Have you ever...

Have you guys played, "Have you ever?", where you have 10 fingers up, and someone calls out an action, and if you've done it, you place a finger down. Last one up wins. Anyway, I have one that will get all us desis. Have you ever been yelled at for stupid shit? Or better yet, shit you haven't done? Well for the past 2 days, that's what's been happening to me. I don't understand how my parents treat me like a baby, deciding what I study, when I study it, when I take breaks, when I sleep, when I get  up, who I hang out with, and then get mad at me when I don't comply to their every regulation. Logically speaking, rebellion in itself would imply maturity, because I'm developing my own opinions and questioning authority. Rukh ja ek minute (forgive if the Hindi is not A1, I'm Telugu), kya hai yeh logic fogic bakwas!

So every day this break, I've been watching www.youtube.com/khanacademy videos to study for Organic, General, Physics, and Math (under my parents orders of course), but yesterday I got yelled at for not taking notes during the videos. Yes mom, you know how my mind works and how I study, and that if I don't write the structure of DMF, I'm going to fail at life and end up on the streets. Anyone with Indian parents knows that the conversation can start with grades, and ultimately end with, "You're going to end up on the streets", "We're going to kick you out if...", "You're going to go to jail", "You're going to not get into Medical, Dental, Pharmacy, Optometry School". What ever happened to encouragement? Forget that! Whatever happened to being treated like a human being? Double standards suck. And the worst part is, all the brothers and bhaiyas who get this elevated treatment will never accept it because then they're out of luck. So selfish. I've decided to list some of these inequalities. Add on with your comments!


1. All the things the girl does to help around the house (clean, dishes, cooking, taking out trash, laundry, taking care of sick parents etc) is outweighed by the one time the (older) brother brought the mail in.
2. In my family at least, the girl is never allowed to bring a friend over (even if its a girl) and if they do, the mom treats the friend like a POS, but if el hermano does, the mom comments on his popularity and friendly nature. LOL.
3. The boy is allowed to party, drink, etc whereas if the girl goes out to a rated R movie, she's done the equivalent of having sex and getting preggo.
4. Freedom of money is given to the first born son.

Can you sense any resentments? LOL. NYE and I'm at home, my brother's on a flight to Vegas with his b-school boys. Makes me wanna rebel and study psychology while wearing capris. Oh my!

Is it just me...

Or do desi parents act hypocritical? Too angry to write now. For now, I'll just leave you to ponder why I'm mad. After all desi parents only care about one thing, maybe two. So that should narrow it down.

Early days...

Remember when we had early days in elementary school? For me, every Thursday we'd get out at 1:45pm, a whole hour earlier than the usual 2:45pm. I'd use that extra hour to jump rope, hula hoop and play on the monkey bars with my friend. Ahhh, those were the pre-Facebook days, when people didn't run home to check their walls for invites to social hangouts, and to see if their crush posted anything, or if people cared enough to type a 100 character message into a little box. I guess now you can see why I've self-imposed (with the help of a close friend to change my pw), a 3-month Facebook hiatus. On a side note, my elementary school is now being torn down and being made into a parking lot for a nearby amusement park.

In fact, the reason why I bring up early days, is because my father, who works in LA, came down to our house for lunch, to take my mom out for lunch at this restaurant called Vasantha Bhavan, which I guess literally translates to "Spring Palace", or something like that. In any case, I wouldn't call the food there appetizing, more so a grossly butchered version of true South Indian food (and yes, we do eat more than dosas and idlis). The food there is served with more oil than achar, more attitude than amicability, and more creepy guys hitting on girls than hot ones. I think my morning dhood with mixed in Bournvita tastes better. And I've been drinking that for the past 8 years. Either way, I have a sneaking suspicion that the only reason my parents go, is because the owners are Telugu family friends of ours. So now, I'm sitting in my room, with the house to myself for a couple hours, trying to think up sinister ideas on what to do. But I know I'll just end up watching tv shows like "16 and Pregnant" that are too risque to watch in front of the maa and baap.

Bye for now, or should I say, Tata!!!

At the risk of sounding too desi...

I'm sure you all know how the desi "arguments" go. Zero logic. And always ending with a, "VAT IS THIS! RESPECT YOUR ELDERS!" Take this as verbal thappad #1. It all started with me and my parents sitting down to watch Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune back to back. My parents start balls-out crazy when they see a contestant on Jeopardy named "Raghuveer Mukkamalla". My parents abruptly decide that he's a fellow Telugu. In about 2 seconds, they have him climbing Mt. Everest and bringing down the entire Jewish race. Yes, random Anti-Semitic comments do pepper (or rather masala) the conversations in my house. Next commercial break, they force me to Google this random guy to find out his life history. (A little background info: my mom's computer knowledge amounts to nil, zilch and zero). Suddenly, my mom takes hold of my computer, apparently bestowed with all the knowledge in the world on how to use Google. Apparently discovering Google for the first time since 1998, my parents start Googling all the randomest relatives from aunts, cousins, and random people we know with a frenzy like they've just discovered the cure to cancer. (And yes, I've abandoned my oh-so-perfect sense of grammar in this rant against the illogical parental unit). Next tuning into Wheel of Fortune, we see another desi, this one, decided by my parents to be born in America. Leaving out the nitty-gritty details (partly because they make NO sense), I end up banished from my nightly tv solaces to my room to "study". Go figure, who knew the parents who take to logical professions leave all intelligence to the wind with their children. And yes, I'm writing this as I listen to "Desi Girl".

At the moment...

My first attempt at writing this first post came at 10:30am, which in my mind, is wayy too early to be getting up during winter break. As I was sitting in my room,door closed, typing away on my Toshiba laptop (go figure, do you think I'd buy Dell?), my mom opens the door, making sure I'm ishtudying (insert desi accent) the chemistry. Well there goes that. Now I'm typing this as my mom sleeps in her bedroom, giving me some alone time. My mom is a homemaker, which basically stands code for home-all-the-time = no privacy. She's the type that hates the movie Dostana, because Abhishek and John (yes I'm on a first name basis with them), act gay to keep their apartment or whatever it is. My baap is the type that thinks hugging guys is besharam, so you know where that leaves me in that department. My bhaiya, is el golden child, you guessed it, went to Harvard for his MBA and is now eternally etched into my parents minds as the template for the model child. And you can guess where that leaves me! With this blog of course!

I go back to school on Jan. 3rd, which means, if you ishmart desis haven't figured it out yet, I'm on the quarter system. Ok, I'll stop with the cheap laughs now, I'll move on to the more expensive ones. gasp! I'm from Cali, and no, I don't go to Cal or UCLA. So that only leaves one legit UC. I'll leave you to the thinking. Going back to school, I'm welcomed by Metabolic Biochem, Ochem, Physics, and  Behavorial Psych (yes, I'm surprised my parents consider that a valid subject!), an internship (on the DL of course), and a part time job (again, on the DL), to fund my makeup shakeup addiction.

Now I'd wish someone came up with a shirt that says, "I'm with bevakoof" See...my desi roots came back to me, I went for the cheap laughs, the other kind were much too expensive!


What are your guys' NYE plans? Lots of ishtudying I hope! But for now, I'm back to the kitaabs!