My Life, A Cocktail

It’s amazing how much owning a property means to any average Indian. Whether it’s for growing old in, or raising a family, or purely for investment sake, it's considered an achievement. So here we are too. Our first home in the State of California. The process has been long, but fortunately we had good people around who knew exactly what they were doing. We had been looking at a lot of open houses and were on the verge of discouragement, when we found this house. It was perfect. The only house that actually met each and every single criterion we had in mind. The initial part of putting the offer and waiting for a response is nerve-racking. We had set our minds to this house, and so we ended up going back and forth with the sellers and finally settling down on a “Na tera Na mera” price. After that, it was mostly reading and signing documents, and then more reading and signing. After a while, the reading stopped, while the signing continued. Last week, we got the keys. It feels excit...

Gandhiji says in his autobiography, that he regards bad handwriting as a mark of imperfect education. Most of us have our stories of how our handwritings came to be. Painful accounts of unrelenting teachers looking down at our notebooks as we filled cursive writing books with what looked like flies squashed in flight. Mine is similar too. I had the worst handwriting in the family. And then, one fine day, my mom did the unthinkable, she compared my handwriting to a friend’s and stated aloud how good hers was. That was the last straw. Luckily for me I had realized, good handwriting comes from good observation. I would stare at other classmates’ notebooks to see how they dotted their i’s and curved their g’s. And sure enough, I had started writing beautifully. A lot of you whose moms didn’t do the unthinkable, perhaps never got a similar chance. Probably you think handwriting doesn’t even matter. In this age of emails, messengers and computer fonts, who writes with pen and paper anyways. ...

You would have read countless articles on Vegetarianism and its endorsements. Being a vegetarian myself, writing about non-vegetarianism might seem quite lame. Unfortunately, that does not stop me from writing this. I grew up in a vegetarian Brahmin Iyer (and all the caste goodness that comes with it) family. Not one of my ancestors probably for generations, had eaten meat. Enter boyfriend(was)/hubby(now). A pure non-vegetarian. Not just any ordinary non-vegetarian, but a non-vegetarian that enjoys every bite of meat. Oh, the joy of watching him eat! It seems strange to most people when I tell them my kids will grow up as non-vegetarians. Yes, they will. I probably would not be able to cook it for them (although, I am determined to try my best on that front), but hubby's cooking skills and restaurants I hope will bridge that gap. I want my kids to explore the world they are in, as much as possible. And food is one of the most enjoyable ways to do just that.

The stage is set. Appa, hubby and me at the dining table, post dinner. The topic to be butchered being the existence and non-existence of God, the faith and the non-faith. The debate lasted long and revealed perfect blends of perspective, Appa’s ancient outlook and precise facts from history, hubby’s practical standpoint, and my modern yet religious angle. As all casual unplanned conversations go, we cruised multiple topics, from quoting the Bhagvad Gita to challenging modern medicine vs. Ayurveda, from Britishers and India’s freedom struggle, to all the Saamiyars and scandals in India. We went non-stop for almost 2.5 hours, with loud and heated moments occasionally. I don’t think the discussion drastically altered anyone’s perspective of life or any principles we discussed. That was beside the point anyways. What it truly achieved is that it brought some clarity to our already existing beliefs and principles. To articulate one’s viewpoint in any form whatsoever is perhaps the best way...

We finally decided to head out to the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield, an hour and a half drive from South Bay. The factory is located at the most appropriate address: 1 Jelly Belly Lane, Fairfield, CA. We decided to take the 40 minute guided walking tour. Being a weekend, there was no production happening, but we walked around the factory and watched some informative videos about how it takes almost 7-12 days to make the famous jelly belly beans. The thing I was most psyched about was the weird and wonderful flavors they came in. From tiramisu to toothpaste, mango chili to rotten egg, toasted marshmallow to canned dog food, they have it all! With the tour over and our free bag of beans, we shopped around tasting and picking our own beans to create an assortment. We also picked up some collections like the “Sugar free beans”, the “Cocktail Mix” that contained the Margarita, Mojito and Daiquiri flavors, and the “Cold Stone” collection that had all the yummy cold stone icecream flavors!...