Once Upon a Mall

I am fairly positive that when they said that the world is coming to an end, they referred to the annihilation of brick-and-mortar retail stores.  The last decade or so, in-person retail shopping has been swiftly outmoded by e-commerce.  The 'Retail Apocalypse', they call it.  The dilapidation of shopping malls is almost eschatological and certainly symbolic of the speed of evolution (or devolution) of things in this Ghor Kaliyuga.  ऐसे में  one can only muse over the glory days of the JCPenneys and the Macy'ses.

Chapel Hill Mall

When I was a graduate student, a visit to a shopping mall was one of the most glamorous getaways for my roommates and me.  On selected Saturdays, the four of us would hop onto Akron Metro bus no. 10 that would painstakingly traverse the 4.5 mi distance from Downtown Akron to Chapel Hill Mall in about an hour.  We would then trek the entire square footage of the mall and snoop around JCPenney and Sears in search of that one elusive $4 t-shirt and that one $8 jeans.  Shiny clearance boards at Aeropostale and American Eagle would lure us in to buy apparel that we would then save to take back to India during the next vacation as gifts.  We would also sometimes splurge on an expensive $13 haircut at one of the swanky hair outlets in the mall instead of our usual $7 barbershop grandpa near campus.  A Saturday mall visit was also an opportunity to treat ourselves to a veggie burger lunch at the Burger King next to the mall (this humble meal has been since expunged from BK's menu and replaced with a monstrosity called the impossible whopper).  We would also religiously partake in the annual lunacy that is Black Friday by hitching a car ride to the mall to contribute to the enormity of the 3AM line outside BestBuy so that we could get our hands on that cheap USB stick or some other such inutile entity.  We share many a mall memoir, including that one somewhat snowy November evening when we missed the last bus back and had to stand in the cold outside the closed mall doors waiting for a car-धारी student to come and rescue us!  Eventually when I graduated, divorced this group of friends, and moved to Youngstown (read about it here), the Boardman mall became a big part of life for me and Pavana.  Since we lived practically down the street from the mall, we would spend many evenings shopping at the mall.

It is a different world today with online shopping literally eating away at the remains of whatever is left of shopping malls.  As a consumer, while I certainly feel for the stores going out of business, I honestly have no problem with the online shopping experience.  My take is that as long as you can keep track of your weekly waistline trends, you can effectively e-shop for pants without stepping out from your home.  The trouble I have with online shopping is when the item you receive fails to meet your expectations, and you rather ironically have to step out from your home and go to UPS armed with a malodorous cardboard box and return label! 

First World Problems

This is something I have been wanting to address for a while.  As you have probably read in my older posts, I have rather gleefully complained about my wi-fi, an overcomplicated TV, inability to plan a vacation, problems with my cars, barbies in the house, and not having desired features in my colonial home.  First world problems, right?  Also, all probably excellent material for internet memes! 

Let us first acknowledge that the etymology of this phrase is a bit dated, since the "third world" is no longer called that; we are now more used to the "developing world".  Secondly, the connotation of the phrase changes depending on whether you apply it to yourself or someone else uses it as an accusation toward you.  I am perfectly fine with the first case.  Here you would use the phrase to succinctly acknowledge that the issue you were complaining about was just a minor inconvenience and a part of an otherwise favorable lifestyle.  This is exactly what I did above when I used it on myself; I acknowledged that I live fairly comfortably, that I have a home, own a car, do not have to worry where my next meal comes from, have internet, have a cellphone.  I accepted that I am blessed to have many luxuries in life and that all the stuff I was lamenting about were miniscule problems.  However, I have a slight problem with the other case where someone else coughs out the phrase "first world problems" when you complain about your little peeves like the long drive through line at Starbucks or a late Amazon delivery.  I'll tell you why.  Does it not feel a bit pretentious for someone else to check your privilege and feign a higher morality as if they only ever worry about starving kids and never complain about more trivial things?  Is it not preposterous to imply that just because you complained about a malfunctioning sump pump in your basement automatically means that you don't care about people who cannot afford to have roofs over their heads?

Here is where I stand on the usage of the phrase "first world problems".  I think it is perfectly alright to complain about things that are deemed trivial and then apply the phrase to yourself.  Just make sure to choose your audience cautiously and sensitively.  On the other hand, if you want to use the phrase when someone else complains about trivial things, here's my advice to you -- Don't. 

Crack me up

"English is a very phunny language", asserted Rajinikanth in Veleikaran (1987) and Amitabh Bachchan in Namak Halal (1982).  I concur wholeheartedly.  Some commonly used phrases in English can sure be comically absurd when taken literally.  Here are ten bizarre usages that have cracked me up time and again!

