VAPOR TRAILS . . .

2011-09-08T12:10:00.001-07:00

Nice! I like the new blogger interface. I might just start blogging again.

The taste of success

2011-03-16T07:36:00.000-07:00

(No, I didn't get promoted or anything. This is the "outside-work" kind of success I'm talking about.)

Success tastes warm, fluffy and feathery-light. Success has a matte-white texture and conceals all kinds of mysteries inside. Success is the feeling that literally years of effort, dozens of failed efforts, a lot of research have paid off.

Success is making your own idlis. Not rava idlis, not MTR idlis, but rice idlis.

I first documented this effort a few months ago, back when I had a new-found drive to succeed in my quest to make the perfect idli (In case you don't have the time/patience to read the link, the perfect idli, for me, is a rice idli that has the fluffiness of a new pillow).

But since then, there have been lots of false starts, failed efforts and wasted idli batter. "Vishy's idlis" became the talking-and-joking-point among my friends, and a number of metaphors and euphemisms cropped up, most notably the idea of 'please-eat' idlis - failed efforts to make idlis, that I would then ask people (mostly my roommate) to eat, saying, "please eat!"

But no longer! For recently I bought Fleischmann's Active Dry Yeast, the missing link. And here's the fruit of my labors (view the images below). I realized that due to a variety of factors (the chlorinated water, the low temperature, the conditioned indoor atmosphere, the iodized salt), the yeast content in US Air isn't as high as Indian Air (!). Therefore, to make idlis that have the "holes" in them you need an external infusion of yeast.

And about those holes: when I was a child I used to love to cut idlis up just to find those holes (which, as we all know now, with the benefit of age, are air pockets). Oh I loved those holes! And now I have idlis with holes!

The recipe for anyone inclined:

Time: 8 1/2 hours, mostly unattended.

8 hours to ferment, 15 min to make the batter and 15 min to make the idlis.

2.25 cups of rice flour

1 cup of urad flour

idli moulds

1 teaspoon Fleischmann's Active Dry Yeast (available at Publix, Walmart, Indian Grocery Stores)

Salt to taste

Mix rice and urad flour with very little water.
Grind to a thick paste. The paste should be thick enough that if you take a spoon of it and drop it back into the container, it should fall back in 'layers', slowly sinking back into the mix.
Dissolve yeast in 1/4 cup warm water. (use cold water that's been microwaved. Don't heat too much, or the yeast will die)
Add yeast to paste and mix lightly.
Put this in oven with the oven light on, overnight (but not more than 8 hours).
Take it out first thing in the morning - you'll have to verify that the idlis aren't crusty because of too much heat from the oven light.
Make idlis in the mould as you normally would (I use the cooker mould as opposed to the microwave mould).
You don't have to put on the pressure-weight. You can steam them for 4-5 minutes, following which the idlis will be soft and light.

"Vathal Kuzhambu"

2011-02-25T06:49:00.000-08:00

What's that again??

Vathal Kuzhambu is a tangy, spicy, sweet sambhar-rasam medley with dried and fried vegetables. It's hugely popular among at-least one section of the South Indian population (the Tamil Brahmins), and is a quick-fix for days like yesterday when I burst into my apartment, stomach growling, searching for something to eat, and finding nothing. I'm sure that's a situation that all you Indian-Students-in-the-US will find yourself at some point in your lives. My requirements were such:

It had to be done in 45 min or less
Minimum of ingredients used
Should be rice-based

Almost the first (because my initial impulse was to go hungry :) ) impulse was Vathal Kuzhambu. And to cut a long story short, at the end of 45 min, my stomach was full, I was 'mmmmm'ing all over the place and giving my friend who'd popped in for a bit, second thoughts about eating at her place. Here's the recipe, sourced from my mom:

Ingredients:

For the ground masala you need:

- Black Pepper

- Jeera (Cumin)

- Methi (Fenugreek) (and in case you are Telugu, 'menthulu' ;) )

- Dhaniya (Coriander seeds)

- Tur Dal

- Chana Dal

- Urad Dal

In case your mind's going 'uh-oh', remember that fresh, made-to-order spice powders are always, always better, and totally worth the effort, than pre-made or purchased powders.

For the 'base', the liquid that makes up the body of the sambhar, you need:

- Tamarind (1 ping-pong ball)

- Turmeric and salt to taste

- Jaggery

- Marthangallikkai

- Chundakkai

- Parikkai

Now your mind's definitely going 'wtf' on me. Obviously googling wouldn't have worked!?

Fear not, my fellow dedicated blog-reader, try googling for 'Manathakkaali'. Or Solanum Nigrum. My spelling was a very localized variant of that word.

Next: Chundakkai is also called 'Sundakkai', or Solanum Torvum.

Parikkai is - you may have guessed it - Karela or bitter gourd.

