Of grandma's house and treasures left behind..

What do you do when you see this and remember that a more exquisite one existed in your grandma's house? Or when you see brass pans and remember that larger versions of those were actually used to cook in ajji's house on special occasions and they looked as if they were polished everyday. Or when you see London's guard dolls at a friend's house and remember that even finer miniatures of those existed in ajji's house. Or when you see dainty china with gold engravings and remember that tea was served in similar, daintier cups in ajji's house. Or when you see an old Kanjeevaram and remember ajji's saree that she stitched into a langa (pavadai / silk-skirt?) for you when you were six and a salwar-kurta for the older cousin. Or when you remember the big joint family that ajji mane housed, almost breaking at the seams, but managing wonderfully most of the time. Or when you remember the food, the glorious food that was served with a dollop of home-made ghee (flavored with beetle leaves) in one corner of the plate for every meal. Or when you remember the recipe book that ajji sometimes peeked at, even though she did not need any recipe book. Yet she saved that book and thought it was the authority on cooking, just because it was her grand mother's 3rd grade school textbook! What do you do when you know you can only savor these memories but never go back? What do you do then?

I dream of...

thankfully.. not Jeannie.

These days I dream about topics I could write about on this blog. Trust me they really feel like juicy, witty, profound blog worthy topics in my dreams. But I can't remember them the minute I wake up. Very frustrating. Usually my dreams aren't about blogging though. In the past I have had this one recurring dream where our families are opposed to our marriage and they are making me 'see' other guys. I'm thrashing about only to wake up and realize 'hey! relax. I'm already married to the one' and what a relief that is. I go back to sleep in peace. I have had this other dream where I'm late to an exam in primary school or middle school perhaps but my school uniform is not ironed, I can't find my pencil box, I don't have my books, my bicycle has a flat tire and so on. I'm really perplexed about this one because I'm known to be a cooler-than-thou exam taker. The other interesting aspect of my dreams is that they are mostly in mute. I don't speak. People in my dreams don't speak. But we are telepathic. I know exactly what everyone is thinking or feeling. Sometimes I really really need to say something in the dream to save the situation but I just can't. I try to say something but it feels like my lips are sewed together. At such times I wake up and feel glad that I'm not in said situation. This might be because I don't talk in my sleep. May be if I did talk in my sleep, my dreams would have been talkies. I have never had nightmares or scary dreams though. I have never had any demons chasing me or lions trying to eat me etc. My dreams are mostly mundane, day-to-day stuff. I have even dreamt of solving some work related problem and I seem to solve it with ease in my dreams. Sometimes I do remember the solutions and they actually are implementable! Yeah, how exciting, not! I have dreams where I'm falling though, but I don't have any context to these falls. I'm just falling, that's it and I wake up with a jerk and that dream is over. There's some myth that if I don't wake up before I land, I'm dead. I guess I have woken up alright so far!

What dreams wake you up?

Happy Ugadi!

Ugadi 2009 (Virodhi samvatsara) feast by the mater.

Ugadi 2010 (Vikrutha samvatsara) uhuh feast by uhuh me.

Still, there is hope for this year I think. Happy Ugadi!

Reading list

[Feeling really blah, and thanks to Chox for kicking me out of blah-dom. :)]

Read 'Dreams in Prussian Blue' by Paritosh Uttam who is a friend. Liked it! I think it is good literature and at the same time entertaining. Good job from a first-timer, especially someone who isn't a blogger. Some of his short stories (available on his site) are very well-written too.

Reading 'Arranged marriage' by Divakaruni and feeling very 'blah' about it. I read her 'Palace of illusions' and couldn't figure out what the ga-ga was about. So I decided to try another book to see if I was missing something. But uhuh, I just don't seem to be in the same zone as her. I think I'm done with the types of Lahiri and Divakaruni and I don't mean it in a snobbish way. I sincerely think I can't read them anymore though.

Also, thanks to the Scout, we are reading 'Brown Bear Brown Bear' and 'Thakkita Tharikitta bouncing ball' and 'Barney goes shopping' like a million times every day. Those are the running favorites right now. I have started distracting him with other books now just so I don't get a headache out of reading the same things again and again and again. But the child seems to love them more everyday.

That's what we have been up-to in the reading department. What have you been up-to?