1. Crack someone up - To cause someone to laugh so hard that they inexplicably begin fracturing themselves all over.

2. Piece of cake - An uncomplicated task that can give you a blood sugar boost for some reason.

3. Break a leg - Something you are supposed to say deliberately to someone going on stage for a performance that might very well cause them to actually break their leg.

4. Spill the beans - The act of deciding to reveal a secret but then forgetting all about it, opening a bag of dried beans instead, and strewing it all over the floor.

5. Cat is out of the bag - When the aforementioned beans are all over the floor and a cat exits a bag, presumably to eat them.

6. Bite me - Telling someone that you disagree with them by inviting them to come and start gnawing at you.

7. Put lipstick on a pig - The unfruitful effort of trying to prettify something inherently unattractive by finding a member of the porcine family and chasing it around the room, lipstick in hand.

8. Not a big fan - When you don't like something, you change the subject and claim that you are not a large apparatus with rotating blades.

9. Ballpark - A word used to quantify something you don't know the actual quantity of by claiming that it is the middle of a park of balls.

10. Put something in the parking lot - An expression you use when you are discussing something with someone and suddenly everyone runs out of ideas, so you oddly decide to start running out of the room in search of some parking lot to put the topic into.

English 'With an Accent'

Soon after I set foot on US soil back in 2006 (read more about it here and here), I teed off my life as a US wage earner to support my college life.  My first employer was a prominent coffee establishment that enjoyed a fairly monocratic status on campus.  During the first week of training, amid all the coffee education and coffee tastings, I made friends with another international student who had also just started working in the US.  Her name regrettably slips my mind, but I do remember that she was from Namibia and that she was a particularly bright and perceptive individual.  We would discuss various topics everyday during our walk back from the coffee shop to the student housing zone.  One topic that we would find ourselves coming back to very often was English language pronunciation and accents.  She spoke impeccable English, albeit with a few idiosyncrasies like "how late is it?" instead of "what time is it?".  And I'm sure my speech contained plenty of Indian influences as well.  But we both shared the same opinion on one thing, and that was that clarity of communication always trumps accent.  Furthermore, we both detested it when we were called speakers of "English with an accent".  "What do they mean 'with an accent'?", my friend would say, "Who is to say that we are the ones with the accent and not them?"  

I agreed with her.  

Everyone has an accent.  You may be a native English speaker who was born and raised in the US, but depending on where you come from, you have an accent too.  You not only have a unique accent, but your dialect is unique as well.  For example, do you remember the 'Two Yutes' scene from My Cousin Vinny?  My second job in the US as a cashier in a deli exposed me to various accents and dialects from around America and the world.  I would in fact experiment with my own accent while responding to customers, eliciting looks of bewilderment.  I guess, they expected me to talk like Apu from the Simpsons!  As a matter of fact, the accent used by Indians speaking English varies greatly by region, and ironically none of these accents sound like the ludicrous one used by Apu!

Click here to watch this iconic scene

Here are some lessons I have learned in the last 14 years in the US.  Clarity of communication definitely trumps accent.  As such, embrace your accent and focus on clarity of communication.  I have found that my train of thought while speaking gets greatly impeded if I obsess too much over what my accent sounds like.  Also, do not try to mimic anyone else's accent, lest they construe your efforts as appropriation of their accent, even if you didn't mean it.  Respect other accents.  An accent is not a sign of intelligence.  Nor is it a sign of dignity!

Rasam and Beans Curry

Comfort food.

Basically, माँ के हाथ का खाना.

Comfort food is food that reminds you of your childhood.  It isn't usually just one dish.  It is often a combination of foods.  One such childhood food combination etched in my memory is jeera rasam with rice and ghee, with a side of green beans curry.  Today's lunch menu of a simple tomato saaru and beans palya, although not the same, instantly conjured up a collage of sights, smells, and memories from childhood.  In essence, food prepared by my mother and both my grandmothers.  Food that supplied energy for my growth.  Food that provided me comfort through my adolescent years.  REAL comfort food!

At lunch time today, I found myself reminiscing about more than just the aforementioned jeera rasam and green beans curry.  I entered a dreamland where I could almost taste Sankariamma's (my paternal grandma) Peerkangai (ridge gourd) kootu with chapati, bite into Premamma's (my maternal grandma) crispy vazhaikkai/senai kizhangu/seppankinzhangu roast with milagu rasam, catch a whiff of Amma's fragrant amti (with amsul) bhaat with tondlichi bhaji (cut lengthwise), savor Premamma's kurma (with ample potatoes) with chapati, work my way through a well of Sankariamma's spicy vatthal kuzhambu inside curd rice with keerai kootu on the side, and devour Amma's flavorful bharli vangi with chapati.

