When Sex Is No Longer The Taboo Word

Since when was sex discussed like any other normal topic and was not just a topic of discussion between the lovers or the spouses? Or when did sex become a topic to discuss not just as a matter of salacious interest but as part of life, combining with its associated health, progeny and necessity? Even to this date is sex talk, the topic friends reserve to discuss about their escapades, their imagination, their philandery and a plenty of other things? So when did sex talk jumped out of the verboten arena?

Atleast to me it was post my marriage or rather near my marriage time, this talk escaped from all its boundaries and became a topic of normal discussion. When I heard the discussions about other people talking about sexual health, the good frequency of sex a couple should have, the dos and don’ts during and after sex for hygiene, happiness and a wonderful feeling of intimacy, the family planning techniques - I felt this is a must to discuss topic and it is a critical topic to know atleast when you are ready for marriage. I agree teens today know a lot about sex and sexual health - however when it comes to the phase where you are lawfully eligible to have sex, it is with utmost dedication that you need to remember and follow those things that you know.

To my surprise the little gyan that I had indeed came to enlighten one of my friends a little. How much ever you know about it, there is this difference that you feel and that better perspective that you get when discussing a topic with a person who has had an experience in it. The urge to know about sex more clearly and to get an advice is probably the factor that made sex a topic to discuss without embarrassment. When the embarrassment is shredded out, taboo is no longer in vicinity.

Parents have started realizing that sex education is equally important as is the knowledge that their child should know about drugs, alcohol or smoking. Well atleast you got to talk if you want to avoid sexual abuse or teenage pregnancies or for that matter of fact to prevent STDs. Taboo or not they would educate a person the right and the wrong and the implications of doing the wrong. Well - Sex is no longer the taboo word...

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The Binomial Nomenclature

Would it have been easier had we been a non - human being and been just an animal or a plant? One thing that might cause less worry if we were would have been the decision to name one's child! Well its not that complicated or anything like that - it is just that a whole lot people are to be satisfied with a name. Well er - Hmmm - probably satisfying people is complicated after all! After reconsidering and thinking more, complexity is rather an understatement. Well here is why it is.

There is this so called custom in some families where the grand kids name (atleast part of one of its name) has to be the name of the grand father / grand mother. In some families it has to be the traditional family name. It will be common for all the males of that family. And there are rules for the male child even when you name him and I don’t know if its fortunate or not, some of these rules are not so applicable for the female child - well a concept that may bring high blood pressure in feminists!

To add more to the naming options, there are Nameology, Numerology and so many ologies to tell you which letter should the name start with, how many charaters should the name contain, how many e’s and how many a’s. And then the combination of how the first and last name would look like is yet another matter to consider. Does the combination sound too weird or too good? Will my mom’s second cousin’s aunt who lives in Far East approve the name? Complexity – as I said is an understatement.

Ok - so what is in a name? It is something that belongs to me and I do not use it so often but every other person who knows me, uses it - eh! An irony - for something that I own, which neither I use it that often nor given a chance for me to choose. I wonder how many of us have had a discussion of why we were named like this and got the reason behind it! If I plan for a good name for my child (it better be good!) let me also put on my thinking caps as to why I decided to keep that name - After all my child should be happy with the name that I give him!

Well as a tail piece and now being the Harry Potter season, here is one info that might interest us. Before publishing the first Harry Potter series, the publishers requested Joanne Rowling to just use her initials rather than to reveal her first name - so that the target audience of young boys would not be hesitant to buy a book written by a female author! Well, so here we have J K Rowling - probably if you knew you could become a billionaire and your name played quite a role in it, there may be many of us who might reconsider a name change!

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An Affair To Remember

Very recently I happened to read this article in internet - It was all about how expensive American weddings have become. It looks like the average American wedding costs upto a whooping 28,000 - yes all US Dollars! And its all for a 1 day event. Marriage has become a costly affair and wedding planners, I can see, are becoming richer and richer.

Not just they are costlier, they also tend to build a huge pressure for all organizers - financially, in planning and co-ordination and almost everything. I recently received a mail from an American friend of mine, who had been back from her 'vacation'. I presumed it was a vacation as I did not get back any replies from her for about a week and I asked her how her vacation was. She replied back stating that it was sort of a vacation and that she had been out visiting Vancouver for a family wedding. So it was not the type of 'vacation' to relax by any means! Very aptly said - marriages are no more a relaxing function.

