It has been two months since Radio Salaam Namaste started advertising about Diwali Mela 2008 (Yes, we do have not one, but two Indian or should I say desi radio channels, here in Dallas... and yes.. we have a Mela too. Pretty neat, huh?) Come Saturday morning, me and my husband were contemplating whether to go for it or not and finally decided to give it a try. We reached there about 7PM. I should definitely mention the venue at this point - It was the Texas Cowboys Stadium(American Football). I am sure it can hold more than 60,000 people. So, we were kind of curious to find out how extensively the area was going to be used.
As we were driving towards the stadium, I was enquiring about the directions and my husband said, "Just look out for Toyota Camri or Honda Accord, follow them and we'll be there!!" The parking lot was just starting to fill up and we pulled up. We could hear some blaring music and headed towards that direction. As we walked in, there were flyers being handed out and also raffle tickets - first prize being a car. I excitedly got two and we continued to go in.
It is at such places that our eyes go wandering trying to spot a familiar face - easier said than done when there are thousands of people around you. I was quite overwhelmed by the crowd. People from every part of India, wearing all possible outfits one can imagine - from sarees to mini skirts and what not!!!
From where we stood we could see plenty of stalls spread over along both sides. The first stall in there surprised me completely. It was that of our big temple here. There were idols of Lord Ganapathy and Goddess Lakshmi. Wah! Even Gods get to advertise now or should I say 'need to be advertised'? Maybe that was a wrong way of putting it - The stall was there for us to seek blessings first and then carry on with the mela, 'Oh God! Keep me in good health after eating all this food!!!'
We started investigating each and every stall and I must say the crowd was quite manageable. As long as I don't bump into people on every step, I always enjoy it. Proceeding further, it felt like the number around us was increasing and at the same time I also felt the aroma of delicious food tickle my nostrils. We were still outside of the stadium - inside there were some cultural programmes going on including a dance drama depicting 'Ram Leela'. I was initially feeling guilty about avoiding that and just happily whiling away in the food stalls. But as I saw the people around me, I realized I wasn't alone. :D
Almost every Indian/Pakistani restaurant in Dallas had put up a booth amounting up to 60-70 numbers in total - quite a variety. We sampled some of the interesting, new dishes we had not tried before. The sign 'Bombay ka Chana Batura' stared at us invitingly but the queue in front of it seemed a bit hostile. Not disheartened, my husband bravely made his way to the end of the queue and I followed suit. There were around four parallel lines and out of nowhere two ladies came behind us. One of them just kept giggling and laughing out aloud; in the meantime she was squeezing her way ahead of the line. (She reminded me of the evil sister-in-law character in movies/mega serials.) She was acting as if she was doing it unnoticed, and that made it worse!!! It is incidents like these that spoil the fun of the occasion. Well, lets put that aside for the moment. So there we were, waiting (im)patiently in the long line, looking suspiciously at anyone trying to even come near the line. The ones in the front of the queue made their way back with their hands loaded with goodies. The look on their face is really something. To quote Jerry Seinfeld, "They act like they have been chosen". At the same time, it is a sight to watch the people in the line eyeing the 'slurpy' dishes - you could ride a boat in their mouth and then they suddenly become aware of the same and hurriedly gulp it down!!!
Finally we too were 'chosen' and we came out of that chaos to relish the Batura. Satisfied with our achievement, we decided to take a break off the eating and moved to explore more of the stalls and stumbled upon a board that read 'Sahaja Yoga'. There was a picture of a human body, pointing out its seven energy points. The words self realization, relaxation, yoga was enough for us to go and find out what it was. What drew us there actually was there were people seated in chairs and others standing behind them performing odd motions with his hands around the seated guy. Interesting, we thought! Curiosity is something very difficult to fight. End result - We both sat gingerly in adjacent chairs waiting for some miracle to happen. (Again, the words 'just 5 mins', 'free of charge', 'revitalise' clouted us!) End of 5 mins and I was just the same. The lady asked me whether I felt cold breeze in my hand (It's quite embarrassing to say 'No') It seems the cold breeze indicated a surge of the energy awakened from within.
