You OK?

“You OK?” This is a very common statement made in UK when people meet each other. It could be your colleague you meet in office at the pantry, or your landlord who you meet accidentally in the train, or any other person who is not a stranger to you. People start the conversation with this. It is used as a replacement for a small simple ‘Hi’ or a sweeter ‘Hello’. During my initial days in UK, I used to feel quite awkward, rather offended at this small harmless question. What does it mean when somebody asks you if you are ok? Does it mean you don’t look ok? Or does it mean you weren’t ok yesterday? And what does this Ok mean? Does Ok mean you are in full spirits to jump and dance all around? Does it mean you are neither sad nor happy just ok-ok? Or does it mean you are sad and just ok? I perceive Ok as the second state; a state where you are not too happy with a situation, nor are you unhappy; rather you are just Ok.
Ok has an interesting background. My favourite and the most popular one is that it is an abbreviation for ‘All Correct’, or rather ‘Oll Korrekt’ where neither ‘O’ nor ‘K’ is correct. Supposedly, this was coined by American President Andrew Jackson who was bad at spellings. Some theory says OK came after an American president (FYI, Martin Van Buren) who was nicknamed 'Old Kinderhook’ and whose initials later became popular as OK. Others say it is the American craze of misspelling the words which lead to the birth of OK. Earlier it was used as O.K. which then became OK. Okay is a newer version of Ok. Okie is another form. Okie-dokie is a stylish version.
It is not that I don’t use the expression Ok. Somebody explains something to you and wants a confirmation from you and asks “Is that ok?” I am Ok with this ok. Asking “Are you in agreement with me if I don’t cook tonight?” will not sound as ok as “Is it ok if I don’t cook tonight?” You go to a shop and find a dress not quite interesting. Your husband asks you, “How is it?” “It’s ok”, this means you wouldn’t want to buy it. Some people answer affirmative as ok. “Will you do this?” “Ok”. Others are unable to decide and use Ok as the defence. On a query from her roommate about the new date she had, the girl says, “He is ok”, which means she is yet to decide about him. Mom says her kid who ate too many candies, “Beta, it’s not ok to eat so many sweets at once”, which means you are not supposed to eat too many sweets. Someone’s late for a party and apologizes. The host replies “That’s Ok”, which means ‘I don’t mind’. I am perfectly ok with these Oks. What I am not ok with is to ask a person “You ok?” when the person is already ok and asking that question will only make him not ok. I don’t know why, but asking “Are you ok?” somehow reminds me of a rude question in Kannada “Tale sari unta?” (Are you sane?), which is asked only when one is extremely upset with someone or something.
I feel one another general pleasantry used in UK equally annoying. “How are you today?” Had the pleasantry stopped at “How are you?” I would have been ok. But a ‘today’ added to it makes me think “Arrey, what had happened to me yesterday? I was ok yesterday; I was ok day before yesterday for that matter I was ok for the past 6 months. What is there to ask how I am today if I was ok and fit and bubbling with energy for the last 6 months?” We, Indians generally enquire how one is only if we have met that person after a long time or if the person wasn’t feeling ok the previous day. During my first few days in UK, if someone asked me these questions about my ok status , I would think “May be I look tired and sick” and then go to the rest room and check out in the mirror how I looked and think “Oh! I look quite ok. I wonder why he asked me that!” It has been a year now in UK and till now I have not been able to accept this innocent query; but I have become wise enough not to go and check if I am ok. On the other hand I am quite ok now.
By the way are you still Ok?