I do agree that the grandeur, the number of events, the potpourri of dishes are all directly proportional to money. But does a marriage always have to be grand to be the best? And does marriages have to be the best in the first place? And what do people gain by having best marriages? Well - people differ and some would love to have such diamond and star studded marriage showing ostentatiously their money and power. They consider marriage an opportunity to show the success in their life. I think it just finally boils down to one purpose - 'Pretentious'.

Marriages are becoming equally unaffordable in India. An upper middle class marriage on a grand scale (thank goodness not an average scale!) costs about 22.5 K US dollars - Atleast few Indian marriages are 2 - 3 day events - but that's no excuse to spend 22.5 K! Well the reason again for all these grandeur remains the same - be it India or the US of A.

But there are few factors which I always consider, would make a marriage touching, lovable and more meaningful. In fact these factors give a feeling of fullness and satisfaction that a pricey marriage could not. Factors like contributions to the poor and needy on the day of the marriage. Be it dresses or food, they go to people who need it and you have the money spent in a philanthropic activity. An activity that would make your heart feel so light and peaceful. In fact the couple can personally visit the orphanage or the temple where free food/clothes can be distributed by the couple themselves.

Probably there are more to write about marriages - One more that I can think of now is 'Gifting In Marriages!' But I will save that for another blog...

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A Dream For Tahiti

A young lady in the office - In her cubicle, starts to remove her shoes and pulls out the bottom most drawer of her cabinet. The draw is filled with beach sand and is strewed with pebbles and shells - the look and feel of the beach environment. She then places her legs inside this draw and closes and eyes and thinks - rather imagines that she is in Tahiti - the place she is yearning to go and the vacation for which she is saving every single penny!

Now there are so many instances when we imagine too - and quite often in the recent past I have been into tasty food imagination! Though I prefer having my side dishes as salads for their affluence in vitamins, I do imagine they are those rich creamy, butter clad side dishes! Well – what’s the harm in it? I get my healthy food and the taste of the rich side dishes - although said easily here in this blog, I do admit that someday I do yearn for those rich side dishes - just like the dream for Tahiti.

I am pretty confident that this lady, who saves all her money for her Tahitian trip, would be all the more excited and thrilled when her dream comes true. There is definitely an added excitement when you save for something and then spend it for that special something when you get to that financial comfort level. Probably you might loose all that thrill if you had had all the things that you yearn for comes to you with no effort! When you get to that point where you have achieved your goal - be it your trip to Tahiti - just because of all your hard work and judicious finance, there is this sense of pride that comes as a bonus along with the feeling with joy, wonder and excitement.

So where is this lady? The lady who dreamt of Tahiti and who imagined she was in Tahiti in her office cubicle with just a load of sand and sea shells? This happens to be an advertisement for Wells Fargo Bank - a pretty imaginative and interesting advertisement. Well, I think it is time for me to open some accounts in it - I too am dreaming of Tahiti... Someday Tahiti...

Well it would be too unfair to name a blog as Tahiti and not providing single information about it. Tahiti is the largest island of French Polynesia - Hmmm - if that's too much geography - probably this would help – It’s in the Pacific Ocean somewhere in between Australia and South America. Tahiti's major industry is Tourism and its one of the top places for vacations - be it honeymoon, a break from office work or a family affair!

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Origami

I was not sure when I became a fan of Origami. As such many of us would have had our share of origami - atleast by making paper boats and playing in the stagnated rain water! Oh yeah - we would create the smallest of all the boats and then the biggest giant boats would come - Wow - way back in past such small activities were enough to create joyous moments.

The adult mind of mine rather yearns to have new hobbies - hobbies that I could continue religiously. But atleast in the process of searching for new hobbies, I land up coming across a plethora of ideas and I do also learn a little about some of the interesting hobbies. Origami was one such favorite option of hobby for me. Though I do not try out a lot nor follow it sacredly, I took time to learn few origamies and tried a couple of papers objects that fascinated me.

Though the end product of the Tulip that I tried never matched the jpeg image in the walkthru online guide, I appreciated myself with a smug glow of self-congratulations! Well had I used the proper one side colored origami paper, my tulip would have looked even more beautiful. Not bad at all for a beginner. Now enough of self-appreciation and boasting. Here are some wonderful things that comes associated with the umbrella of Origami.

Storigami - This concept was my favorite. A storigami as the word tells you is you end making up an origami product by telling a story. Each fold of the origami is associated with a portion of the story. The sequence of folds involved now becomes part of the story, manking it easier to remember and a fun way to do. The storigami is born from our imagination - meaning, you can invent your own storigami to the origami that you prepare - making you remember the steps even if you are woken up in the middle of the night.

