In America

 Today at 10:00 AM, we arrived on time for the equal access tour of the elephant seals at Ano Nuevo State Park. Equal access just means that instead of doing the 3 mile loop of walking, we would have a van drive us close to the boardwalk, and then we walk on the boardwalk and observe the elephant seals.  The volunteer guide in the van was a seasoned amazing story teller. Every word that falls off his lips is dense in information and insights. The elephant seals have one hell of a turbulent raw story to tell behind their sleepy exterior. The alpha male maintains a harem of females. Rest of the males do not ever get a chance, and even the alpha males have a very short intense period where it can go with twenty five plus females or so, and then he is done as well.       These sleepy looking elephant seals swim for seven thousand miles or so,  on a feeding frenzy while in the water. This is to put on weight and give himself a better chance at being the alp...

 I am notorious for how little regard I give to birthday celebrations and the like... and yet.. My time of birth was almost here, and I was yet to get cake.  Divya was in a call with friends. I thought I will take the kids and get the cake. To my dismay, Kittu would not accompany me. Niya was not going to let me go alone, and we drove to the Cold Stone creamery for the third time this month. We had some quality time - I tried to liberate her from the daunting rat race that she is supposed to enter soon.  The hall was already decorated with the party decor that was done for Kittu's birthday. Why not? I covered the billiards table with the table tops, Achchan and Amma rearranged the balloons from Kittu's birthday that were lying on the floor. Amma told me to put on the jubba that Amma and Achchan had brought in from India this visit.   Cake cutting, family selfies, the works. My parents were here when Kittu was born. That was eleven years back. That was the last time t...

Curtains draw. Clouds overflowed from the stage into the audience. Dancers rose up from the clouds. Graceful performance. Disciplined claps across the haul.  The dance performances end with a still/tableu, and then there is a gong, and the lights dim bringing the focus on the artists and away from the props, and then the curtain is closed completely.  So I couldn't clap. Skilled, graceful, acrobatic. Dance drama performances. Live orchestra. Excellent mix of western and traditional chinese music. Perfect synchrony between the music and the dances. Music was flawless, and I perhaps enjoyed the music much more consistently than the dances.   Two MCs - a guy in suit, and a lady in chinese attire. I could only understand what the guy said.  One hour of multiple performances, a fifteen minute break, another hour of performances. Pretty good. Not as exhilarating as I had imagined from the large Shen Yun posters that I had been seeing ever since I have been in the US. ...

In the middle of the night, heavy rain pouring, a woman walked towards the house. She had draped a cloth over her head . She was holding something with both her hands. Suddenly there was a flash of lightning, and heavy thunder... the temple bells rang wildly..  Divya opened the door and kept the arabian bread pudding that Ramshi had brought into the fridge. How are you going to hang stars in the middle of a hall with a vaulted ceiling? There is no way you are going to reach the roof even if you were a circus athlete who could balance on two ladders. You just tie two twines diagonally from the walls and hang the stars and snowflakes on it. Once done, some things are just so perfect that they fail to impress.  The decor team had started the work at 10:00 AM with the plan that everything would be done by lunch, and we can all come back in the evening.  Against the original plan, we decided to keep the stage to align with the hall design.  The stage back drop work was re...

 The decision to drive to Yosemite on Saturday morning was made in the last hour on Friday. I pinged Amruth but they had other plans.   We started a little after 9:00 AM in our Santa Fe. We exited Tracy Hills into fog that had set in over the highway. Just enough to see through.    Kittu had lost all his jackets in school. And Yosemite demanded one. Also, there was some vague need for snow chains in my head. So our first stop had to be a Walmart. Had some fun using voice commands to find and add walmart stop using android auto which I don't have in my daily driver 3 series.     I will continue to say that the drive is what matters in a car, even though I will submit that I was amused by the tech. The snow chains would bring in some overhead and cost, and on checking latest conditions in Yosemite, decided against getting them.     As I caught myself off guard with the sudden trip plan, I had not had sufficient sleep. Also, I was starting ...

  Boat story. We had our first meeting at the Star Cross park. Banerji's drive for a grand and impressive backdrop infused the project from that meeting. He had come in with this blue print that he and Chris had drawn out. There was a touch of grandness and an "all in"ness in everything he said I had brought in decor items from the koottu onam group that had happened a few weeks back.  Banerji did not want to use it as is, we tried to see if the happy onam circle can be be formed using the koottu decor but that was not working out and that got dropped. Vipin Vishwanathan was initially not in the decor group. I knew that he was the right person for the job as I had seen the pooja room work that is in progress at the garage.  Vipin Das, a recent thaaram to join tracy hills had ideas about printing the maveli from walmart. Starting with that drawing, we estimated how big the vanji needs to be by looking at the cement squares on the park floor, and decided on two 8 X 12 sheet...