september 2008...that was when i reviewed my weight loss.. and my fans would be wondering why i have been lying low. well for good reason. i havent thought about it thats why! yup! yeah!! yes!!! portion control, exercise, careful eating, counting calories etc has slowly become a part of my life and routine. desire to 'taste' this food or that food, eat "just for taste" has definitely taken a back seat. i have been chugging away at it slowly and steadily.. the proverbial tortoise, that is me.
and the results? good, very good. in fact, great! almost 18 pounds dropped another 18 'only' to go...
fruit and milk for breakfast, phulkas, dal and subji for lunch, snacks mid morning and mid afternoon comprising marie bisc. and tea with sugar free, dinner veggies, fruits and yoghurt..yes to the fried stuff also but in very very tiny quantities.. so life isnt that bad.
i wrote all of the above in march '09!! and forgot all about the draft waiting patiently for me!! but havent forgotten that i want to lose weight. between then and now, i have made a trip to singapore and one to west lafayette.. my daughter's fridge is full of delicious stuff.. but control, control, that was the mantra and i returned from w.l. without putting on an ounce.
well between march and now, that is 8 months down the line, you would expect i would have lost at least 8 lbs? no such luck, and of course i have only myself to blame, dont you know.....but it is not back to 69.5 kgs.. i am , shall we say, "maintaining" at 59.5kgs... yup, ten good kilos gone and good luck to me. my target as you will see on calorie count is 52 kgs.. but that really seems such a long way off...
lately, and that is about a week back, i resumed jogging... and good timing.. monsoons have set in!! i am fed up- but give up i wont. i have been casting around in my mind to discover equally calorie burning activities- indoors, that is important. at the moment going to the gym is not an option. let us leave it at that for the present.. it is not an option.. so what to do? still working on it, meanwhile i have an old stationary bike i sit on and pedal away... not difficult pedalling and all that, i dont want to lose interest in exercising, and it really hurts the seat, you know ? to be sitting and cycling for more than 20 mts at a time... the fat must be fast vanishing from there, i suppose, was not so difficult once upon i time....still, easy cycling uses more energy than just sitting around on your seat right?
Monday, March 30, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Indian English
i have been nominated for a training course in singapore...well, one can never say, the course itself could get cancelled in which case no seeing singapore at government expense yaar, but theek hai, sub chalta hai...but the reason why i mentioned this is this: no sooner nominated, i did a google search on singapore, found out this and that about the place and while doing that, my attention was grabbed by a hyperlink "indian english" and i was curious...now how many times i must have seen that phrase in the hundreds of pages i must have read on the net i cannot say, but this time round it did catch my eye and i said to myself, really? indian english? now what is that?
now of course, i speak it, i write it, i read it, and i do everything possible with it... but i didnt, sort of think of it as 'indian english'...know what i mean? being 'convent educated', and then having gone to a CBSE school where i was taught english by an anglo-indian, i think you are that, no sir? (maria philip sir, are you reading this blog?i do remember very fondly, you and your enactment of "Othello"), i always thought that i spoke british english albeit with a thick south indian accent (wow! i have admitted to that??!!!) and of course was too uppity re the american english. but u cannot escape american english, right, esp when you have hazaar relatives living in america, and your favourite movies are all hollywood made!! and you end up writing a bit of that also ( that word! now i can view that without cringing!!).
never has another wikipedia page given me more fun time than the one on indian english- and made me so thoughtful...i went on hmming all the time when i read that page, and guess what, (is that american?), at the end of the reading, and did it take time! i was at peace with myself and my english. i no longer worry about not speaking perfect english, i am not worried anymore that i am, day by day, becoming more american-english speaking, and i am positively proud now, of speaking our kind of english. and i wont be judgemental about any kind of english, it had to take that page to make me this!!
btw, do you know that spellings are not going to be a big deal in the CBSE exams anymore? yup! i remember reading somewhere, an article which starts out as english and with many spelling changes becomes german!!maybe that is where we are heading!!
ciao!