Available at many Indian stores that focus on South-Indian goods (and if you stay in Atlanta, Cherian's of Decatur), these dried vegetables (or 'Vathal' in Tamil) form the base ingredient for Vathal Kuzhambu. Next time you're in India, ensure you get a ton of these before coming back. Try the following highly recommended stores in Mumbai:

- Madras Stores, M.G. Road, Mulund (W)

- Aadi Ganesh, Nehru Road, Mulund (W)

- Pretty much any Tamil-run general store in Matunga

Okay, cutting to the chase, here's the recipe:

Boil Tamarind (1 ping-pong ball) water, turmeric until the sourness of tamarind goes away. (Usually 15-20 minutes on a medium-high flame)
Roast 1/2 spoon Black pepper, 3/4th spoon jeera, 1/4th spoon methi, 5 red chillies, 2 spoon dhaniya, 2 spoons tur dal, 1 spoon chana dal, 1/2 spoon urad dal.
Dry-Grind the above to a powder. Add this to the boiling Tamarind water and add water as desired. Salt and Turmeric (if needed) to taste.
Add about 2 spoons of Jaggery. You may lower the flame to medium now, to allow the Dals to make the liquid viscous.
Fry the Vathals (dry vegetables), add Mustard, Curry leaves, and add this to the liquid. Turn off the stove if you wish to retain crispness of the fried vegetables.

Tips:

You can also fry brinjal with a little salt, turmeric and hing and add at the end if you don't have vathal (however, I highly recommend adding at least Marthangallikkai).
Add a Dollop of ghee if available, or fry the vathals in ghee if you can.

I'll add pictures the next time I make this. For now, let me gorge on last-night's left-over Vathal Kuzhambu. Oh - forgot to mention - it stays in the Fridge for a longer time than Sambhar. You can easily store this for 3-4 days, maybe even a week (although your mom's would balk at reading this :) )

New Toy

2011-02-23T21:17:00.000-08:00

I love my new portrait-lens! After a long series of 'soliloquy's, I finally bit the bullet and bought a "Nifty-Fifty", a 50mm F1.8 lens. What this means is it blurs the background beautifully and places the subject beautifully in focus, even in fading light. Check out my best effort here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/savishy/5469778504/

quickie

2011-02-23T07:55:00.001-08:00

I'm still here. Barely.

What's going on in my life?
Taxes. Insurance. Lease Renewal. A host of niggling health concerns. Time, or the lack of it.

What's new?
A portrait lens and a long-zoom one too. Check out the results on the sidebar.

Started missing my parents like hell today. Perhaps fitting then, that I had to watch this amazing short movie that's been quietly doing the rounds on Facebook and Youtube. It's a gem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4xViru8_Jo

In search of the perfect idli

2010-10-19T18:02:00.001-07:00

Don't get me wrong. I am not in gourmand-mode, hosting one of those fine-cuisines-shows where I roam the world. The search for the perfect idli is confined to the three walls (or, if you want to be all technical, the two walls and counter) of my modular kitchen.

Like any Tam-Bram worth his salt, I grew up in a world of sights, sounds and smells. The sight of the raw material - those fat, oblong rice grains and the pure-white and incredibly viscous batter that they morphed into; the nearly inaudible hiss of perfectly fermented batter falling from the hollow spoon (try pronouncing kuzhuval, the name for that type of spoon) as my mom stirred it; the whistles from the pressure cooker that I have already blogged about here; and finally, the aroma of freshly steamed idlis along with mulaga-podi (which I will blog about in due course) and home-made ghee.

For the "Punctuation Nazis" out there (a nod to thoughtengine a.k.a. Arvind), the fact that I do not italicize the word "idli" shows how much I regard it as a part of regular English vocabulary :)

Rarely did my mom get anything wrong, and her penchant for perfection was symbolized in the idlis she made. Every one of them looked exactly the same - like an albino UFO - and to the uninitiated, the sight of this dish would be quite unsettling. And yet each morsel was simple heaven, devoid of the heaviness that a regular dish leaves you with. As a kid, I loved dissecting each of my 16 idlis per meal with a butter-knife just to extract the air-pockets that had been formed during fermentation. It's difficult to explain, and you have to see for yourself what I mean :)

And then I came to the US, where everything including traffic is upside-down. You try to make any dish that involves some level of effort and you find that getting all the ingredients is one heck of an effort. Even if you do manage to procure the ingredients through a combination of luck, smooth-talking friends with cars into taking you with them and then lugging bags from the Indian grocery store, you later find that the weather is just not India enough!

To my credit, I tried hard, so much that my roommates labeled me the "Robert Bruce" of this generation (an appellation that I gratefully, and not with a small amount of pride, accept ;) ). I mostly got the look of the batter right - I mean how much effort does that take? But the bloody idlis just refused to budge from their hemispherical position to rise up like fluffy perfection.

I'd taken to randomly assigning numbers to each of my attempts, and finally, attempt #454 paid off. As I gingerly, and with my heart in my mouth, slid the cooker top off, there it was! A tiny, barely noticeable, and therefore all the more significant, bump. My idlis had risen!

