Grandfather's Mansion

Its been so long since my last blog post that I myself have forgotten what I last talked about. So I'm just going to start with last night's dream.

I dreamt that I was standing in a room that had a lot of its original furnishings removed. I could tell by looking at the size and cleanliness of the room that it was an old style mansion of a rich person. I was talking to an elder lady who could have been my aunt. I was curious about something I saw...On the floor where a bed used to be, there was a trap door.

My grandfather's house, or 'haveli' as I like to call it, the house I was born into, had something similar. There was the staircase outside, that was used by everyone to get upstairs. And then there was the staircase that led from inside of the ground floor to the bedroom upstairs where my parents and I slept. It wasn't a hidden or trap door, it was a pretty well built flight of stairs. But it didn't have any source of light except the door that opened into my room. So as a kid, it was kinda adventurous or even scary to go through. Still, I used to love that route to sneak in and out of parents' sight.

So I believe that's where I was in my dream. Sure the dream doesn't render everything exactly as you remember it, it embellishes a few things. And my Grandfather's house was demolished a few years ago. So in the dream, I must have been there right before that house was about to be demolished. Talking about why the trap doors were made and why you don't see them in new houses... I would love to have trap doors like that or secret passages in my home. They provide a safe/secret exit in case of danger. Kinda like the Batman penthouse in 'The dark Knight'.

I never saw that old house being demolished. I was in pune when I heard from family that the old house is being brought down. Leaves me thinking about why, in my dream, I wanted to go there. I think the significance of this dream is that I am still looking for a way out. I can't let other people know, or I am afraid to admit it, but I want to sneak out. And in a way it's true. I have been wanting to somehow screw up so bad that my parents have no choice but to bring me back.

Addition:
In other relevant news, my grandfather passed away 26th october in his sleep. It was just 5 am IST when I got the news. I loved my grandfather. Much more than my grandma. I had so much fun with him when I was young. He brought me a lot of joy.

I had heard this somewhere, the Egyptians believe when one dies and goes to heaven, the gods ask the person two questions before they let him into heaven. "Did you find joy in your life? and Have you brought joy to others." And I would just like to tell my Grandpa that the answer to the second question is yes!

Don't want to live in that house!

I finally moved in with Atif, the pakistani guy three days ago. I was going to take the appartment room but somebody else moved in first. I absolutely had to move out of Vironica's place that day, so I called up my next best option. He came with his van and even helped me move my stuff. That night, Atif's mom served me lamb and paratha. The size of the Paratha was about the same size as the roti at Pranav's house. I couldn't eat more than one. This could be great I thought. But I didn't foresee the things to come.

This might seem a little silly.. Has anyone who's ever lived away from home had a place that was too much like home? Yeah. In some aspects, this place is like home. The food, Indian channels on the television and worst of all, Parents! But it was someone else's home. That made it even worse. I felt like I didn't belong here. Maybe that was just me missing home. I think I need to find something very non-Indian to connect to so that I don't miss home. Do you get me or am I just making your head hurt?

The next day, I took the bus to school and spent a good part of my day there. In the night, I didn't have any food of my own and I was getting really hungry. So I was fed by aunty again. obviously, there was no hospitality. I was sensing hostility. She doesn't want me eating their food. And that's totally fine, I understand that. That's why, Immediately when Atif came home, I asked him to take me grocery shopping. And as we were about to leave, I saw a cop car outside. I heard Atif talk to his mom in punjabi that they always come and stand outside their house. 'This is not a good sign.' In all the time I have spent in canada, I'd never seen a cop car stand outside a house in Oakville. (Not counting the time they were patroling on halloween night.)

After we came back from shopping, aunty arranged some space in their terribly crowded refrigerator and freezer for my food. I said I'll head upstairs to my room. There, I turned on the stupid table lamp and started to watch movies. Kids, before you move in, always check whether there's going to be sufficient light in the room after sun-down. I felt so stupid for not noticing that there weren't any light fixtures on the walls. Also, they didn't have the air conditioning running and it was really hot in the room all the time! This is like the room in Kevin's house all over again!

Then in some cases, its NOT like Kevin's house. This place is crowded, busy, smelly and messy. The dining table has stuff all over it. The kitchen counter hardly has any space. At kevin's I could actually use the dishwasher. Kevin was a quiet guy. Last night, aunty was yelling out loud till way past 12 am! I could hear her all the way upstairs in my room! Even this morning, she was screaming in punjabi, probably over the phone. All around the house you can smell that 'muslim family' stench. The toilet upstairs doesn't work. At kevin's place, everything worked, and I was the only one who used the facilities.

