Sweet Surprise!

When I listen to music I mostly concentrate on how the song is composed. It’s the tune that has to be appealing to me. My wife listens to the lyrics in the song. For her both the lyrics and the tune has to be good. I guess we are different in that aspect.

I am one of those who sing loudly when I am amidst my own family. I am too shy to sing in front of friends or strangers or for that matter other family members.

During our early days of our marriage I used to sing songs loud and most of them happened to be songs with romantic lyrics. I guess my favorite composer (AR.Rahman) was composing mostly romantic songs at that time. My wife being a little possessive in nature used to get very upset when I sing a song whose lyrics actually praise some other woman. As time went on she got used to it.

Now that we have been married for 6 years, she now knows that I don’t look deeply into the lyrics of the songs. So she doesn’t mind even if I sing such songs loud now. But it really was a sweet surprise for me the first time.

Lost

Have you wondered how many friends you have had through out your time in life? I was wondering about it. It’s just amazing how many have just come and gone throughout my life. I am partially to blame because of the fact that I am not very good in keeping touch with them. But it’s just amazing the number of faces that come to my mind when I think of it.

I think most of the friends we have are what I call 'impermanent' friends (for a lack of a better word). They are with you during a particular phase of life – School, College, work etc… But once you move on, you lose the commonality you had with them. Once you are physically far away from them, the loss of commonality and the distance makes the friendship go dead. In fact even if you call to talk with them, you’ll be amazed to find out that there are no similar topics for you to talk about. So eventually as times moves on such friendships die.

There are some I would like to call ‘thick’ friends. I think you all know what I mean by ‘thick’ friends.

Now looking back, I wish that I still had contact with some of those 'impermanent' friends.

Memories!

My wife strongly believes in the fact that life should be nothing but good memories. So we try hard to create as much good memories as possible. She always says that living in a big house or driving a big car etc.. does not mean anything because if one of us were to leave this world, the only thing other person would have are good memories.

We don't know what's going to happen to us next minute. Also it is not easy to satisfy and impress everyone around you. So we should at least try to be good with our nearest and dearest family.

What do you think?

Early Days!

I was born in one of the south Indian cities. We were a lower middle class family at that time.My father worked really hard to make ends meet.
Here are some things I remember in my first 4-5 years of my life.

I remember living in a one room house till i was 4 or 5.

The room used to have a table fan, a stove to cook, a radio and mat to sleep. Pretty much that's it.I used to sleep in a swing like thingy made from a saree (Traditional Indian woman's attire).

I remember being very scared of the stove. Whenever my mom tried to light it up, i remember getting scared. In fact even now I am scared. Those kerosene stoves are very unsafe. Another thing I used to be scared of is the pressure cooker.

There used to be 4 or 5 families living close by in the same community. I remember that we all shared the same restroom (Gross!)

My house was near a temple.

I remember a woman committing suicide in the house opposite to us.

Funny incident - I know that after that suicide happened all the families were scared to go to the restroom when it was dark. They all thought that the ghost of the woman who committed suicide is going around. In fact some of them even claimed that they saw the ghost walking around. So because of that I used to be very scared when it got dark.

My best friend who was the same age as me used to go out early in the morning with his father. I remember coming out everyday to say 'hi' to him.

My father used to get me a candy everyday after work. I always wished that he would get me a 'cadbury eclairs' candy. So I used to eagerly wait for his arrival.

My mom loves music and i remember that she turns on the radio every day in the morning and night and sing along with it. I guess that's what got me interested in music.

When i first started school, i remember coming out of the classroom and crying and waving goodbye to my parents.

I also used to get excited whenever I see my parents in the evening. We could clearly see the school entrance from my class room. When my mom comes to pick me up, she used to stand outside till the school is over. I always used to wonder why she doesn’t just come in and pick me up.

My grand father used to take me to a railway track to show me a train. I think there was just one train which used to cross that way everyday and it was made sure that i see that train.

I remember that whenever my parents didn't buy me something I wanted, I used to just lie down on the road and refused to get up.

GRE/Word list

I suddenly remembered about my college days when i used to read for GRE exams. For those who don't know, GRE is a mandatory exam for getting an admission in US universities. One of the things you need to do for this exam is to memorize the entire english dictionary. I and my room mates used to be so passionate about the word lists that we would often quiz each other with different words.

During those days whenever i write a letter to my parents (I am not usually someone who is interested in writing letters. But during those days i just wanted to do it because i wanted to use those words somehow.), i used to use all kinds of ridiculous words like bamboozled,gab,coquet etc.. in my letter.

Now days whenever I hear such words anywhere , I just think of my past and smile. My wife sometimes asks me the meaning of some words that she hears somewhere and i just smile back. She knows that I know the meaning of the word. But i don't think she knows why i smile back. I usually reply that I don't know (I don't know why i do that!!).

Anyway the point is why do we have to learn all those words to get through GRE? Most people here speak English in a way that is convenient for them. I am not saying that's not right. Language is just a means of communication. As long as it conveys what you want to say, that's good enough for me. Even in professional writing, i vouch for writing in clear and simple English.

I think it would have made a lot of sense if we had just studied all the American slang’s. We could at least understand what people here are trying to say when they use their slang’s. Just kidding!

I did not get a chance to write a GRE exam. But looking back if I could get hold of one of those letters I wrote to my parents, I am sure to laugh out loud.