aiyo

Thursday, June 30, 2005
Mallu Vocabulary Lesson 1

aiyo - an expression used to denote shock, horror and emotional or physical pain.
It is often used when something unfortunate happens and can be uttered either by the victim or by witnesses. To add authenticity to your mallu disguise, use aiyo whenever you stub a toe, burn your tongue on some hot coffee or get beat by your parents.
this is an audio post - click to play

Transcript
Aiyo - aiyo

Examples

Aiyo kashtam - oh how sad...
aiyo daivame - oh my god
aiyo karthave - o christ...
aiyo njan oru arishta manushen - o wretched man that i am

Repeat after me

Aiyo

the music of the spheres

Tuesday, June 28, 2005
i love going to church.
inspiration strikes me here in the assembly of the saints. our anthem of praise a banner that floats on the winds of time. our songs of joy a foretelling of bliss to come. our cries of longing, the spirit's call for revelation.
i stood in church today and heard the love song for my savior. the chords filled the air as ordinary people took up the words. my voice wandered the throng that surrounded the throne of grace. blending into the melody that rises on this sunday morning, standing on the fringes of the joyous crowd, i am lost in the beauty of the song. yet again.

christianity is for ADULTS

Saturday, June 25, 2005
im tired too. of the vanilla flavor that permeates the knowledge of the holy. the washed down version of christ we portray on the stained glass windows of our soul. please. no more pink frilled sunday school classes full of beautiful pictures and g rated stories.
i want the sweat, the blood, the tears and grimy dirt in the corner of my eyes that tell me i'm bleeding and broken, splinters of the cross under my nails, sleeping in the garden of my gethsamane. tell me of the acrid sweat tinged air that surrounds a betraying kiss.
i wonder sometimes, when it was decided that the god of the little children could not handle growing up.

manjesh in america

Thursday, June 02, 2005

this post will probably be full of kannada references. in keeping with the situation. adhikay, kannada kalsbittu ba... (so, learn kannada...)

praveen and i showed up at the airport to pick up manjy. for once, we were early. so we spent the time looking at travellers and wondering if it was manjy. then we spent some time wandering the terminal looking for him. finally he showed up, and went straight to the phone booth. yeah. we were watching him go by and laughing the whole time. i wanted to take a photo, but praveen kept telling me i'd get arrested.
manjesh at the airport
manjy looks the same, but like most of us, men and women..., he's got himself a buddha belly.
so we drove him over to the hotel where he was staying.
manjesh and praveen at homestead inn
that whole hotel seemed to be populated by indians. after checking in, the first we noticed was the king size bed. yes, of course i asked him to pose on it. he seemed strangely reluctant. i want to know what he associates with a kingsize bed. oh, did i mention that it was the only bed. and he had a roommate showing up later. you would have to ask manjy if he was cute...
well, after eating some really good "sweets" that manjy carried all the way from bangalore, we settled down to the serious business of unpacking. manjy ate some too. thanks, raghu and preetham. i heard raghu did all the actual buying and preetham was managing... this hotel had a kitchen, so off we went to buy enough food to see him through the next few days.
in the lobby, we met this nice indian girl. so we asked her where the nearest indian store was. she said "goh straiiigggghhhhttt, take a laeft, you will come to circle. there are some shops there." man, immediate flashback to bangalore. yes, she was kannadiga. no. no pictures of strange indian women here. we managed to let her know that we knew kannada too, by talking to her in kannada.("oudha, neev ella bangalore indha...") then we found out she really didnt know too much about the place. so we went off to explore. picked up some food and a knife from a chinese supermarket. got back and decided to start cooking. praveen was in charge of the whole curry operation. i sat around looking good. like i usually do. manjesh kept on talking about how he knew cooking. turns out american kitchens are not like indian kitchens. puntaaaa.... excuses, excuses. then we figure out he doesnt know how to cook rice either. hahaha. so now praveen tells him. 1 cup rice, 1 and a half cups water. while praveen and i cut up the stuff, and throw it in the pot, we hear noises about showing him how to cook. instead of paying attention, manjy is busy putting his nonstick frying pan together. the one that he got for free when he bought another one. then he showed us how you dont need to put oil in a nonstick pan when cooking eggs. after scraping off the resulting mess, we made some more eggs and settled down to eat dinner.
cooking eggs
praveen will give you the recipe for the curry if you want. it was chickpeas, tomato paste, onions(?), whatever spices manjy brought( the hero brought sambhar powder, rasam powder and chili powder. what is the world coming to when indians dont know their spices... we threw them all in) and coconut milk. i think.
did i mention that a girl who works with him dropped by to say hi. far be it from me to say more. other than say that he went up to her room first. and she told him to come over the next day and learn cooking.
our kitchen dada did send an email about how he was really busy, didnt he...