Just like many learning process - origami learning can also be divided into simple, inter and the advanced origamies depending upon the complexity of the folds involved. Well let me finish the blog with some historical updates - I had often thought Origami originated in Japan - much to my surprise it was originated in China and was carried over to Japan. The Chinese name was Zhe Zhi, however the Japanese name - Origami (Oru meaning fold and kami meaning paper in Japanese) became the famous catch phrase and here we are still using it - and there I was thinking the Japanese invented it! Well who ever found this - its a pretty interesting hobby to pursue!

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The ESPY Awards

It’s been quite some time I blogged and is it probably because I am running out of topic? Or is it sheer laziness to learn or find a topic itself? Whatever the case be, I found a topic worthy to blog. Most surprisingly this topic is regarding something that I never have interest. For people who know me well enough, they would have realized by this time that its going to be Sports!

And it so happened that on this late Sunday evening, when I was watching some 'had to see TV - else I have nothing to do' program! My roomie walked into the living room and he was browsing his favorite channels to see and suddenly this ESPY awards caught his eyes. ESPN - huh! that's one channel I never knew even existed - probably I would even call is YES-PEN instead of ESPN as 'Marie' would call in Everybody Loves Raymond.

ESPY awards is an award show that recognizes outstanding sports personalities - Best athlete, team, moment and so many other categories. Now I must tell you that - I am really a fan of watching award shows. So despite being an ESPN program, I sat straight, back all tall and lean. And I never thought I had watched an award show as good as this. There were 2 categories that touched my heart. One was the newly introduced award called Jimmy V award. Well this award went to a lady coach for her perseverance in sports - she was infact the person the whole team looked up as their role model. The reason - In her ongoing 65th year she had been identified for the 3rd time in her life for cancer and she fights the disease and makes the most of her life. Should I tell more for her perseverance?

Now if you asked who is this Jimmy V? He was yet another remarkable sports personality who died of cancer and founded the Jimmy V foundation for cancer research!

Now the other award was the Author Ashe award for 2 wonderful personalities who bring a change in people lives even today by teaching sports. Northern Ireland is a place notorious for the clashes between the Catholics and Protestants. Two men who were brought up in all this religious clashes found solace, safety and salvation in sports. They excelled every second they were playing - alas when they came out to the real world - they had to cope up with bloody wars. They both did not ask for much - they wanted their kith and kin to live in a world of peace - to walk in the road without the fear of being shot dead. This Catholic and Protestant did not engage themselves in such iniquitous activities - rather they came up with this brilliant idea of uniting fellow human beings disregard of their cast, creed, religion, color or race. And they chose sports as their medium of unification targeting the young generation hoping that playing together would also teach them to live together. Very aptly these 2 wonderful gentlemen were awarded the ESPY Author Ashe award.

So that was my tryst with ESPN channel and it proved to be an awesome evening indeed! From time to time I might even tune in YESPEN and see what’s interesting in it too!

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The "Do It Yourself" Mantra

When you do something on your own, what is the first feeling that comes to you? Satisfaction? Happiness? Victorious? Well many people may feel many ways if they have done something on their own. There is some other feeling that would definitely add on every time you do something on your own. You have done it all by yourself without depending on the others. It is the feeling of independence, the feeling of freedom that boosts your confidence that gets added up when you do your stuff all by yourself.

Many a times I find the people of US of A being fiercely independent. They tend to do each and everything on their own. I have never seen people doing these chores for themselves in my home country. I come from a land where folks are available to wash your clothes, clean your vessels, your home and baby sit and what not. I do admit that there are such people here at the US of A. But the Utahns that I have seen do a lot of chores on their own.

Lets start from the basics - House cleaning, washing, ironing, groceries, babysitting - all these basic "ings" are definitely taken care by the family. Then a step above some people does gardening, roof and chimney cleaning all by themselves. Now lets go a step ahead - There are people who have their own small farms that they plough and grow vegetables, fruits and graze their cows. They have their own ducks, pigs, cats, dogs, lamas and what on earth animals to take care of. All these plus work is managed independently by them.

One such do it yourself guy that I am well aware of is my DBA - Database Administrator - He is not only the database admin for all our projects, he is a family man with wife and kids. He has his farm and has many animals, he builds his fence, his dog house, he cleans his houses' chimneys and does what not. He is probably so very independent! This "Do it yourself Mantra" is yet another factor to love the US of A.

