Doodles of a crazy man!

Late December 2007, one saturday evening. Post-kanyaaveekshane talking round. "I heard that you blog", was the very first thing she told me. "Yes, how did you know?" (Have I become so big in blogosphere? - I had wondered) "Uncle told me." "Oh, is it?" (Half blushing and half expecting to hear that I have a great sense of humor :D) Nothing so filmy happened. But then we started talking about blogs, we figured out that half of the blogs that I follow are her offline friends. So much for the global village and the spherical world. After that I asked, "What are your hobbies?" "Reading and writing" (What! Writing??? Not blogging, but writing! That sounded like an actual writer, and not like someone who woke up one day in 2005 and started blogging - aka me) "Hmm, you have a blog?" "No" (Another analogy I can think of is - photographers vs Digicam-owners :) ) If my memory serves me right, I had suggested to her th...

I am too just-married to get tired of writing stuff related to the wedding. Gone are those days when people were anxious to know what gifts they got. Nowadays its all about hoping that the unwanted gifts dont exceed the storage space at your home. There are 3 broad categories when it comes to gifting 'items': Innovative types Only 2% belong to this category. They know your tastes, they know how usable it is to you, they know that the chances of someone else gifting the same item are slim. Ganesha types If I were Lord Shiva or Vishnu, I would have cursed the entire humanity for how I am ignored when it comes to gift items. A typical conversation of a couple goes about like this: Husband: We have to go to that wedding in the evening. Wife: What gift shall we buy? Husband: Some Ganesha gift item of course. Wife: (smiling) Of course! (What else?) 54% of the people fall under this category. Ganesha has got great range, he comes in all forms - from the most ar...

I think only a misandric person could have formulated the customs in a South Indian marriage. How else can you explain the dhaare ceremony where the bride will be in a beautiful saree and the groom in a ridiculously translucent white kachche ? The bride gets her hair beautifully styled and the groom gets a mysore peta to cover his receding hairline. Utmost attention is given to the bride's face for her to look divine, while all that the groom gets is two drishti bottu (to ward off the evil eye) placed with such precision that guarantees maximum possible pathetic looks! Trust me, every man finds his woman absolutely stunning in the wedding saree. But, I am yet to meet a woman who thought her husband looked mind blowing in that white kachche . Not just that, I spent the last week before marriage running from store to store searching for that elusive white underwear (you guessed it right, to go along with the translucent white kachche ) while the...

Pauline Thomason once said "Love is blind, but marriage is an eye-opener". But, even the pre-marriage phase also can open your eyes to so many things. And if you are as general-knowledge-deficient as me, every moment is a new discovery. If you have a sense of humor, each discovery can be complete fun. *** Just before the saree shopping, mom asked about my fiancee - " AvLu work sarees wear maadthaLa? " I understood it as "work 'ge' sarees" and told - "No mom, she generally wears jeans or salwars to work" Mom was least surprised by the all too familiar stupidity of her son and said - "Work sarees do not mean the sarees which you wear to work. It means sarees that involve lot of handiwork like embroidery, mirror work etc." *** Shopping for sarees will introduce you to so many new things - crape silk, tusser silk, raw silk, butta, mango border, peacock border, temple border...