Chocolate Pudding

Yesterday I ate chocolate pudding. So whatz the big deal about it? I’ll tell you
I have been watching this ad in TV for quite a few days. Its an ad where there is a piece of chocolate cake kept on a beautifully decorated table. The cake piece is hot, all brown and juicy. Melted chocolate is poured over it which makes it still more appealing. Then comes a lady and stylishly picks up the cake and takes a bite of it with an intricately designed spoon. Next scene I am sure you can imagine, she expresses in her face and eyes all delight of eating the most delicious thing in the world.
No wonder after watching all that I was tempted to eat it. After all when you are in UK you should taste all these chocolate delicacies which you rarely find in India . Even if you find them in India , you would hesitate looking at the price tag. I remember a small piece of chocolate brownie cake of Café coffee day which costed about Rs 40-50 a piece. It tasted nothing when compared to the cakes and chocolates we get here. Nothing surprising, after all chocolates are the only sweets these people know. (In India we get variety of sweets each with a different taste, smell and a colour which people over here have hardly heard of. For ex, we have rasgulla, made of milk; gulabjamun made of milk; dood peda made of milk; dharwad peda made of milk; kheer made of milk and each of these taste very different although made of the same ingredient ‘milk’). Anyways abck to the chocolate pudding, I said my Mr “I want to eat that chocolate pudding”. He gave me a shocked look. Last year I had bought a Christmas pudding full of raisins. It was so sweet, so sweet, and so sweet that I could hardly eat it and finally had to throw it to the bin. So, with this amazing desire to eat the chocolate pudding I went for shopping on weekend. I found a small box of chocolate pudding which served a single person. I happily got it home.
I thought “Let me eat it tonight as a dessert after my dinner.” But that night we had our dinner late and it was already late for bed. I wanted to eat the delicious chocolaty thing with class, slowly relishing every bite of it, tantalising all my taste buds. So I decided to eat it the next night.
I prepared gobi palak for dinner the next night. The dish came out very well. I thought “Great dinners always end in a great dessert”. So planning to eat the pudding that night, I started my dinner. Only that by the end of the dinner I was so full that I couldn’t eat the pudding no matter how delicious it could be. So, again I decided “Let me eat it tomorrow. After all it should be eaten with class in style”
The next day, I cooked a very simple dinner and made sure I had appetite plus mood to eat the pudding. I had my dinner…”Mmm…there is still space…I am not full yet…Good”, I thought. I cleaned up the kitchen, did the dishes and sat with my Mr to watch the TV. ‘Friends’ was happening in the TV; but I couldn’t watch it, my mind kept going back and back to the pudding kept in the fridge. Finally I announced, “I am eating it.”
I carefully read all the instructions in it to heat it up. After all this wait I didn’t want it to be burnt or charred. I heated the thing in the oven. I could smell something….something sweet getting burnt? I immediately took it out… No, it was still hard. Kept it back again…again some burnt smell. “No, wait Chaitra”, I said. Another second and I thought enough of waiting. I took it out. I poured it from the plastic container into a plate.
There it was, the pudding exactly as I wanted it, soft, brown, full of chocolate with melted chocolate sauce over it. There were also some titbits covered by sauce, which I thought could be the nuts. I took it back to the sofa and asked my Mr., “Do you want some?” He made a face. (As usual, I force him to eat things which I like and finally he too starts liking them). I gave him some. He said he wanted no more. “Good”, I thought “Let me have it all”. So I took my first bite, slowly just like the stylish lady in TV. It was yummy…Just as I expected; I took the second bite; the sauce is a little too sweet for me. Never the less tasty. Third bite, the sauce is really sweet for me. I wish it was less sweet; Fourth bite, I wonder how people eat such sweet stuff; Fifth bite, Oh these titbits are bits of chocolate; Next bite, I wish they were nuts; Other bite, These people are fools. Why do they put bits of chocolate in a pudding entirely made of chocolate? Nuts would have made them much better. Next bite, “Darling, will you have some? It is really yummy”; One more bite, “Honey, Can you help me with this?” One next bite, “Hey please eat this. I can’t have any more”

Crave for talking?

