Another excerpt from conversation with a potential groom Mr B:-
Vital Stats: Convent educated from Kolkata, he was calling from Singapore, HR Professional
Me: You say you are posted in Singapore for the next few months, whereto after that?
B: I could settle anywhere in the world..
Me: So, does that mean you could settle in England?
B: Yes, but Hull can't afford me..
Me: [Eyebrows coming closer] What do you mean?
B: I am very expensive, are there HR jobs in Hull that pay over £100,000
Me: Hmmm, no I don't think so... [Trying not to react to the obvious showing off]
Me: However, you could work in London?
B: Yes, I could work in London..
Me: So would you try that?
B: Ultimately, I'd like to settle in Mumbai. You would like Mumbai.. You could be a professor in Mumbai... Would that be such a bad thing?
Me: No it wouldn't. however over there I would have to start from scratch, whereas you've worked in UK, so you already know the system here...
B: Well, whenever I am in London; I get this allergy..
Me: Allergy!? [Fearing the worst sort of Hay fever, when patients can't breath and need to be admitted to hospital]
What kind of allergy? [Sounding evidently concerned]
B: The cold.
Silence!
B: [repeats himself] I don't like the cold in London.
Me: [! Gobsmacked! Dislike = allergy????
In addition, because he doesn't want to put on some warm clothes and turn up the heating, I am expected to relocate and start from scratch in a totally different and new city??]
Outcome: As my friend Jo would say - 'one word - bin '.
Sunday 13 March 2011
Wednesday 9 March 2011
Arranged Mad-Rage!
Having hit 30 and finding myself single and more importantly under pressure from the mother, I finally signed up to certain matrimonial websites - reputed to help you find the 'good' 'Indian' brides and grooms. Most of the girls in the advertisement look straight out of a Saans-Bahu serial (Indian soaps on mother-in-law & daughter-in-law dynamics where the ladies wear very heavy jewellery, make-up and ornate clothes even while sleeping)...rather unreal and unlike what I or any of my photos look like....well that's besides the point...
Soon enough I start meeting these 'unique' (for want of a better terminology) men....
An extract from one such meeting is presented below:
Meeting Mr A:
His vital stats: Doctor - more precisely surgeon - 35yrs - 5ft 10 inch - clean shaven head (which is irrelevant, but felt like revealing this vital stat...)
A: So this MBA - is it worth anything?
Me: I should think so, depends what you want to afterwards
A: Yeah but does the UK MBA it have any value in America.... (bearing in mind this conversation is taking place in the UK)
Me: (Straightening up and paying attention on suddenly realising I had been appointed the MBA representative for UK!!!!) Ummm well it should, but America has it's own MBA so I'm not so sure.....(still contemplating....)
A: What about the Middle East?
Me: Yes the UK MBA definitely has a lot of value in the Middle East - a lot of students come to do MBAs from the Middle East..
A: Ya that's because all the people in the Middle East are stupid!
Me: (Taken aback...but trying to keep a straight face and thinking of a sensible way to respond)..
No, I know some very bright students from the Middle East....
A: Oh no, they are idiots - they don't know how to do anything!
Me: (Still surprised at supposedly 'educated' and 'well qualified' surgeon's ludicrous blanket statements) I don't think a whole race can be labelled as intelligent or unintelligent - it could really sound racist.. (carefully selecting my words)...
A: Oh no, I'm not being racist - I'm just saying they are all dumb.. You have become like English people... (Become??? Reader - please bear in mind, this man is meeting me for the first time!)
Me: It's not about being English, all nations and races have some very intelligent people and some who are not so intelligent, just like India or here.... calling people from any race stupid is really not right....
A: No, I'm not being racist, I'm being regionalist!
Me: *Smirk* (Thinking: Yeah makes all the difference!! Wondering - how long this will last and pretty much making up my mind not to see this guy again....)
A: You have become very English - I don't want to be like English people, I want to be Indian...
(Since when did calling other races 'stupid' become the Indian thing to do????!!)
Me: I'm being politically correct............................................
After that my memory fades..................................................
Needless to say - friends, you will not see him anywhere near my wedding venue!
Disclaimer: This post is no judgement on the capability and intelligence levels of people from the Middle East or any other part of the world!
Soon enough I start meeting these 'unique' (for want of a better terminology) men....
An extract from one such meeting is presented below:
Meeting Mr A:
His vital stats: Doctor - more precisely surgeon - 35yrs - 5ft 10 inch - clean shaven head (which is irrelevant, but felt like revealing this vital stat...)