now of course, i speak it, i write it, i read it, and i do everything possible with it... but i didnt, sort of think of it as 'indian english'...know what i mean? being 'convent educated', and then having gone to a CBSE school where i was taught english by an anglo-indian, i think you are that, no sir? (maria philip sir, are you reading this blog?i do remember very fondly, you and your enactment of "Othello"), i always thought that i spoke british english albeit with a thick south indian accent (wow! i have admitted to that??!!!) and of course was too uppity re the american english. but u cannot escape american english, right, esp when you have hazaar relatives living in america, and your favourite movies are all hollywood made!! and you end up writing a bit of that also ( that word! now i can view that without cringing!!).
never has another wikipedia page given me more fun time than the one on indian english- and made me so thoughtful...i went on hmming all the time when i read that page, and guess what, (is that american?), at the end of the reading, and did it take time! i was at peace with myself and my english. i no longer worry about not speaking perfect english, i am not worried anymore that i am, day by day, becoming more american-english speaking, and i am positively proud now, of speaking our kind of english. and i wont be judgemental about any kind of english, it had to take that page to make me this!!
btw, do you know that spellings are not going to be a big deal in the CBSE exams anymore? yup! i remember reading somewhere, an article which starts out as english and with many spelling changes becomes german!!maybe that is where we are heading!!
ciao!
Friday, March 13, 2009
Swaminarayan temple in delhi
Last week, when i was in Delhi, and "we are put up" as we say in this part of the world, in Mayur Vihar,my husband and i decided to go to "Akshardham". Often have i passed this temple on my way to and from Mayur Vihar, and every trip i made to delhi, i'd tell myself, "this time i will surely go there" but wouldnt get round to doing that. what is there behind those high walls, i kept asking myself but didnt find the time to find out, alhtough i have been to delhi hazaar times.
finally, on the day before holi this year, we made the trip to akshardham. here is what i experienced.
we drove to the temple; at the entrance, we were asked to alight from our car... obviously, the 'security' at the gates said, you cant go to the parking lot.. get down here, and walk to the temple; right we said and off we got and walked to the row of 'counters'. at counter no. one we got a form which we filled in to store our mobiles phones and my "ladies hand bag". we were asked to remove the batteries from the cell phone.. there goes my called list i thought but we obeyed and we were given a token in token of having received our goods. btw, at this point i must make it a point to tell you that there are arrangements available for you to fill in the form comfortably, pens dangling down strings harnessed to upright writing desks, where you stand and fill out personal details. you can store away any number of mobile phones, in fact families are encouraged to put all their stuff in one lot and not fill up 'n' number of forms... but you need to give only one mobile number. be sure to remember the number, coz you got to rattle it off when you go back to collect your 'things'. there is much security check, and seriously, at one point i thought this was more like taking a flight than going into a temple. much later i recalled that there was an unpleasant incident a few years back in our of our States in a similar temple.. no wonder, in retrospect... i think.
right, after the security frisking, and boy did that girl frisk me, yes, separate counters for men and women, we were in....
and gosh, what a grand sight... truly magnificient.. well manicured lawns, huge huge structures, carved and stuff like that. quite reminded me of halebid and belur. to enter the main temple of Swaminarayan, you need to take off footwear (you are allowed to keep your socks on) and store them away in the 'boot house'. the guys manning the boot house ask you "how many people" and depending on the number, we said two, they hand out a bag of appropriate size. well, we said two, and the boy handed over a small bag, in which we mushkil sey stuffed (my) nike and (his) adidas shoes.. not sounding hoity toity here, just to say that those shoes can really be big for those bags!! after that we climbed a wide flight of stairs and entered the temple.... what ornation! what carvings!! such high ceilings!! so peaceful! so cool... i was quite awestruck. having recently returned from rome, recently, as time goes interms of yugas and years, and having spent much of my stay in rome gawking at ancient structures, i couldnt help but feel the goose pimples that grew over me at the thought of walking down halls and corridors which would form history. todays people are tomorrow's ancestors, right? i had visions of people of the 25th century looking at akshardham and saying, this is how our ancients lived.. look at the carving on wood and stone and granite.... and so on and so forth. the huge huge huge brass murti of Swaminarayan was impressive... was it only brass? i wonder. i wouldnt be surprised if it was gold... no expense has been spared in the building of this temple. and it is like no other temple i have seen in india....
