KEYS TO MY HEART » Personal

Eating healthy, staying healthy

Jagadish — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:17:43 +0000

I have never been one of those crazy health freaks. I have laughed and ridiculed people who watch their calories everyday, drinking diet sodas, eating fat-free food and drinking fat-free milk. I love good, tasty food. Having grown up in India where almost all the vegetables you eat are organic and the milk was freshly squeezed from the buffalo every morning (agreed it was diluted with water but still it was yummy). I really just hated everything I ate when I first came to US. The milk tasted like water, the yogurt didn’t taste right. The potatoes and peas were sweet. The eggs I ate had no taste and smelled too bad . Eggplants were huge and tasteless. The complaints I had about food were endless. Recently, I started going organic and that made a world of difference to the taste. Organic whole milk tastes much better than Indian milk, organics eggs = yummy; I just avoided the label ‘fat-free’ and I realized that the food in US never tasted better.

There was a downside to this whole experience. When you start avoiding fat-free label, you are getting into a territory where your food is potentially unhealthy for your body. Obviously, the trade off has always been taste and health and that’s really unfortunate. I don’t understand how we can’t have tasty and healthy food which are not fruits. You don’t really know how much of this food is polluting your body until you check your weight on a regular basis.

Recently, I started going to the gym because I realized my body needed some strength and stamina. I was always too lazy to go to the gym because it was too far away and I didn’t want to spend an hour walking there when I have about 4-5hrs of time to myself every day besides work. But, one of my friends offered to drive me back and forth every morning and I told myself why not? I started getting into the habit of checking my weight on a daily basis and I realized how much you can gain by gouging yourself on good food for just one night .

I always felt like I was a fairly healthy person. I have good immunity and I still don’t have glasses. I don’t get sick too often. But, there is always the need to improve the tone of your body and also increase the stamina. Especially at this age, where we get little to no physical activity, it is important to know what you are eating and keep yourself healthy. I still don’t get fat-free food but I limit my intake and get some exercise to burn off the excess calories .

Update!!

Jagadish — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 03:28:01 +0000

Just an update to all those who are wondering what is going on. I am considerably close to graduating but since the economy “happened”, finding a job has been quite difficult. That means I had to postpone my graduation by one more semester, so I can stick around and hope the economy gets on its feet in the next couple of months. I am also looking at the possiblity of a PhD but that is a distant second priority and would only really consider if I can’t find a job soon enough.

Coming to the site, we are really trying to keep up and blog as much as possible. But obviously that is not happening as often as we would like to. We think its a good idea to update the site as much as possible, considering the amount of money we spend on it every year, it will be a really bad idea not to use this platform we developed together in the past couple of years. So expect at least a couple of blogs in a week. We really hope that more people will learn from our experience and make their relationships work.

We also updated the theme again. The colorful and vibrant theme kind of signifies the time and mood we are in, where the possibilities are endless. There was also some significant behind the scenes update, everything must� look much more organized now. I think thats about it for now.

Life at IIT-M

Jagadish — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:24:03 +0000

This video pretty much sums up the life of an IITian. Of course, not everyone gets lucky enough to study with a girl. This made me really nostalgic, having spent most of my adult years at IIT. Enjoy

Our time together…

Jagadish — Tue, 06 May 2008 02:31:21 +0000

I know we haven’t been able to keep the site updated as often as we can. Life has been really busy for the past one year. The updates have slowed down to a trickle but we want to let everyone know that this site is a very important thing in our lives and we will try to keep this going as long as we are together. We want this site to be a proof that long distance relationships indeed work if you have the patience.

After nearly 4 years of staying apart and meeting once every year (for a few hours) perhaps, we have finally had the opportunity to spend a lot of time together in August of 2007. I finally came to US as a graduate student in Environmental Engg and the first thing I did was fly to Archana’s place. We had about 10 days to spend together and that was quite a long time. In those 10 days, we had gone shopping, visited places and cried ourselves to sleep but not for one moment did we feel like we did not belong together.

And I had to fly back to East coast to continue the purpose of my arrival in USA. Life as a graduate student is not easy. It is time consuming and you have not a moment to do anything but study. I was a really serious gamer before I came to USA. I would spend at least a couple of hours every day playing video games but not anymore. There is so much to this country but I would be lying if I said that I really love it here. But after an year’s time, I can safely say that this place is growing on me. I had several complaints from the taste of milk to the time of sunset. How expensive everything is when you convert everything to rupees. In spite of all the complaints, I really love the neatness and the organized traffic in this country. Driving in India after driving in these conditions is suicide. But that is the subject of another blog.