I am aware that a mere five minutes on this, does not give me any rights to judge the procedure or anything related to it. Maybe it is good, maybe it is truly helpful. But, the circumstances were such. There was loud, blaring songs played from two different directions and people talking all around us - how can I relax; there was wind blowing constantly - how can I attribute that to energy being released! Well, maybe in a different surrounding, I might have felt differently - who knows! :)
That was pretty much it in the mela. It was a very 'Indian' mela in every way.(i.e if you replace the tissue papers in the food stalls with a big can of water and a broken cup to wash your hands!!!) All said and done, it was an amazing evening, had a great time and no fair in the world can beat the Indian one nor can it give us such scope for fun.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Ambikapuram to Amsterdam...
I took a deep breath as I sat at the steps which approached the Juliana canal - clear water with a few ducks floating here and there. This is the canal which separates the Dutch and Belgium. Am not a great history/geography buff, and for the same reason do not want to indulge in those details. So I was at this place called Stein, Urmond about 200kms to the South of Amsterdam. I can see many of you think how lucky I must be to visit the so called 'Sin City'. Yes, I do consider myself very lucky to have come such a long way - as the title reads.
Pondering over my thoughts on how I ended up in this place - It's fascinating as to how quickly the course of one's life can change. I don't know how many of you have even heard about the place called Ambikapuram or the district it belongs to - Palakkad . Ah! The names itself brings a big smile to my face. I guess many of you have not heard about Stein either and hence the start and end point of this journey are more or less alien.
I, Lakshmi C A S - A great number of people would really wonder, what the three initials stand for, when they hear it for the first time. The more curious ones find out when I say it with a mixture of smile and pride, CHANDRASEKHARAPURAM APPADODHARANA SUBBA LAKSHMI. (Phew! Wish MS Word provided a spell check on that one!!!). I guess it would be better to elaborate on my name and the mayhem associated with it, on another post .
Venkateshwara Colony, Ambikapuram P O, Palakkad, Kerela, India... This was my hub for a span of almost 24years. You could actually say it is a village,though not set like one. Most of the people there used to be in a village at some point of their time and hence their attitude remain so. Almost an all Brahmin colony, the mamis and mamas there are very orthodox, following our culture to their maximum. Girls never seen to wear a jeans/T-Shirt,faces never made up and mamis wearing nothing other than saree; them wearing churidar was considered a great transition.
I moved to this colony when I was around 5 years and there were hardly 5 or 6 houses there. Presently the number is 75. Quite a number,right? Growing up so, made me familiar with each and every person there till date. Till date..Yes.. that date was till I was a day scholar.
20 years of being home and then one fine day I found myself in Amrita Institute, Ettimadai, Coimbatore. Quite a magnificent campus - set at the foot of a beautiful mountain. If you look at it from a distance you can see it is shaped as an elephant.That was my first step out of my home town,first feelings of home sickness, first stay at hostel, first classes with boys and the list goes on. I had my all-time best buddy, MP, with me. She is one in a million.. Be it, sleeping in class or ogling at guys or window shopping or 'combined study' or travelling around.. she was there with me.. Ok.. am not here to say how great my college life was..(at least not for now!! ;)) It's nothing new.. Everyone love their college days.
As is the dream of every student now, so had I - get placed from campus, join a software company and work my way to independence. Mind you, it was just a dream for me - an impossible dream - or so I thought!!
And on June 2nd 2004, I was there waiting in line for Wipro's interview. It is at these moments that I get all positive - don't misunderstand, not about getting the job. I make up a mindset of 'what if I don't get the job' - and all possible options open up in front of me - "This is just the first company, plenty other companies will come in. If not software, I can always take a career as a teacher" etc etc. The end result was someone was shouting out 'Subbalakshmi' and no one was responding. I looked up and thought 'Oh! That's me!' One of the many instances of stir due to my name.I was never used to being called Subbalakshmi!!
2004 December 21st, I was in the Sarjapur Rd(Bangalore) Office of Wipro to join as an intern for 6 months as part of my MCA. On October 10th 2005 I was officially an employee of Wipro Technologies. It was a feeling of pride, happiness and what not!!!!
There was this huge crowd outside the office and a big 'pandal'(a temporary shelter - shamiana) - It was almost like waiting to go in for a temple festival. So many students(professionals-to-be), from different colleges, different states, different languages waiting to be inducted!!! Even as I stepped outside Wipro, the majority of people I met in Bangalore were almost the same as me. And this is when you tend to realize that you are just part of a huge crowd - no special person -just a common species of software engineer found almost everywhere - As my people back home say - If you trip and fall, you will land on a software engineer!!!!
