No wonder Edison is called little India in US, we get to see Indians where ever we go whether its shopping mall, Hotel or parks. Why go so far I have many Indian neighbors in our community itself.
I have been thinking of writing about Patel Brothers the Indian grocery shop from many days, but could not do it, so I thought let me do it today. As you can see in the picture, the Patel brothers Grocery shop covers a very big space on the corner of Oak tree road. You get almost everything here. The beauty of this store is, you wont find such a store anywhere in India, because here you get the whole Indian products under one roof. You have products preferred by Kannadigas, products preferred by Gujratis, North Indians, South Indians and each and every corner specials. Does it happen in India. India we have to go to Gujrat to buy the Bhakri chai powder, you should go to Kerala to buy banana chips, you will get Parachute coconut oil in south India and get mustard oil in north India, but here you can buy anything and everything.
I am a global citizen when it comes to thinking but I am a pure vegetarian Indian when it comes to cooking and eating. I try all delicacies of India, so I am so happy that I can gongura chutny, sarso ka sag, sabbasige palya so on and so forth.
We used to make something called Patrode in karnataka, the Gujrati Paatra is v22ery similar to that, you get it ready to eat at Patel brothers for just $2. Also we get ready to eat Masala dosa, rava dosa, uttappam and so on.
We get frozen freshly grated coconut, dessicated coconut, tender coconuts, regular coconuts, the plantain vegetable, oh the list never ends.
I bought Kumkum,and mysore sandal agarbatti to make puja.
I bought Shikakai powder and Henna powder which I never did when I was in India!!!
You will get Amrutanjan, zandu balm or what ever other Indian brand you prefer..
When I keep telling all the list to my mom over phone, she says they should also come and live in US!!
Thanks to Patel Brothers for such a huge collection of variety of products.
Just reached US one month back and its time I share my experience here. I am sure unless I note it down I might not remember what all I noticed here in my first visit. Also my views might differ if I continue to stay for more years here. 🙂
Watching Amercia in movies is definitely different from being here. We will feel the cold weather, we can feel the warmth of people, we will learn courtesy, we will appreciate the cleanliness and systematic way of life.
We will definitely miss the freedom we had in India. You feel like you are caged without a car here. Because you cannot just walk somewhere and get an auto if you feel tired. In India even if I go out without carrying any mobile or money at least I can catch an auto all the way till home and pay the driver after reaching home. Here If I forget to take my cell phone then I cant call a taxi, I wont get any on the road!!
Very unpredictable weather. Good that I came in Summer here. So we can mover around without a car. But when I went for a walk as it was a bright day suddenly it rained!!
We need to always keep track of weather by watching weather alerts. Most of the time they are right.
Can you believe we dont see price tags on grocery products here. No MRP mentioned on any product. Every shop has its own pricing and different prices for same product in different shops. Hence you should be very careful while buying groceries on regular basis or in large quantities. Go the nearby shop for emergency needs, go to the best priced shop for regular shopping.
I live in Edison and I meet many Indians. In fact if we go to any mall or park we feel that we are in India and can see many foreigners here!! Well when it comes Indians, most of the old people miss India. They want to go back. And most of the people of my age who have been living here for more than 5 years, blame India. They keep telling, oh I cant tolerate that in India, I dont like this in India and so on!! I wonder will I also start talking like that if I stay here for long?? I hope not.
They do not make any false statements but why highlight it so much? If my house is not clean instead of living in somebody’s clean house, I should clean my house and live in it. But its not easy as said.
Also people living from many years here, have a very negative image of India. Lot has changed in India. I feel we are more aware of pollution hazards, environmental challenges in India rather than US. Even though US can easily ban plastic usage and make people use more and more biodegradable products, they have not yet started it.
I had put my daughter in one of the best schools of Hyderabad and the public school here is no match to it. But its free. Our government schools in India just cannot match the government schools of US. But if I need a school as good as the one she was studying in India, I will have to pay almost 10 times the fee I paid in India. I think so. I have to check the fee structure of best private schools here.