I think it is also about little traditions.  For instance, back when Appa would do grocery shopping on Thursdays (his work week ended on Wednesdays with a break on Thursdays), he would almost every time buy matar karanjis and suralichya vadya (khandvi) from Chitale Bandhu to supplement lunch.  Little things like these are never forgotten.  I hope my kids are building such memories as well.  At least we try to make little traditions.  For example, we try to do Friday chaat nights, Saturdays hakka-noodle nights, and Sunday pongal-gojji lunches.  Ultimately, when my daughters grow up, I would like them to think of home cooked food like sambar, saaru, kootu etc. as their comfort food, instead of what is portrayed as comfort food in popular culture, viz. all high sugar, high carb, indulgent items like ice cream, french fries, pizza, etc.

The Essentialest Service

The COVID pandemic has created heightened awareness of what is essential to our lives.  Administrators say that services like public health, law enforcement, energy, water, financial services, agriculture etc. are essential services.  As a commoner, however, there is one that has impacted me the most...

The internet.

The internet has come a long way since its ARPANET days.  It is no longer a measly network transporting tiny messages between two computers.  It has grown into a behemoth that effectually controls our existence.  It plays a role in almost everything we do today.  Want to order a pizza?  Click.  Want to share a photo with a friend?  Click.  Want to schedule a doctor appointment?  Click.  Think about how you and your internet connection are inseparable throughout your day.  You no longer open your curtains and announce 'Good Morning' when you wake up; you instead open Whatsapp on your phone and read all the Good Morning messages first.  Once you have made yourself coffee, you no longer step outside to pick up your newspaper; you instead click on the dozen new apps on your iPad.  You then fire up your computer and login into a plethora of applications to help you get through your work day, which then gets punctuated by a million pings emanating from your messaging apps announcing important incoming messages that you must respond to immediately because communication has to be instantaneous.  Meanwhile, your kid is in the other room, using up sizable bandwidth attending virtual school and watching video after video that the teacher designates as educational.  You finish work and have your kid login for completing homework, virtual music classes, and virtual play dates.  You then decide to unwind by throwing on some Netflix and simultaneously savoring your double life on Facebook.  Finally, when it is time to sleep, you open Whatsapp again and read all the Good Night messages.

Amid such a day, can you imagine having issues with your internet connection?  

For the last few weeks, bad internet has defined our lives.  Our household has seen some tense moments.  Every day, there are at least 2-3 instances when one of us doing something really important, and the internet connection suddenly becomes painstakingly slow or disappears altogether.  Neighbors probably know this too because every time such an event occurs, rather emphatic vocalization happens in our house. Phone conversations with our ISP's customer support and visits by technicians seem to temporarily fix the issue, but it returns soon with vengeance.  Every work meeting, every class, every live event is nerve-racking because we don't know when the internet connection will start acting up.  I'm sure you will sympathize when I say that we are currently living on edge...

I am fall, going on winter...

The thermometer mercury flirts with readings in the 30s.  Scarves and cardigans find their way out of Sterilite boxes to counter the slight hint of chill in the air.  Joggers don't venture onto the streets until the morning sun has sufficiently thawed the troposphere.  The produce section at Costco is cordoned off with a wall of $5.99 pumpkins. The closeout aisles at Marc's begin filling with deceptively inexpensive Halloween decorations, while unscrupulously pricey coffee shops commence their annual brouhaha about pumpkin spice lattes.  

Costco pumpkins!

Autumnal equinox is officially here.  Before we know it, ostentatiously dressed kids will jaunting about with plastic pumpkins full of candy amid the wind swept heaps of stiff russet leaves on the sidewalks.  Soon after that, families will start dusting their golu dolls and discussing best design practices to set up step-platforms in anticipation of the Navaratri season.  The festivities will linger on well into early winter for it will soon be time for the kandils and oil diyas to adorn homes.  Kitchen bosses will start sharing दिवाळी फराळ recipes while other family members will start gaining pounds appropriately to insulate their bodies for the upcoming cold months.  LED lights will stay on the walls even after the Diwali sparklers die out as it will soon be time for Karthigai deepam, which will become an excellent excuse to amalgamate traditions by cooking a delicious Thanksgiving meal.  Vacation plans will begin to take shape just as the ground starts getting covered in snow.  The LED lights on the wall will continue to provide warmth amid temperatures in the teens.  A corner in the living room will get assigned as the Christmas tree spot.  The fragrance of warm cinnamon and pine will start filling the home.  Netflix and Prime Video accounts will run on overdrive as  families swaddle themselves in cozy fleece blankets on the couch.

