Rendezvous of Thoughts and Words

A Walk (on the Water) to Remember!

2010-06-14T10:42:00.000-04:00

On a spring weekend I was driving past a lake right along the freeway. Pictures flashed in front of my eyes on how the lake looked a couple of weeks back. The unbelievable transformation surprised me and the memories of the day came rushing to me.

Past: It was a warm day (around 40 degree F) close to the end of winter. We were driving on the familiar freeway to get to the restaurant for lunch. Seeing the frozen lake and all those people who were fishing we got excited to have a closer look. So after lunch we took a detour and went to the lake. It was a small beautiful lake, 95% frozen with small puddle of water starting to show up and for the fish in that small patch hundreds of sea gulls were flying above. Some of the brave men were ice fishing on it.

After a few skeptical withholds, we let go of the fear and stepped on to the ice sheet. The imaginary ice movement scared us, but we walked forward. We reached a few hundred feet from the shore seeing holes in the ice, trying to judge the depth of the ice, noticing the pecked fish and capturing the sea gulls in the camera.

There we met one of the sporty fishermen. He was all so excited to see us and showed us the ice fishing tactics. Of course he ridiculed the unfit clothing and shoes we had on and warned us to get back to the shore before we freeze. After learning to make a ice fishing hole and sharing his strange adventures which included horror filled ice fishing stories we came back to the shore all safe!

Back to Present, those moments though one might consider as stupidity I still would call it one of my life time experiences. I would have never dared to walk on the water otherwise. Inspite of the sheet of ice that was holding me up I was worried deep in my heart what if it gave way :) Now, I drove past the lake that is brightly shining as a vast blue stretch!

To all you Mac Lovers there...

2010-05-20T11:14:00.002-04:00

I am sorry if it upsets you in any way, but just could not stop myself from enjoying this nicely written story on the IPad. I already have one other person pour out his feelings in where's my slate. But this is really nice, it’s true and genuine. If you still have not bought it or thinking about buying it you might want to check out this post in msnbc first :)

Well my personal take on this, Jobs is pretty good with Marketing and Sales. He has carefully suppressed or avoided some features in the initial versions of his products and later introduced them as new versions of the same product, increasing the temptation for people to buy it. But in this case he released iPhone which even non-Mac fans loved & appreciated and then released a simpler, clumsier IPad which even Mac fans hate now. I am not a Mac lover, but I went and had a demo in one of the apple stores on this device. The obvious killers for me were

    1. Lack of proper Bluetooth - the one that is in the device does not support everything.
    2. Lack of inbuilt Camera - come on this is silly, the main use is for browsing and chatting, why would they make it without a camera?
    3. No media card readers - Like SD cards etc.,
    4. Too pricy for what it offers.
In short I decided against buying it atleast for now, because I get most of the capabilities in my Nokia Smart Phone and HP laptop :), I might consider the next version of iPhone though.

Has the Technology really Advanced?

2010-05-19T13:39:00.000-04:00

Today I was contemplating on this. With so much of scientific advancement and technology innovations still only a pocket of the business really uses them all. May be it is still expensive for most businesses or may be they are happy and accustomed to the old way of doing things. Sometimes it could just be the worry on ROI. The following incident is what made me think about it.

I called the customer service of UPS to hold a package. The Customer Service Representative (CSR) tells me that it’s done and someone from the location that holds the package will call me on the pick up timing with in the hour. After waiting for over an hour I called them back. This time a new CSR picks up, she reads out a note for this package "Unable to contact or leave a message to the pick up location". Then she tells me that she will try to leave a message and they will contact me again and I should be able to pick it up by that day. It was 8:00 pm, I got skeptical and asked her what is the closing time of the location, she tells me 7:00 pm (Ah!!! please commonsense people). After trying every possible way to make her understand that it is not humanly possible that I can pick it up that day because of the timings I gave up! I had to hang the phone and stop myself from screaming at her.

The next day I decided to stick the info notice to my door and on my way to work gave them a call around 8:30 am. Again a new CSR picks up and after listening to the situation for 2 mins she agrees to remove the hold and have it delivered, but tells me it will be delivered only the following day. I was like "What the heck?” Surprisingly she tells me there is no way she could directly contact the location or can give me a phone number and has to leave a message. Also she says in this case they will take one day to process at the minimum. I was like "WOW!!!” no use just told her the whole process totally sucks and she says "Have a nice day!" and hangs up. Would I? Now I have to go to this location and pick up anyways.

This is when I started wondering. UPS is one of the established companies in US, but even they do not communicate properly and do not use the technology in any useful way. So what could have been done...

The CSR who handled it first could have called me back (ofcourse I gave the number) and explained the situation and removed the hold.
The communication between the CSRs and the Location that handles the packages could have been much better - using e-mails, internal messages, even a phone would have worked.
More options like canceling the hold would make the package go back into the delivery queue immediately etc.,
Each time a new CSR picks up its hard to explain the whole thing again, wouldn't it be easier if the previous person leaves a note?

Ironically, in my case a company that delivers posts (also a form of communication) has a bad communication network within. Hope they realize it before diminishing in the competitive market!

Spring Romance

2010-05-18T10:47:00.002-04:00

It was a beautiful spring evening and I was going down the local streets of my town for some grocery shopping. It was a breezy day and the sun was sinking down into the horizon. In a nearby tree I noticed a small bird hopping close to another one. For a minute there I was perplexed. I was witnessing the mating ritual of one of the bird species which some scientists would be so eager to capture. As nature has it, these things are little weird in human perception.

The male bird was taking cautious steps pecking her, then on the bark, and then heading closer. The female finally noticed him and edged for a beak peck. After a few she moved back. He pursued. She hopped on to the nearest branch, he proceeded as well. After showing a few more signs of rejection she flew of from the tree. Poor guy he pecked the bark a few times and then headed his own way... The whole drama would not have lasted for more than 2 minutes, but it unfolded a romantic story with a twist. Such a wonderful event to see.

Is Partial Truth a Lie?

2010-05-17T14:17:00.001-04:00

Have you ever wondered on this simple thing? Let me start by explaining what I mean here as partial truth. It’s more like omitting part of the truth or let’s says misstating the truth with the twist of words. Here is an example.

Girl: "Hey why you are not at the stadium with your friends, isn't your favorite team playing today?"

Guy: "Yes, they are. But I would rather be with the girl of my dreams." (Fact: I did not get tickets!!)

It might sound romantic in this context, so where is it bad? Mmm... lets analyze further. The public rely on media to get the news around the world, which includes everything happening on earth from science & technology to business & politics (yes they pair!). Big businesses also depend on the media for their advertisement and marketing.

Now the Media as we expect should act as a good liaison and bring us the quality information, but then the media itself needs to propagate its sales. Now comes the act of the tricky devil - media exaggerates, modifies, twists and omits the truth based on its likes for and cash flows from the "party" involved creating hot news and a selling point for them. Party could be political, company, business establishment or even an individual. Everyone knows this on the back of their minds but have you ever wondered how much of an effect it has on the society? How many things are decided just because the papers said so? How many companies lost their share values on this? The more we analyze the more unethical it sounds. Of course it is!! When we were kids we were taught Truth is just Truth any other form of it is plain cold lie. But when it comes to the business world, somehow they succumb to the market politics and deep played economics and alter the definition of Truth itself to suit their needs.

What I have seen happen around the globe is that the media slowly become a marketing portal for the firms that they support (indirectly supported by the firm - is this highly skilled version of symbiosis). It is now Mardi gras season for the media world, chewing in the quarter results, promotion and pay hike announcements from many companies. Use caution and try to get the first hand information when you read these instead of believing what you see in papers. Like Valluvar says:

“Whatever your hear from whomever,To analyze the truth is wisdom’s fair”

“Knowledge is to find the truth of things, Of whatever nature and kind it may be”

When you want to go Left,

2010-04-20T15:51:00.001-04:00

the World seems to like Right. What this means here is...

When you are waiting for 25G in the bus stop you keep seeing it go in the opposite direction and on your side only M49s are showing up.
When you are waiting to catch a Taxi in New York City, every one of them has a passenger already, and when you decided to take a walk then you see empty ones zooming past :P
Also just when you are late for the meeting and driving fast, you are stopped at every traffic light with a RED, and when you want RED so much so that you can turn and grab that water bottle from the back seat its all bright GREEN.
When you call a whole gang for dinner at a wonderful restaurant they make you wait for ever or the food is unpalatable.
Just when you are so bored and finally beat your laziness and get off the couch and make it to the DVD shop with 2 movies in mind both will be out (!$*!).
Or may be when you want to eat your most favorite dish and go to the only restaurant that sells it, it is closed for renovation and you decide to try another one at home instead and drive back to find that the main ingredient needed is over.
Even better, when you are hungry and late for a 1:00 pm meeting and hurry down to get lunch at 12:55 pm and when you try to get back all the 6 elevators are going in the opposite direction (what are the odds!!!)