a couple of hours is just not enough. one should plan to spend a full day at this temple. go around 11 ish in the morning after breakfast, and spend the whole day there. on holidays esp, u would need the time, coz the place would be crowded like anything and you would have to spend a goodly hour in the various 'Q's. we didnt go on the boat trip nor did we see the exhibition- we just hadnt planned on spending the whole day there. we thought it would just be like any of the many other temples we have been to. go, pray, return...
actually, this is not just a temple of worship, it is also a tourist attraction...know what i mean?
like here,in india, in our 'normal' temples, you will not find washrooms, far less so immaculately kept, receptions where American-accented prettly sari-clad young girls 'volunteering' handing over the glossy pamphlet and explaining in detail what one would find there. this young girl told me, that 'Swami narayana bhagwan hai'-i had asked her if they beleived He was God, and she said He is God and the conviction shown in her eyes. huge huge lawns with lovely seasonal flowering plants, mosaic floors spic and span, silence, no oil lamps, and come to think of it, no bells either, except where you do the "abhishekam" and the poojari rings the bell...no flower offerings, no breaking of coconuts... yes, to repeat, to the toilets/washrooms, heavy security, a snack bar, and a full fledged food court. we bought 'kachoris' (2 medium sized ones for 12 rupees, or was it 15? piping hot and tasty as tasty can be) and a kulfi, equally reasonably priced, sat under a tree and ate, in bliss, marvelling at the fact that the kachoris, so neatly presented, so tasty was so "not at all expensive", talked about the whole show and came to the conclusion that there was a lot of NRI believers' money plowed into this enterprise, that it must be a no-profit venture. there is the souvenier centre selling all kinds of religious knick-knacks and gifts....
its a temple not only for swaminarayan, but there are shrines for the other gods of the indian pantheon, krishna, vishnu, shiva, parvati, lakshmi...i dont recall brahma... but that could just be my memory, these days 'it is failing like anything', as we say in my part of the country...
i havent seen the temple my husband's cousin and others built in Iowa, but i have heard them talk of it, and i beleive it must be something like Akshardham only on a much smaller scale... he talked of 'Swaminarayan', a kitchen (which of course our temples in south india do have), washrooms and so forth...
its like nothing like i have experienced before in india... if i was to draw a very loose comparison, than i would say it was like being in the Vatican!! so many similarities between india and italy... but that is the subject matter of another blog...
anybody who visits delhi, must, must, must see this place... it is worth spending the whole day there... and it is quite a sobering experience, very awesome and above all, so, so peaceful! i came away very thoughtful and slightly envious of the project managers who executed this project...this is purely from a professional point of view....whenever i see the Arakonam-Chingleput broad guage line,or other similar railway projects, i feel a sense of pride and possession, since i was involved in that project and i kept thinking how proud the people who envisioned this project, who dreamed it, who put it on paper and then on the land must feel about it...
all in all i had a great time.
finally, on the day before holi this year, we made the trip to akshardham. here is what i experienced.
we drove to the temple; at the entrance, we were asked to alight from our car... obviously, the 'security' at the gates said, you cant go to the parking lot.. get down here, and walk to the temple; right we said and off we got and walked to the row of 'counters'. at counter no. one we got a form which we filled in to store our mobiles phones and my "ladies hand bag". we were asked to remove the batteries from the cell phone.. there goes my called list i thought but we obeyed and we were given a token in token of having received our goods. btw, at this point i must make it a point to tell you that there are arrangements available for you to fill in the form comfortably, pens dangling down strings harnessed to upright writing desks, where you stand and fill out personal details. you can store away any number of mobile phones, in fact families are encouraged to put all their stuff in one lot and not fill up 'n' number of forms... but you need to give only one mobile number. be sure to remember the number, coz you got to rattle it off when you go back to collect your 'things'. there is much security check, and seriously, at one point i thought this was more like taking a flight than going into a temple. much later i recalled that there was an unpleasant incident a few years back in our of our States in a similar temple.. no wonder, in retrospect... i think.
right, after the security frisking, and boy did that girl frisk me, yes, separate counters for men and women, we were in....