Then there was the part about not telling the neighbours that I am renting here. Atif said, "If anyone asks, tell them you're my cousin. Tell them you're just here on vacation. Or you're just here to go to sheridan. You know me from back home." Fuck no I'm not telling anyone I'm your cousin! I still remember the police car. And if anything were to go down, I don't want them taking me in because they think I'm related to you. Regardless of whatever the probability of that actually happening is, I would just like to play it safe.

And finally, I'm the only animation student there. They won't take white guys there, so I can't even ask any of my friends or cantacts in my field to come stay with me. There is no desi person in this field who is looking to share a basement or get a room. Atleast not to my knowledge. And since this is my last time to try for animation, I want to take every step possible to make sure I get in. Which includes rooming with another person in the same field. We can work together, leech off of each other and I'm sure will get along better than someone from business or engineering background.

Lazy day

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say may be used against you on my blog."

That's taken from a cartoon in today's newspaper. I found that really hilarious and very true. I laughed out loud as I read that. The maid should have gotten used to this by now. I remember one other maid who, upon hearing me laugh out loud for no apparent reason, went to my cousin and said worriedly, "he's just sitting there and started laughing!" And that has been one anecdote that arjun bhaiya tells all his friends about me.

I am still not sure what it was that I had for lunch today, something green and gross! I think she said it was chaudai/chaulai. Bleh! I was feeling really sluggish today. I called up suju but didn't feel like talking... other times she can't get me to shut up. LOL. After I finished my lunch, I went upstairs to shower. I stalled by calling up nikita, Jayu then Meghna. I also called up pranav to find out if he was at the flat and when he'll be coming back. We agreed to do something tomorrow. After I hung up, it was like someone suddenly turned the power switch back on.

I went to the photography exhibit next and was really surprised by the number of people outside. They were celebrating like it was a festival! There was even some painting/renovation work going on around the entrance. Once upstairs it was quiet and peaceful. I could look at the photos at my own pace but I didn't take too long. Not by choice, I just didn't realize that it was going to be that small. But the photos were awesome! I didn't have any doubts in my head about why my picture didn't get selected anymore. I congratulated the people at the counter and left.

Plan ahead: pick up my sketchbook and go to ccd and sketch.

How much I like milk!

Yes! Just what I needed! Another reason to talk even more about the movie taare zameen par! Its the movie review post on The Fun portal, -my entertainment related blog. I recently got two comments on it, The first one talking about the solomon island story and the other one, just a ...well... blah! So I don't have much to say about balizee's comment, except for everyone has a right to voice their opinion. But pret actually provided some useful information. He pointed me to a wikipedia page that talks about the solomon island story about people yelling on trees to kill them/bring them down. I recommend you go here and check it out.

When I was talking about the movie to pranav, and even he was really touched by the movie. He said he could see a lot of resemblance between the movie and his life. He said his dad was pretty much like ishaan's dad. And today, while listening to the song 'maa', I realized even his relationship with his mom is pretty much like shown in the movie. He has to be the only dude I know who tells each and everything that happens with him to his mom. I remember his mom really wanted to see me because he'd been telling his mom all about me. So when I finally met her, she was pretty excited. And you can read what happened that day over here...wait... after a little digging around, I found out that I haven't mentioned that incident in this blog... 

Now I'm all confused and worried. I read my old blog posts... And I remember that the first time I went over to pranav's place was right after Sujata asked me why I liked Pranav so much. That was 6th October 06. We went there just to pick up some stuff for the greeting cards we were making for the exhibition/sale. And I met his sister Nayan, and aunty. Then aunty asked pranav if he'd like to drink milk. He was being a bad kid... he refused. Then aunty did what I'd expect every mom to do in that kind of situation. She asked me if I wanted to drink milk. She said "If you drink it, Pranav will drink it too." Damn! Its such a cliche, and it works every damn time! 

Now I couldn't refuse because I didn't want her to all of a sudden start thinking of me as a snotty spoilt brat! I would go from being ...like a really good friend to a fugitive.... At least that's what I feared. So I said, "ok, I will have some milk." And within a couple minutes, she brought two glasses of pure white warm milk. Back then, I hadn't had plain milk for about 12 or so yeas! I never liked drinking plain milk ever since I made the switch to 'drinking chocolate' additives like boost/bournvita or Milo. And that was around when I was in 1st grade. But now I couldn't be like "aah! I don't drink this, I think it tastes like crap!" No wait, I think it was more the smell of warm milk that bothered me.... Anyways... I took the glass in my hands, and took a sip! Mickey, I'm looking at you - this is what being a good guest means in India.