During the one year of my stay in USA, we have met twice already and spent more than a month’s time together. There were moments of true happiness, togetherness and also there were moments of angst and frustration. But even in all this, life felt good. We had a first hand experience of each other’s stubbornness and some issues are yet to be resolved and probably will take a while to be. It made me realize how much we care about each other and how much we are willing to sacrifice to be together. Like I said, life is good with Archana (so is her food ).

Valentine’s Day: #5

Archana — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 22:44:45 +0000

The last few months have been particularly hard for both Jagadish and me. A number of issues had come up that we had to deal with. While most of them remained unresolved, Valentine’s Day showed up, bright and merry.

I thought I had, for once, surpassed myself and bought him a really outstanding gift that would surprise him, but he got me something that I was really almost craving. He’s always been into gaming, and I turned from someone being blissfully unaware of video games into a casual onlooker, getting (loads of) info from him about the latest and greatest games around. So when he made his way into the US, I bought him a Nintendo DS Lite, with one of the Final Fantasy games. He soon found other games for it and I was hooked onto BrainAge and WarioWare. I absolutely loved Mario Party! I played until the end of the game-with a little help from Jagadish of course.

And so… I received a brand-spankin’-new DS Lite in red for Valentine’s. Not only does it look gorgeous and evokes ‘wows’ from anyone who looks at it, but it is incredibly easy and sooo much fun to play on! We can even hook up to Nintendo’s WiFi connector thingy and play against each other. I can only say I’m getting better at Mario Kart, but I bet I’ll beat him at it some day very soon!

Besides all the excitement of getting this awesome gift, Valentine’s, as always, reminded me of how fortunate I am to have someone out there who cares about me as Jagadish does, and someone who I care about just as much. Indeed, it happens much too often when the person you love may not love you back as much. I hope everyone who is in love and is looking for love will remember that, always.

It has been a wonderful five years with him, despite the many hiccups we continue to face. Money, fame, success, and the highly ovverrated societal ‘respect’, although perhaps important in some regards, sometimes pale in comparison to having a happy and fulfilling life.

Perhaps Love..

Archana — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:13:50 +0000

To me, love is a lot of comfort. It is comforting for me to know that, at the end of the day, I have a shoulder to rest on. Someone to spill everything out to. Someone I can count on to make me smile, even if I’m exhausted. Someone to simply make me feel better when I’m down, or feeling crummy for no reason at all. Someone who will understand that I need comforting, and solace, and someone who will unselfishly provide that, without asking or needing, or expecting anything in return.

Now, this reminds me that there is a most beautiful love song, by Placido Domingo, and John Denver called ‘Perhaps Love’.

Anyone who has not heard this, has surely missed out! Look it up, and listen to it, or ask Jagadish or me for it We will be happy to share it with you. Here’s the lyrics from this most touching, soothing, revealing, simply awesome song:

Perhaps love is like a resting place, a shelter from the storm
It exists to give you comfort, it is there to keep you warm
And in those times of trouble when you are most alone
The memory of love will bring you home

Perhaps love is like a window, perhaps an open door
It invites you to come closer, it wants to show you more
And even if you lose yourself and don’t know what to do
The memory of love will see you through

Love to some is like a cloud, to some as strong as steel
For some a way of living, for some a way to feel
And some say love is holding on and some say letting go
And some say love is everything, and some say they don’t know

Perhaps love is like the ocean, full of conflict, full of pain
Like a fire when it’s cold outside, thunder when it rains
If I should live forever, and all my dreams come true
My memories of love will be of you

Some say love is holding on and some say letting go
Some say love is everything and some say they don’t know

Perhaps love is like the mountains, full of conflict, full of change
Like a fire when it’s cold outside, thunder when it rains
If I should live forever, and all my dreams come true
My memories of love will be of you

I cannot agree more.

Perhaps l o v e does this to you

Changes: Wanting to be married

Jagadish — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 23:11:49 +0000

I have forever detested the concept of marriage. I never understood why people needed to be married. My parents haven’t done anything to enhance my opinion on marriage either.

I have always been a solitary being. I hated to be with people and any form of company. Its not that I was a shy person or something, I’ve been able to manage myself in a crowd. Its just that I never felt lonely or sought that special someone to be with. I had always been happy with myself and had even vowed to be single forever.

I had this elaborate dream where I would be stinkingly rich, (with my brains, I always thought I would be anything I wanted to be) and that I would own this huge apartment on the top floor of a skyscraper. It would have just one room with a couch, television, balcony and a huge window on one side of the wall. When I draw the blinds open, I would have a view of the endless sky. It seemed like a perfect life to me. A life without anyone to care for and without any accountability. And I thought I would adopt someone when I feel ready for the responsibility. It seemed like a great life until Archana came along and disturbed my apple cart.