The second part of the year is definitely my favorite!

Suburban ramblings

Alright.  I am going to write this essay with no particular end in view, so please bear with me as I pen my thoughts in the order they manifest.  I apologize in advance for meandering all over the place!

I grew up an urban animal.  As such, a landscape scantily spotted with trees amid a concrete jungle was my visus cotidie growing up.  Pavana, on the other hand, was raised in a quiet village in a home in the middle of a farm.  Therefore, sparsely populated hillsides with dense vegetation and a personal backyard garden was normalis situ for her.  Currently though, we lead a suburban life in a small city that is figuratively a stone's throw from both a major metropolitan and the countryside of little villages.

Over the past few years, we have had many a conversation regarding our notions of life in each of these settings.  These notions, I have found from these conversations, are influenced heavily by one's upbringing.  I have also sensed discernible skepticism about any setting different from that of one's own upbringing.  And these notions are the same as the ones commonly held by most urban, rural, and suburban dwellers at large.  For instance, urban dwellers tend to equate their urbannness to urbanity and maintain a bogus high-handedness when interacting with rural dwellers (evidenced by the negative connotations of words like देहाती, गावठी, etc.).  Rural dwellers on the other hand have a supercilious attitude regarding their immunity to diseases because they live "rough and tough" lives.  And suburban dwellers like us defend their hauteur using the popular perception of the "American dream" that suburban life has been oft apotheosized as.

असो...

My mother, having lived in a major city throughout her life, often talks about her dream of moving from the city to a quiet village into a home in the middle of a farm where she can grow her own vegetables.  I do hope that we can make that happen for her some day.  Meanwhile, Pavana has tried to realize her own dream of nurturing a veggie patch in our yard; and she has done quite well in the last three years.  Mind you, this is no mean feat, given that we have only 7-8 months of snow-uncovered ground.  This year has particularly been fruitful (or veggieful), as we have my in-laws staying with us.  Their agricultural acuity and hard-work has manifested in an abundant harvest of a variety of tomatoes, beans, snap peas, sorekkayi, acorn squash, bell peppers, chili peppers, and even potatoes!  We have also had various greens like saambrani, methi, some lettuce varieties, gongura, harive soppu, basale soppu, onion, garlic, drumstick, curry leaf, and mint.  While I confess that I have not participated in the gardening at all (other than helping my father-in-law put up a portion of the deer fence that one time), the pleasure of using all of these fresh ingredients in cooking and then tasting them has been almost transcendental.  My daughter, for one, loves the daily drill wearing her muddy flip-flops and going into the veggie patch to fill her little basket with tomatoes and beans!

Meaningless limerick

Here's an attempt at a limerick -  

Mulling over something to bring

That we all could sit on and sing

We went to Wal-mart

And added to cart

A beautiful outdoorsy swing!

Technology and the Individual

Technology has earned the sobriquet of The Great Enabler.  Right from the ancient invention of the wheel to the soon-to-come-of-age self driving automobile technology, the homo sapien has committed himself to ameliorating his living standards by hatching schemes to laze through his lifespan.  Quite enabling, what!  

First, let me profess, lest you think that I scorn any and every scientific advancement, that being a pupil of science myself, I have undertaken many an endeavor toward becoming a positive contributor in this area.  Being a man of science, however, does not automatically translate into being adept at all things technology.  Case in point, our new television.

In the earlier part of the previous decade, I had spent an entire semester in engineering college assimilating the contents of a magnificent tome - "Monochrome And Colour Television", meticulously penned by R. R. Gulati.  By the end of the semester, I and every other kid in my class would claim to be an authority in TV concepts like video signal transmission, vertical and horizontal sync, vestigial sideband transmission, NTSC and PAL coders, etc.  What was interesting though, was that I used the exact same textbook my mother had used when she had studied the subject during her engineering college days.  As such, one could hazard a conjecture that television technology had not evolved much in the aforesaid time-span.  In the last 20 or so years, however, television technology (and every other technology, for that matter) has seen alacritous advancement.  

We set up our shiny new LG 55" 4K UHD Smart TV yesterday.  During this exercise, I found that the lessons gleaned from R. R. Gulati's volume failed to come to my assistance.  For instance, I learned that my little homemade antenna made using paper clips, while quite effective, is now irrelevant in the face of myriad web-based video on-demand apps designed to cater to the whims of the impatient human brain.  Learning-curve, schmearning-curve; at least so far, between the Smart TV and myself, the former is the Smarter entity.