A: So this MBA - is it worth anything?
Me: I should think so, depends what you want to afterwards
A: Yeah but does the UK MBA it have any value in America.... (bearing in mind this conversation is taking place in the UK)
Me: (Straightening up and paying attention on suddenly realising I had been appointed the MBA representative for UK!!!!) Ummm well it should, but America has it's own MBA so I'm not so sure.....(still contemplating....)
A: What about the Middle East?
Me: Yes the UK MBA definitely has a lot of value in the Middle East - a lot of students come to do MBAs from the Middle East..
A: Ya that's because all the people in the Middle East are stupid!
Me: (Taken aback...but trying to keep a straight face and thinking of a sensible way to respond)..
No, I know some very bright students from the Middle East....
A: Oh no, they are idiots - they don't know how to do anything!
Me: (Still surprised at supposedly 'educated' and 'well qualified' surgeon's ludicrous blanket statements) I don't think a whole race can be labelled as intelligent or unintelligent - it could really sound racist.. (carefully selecting my words)...
A: Oh no, I'm not being racist - I'm just saying they are all dumb.. You have become like English people... (Become??? Reader - please bear in mind, this man is meeting me for the first time!)
Me: It's not about being English, all nations and races have some very intelligent people and some who are not so intelligent, just like India or here.... calling people from any race stupid is really not right....
A: No, I'm not being racist, I'm being regionalist!
Me: *Smirk* (Thinking: Yeah makes all the difference!! Wondering - how long this will last and pretty much making up my mind not to see this guy again....)
A: You have become very English - I don't want to be like English people, I want to be Indian...
(Since when did calling other races 'stupid' become the Indian thing to do????!!)
Me: I'm being politically correct............................................
After that my memory fades..................................................
Needless to say - friends, you will not see him anywhere near my wedding venue!
Disclaimer: This post is no judgement on the capability and intelligence levels of people from the Middle East or any other part of the world!
Thursday 9 April 2009
The Lost World...Rediscovered
As I sit here trapped in my world of PhD, I often dream of the life I hope to get back and while I dream I think of all the activities, pictures, programmes, conventions that I associate with home or my happy world...Of course, some of them have disappeared and have changed...but I still find joy from the memories...
Orkut and Facebook have been such wonderful creations and have re-united us with friends we were very close to in school but had lost touch with. One such friend made a reference to my birthday parties...ah yes, I used to have birthday parties, the day when all my friends (and families if my mom had met them) would come to my house. The day when even my aunt used to be nice to me... I particularly remember the roses on my class VI birthday cake and S making a special request for it...Ah I wonder where S has disappeared...she is one person who I have not been able to get back in touch with...even the wonderful invention of Orkut has been challenged in keeping the interest of S...
I also remember the mangoes (which I was not too keen on) but the guests seemed to love the mangoes... I would see my relatives totally enjoying the aamer aanti (mango seed & pulp)...and complementing Ma on the payesh (Indian rice pudding)... I remember little 3 year old Ria singing 'Haati birthday to you' and completing the every line of the song 'Ek doosre se karte hain pyar' with an emphatic hum! She was such a darling little kid, she still is, only now she is an 18 year old lovely, attractive (maybe even a young man's darling) lady...
Birthdays of course, in those days provided all your friends the license to give you a wonderful joint present better known as birthday bumps! The act required your friends to somehow grab all four of your limbs and lift you up in the air and then return you back to the ground for n number of times (n being your age as on that day). On discovering our practice, some teachers suggested we should give birthday kisses... Oooohh my friends were definitely planning the bumps for me, but I probably got away with kisses...
I definitely miss the aam, payesh and (believe it or not) my lovely friends consulting and conspiring about gifting me the birthday bumps!!
SB has probably been to all my birthdays... SB lived nearby...we used to go to school in the same bus. She sang very well and she taught me loads of hindi songs. She would even write the lyrics of the then hit song and bring it for me. She taught me the tune of 'Tumse Milke'...(I still love that song) and 'Kabootar ja ja'. We used to be Salman Khan supporters as opposed to Aamir Khan supporters. Of course, I can't stand SK now, particularly when he decides to go au naturale in his choice of tops (or lack thereof) and post Lagaan/Dil Chahta Hai/Fanaa/Taare Zameen Par I have a lot more time for AK. I wonder if my friend SB shares my present views? SB is another friend who seems to be totally untouched by the Orkut/Facebook syndrome! Next time, I am in Kolkata, I must pass by her house...maybe she is married now, maybe she is living in some rather exotic country, maybe, maybe....