Of course, pure ecstasy, by its definition, dictated that I lost all consciousness and rationality, which was why I completely forgot to document exactly what I'd done to get it that way. And therefore, here I am, blogging about the 455th attempt as my idli batter sits in the (now completely defaced) kitchen. Which is of course, why there isn't an image to this blog post.

Recording for posterity the procedure:

4 cups of "idli rice". Considering that this is the US, you can be pretty sure that it's not Idli rice per se that you buy, but some mix of Homi Mali and Mexican.
2 cups of white urad dal. I hope this is at least what the packaging says it is.
Wash these in separate containers, but not excessively. One wash should suffice.
Leave them for 6-8 hours (considering that US temperature and humidity are not the same as India).
After this, I actually put them into the fridge for a day.
Grind in a mixer with very little water, only enough to make the mixer blade move.
Pour the batter into a metal container and (this step is critical) mix with your hands. This will transfer yeast, hopefully.
Add salt to taste. For me, 4 spoons of salt should suffice.
Fermentation, the next critical step, requires temperatures of roughly 100F (X degrees C) for about 6 hours. For this, 6 hours in an oven with the oven-light on should be a good place to start.

A great blog post for all you Indian chefs in America, that discusses the same desi dish with an American twist: http://chefinyou.com/2009/01/idli-recipe/
Oh, a word of warning before you read that: it looks like that blogger had even more patience and perseverance. Bravo! (and I hope you have more patient roommates than mine ;) Mine never stopped teasing me for not giving them a taste of the sorta-successful attempt #455!)

Another timelapse

2010-10-12T16:06:00.000-07:00

I just had to advertise this here! It was a rare occasion when so many different scenes merged into one single, 1-hour-long time frame. First there was the sun sinking into a faux-horizon made up by the thick cloud cover. Then the sun's rays peeked out from the imperfect (?) cover that had been created by the clouds. Then the sun sank below the cloud layer into a blazing red ball.

At the end of it, I managed to create a variety of different time-lapse images. Naturally I had to combine them into one video, so here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3ddUjzuRDc

The video, by the way, is royalty-free, and I do not plan to distribute this for public viewing, what-the-hell-ever that means. (I have been in trouble before :| )

If you want to know the gear and the technique:
* DSLR Remote Pro controls your camera from the PC, sets the interval for shots
* The sunset-red-ball-thing was at 200mm focal length
* Use a tripod! You will never ever ever regret it!
* The night shots were at 15 seconds

Update

2010-10-09T22:54:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am still here, trying desperately to find time to blog, and mostly failing.
I don't know that anyone still follows this page, which means that possibly the name of this blog has finally come to fruition - the words I type will curl away like vapor trails, soon to be lost in the blue.
I have settled down on a fairly regular work routine of 10ish to 7ish, 5 days a week, and am so used to it that I no longer need an alarm to wake up (yay, I guess). I even get cranky if I don't get my preferred seat on the bus to work. Yeah, I suppose the word for me would be 'institutionalized' (to take a term from Shawshank Redemption).

My hobbies are still intact, although the time I devote to them is lower than ever. The gear I add to my camera bag keeps growing thanks to a steady inflow of $, possibly the one benefit of a (relatively) regularized work routine. Don't picture me yet as the guy with the Canon EOS 40D-Equatorial Mount-Super stabilized tripod-and-intervalometer, though. I still have a long way to go to get that kind of camera gear.

Cooking is still the infallible tension-reducer, thankfully. I recently made my first ever Chapatti in the US. It came out to be a very patriotic shape, if you know what I mean ;) The korma that I ate with it transported me, for an instant, to a restaurant in Tirupati where I had exactly the same taste of korma.

I guess this was more of a feeler-post. Hopefully I get the time to make another one, probably one that has a topic :)

Food for thought

2010-06-01T19:35:00.000-07:00

India is the smell of freshly ground spices brewing in a vessel of tamarind water. For the aroma transports me to a place I call home, miles away, and to a time long ago. It brings before me the sight of my mother frying the spice mix in the ubiquitous grey-black kadhai that is a staple of every Indian kitchen.

India is the memory of relishing vathal kuzhambu with paruppu thogayal, and taking for granted the fact that amazing food will be set on the table every night for dinner. Well, not exactly the table, but the floor, for India is also the memory of eating food with family in a circle, on the uncarpeted middle-class mosaic floor.

India is the sight of steam wafting from the pressure cooker filled with rice and/or dal - which is what most cooking begins with. India is the yellow of the turmeric that infuses every Indian curry with potent fragrance. India is the red of the chilli and the black of pepper, both of which give food a spiciness of very different kinds.

India is the sound of the steam escaping the cooker that sets off an instant count-down in my head (2 whistles to go…). India is the sizzle of water sprinkled in a flourish over a hot tawa, and the instant hush as it is wiped off, typically with yesterday's Bombay Times. India is the crackle of hot tadka poured over a bubbling vessel of sambhar.

India is the taste of masala chai with Parle G biscuits, of Pani Puri with a touch too much spice, of Pav Bhaji (with real, non-corn-laden Pav and unrealistically red Bhaji with a dollop of butter), of filter coffee with no chicory, of Rava Masala Dosa at Vishwa Bharathi, of Vada Pav at Kunj Vihar, of the sukha bhel at Marine Drive.