Though some of these might sound implausible, only people who have experienced it would know how it feels...like the world is trying to pull a prank on you, Murphy chose you to be his toy for the day... But then there would also be days you get on to 25G with no wait, catch the NYC Taxi with one hand wave, pass through all green lights and make it to the meeting, enjoy a delicious dinner with friends, watch just that movie you want, eat what you craved to your heart's fill, infact make it to the 1:00 pm in the elevator :) and even wonder if Murphy is out sick ;)

Have you faced any of these or similar ones ever? I have.

When all at once I saw a crowd...

2010-04-19T16:25:00.006-04:00

... A host of golden daffodils. These lines came to my mind last Monday when the daffodils at my desk were smiling brilliantly at me. Suddenly it struck me it is the same daffodils that my teacher taught me about in school!!!

Let’s do some time travel here... Back in school I love the poem by Wordsworth on Daffodils, especially because it would give me an unexplainable happiness and peace every time I recite it in my mind. I also remember some competition on reciting this poem with expressions; it was my favorite among others. Being impressed so much by the poets metaphors like "stars that shine","Sprightly dance", "jocund company" etc., I wanted to know how this flower would look like. There were no pictures in any of the books. So I asked my teacher about it and she said it is nothing but the Tridax procumbens (thatha thala vetti poo) that we see on the road sides. All the joy that filled me till then was sucked in a minute, I felt like an airless balloon... Somehow it did not make sense. Not that I have any dislike for this flower, but then for me it did not measure up to the descriptions given by the poet. I even went home and asked my dad and he said he is not sure if that is the flower. But those were the days, when kids respect their teachers above everything and whatever the teacher says is right so I decided to take her word for it, nevertheless the liking for the poem did not reduce even a bit.

Now back to the present....I love flowers, and since its spring there are flowers all over the place. I wanted to keep some at my desk and bought a pot of daffodil bulbs in a local farmer's shop on Friday. I was not expecting them to bloom for a while but they all bloomed on Monday (ofcourse with all fertilizers and other enhancer's no wonder!). Also I never thought about the "Daffodil" itself so much until this day, other than the fact that I enjoyed seeing them every spring blooming under the trees.

And here is the connection... This daffodil (Narcisseae) looks nothing like the Tridax (Asteraceae). Ofcourse both have golden/yellow color but otherwise they are not even related :) when I realized that my appreciation and love for the poem increased multi fold, I just could not stop that smile and the "Duh!" in my head that meant no wonder he wrote about this flower. It’s a stunning beauty! I felt so glad that after ages I finally got my answer. Definitely not blaming my teacher because her sources could be wrong and she may not even know it. I decided to put the pictures here so every one out there would know what it is (Looks yellow because of lighting it is golden see the other pic). Thanks to the internet nowadays children know more (sometimes more than needed :) ).., by the way if you are interested Google the poem and pictures :).

Is man really at the top of the food chain?

2010-04-16T01:16:00.003-04:00

Wondering with man eating from a grain of rice to even tiger meat why would someone even doubt if this species that has made its appearance recently on the face of earth, be the top of the food chain? This thought did not come to me out of the blue.

After a fun filled spring weekend I was watching the series "Life" on discovery. I loved it as it covered a lot of physiology of animals, their social behavior and their evolutionary adaptation techniques. At one point they showed an amphibian in a desert like mountainous terrain being the food of an Arachnid... hey wait a minute that is strange, mmm Arachnids are spiders and pre-dates Amphibians (like frogs) with respect to evolution. A komodo dragon eating a mammal - pigs, buffalo etc., bizarre again atleast to my head.

After watching more of lower evolved animals eating higher evolved ones, I was thinking what it takes to be the top of all, Say like Simba of Lion King, It should be the collective cognitive skills of Homo sapiens isn't it? It is almost impossible to overpower carnivores like Lions, Tigers etc., and even herbivores like Rhinos, wild yaks etc by a single man, I have even seen some of the documentary on how ice age men brought down mammals for food, how they stored food to last longer and how they invented farming and have enough brain power to "create" their own food! From the evolutionary perspective that is mind boggling and that’s what makes us the kings :) mmm Just a wild thought, if dinosaurs were still roaming on earth would it have been possible for us to have born and come this far? Will there be anything in futue to bring us down? Has evolution met a saturation point? Would we adapt to even global warming? Have you ever wondered on such lines?

Happy Tamil New Year and Vishu!

2010-04-14T16:36:00.003-04:00

.. to all out there. Here is an intro to the festival...

Tamil New Year and Vishu(Malayalam New Year) fall on the same day April 14. Even Punjab celebrates New Year on this day(Baisakhi). In Kerala they do "Vishukani" on this day, "Kani", meaning the first thing that you see, ofcourse on "Vishu", hence the term. Because of the Kerala origin and Tamil Nadu influence back home we celebrated both. On this day early in the morning we will go straight to the puja room and see the arrangement of all things like - money, holy text, gold, new clothes, fruits and flowers. Then we will have oil bath (hair wash with a pre application of oil on the head), dress up in new clothes and do all the prayers. Later we will get to eat nice payasam, vada and other delicious home made multi-course meal :). It is a Holiday so no school!!!

I was not planning on making anything grand for this day, with all the project issues and my lack of sleep I did not even get a chance to do my grocery shopping for this week. But then 2 days back I was thinking about the Pongal celebration in January and all the other festivals that I enjoyed last year and so wanted to have nice vada and payasam, for these I had the necessary ingredients at home. So in the night I kept all the above said "Kani" items in the puja table. I woke up early in the morning and did the "Kani", with that enthusiasm I made ulundhu vadai (urad dal), Kadalai paruppu payasam (channa dal kheer), Paruppu (Toor Dal tadka), Vendakai Mor Kuzhambu (okra- buttermilk curry), sakarai valli kizhangu poriyal (steamed sweet potato). It is not much but I loved it all :), took some to office as well.

Hope you had a wonderful day as well :)

The First Step to Long Miles...

2010-03-22T15:30:00.083-04:00

We all have dreams that we are eager to achieve, not the ones at work, the ones outside in our personal lives. Like starting a business, learning Music, getting a degree, achieving excellence in some field of art, qualifying for Olympics, making it to Indian cricket team etc., Or it could even be a habby based one... like finishing 1 book per week, finishing 100 blogs in 6 months, cooking 30 new recipes in a month and so on... In the beginning of this year I set one such goal - to run a 5K. Other than some occasional gym visits and running on the treadmill , I never got to practice much. But I did all the "Google" I can and even bought a book on it!. I did not think about this until 2 weeks back when I was casually browsing and stumbled upon a news on the 5K in my town. I was interested and passed on this message to others too. After all kinds of debates and NOs I finally decided I should try it just to see if I can make it.

After a few initial treadmill runs, with only 2 days to the race I was running down the actual trail for a test run. If you love nature this is one of the best places... the terrain was slightly hilly, with the first mile up hill into the woods and an almost flat second mile into more woods and around a reservoir and third was back to the main road through the woods gently sloping up and then down. I just walked/jogged 3 times around the reservoir totaling 3Km and was already huffing and puffing. That night I even lacked the confidence that I would be able to finish the race, nevertheless I registered online with 5 mins to the deadline. I said to myself - I will take it one step at a time and will finish it by 45 mins atelast.

On the race day, the sunshine was beautiful, perfect start of Spring, but my stomach was churning as if I am going to face an entrance exam. The atheletic crowd intimidated me so much - kids, young adults, even 55+ people were all geared and warming up for the race. I was praying that I should make it. The race started exactly @ 10 am, I slowly ran the first up hill mile into the woods, even walked sometimes to avoid tripping, It felt like forever, I was soon tired and people were moving farther away from me. The second was better, just seeing the reservoir with clean water and duck and geese happily swimming in it gave me a comfort feeling and I jogged fine. I hit the woods again in the third mile, a small kid came in the opposite direction and said "You are doing great!, Almost done just around the corner..." That was like a shot of glucose; Thanks to him, I picked up speed and saw the finish line.... I briskly crossed it.

My timing was not the best, It was not worse either, I did not win, but I was not the last too :). I was well within my own goal limits, Now I know where I stand and how much to practice. If you are one of those who is scared of trying just because you think you cannot handle the failure, just throw the fear away and do it, the first step is all that matters, even if you do not make it atleast you will know what is needed to make it! My next target is in next month to finish it < 30 mins!!!

Low Post Density

2010-03-08T17:38:00.000-05:00

mmm... I just saw my post count for Feb which is way low compared to Jan. But I did manage to keep up with the works of others, my usual visits :). So in the interest of finding what was wrong in Feb I did some causal analysis and came up with these reasons.

1. Could be because of the shorter days, well 2 more days could have added 2 more posts :).
2. Or could be the mere end of winter that was pushing me to hibernate enough and avoid doing any real work.
3. May be the unexpected workload that has made my mind too tired to indulge in any kind of activities.
4. The unlikely guests and lots of cooking could also be blamed.

