Snip...Snip...Snip...

As you all know, I'm entering the last 10 days of my stay in the US and as a build up to my grand departure, I decided to get a hair cut. I had been "growing" my hair for nearly 3 long years before I decided to get it trimmed. Of course its still quite long but definitely shorter than what I was having couple of months back.

One reason was mom's constant bickering about my long hair and also about how I'm losing prospective brides in matrimonial sites because of long hair. Honestly, she did not know that I was growing it just avoid the very reason why she wanted me to trim it off. HeHeHeHe :-))

So, without further ado lets get to the before the haircut and after the haircut looks.

Here's how I used to look...



And this is what I look like now....



What do you guys think?

Anyways, now the damage is done. I can't undo it. All I can do is wait until it grows back. Actually, as a matter of fact, I'm beginning to like this new look. Every once in a while its good to change your look. It seems different. It feels different. Its refreshing. And one more thing....my head sure feels light.

My First Marriage Proposal

Alright....Alright....Keshi and Vik, your persistence pays and I have no choice but to relent. The full story on the alliance goes like this...

One fine day somewhere in and around end of October during my regular weekly home phone call, my mom tells me about this girl they found as a match for me. I'm sure Vik and all other South-Indians especially Iyers would know the process. For everyone else here's how it goes.

Basically, whenever a child is born the family consults the family-astrologer (yes! almost akin to family-doctor). The astrologer, based on the date, time and (maybe even) location of birth, prepares a diagram which symbolically represents the position of the entities of the solar system. Thats what everyone calls the horoscope. I like to call it HORROR-SCOPE!! LOL. Also, based on the position of the sun, the child's birth star and birth constellation is decided. The part I like about all this is that the ancients - at a time when there were no telescopes and spacecrafts - were also able to "calculate" the position of earth/sun with respect to the star formations known during that time. Thats so fascinating.

Anyways, this HORROR-SCOPE is mainly used for two things, predicting the future and finding a match for marriage. My mom and dad also made one such HORROR-SCOPE for me and now its performing its duty. :-)))

Sorry for the digression, so coming back to what I was saying earlier, mom and dad had registered my profile with a couple of matrimony sites and this match came through one of those sites. Apparently, my folks had uploaded a couple of my pictures and also my HORROR-SCOPE in the site. The girl's parents had looked up my pictures and my profile and downloaded the HORROR-SCOPE for a match. They consulted with their astrologer and then contacted my parents.

Then my parents got her HORROR-SCOPE and consulted our astrologer. Mom told me that this "match" is an 80% HORROR-SCOPE match which - in astrological terms - is considered exceptional. She also said that the girl fulfilled criteria which I had put down. When my mom and dad started to look for a match, I had told them that I did not want anyone from my field of work, I wanted someone who is very educated, who is not more than 4 years younger than me and who has been brought up in a city environment. This girl is a doctor and she is from a town called Vapi just north of Mumbai and has studied in Mangalore.

During the call mom and dad told me that they intended to go ahead with the "proposal" of course subject to my approval. I told them I needed some time to think over it. A couple of days later, mom and dad sent me three pictures of the girl. The girl was quite good-looking. She was doing her post-doctoral internship and she had (allegedly) liked my pictures in the matrimonial site. My parents told me that if you give the go-ahead, we can go and have a look at the girl and then if everything goes fine we can have the marriage by May-2008.

Whoa! now things were moving too fast. Way too fast. I told my folks that I can take a decision only and only after I come back to India and this will not happen before February-2008. My mom is the greatest person in the world and I admire her the most. I am very open with her. I explained to her that its very important for me to meet the girl face to face and talk to her and only then I can come to a conclusion. She understood my predicament perfectly and told me that she completely supported me.

With mom by my side, I talked to my dad and told him about my decision. I told him to tell the girl's parents that they would have to wait until my return to India. Meanwhile, my mom and dad gave me the girl's email address and asked me to send an introductory email to her.

Honestly, I am very shy at these things. I told my mom that I'll do it. Weeks passed and I didnt send the email. The girl's parents started to ask my parents nearly every week whether I had sent the email. My parents would in turn ask me and I would tell them that I'm busy with work and hence I didnt get the time. After about 2-3 weeks I could not avoid it anymore and I sent an email. I just apologized to the girl for the delay in sending the mail and I just re-iterated to her that any decision on the proposal would be taken only after me meeting her.

I told my folks that I sent the email and asked them to confirm with the girl and her parents. A couple of days later, I got the message that the girl had not received my email yet. I told my parents to check with the girl to see if my mail accidentally went to the spam folder or something like that. They confirmed and said that she had never received my mail. I then re-read my email and thought that my first email sort of indicated my negativity in the proposal more then I intended it to. I felt that the tone of the email sounded more professional than personal.

So, I recomposed it. This time making it a more personal email than the first one, but still conveying the same intention as the first (i.e. to meet her face to face and then arrive at a decision). My parents had given me another one of her email addresses so this time I sent the mail to both her email addresses. About a week later when I asked my parents to check with her once again, I got the same response. She hadnt received the mail.

So now things had come to a complete standstill. I had sent her a couple of emails but she claimed that she had not received any of them and I sensed that this "proposal" is on its way down. Its not going to go through. And it happened just the way I thought. A couple of weeks later my Mom told me that the girl's parents have finalized her marriage with somebody else.

So thats the story on that "alliance". And I'm still here. Still single. My parents still looking. And more importantly - STILL HAPPY. Hehehehehe.

Mindblowing....

Dudes and dudettes,

Check out this video. This amazing kid sells peacock fans and its fascinating to see that he has picked up many different languages just by interacting with tourists that come to visit the Hanging gardens in Mumbai.

The kids language learning skills are simply superb.

Enjoy this wonderful video.

Now you see him....Now you don't...

I'm back. After a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong break. Why the break?

Honestly, I've been feeling a little bit low on confidence. One reason being, I've been away from home for nearly 2 years and 3 months and am feeling very very homesick. There are other reasons too but sorry, I cant explain them here. Still feeling a bit low but not as down as some weeks back.

Anyways, the big news from my side is that I'll be leaving the shores of uncle Sam soon. Yes, I'm going home. Home to Mumbai, home to my motherland, home to my family. I'm so so excited about it. At last something to look forward to. I will be flying out on the 6th of March via Singapore. I'll be spending a couple of days in Singapore at my friend's place and then heading home.

So my shopping spree has started. I've already spent nearly 500 dollars in buying lots of stuff - mainly clothes and electronics. Bought a lot of T-shirts, jackets, track-pants, shirt and tie for my sister's husband, a DVD set of "I Love Lucy" the 1950s sitcom starring Lucille Ball for mom, wireless routers, rechargeable batteries and charger. Of course, this is discounting the fact that I had already bought a laptop for my sister. This is not all, there's lot of stuff more for me to buy and by the looks of it, I might end up spending all of my last month's salary on Shopping.

But all this is great fun. I'm starting to get more and more excited about my trip with the passing of each day.