India is "ek meetha puri dena bhaiyya" and "kitna hua?" and "ek plate pav bhaji, teekha banana" and "oru vada sambhar parssalll" and "chutta nahin hai". India is gobbling up 3 vada pavs in one go, and having two parcelled for later. India is that plate of spicy paani after a binge of Pani Puri. India is the road side stall that sells everything from cigarettes to paan to egg bhurji. India is the ubiquitous seeng daana vendor. India is watching the sunset at Marine Drive with a 2-rupee pack of the same seeng daana. India is the Zhunka Bhaakar outside CST station (the super-cheap Pav Bhaji place).

Yet another morning

2010-03-15T05:43:00.000-07:00

It's yet another morning of my life. Wisps of steam curl up from my microwavable coffee mug, like any other day. The discarded peel of the banana that dilutes the acid generated by coffee on an empty stomach could well be from yesterday morning. Even the time is exact, to the minute: 8.46 AM.
I know exactly what I am going to do today, and that sucks. . At 9.01 AM I am going to gaze wistfully at the photo of my cousins which I have on my wall, and wonder if the recent India trip ever happened. At 9.10, I will go for a bath, having made and packed breakfast that is pre-planned for the week. .At 9.40, having used up 3 1/2 buckets of water at 86 F, I will wear my pre-laid out clothes and yesterday's Jeans (because washing clothes sucks). My roommate would have woken up by then, and I will make or pack lunch, after having done my prayers for 11 minutes and 34 seconds.

I hate routines. But I am a slave to them. My whole life revolves around my laptop. It's my TV, my newspaper, my movie theater, my shopping catalogue, my health guide, cookbook, personal diary, calendar, even my freakin' alarm clock. I look to the East (and India) more than often with longing, for from 12000 km away, life there seems to be great. Orkut albums filled with trips to Goa and Alibaug, Jaipur and Kashmir. Google Talk status messages filled with links to Photography albums. Weekends filled with Photo walks, movies, meeting with friends over coffee at CCD. Of course, the trials and daily challenges, if any, of life in India are lost on me, for the view from this far tends to be unavoidably rosy.

I try to get away from it at times. But I am running out of ideas. For now, since it's 9.01, let me gaze wistfully at the photo as per my schedule.

Paradise lost

2010-02-07T06:40:00.000-08:00

They look like robots, I think, watching them walk by in pairs. One of them spots me looking at them and gives me a glare, and that’s when I realize I've been looking too long. I pretend to observe a trinket in the stall I am standing near, a burning feeling creeping up through my neck, as though I can feel them still sizing me up.

The soldiers, still unsmiling, walk away, their heavy boots crunching up the gravel. Looking around the courtyard through the heavy early-morning mist, I can barely discern the shapes of soldiers perched atop crumbling walls and minarets covered with the dirt and grime of ages. Bullet-proof armor plates mark Observation Posts, from where protrude the barrels of mounted machine guns. My entry into the complex was marked by two thorough rounds of frisking and a security scan. Their oppressive presence is everywhere; the signs of their occupation all too prominent. I feel a chill that has nothing to do with the near-zero temperature of this place.

Tearing my eyes away from this spectacle, I look at the two shapes that dominate the horizon: a temple and a mosque, both side-by-side. Separating them is a 40-foot wall topped out by concertina wire. The immediate vicinity of this wall is a no-mans-land that goes on and on, disappearing into the mist, patrolled by soldiers and sniffer dogs. A Kevlar-clad soldier with an INSAS rifle guards a chain-link gate which accesses this area. For the second time, I am given the glare and the sizing-down, and I again look away immediately.

As we climb the stairs to enter the temple, everyone I pass turns to look briefly at the dome of the mosque. As I wonder what they must be thinking, one of them points toward it and utters what can only be called a curse. I shudder to think that similar devotees on the other side of the wall must only be doing the same.

As though by cue, I hear the wails of the muezzin announcing the azan, the early morning call to prayer. Seconds later, the clang-clang of bells begins, as the temple announces its faith for all to hear. The two sounds vie with each other, as though competing to penetrate the soul of the devotee. Yet all they manage to create is yet another cacophony, yet another discordant note in this, the holy of holies.

I am in Mathura, the birthplace of Krishna. India's Jerusalem.

What is today the "Krishna Janma Sthan", birthplace of Lord Krishna, is present within the precincts of a mosque that was built by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. Railing against idolatry, he demolished the temple that had stood there for hundreds of years. The result is a striking juxtaposition of two faiths that have stood at each other's throats for years. Sadly, the only divinity existent in the temple complex is in the minds of the faithful; for the temple itself is no more than a military outpost.