SB and I would discuss the movie that was shown on Doordarshan on Saturday evenings. Oh and how we looked forward to Chitrahaar on Wednesdays at 8pm. Chitrahaar showcased songs from different hindi films. Chitrahaar was our mid-week highlight. Of course, we were allowed to watch Chitrahaar because Thursday was a holiday for us. We had school on Saturdays instead. Saturday evenings, we could watch the hindi movie that was shown on DD of course with the news break in the middle. I do miss the music for Samachar, mostly because I can't remember what it sounded like. I found a DD channel here in UK - it said Rayat DD but the Samachar music has changed...replaced by some other...
When we were in class VIII satellite TV made it's presence felt. In all the metropolitan cities, we got a second channel DD Metro. This brought into our lives Superhit Muqabla! The ultimate hindi movie song - countdown show! This replaced the Chitrahaar frenzy, in fact multiplied the frenzy to watch movie song programmes. Superhit Muqabla used to telecast songs from newly released movies, and we could participate by voting for our No.1 song on competition postcards. I often wanted to send in my vote but I was too embarrassed to go to the post-office and buy a competition postcard. Now I wonder, why? I also wonder if Rangoli (another programme showcasing hindi film songs) is still shown on Sunday mornings?
It was SDM who was a year senior to us who introduced me to Shahrukh Khan in Circus. We hardly expected the SRK phenomenon then... although the dimple was a subject of a lot of talk as well as his dialogue from Fauji 'I say Chaps...' I remember the rage that was Baazigar and Darr (SRK films where he played negative roles)! There were lots of discussion on how, rather strangely we all supported the bad guy SRK and the rumour that Aamir Khan left Darr on realising the amount of fighting in the movie! Did Aamir Khan really decline Darr for the fight scenes, well after nearly 15 years AK's Ghajini seemed quite full of these fight scenes.
I met SDM again after all these years on Orkut and also RD and RD is still the die-hard fan of Aamir Khan that she used to be in school..
Fifteen years on sitting in a different part of the world, I often miss the world we had, the fun, the excitement we shared all those years ago... all those friends, reading the same books, watching the same programmes, arguing over inconsequential issues, whispering forbidden jokes - I realise that we may or may not repeat those acts - but feel rather pleased that the online networking sites were invented - and to discover all those friends again in this different phase of our lives... :)
Orkut and Facebook have been such wonderful creations and have re-united us with friends we were very close to in school but had lost touch with. One such friend made a reference to my birthday parties...ah yes, I used to have birthday parties, the day when all my friends (and families if my mom had met them) would come to my house. The day when even my aunt used to be nice to me... I particularly remember the roses on my class VI birthday cake and S making a special request for it...Ah I wonder where S has disappeared...she is one person who I have not been able to get back in touch with...even the wonderful invention of Orkut has been challenged in keeping the interest of S...
I also remember the mangoes (which I was not too keen on) but the guests seemed to love the mangoes... I would see my relatives totally enjoying the aamer aanti (mango seed & pulp)...and complementing Ma on the payesh (Indian rice pudding)... I remember little 3 year old Ria singing 'Haati birthday to you' and completing the every line of the song 'Ek doosre se karte hain pyar' with an emphatic hum! She was such a darling little kid, she still is, only now she is an 18 year old lovely, attractive (maybe even a young man's darling) lady...
Birthdays of course, in those days provided all your friends the license to give you a wonderful joint present better known as birthday bumps! The act required your friends to somehow grab all four of your limbs and lift you up in the air and then return you back to the ground for n number of times (n being your age as on that day). On discovering our practice, some teachers suggested we should give birthday kisses... Oooohh my friends were definitely planning the bumps for me, but I probably got away with kisses...
I definitely miss the aam, payesh and (believe it or not) my lovely friends consulting and conspiring about gifting me the birthday bumps!!
SB has probably been to all my birthdays... SB lived nearby...we used to go to school in the same bus. She sang very well and she taught me loads of hindi songs. She would even write the lyrics of the then hit song and bring it for me. She taught me the tune of 'Tumse Milke'...(I still love that song) and 'Kabootar ja ja'. We used to be Salman Khan supporters as opposed to Aamir Khan supporters. Of course, I can't stand SK now, particularly when he decides to go au naturale in his choice of tops (or lack thereof) and post Lagaan/Dil Chahta Hai/Fanaa/Taare Zameen Par I have a lot more time for AK. I wonder if my friend SB shares my present views? SB is another friend who seems to be totally untouched by the Orkut/Facebook syndrome! Next time, I am in Kolkata, I must pass by her house...maybe she is married now, maybe she is living in some rather exotic country, maybe, maybe....