Well there is lot to write.. hope I will divide them properly to specific topics and discuss in my future posts.
Most of the time the word Dream is followed by Dream Home, Dream Girl/Boy and Dream Job. Among these three also Dream Home is something which every one dreams about. People of all ages from Children to Old ones, people of all countries, Rich or Poor, Educated or Illiterate everybody dreams of his or her dream home at least once in his or her lifetime.
When we moved from a small town like Shivamogga to a big city like Mysore in 1985, how excited I was about our new own house. I was so thrilled. I was only a small girl then. But I was little disappointed when I saw the house. At that age I could not understand that owning a house in a city like Mysore itself is a great achievement. I had dreamt of very big house in my imagination. As there were no Digital Cameras or smart phones at that time, my father had not shown the image of house to us! I was too naive to understand its area by listening to the measurements. So my imagination and the real house did not match. But after a while I was happy. We had enough space to grow flower plants and vegetables. So much wind and light. We could climb on the terrace with a ladder which we could not in Shivamogga as it had a roof made of Mangalore tiles. Then even that house became bigger when I was in High School. I had my own room in First floor. I loved to spend most of the time there.
So that is Past now and we are building our own house now, and understand what it means to own a house, plan every inch of the house, get finance, make adjustments in our life style to complete our dream home. To avoid any disappointment to my daughter I ensure she is present in almost all moments of our Dream home in making. So she knows how big it is, where it is, which is her room, How big is her room and so on.
But somewhere I was not really satisfied with the size of the house again!! With Real Estate booming like anything the prices have shot up like Rockets. And I wonder whether my house will be even as big as the house in which I lived from high school days till marriage! But I found a solution. I felt that it is not the big rooms or number of rooms that matter, it is how you design them. The interior design, the walls, the paint the wardrobes, the windows and the curtain and the furniture and our love towards our house and people living in it. That is what makes a dream home. Love is in abundance so no need to worry about it. All I need to worry is planning the walls, the roof, the floor and Kitchen, shelves, bath room tiles and so on. Here I found some virtual solution to my real dream home. 🙂
Here is a topic from Indiblogger and 24living which says Pick as many items as you can from Porcelanosa to build your dream home. Tell us why you chose them and why”.
Let me start choosing and see how my dream home turns out to be. Good thing Porcelanosa did is that it has mentioned price in its catalog. So no constraints, let me choose the best one for my dream home!
Ours is an independent villa which is under construction. I would like to have some Sit out arrangement in front of the house as we have more space left in the East Side, which is the Entrance. This is how it I want it to be
Porcelanosa Tiles
So I am choosing Dublo Beige Structure for the outdoor flooring. I selected it as it looks rough and it can stand the attack of water from rain and sun shine from Sun. 🙂 Also it is not slippery. Children run around and make lot of fun in out doors and its just suited for that.
I would choose Par-Ker Oxford Antarcita for the Terrace flooring. As we would be spending most mornings and evenings on Terrace. I spent most of my study hours on our Terrace when I was a student.
For Living room I would choose Madagascar Marron. I chose this color because I am very nostalgic about the house where I was born and brought up. Till 1990 we had the Cement flooring which had Red Oxide painted on it. The floor would shine more and more as we would mop it day after day!! The tiled floor never looked so clean and appealing to me. This Maroon colored tiles in the Porcelanosa catalog really matches with my imagination.
Here is something unique for my Kitchen. I always dreamed of something like this. Most things get lost in big shelves, hence I want to have as many small units as possible so that everything is at my reach. Just look at this.
Now let us see what I buy for my bathroom. Here it is
There is much more to choose from Porcelanosa. This is enough for the time being.
Friends I am writing this post for Indiblogger’s Happy Hours. But I hope my dream home comes somewhere near to the dream home described here. Thanks for reading.
After falling in love with Japanese Oshin Serial I was really looking for other good serial ( drama) from Japan and I happened to come across a comment in Facebook that Oshin fans will love Hanako to Anne
and truly I did fall in love with that series too! Not only me our family including my 7 year old daughter have started watching Hanako to Anne. I will write in detail about that series in another episode. In that story Hanako translates the Anne of Green Gables from English to Japanese. Thus I was searching for the book Anne of Green Gables and found it in wikipedia. I really look forward to read this series.