Of fate and startups

2009-12-15T08:43:00.000-08:00

A year ago, when I was still a thin gangling student with a shock of tousled hair, I went to a 5th floor apartment with a view of downtown Atlanta. That apartment was populated by 3 PhD students, as a result of which, it was one of the few times that I was exposed to the relative luxury that some students live in. Of course, luxury is a tall word for their situation - 4 in an apartment built for 2. Which is why I add the word "relative". Anyway, on the bed - the fact that they had a bed was not lost on me, as I used to sleep in an airbed that deflated after three hours - was what I perceived to be an unachievable objective. It was a Canon EOS Rebel XS, a DSLR camera whose name I had uttered in hushed reverence in the past. Naturally I had to pose with the legend, and I asked someone to take a photo of me holding the camera.

And about a year and a half later, I managed to purchase that very same camera. It's one more reason for me to fervently hope that I don't ever lose this job, especially in an economy whose twists and turns would leave Alfred Hitchcock dumbfounded. It's one more reason to work long hours - more than I worked for my Master's. And it's been one hell of a roller coaster ride in terms of the lessons learned, the myths debunked and the beliefs strengthened.

I doubt I'd have gotten to play with such a lot of different roles in a well-established company. I'd certainly not have gotten the chance to establish a process for software testing anywhere else. I also got to define my role the way I liked it, rather than toe a line drawn by someone else. As a result I was free to move more into management, something generally frowned upon by the more conventional and techno-savvy crowd.

I mentioned my fervent hope that I don't ever lose this job, but that is - to be brutally honest to myself - an irrational hope. Startups are made to have an exit strategy, and news about ventures being bought out or simply sinking in the face of bigger competition is all too frequent. And that's perhaps the biggest con in an otherwise perfect beginning to a new life. But every day that I mourn my fate brings me one step closer to it, so for now, I shall live free and stave it off.

Money 3

2009-10-06T09:13:00.000-07:00

I don't want any part of this.... I don't want any part of this...

The mantra kept repeating in his mind as he dragged himself out of bed and looked at the incessantly beeping cell-phone. Sunday, 10 AM, it said. In a daze, with the remnants of some dream draining away from his memory, he trudged to the bathroom for the morning routines. Remind me why I am going to work on a Sunday again, he asked himself. As he tried to brush away the soapiness in his mouth from a disturbed sleep, he couldn't help wondering if it was still about the extra pay he would get for working on a Sunday.

Now that I am earning, money suddenly doesn't seem important any more. The irony of the fact was not lost on him. But yeah, it was true in a way. From being a neurotic when it came to maintaining expense records, he had come to accept certain expenses as necessary. Now he no longer thought twice before visiting Tin Drum, an over-priced Asian restaurant. It was a massive change in someone who used to eat cheap frozen food and spoil his stomach. You don't want to own a car?! People would ask him. He didn't know if an (almost) complete lack of material ambitions was good or bad.

As he stepped into the shower, he harked back to earlier times, when money had seemed more important; when money, or the lack of it, seemed to take a strangle-hold of him and affect his daily thinking; when everything was weighed against a calculation of expenses. It seemed almost blasphemous to imagine not caring about something that had become an unattainable quest.

The steaming hot water from the shower made him automatically close his eyes and take a long, deep breath. At least I know what matters to me now… and it's not a million-dollar bank account, or a car, or a huge condo with a beach-side view. It's my friends, my photography, my cooking and my writing.

He remembered some lines he'd written long ago...

I take a bold step forward, shade to sun.
For a moment I'm blinded, but I recover and move again

Maybe the sun is out again, he mused. And a slow smile curled his lips.

(Thank you, Arvind, for your words of encouragement.)
---------------------------
P.S. This doesn't mean I don't care about paying off my bank loan, however :-)
---------------------------

The leisurely trip that never happened

2009-07-13T20:08:00.000-07:00

Do you ever feel like life goes on so fast sometimes that you feel like someone has been taking sadistic time-lapse photos of your life? Do you ever feel like running away to a beach somewhere, and planting your feet firmly in the ground?

Before I knew it, it had been 3 months since I joined work. Three months of shifting responsibilities, of trying desperately to reach work as early as possible, so that I could leave early and enjoy the long summer days, and then working later than usual and worse, liking my work enough to do it almost every day :-) Sometimes I felt like I was back at school (albeit a school where you were exposed to the outside world much more frequently), judging by the more and more frequent pizza dinners I was having. Suffice it to say, I was ready for a break.

Good fortune came in the form of my colleague suggesting to me that we go to Savannah, a seaside town on Georgia's coast steeped in Civil war history. And that's all it took to convince me. I also roped in a fellow photographer friend who'd been harping about going on an 'exclusively photographic expedition', free from the snide murmurs and sideways glares of our admittedly non-photographic friends. We were set to leave on the morning of 3rd July, spend a relaxing day at Savannah and nearby Tybee Island, and leave early in the evening to watch the fireworks display on the 4th of July at Atlanta.

Savannah is three and some hours away by road, and the journey itself, at first, seemed as important as the destination, considering that we would be spending about eight hours travelling. And wow - I have never seen a more drastic change of landscape. Merely 40 or so miles out from Atlanta, I saw a horse stable and nicely cultivated fields!