Long Weekends

"The Long Weekend" of September is upon us.  This peculiar phrasing, with a mere nominal cognizance of the significance of the actual holiday, has become mundane in colloquy today.  A weekend hitherto referred only to the Sunday that occurred at the end of a six-day work week.  Today however, a five-day work week followed by a two-day weekend has become a global norm.  Ergo, "The Long Weekend" refers to any weekend that exceeds the customary two-day recess from job-related duties.

Taking family excursions during long weekends is a well established social tradition, to the point of non-compliant families being unfairly subject to supercilious prejudices.  I for one question the constitutionality of this so-called tradition, especially when I recall what my family has endeavored (and endured) in the last few long weekends.  Take for instance the time we dared a road trip down south to visit some famous caves, armed with an abundantly sick seven month old infant and an incongruously merry six year old.  Mother and infant ended up nursing particularly intense RSV symptoms in a hotel room with humidifiers and tissues, while the remaining family members unsuccessfully tried to make good on a half a dozen pre-paid cave tour tickets.  Ultimately, we decided to cut the trip short and return home.  I remember another instance, albeit slightly less disastrous, when after many contentious planning sessions coupled with a strong resolve to take more family trips, we ended going shoe shopping at the local Walmart.

Admittedly, we have had a few fruitful long weekends like the time we flew west to visit the bay area, the canyons of Navajo Nation, Las Vegas etc.  Howbeit, I cannot deny experiencing mild anxiousness in the face of an imminent long weekend.

Crazy little thing called Phone

When Bell invented the telephone in the 19th century, little did he know that the instrument would morph into a 2 dimensional slab that the 21st century creature would nonchalantly slip into its jeans pocket.  Although this instrument is mononymously called a "phone", it is actually a full blown computer; a pocket PC that is way more powerful and millions of times faster than the computers that assisted in the first moon landing.  The incongruity of this moniker is that actual human conversations make up only a tiny portion of the use cases of this instrument.  And for good reason.  iPhones today are equipped with 12 MP cameras that can shoot videos in 4K resolution.  Your email is on the phone as are a dozen other work related software apps.  You can record studio quality audio on it and churn out professional music productions.  You don't need newspapers anymore; your phone will tell you the weather and scream headlines at you all day if you so desire.  What previously required detailed printed maps, spiral bound books from AAA, or bulky GPS devices, can now all be accomplished on your phone using a simple app.  Then you have Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and what not, to satisfy your social media appetite.  Furthermore, there are apps for day-to-day stuff like banking, cab services, home appliances, and even your baby daycare's daily reports!

Today's teenager knows not of the thrill of using a rotary telephone to call his high school crush while praying that a parent does not answer.  But he sure does know how to aggrandize his nonverbal communication with emojis and stickers! 

Trends

Back in the early 90s, a contribution of ₹ 2.00 to the earnings of Oven Fresh Foods Pvt. Ltd., Pune would buy you a half loaf packet of sliced white bread.  This was also the era of the World Wrestling Federation.  "Dabloo-Dabloo-Aphe", we boys used to call it.  Playing with GI Joes had become passé, while discussing the exploits of Yokozuna or Macho Man was the in thing.  It was only a matter of time before astute product managers at Oven Fresh Foods Pvt. Ltd. decided to take advantage of this craze by including a greasy little WWF wrestler sticker at the bottom every half loaf bread packet.  And quite obviously, 2 half loaves had always costed more than 1 full loaf, so OFF Pvt. Ltd. became a rapidly burgeoning business.  Meanwhile, collecting WWF stickers completely replaced more solemn hobbies like philately.

With the advent fast personal computers in the mid-90s, however, young boys were no longer sitting around trading greasy stickers.  Computer games programmed for the then powerful MS-DOS 6.0 suddenly became the dernier cri.  Boys were now playing Space Commanders, Frog, Elevator, Dave, Mortal Kombat, and Doom on their swanky new PCs.  If they wanted to challenge themselves, they would press the red turbo button on the CPU, and the little pixelated Frog would hop twice as fast and the annoying sawtooth wave buzzer beeping would rise in pitch and tempo.

In any case, I do not know what young boys are into these days.  I see that my almost seven year old daughter is into Shopkins, LOL surprizes, Polly Pockets, Jo Jo Siwa, and a few other things that I have selectively chosen not to comprehend.  I understand that changing trends are inevitable; I have no problem with them.  All I am saying is that I feel old when I catch myself thinking, “What was wrong with collecting stamps?”