Whatever be it I guess the arrival of Spring has broken my silence!

Lion King - Off the Broadway!

2010-02-08T10:45:00.002-05:00

With the onset of movies and DVDs theaterical performance appears to be a lost art. But in Broadway New York City, it’s a whole different story. A lot of crews still put on that make up, speak dialogue without a retake, and the loyal audience always pay a visit to these performing arts. I have been part of some stage - dramas in my school days but never had a chance to see one though! Ever since I came here I always wanted to go to one of those Broadway shows. That chance came by on Friday.

Disney's famous Lion King Cartoon has been performed on stage in Broadway theatres often. For a few days the crew is performing it in Hartford's Bushnell theatres. Since it is winter and there was no other good stuff to do and it was less than 10 mins drive when my friend suggested this idea I was all in. We made advance booking with the box office, infact they were kind enough to give us adjacent seats, even when we did not book them at the same time :) As planned we had our dinner and drove down to the theatre (I was excited to dress up in a long skirt and formal tops :)). The overflowing crowd, some formally dressed, some on a lighter note, some really dressed for a show and a few in usual jeans (the CT style ;)) was enchanting enough that we did not complain much about the weather or the parking :).

An elderly lady gave us our tickets and guided us to the balcony seats. The show promptly started at 8:00 pm. Have you watched the Lion King 1, 2 & 3 cartoon movies? If you have, then remember the faces of those lions and lionesses - Simba, Nala, Mufasa, his wife, uncle Scar, the way they move around, and all the other characters, Pumba, Timon, the Monkey, Giraffes, Hyena's, the Birds, and those lovely landscapes of the African jungle. All those were not very tough to achieve in a movie, but imagine those being achieved on the stage.

Two people with really long sticks for legs walked to the introduction African song (one of my favorite's in the movie) as giraffe's. The artists looked exactly like giraffe's, the movements, the legs. Amazing... and the monkey character was remarkable. She had painted her face and walked so much like the one in the movie, and her voice, the laugh... If I had a chance I would have gone behind the screens and asked for her autograph. The lions though did not paint themselves but wore yellow color robes and had a big lion faced hat on their heads. They turned and moved like a lion, in certain angle when they bend their face; it was exactly like a lion! The others however did more like a puppet show... they had a Pumba, Timon and bird puppets with them tied to their hands and legs and they moved the strings and talked like that animal. The hyenas, giraffes though were people disguised in the animal's clothes.

The background changed so much, they used lights, paintings and lots and lots of creativity in making the geyser's come on stage, the high skull mountains for Scar and the night sky, stars, farm lands, trees... everything was made and it was absolutely stunning to watch. It was all flawless, the actors infact sang most of the songs themselves... circle of life, the morning report, Hakuna Matada, I just cant wait to be king, Can you feel the Love tonight?, He lives in you etc.,

The drama is still reverberating in my ears, nothing else could have made the otherwise slow and easy weekend into an exciting one. The 2 hrs and 45 mins was well spent. No photography was legally allowed, so had to Google them. My favourite artists were the ones who performed the Monkey and (ofcourse) Timon!

The Winter, the Beach and the Stars!

2010-02-01T10:49:00.004-05:00

It’s not the title of a new thriller novel, but it’s about a weird beach experience I had. After a week's good weather again winter took its toll and came with its favorite single digits mid last week. Weekend was no different. After spending the whole of Saturday at home (eating, sleeping, reading) I could not muster the courage to do that on Sunday too. So woke up early, had breakfast outside and went shopping. The winter weather was not very ideal for that either and soon lost interest. Without much option left decided to drive down to the shore point.

Here's some History. I am not a frequent beach visitor back at home or in California or here, for one thing beach was always an hour's drive from wherever I stayed. But I like going there occasionally on sunny summer days. Other than that once I visited the beach at Long Beach, CA on a Thanks Giving evening. My friends and I was the only people there :). Now back to present...

The beautiful hue of sunset invited me warmly against all the cold wind blowing there. I walked to the rail nearby and bent over to look at the water below and beyond... sheets of ice was crashing on to each other and washing away furiously into the Atlantic Ocean. It reminded me of watching the arctic ice melt down in the Discovery Channel. The lighthouse in the far end was standing majestically, and the yapping sea gulls were missing... Infact there was not even a living soul to be found in sight. When I could not take anymore of the freezing air I had to turn back to my car. But curiosity kept me going to the beach.

I was flabbergasted to see a girl in her bathing suit walk away with a surf board (Are you kidding me???) Pushing aside the thought of that competing idiocy I walked to the beach battling the harsh winter winds of -7F(-21C), crossing the beach soil frozen in ice with a pattern hard set on it buy the waves and then a plain stretch of snow that must have piled up from Wednesday's snow fall. The beach itself was calm, dark blue, spooky in low tides with a deep red sky for the backdrop!! I felt I could not get enough of it. As the sun went down, had a nice dinner at a local Indian restaurant (never been there before). While I was driving back saw that big, yellow moon smiling broadly at me. Eagerness to see a starry sky flushed me with new energy. Most of the beaches and parks were closed in the vicinity by then, so took some exit and got to an open land. It was a boat landing site with frozen river. When I switched off my headlights and got down WOW!! Never seen so many stars in my life... It was so heavenly that I could not tell if my heart was pounding in joy or in fear of the coyote’s howl. Stood there for some time taking in that celestial scene.

After some getting lost and hour's drive I got back home. Still thinking about the vivid day went to sleep. That surf board appeared again and the stars twinkled before my eyes!

Subtle Beauty!

2010-01-30T20:08:00.002-05:00

On a lazy Saturday evening when I was sipping my rich flavored tea, reading one of the Michael Crichton’s my taste buds were searching for the dry ginger (sukku) I put in the tea. The ginger flavor was mild, relishing that I looked over to find the pretty little pink carnations just blooming on their green stalks on my dinner table. How simple!

The beauty of both hit me! It was like watching a polite girl in a meeting, almost invisible until she speaks that one word which would turn everything around. Most certainly comparable to that hidden king-rook pair which would be lurking unnoticeable in the chess board until the opponent makes a castling.. The very calm ocean… with nothing but the rushing waves to décor it, sometimes that very simpleness in a guy who hides in the crowd and acknowledges with not more than a smile when his name is announced for the success of the project. I am anything but subtle. But to me it feels soothing and natural when you see subtleness, in any and every form. Beautiful flowers, my mobile phone camera did not do enough justice to it though!

For the Love of the Flag!

2010-01-30T18:46:00.001-05:00

Jan 26th 2010 – The 61st Republic Day of India. Indians celebrated it all over the globe, this grand day when our constitution was formed. This day made India. Infact there was even a function organized by our guys to celebrate it in the city where I work too. So with “Jai Hind!” I proceed…

How exactly do we celebrate it in India nowadays? When I was in school, there used to be a mandatory attendance required for flag hoisting and everyone of us were proud to stand there for the whole function and get candies in the end. Same was the case with Independence Day. But later in college what happened was “the mandatory” was removed! So many of them would not show up! Later when I joined the IT Company it’s even worse. There is no republic day celebration, no flag hoisting nothing! They enjoy the freedom though! Yes in our history classes we have read a big deal about this flag. What amazes me is as part of this field wherever we travel we do celebrate that country’s Independence Day with all fun and party. Atleast in the US we do.

This makes me think is it because of the fun and family involvement? Yes here Independence Day is all about barbeque (even in the office they do!), family union, drinks, beer and fun with the flag! Everyone is allowed to use the flag the way they want. In the car, in front of their house, cubicles, posters, t-shirts, hat, even tattoo… You name it… When they see it everywhere it becomes a brand, a logo of themselves. They celebrate it while we stand at a distance and revere it. While respect is good, it should not be at the expense of forgetting the whole point of the flag , the idea of being free, the notion of being a nation. Do you know that the flag code was changed in 2002 after a trial? Now every one of us can fly it with due respect on all days! May be seeing the flag everyday might impart some love for the country too. Also celebrating it with family just as any other festival might be fun too. Just crying out loud the deep struck thought, that’s all! mmm.. time to paint a picture of the flag and hang it in my Cube!

Did I wake up on the "right" side of the bed?

2010-01-25T10:22:00.003-05:00

It’s not about how lucky or unlucky I am feeling today, but it’s about the weather. Two years now I got used to the 3 winters I have been in this place. It is not as bad as some of the mid-west states, but sometimes it gets brutal here. But otherwise it is the usual cold, dark winter that cripples you from doing anything outside the house (No wonder people love video games!). There have been a lot of weekends when I have felt like staying at home and relaxing. This weekend was like that too. After a small get together on Friday and a short shopping on Saturday, I pretty much stayed at home, catching up on some books, some cooking, some coding (personal learning... not work related hello!! ) etc.,

When I went to bed I had that "Charged Weekend Mood!" (Especially since I lived through the GM diet plan) where you would want to change everything from the next day. I wanted to wake up early, make it to work early (nowadays I often do this) and get to my personal things in the evening nice and happy. I so much wanted to battle the winter fever! In the morning when I got ready and stepped out of the house at 6:10 am...