We spent the four hours listening to Tamil songs from our fellow travellers' massive collection, and a coffee and Sub and four hours later, we were at the outskirts of Savannah.

Imagine taking an old city from the 1900s. Now sprinkle a liberal dose of modernity over it - new street signs, neon signs, cars etc. That would be Savannah. This building in the image below was a plush hotel with interiors that glimmered with gold.

Our first stop was the biggest attraction Savannah had to offer - its Dolphin watch tour. To get to the riverfront from where our ferry would depart, we navigated a wonderfully cobble-stoned street that probably had never been repaved.

Savannah's riverfront, though, caused everything we'd seen so far to pale in comparison. It had a slightly... weathered look to it. A tram line ran through the middle of the road, and on a street corner was the very typical sounding "Boar's Head" Tavern.

We spent some time in one of the small souvenir shops that you find in every corner of the world, where you would browse through stuff but not buy anything. And then we boarded the ferry.

Captain Mike was a cool guy who gave us a continuous and informal history of the place. And a colourful history it was! (Non-history people may tune out here).

We passed the bronze statue of a lady that seemed to be waving some kinda cloth. I had noticed this earlier. Mike told us all to wave at her, and then explained the sea-farer legend that had culminated in her statue being built. Florence Martus had fallen in love with a sailor. And back then, that meant long years of wait for the return of your love. Once, when he was sent on a trip, he didn't return for some time. Heartbroken, Florence took to waving a piece of cloth at all passing ships in the hope that he would be on one of them. She did this for an amazing 44 years, until she died. In all that time, sea-farers began to treat her as something of a good luck charm, and waved back at her. Waving at the statue is now considered to be an attempt to put her soul to rest and thereby receive good luck.
Or so one version of the legend goes. Check out the Wikipedia entry here.

We passed a Civil War fort, Fort Jackson, that didn't look too formidable at first, until the nuances of its construction were brought to our notice. Surrounded on three sides by marsh that could suck the boots right off your legs, the fourth side faced the sea. It had been built at a point where the river narrowed down on its path to the sea, so that ships attacking Savannah (an important port back then) would have had to pass close by the fort. And then the cannon would have opened up...

Dolphins! So many of them! The strategy employed was to let the propellers go to full throttle, so that the froth bubbles formed waves in our wake, attracting dolphins and making them surface. Apparently, they weren't as frolicky as they usually were, but I was nevertheless satisfied, bursting in whoops when I saw as many as five in a small patch of sea. One of them passed under our boat and surfaced on the other side, making me wish I had cloned myself.

After thoroughly sunburning ourselves and gulping the salt-laden air in deep breaths, we returned to the shore, and a chance to unwind at Tybee Island's beach before going home.
My first visit to a beach! I couldn't stop repeating this over and over as I drank in the different hues of blue and white.

I wish I could say that it was just me and the beach... that I had great moments of solitude where I gazed out at the expanse of the Atlantic and wondered about the meaning of life. But naah... I didn't actually need those thoughts to relax, for once. Of course, there were the aforementioned moments of solitude :-) I am a Pisces, after all.

"The fireworks are tomorrow??" I exclaimed over the phone with my roommate, who had just done some research over the internet, and exposed a chink in my planning. I had been planning to return the same night, meet friends in Atlanta and watch the fireworks together. But now that this new piece of information had come through, we decided to stay the night and leave the next day.

All I remember of the Quality Inn is the bed-bug-free bed into which I sank and closed my eyes, waking 8 hours later. Perhaps the excellent Indian dinner we'd had at a restaurant there had something to do with it.
[CONTD]

New York, New York!

2009-05-15T13:52:00.000-07:00

The plan:
My bags were almost packed. I had asked for and obtained permission for leave from work. I had my non-stop flight booked with window seats. I was going to Raleigh, not just to attend my friend's graduation, but also those of another friend and a cousin. And then...
"How about we go to New York instead?"

Like the perfect traveler, during the ensuing week before my trip, I had planned out everything I would do before and after NY. I had gone that extra mile in ensuring I knew what NY held for me.
I had seriously debated carrying mace or pepper spray, in view of New York's reputation as a crime-ridden city a la Hollywood.
I had identified points of interest and consulted with my friend about how best to cover them. I had screen-shot 20 different google maps of downtown Manhattan, with my "points of interest" marked on them, and then painstakingly stitched them into one continuous image. I had then printed it out to carry with me at all times.
Since my flight was going to land at LaGuardia, the closest to Manhattan's skyline, I had identified the possible routes the plane could take while landing and decided that the left side window would be the best place to sit, so that I could capture photos of Manhattan from a height.
A new battery charger, rechargeable batteries, a spare charger in case the charger blew out, change in coins, change in notes...

I had been planning this trip to the extent of driving my roommate Sandeep crazy. He wrote down a to-do list of sorts, for me to follow. I loved point no. 4:

A week of hectic re-planning, itinerary-changing, google-maps-browsing and cloud-castle-building later, I was ready for New York. Or so I thought.

