Welcoming Maveli

Gone are the days when people used to felicitate Onathappan and anticipate Maveli's vist by adorning their courtyards with floral carpets. Malayali women no longer practise the graceful Thiruvathira kali. Neither do the men prance around doing Pulikali. The kids, however, are trying to keep the Onam spirit alive by showing off their dancing talents. So what if they're not dancing to the tunes of a Mallu song?!

Divine Magic

Islamic sweet water, milk-loving Hindu gods and a perfumed Xian mother...wonder what miracles the Sikh, Jain, Jew and Parsi gods will conjure!

Health Hues

One thing Ms. Maggi had always taken for granted was her health, probably because she was usually healthy as a horse. "In the pink of health" was how people described her rosy cheeked ruddiness. Until this summer, that is. May and June changed all that. Ms. Maggi spent the afore mentioned months married to her bed in utter hopelessness. She soon discovered that whereas the US was THE place to live during healthy times, life SUCKED when one was laid up in bed. If your maladies didn't kill you, sheer boredom and depression would. The fact that most of Maggi's gal pals were vacationing in India and the one exception who was not chose this exact time to move to another state did not help Maggi's sagging spirits.
"If I have to stare at the Native American pots on those curtains a minute longer, I'll slash my wrists or something," wailed Ms. Maggi to the ever patient MOH one hot afternoon. "Hold off on that plan till I finish this meeting and drive back home" responded the man of her house before hanging up the phone post-haste. No doubt he was embroiled in some it-just-can't-wait-to-be-solved production problem at work. Work waits for no man and when a man had to do something, he had to do it, crazy wives nothwithstanding.
Maggi considered carrying out her threats to teach MOH a lesson. However, sanity prevailed. "Sigh! Maybe I'll just move to the guest bedroom," Maggi pacified herself while staring at the silent handset. She acted on her new plan without taking into account the fact that the guest room was not designed to be a soothing environment. "No sense in buying a really comfortable mattress," she had reasoned with MOH while they were designing this particular corner of their nest. "We don't want our guests to feel so much at home that they decide to live with us forever. Better make things a bit less than perfect." "Genius! It's amazing how your devious mind works," MOH had beamed with pride then. Now, sleeping on the lumpy sagging mattress and staring at the dull blah curtains, Maggi cursed her previous less-than-hospitable intentions.
"Imposing house-guests or not, I'm definitely redoing this room the moment I get better," vowed Ms. Maggi at the dinner table that night. "See, I've spent the afternoon making sketches for a copper and blue Kokopelli wall mural that I will paint myself," she continued. The worry lines around MOH's mouth and forehead relaxed 89%. His face broke out in a huge grin. "'Atta girl! Looks like a few hours in the room was exactly what you needed. It has revived the old Maggi spirit," observed the happy man. He was tired of playing Mr. Mom and wanted his wife [or was it life?] back so he could return to playing poker on the computer while wolfing down the hot bhajjis his wife had fried up. From what he could see, his prayers would be answered soon. The future looked rosy enough...