Instead of the cold harsh air, I was in for the surprise of a pleasant breeze;
Instead of the jittering teeth, my mouth put on a broad happy smile;
Instead of my worry about the frozen car, I was wondering about removing my jacket;
Instead of the time wasted in scrapping the ice off, I was enjoying the miniscule rain droplets;

WOW!!! It was a whopping 55 F (12 C) degrees... Where did the winter go? Did we already step in to spring? My friend was suggesting about a weekend trip to New York City... Did the weather blur his thinking too? The sudden euphoria was short lived when I remembered it was only Jan and a lot more of winter is still left! Well, I can enjoy this day anyway :)

The Labored, Resolved on its Own!

2010-01-21T14:54:00.002-05:00

Wondering what this means? Well for one thing- it is not an idiom. I was searching for one though for this post but did not find any, so created my own :). Without much ado lets move on to the actual subject.

Say you have been trying very hard to get something done, may be a problem that you are trying to solve or a big stain you wanted to remove. You have worked against the clock on it, you have tried various options. Somehow the issue is not getting fixed. Now, how would you feel if one fine morning suddenly the issue is no more? The stain has vanished because of your friend poured some solution on it unexpectedly. Likewise the problem got fixed because someone else was trying to fix something and fixed this accidentally. Something you never thought would fix it has fixed it with no effort from you. All the sweat and pain basically did nothing. Would you be happy that the issue is gone or would you be sad that all your energy became pointless?

I was happy in a way when this happened to me today. In the middle of the night I get a call saying the issue is resolved. I was wondering if I was awake or was it a dream... I have not even dreamed of this before. After the call I could not go to sleep. I have labored with all love on that issue for 6 months now. Suddenly with no effort from me it is more or less resolved. I was happy because I don’t have to deal with it any more and the result was in my favor. I felt as if the Almighty, The Powerful One has suddenly chosen me to be amongst his lucky few. Have you faced this magic anytime?

Not so "Friendly" Friend

2010-01-19T08:12:00.001-05:00

Hey Listen, Your "Friend" just called up.

Have you heard any of your really close friends or your husband or boy friend say this to you in a sarcastic tone? If you have then you know what I mean here. For others, let me put it in a few words. The "Friend" mentioned here is some person whom you do not get along with, or cannot stand or do not like to see. Now the person mentioning this is a person who will be pretty close to you and in good terms with you.

When or why did people start mentioning a non-friendly person to you as your friend? I started contemplating on this after my friend said a similar line to me "Yah she is your close "Friend" right!!"
to mean a girl who is not in good terms with me. Just the stress and sarcastic tone changes the whole meaning of this word. This is not the only word and most certainly it exists in almost all languages. The more I thought about this I came up with more reasons for this. May be the first time someone had to mention it, they were afraid what if that person they are talking about hears this? Or may be the repercussions of the corporate culture where people like to see the glass half full, all the positive thinking stuff... Or it could be because we ran out of negative words or the mind was not quick enough to get one.

However strange it may feel while analyzing this, when used in a normal situation it brings out a secret smile and may be in a while that "Friend" person might soon become a real friend.

Well Said by Us!

2010-01-14T16:50:00.004-05:00

I am not going to talk about the current economic trends, why the market went down and all. This blog is all about appreciation. My intention though is not to do a free advertisement, but that could happen. Also No offense meant for any other Nation.

Are you one of those who like to read the morning newspaper (Hindu, Indian Express etc.,) with a nice cup of coffee to begin your day? Or may be the lazy Sunday News paper reader? Or infact a tech savvy person who likes to reduce paper wastage and gets his news from the web? Either ways you might have noticed the language depth and expanse of vocabulary in the articles. I have been reading the online versions of our Indian journals and the American ones like Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Time Magazine etc., I don’t get to read every word or sentence it says but I do read in detail about certain News and some articles as time permits.

Recently I happened to read about the Nexus One release by Google on almost every news site possible. I was trying to gather as much information as possible to consider a possible buy of the cell phone. While doing that I stumbled upon this news on Economic Times. Now, I am not sure if it is the same version that came in the printed copy, but the one on the website was by far the best one about "Nexus One". I felt the author had really given crisp points about the phone and the editor has done a wonderful job pulling it together . In some American counter parts I saw spelling errors, grammar errors and worse - even information errors. Same way I was reading this article today again on Economic Times. Normally this topic will be written more or less like a "Chicken Soup for Office Politics Hater's Soul", but the way this article was written I was simply amazed. If you are interested check it out :).

Reading this, thoughts poured in. We have mastered an international language and are producing works that would stump even the native speakers. Is that because of the fact that our country ranks on top for the most number of official languages (22) and in the 4th position for the most number of languages spoken (427)? Or we did that because we are always surrounded by languages and over years we got it in our nature to master them :). Just a possibility!

"Curb" Appeal of Maharashtra Government!

2010-01-04T15:31:00.001-05:00

I was randomly browsing the News Headlines on Times of India. This caught my eyes. 3-idiots in ragging row My first thought is - What the heck is wrong with this government

First, why do even politicians bother commenting on a movie? Is it not just an entertainment industry? Do they do it for all entertainment fields? If so then how is it entertainment... doesn't it become a government controlled show? For any industry to grow it needs some freedom. That’s why some industries in India prosper and grow. Not because the government helps there, but on the contrary they keep themselves out of it, especially because they do not understand those fields. 3 idiots is one of the well taken movies in recent times. I have heard people even say that the movie is comparable to most Hollywood movies for the picturisation and all. With good movies becoming a rare occurrence nowadays why do our politicians always find it amusing to pick on crowd applauded movies mentioning words like ragging, violence etc especially where it is totally unrelated?
Second, when the government (rather politician) promotes violence themselves in different ways during elections, bandh, strikes, in the parliament when they hit each other with chairs, during internal border issues (like telengana and belgaum) etc., how can they even think about pointing fingers at the Movie Industry? Even morally what rights they have to do that?

Third, don’t they have better work to do? Maharashtra the second largest in population in India has umpteen issues that the government really needs to worry about. Every time it rains Bombay is flooded, traffic is slow, and can they spend this time taking steps for those things. To appeal the crowd, instead of curbing "Scenes" from movies, they should curb "some poverty and illiteracy" from their state. Please someone let me know, if there is a way to open their brains and put the right thoughts in.

I feel not just this government, it is true with even Tamil Nadu and a few other state governments. Lately they seem to think they can take up silly things and make it an issue and get some publicity by that means - Wake up Government! Your people are smarter than you think, it’s high time you get there! mmm will it be interesting if we can curb and criticize the government the same way they do to the movies or other silly issues.

New Year & Blue Moon @ the Crossroads of the World!

2010-01-04T11:39:00.007-05:00

Last Saturday a lazy afternoon my friends were making plans for the New Year's Eve. In the TV they announced it is a blue moon day and that faintly hit my brains. I made a mental note to check on it when I have time. Then after an hour's vague discussion we finally decided the weather is not good so skiing would be a bad idea. The thought rested for 2 days. On Tuesday we gathered again to take a final poll on the New Year's Eve. Work was getting to us, its year end, we wont have holidays for another 5 months solid... so all these made us decide lets go to New York City. So what to do there? Then we came up with the Ball drop idea! How about going to the Ball Drop? Immediate thoughts were - the weather is bad, it will rain, we will not be able to stand 7-8 hrs, is it worth it, what if we feel cold, once we are in we cannot come out, how to manage nature calls, we came up with an answer for all questions as we were determined to make it (atleast one of us :)).

On Wednesday night we hit "Wal-Mart" and bought hand warmers, ponchos (not my idea), thermals, protein bars etc, read different websites and blogs for tips (were scary), and prepared for the grand day. I was not all that enthusiastic and went to bed. The Grand Day finally came - The end of the Year, I was all excited about the plan. We had to leave our home by 11:30am to make it to the ball drop, so I woke up early started cleaning my house (its just me), one of my friends went to work by 6:30am, the rest of us worked from home. By 10:30am my friend calls me and he was like "Can you check outside the window?” OMG! It was snowing so much. We had checked NYC weather but did not check our own place. We again huddled on the phone and since the determination level was high we decided to go with it.

As planned we left home by 11:30am waddled our way through the snow keeping the car on the road in a low speed drove to New Haven. When we reached it was about 1:30 pm. Our hearts were contemplating on if we will make it or not. We took a to-go lunch from "Subway" and hit the train @ 2:33pm - the earliest we could manage. It’s the slowest train journey of my life. First, I have never traveled in a train (not subway) in the US; Second I am used to trains in India (comparatively much faster). After a bumpy, hour and half drag it reached Grand Central, NYC. We jumped out, got ourselves dressed for the weather, bought final stuff and started walking to Time Square at 4:30pm. It was already crowded, the streets were busy, the Sun went down and we were worried if we will get anywhere close to the ball.

