Water, no ice please

The expression "Water, no ice" rings a bell for every desi in the states (not sure bout other western countries). In fact, there is a cool website bout desis in the bayarea named after it.
For the uninitiated, "water, no ice" is the way most desis specify what they would like to drink, when they are at a restaurant. This is because pretty much very restaurant in the US (regardless of cuisine) always serve ice old water with lots of ice in it and the default drink for quenching thirst is not water. So you are always (and usually very politely) greeted with a "What would you like to drink?" question after being seated at a restaurant. When I first landed here, I often found myself trying to quench my thirst by gulping down ice cold water and not succeeding, While I wondered why anyone in their right minds would want to drink super-cold water when it was already super-cold outside, the vision of me merrily drinking super-hot tea in my super-hot home town (relatively) of Pune would float before me and I realized there was probably some very good reason for this that I would eventually one day understand.
So I soon changed my tactics of always saying "water, no ice" to the "what would you like to drink?" to just plain "water", which of course resulted in me getting water with ice.
After 10 years in the US, I still haven't figured it out! On the other hand I have been sufficiently Americanized (or matured) to just ask for what I really want and to not care too much about conforming, to now revert back to "water, no ice" - without diffidence and without apologies! :-)

If you were to pick up a condom in NYC...

I love NPR, as might be apparent from my "inspired"/plagiarised blog name. But what I love the most about NPR (and KUOW) are those irrelevant, irreverent, inconsequential stories that just make my day and often re-instill my faith in America, the world and the human kind as a whole. A recent such story was about a contest held in New York city to redesign the cover for condoms that the city gives out generously and freely to its denizens. Although the finalists included such interesting designs as a dirty NYC subway hurtling down towards a tunnel, the top honor went to a design that was incredibly simple and yet incredibly symbolic (and literally too!). It was the symbol on the power button of most digital gadgets - a circle with a tiny (pssssssssss) tick going through it at the top center. The symbolism kept hitting me in waves - from sex is about power and control to the existential question of are we gradually perceiving ourselves as digital?

Ode to the cauliflower

After a long hiatus, the cauliflower made an appearance on my dinner plate today, in the form of small overcooked florets (in true Indian style). As I ruminated on them, a strange (and borderline disturbing - considering I am a woman myself) analogy popped into my head. If vegetables were women and I was objectifying them, the the potato would symbolize a blond bimbo. The cauliflower on the other hand would be beauty with brains, a true woman of substance!