Lucy Maud Montgomery
The author of this series is Lucy Maud Montgomery. Montgomery was a Canadian author. She lost her mother when she was only a baby of 21 months. Depressed by the death of wife, her father left her in the care of her grandparents. Most of her childhood spent in loneliness. Hence she created friends in an imaginary world. This is how her creativity grew with no bounds. She became a teacher and preferred that profession as it gave her more time to concentrate on her writing work. She wrote her first novel Anne of Green Gables in 1908 which was a huge success and was followed by series of books.
Anne of Green Gables series
First page of “Anne of Green Gables”, published in 1908
Being tall, slim and fair, she had many admirers from the opposite sex. Though she got proposals from many prospective grooms she could not accept them as they were either dominating and did not understand her passion towards writing or some of them were narrow minded. In 1911 she married Ewen MacDonald. She gave birth to three sons. She died at the age of 67 on April 24th 1942.
Her book Anne of Green Gables became very popular in Japan, and was also included in the national curriculum in 1952. And with the airing of Hanako and Anne in Television it must have become more and more popular. Thus most of the Japanese visit her birth place green gabled victorian farmhouse in the town of Cavendish on Prince Edward Island.
One should not be punished just because they were not smart enough to hide their mistakes!! Even those who are smart enough to escape from law should be punished.
27th September 2014 will be remembered as an unforgettable day in Indian Politics. Some would remember it as a day justice got delivered, for many others it will be the day on which their great leader, their strong leader, their own AMMA was convicted and arrested. However, for many other curious onlookers like me, it is a day of dilemma. This judgement and the present circumstances pushed me into a confusion as to whom I should support and the sort of stand I ought to take. It took me good 7 days to collect my thoughts and here I present them to you.
Madam Jayalalitha
Madam Jayalalithaa’s conviction in the Disproportionate Assets case cames as surprise to many, many believed that she would come out of it unscathed, a few others thought that she would be let off with a small sentence. The conviction, the 100cr rupee fine, the 4 year imprisonment and her consequent disqualification from holding any elected…
Sports is the most neglected field in our country. Its all the more difficult if you are an Indian woman getting into sports. But is the effort worth it?
You come from country where woman getting into sports is something unheard of. You are born in an age where the only sport that offers glory and a road to fame is Cricket. You are born in an age where most girls either choose studies or the glamour
Stand by Sarita
industry to make their mark in the world. Then, you choose to be different. You choose “Boxing” , a sport that women were once forbidden watch as the sport of your life. You train yourself for decades, at the age of 32 when most woman would have a stable family life and a stable career going on, you get into the boxing ring and take punches to bring medals and glory to a country that went with out a medal for 16 years in the olympics.
Then, when some judges err and rob you of a Gold Medal. The IOA (Indian Olympic Association) officials…
“Me and my team are participating in ‘Game Of Blogs’ at BlogAdda.com. #CelebrateBlogging with us.” We ten bloggers have come together as a team and weaving together one great story.
Tawde sank into the chair exhausted. His conscious mind reminded him that he is getting himself to lot of trouble. But his heart went on convincing him that, what he is doing is right. He cannot let go of his only child, the fate has brought him in such a phase of life where in he has lost all his loved ones. The only person whom he can think of his own, with whom he can spend the rest of his life is his daughter. The daughter whom he said good bye a decade ago.
