A Tamil Day - Part II (Comedy Drama)

Continuing on the tribute to our tamil roots, I and my friends headed toward the Sunnyvale temple from UCB visit where the Bharati Tamil Sangam was having its Tamil New Year Celebrations. We were there to check out a tamil comedy drama by CMU students working in the bay area, most of whom graduated in the same batch as me. We reached well over an hour early for the play but were glad that we did! Entertaining us were a number of really talented performances by young and old alike. I particularly enjoyed the Pattimandram or a debate. These debates are one of those things that make you happy that you understand the language :P The topics they select are typically controversial (this one was, "Who are more responsible for marital bliss - men or women?") and so brings out some cool debating action and some really funny retorts.

Our final takeaway for the day was of course the tamil drama. Titled, "worstu begaviouru" it was about this indian dude and his 'hot nondesi gal' who he is dating. Things start to get interesting as his very cultural parents come over to US from India for his birthday surprise. Now, perhaps it was just something leftover from the morinig ucb visit where I er.. discovered some facts about my ancestral history or it was because these were all CMU alum, I once again found this sense of pride welling within me as I watched their hilarious performance. Fortunate to have been carrying my cam with me, I managed to shoot the whole drama and put it up on youtube. If you understand tamil and have some time, I would certainly recommend checking it out. It may start off with some random mokkaification, but gets you giggling soon enough.

Kudos to you ppl! Keep it up.

A Tamil Day - Part I (UCB visit)

With the dual intent of visiting the famous campus and also attending the annual ucb tamil conference held there, I left with my friends early in the morning. UCB campus is really worth visiting if you live in the bay area. Apart from the panoramic Sather tower views or the beautifully architected buildings and museums, every street corner or park may help you understand why US is such a big consumer of sunscreen lotions ;)

After shamelessly helping ourselves to free lunch, we made our way to the room where the annual berkeley tamil conference was held. If the feeling of being back at campus, attending lectures was anything great, it was only to be surpassed by an even more pleasant surprise - many panelists in that room were of non-Indian origin and were telling us about some of the most intricate details of the tamil era of kings from 14th -17th century. I felt a strange sense of pride welling up within me as the professor recreated the history of pandiya kings and their valor in battles. For all I knew perhaps these were my very ancestors, my own blood! As the prof spoke, I felt myself instantly being transported to those ancient lands of glory...

As the mighty prince Jatavarman Sundara, I feel the hot afternoon breeze in my hair as I stand watching over my splendid kingdom with ministers and princess. My fair lady huddles close to me worried, "O noble prince, look, the evil Kongu king and his armies are marching here. Will you go to battle?" Taking a deep breath, I return a reassuring smile to her, "That will not be necessary, O fair princess. I am the powerful warrior of the lunar race and I shall unleash the mighty strength of the sun god on these insolent fools"... My wise ministers eye me skeptically, but they dare not question my power! I step forward and eyeball the situation - it is true, the Kongu king army is mighty and is marching fast at the horizon, but he will be defenseless against the power of the sun god. Reaching inside my robes, I take out my canister of deodorant and spray liberally into the air, chanting some deep incantations. As the pressurized canister empties itself, its vicious CFC compounds rise high up into the atmosphere. The ozone layer is temporarily wiped away because of this and the sun's harsh UV rays scorch the marching Kongu king's armies... his mighty men burn to the ground as ashes. After I complete the incantation, I turn back to my people. They are rejoicing, "Hail King Jatavarman!". I hear the Azeem-O-shaan shahenshah song being sung. In the midst I see my fair princess walking toward me. Her face as splendid as the moon. As I smilingly reach out for her, suddenly without warning, she kicks me hard in my shins!! "Why did you do that? my lady", I am shocked. But she does it again, even more hard this time. "Princess! STOP IT" *...

Suddenly, the whole scene transforms and I find myself back in the ucb conference hall. I think my last words had broken the silence in the room and a few educated heads had turned to look in my direction. The prof made a momentary pause before resuming with an unmistakable smile. It wasn't my princess kicking me, it was rather my roomie kicking me awake, "Get up you sleepy lazy bum! We need to leave now, or we'll miss the CMU tamil drama at the Sunnyvale temple".

to be continued...

* - Jatavarman tales date nearly a thousand years ago. Ozone layer depletion is happening right now. Yet to some of us the latter interests us no more than the former.

The Incredible Restroom ;-)

(Some facts mentioned here can be verified by visiting the IHOP restaurant at Santa Clara)

If you like pancakes, chances are you probably love the ihop restaurants. Apart from their array of different pancakes and waffles, every table has this "sugar boat" with different sweet syrup dispensers - strawberry, blueberry, butter pecan and so on, which are fun to experiment with, if not just delicious. Sometime back I had gone for dinner to one such restaurant at Santa Clara. My friend had chosen this place after looking it up on an i-phone (it seems to be a hip thing to do these days for some reason :P ). At first sight I somewhat felt like this place was a little oddly located, but didn’t know what was exactly odd until much later...

Towards the end of our dinner, I decided it was time to answer Nature's call. The thing about nature calls is that there is a limited number of times you can hit the "busy" button before running the risk of either prostrate distress or taking the call in public! Therefore, I excused myself from the table and hurriedly made my way toward the door where the signboard clearly read "RESTROOMS". The moment I entered this door, though, I knew instantly that I had made a mistake - before me was a small carpeted room with four comfortable looking chairs, a little table and a young lady in uniform who seemed to be waiting on something. Before this lady could notice, I hurried back through the door and asked the nearest IHOP waiter where the restroom was. To my surprise he pointed back at the same door! I was confused, but my nature's call was getting louder. So I suspiciously re-entered the neat room. This time the uniformed lady was expecting me, "How may I help you?", she asked in a thick accent. "Er.. I'm just looking for the restrooms?” I stammered. As if expecting this question and barely letting me complete, she quipped, "Please take a seat sir, someone will be here to assist you"!! I was aghast, "Excuse me?! I think I'd rather do this on my own!", I replied back, but the lady wasn't even listening, instead she quickly disappeared behind another door. Honestly, I didn’t know what was going on... I truly appreciate Americans and their professionalism but this had got to be the heights...

Seconds later; another officious looking lad, entered the same door the lady had disappeared through. "What may I help you with today?” he asked in a rather pompous manner. I was a bit restless, but I repeated my question patiently. "Oh", he smiled, "please follow me, sir, I can help you with that"! ... It felt a chill run down my spine. Did I really look like I needed assistance with this thing? Before I could object, the lad was already leading me via another door and a small corridor. Not too far away was a more familiar pair of doors with the men's and women's room symbols. I felt a wave of relief, but before I entered, I curtly, said a "Thank you" and saw to it that this lad walked away before I entered my much sought after restroom!

Relieving minutes later, as I exited the restaurant, my friend pointed out that this ihop joint din't really have restrooms of its own and so they just made people go to the Holiday Inn lobby in the building right next to their place when needed.

Phew.. what an experience!