Home Again

The Return of the Jedi

A little party of sorts on the last night. We have lots to do, but there are people walking in all the time. And yes, not to forget the Karaoke session in full swing. The only problem is that there is still a lot left undone. Sorry Eric and Veronica, we are taking you up on your offer to just leave it as it is.

The morning brings in more people and more goodbyes. Thankfully, no one bursts into tears, though I think that Geetha is pretty close at times. We finally board our bus. Leather seats and our own TV - classy! But the bus rattles more than ever - the leather seats don't help very much with that.

We make it on time to the airport and are two pounds overweight on one of our bags. We juggle stuff from one bag to the other but cannot convince the girl at the counter. We finally switch counters and the new girl waves us through with a smile. A much prettier girl too - I kick myself for not doing this sooner.

A long flight. A kid on the seat behind me keeps kicking at the back of my seat. Moms, please note : it's very uncomfortable for the person in front of you if your kid keeps kicking his seat all night long. We land in Frankfurt and have a five Euro coffee - it doesn't taste any better even if it costs that much.

Hark! An announcement : 600 euros to anyone who will stay back for a few hours and take the next flight. I saunter to the counter to check out the offer and get in line. There are a lot of others who value the 600 Euros a lot more and they all cut the line and go on ahead of me. I still wait. People have told me that I am not aggressive enough, but I simply don't think any money is worth demeaning yourself that much. I reach the end of the line and it's finally my turn but alas! the airline has met its requirement. I walk back disappointed but at the same time accepting. I am a great acceptor - I believe that things always turn out right. A few minutes later there is another announcement : Will the Rajendrams please come to the counter? I walk up and the girl hands me new boarding passes - we just got upgraded to business class! How cool is that! BTW, I always fly Lufthansa because this is the third time in a row that they have upgraded us to business class!

The flight from Frankfurt to Bangalore is extremely pleasant. Business class is extremely pleasant. I have noticed that the attendants smile more in business class - I guess money does buy happiness. We land at the new airport which is impressive. It's a far cry from the little hole that we used to have. Immigration is a breeze and then we stand in line to get our temperature taken to make sure that we don't have swine flu. The luggage takes a long time to come and finally we make it out of the airport at 3 AM. I hear someone shouting my name and we turn to find a group of friends waiting for us. They have come with flowers and a cake to celebrate Geetha's birthday. We all go back to our hotel and sit around the coffee shop. What kind of people wait until 3AM in the airport parking lot? And boy, am I glad that we didn't let ourselves get bumped off. 1800 Euros is a lot of money but not enough to leave a bunch of friends waiting for nothing all night long. We feel truly blessed : A royal send off when we leave one town and a rousing welcome in the other!

Bangalore is pretty much the same. The sky is overcast, the temperature is pleasant and the traffic is frustrating. Prices have doubled since I was here last. Everything is so expensive. We start out with Masala Dosas and Biriyani. Ah, home sweet home!

Pink Chicken

PINK CHICKEN

Ingredients :

1 SHAN Tandoori Chicken Mix (Available at Devi Indian Store, next to the Cirelli’s Pizza at Circle and 9th (In the same building as the liquor store - I knew you’d know that better ) 1 Packet

2 Chicken Legs 10

3 Lemons (Large) 3-4

4 Salt 1/2 Spoon or to taste

5 Yogurt (Plain) 2 Tablespoons

6 Cooking Oil 1 Tablespoon

1. Peel the skin off the chicken legs and make deep slits with a sharp knife (the sharp is optional).

2. Put all the other ingredients together in a bowl and mix thoroughly.

3. Apply the mixture to the chicken.

4. Marinate for 24 hours in the fridge (not freezer, the lower compartment of the fridge).

5. Grill on the barbeque with frequent basting. Use the marinade to bast – the more you often bast, the more you can taste the spice).

So Many Memories... So Little That I Remember

Corvallis ..

So many memories …. So little that I remember.

Everyone should move once every few years. It helps you to understand how much your friends mean to you and how hard it is to leave them behind. I wonder how it must be to die; or to know that you are dying. Tim McGraw’s ‘Live Like You Were Dying’ comes to mind. I start to wonder(good Scotch does that to me)... Why wait until you have to die (or move) to ‘Live like you were dying’? And are we not all dying even now? Some sooner, some later, but we are all dying from the day we are born. I make a silent vow to like my life better.

People breeze in and out of our house. We have many times said that we run an open house, but it has never been more open than this. In the last four weeks of our stay, we rarely (maybe 2 nights in 4 weeks) sleep earlier than midnight. We are way behind on our packing schedule, but packing be damned! The demand for pink chicken is at an all time high. The lady at Safeway thinks I am running a business and asks me to talk to the manager for corporate rates (on chicken legs). I think we must have cooked about 500 legs in the last couple of months!