The journey:

The pilot had made good time, and I waited with anticipation, camera on, clicking finger twitching to snap the world's best photos of NY, as the lady announced, "We are now in our initial approach to New York's LaGuardia Airport."
My first inkling that something was wrong was when I did not see any of the huge buildings off to the left of the airplane, or the pendulous shape of Manhattan, or the Brooklyn Bridge, or even a hint of a bloody skyscraper. All I saw were pastures and lakes that now reflected the setting sun, with interstates snaking in and out of my field of vision. Where was I?
We banked off sharply to the right and there were "oooohs" and "aaahs" from the people to the right. "Is that Central Park?" Somebody asked. And then it hit me with the whomp of someone who has been hit by a car and didn't expect it. Fate, or Delta Airlines, or who-the-heck-ever planned flight routes, had dealt me a perfect left-hook. This is what they had done (and please bear with me :-) I'd really really really wanted to take snaps of NY from my flight):

Instead of coming up the east side of NY, they had circled NY once, clockwise. The people on the right, therefore would have had glorious panoramas of NY in the setting sun, views of every bit of manmade heaven from 10000 feet up. I, of course, with my superb planning, was on the left.
The superb irony of it, and imagining the look on my roommate's face when I would tell him this story (I had infuriated him with my meticulous planning), all made me start laughing uncontrollably.
And then I saw something pass below me, something I'd never have seen, had I been looking at the world through the camera. But since I followed Sandeep's advice (number 4) above, I managed to click this:

We landed at LaGuardia Airport, and my eyes were watering from the comic irony of it all.

LGA airport is actually much like Mumbai airport; the airport actually opens out on to a street (unlike the vast Atlanta airport where you take a subway to get to baggage claim). But that was just the beginning of a surreal worm-hole of sorts, where I took off from Atlanta, and landed in a city that, underneath its wrapper, smelled, sounded, looked like Mumbai.

I got on to a bus where, for once, I barely had space to stand. We barely got on the bus, and then we barely got off it. We got off at a busy intersection, and then climbed up a flight of stairs to catch a Metro train into Manhattan.
We might as well have been walking through a catwalk adjacent to some huge machine; so loud was the rattle of the century-old bolts as a train passed over us. Despite the presence of lights (which had a coat of dust over them), there was a certain darkness about the place. It was almost like exploring a newly renovated house and finding a corner room, still in its old and peeling paint and all dark and musty. The bolts and rivets that held the bridge together were big and ancient, and the hasty paint job they had received was peeling off in places. We skirted a pool of stagnant water (and two characters that melted into the shadows as soon as they saw us) to arrive at the main entrance to Astoria Blvd station.
"No bloody escalator!" I exclaimed, playing my part of the tourist well. With a stale (and familiar) stench of a rotting something in my nose, my keen eyes not missing the rusty pipes that adorned every bit of ceiling space, I wrestled my bags into the station platform.
To cut the story of the next few hours short, we got onto a train to Penn Station, and then on to New Jersey and the welcome sight of hot food and something like a bed. But we didn't have a lot of sleep on our hands: NY beckoned!

The city:

I don't think my poor camera got any rest that day. Or the next.
As we ascended from the depths of the ground into street level, it seemed like we had arrived on to another city altogether. And that is the marvel of New York. It is a city on so many levels. The top level is the glitzy, skyscraper-ridden concrete paradise, where the sun never sets, thanks to the LCD screens, bill boards, ticker tapes and 40-foot high boards proclaiming the muscle power of America. Go below ground, and you have another city on the move. 1.45 Billion people on the move across the largest subway system in the world. And it's size is staggeringly apparent: you have whole concourses buried underground, lit up like Christmas. You could spend about half of your day underground, eat your lunch and dinner at one of the numerous shops embedded into the corners; even entertain yourself, thanks to the 80 or so performers that are actually assigned to the subways.

It had always been my desire to walk through New York, and not be confined to buses or trains. And that was just what we did. As we strolled in the general direction of Times Square, I savoured the smells that marked every street: falafel vendors in one corner, pizza houses in the next; a sausage vendor tucked away into a building facade, an open sewer running nearby. That I could actually enjoy these smells, must give some indication of how desperate I've become for some hint of Mumbai in my life. I felt completely at home in the crowd of pedestrians milling about.

Times Square is a microcosm of the American Way. One street where no inch of space is free of advertising. Since it was the weekend, we were a few of the thousands that had descended on to this destination. It was a carnival atmosphere, with traffic interleaved by pedestrians, and the largest collection ever of people, thronging a flight of stairs in the distance. And yet, in this crowded marketplace-style location, a section of street had been cleared of all traffic and a model ramp-walked down the street for a photo-op. A city of contrasts!