And I almost gaged! But I didn't spit it. I realized that this didn't even have any sugar in it... Which, I would have lots of, in my milk, back home. "Now what!" is what I started contemplating. I looked at pranav drinking his milk... And took another little sip. Then I think aunty brought in some dry fruits. And I saw raisins! "Oh! Raisins are sweet! I will just try dissolving raisins in my glass of milk!" Noooo.... I didn't really think that! How dumb do you think I am! I just took a handful of raisins, took a large gulp of milk, and stuffed my mouth with the raisins, and chewed them while swallowing the milk! It was hilarious! I'm so glad aunty wasn't there watching this.... 

Aaah! Good times! I can't believe I just wrote 5 paragraphs of this milk episode! So I'll stop typing and start drawing. Bye!

OMG OMG OMG! its almost as if mom made it.

Yes, it tasted almost as if mom had made it, except for the fact that I made it. LOL. It's been about 11 months since I last had it. The day I was leaving for mumbai, my mom made it for me in pune. But arjun bhaiya and aniruddh bhaiya were hellbent on making me eat that filthy green shit. Boy was I pissed! But I had some okra nonetheless, and I guess I had been savoring that flavor ever since.

Now I guess I had had about enough of eating all the other crap that I get here, and wanted to make my favourite 'sabzi' again. So I bought some okra when we went to the Indian store a day before diwali. And tonight I was gonna cook it! Home-style! Oh! I was just so hungry, still very determined to cut the damn okra into the thin slices that's required for frying it and making it crisp. My hands were shaking, and the gooey-slippery fluid from okra wasn't helping anything. Mandeep came down, and saw me cutting it... I don't know what was going on in his head when he saw me like that. But inside mine, there were wonderful, delicious fried okra slices dancing around to 'tum bin jiya udaas sajna' (Okay, just for the hindi music challenged I'll translate...Without you I'm sad sweetheart(honey or something else, doesn't really matter))

The trick to this recipe is, like my favourite food blog author said, "to keep the flame high throughout and stir like your life depended on it." I poured out oil in a cast iron pan that was in the house, but turns out it was too wide and would require a lot of oil to kind of submerge the okra in it... So I transferred it to a less wide frying pan. Still, it was more like shallow frying it. I am not gonna give out the complete recipe, want to keep it like a family secret. LOL. Just kidding. I'm just too lazy to type it all out.

Once it was done, I tasted it, and was so excited, I had to tell the world! However, I wasn't ready to skip my meal and go blog about it. So I just called up sujata, talked to her about it, gave some to nick to taste, and went to have my dinner. There was paratha and aloo paratha to go with it. And with a wholesome amount of butter on it, it was as close as I could get to a home dinner. Mom would smother her chapattis with amul butter - My Fav! But I wasn't getting mom's chappatis here. That's something only she can make right.

But I am definitely looking forward to making okra again sometime soon. I might invite oliver and tanny for dinner too! lets see now. Till then...

full day of painting! allright!

So, I have been toiling to finish the enormous two by three feet painting all weekend, (well, not exactly... I just started on sunday. But I was GONNA start it on saturday, I swear! I was inspired by vandy, she's so far ahead of us in finishing the assignments! But unfortunately, the alarm failed to wake me up in the night. I should have known this painting in the night thing wasn't gonna work... Vironica suggested tht I paint from a photograph, but I wanted to try painting it from life. So on sunday night, I finally started on the painting.

First, I had trouble setting up my 'workstation' (I just wanted to use that word... LOL. It seems to be a magnet for some reason. my photo on flickr titled 'my workstation' has gotten much more hits than any other pic in its time frame! ) Well, I awkwardly used the canvas on my lap, on the floor leaning against the stool, or standing on the stool... but nothing seemed to work! Its like when you're painting that huge, you need more elbow room to wildly wave your hands in the air and pull your hair in angst when things don't seem to work. LOL. No, really, I found it impossible to paint without standing up in front of the canvas at my eye level. I ended up doing really shitty work. Even the colors I was using weren't on the money. So I finally quit and went back to sleep at i think 6 am.

I woke up at 10 am and got ready to go to college. Vironica made me some breakfast! SO SWEEEET! I also got a call from mickey saying that airport in his laptop was screwed up for some reason and he wanted to call him mom. He sounded really worried but I had to do my own painting stuff too, so I told him I was coming to the college anyways, and I am bringing my laptop with me, so he can use skype on my MBP to call his mommy. So I packed my stuff, and vironica drove me to college, she had some work to do too... Well, the painting room was closed so I asked a security guard to open it for me, because I wanted to paint. I made a sorry face and told him "I just got to finish this assignment or else I'll fail..." LOL and he radioed another security guard, who met me in the pit, and unlocked the door to the painting studio for me. I was finally in!

