Dressing with Ghaghra Choli

Consider the following statements:

1. It looks cute when a full sized adult dress is miniaturized for 1 to 2 years old and so a Ghaghra Choli for 2 years old is very cute.

2. When you dress for a party it takes the longest for the Woman in the family to get dressed.

These 2 points imply that the father in the family gets to dress his 23 months old daughter for the party. It takes longer for a Man to dress his toddler daughter than for this wife to dress herself up for the party. The challenge is not in just dressing but tackling the active toddler and then dressing at the same time. It is like trying to dress your bike in a pyjama while you are riding it with both the hands and the bike going in a random direction no matter how you hold the handle bar.

So It was a day of one of the parties at our friend’s place and I took the mission of dressing the daughter.

First, Undressing the daughter is very easy. You just have to pull the top upwards and in 3 seconds you will find the kid 3 meters away from you while you will be holding the top inside out. Same goes to the bottom, except she would have only reached 2 meters for that. After that you will need to perform 3 somersaults to change the diaper (perform 4 if you have the intentions of saving the nearby objects from being vandalised).

Now comes the tricky part. I made a few attempts at getting her dressed and here they are:

1. Is the top part called Choli? Assuming it is, I took the choli and put it on her left hand and then I put the other end on her right hand. During this time I didn’t notice that she took off her left hand from the choli. I went back and put the choli on the left hand and she cleverly undid the right side. The cycle continued for a while until I decided to go attempt 2.

2. Knowing that putting it one hand at a time is difficult, I tried to put it on both the hands from the front side at the same time. She bent down, got under me and ran away into the other room while I was sitting there with my both hands partially inserted into the choli. It took me a while to chase her down and clamp her to my lap before trying attempt 3.

3. This time I was very determined. I wasn’t budging, I wanted to be the one in control. I wanted to show her who the daddy is. So after a brief bit of wrestling with a combination of above 2 attempts, I finally got the choli on her and started to tie the knot. The knot was tied and She was dressed. There all done and neat. That’s when my wife came and looked at me with a stare.

Wife: What’s this?

Me: I dressed her, what else!

Wife: Is this how you dress Ghagra choli?

Me: I haven’t dressed myself in Ghagra choli in any way possible. So I don’t know.

Wife: Funny ha! Why is the knot on her front?

I didn’t realize as my daughter was turning and I was turning around to get into position I was off by 180 degrees. I had tied the knots that come on the back, to her front.

Me: Oh! You are right, was that supposed to be tied backwards. Let me try again.

Wife: (walking away) and Put her bottoms will you!

That must be the Ghagra I forgot and that was why I was wondering why the Ghagra looked exactly like her diaper. After a brief hunt, I found the Ghaghra barely hanging off from the ironing board.

All is well that ends well. I was finally able to dress her up for the party and we were ready to go. Just one thing was left. My wife adjusted the bottom by rotating it for 180 degrees.

Wife: “This is the correct side”

Me: How would I know? It looks the same on all sides!

Wife: Watch the label on the inside. It is the same way you wear your Banian.

Now we were definitely ready to go for the party, except I have to put the daughter’s shoes on! And there I went again!

Delicious Diwali

Diwali in US happens in a very simple way. Usually the closest weekend is taken up as Diwali and a party happens at someone’s place. The party involves some food, and more food and then a lot more food. So the Diwali party on Sunday at my friend’s place went by the same way.

There was a huge lineup of sweets – Bread Halwa, Wheat Halwa, Motichur Laddu, Jamun. Of all the sweets, the significant one was Halwa. Yes, this Diwali we were all given Halwa. The term “To give Halwa” is well known in Tamil Nadu for a different reason. Let me illustrate the second meaning of the phrase with a few examples.

1. When the gas prices shot up like the SLV rocket, the brilliant business minds put forward a deal to customers buying cars in US. You buy their car and they will give you guaranteed $3 Gas Price even if the prices go up. So the customers thinking that very soon the gas prices will go up to $10 per gallon, signed the deal for $3 gas and bought the cars. Unfortunately, gas prices have fallen down to about $2.15 now which means their $3 gas deal is worth nothing. In other terms these customers were given Halwa by the car dealers. I pity them really.

2. You go to a much promising multi starrer Bollywood movie – Hrithik, Abishek, Aish expecting it to be exactly like Dhoom. But it turns out to be a disaster and you come out with the same old comment “Sequels are not always good”. In this case, the Movie producers/directors have given Halwa to the Audience.

3. The classic case of giving Halwa is from the “Boy loving Girl, Girl loving another Boy” Love story. In fact, this is where the term Halwa is used a lot. Girl tells the Boy that she likes him very much. Boy replaces the word ‘like’ with ‘Love’ and dreams about her, makes love to her, marries her, has 10 kids and 38 grand kids all in one dream sequence. The next day the girl insists I like you very much, but I am in love with your hot hunky friend, can you help me get to him? In an audible distance, the bursting of a transformer sound is heard and the boy’s heart is broken into 1000 pieces. The Girl has successfully given Halwa to the Boy.

The following are the laws of Halwa:

1. If a person is vulnerable to be given Halwa, then he/she will definitely be given Halwa at some point of time.

2. For every Halwa given, there is no equal and opposite Halwa unfortunately. So there is no possibility of the affected, being able to give back the same Halwa to the Source. You can try a different one.

3. The system of Halwa giving and receiving is unaltered unless acted upon by an external force, which has to be another Halwa giver or receiver.

If you do not understand the above laws, then you are vulnerable to be given Halwa at some point of time, So please read carefully and mug up!

The main dish had a lot Chicken. Sorry, there were a lot chicken which had main dish in them. Chicken Biryani, Chicken Kuruma, Chicken Fry you name the dish it was there with Chicken. By the end of the party, I am sure the entire Chicken race should have been extinct. If you are still having chicken it is either the last batch or a new breed of teenage mutated ninja Chickens.

Finally, we were desserted with a new innovative way of turning you ‘over’overweight – Fried Banana Icecream. It was delicious and I couldn’t help myself having it the second time. It was basically Banana, fried with some flour and topped with a scoop of Vanilla Ice cream. Fried Banana Icecream Rocks! But it turned my (Relatively) Rock Hard (Six pack) abs into Flowery soft round Michelin tyre. Hence the following comic:

Picture of Surya – http://www.chennai365.com , Michelin Man – http://www.berrimilla.com

It will now take me a full year to go back to Six Pack Surya. But then there will be another Diwali and I will be back to Michelin Muniyandi in 1 day.

Diwali is always Delicious!