Life in Bangalore was quite something. When I quit the job I just had my last month's salary in my bank account -Thus was my life!!! But, how much ever charming, fancy, fun filled the life there was, I couldn't stay away from home for more than 3 weeks or a month. It was like recharging batteries - visit home and come back and I am filled with renewed energy.
(From Bangalore to US.. To be continued...)
Pondering over my thoughts on how I ended up in this place - It's fascinating as to how quickly the course of one's life can change. I don't know how many of you have even heard about the place called Ambikapuram or the district it belongs to - Palakkad . Ah! The names itself brings a big smile to my face. I guess many of you have not heard about Stein either and hence the start and end point of this journey are more or less alien.
I, Lakshmi C A S - A great number of people would really wonder, what the three initials stand for, when they hear it for the first time. The more curious ones find out when I say it with a mixture of smile and pride, CHANDRASEKHARAPURAM APPADODHARANA SUBBA LAKSHMI. (Phew! Wish MS Word provided a spell check on that one!!!). I guess it would be better to elaborate on my name and the mayhem associated with it, on another post .
Venkateshwara Colony, Ambikapuram P O, Palakkad, Kerela, India... This was my hub for a span of almost 24years. You could actually say it is a village,though not set like one. Most of the people there used to be in a village at some point of their time and hence their attitude remain so. Almost an all Brahmin colony, the mamis and mamas there are very orthodox, following our culture to their maximum. Girls never seen to wear a jeans/T-Shirt,faces never made up and mamis wearing nothing other than saree; them wearing churidar was considered a great transition.
I moved to this colony when I was around 5 years and there were hardly 5 or 6 houses there. Presently the number is 75. Quite a number,right? Growing up so, made me familiar with each and every person there till date. Till date..Yes.. that date was till I was a day scholar.
20 years of being home and then one fine day I found myself in Amrita Institute, Ettimadai, Coimbatore. Quite a magnificent campus - set at the foot of a beautiful mountain. If you look at it from a distance you can see it is shaped as an elephant.That was my first step out of my home town,first feelings of home sickness, first stay at hostel, first classes with boys and the list goes on. I had my all-time best buddy, MP, with me. She is one in a million.. Be it, sleeping in class or ogling at guys or window shopping or 'combined study' or travelling around.. she was there with me.. Ok.. am not here to say how great my college life was..(at least not for now!! ;)) It's nothing new.. Everyone love their college days.
As is the dream of every student now, so had I - get placed from campus, join a software company and work my way to independence. Mind you, it was just a dream for me - an impossible dream - or so I thought!!
And on June 2nd 2004, I was there waiting in line for Wipro's interview. It is at these moments that I get all positive - don't misunderstand, not about getting the job. I make up a mindset of 'what if I don't get the job' - and all possible options open up in front of me - "This is just the first company, plenty other companies will come in. If not software, I can always take a career as a teacher" etc etc. The end result was someone was shouting out 'Subbalakshmi' and no one was responding. I looked up and thought 'Oh! That's me!' One of the many instances of stir due to my name.I was never used to being called Subbalakshmi!!
2004 December 21st, I was in the Sarjapur Rd(Bangalore) Office of Wipro to join as an intern for 6 months as part of my MCA. On October 10th 2005 I was officially an employee of Wipro Technologies. It was a feeling of pride, happiness and what not!!!!
There was this huge crowd outside the office and a big 'pandal'(a temporary shelter - shamiana) - It was almost like waiting to go in for a temple festival. So many students(professionals-to-be), from different colleges, different states, different languages waiting to be inducted!!! Even as I stepped outside Wipro, the majority of people I met in Bangalore were almost the same as me. And this is when you tend to realize that you are just part of a huge crowd - no special person -just a common species of software engineer found almost everywhere - As my people back home say - If you trip and fall, you will land on a software engineer!!!!
Life in Bangalore was quite something. When I quit the job I just had my last month's salary in my bank account -Thus was my life!!! But, how much ever charming, fancy, fun filled the life there was, I couldn't stay away from home for more than 3 weeks or a month. It was like recharging batteries - visit home and come back and I am filled with renewed energy.
(From Bangalore to US.. To be continued...)
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