My mom is on a 6-month first-time visit to the US and Canada. It's getting to the fag end of her sojourn, and she just asked me if any of us would like her to bring back souvenirs / gifts. I growled 'no electronic stuff, no battery-operated toys' for the son (of course, I didn't ask him before I decided), 'books and casual wear ok, if at all', and 'absolutely nothing for us'. Think of others and make a list of suitable stuff, I continued.
Curiosity got the better of us and my husband asked her if she was getting anything for herself....yes, a garlic peeler.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
Ahead of the Times?
At a defense base repair depot I was posted to, there was always a resource-crunch and hi-tech gadgets were rare. Consequently, some project funds allotted could be justifiably used for upgrading facilities like presentation equipment. One of these gizmos that a vendor demonstrated and was subsequently procured was a battery-operated laser pointer, now quite a common utility. A few months later, I found the item featured in "The Times of India" as part of a technological update. That was probably the only instance that my organization was ahead of the Times!
Venetian: Blind they may be, but do they vanish?
Luxuries for office rooms in the defense establishment I was posted to were literally unheard of - even curtains were for the very senior lot. So when word came that blinds had been authorized for windows in officers' rooms, one colleague's enthusiasm was pardonable: he called out to us juniors: "Finally I can have vanishing blinds in my office".
Does time walk, or run, or fly?
My sister was just about done with preparation for some major exams. On a particular Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks before the testing period, she looked at the clock and whined "It's already four. How time flies!" My ever-busy wife, always hard-pressed for time but with her wits ever intact, remarked: "Yes, dear, my request to it to fly during weekdays and slow down to a walk, or better still to stop altogether at weekends, falls on deaf ears!"
Indian lingual delights
As my wife and I worked in the kitchen one day, I happened to mention that a couple of necessary chores had been accomplished. She likened the context to a local idiom in her tongue "hitting two mangoes with one stone (oru kal, rendu manga)". I immediately gave her the equivalent saying in my language, which reads, "killing two birds with one bullet (oru gundu, rendu pakshi)"; at which she nonchalantly remarked: "Oh but we are vegetarians, you know".
When you are starry-eyed...
A colleague was recounting her younger days, when, as a newly-married couple setting up house, she and her husband filled their kitchen shelves with trendy glass and plastic jars. A well-meaning visitor remarked; "Perhaps you should go in for conventional stainless-steel containers; this plastic is slow poison, you know?" To which the young bride remarked, tongue-in-cheek, "Oh, I am in no great hurry".
The right recipe
Over the years ever since I was married, my husband, himself no mean hand in the kitchen, and I have been collecting recipes - from newspapers, old magazines, hearsay - and preserving them in bunches, to occasionally browse or confirm a menu or sometimes even get down to actually trying out some delectable dish. While leafing through them a few days ago, we burst out laughing. There on top of the first pile, knowingly or unknowingly we had included an article titled "Recipe for Weight Loss".
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