He was doing his BSc Honors at the university of Agra and that is where he met her. She was so beautiful and friendly. She was a Marathi and even Tawde hailed from Mumbai, that is how their friendship bloomed. They both were active members in the Maratha Mandal of university. Together they planned lot of events, they celebrated all festivals, the Maratha Mandal included faculty, students, and staff who knew Marathi. Some students joined the Mandal even though Marathi was not their mother-tongue as they wanted to enjoy the Maharastrian food during festivals. All the close friends teased them as Mr and Mrs Tawde, and she would blush. They completed their Honors and Tawde started his search for job. He was very eager to write civil services, he wanted to be an IPS officer but could not clear it. Also hailing from a middle class family he had to find one job to support his parents at home, who had to get his sister married. So in the next attempt when he not make it to IPS but got selected for Inspector post he embraced it with whole heart. His love never interfered in his decisions. But pressure started increasing at her home about her marriage. That is the tragedy of Indian women. They never get so much time to shape their career as much time as a Man gets. The usual answer a girl gets from her parents is, first you get married, then you either continue your studies or you work, do anything at your husband’s place. But it was really a tough time to Tawde. Because he could not keep the proposal of marrying her in front of his parents. If he talks about his marriage before his sister gets married, he will sound too selfish, also considering the different caste of the girl, his parents would never oblige. Also it would make them difficult to find a bridegroom for his sister. But he did not want to lose his love at any cost. Without the consent of the boys side, it was difficult for the girl to convince her parents. So the they thought first they will go for register marriage then they will inform them. All is fair in Love and War. So they married, and it was not so easy for them to inform their parents about the same. She continued to live in her hostel and Tawde was posted to a different Town. Very soon Tawde’s wife gave birth to a baby girl. Without proper care, surviving on hostel food condition of mother was critical. The doctor could not save the mother.
Tawde was clueless. He was heartbroken, he didn’t knew what to do with the child. He could not take his baby to his home, he heard that another baby born to the lady in the next room could not survive. Because of his designation somehow managed to keep his baby in that baby’s place. He noted the names of the parents, Shekar Dutta and Tara!!
Very soon Tawde got a marriage proposal. He would have rejected it if not for the sake of his parents and his sister. A marriage offer which came to his sister demanded that if they are ready to marry their daughter in turn with Tawde, they would marry Tawde’s sister to their son. With passing years, Tawde’s parents really did not want to miss this proposal, they convinced Tawde to get married. And for Tawde, when his love of life had left him, he had no other option than to at least help his sister settle in life.
Being in the police department it was not difficult for him to keep a track on his daughter. Now he even knew her name is Roohi. He did not have much worries as he thought his daughter was in good hands and was leading a happy life.
But things turned more cruel in Tawde’s life. His wife was diagnosed with Cancer and God did not show mercy on Tawde. For the first time he felt he was an orphan in this big world. Even though he could keep himself busy during his work, spending time when there was no work became a torture to him. The empty home, the quite rooms, the silent kitchen all laughed at him. On one such night he told himself ‘ No I am not alone, I am not alone, I have a daughter. I have a daughter!!!’
And that is when he decided to get his daughter back. And he used all his criminal knowledge, police power to get it done. But he was aghast when Jenny came and started interrogating him. He could not understand who betrayed him, he had hardly let the secret out. Did she really get any clue or is she just confusing me so that she will find me guilty?? No, I should not show any sign of shock on my face. And why should I, after all I am just trying to get my daughter back with me.
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Vijay was horrified to hear the role of Inspector Tawde in Roohi’s kidnap. He just couldn’t believe what Jenny told. How could it be? He regarded him with so much respect. In fact Inspector Tawde had shown so much concern for kids who were kidnapped. He spoke so well about social system, and how every one needs to be socially responsible towards society. Can he be involved in child trafficking? What happened to Jennifer? Has she gone mad because of Cyrus’s condition? No Jennifer had her proof.
She showed Vijay the mail she got from Cyrus. Which had a link to a blog. In the blog they read a story which almost resembled all the characters that they knew. A husband and wife. A 9 year old daughter. Daughter is kidnapped. There is one Inspector. And in the story the Inspector was involved in the kidnap. It cannot be just a coincidence. And also in the story there is a neighbor who is friendly with the kid and he is also involved in the kidnap.!!
I am a global citizen when it comes to thinking but I am a pure vegetarian Indian when it comes to cooking and eating. I try all delicacies of India, so I am so happy that I can gongura chutny, sarso ka sag, sabbasige palya so on and so forth.
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