We had to walk down to the 52nd street after a few enquiries with the cops and I was already saying it’s alright, not so bad and all that - the general morale was somewhat low; crowd was everywhere trying to get to the square. Finally we entered - walking, running, screaming to the 47-48th st pen. We were glad to be atleast that close, overjoyed we looked at the clock and it was 5:30pm - 6.5hrs to go. The Ball was hoisted at 6. We barely heard the things going on in the stage, then saw the crowd around - there were a LOT of Germans, students, Indians, Chinese and people from around the globe. Initial chattering was there... 2 more count down happened and it was 8. We were all happy until - the ice rain. It starting slow and then to a down pour - our ponchos and rain proof jackets kept us safe to the envy of the crowd. Some of them even asked if we have one more of it. No bags allowed, so Sorry!

By 9:00 pm we were all exchanging chocolates, thoughts and interests, the crowd started getting familiar and we were moving forward with in the Pen. We then decided to go even further and jumped a Pen, and we loved it between 46 & 47, the stage sounds were much clearer and we got to talk to a different crowd. Slowly it was 10:30pm. The ice rain changed to snow, then normal showers and again ice rain. The weather got colder, my legs were freezing and lower back was aching. Another chocolate this time with a different group and some water kept the spirits up again. It was 11:00 pm :). The last hour of the year... in my mind I was replaying the important incidents of the year... my friends were all waiting for the last minute, Hey not so bad we are there and then it was 11:59... the last 1 min was so fast with the count down. I was screaming so loud every one was taking photos, there were proposals, shouting, hugging, kissing, a mad frenzy in the chaotic showers of confetti - the glorious moment lasted for about 10 mins, completely worth every minute of the wait. The other end of the road gleamed with fireworks, 2010 has BORN!!!! I could not believe I was there at the cross roads of the world (Time Square) on a Blue Moon New Year’s Day (even caught a glimpse of the moon hiding between clouds), once in a life time experience.

The thought filled me up until I got back home at 6:30 am and even now. Hope each one of you had a blasting New Year start, all geared up to face the 365 days of challenge ahead! Once again "Happy New Year!!!"

The Secret Behind Braiding.

2009-12-29T15:59:00.000-05:00

Braiding is also known as plaiting. In India it is not a big deal to see a braided hair, infact till I finished my high school I used to braid my hair every single day to school as it was the rule if you have long hair. After I came to US I did not find many braided hairs and I cut my hair short too so I stopped braiding too.

So what made me write this? Of late I saw quite a lot of braided hair styles. First my recent trip to India, then the Movie Avatar and the ski resort in NH. Well it was very common to see braided hair styles in India (though it has reduced considerably). I too braided my hair when I was at home during my vacation.

In the movie they showed the Aliens to be wearing pig-tails braided. Everyone both male and female, young-old had their hair braided. Well it’s a movie so let’s hold that thought and move on to the next one. The Ski Resort - well that came as a surprise to me. Most of the women who had (short/long) hair had braided their hair, the visitors and the workers their alike. I did not realize the reason until the fair end of my own skiing down the hill.

Now the reason - In the movie it is that way because if you look closely they would have taken a lot of the culture from tropical regions like South America and Africa, and people there braid their hair to escape humidity. Yes. The same reason in India too. Earlier we did not have so much of conditioner and women used to have long hair. So to save the hair our ancestors came up with this brilliant braiding idea. It locks in moisture and the hair is not spoilt that much because of natural elements. In the ski resort also they did it because of the cold climate and convenience. It is easy to ski down with your hair braided because if you fall (which you would) the hair will not be spoilt by the cold weather, also it keeps the hair out of the way.

Some things done by our ancestors are worth an applaud.

Its the Holidays!!

2009-12-28T10:02:00.002-05:00

Whereever you go on the roads, across the corridors, amongst the houses, in the shops, oh infact even in the office cubicles, you can see the grandeur of colourful lights and festive decorations spreading the joy of the holidays. Yes it is the Christmas - New Year week and my blog comes a bit late for wishing you all a Wonderful Holiday Season and a Grand New Year! Hope you all had a Merry Christmas too :)

Parties, Celebrations, Dinner and Shopping is all you will hear.. Kids will be overjoyed with the amount of chocloates they will get and the meeting of family members, exchanging wishes and memories with food. Being Monday today, instead of the usual hustle and bustle, there was no traffic on the roads, empty parking lots, silent office and all meetings cancelled. I was even wondering why on earth I am heading to the office. The holiday mood has grabbed me in full swing but with the cold winter and the pouring rain outside I can only pray I get to enjoy the New Year's eve as much as I did the Christmas. So what was so special for christmas? I went skiing down the slopes of Bretton Woods, a fine ski resort in NH. The weather was beautiful with highs in the 30s, no rain, clear skies and no wind. Could not ask for a better day! Hey I am only a novice and got lot more to learn in this sport, this winter I am determined to do that. Well determination brings me to another point.. Whats your New Year resolution or determination? Stay tuned to know mine.

The Joy Ride!

2009-11-03T10:52:00.000-05:00

During the rush hour say around 8:30- 9:00 am, when you get into the Elevator you will find so much of life going on... I generally hop into it in the ground floor and ride up to the 13th floor. Usually there will be 7-8 ppl everyone trying to get to their desks. The most annoying ride will be when all 8 ppl have to get down at 8 different floors (my floor is the last :)). Mostly the 8 ppl will be of 8 different personalities. Very rare to find 2 of the same kind, Yah never will make a poker hand. Someone will be listening to an ongoing status meeting on the mobile headset pressed against the ears. Another will be loud on the phone talking to his/her family across the ocean or answering in a status meeting… whatever it is you will hear every word of it for you to decide.

In a corner will be a man trying to get out of the elevator as soon as it reaches his floor even if it means pushing the person in front, because he would be late for the meeting. Also will be a person who would run to the fair end of the elevator with a laptop, a coffee and may be a New York Times in his hand even if his floor is the next. Another elderly lady in a pink palette with white pearls and a shining smile will be standing patiently awaiting her turn weaving in and out of the elevator letting other people out. There will sometimes be a couple either married or unmarried catching up on the missed discussion in a low voice. The ride could even last up to 4 minutes. I get the feeling of going in a crowded morning train once in a while. If you listen carefully you can catch up on the local town news, on the stock market prices and how stinking the government gets day by day, how they bought a new dog, even about their daughter's first words...oh and the scent of the morning coffee.. so much of information will be thrown at you.

But today I felt lonely. I hopped into the elevator as always but at 7:30 am and got to ride all alone for a min and reached my floor, but I missed the crowd, the chatter, the information especially as the NFL season is here, the world series final is going on and the stock market is turning upside down everyday. And it is the Monday after Halloween weekend! mm… Looks like I got used to, what I felt as an annoyance once!

Its that Time of the Week !

2009-10-31T14:15:00.005-04:00

Its that time of the week when you recharge your body to face the new week.
Its that time of the week when you relax and take some rest
Its that time of the week when you keep the work tension away and ease your mind.
Its that time of the week when your day feels meaningful.
Its that time of the week where you catch up on pending chores.
Its that time of the week when you go shopping for hours.
Its that time of the week when you do you have time for your favourite hobby.
Its that time of the week when you go out with your Family

Yes its the weekend and Also Haloween..
Have a Ghoulish Weekend!!!

Festive Season.

2009-10-19T10:00:00.000-04:00

Hope you all had a wonderful Diwali. I love Diwali/Deepavali, it is the festival of lights in India. It is to commemorate the victory of Vishnu over the asura king "Naragasura". As usual this festival also has different alterations to the mythical story. But the main thread goes as Naragasura being the son of Mother earth (Bhooma Devi) and Vishnu himself (when he took Varaha avatar) , was mighty and powerful with all the boons he got. One main boon was that he can be killed only by his mother and no one else.

With his power he killed many people, he abducted thousands of women and caused trouble everywhere. He also stole the earrings of "Aditi" a god mother. This outraged Sathyabama, Aditi and Krishna. Sathyabama is another form of Booma Devi and Lord Krishna was an avathar of Vishnu. Together they waged a war against Naragasura and finally Sathyabama killed him (as per his boon). Before dying Naragasura got another boon that people should celebrate his death with lights and colors and hence the festival of Deepavali.

The tradition is to make various sweets and savories for the grand day. On diwali people wake up early in the morning, have oil bath and start with offering prayers to God and then bursting fire crackers. Then they visit relatives and friends and exchange sweets, blessings and wishes. Though I am not in my country now, I still got to do all of these including bursting fire crackers! It was fun to do all these when the fall is at its peak here, yes the short days and long windy, cold nights are on its way. The festive season in India comes to a close now and nothing until Pongal in Jan. But here the festive season is just beginning. Halloween is the first followed by Thanks Giving, Christmas and the New Year. The whole place would be covered in a white blanket of snow soon and everywhere there will be lights and decorations. Ironically, the cold weather seems to keep the spirits of people high :).