and gosh, what a grand sight... truly magnificient.. well manicured lawns, huge huge structures, carved and stuff like that. quite reminded me of halebid and belur. to enter the main temple of Swaminarayan, you need to take off footwear (you are allowed to keep your socks on) and store them away in the 'boot house'. the guys manning the boot house ask you "how many people" and depending on the number, we said two, they hand out a bag of appropriate size. well, we said two, and the boy handed over a small bag, in which we mushkil sey stuffed (my) nike and (his) adidas shoes.. not sounding hoity toity here, just to say that those shoes can really be big for those bags!! after that we climbed a wide flight of stairs and entered the temple.... what ornation! what carvings!! such high ceilings!! so peaceful! so cool... i was quite awestruck. having recently returned from rome, recently, as time goes interms of yugas and years, and having spent much of my stay in rome gawking at ancient structures, i couldnt help but feel the goose pimples that grew over me at the thought of walking down halls and corridors which would form history. todays people are tomorrow's ancestors, right? i had visions of people of the 25th century looking at akshardham and saying, this is how our ancients lived.. look at the carving on wood and stone and granite.... and so on and so forth. the huge huge huge brass murti of Swaminarayan was impressive... was it only brass? i wonder. i wouldnt be surprised if it was gold... no expense has been spared in the building of this temple. and it is like no other temple i have seen in india....
a couple of hours is just not enough. one should plan to spend a full day at this temple. go around 11 ish in the morning after breakfast, and spend the whole day there. on holidays esp, u would need the time, coz the place would be crowded like anything and you would have to spend a goodly hour in the various 'Q's. we didnt go on the boat trip nor did we see the exhibition- we just hadnt planned on spending the whole day there. we thought it would just be like any of the many other temples we have been to. go, pray, return...
actually, this is not just a temple of worship, it is also a tourist attraction...know what i mean?
like here,in india, in our 'normal' temples, you will not find washrooms, far less so immaculately kept, receptions where American-accented prettly sari-clad young girls 'volunteering' handing over the glossy pamphlet and explaining in detail what one would find there. this young girl told me, that 'Swami narayana bhagwan hai'-i had asked her if they beleived He was God, and she said He is God and the conviction shown in her eyes. huge huge lawns with lovely seasonal flowering plants, mosaic floors spic and span, silence, no oil lamps, and come to think of it, no bells either, except where you do the "abhishekam" and the poojari rings the bell...no flower offerings, no breaking of coconuts... yes, to repeat, to the toilets/washrooms, heavy security, a snack bar, and a full fledged food court. we bought 'kachoris' (2 medium sized ones for 12 rupees, or was it 15? piping hot and tasty as tasty can be) and a kulfi, equally reasonably priced, sat under a tree and ate, in bliss, marvelling at the fact that the kachoris, so neatly presented, so tasty was so "not at all expensive", talked about the whole show and came to the conclusion that there was a lot of NRI believers' money plowed into this enterprise, that it must be a no-profit venture. there is the souvenier centre selling all kinds of religious knick-knacks and gifts....
its a temple not only for swaminarayan, but there are shrines for the other gods of the indian pantheon, krishna, vishnu, shiva, parvati, lakshmi...i dont recall brahma... but that could just be my memory, these days 'it is failing like anything', as we say in my part of the country...
i havent seen the temple my husband's cousin and others built in Iowa, but i have heard them talk of it, and i beleive it must be something like Akshardham only on a much smaller scale... he talked of 'Swaminarayan', a kitchen (which of course our temples in south india do have), washrooms and so forth...
its like nothing like i have experienced before in india... if i was to draw a very loose comparison, than i would say it was like being in the Vatican!! so many similarities between india and italy... but that is the subject matter of another blog...
anybody who visits delhi, must, must, must see this place... it is worth spending the whole day there... and it is quite a sobering experience, very awesome and above all, so, so peaceful! i came away very thoughtful and slightly envious of the project managers who executed this project...this is purely from a professional point of view....whenever i see the Arakonam-Chingleput broad guage line,or other similar railway projects, i feel a sense of pride and possession, since i was involved in that project and i kept thinking how proud the people who envisioned this project, who dreamed it, who put it on paper and then on the land must feel about it...
all in all i had a great time.
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