SB and I would discuss the movie that was shown on Doordarshan on Saturday evenings. Oh and how we looked forward to Chitrahaar on Wednesdays at 8pm. Chitrahaar showcased songs from different hindi films. Chitrahaar was our mid-week highlight. Of course, we were allowed to watch Chitrahaar because Thursday was a holiday for us. We had school on Saturdays instead. Saturday evenings, we could watch the hindi movie that was shown on DD of course with the news break in the middle. I do miss the music for Samachar, mostly because I can't remember what it sounded like. I found a DD channel here in UK - it said Rayat DD but the Samachar music has changed...replaced by some other...
When we were in class VIII satellite TV made it's presence felt. In all the metropolitan cities, we got a second channel DD Metro. This brought into our lives Superhit Muqabla! The ultimate hindi movie song - countdown show! This replaced the Chitrahaar frenzy, in fact multiplied the frenzy to watch movie song programmes. Superhit Muqabla used to telecast songs from newly released movies, and we could participate by voting for our No.1 song on competition postcards. I often wanted to send in my vote but I was too embarrassed to go to the post-office and buy a competition postcard. Now I wonder, why? I also wonder if Rangoli (another programme showcasing hindi film songs) is still shown on Sunday mornings?
It was SDM who was a year senior to us who introduced me to Shahrukh Khan in Circus. We hardly expected the SRK phenomenon then... although the dimple was a subject of a lot of talk as well as his dialogue from Fauji 'I say Chaps...' I remember the rage that was Baazigar and Darr (SRK films where he played negative roles)! There were lots of discussion on how, rather strangely we all supported the bad guy SRK and the rumour that Aamir Khan left Darr on realising the amount of fighting in the movie! Did Aamir Khan really decline Darr for the fight scenes, well after nearly 15 years AK's Ghajini seemed quite full of these fight scenes.
I met SDM again after all these years on Orkut and also RD and RD is still the die-hard fan of Aamir Khan that she used to be in school..
Fifteen years on sitting in a different part of the world, I often miss the world we had, the fun, the excitement we shared all those years ago... all those friends, reading the same books, watching the same programmes, arguing over inconsequential issues, whispering forbidden jokes - I realise that we may or may not repeat those acts - but feel rather pleased that the online networking sites were invented - and to discover all those friends again in this different phase of our lives... :)
Monday 20 October 2008
Trying to be thankful...
Hi...
When we were at school, we were taught this song - 'Count your many blessings name them one by one and it will surprise you what the Lord has done...'
Today, I am trying to remember that song...
Yesterday I realised I had to re-score a huge set of data [which I have already gone over three times... since the manual instructions were quiet on an issue and 'miss trying-to-be-bright' (yours sincerely) kept on working to different interpretations!!]
Anyway, after further investigations, I realise I need to do this a fourth time now (Hurrah! NOT!!)... even the thought of going over this again is _ _ _ _ _ _ (you may take the liberty to fill in the blanks).
So, now going to count today's blessings and then try to re-re-re-rescore this data!
Blessings -
1. Was raining but now the sun is shining...
2. Laptop is working...
3. Found out data needs re-re-re-rescoring 'now' rather than later...
4. Finally posted my first blog!! :)
On that note, will go and try to sort this data - one final time (hopefully!!)
Please wish me luck! Good luck to you in whatever you need to get done today :)
Take care folks!!
When we were at school, we were taught this song - 'Count your many blessings name them one by one and it will surprise you what the Lord has done...'
Today, I am trying to remember that song...
Yesterday I realised I had to re-score a huge set of data [which I have already gone over three times... since the manual instructions were quiet on an issue and 'miss trying-to-be-bright' (yours sincerely) kept on working to different interpretations!!]
Anyway, after further investigations, I realise I need to do this a fourth time now (Hurrah! NOT!!)... even the thought of going over this again is _ _ _ _ _ _ (you may take the liberty to fill in the blanks).
So, now going to count today's blessings and then try to re-re-re-rescore this data!
Blessings -
1. Was raining but now the sun is shining...
2. Laptop is working...
3. Found out data needs re-re-re-rescoring 'now' rather than later...
4. Finally posted my first blog!! :)
On that note, will go and try to sort this data - one final time (hopefully!!)
Please wish me luck! Good luck to you in whatever you need to get done today :)
Take care folks!!
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