Too drunk to marry?

I've often thought that a lot of marriages are about timing. Here's a story that affirmed this belief:

Villagers at a wedding in eastern India decided the groom had arrived too drunk to get married, and so the bride married the groom's more sober brother instead, police said Monday.
"The groom was drunk and had reportedly misbehaved with guests when the bride's family and local villagers chased him away," Madho Singh, a senior police officer told Reuters after Sunday's marriage in a village in Bihar state's Arwal district.
The younger brother readily agreed to take the groom's place beside the teenage bride at her family's invitation, witnesses said.
"The groom apologized for his behavior, but has been crying that word will spread and he will never get a bride again," Singh said by phone.

-Reuters

I don't know how much of a choice this young bride had when it selecting a husband but I wonder how she felt about the spur of the moment replacement. Was she secretly turned off by the way her soon-to-be-husband was behaving and relieved to marry his sober (and younger- after all, she is in her teens) brother? Did they even ask her what she wanted?

Restaurant Tag

New York is a culinary paradise for a foodie; Radha's tag got me thinking about five restaurants to recommend- tough task! So I tried to select a range that would reflect the city's ethnic and culinary diversity. Here's the restaurant roll:

1) Sea - Thai food is about balance: basil and chilli, sweet and sour, coconut milk and galaghal and Sea is the perfect place to indulge in a bowl of steaming drunk man noodles or emerald vegetable dumplings. It's rather colorful interiors center around a larger-than-life Buddha statue in the middle of a square-shaped pond. Located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the place can be a bit of a trek so if you're craving yummy Pad Thai sans the fishy smell, head over any one of its branches- Peep or Spice- in Manhattan. The food is mouth-watering and the green tea ice-cream worth lining up for!

2) Cafe Habana - Cuban food, good Cuban food for vegetarians is hard to find. This tiny place in East Village is trendy and overcrowded with unrelenting waitresses, but my trick is to focus on the grilled corn-on-the-cob with chili spice, cheese and butter. Yummmy. Another fav. is the Tlacoyo Con Tres Maria, a handmade corn cake stuffed with goat cheese and sundried tomatoes, with a delicious side of beans and rice.

3) Mamoun's - Perfect for a quick bite before or after a night of bar-hopping, Mamouns is one of those secret places tourist guides often miss out on. A night in Greenwich Village is incomplete without a stop at Momoun's Falafel, the best place for quick, tasty falafel/ chicken sandwich oozing with hummus. More of a shanty than a restaurant, there are exactly two tables and a couple of benches, which makes eating neatly a bit of challenge. And that's part of the fun:)

4) Grey Dog Cafe - Goat cheese sandwiches, tofu salads, iced tea, nice wine, broccoli cheddar soup and the biggest cookies ever! This quaint cafe in the heart of West Village is my fav. `think' place. Cosy, warm with great food and music, this little cafe also serves a mean brunch with lots of character.

5) Tsampa - Who knew Tibetan food could be so tasty! Tsampa's momos and tofu with mixed greens and brown rice are fresh and tasty. The peaceful, calm restaurant is a great place to kick back and relax with a glass of their exceptional plum wine.

Continuing the good food work I tag: Suramya (Delhi), Ashu (Paris), Moi (Florida), Aditya (Bombay) and Wanda (CA).

Dilbert

Stumbled across this and couldn't resist sharing it!

Talking to God

I joined meditation for two reasons: peace of mind and reflection. To better understand what I felt and why, instead of doubting myself and going crazy doing it. I thought an hour and a half once a week is enough for enlightenment.

It isn't. Four sessions and I am still clueless. I've tried both Tibetan meditation and Buddhist meditation (yes they are different). The Tibetan techniques includes chanting mantras and for all my faith in the power and energy of words I didn't have the patience to go through with it. The Buddhist way of guided introspection reminded me of an intriguing book titled "Selling Water by the River." No rituals, no ceremony. Just a simple devotion to being a good person, to understand and accept that strife is a part of life and a quest for inner peace.