Some people have amazing crave for talking. You are wondering that I belong to that category? No, I don’t. I talk to people only with whom I am comfortable. Else I keep my mouth shut.
Yesterday I met a lady in the train station, about 50-55 years, Indian by birth, but settled in UK for some time for sure. She boards the train at the same station as mine. I have noticed her talking to some person or the other always and every time it’s a new person she is talking to. Yesterday I was her victim. The train was full and both us were standing when due to some movement of the train she had to lean on me. She said “sorry”. I smiled and said ‘That’s ok’. Ouch, that was my mistake. She replied “Oh that’s a nice chance to know each other”. I didn’t know what to reply because people generally do not socialize much in UK.
Then and there without any inkling she started interrogating me. No matter how reluctant I was to reply to her queries, she somehow dragged the answers out of my mouth. “I guess you stay at xxx”, I said “Yes”; “I presume you work at xxx”, “Oh yes”; “Your husband works at xxx?” ;”Oh yes”. Meanwhile her phone rings and am happy that I am relieved. But alas no. “That was my daughter’s call”; ”Ok”; ”Do you have brothers and sisters?”; ”Yes”; ”How many?”; ”One each”; “They are married?”; ”No”; ”Do you have in laws?”…so went the conversation and by mid journey which could be around 20 min I came to know that she is in UK for 12 years, basically from New Delhi, has a son and a daughter, who lives in Cambridge who is a mother of a 4-month old baby and has just joined back to work. She has a mother-in-law to care, she wakes at 5:30 in the morning, returns back home by 5:30 in the evening working as a secretary and does all cleaning, shopping, washing, ironing , cooking etc etc.
At the end of conversation, I came to know one import aspect of her life, she didn’t tell me, but I realized it. She was hungry to talk. She was lonely in her life. Her kids had grown up and were indulged in their own lives. (I do not know of her husband, she didn’t mention him) She was facing this mid-life crisis and with the UK life style she didn’t have a friend with who she could talk to. So she talked to everyone she could, either in search of a friendship or to quench her thirst to talk to someone known or unknown.
No, I have no intention of befriending her to help her out. A talk with her would be an excellent trigger for a 420 Watts migraine. But this incident made me think; having all the things in life, she still felt lonely, Why? Is it the lost family bonding? I don’t know.

Whatz in a name? Bahut kuch

Aah! I am sure you would have given a thought at the URL of my blog. 'Kamath', yes that is my surname now. Not that I am quite used to it, but I thought of using it. 'What is in a name?' asked somebody, but I say there is a lot in a name. If someone comes and asks who you are, your immediate response would be “I am xxx" followed by other details. You wouldn't be telling "I am a software professional aged so and so working for so and so and then my name is so and so", would you?
Name has always been an interesting subject matter to me. I always like to remember beautiful names. When I say beautiful names, they are names which are not common and which carry a good meaning. I absolutely dislike the 2-syllabled Rita, Sony, Tina which are meaningless. They sound like alpha beta gamma. Neither do I like names which are so common that every next person has the same name. One lane will have at least a dozen kids with the same name and you would have to identify them by their surnames and eventually only the surname will be used; the whole purpose of name is lost.
My generally liking is towards names which are unique and carry a good meaning in Sanskrit or any of the Indian languages or belong to any mythological/ historical character. One of my lecturers in college had named her son as Amoghavarsha (Amoghavarsha Nruptungadeva was a great emperor of India). I absolutely love that name. The other name I like the most is Anagha (Its named after the Hindu goddess which means sinless; an+agha (sin)).
The latest craze among parents is to name their kids as uniquely as possible. I find this craze quite interesting; this trend leads to new inventions/ experiments in names not to mention disasters as well. About 4to 5 generations back parents rarely bothered about the names of their kids. Not much thought was given to the names. This led to great amusements to name a few -Young girls were named 'Kumari'(which is equivalent to Miss in English), who later in their lives after marriage would be called as Srimathi Kumari, translating to English would be Mrs Miss. Young girls were also named Shrimathi and would be called Kumari Shrimathi. I find this quite amusing.
In some parts of Karnataka, it is common to name people after vegetables like Mensinakai (chilly).Some other weird names are huchhappa (mad man), mudukappa (old man). West is not far away in having strange naming cultures. The current president of USA George Bush is the son of George Bush.

So there goes the story of names. Name be whatever ultimately what matters is the person, his character right? So, you call me Chaitra Pai or Chaitra Kamath I will respond. After all whatever you call me, I still remain the same me, myself Chaitra :-)