Time to make some cookies! So Trick or Treat?

Caught in the Wave!

2009-10-16T13:53:00.002-04:00

Let’s go on a technology imagination tour and see the power of communication…. ok try these with me...

Imagine sitting at home, sipping a cup of coffee and the TV blaring in the background you write your design document in Word, show it to your colleague who is across the seas, see him modify it at the same time you go to the next paragraph and write the new one, meanwhile your boss on the way to her vacation starts checking the ones completed by both of you, all in the single virtual document and single browser. In the end you just save a fresh copy as a base version in the same tool.

Ok easy enough now try this...

You chat with your friend, show her the photos in your machine without uploading anywhere else, jointly you both edit the titles for the pictures in the same window, select a section of that chat and make it a blog post dynamically and take a specific line and tweet with your fans in a different language on the fly everything in the same browser at the same time. Now a third friend joins you both sees what you have done so far step by step and also both your friends plan for your birthday party in the same window where the 3 of you are chatting without you knowing.

Ok fair enough, now this.

You, your parents in Europe and your Sister in USA all shop at the same time in the same browser and each of you select clothes for each other, see each other's collections, comment on the items at the same time you and your parents select an expensive gift for your sister, but she is not able to see that (though she is also in the same window), check out together only to be delivered at your individual locations.

And this

You get a chance to change the tool to embed your own software/tool or just about anything in it and share that with others with very minimal work and store all the work online and free of cost only with open source products.

In one tool which is nothing but one browser you do all of the above, where each one is called a wave. You can include any number of people in a wave and create waves for endless possible things. How cool is that!!!!
An extraordinary invention from Google! This product is still under construction, but almost ready to be released. Yesterday I saw the demo for this product; it was beyond anything I have seen in these lines.

Check out the new Google Wave! Have a wonderful Surf!

A Happy Dasara!

2009-10-11T21:47:00.000-04:00

Festive colors will be all over India now. Navarathri or Dasara is the festival of Good over Evil. Durga/Bhagavathi killed Mahishasura the evil Asura, after 9 days of war and hence the triumph is celebrated. Sakthi which basically means "Power" (in star-wars terms ‘the force’) was given a feminine form in Hinduism. So this Sakthi has several avatars, and this festival is about the Durga avatar. Some parts of India celebrate it on the 8th day of lunar cycle called "Durgashtami", and in the eastern side it is celebrated as "Durga Pooja" on the 10th day and in the south it is the 8th day - Saraswathi Pooja, 9th day - Ayudha Pooja and 10th day Vijayadasami. West Bengal will be the most colorful of all during this festival.

Traditionally this festival is celebrated in my house too in India. When I was young my Sister and I used to build the steps, arrange the dolls, make a small park around it with temples, villages, zoo, motel etc., make rangoli, invite people and eat Sundal :). It was fun-filled-fall-vacation time in India our quarter-year exams will be over by then. Just the thought was enough to get me on my feet to do it here this year. I do not have any idols of the Gods here, so with my mom's idea to base it on "Evolution", I went doll shopping for a few hours. I found all the necessary dolls in the dollar tree, kids shop etc.,

A generous friend with his design skills made the steps out of a card box (without even cutting it), it was remarkable and hence I decided to put a separate picture of it. I made a small shelf for the gods put them on the wall at top of the steps. The only God statues were "Ganesha","Durga" and "Saraswathi". The rest were all "Animalia"- starting from Arthropods (ofcourse the insects scared some visitors) - Fishes - Amphibians - the great Dinosaurs and other Reptilia - Aves, Mammals and ourselves (Homo sapiens). I did go a level further and kept Robots in the end ;). My colleagues came with their families and enriched the festival.

In the beginning of the festival I had challenged myself to make Sundal everyday with a different bean for all 9 days (as is the tradition) and I did it!! The next in my list is Diwali... Lets see how that goes.

Bombing our Beloved Moon

2009-10-09T19:34:00.008-04:00

Moon has a special place in people's lives and heart. Ancient times before electricity we relied on moonlight for passing through the night. In many religions and culture a lot of festivals are based on the moon. The white marvel has stayed in its place, far from our earth, growing and diminishing, and still has inspired scienticts,poets,kids, astrologers,lovers, leaders and every being on earth. Do you remember as kids how much you were connected to the moon...

When we were too young your mom would have made you eat with the promise of the moon.
Later in the school days you would have caught the moon in your dreams.
Few years later you might have had goals to reach the moon and walk there.
In college in that dorm room when you were lying lonely in your bed the rays of the moon would have given a soothing feeling.
In the evening breeze under the full moon was it not a real blessing even if you were sitting alone or with a girl friend.

Yet today we bombarded it, as a species we got tired of bombing our own planet that now we got this insatiable urge to bomb the only natural satellite that is tirelessly revolving us. Not that I do not believe in extra terrestial, science fiction or life outside dear Earth but just contemplating the simple fact. If you have watched Wall-E you would know, 'that future' is not very far.. us living in a whole new "Earth".In case if you are interested in watching some pictures check out http://www.nasa.gov/

Leaving a foot print...

2009-10-07T13:52:00.008-04:00

I have been an active blogger for quite sometime now. In addition to writing posts in my blog page, I like to visit other blogs and would leave comments on the posts that interest me. That does not confine to personal blogs, even the news paper blogs and other sites that host blogs and wherever someone expects an opinion or a feedback. I know I am not alone, there are many among you who tend to do that and I really appreciate it. You know it is the inherent feeling to leave a mark, to let people know what you think about it, a strong imprint so they know you exist.

But there are others who tend to stay in the shades and enjoy watching the sun and the others who scream out loud about its effects. They move as shadows between blogs, assimilate the facts, contemplate it in their dreams and voice out in their minds. Not for a million dollars they will leave their hiding bushes, shrines of their wisdom and blabber loud in a common forum, neither for a thousand pounds of gold will they go public with their views shattering the walls of invisibility around them. Both of you are welcome to read my blog and if u do not belong to the later type you can always leave a foot print, I enjoy knowing you were here..

Red-Winged Black Birds!

2009-09-25T15:10:00.004-04:00

I see black spots decorating the evening sky
They are the black birds on migratory fly

To the south of Tundra they go in autumn

Back to Alaska when the spring blossoms

Moving black cloud blocks the sun

Oh its the black birds having fun!

They gather as groups, split in formation

And regroup to the onlooker’s confusion

Do you hear the sound "oak-a-lee”?

A bright red patch you will see

The male black bird is in delight

Singing to impress the female in sight

Oh I see black dots on the fall sky

It is the black birds on migratory fly!

-Inspired by Wallace Stevens &

the Black birds I see everyday

Pookolama illai Idhazkolama?

2009-09-22T13:55:00.003-04:00

The festival of Onam falls in the month of September on the day of "Thiruvonam" star. Good guess, most of the festivals in India are driven by star and moon positions and hence the date will differ each year. This festival is celebrated to commemorate the greatness of King "Mahabali" who was an Asura king (the divine bad guys :)) and Lord Vishnu who killed this king but granted a nice wish to him. Though Mahabali was very nice to his subjects he was giving trouble to Devars (The divine good guys who are protected by the Gods). He is a strong king but very generous too. So Lord Krishna came up with a plan to destroy him. He came down to earth as "Vamana" a short Brahman and went to meet the king. King Mahabali asked Vamana what he wants and Vamana asked for 3 feet of land, deceived by the size the king granted the wish and asked him to take it. Then Vamana grew so huge and became Lord Vishnu and for the first foot he took the earth, for the second the sky and for third since there was nothing else left Mahabali understood his mistake and bowed down and asked the Lord to take him and the Lord put his foot on the King's head and destroyed him. The devars were happy, but the people of the kingdom felt miserable about losing the king and pleaded to Vishnu, the God wanting to make the people happy granted a wish that Mahabali can come to visit his people every year on that day. Hence the tradition goes as people welcome the king with the "Pookolam (Floral Rangoli) and present him with "Ona Sadhya" (variety of food served on Banana leaf) every year.

This festival is celebrated at my home too because of the Kerala ancestry, and with my "Chathurthi" experience, I decided to celebrate it here in US by making Pookolam and a smaller version of Sadhya. Since it is already fall here there were no flowers in my mini garden, I had no choice but to get flowers from a grocery store. I needed at least 3 colors so settled for a moderately priced bouquet. There were so few flowers in it that I decided to pluck out the petals inside of putting the flowers as a whole. The flowers were not enough as there were exactly 3 colors and I needed to some more to finish the design I took. So took the leaves and some part of stem too. With this all set I had to look for a suitable background. Between a glass cake base and a plain dark blue chart I went for the glass. The picture here is the final look. I sent it to a friend in India thinking it is really nice and all that and the heading if the blog is the comment I got :)), point being The Floral kolam I made did not have even 1 whole flower :(.