In a world saturated with religion, I found my way in meditation. It's difficult for me to sit still and concentrate for over an hour without any breaks. The first time it gave me a headache; second time, I peeked at all the other people concentrating on taking deep breaths and thought of all the things I could be doing instead of sitting in this old rundown mansion on a sunny day with my eyes closed. After the third time I looked forward to being free...to be able to allow thoughts to visit without grasping on to them, or fighting with them, to be free to think without weighing or judging yourself is freedom indeed.

Years ago I wrestled with the language of prayer: the dilemna of praying to a Hindu God in English left me guilty and confused. Then I thought about the omniscence of God and figured that language matters less than the intention or devotion. Through meditation, I've found that silence can work just as well.

Atlas shrugged

For all that I feel that news these days is 90% disasters/ mishaps (natural or man-made) this website was a reminder of the other calamities that miss international headlines. Wonder what is plaguing the world we live in? Bombs, terrorism attacks and more bad news are vividly displayed here:

http://www.globalincidentmap.com/home.php

p.s: It is also interesting to note the different types and intensity of conflicts in different regions.

Virginia nightmare

The Virginia Tech shootings are everywhere you look- newspapers, magazines, talk shows, trying to understand what could drive a 23-year-old guy to go on a shooting rampage and kill 32 innocent people. Cho Seung-Hui was a loner, depressed, isolated. So what? These are excuses, give me a reason. Almost every teen goes through a phase like that, very few take their rage out on other people by killing them. How do you then sift through thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of troubled people and pluck those who are going to vent their rage violently?

I was going to write a different blog, about a forward I recieved on Orkut about Meenal Panchal, an Indian student who was one of the victim's of Cho Seung-Hui's shooting spree. About how Orkut has stepped beyond re-connecting with old friends, making new friends, checking up on ex-flames, meeting more people. It's become a platform for sharing feelings, bridging geographic and some cases, earthly divides. I wanted to write about the messages I've read on a family friend's profile after he passed away in a tragic car accident. His friends, and even family still scrap him giving updates on lives, their pain at losing him, what he meant to them. Sadly, and somewhat eeriely, his presence lives on through his Orkut profile...

And then I got this forward about Meenal, and saw the messages her friends have left for her and felt the impact of the tragedy all over again. I wish there was a way to anticipate when a person crosses the line between sanity and insanity. I wish there was a way for students to attend school/college with fear that they or someone they love could get shot by a peer. For professors to be able to teach without fear that they might be next in a firing line..

My heartfelt condolences to the victims and their families.

Eternal sunshine for a scarred mind

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one of my favorite movies- what a great story! The power to erase painful memories from one's mind. In many ways, our lives shape our characters, who we are today..then again there are things we would like to forget; some of us have things we can't bear to remember. Is the solution to erase these events from our mind?

Scientists are testing a new drug called Propranolol that may be able to help victims suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder to make peace with their memories. Matt Bean of Men's Health writes:

"Extremely traumatic events can unleash a torrent of stress hormones, searing the memory into the brain. That's where propranolol enters the picture. It blunts the impact of stress hormones on the amygdala, the small, emotional control center in the middle of your brain. As a result, the brain is able to encode the traumatic memory as a factual event, a garden-variety horrible memory, rather than a world-changing, panic-inducing schism in consciousness. It's like removing the crescendo of violins from the climax of an action movie: You still know what's happening, but you're able to focus on just the facts."

The article quotes Dr. Roger Pitman, a co-researcher on the project:

"Nobody knows when they're going to be in a car accident, or be raped, or be kidnapped, so trying to give them a pill within 6 hours of the trauma is difficult," he says. "But we can control the memory now, bringing it back to the point of sensitivity no matter when it occurred. This could have implications for all kinds of problems: drug addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or anything where you need to change the wiring in the brain."

My memories matter to me, as painful as they may be at times. But then again, we're talking about people who have lost a limb, been in life-threatening situations- along with the actual memory itself is the guilt, the self-recrimination, the loss of confidence, of hope...the endless, futile `if only.....'. No doubt there will be a fallout to this new drug, if and when its introduced. So the question is- is that something you would be willing to risk? If the stakes are high enough, or the memories bad enough, it may well be worth striving for a spotless mind. And a good night's sleep.

