What are we doing?

I had a day to kill in Chennai and was recommended by a friend to visit Dakshin Chitra, I liked the idea of having one place to see most of the architecture of houses in south India

The visit made me realize that - how we live now in comparison with our forefathers and also the huge space they utilized. . We now live clustered in blocks and use minimum space, especially in the cities and towns. But the fact is that the traditional houses which used to exist in the villages are also vanishing in a rapid phase.

The visit left a nostalgic feel - it reminded me of my traditional house in Mangalore built by my grand father, which now no longer exist and there stands a modern roofed house.

They obviously were huge houses since there were joint or big families living in; they required a bigger space for cooking and storage. And we now are nuclear families and require minimum space and don’t need big storage space and use modern amenities.

What saddens me that we now making replicas of our tradition and culture and also destroying our architecture and right now we are wiping out the existence of our history, and in reality we have a chance to preserve what we have.

(The first picture was my ancestral house in Mangalore, the second picture is a traditional Kerala house built in Dakshin Chitra)

Inspirations

I wanted to gift Jen and Rolf a painting for their wedding and asked Jen to suggest what she would want. She looked at some painting in a gallery on Michigan and mentioned to me that she wanted something similar. I walked down Michigan and was amazed by the painting. The Artist was Jaline Pol I was inspired and did start out on trying knife painting. I just love the way it turned up. The colors are were bright and just apt. I now, would go on looking for more inspirations.

Ting a ling

Here is the story of the ting’s I am involved with, in my 5 month stay in the US.

My first original painting: I have made so many paintings, most of them are copies. Here is the picture of the monkey farm barn and the one on the wall is my painting.

And these are the quilts I learned to make for the Cancer hospital through the church.

I did knit a lot of scarfs too.

So that’s my story of the Painting, Quilting and Knitting.

Travelogue

My one week vacation included the air, water and land experience. I was cruising with the Carnival Conquest to Jamaica, Cayman Islands and Mexico.

Day 1 and 2: I embarked the huge ship from Galveston an hour and half by road from Houston, Texas. The ship was huge; I have been on huge war ship before never a cruise liner. Sailed two days on the Sea before I reached Jamaica. There are shows, games, formal nights, music and of course the food which kept me busy. I won some bingo games too. And attended some crew parties, since I was there as crew family. I also got the privilege to be on the navigation bridge to view the ship maneuvered.

Day 3: Jamaica (Montego Bay): The Island is beautiful, mountainous and lush green. We drove for two hours to Ocho Rios on the north coast to the beautiful Dunn’s Water falls. We climb the 600 foot water falls with a human chain stopping constantly to take photo’s and dipping in the cold water, the water was gushing and cold more than usual - as it was raining continuously. And then went to Dolphin’s cove where you get to swim with the dolphins and touch, dance and yeah kiss them. (Sally she is cute) The reggae music is great. No trace of the world cup cricket there other than two banners of Brian Lara in some ad. (Since it was the week of the world cup finals, kind of surprising) Next day we went to Grand Cayman

Day 4: Cayman Islands (Grand Cayman): This Island is clean and with colorful roof tops. We went to the Sting Ray Sand bar which is a 25 min boat ride to mid sea and then we walked in waist deep water and the huge Sting Rays start coming towards you. I was scared to be stung like Steve Irwin, but the guide told us that these are friendly ones – the fishermen while returning from their catch threw the fish which they did not want on the sand bar, the sting rays started coming there for the free food and soon the fishermen starting touching and playing with them. Apparently the tail is not the sting; it’s near the start of the tail. The male ones are smaller and the female are really huge…velvety and smooth, try a massage it’s awesome. They suck the food, so get food near the mouth …whoosh it’s gone. The island is full of Iguana’s basking in the sun. The saying is if you kiss a sting ray there is luck for 7 years, I am keeping track now.

Then finally the country I wanted to go to - Mexico.

Day 5: Mexico (Cozumel): Here we did clear Kayaking and saw the Regal blue tang (Dory in Finding Nemo). We drifted away in the clear blue sea and had to be towed back :-). And then we did deep sea snorkeling for around an hour. Wow… the coral plants and the colorful fishes, I really did not want to get out from the water, there was two fresh water caves the water color was different and cooler and the fish in the caves were wonderful - slowly by our side there was a baby shark. And here were the colorful Nemo (clownfish) fishes.

Day 6: Lazed around, slept under the open sky and watched some shows. Highlights: Jamaica and Grand Cayman felt like home a bit, since they drive on the right side of the road. I mean the real right. Montego Bay is greener, mountainous compared to Grand Cayman and Cozumel. Also the later two islands were hit by hurricanes in the past years. The crew really works hard to keep the guest happy; the amazing part was around 3000 people get off the ship and return back on time. And the sea is with beautiful amazing colors, calm and sometimes rough.

It’s the most pampered vacation you can go on. And I love the Caribbean waters. And I still feel like I am swaying in the sea, at work

Devil's Head and a sore back.

My first experience skiing. It was beautiful, snowing in Wisconsin at the Devil's Head resort. And I did get lessons from friends. STOP --> how do you stop, you need to wedge and make a pizza and you stop.....naaah... didn't get it. Every time I went up the mountain and then saw I am heading towards someone/a tree/a pole I did not know how to stop, so all I did was fall. And fell every time I had to stop. The next day had the whole body sore and could not do anything. But the fun I had skiing is not to be compared. No pain no gain.

No Sun No Fun.

I decided to write about the weather, since the extreme winter is my first experience. These are the things I learn...

1. It might look bright and sunny outside and you feel like what a wonderful day and when you go out you realize its around -4 deg Fahrenheit/ -20 deg Celsius. (And you are frozen).
2. I always thought that the snow moves from up to down (gravity????) but in Chicago downtown it goes horizontal and upwards. Is it going back to the clouds?
3. You can wear 6 layers of clothes, 2 layers of socks, 2 layers of gloves a cap and ear muffs and you are perfectly fine to go out. (Don’t try to go to a store and try out clothes, that’s a definitely No No to do).
4. You can walk on a frozen stream or river. It feels odd to walk on water - okay frozen water. (I am standing on the stream in the picture)
5. And when its snows it gets warmer.

I seem to like the winter No Sun still its fun.

Computer baggage outage !!!!!!!! huh!!!!!!!!…

Have you heard of this term.? On my trip to the windy city (Chicago) after a lay over at London traveling on British Airways, there was a note for me and for few other just outside the door of the flight. The note said “so and so bags belonging to you have not arrived from London, contact the office near the entrance”. There they told me that I may get my baggage the next day and they do not know where it is at that moment.

Yup the next day I call them up they say the still do not know where the bags are I may get it the next day. The London airport had a Computer baggage outage and the systems are down and they cannot trace where my bags are. This is definitely a sales lead for ThoughtWorks …guys you need to go and rescue them and get my bags back.

Next day I get a call from my apartment reception that the luggage has arrived, yup they had sent only one bag , where is the other one?( I didn’t have my clothes in that bag they just contained Indian food masalas and few gifts for my cousins) Call the customer service again and they say we don’t know. This is going on and on. Yeah the good part of it is that I get to shop from scratch at the expense of British Airways. And I got to hear the same story from so many people who traveled last week from London airport.

I love shopping but BA people please do give my bag back.