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Basketball Diaries

Now that I have 2 room-mates, I am getting used to the things that occur normally in their (er - well now it’s our) house. One such normal thing that happens is watching basketball in the television. Yes, I do admit it is very normal - but I have never watched a basketball sports program in the TV before. Nor have I been a part of or rather even heard discussions about basketball.

I have realized that basketball is something that my roomies include in their mundane activity. With the National BasketBall Championship games on air now, its basketball that is in air, water, earth, sky and fire. It is very amusing and entertaining to watch the frenzied face of my friend when he speaks about basketball. And when ever he does, the topic proved to be "Greeker" than Greek

Speaking with my roomies has given me the basic gyan about basketball - basic and ample enough to write the following trivia!
1. 2 teams each of 5 players participate in this game
2. It’s played for 48 minutes divided equally into 4 quarters.
Thanks to wikipedia the game was founded and coined by Dr. James Naismith, a Canadian. He had incorporated the rules for this game from a Canadian children's game called "Duck on a Rock".

Well as for me besides the recent knowledge of basketball, I must admit I had enjoyed the game when it came out blended with action and drama in the form a wonderful Hollywood movie "Glory Road" - a movie that I watched mid air on route to the US of A from India. Until I moved into my new home in the Orion Way, Glory Road was the only entry in the basketball diary that I had!

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Beating Boredom

Not many common men do spend their leisure time usefully. Not that I blame them, as it is human nature to relax, kill time and laze when you get yourself off from work or a busy schedule. However it so happens that during this time of relaxation, we do come face to face, probably sometimes with what is called as boredom. Something that every individual comes across in his life.

My trigger to write this Blog is when my I learnt that a friend couple of mine went to a movie theater to watch a Japanese movie with English sub titles (The couple knew not J in Japanese) and that too it being a black and white war movie. I was thinking that it was boredom that led these people to watch a movie on a sunny evening. (Evenings have started to become sunny and hot here in salt lake and me dad back home in Chennai states that Chennai is equally getting hotter. Man - global warming is one serious stuff which you can think/talk about - atleast when you feel bored!)

On the same evening I found another couple friend of mine wandering thru the shops in the big shopping mall and I also found that they had not purchase anything - not even something to eat and roam about. So was it boredom that brought them to visit that place for the n millionth time? My Dad wants to just go somewhere else rather than spending time in the same old house of his in Chennai. Again Boredom.

Now I never have answers to people's boredom. Elderly, the youth, married, bachelor - everyone alike nowadays get bored easily and find it difficult to pass time even in their leisure. I would rather suggest that they try to find some interesting hobbies and see which one garners their interest and start trying them out. It might even turn out to be something that you can tell out and boast!

Some worthy hobbies that I came across are - collections (movies to buttons to stamps), reading, writing, visiting places, painting, teaching, learning new languages, painting, decorating, cooking, potluck organizing, chit chatting with your loved ones - Let me see how many of these are going to help me.

With more thoughts…

30 Minute Meal

Its been a while since I have blogged. Many things happened in this interim period to me. Oh! yes - I went to India, got married, came back to the same old Salt Lake City. Probably one of the many interests that my wife and I share is watching cookery shows in television. Be it vegetarian or non vegetarian, we watch both with a whole deal of interest. And this time we are all tuned up to watch Rachel Ray’s cookery show.

Rachel Ray participates in atleast 3 shows to my knowledge in Food Network including $40 a meal. But our favorite happens to be "Rachel Ray's 30 minute meals". The sheer concept of completing an entire meal in just 30 minutes makes this show unique and quite interesting. Can Rachel complete her menu in just 30 minutes? Will she run out of time? Will she? Can she? Well its not that nail biting, but it truly makes you watch your watch atleast a couple of times during this show.

The cool factor of this show is the one that my wife pointed out - which is more than apt - Rachel takes the required ingredients from her pantry/refrigerator etc and then she cuts the veggies/meat or whatever and she cleans the vegetable, puts the rubbish in the garbage - what I mean here is that she does everything from A to Zee and nothing is done prior to the show. This gives you the actual time for cooking any dish. What's the fun in saying that I can cook a meal in 30 minutes if you had already cut the vegetables, boiled some of them, cleaned them - come on...you just can't finish half your work and claim the time for the rest of the half. So that is the specialty of Rachel Ray's 30 minute meal which really is a 30 minute meal preparation program that is worth seeing.

Food Network is one channel that we check out regularly. Sometimes we see Emeril, sometimes we are glued watching Ina Garten's recipes. Well yes, we do also watch Sex and the City and Everybody Loves Raymond too, if you want to read a one liner in this section of blog that is not about food!

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