Day at the Park

Can't wait for the weather to thaw! Some nice things about Spring in NY: roadside cafes and martinis, walks on either side of the Hudson, live music in almost every street corner, colors, and more colors in flowers, clothes, smiles, raspberry iced tea and outdoor flea markets, and ofcourse, Central Park where you can row, roller-blade, watch Shakespeare, jive to a local band or read. For hours...

Here are some pics of the Park on a rare spring-like day this winter:

Wilde words

I could write and write, yet never compose something as lyrical and poignant as these stanzas from Oscar Wilde's `Ballad of Reading Gaol':

Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.

Adventures in Chinatown

In a parallel universe I'm a female James Bond. A swashbuckling, charismatic, secret agent living a glamorous, adventurous life. I'm dodging bullets, saving lives, decoding cryptic messages as charmingly as 007.

In reality, I'm grateful for a tamer life. But then one day, I felt like one of my favorite characters on a secret mission in Chinatown. It all started when I heard a voice murmur: "Goochi, Goochi, Louis Vooton, Coach" in front, at the side, behind us. It was hard to place the voices at first- they were everywhere and nowhere. Then a middle-aged lady with a pouch around her waist locked eyes and repeated, "Louis Vooton, Coach. You want? All original." Ok. It couldn't hurt. She scanned our faces quickly, expertly, then nodded. "Follow me."

We did. Weaving through pedestrians, vendors and stalls till we reached a deserted lane seven blocks away. Our guide spoke into a walkie talkie as she opened a wooden door and we climbed up four rickety, steep staircases then passed through a large sewing factory. The workers there must have seen people walk by huffing and puffing because they barely noticed us, which was reassuring because by then I was convinced we were being kidnapped and had flipped my phone open, fingers ready to dial 911 in case we needed to send an SOS. Finally, we reached a small room and our guide abandoned us to rows and rows of bags. They were all there- Gucci, Coach, Louis Vuitton, Prada. All original, claimed a young Chinese guy as we stood there gaping.

At 1/4th the original price they were a steal, but there were too many and it was hard to choose. And then we remembered the other people on the street who had also beckoned us with the same brand names and similiar adventures...

Scrabulous

Since I've almost run out of people to play Scrabble with, face-to-face, here's where I get my Scrabble fix:

www.scrabulous.com.

It's an amazing site, run out of India. Just another reason to love the internet!

Fair & Lovely

A few years ago I watched a tamashawalli get ready for a performance, and was fascinated to see that she used Fair & Lovely as her base. The link between beauty and fair skin is deep-rooted. The `brown bag' test was used by African-Americans to judge if a black person was light enough to join the elite black clubs/associations .i.e. they could not be darker than the brown paper lunch bag.

Here's a more recent twist to an old notion. After those aggravating commercials showing how successful women became after using their products, Fair & Lovely has turned its dark gaze on men with `Fair and Lovely Menz Active.' I wonder if the shallow beauty assessments are now extended to men too or if the metrosexual wave has emboldened Indian men to seek out a fairer face?

Click for the video.

Vonnegut has left the building

What better way to birth my blog than with a tribute to Kurt Vonnegut (d. Apr 11, 07) one of the most interesting, eccentric, thought-provoking writers? I found Vonnegut four years ago, attracted by the title of his essays, "A Man Without a Country." As much as I felt like a woman without a country at the time, I had to put it down after a few pages. It was not what I had expected. Written in a free-flowing manner, it was as if the thoughts had flown from the author's mind to his pen skipping social filters. It was a little bit bitter, a little bit funny, absurd and profound at the same time. Most of all, it was liberating.

Here's an autobiographical excerpt from one of his most famous novels Slaughterhouse Five:

"I think about my education sometimes. I went to the University of Chicago for a while after the Second World War. I was a student in the Department of Anthropology. At that time, they were teaching that there was absolutely no difference between anybody. They may be teaching that still.
Another thing they taught was that nobody was ridiculous or bad or disgusting. Shortly before my father died, he said to me, "You know -- you never wrote a story with a villain in it."
''I told him that was one of the things I learned in college after the war. "