Here, I finally had the space, the right lighting condition and atmosphere and everything I needed to get going. It worked magic on my painting. I finally started doing things right. First the ceiling in my room, then the door and door frame, then the ceiling above the chandelier and the wall. It all started looking pretty neat. now I was getting to the tough part. The beautiful hard wood floors and railings and the lights. I kinda lost it here. but it was pretty late and I decided I wanted to go back home now. I called up vironica, and she came to pick me up. She even said that the painting is looking a lot better than in the morning. YAY!

But the job's not quite done yet. and I still have a lot of painting to go. So I will stop typing and start mixing. But wait, maybe I need a table lamp with white light to be able to judge colors correctly... lets ask vironica if she has one I could borrow. bye for now ya'll...

Very un-typical day

Okay, stupid corel painter X. Damn thing won't work on my OS X 10.4! I practically wasted the whole day yesterday trying to get it to work. I have even lost count of how many times I've uninstalled and reinstalled it. I only wanted to do some painting for my assignment. Yeah, painting on the computer is supposed to be less messy and fun, plus a lot faster, easier, simpler...But it wasn't fast or easy or simple, because damn software refuses to work! Hate it!

Atleast my illustrator is working fine. Computers have a tendency to just drop dead the minute you need 'em the most. But this is a mac, and I consider myself lucky. In class, I worked on both my 2d design assignments, but didn't end up finishing either. In painting, something seemed to click, and again, this week, I think this one's my best painting so far. I hope the pattern continues the next three weeks. I am actually starting to like it, and I think I will take painting next sem, even if I'm not 'REQUIRED' to.

Watched 'Are we there yet' and 'Norbit' both half decent movies. Killed some time. Oh..I don't even want to talk about the barbecue disaster today! But I still ended up having myself a decent meal. Vironica brought a whole bunch of mint. I am definitely gonna make some chutney tomorrow! Can't wait!

All these and more

I always thought "how much money could he be making when he's sitting downstairs in the house all day!" Then his really silly actions to cut down his expenses like having a slow as hell internet connection! Its even slower than the broadband connection I used in India! He got rid of a lot of channels on cable so now I only get 8 channels! Man! I feel like I'm living in some third world country! He wouldn't even turn the heat up a lot! My room would be cold during the winter, and now its the hottest place during hot days on the summer! I say, I didn't get my ass out of there sooner!

So here's a bunch of reasons I think justify me moving out of here.

• The room only has a table lamp. It is too dark to work after sundown!
• The Ethernet cable is faulty, I can never connect to the internet using that, and he won't agree that it needs to be replaced.
• The router setting blocks my laptop and cellphone from successfully conecting via wi-fi.
• There is a lot og junk in the closet which I asked him to move out but he still hasn't.
• The cat walks in the room if the door is open and walks all over my bed and ME!
• If I leave the door closed, there is no ventilation and it gets really hot during summer.
• The table is getting smaller and smaller for all my needs. Maybe I'd have more room if it wasn't for that damn table lamp!
  
• There is nothing to watch on the T.V. (only 8 channels remember?)which was part of the facilities I am paying for.
• The tv in the basement doesn't have a working remote control so watching television alone by myself is really inconvenient.
• Mostly, a couple of my stuff has gone missing and I say its unacceptable!

Plus, he recently told me, "I've got a lot of things going on in my life right now, and the house is getting kinda expensive, so I'm thinking of selling it."

There you have it!

Now the dilemma as to where I should move in!

my house-an epitome of dis-orderliness

Well I had decided, kinda in my mind that i should refrain from blogging from mobile if everybody's gonna want to read the entry on my phone itself.(like it happened with the sleepover post) but I cant help but ponder-in public-about what happened in my house today. Arjun bhaiya and taiji were looking for the cable of the sony camera taiji brought from canada. He wanted to transfer photos of last night's party to computer..so if they dont manage to find it, we'll have to buy a card reader.

that was yesterday.now this morning, when i needed to urgently transfer some photos to my pc, I couldn't find MY camera's data cable. Turns out arjun used my data cable for his camera! And left me with the task of searching all over for what I always placed in its fixed place. That so pissed me off! Wasted few minutes of my morning.. Which I could have utilized for somethin else I'd actually like to do..like chat with abhinav or browse around flickr..

But why doesnt someone in this house start placing things where they can find it and save me some trouble! I totally dont have a answer for that..

sent frm my E60