To give this to the intended God I needed a Vishnu picture. It was late in the night to go shopping so had to "make my own Vishnu". Found a picture after a bit of 'googling', fed it to my All-in-one printer and framed it. Picture Perfect! Decided to make the sadhya fresh in the morning and called it a night. In the morning Rice was ready as the first dish, followed by the okra theeyal (my ex-roommates recipe, but the stickiness of okra had not completely gone), in parallel channa dal in the cooker for payasam (This came out wonderful). The other item in the plan was raw banana eruseri, only that the bananas were already ripe within the two day shelf life. When the eruseri (Dad's recipe) was done it was almost close but with all the sweetness of banana (people @ work liked it for lunch though). All these dishes were loaded with coconut, coconut milk and coconut oil for nice flavor and taste.

Though it was a comedy of errors, I loved the experience.

"Green" Pillaiyar - Past and Present

2009-09-22T10:32:00.002-04:00

Ganapathy, Vinayakar, Pillaiyar, Ganesha are all the different names denoting the elephant faced God in India. The story goes as devi Parvathi created him and Shiva still did not know about him. And one day Shiva went to visit Parvathi. She was bathing and Ganesha was standing guard. Ganesh was not aware of Shiva and vice versa, Ganesha did not allow Shiva inside, hence had a fight. In the ordeal Ganesha lost his head and Shiva gave him the elephant's head when he knew the truth about him.

The festival "Vinayaka Chathurthi" is the celebration for the birth of Lord Vinayaka. This God as per Hindu mythology is good natured, humble, and likes simple down to earth things. The statue itself is made to depict the nature of the God. I love to dress up the statue back in India when I was a small kid because it involved getting flowers from the backyard and on the street corners and making a garland out of that. The Bermuda grass (Arugam pul), Calotrophis gigantia(Erukam poo), Datura(Oomatham poo), Leucas aspera(Thumbai) are his favourite.

For the festival in the South India we get the statue made of clay and decorate it with flowers and cotton garlands, infact a very green way of doing it, but this time I am in US so I was not able to get this clay version, I did not want to get any other statue as I cannot leave it in water after 3 days. Was thinking about it, when it struck me that I can make it with turmeric. Yes, there is a non-figurine version for ganesh, made of turmeric. Also it is a general practice to keep and umbrella and a fan too (so that he can walk down to people's house to eat modhakam), My friend was generous enough to make a fan for my "green" Pillaiyar. Now the decoration flowers, I could not find any so was wodering if I can atleast get the grass, and learnt a rather strage thing. In US most of the grass on the golf course, in the house yards are bermuda grass!!! That was perfect, it was right in my patio.

Final version- An awesome Pillaiyar, huge mound of turmeric decorated with rose flowers, bermuda grass and kumkum, nicely seated in a raised seat (inverted mixing bowl on a wooden chair) lined with silk saree, fan on his side.

The next important thing is Modhakam and Kozhukattai, made of rice flour with sweet and savory fillings. In India the rice is soaked, dried and ground in flour mills a day before for making this dish. But here there are no flour mills, so I soaked, dried the rice and grinded it in a dry mixer, some prefer to save this trouble and use the store-bought flour, well its just me. I did it to get a feel of what my mom was doing for years. It came out nice and white, making the cups was a bit of a struggle for me, but learnt it in a bit. After the "Naivedhyam"- official offering to God and a mini pooja (as I am not all that orthodox), it was heavenly to eat them. Ofcourse took some pictures and sent to my family in India!

Sweet Rights

2009-09-15T10:29:00.002-04:00

Its a nice day and I was casually browsing the News from India. This news made me happy.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/tirupati-laddoo-gets-geographical-copyright/517376/

Thirupathi reminds me of laddoo as much as it reminds me of Lord Venkateshwara. I have always liked that laddoo. I dont know if it is because of the fact that it is not freely available or it is the Lord's prasadam or the wait in the queue. Neverthless the taste is unmatchable. And finally this precious little sweet that belongs to India is being protected by Law. I feel India needs to patent a lot more things and get copyrights. Sandal wood products, cotton scarfs, khadi, silk sarees, the color saffron, a lot of rice based dishes, South Indian Sambar, Garam Masala and more :) India can become rich just by suing other countries for using their copyrighted items.

The Art of Language

2009-08-31T13:32:00.008-04:00

The recent acquaintance with the German language made me ponder about a basic human skill – Languages. While our close relatives, the chimpanzee can only make sounds, use sign language and facial impressions but cannot talk, it is amazing how we, the Homo sapiens one single species can talk in thousands of languages.

In India alone there are 200 registered dialects and 18 official languages. Infact it is the first country to ever do a linguistic study with Astadhyayi written for Sanskrit in 5 BC and Tolkappiyam written for Tamil around 2 BC. The Europeans started it a few centuries later.

I also noticed that the sounds among languages are shared, but not necessarily the meaning. For example in German there is this sound “au” where
- “a” is pronounced as ‘a’ in apostrophe
- “u” is pronounced as ‘u’ in noun

A similar sound is in Hindi and Tamil and a most of other Indian languages.

- In Tamil it is the 12th consonant

- In Hindi it is the 11th consonant

A similar sounding word in different languages would refer to different things. That essentially means in the same human mind at different location/ages/time the same sound reminded of different things. I guess it would be fun to learn linguistics for people who are intrigued by languages. With all that said, if any of you are interested in learning one of the oldest and alive languages Tamil here are a few links, you can even get a degree online :)

http://pm.tamil.net/pub/pm0100/tolkap.pdf
http://www.tamilvu.org/coresite/html/cwhomepg.htm

Our Medicine for Their Well Being

2009-08-28T16:57:00.002-04:00

This is not a saying but the reality that is happening in India. All of us have been reading about the H1N1 flu virus and the rate at which it is spreading. The WHO has made predictions that a much worse strain of this virus would come back and can cause huge problems in a short while. In US it is still summer and flu generally spreads here in fall-winter seasons, so they are stocking up the vaccines for this virus. The Indian company Baxter has already produced its first batch of vaccines, that should be a happy news right? Well it is not! Here is the twist. These vaccines are going to be shipped to US and UK who already have contracts signed with this company and other Indian pharma companies. Indian government has not done anything about this yet. They have not even placed the orders for vaccines yet.
Somehow I am not able to assimilate this fact. The vaccines are produced in India, by Indians, with Indian resources but not for Indian use? Wonder what was this company thinking, may be their workers and family are immune to this virus or is it just the money or is it business as usual. This sounds like a suicide mission to me. Someone should stop this! For more info check this out http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/India/H1N1-vaccine-ready-India-napping/articleshow/4946865.cms

Happy Independence Day!

2009-08-14T16:29:00.007-04:00

Yes it is another Independence Day holiday or celebration I would say, time for flag hoisting, patriotism and chocolates. Today I sent out wishes to all my Indian friends, colleagues and acquaintances at work, following that at lunch with my close buddies had a heated discussion on India. As always it was all talk and nothing productive happened to India because of that. Then I was casually browsing the News websites of India and found some interesting blogs regarding the Independence Day and India. Check this out if you like http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

You can even put in your comments for some of them. Interesting though how varied and different the thoughts of these people are. Reading all these I was thinking why not take a resolution you know like New Year's resolution how about Independence Day resolution. Nothing major, but we should be determined to follow it, so take practical ones. Like I wont spit on the roads, I will not throw any garbage on the road which includes the used bus ticket and the chocolate wrappers :), being courteous to old people, controlling my anger towards unknown people, being polite in public.. The list can go on but try making atleast one and see if you can stick to it. It can be even something no one would notice. There is a long way to get India into a good shape, but come on we need to start somewhere there is no use just talking about it.

So you must be wondering what mine is :) Since I am currently not in my country I decided to put out proudly the fact that I am from India and make sure to change the notion of anyone who comes and tells me, "I heard India is a poor country. The traffic is bad and people are mean" to "India is a prosperous country with great cultural heritage with strong family values where people strive for a better future."

After a long time I had a strong urge to write this blog today. I have a new determination to do atleast one post per month per blog of mine.

Over Protective and Concerned Moms

2009-08-14T16:09:00.003-04:00

I was sitting at my desk and doing my usual coding stuff and heard the lady in the next cubicle talking pretty loud. I did not have my head phones so ended up hearing the conversation. I do get annoyed when people pick up personal calls at work, but this time it was not about that. Do you remember how protective your mom's had been, incase you had forgotten here is a few.
- Making sure you have breakfast before going to school.
- If you are late sometimes she would have run till the bus with you making
sure the driver stops for you.
- If needed pick up a fight with your teacher incase the teacher hurts you.
- Protect you from your angry Dad who is trying to hit you because of your
poor marks or simply because you talked back to him.
- Making sure you put Burnol (Antiseptic) on the wounds you got either from
playing or fighting with your sibling or from a fight at school.