What will I miss most of Corvallis? I have been asked this countless number of times in the last month and it makes me wonder (more Scotch). There are many things that I will miss : the green trails, the empty spaces, the long summer nights, the friendly neighbors, cars that stop (with a smile) to let you cross the street; the list goes on. But what will I miss the most? I think it’s the people. Corvallis is not a nice town because of the streets or the greenery; it’s the quality of the people that is awesome (People of Albany, do not be offended; I use the term people of Corvallis loosely; I really mean the people of the Northwest!

Keep in touch. This is another constant refrain from all and sundry. (More thinking is needed and this calls for more Scotch). Is it really possible to keep in touch? Possible it may be but is it practical and does it ever happen? Past experience tells me that it is not; I am hardly in touch with the ‘BFFs’ of my youth. I think that in life, we pass through, touched by many people along the way, and hopefully touching some in return. We will take back a little of the people of Oregon; hopefully we will leave behind something (something more than pink chicken and beedies, I mean). I am sure that time will blunt our memories and we will fade away into the distance; but what will remain is the better people we have become and that’s something that stays forever!

We came to Corvallis in January in the dead of winter. By April, we were ready to chuck it all up and go home. Neither of us had ever cooked or cleaned before; we were used to shopping for fresh meat and produce everyday (to this day, I do not use the microwave to defrost - I prefer to leave it out of the freezer for a few hours to thaw naturally); it rained all the time and where was the sun? What kind of a place didn’t see the sun for months on end. And then came summer - what a glorious summer it was! Summer transforms everything in Oregon. Suddenly it’s worth the long dreary months of grey skies; the endless rain; the bad tempers and the many hours spent as a couch potato. One summer is essential to experience the true beauty of the Northwest (also I think it takes that much time to grow the gills and the webbed feet that native Oregonions posses). The rain has also taught us something very important - to enjoy good weather when you have it. This is often overlooked in Bangalore where everyday is sunny and comments such as “It’s a beautiful day outside” are liable to get you institutionalized. The attitude of most Bangaloreans is that it’s a beautiful day today, it was a beautiful day yesterday and it will be a beautiful day tomorrow. So what!. But after a few winters in Oregon, we have a new outlook towards enjoying our year round good weather in Bangalore!

This seems irrelevant, but I must mention that for our entire first winter we had the thermostat set to 85 degrees much to the discomfort of all our guests. This figure slowly started coming down and settled at 65 two years later.

Any treatise on Corvallis cannot be complete without mentioning football. Suffice to say that no other country has even attempted to play the sport. My first game was a disaster (Thanks Pat for the initiation and the many subsequent tailgaters). I wore red to a Beaver game and we were playing Washington State. No prizes for guessing what their colors are. Yes, Sir, it’s crimson and grey! We went into the stadium there I was in a sea of orange wearing red. The only black face and red shirt as far as the eye could see. Well, not the only red shirt in the stadium - there were a few other red shirts of course, but they were all clustered together at the far end. But it wasn’t all bad. I got a few odd looks as I walked in but after that there was not one snide remark, not one glare, nothing. Most of those around me were boisterously drunk, but still I got nothing. And this is something unique to Corvallis and the Beavers. They are accepting of people who do not look or think like them. I have been in Eugene wearing beaver gear and I’m glad that I didn‘t blunder into a Duck game with the wrong colors-- I may not have survived to tell the tale (sorry Duck fans, I may be stereotyping based on my few experiences with Ducks).

Talking of Stereotyping, I have been told that it’s a bad thing at least a thousand times and yet I do stereotype. I think it is an integral part of human nature to learn from past experiences and to stereotype is a natural extension of this. Coming back to the point, I had no clue about what to expect of Americans when we got here. The America that we found here is something that we least expected - a generous people who opened their homes to strangers from a distant land (even though many believed that the said strangers were stealing their jobs) ; humorous even in adversity; very high ethical and moral standards; extremely talented (I know folks who can build a house, fix a boat and teach English grammar). My conclusion is that America needs better PR. Your politicians are just not cutting it – they do not paint a good enough image of you abroad. It’s time to hire Wall Street to run the country!

Another big myth is that Americans keep to themselves. They do not visit or let anyone into their homes. Well, almost every weekend in the last couple of years, we have either had someone over at our house or have been to dinner to their home. I have been told that this is unique to the Northwest and that and that I should not be hasty in coming to conclusions, but this is a stereotype that I am willing to make knowingly.

There are many more things that I love about Corvallis, but I am running out of time. I will blog again soon.