of the window, to be replaced by thoughts of hate and disgust for the man and his rich and well off relatives. I cannot help but think that he is without compassion of any kind for anyone other than his family ( that does not include me) and end up thinking of ways to get out of this relationship. Chu has resigned and hopes to get  a transfer back home but Joe says we are dreaming, that it will never work out. But Chu is happy and that is good no matter what, because soon she will be back with her children and that is good no matter what, and things will work out, no matter what Joe hopes for. He just wants things to keep going wrong for us so that he can gloat and think that we are cursed. But lucky Joe is floundering too because, his brother sold of the factory vehicle and used the money to buy a car for his family. I am happy about that as the company car was bought with Joe's money and his brother and family just fucked him up , well serves him right for being just a pompous little asshole.

Winter winter!!!!!!!!

First week of December has come and gone and winter even the mild kind is yet to come to UAE. My garden is doing great, this time I even have a sweet melon growing on the balcony but no winter yet. It is hot at noon and very very mildly cold in the morning. Anyway today a dust storm has been blowing from the morning, so we have our hopes up for the coming of winter. UAE climate change is heralded by a dust storm.

Is it really Global warming has its dreaded effects on UAE weather or is it a conspiracy by the Global warming supporters who are evidently faking all those research about Global warming. This latest is from a friend who is on Facebook and was my senior at University studying , horror of horrors, Environmental sciences. He is now a evangelist pastor and bad mouths all environmentalists and calls them phonies. 

Malayalam heaven!!!!!!!!

When i came to UAE after my marriage to Jo, I was not really sure of how things would turn out, especially when compared to life in Libya and then all those years in India. Gulf was always a little different, more labor class than educated or polished in a malayalee mind. But things changed for me in no time. I saw the supermarkets, the fruits we used to consume in abundance in Libya and life style and i knew I was home. I knew I didn't want to go back ever again except for the annual vacations. This was the life I preferred to the one in kerala with all the meddling relatives. Life was good and moving to Dubai just made it better. It was easy to identify with and become part of Dubai. The city was cosmopolitan in every way imaginable and in more ways than one more mallu than kerala. In kerala the young and the restless speak English and act as if they cannot speak Malayalam, but here go into any shop or mall or hyper market and talk in Malayalam and 9 times out of ten even the Filipinos know enough Malayalam to reply. this is Malayalam heaven!!!!!!!!        I usually don't even bother to look to see if the salesman looks maalu, i just launch into Malayalam and only if I see him fumbling do I bother to talk in English. 

We don't molest children

Saw an interesting report in gulf News about how parents should be careful about child abuse The report quotes an official as saying that though child moletation is alien to our ie UAE culture, we need to be careful about it and of course be vary of impolite, dirty looking strangers etc etc etc. Well, all i can say is, the man is confused. Child molestation is not alien to any culture, may be unknown because no one reports it and it is a well hidden secret but surely unless you are aliens from another galaxy, it i very real. the more it is denied, the bigger the problem is. Children need to be protected not from filthy dirty looking strangers but from friendly looking loving grand papas and sweet uncles who are eager to baby sit and so on. That is the message that needs to be put out. Most children are abused by people they and their parents trust and so are often too scared to complain against. If we are serious about tackling the problem we need to face the fact rather than hide behind myths like we don't do it, only bachelors deprived of sex for a long time in labor accommodations do it. It is a disease of the mind and like all other psychiatric problems is not confined to any particular culture or group but is universal.

Booýa Moon

I finished reading Lisey's story by Stephen King. I thought the beginning slow but soon it was racing ahead full speed pulling me in, I read it through the night and loved it. Boo'ya moon, ah dream land, fantasy land, does every one have one? I think i have one too, I dreamed about it twice, nay visited twice. Mine is a land full of flowers, breathtaking fragrant flowers and it is so close to amma's tharavad. Each time I saw it, i knew how to get there but the moment I opened my eyes I forget the way there, I only remembered being there, and the feeling that if I take the right turn I would there and then would spend the entire day searching but have still not found the way there at least not when i am awake.

The thing is i ususally forgrt all my dreams a few hours after i wake up, but this is one dream or reality i cannot seem to get out of my mind. i hadn't had this dream in a long time but the moment I read about boo 'ya moon I knew what it was.