It would seem like every girl’s dream but, even as a guy, I always thought I needed someone to sweep me off my feet. Someone who would make me feel that I can’t live without her. Someone who would make me go to the ends of the earth just to touch the tip of her hair. Someone who would make me feel the need for company.

In Archana, I’ve found all this and more. Not only that, she has forever changed my view on marriage and she didn’t even have to argue with me about it. She is someone whom I truly want to be married to for the rest of my life. She is someone I want to grow old with, someone I would be willing to share my space with and give away my precious perfect dream of bachelorhood because there is nothing in this world that I want more than to be with her. And now I know the sanctity of marriage and respect the institution that has been binding people in love together for ages.

(This is part 2 of my ongoing posts on changes I’ve noticed in myself since I met Archana. You can read the Part 1 here.)

Changes: Learning Patience..

Jagadish — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 15:33:43 +0000

Not everyone is perfect. We all have our imperfections and there are things about us that we can’t help but loathe. I’m not talking about narcissists but for an average human being, we see more faults in ourselves than others do. Sometimes we even go to the extent of hating ourselves because of these imperfections. But love changes it all. You will notice things in yourself that you haven’t noticed before. It is when you start looking at yourself through the eyes of your lover, you realize that you aren’t so bad after all.

If someone asked me who is the worst person on earth, I would gladly raise my hand and put my name first on the list because I know myself all too well and a really bad memory to remember it all (blessed are the people who can forget their mistakes easily). But ever since I met archana, I’ve done nothing but love myself. She has been a huge boost to my self-esteem. I thought I would list a few changes(both good and bad) I’ve seen in myself over the past few years since archana came into my life.

Learning Patience:

One of the first things that probably changed was my level of patience. I’ve always been eternally impatient. If i wanted something, I wanted it now and if I had to wait, I’d rather not have it at all. Yes, I was very spoiled being the first born and some sort of a child prodigy, I got preferential treatment everywhere I went. But the impatience changed the moment I met archana because I knew things would not happen in a hurry and that it would be a long long wait before we are finally together. Patience is extremely important in a long distance relationship because the distance will start showing on you eventually and at least one of the partners have to learn to bear the brunt to keep things in check, so you don’t lose the sight of the long term goal. I learned to be patient because as cliched as it might sound, good things come to those who wait. I am sure all this will pay off in a good way sometime in the future. (Archana, you better make sure it does ). I am not saying that I never lose patience. Like I said before, we all have our faults and I lose it to the silliest of things sometimes. But all is good in the end, we cant stay angry with each other for long.

So if you are in a long distance relationship, my advice would be to learn to be patient. I know that there is always a hurry to get together and get your life started as quickly as possible and the sight of couples walking hand-in-hand will always make you long for that feeling. If you know that he/she is the one for you, be patient and it will be really worth it when you are finally in their arms.

Love in India: Shah Jahan & Mumtaz Mahal

Archana — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 12:12:49 +0000

Who was it that once said, “All the world loves a lover”? Well, whoever it was, he/she must certainly not have come from where I do. The part of the world where I come from hardly loves a lover.

It is, I think, a little strange that falling in love and wanting to marry someone of your own choice, rather than your parents’ in India is considered, well, somewhat of a taboo thing to do. Why should it be this way? And how did it come to be this way? Hinduism never preached that it was wrong or immoral to love another. (In fact, I’m quite sure it is the opposite).

In every language spoken in India, there is a word for love. In fact, the mother of most languages borne in India, Sanskrit, is supposed to have ninety-six words for love! It is the land of many love stories, buried in the past. There are mythological stories too, about Gods and who they fell in love with. These stories have touched and inspired me and made me think, and so, in the next couple of weeks, I plan to blog about some of these stories that I know of.

I will start with perhaps the most famous of them all. The story of Shah Jahan and his beloved Mumtaz Mahal that reflects the intensity and passion love can bring about. This is how the story goes:

Prince Khurram met Arjumand Banu at a bazaar. She was trying to sell him a piece of glass she insisted was a diamond for Rs. 10,000. The prince was so smitten that he not only purchased the diamond, but went straight to his father to announce to him that he wanted to marry her. Their wedding took place five years later, and they became inseparable. Arjumand was bestowed the name ‘Mumtaz Mahal’, meaning the ‘jewel of the palace’. And that she was, for Shah Jahan entrusted her with many matters. It is said that she became his political adviser and often accompanied him on his military campaigns.