There is more. The point is I was thinking this is the nature of Indian Mothers and to an extent Asian mothers. But this lady today shattered my idea. A simple issue of her daughter going for the volley ball practice. Looks like her daughter wants the same slot as her friend's. So this mom calls up the coach to find out the issue and that slot is fully booked, so she finds out if anything else is available. She is told that a slot during the month end is available. Now she asks him if the friend of her daughter's can move to that slot instead of the one she is currently in. The coach says that should be fine. Now she calls up her daughter, gets her friend's number and calls up that friend. It goes to voice message. She leaves a beautiful detailed simple message explaining it all! She makes sure that, the friend understands the fact that she needs to move to a new time slot to help her daughter. It was awesome seeing it happen from outside.

Of course the daughter would be embarrassed of the fact that her mother is talking to her friend, who cares, she gets to go to the practice now with her friend :). Well I am not judging here but thinking aloud a natural, instinct driven human approach. Be it in India or US or anywhere from this incident I now changed my idea to "All moms are over protective and concerned in their own ways!"

Looking Outside My Window

2009-07-01T15:14:00.007-04:00

"Sky is set for a dark ride today, with boisterous roars, and cries flooding the floors. The clouds are looking menacingly at the pitiful earth determined in a fierce battle, swords clashing with blinding flashes, Winds have gone haywire blowing all over. Sun and Moon have gone undercover, No sign of the stars either, they must be hiding under their blankets"

Not a pitiful attempt to write a poem, but that is exactly how I felt when I looked over my shoulder outside the window today at the picturesque image of the CT skies. My client manager was wondering if we are in Seattle. Its been raining since the start of summer, yet to see a bright summer day :)

Stop the ADs your Sales will Grow

2009-05-27T22:07:00.002-04:00

Yesterday while watching this AD on Yoplait I was really wondering what is with the United States Advertisement Industry. Some of the old time college ADZAPs were really good compared to the best ones here. They have the latest equipments and all kinds of gadgets for movie making, well I guess those do not come out of the Hollywood doors! I know what you are thinking, Should they not review their Ads atleast a couple of times? Ofcourse they do. The problem is they do not realise what is wrong with it. Most of these ADs are boring or reiterating what we already know about the product or teaching us a big theory as if we signed up for a tv-class. Not to mention the medical ADs, either they think it is funny or they think we have all gone to the medical school, but a layman would panic and throw away all the medicines he has ever bought.

Media has evolved and has given us umpty of options that we are used to flipping channels as soon as the AD starts, only few times out of utter laziness to pick up the remote that is few meters away or not able to find the remote or best we are simply browsing and the TV is running as a background music, we leave it to run. Nevertheless even in these few times some of the ADs are so horrible that we take pains to switch the channel. With such Ads everyday what was so different about this AD? This is supposed to be an AD about yoplait being a waist reducer, if it is that good then someone cannot look at a person eating it for a while and say I will loosen your clothes for better fit. No No that is not out of the Box it is Out of the Common Sense thinking. I would say it is the heights of American Ads.

Natural Selection - Inspired by Darwin

2009-05-23T00:06:00.002-04:00

Nature always interests me because it is full of unknown principles and concepts.
I was wondering one beautiful Spring morning on the way to work why there are wars on earth among human beings. Is it part of the big plan of evolution? If so, what are we evolving into? In the Jurassic period Dinosaurs were all over the planet and were the most powerful and most evolved of the beasts that existed then. But soon after they became their own enemy and started killing each other and ofcourse nature played its part too leading to the extinction of it.
Coming back to us, are we in the pinnacle of our evolution or is there more? I believe there is more. Nowadays kids are so intelligent and that is because we no longer need physiological evolution but brain evolution. The environment around us is polluted and more diseases are coming up everyday that is because the Bacteria and Virus are evolving and becoming resistant to our drugs. So now we need to evolve into better brained beings to take up this challenge and to merely survive, otherwise a simple outbreak can tear us down and make us extinct, in addition to our own wars. This is natural instinct built in our genes. Isn't that amazing! I wont be surprised if Einstein's become common among our species. Infact it might even become one of our traits.
What triggered these thoughts? Well, I was reading the "Origin of Species" by Darwin - An eye opener for the intelligent species known till today in this universe, Man.

Not a Drug, just a Pain Killer!

2009-05-17T23:12:00.006-04:00

Recently there is a lot of talk about marijuana and other drugs that Americans are getting addicted to. A lot of news and debates are around this. Last week in CNN there was a controversial debate on whether it is OK to make this legal and the consequences of it. With all that said I think there are other allowed legal options to get addicted than marijuana in the States. Why would I say that?

Few days back I had sprained my ankle and went to the doctor near by. They examined it and told me that there is no fracture or ligament tear and it is a very bad sprain. I was prescribed an anti-inflammatory drug and a pain killer. The prescription was electronically sent to the pharmacy and I got to see the medicines only when I opened it at home. The count was shocking! I was given 90 pain killer tablets with high mgs and 60 anti-inflammatory tablets. Having one of each once a day put me to sleep for hours and even after I woke up I was so drowsy and was feeling as if everything around me was slow moving. My prescription was to have 3 a day of each. I don't know what effect that will have on me. I am dreaded even to try it.

No wonder the "Prescription Drug Addiction" is over 46% in the US. I even found some sites wondering why this is happening. I think I am clear why. It is a physician challenge some say, really? If a physician gives 15 instead of 10-12 you can say it is a challenge and it is OK, but 90(??##$$). I am sure some cry baby somewhere in the US must have definitely raised this as an issue and it will hit the media when some famous or infamous person gets addicted to this. Till then all I can say is it is better to trash the leftover.

Waiting Time

2009-05-11T00:28:00.003-04:00

Most irritable thing for a lot of people to do is waiting. What is the fun in that? Well it depends on the situation I think. Last week in a client status meeting I was waiting along with another colleague and the client manager for my manager to arrive. It was a wait of five minutes but seemed like an hour of silence. It may not be that bad when you are waiting for a friend or a boy/girl friend. I am talking about being on the waiting side not on the coming late side. Which means you do not have a control on the situation. You are anticipating that the person you are waiting on will come any minute.

Once I waited ten minutes and left thinking there is no meeting or I must have mistaken the location. But as I was leaving people came to the meeting :). I am not trying to judge here.. but just thinking on how it feels. I have been late to meetings myself both personal and professional.. Not "fashionably" late but a few minutes and from that side it just feels alright and normal, but on those occasions where I have to wait it is not so much fun. Funny thing is this thought never hits me when I am being late. I would not say this is always the case. For certain parties and locations like the Airport, Railway Station, Townhall meeting etc., I try to be way ahead of time.

Waiting is a pleasure or a pain based on the reason and environment. If it is waiting for food in a restaurant when you are hungry it can be annoying, but when you are not hungry and with a friend you would hardly notice the wait time amidst the chatting. Two different responses for the same stimulus but the environment plays a role here. Again complicated Human brain.

Is Ignorance a Bliss ?

2009-04-03T11:25:00.000-04:00

Day before I had a technical issue at work and was trying to fix it. I know a friend who is pretty good in that technology and decided to drop my proud curtain and ask him for help. Guess what I found out ? I was ignorant about few basics of that technology. Long back this same friend called me and asked me about some issue he got and I told him flat that it cannot happen that way and he is making a big mistake somewhere in the code.
Imagine my embarrasment when I knew I was wrong all along and the best part is I did not even know that I was wrong. Well this is the price to pay for ignorance I guess. Now that I found out I feel wierd. I wonder how many other things I am ignorant about and what should I do to know them. As long as someone is ignorant about something it is a bliss. But the moment you realize it, it becomes unbearable..as if something got under your skin..
Only way to avoid this is to read more, listen more and analyze before answering :)

Surprise Party

2009-04-02T15:26:00.000-04:00

Who would not like to be surprised, in a world that is so predictable in most ways. I like it when people throw me a surprise party and also when I host surprise parties. Ofcourse I hate people who just kill the surprise factor by blurting out at the wrong time. A certain incident made me wonder about these surprise parties though.
I was planning a surprise party for my friend's birthday and making sure these "party killers" are kept under control. A bunch of people were involved and one of them say "Mark" had his birthday few days back. He was telling me how he would make sure that the birthday boy does not know what is going on. And later that day I got a mail from one of my colleagues asking me to join the surprise birthday celebration of our "Mark" guy. The same set of people even did a "Surprise" send off dinner for 2 people who recently left. WOW everybody seems to throw surprise parties, irrespective of what the occasion is and whether it was in the past or future.

Thats when I felt somehow this "Surprise" is becoming "Usual". Shouldn't it be rare and once in a while to keep the vibe going? Ironically, people are actually expecting "Surprise" parties for their birthdays and other occasions. Would it be ok to say Surprise Party is as certain as Death and Taxes ? What a party kill that is ! Well anyways atleast for a few it will always be a surprise.