Tamasik

In a manner of weeks the USAID death toll has went from like 500k to 1M and now 4.5M. It’s literally another holocaust!

It's a matter of shame for us that more than 300 top government jobs have been taken by people from other states. Even more thought-provoking is the fact that 5 out of the top 10 are from other states. Does that mean our students aren't studying anymore?

No thanks. I come from Western India. We have our own age old temple traditions and culture. We respect yours and expect you to show same courtesy to ours.

Horoscopes, Habits and Kesari Bath The arranged marriage first meeting is one of India's longest-running social performances. A date and time is fixed. The house undergoes a level of cleaning normally reserved for festivals and visits from important relatives. The good cutlery come out. Somebody is sent on a last-minute mission to buy fresh flowers and fruits . The girl’s father is instructed not to wear that old T-shirt he loves. The guests arrive. The first few minutes are spent discussing traffic, directions and whether they found the house easily. This conversation can continue for an astonishing amount of time. "Was the traffic bad?" "Did you find the place easily?" “ We are in this area for last 50 years,My father built this house” Soon arrives the coffee and thindi. There seems to be an unwritten menu for these occasions. Bajji, chips, chow chow bath, maybe a hoLige also if the hosts are feeling generous. Everyone is encouraged to eat. Nobody actually wants to be the first person to attack the food. "Please take. TogoLi” "No no." "Please swalpa .” A single serving is consumed in several bites spread over twenty minutes. People behave as though they have just walked out of a wedding feast. Sometimes the food is so average that this restraint requires no acting at all. The real sufferers are the younger members of the household. They have been instructed not to touch anything until the guests leave. They sit around watching complete strangers slowly eat what they consider to be their rightful evening snacks. The adults meanwhile discuss matters at a wonderfully generic level. Where is your native? What does he do? How many siblings? Questions whose answers were already available with the distant relative who arranged this meeting are again discussed as though new discoveries are being made. Every meeting has a supporting cast of uncles and aunts. Nobody is entirely sure why some of them are there. They seem to appear whenever an arranged marriage meeting is scheduled. There is usually one talkative uncle who asks questions with the seriousness of an income tax officer. One aunt claims to know somebody who knows somebody who worked with the groom's father's cousin twenty years ago. And there is always someone who asks about "habits" Habits , a remarkable word. Nobody is asking whether the boy bites his nails, interested in gardening , reads or collects stamps. Drinking, partying, eating meat all packed into one innocent-looking word. The uncle is waiting curiously to see if the answer is "yes, occasionally" so he could get some company sometimes for his drink. The boy and girl are asked to go and talk in "private". Private in this context means somewhere within visual range of at least six relatives. A balcony or the dining room or the veranda.. A room whose door remains conspicuously open. The couple is expected to have a meaningful conversation in a short time while fully aware that half the family is pretending not to listen. The conversations continue in the hall . One aunt says . ”Yuvara hudugi tumba ambitious from the beginning . She wants to continue to work after marriage also” . Our son is also in Washington , works as a software engineer . They return ten minutes later. Back in the hall, everyone pays attention and develops an interest in body language. The duration of the conversation is analysed .Parents try to read expressions. Uncles are experts in facial analysis. Aunts attempt to determine the outcome from the way the coffee cup was placed on the table. Everybody wants the result immediately. The children waiting for the snacks would appreciate a quick decision as a fresh set of bajjis are being fried. What strikes me is that people often say the boy and girl must be compatible. But in these meetings it feels like the families are being matched first. Can these people spend the next twenty years attending weddings together? Will they survive family functions? And then there is the horoscope matching. The horoscope has probably saved a lot of awkward conversations . Sometimes the stars genuinely do not align and Mars is sitting in the wrong place. Maybe the conversation didn't click. Maybe expectations were different. Or just maybe, the kesari bath was so bad that no future together seemed possible. The official reason, however, "The horoscopes did not match."