Less than 20 loving years later, however, she died in childbirth. Shah Jahan, heartbroken, resolved to make a monument that would forever be a symbol of the love they shared. Mumtaz Mahal was buried in the Taj Mahal which took nearly two decades to be made. Upon Shah Jahan’s death, he too was entombed in the Taj, next to his beloved wife.

It remains today, a memento of love, with the perfection of art. This is a story of devotion and faith, and of undying love, encased in the wondrous beauty of the Taj Mahal.

The most tiresome Sunday..

Jagadish — Wed, 23 May 2007 03:58:10 +0000

This Sunday, I had to write the UPSC civil services prelims exam. Most people usually take it rather seriously, spending an year or more mugging for it. But unfortunately, I had to write it because of the pressure from my parents and so I hadnt taken it as seriously as most people would have. Even though, I consider myself well informed when it comes to current affairs, I never take the trouble of remembering all the names of the people involved or go into details of everything. I didn’t even prepare a day before the exam or knew the exact pattern of the exam. But I was going to write it nevertheless because my mother insisted on it.

First and foremost thing that should be taken care of when you are intending to write a government conducted exam in India is – To find the examination center before hand. If you intend to search for it an hour before the exam, believe me, you are in one hell of a trouble. The center, somehow, seems to be always on the other side of the town from where you live. I don’t know if this is intentional but how hard is to just put the candidates from one area in a school close to them. Instead, I had to search for 2hrs for the school I’m supposed to write my exam. By the time I reached that place, there were just 10 minutes for the exam to start and I was supposed to report atleast 30 minutes before the exam. As if that was not enough, to my horror, I realised that there were no shops around to buy a pencil and an eraser. It was only getting worse from bad.

After getting into the classroom, I had meekly admitted to the invigilator that I had only brought a pen and no pencil. Someone in the classroom was generous enough to lend me their pencil and I was off to begin my “Optional Subject” – Civil Engineering. After looking at the paper, I felt really ashamed of being a Civil Engineer, as I was not able to answer the first half of the question paper. I drew a complete blank. It was only after I reached the Environmental Engg, that I was able to put my borrowed pencil onto the answer sheet. With structures and geotech to follow, I was doing quite good and I realized that I had completed the whole paper in 45 minutes time. Well, I didn’t want to stay any longer than that and I had requested the invigilator to allow me to leave since there was nothing “more” I could answer. But he insisted that I was not supposed to go out till 1130am until the exam is finished. Since I had to sit there anyway, I thought I’d finish the paper and I started trying to answer the first 60 questions. I had stopped giving any thought to the negative marking and marked everything I could answer without thinking whether the answer was right or wrong. Even after all that, I had a good 30 minutes to kill. Its only during these times, you realize how long 1800 seconds is.. I started counting the seconds believing that it would make the time go faster but it didn’t help. I had, for the first time, noticed how neatly the seconds dial in my watch is engraved.

And finally the final bell was rung and I ran out of the room in a hurry to collect my bag and get some water to drink. After getting my bag, the first thing I did was to give a missed call to Archana, so she would call me back and entertain me while I waited for my next exam scheduled at 230pm. It is somewhat ritualistic for us, as I would always call her before my exam to buy some luck and after the exam to tell her that she didnt send me enough luck . Anyway, this time, archana was so fully asleep that several rings to her cell phone bore no response. I was pissed, not only was the exam a disaster, even archana was too fast a sleep to console/entertain me. I called my home instead and told them it was a disaster and that I would write the next exam too since I travelled quite far and didnt want to go back doing only half the job.

It was probably the hottest day in Chennai. The heat was absorbing and tiresome. I was dizzy and had to sit on grass as the benches were too hot under the mid-day sun. Thankfully, I ran into an acquaintance. Finally, someone to pass the time and endure the heat. We chatted up and agreed that we both did badly in our respective sections and that they were too tough. We both found shelter in a small hotel and drank Pepsi to soothe our thirsty throats. We discussed how it was a good time for the cola companies to prosper. Pesticides or not, people would rather drink them rather than bear the heat. After wasting enough time talking movies and nonsense completely irrelevant in that context, we had walked back to our examination center to give the “General Studies” exam.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised to see some probability related questions. Finally, something I could do. And most of the questions were something to my knowledge. I have to say that it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. When I came back home and checked the answers, there were several correct answers. It was a small consolation for the all the trouble I had been put through. My bike’s odometer read 70kms when I finally got back home. That was probably the longest trip my bike ever had to endure. (This is also probably the longest post you will have to endure on this blog ). My back has completely gone numb from the long drive(signs of old age already). I will definitely have to take a week’s rest to nurture it back to good health .

P.S: Check out the “About Us” page. It has some really nice doodles by archana. I will also try to upload the doodle I drew while I was killing time in the exam.