This is my first blog post and I thought I would write about some of the stuff that happens in life that is both weird and humorous. I must warn you that writing is not my strength, but regardless I am going to subject you to my pen and see if I can hammer stuff out, the absurdity of which, causes you to step back and smile, at the very least! I will also write about my passion from time (more serious stuff) which I am sure will be a little less readable, unless you are interested in cars.
This year we (Indians/Hindus) celebrated Karva Chauth on the 15th of October http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karva_Chauth. As the legend goes, wives in India would fast for the whole day for the health and long life of their husbands (don't ask me why the women only have to do it, there is no reciprocal festival for men) and break their fast at the sight of a moon. We were invited to a friend of mine a Professor at UCLA. We arrived a bit late and the Pooja was in full swing (see pictures). I naturally assumed that the "rise of the moon" was merely a chronological event. I was wrong! Some of the wives in the gathering were hell bent on seeing a physical moon. Unfortunately our friend lives near a dip (next to the 405 in the Sepulveda pass) surrounded by hills. So we went searching the moon. We could see the glow of the moon beyond the hills, but could never really see it because of the hills. So we drove up one canyon.. and then another.. till we finally saw the moon through a gap in a row of houses. I naively suggested (still under the false impression that the moon had just to be sighted to verify that it had risen) that we turn around and allow the women (with us a close second) attack the food! It would have been rude of us to eat while our wives fasted!!
One of the two calmly went on to suggest that this was not good enough. The women had to be shuttled up to this spot so that they could physically see the moon for themselves and then they would chant some mantras and break their fast. My other friend came up with an ingenious idea. He had skype on his Android phone and so he called his son and told him to fire up skype on his Mac and he was going to show the women the moon through his phone...only an engineer would come up with such and ingenious idea!
Unfortunately for us, after all the commotion..him trying to get skype to work.. the women objecting in the background..we were overruled.
We scooted back home and a caravan of cars full of hungry men and hungrier wives went up the hill and luckily saw a physical moon, did their thing and broke their fast. Glory to the moon.. we finally ate.