Most visitors to Madame Tussaud's, the waxworks museum near Times Square, would have blogged about, photographed and posed with the 200 or so wax figures. But the only event of note for me (which made everything else pale in comparison), was a small, winding corridor called, rather melodramatically, "Scream!" and filled, basically, with screams. I went inside, inching through with apprehension. The atmosphere was made even more grim by the fact that the only lights were red, and cobwebbed corners were littered with corpses: their heads smashed in, or with a long axe sticking out of them; missing a limb, you get the picture. The walls weren't walls; they were torn veils and curtains that made it possible for your imagination to play havoc as to what horrors lurked behind. Of course, there was also the music intermingled with screams. Very Dracula.
As I gingerly stepped forward, a grotesquely misshapen head jumped out of a gap between two veils, and I got the shock of my life. Human actors were hidden throughout the place, whos basic function it was to scare us. From then on, every corner I turned was followed by the futile exercise of determining whether any horrors lay in wait. I think there must have been sensors of some sort that gave a cue to the actors as to where we were.
I managed to locate the exit without dying or having my intestines draped around my neck, and then stopped dead in my tracks, for at my feet was a foreboding trail of blood that ended in a bloody and unrecognizable mass. Was this the exit or was it another trap? I inched forward, trying to discern what lay ahead, and then, to my utter relief I saw my friends beckoning at me.

The top of the world:

No, it's not the glorious view from Empire State that I am talking about. It is the feeling I got when I went on a sightseeing cruise around the city. This ride covered the U that was Manhattan in an anti-clockwise direction around sunset, went close to the Statue of Liberty on the way, then came back clockwise at night. As a result, I was able to drink in panoramas of the city at both sunset and night and get silhouettes of Liberty all in one trip.
Funnily enough, it is the view of the setting sun that I will always cherish; not the views from the 86th floor observatory, nor the walks at ground level. It is ironic in a comic sort of way; that in Man's most grandiose creation, I still managed to be moved by nature's wonders.

As the city continued to be bathed in red, I kept feverishly clicking away, ignoring my friends, unmindful of the increasing cold or the wind. At that moment, it was just me, the sunset and my camera. Romantic, in a surreal sort of way.
After two hours, "Wow" seemed too mundane, and as I paused to let the blood flow into my hands, I realized that my entire left side was numb.
I could have left New York then, and still I'd have memories that I would cherish for a life time.

The lady:

It was a lady, after all, that made me miss my flight home.
As we prepared the next day to both visit the Statue and pack for our return trip, I knew at the back of my head that we'd be cutting it close. It turned out that I went to Liberty Island alone. But it was completely worth it. Seeing the weathered statue up close, one has to wonder at the hope that immigrants must have felt on seeing the symbol of freedom, and the pangs of nostalgia that soldiers must have endured as they saw the weathered face that symbolized their home; some for the last time.

The highlight of this trip was its really, really short duration, something that made us make every moment count. And no better example than at Liberty. There I fulfilled my ambition: of taking time-lapse photos of the Statue. And then I ran, literally, for I was late for my flight. On the way back, I took a wrong turn and landed, unbelievably, at the Charging Bull of Wall Street! It had been on our list, but we'd had to cut it short owing to lack of time.

I'm sure that I'll go again. And again. For I have faith in the city's ability to surprise me.

Filter Coffee, 0% Chicory

2009-04-30T05:03:00.000-07:00

"Oh, and don't forget - I need 3 half-kg bags of 0% Chicory..."
"Would I forget? You have, after all, inherited this habit from your father..."
"Mom, I wouldn't be a Tamil Brahmin if I didn't drink Filter Coffee, right?"

I am on the phone with my mom, asking her to send stuff through a friend who is coming to the US. Topping the list in terms of weight (predictably) is 1.5 kg of pure Filter Coffee. I speak over her admonishments to me to take rest (especially as I am currently down with fever and a headache), reminding her one more time.
"3 bags! I need 3."
Yeah, 1.5 kg should cover it, I think, recalling when, 6 months ago, I'd run out of Filter Coffee and had had to commit blasphemy by having to survive on the Instant variety. And worse, I later found that I'd committed heresy by actually getting used to the taste!
Not this time, I think, although a grain of doubt remains. Should I have ordered more?

I try to distract myself from such paranoid calculations by casting a look at the Coffee Filter. In the quietness of the house, I can hear the hot water go "drip-drip-drip" in a slow, rhythmic beat as it churns out its painstakingly slow magic. I am reminded of my roommate's take on this: "The only reason I don't drink it is that it takes such a hell-of-a-long time to be made!" Oh, how can I convince him, that THAT is precisely the factor that augments the taste? To wait, with pleasurable anticipation, as you contemplate the taste of fine-grade "Degree Coffee" (Coffee made out of the first few drips from a coffee filter) slide down your throat?

I'm a hardliner and a prejudiced old-timer when it comes to coffee. I wouldn't admit this to any American citizen (coz Starbucks is practically a religion for them), but I hate Starbucks and its brand of On-the-Go, with its sugar and milk substitutes, and its coffee that is a blot on the face of the Coffee-Drinking world. (Dear American reader, I have drunk only one cup of Starbucks in my life, and hence, my argument above does not carry any weight. Please excuse this as the sentimental musings of a nostalgic student, and please don't deport me for treason)

Sadly, in what I can only assume is an attempt to make profits, the purity of filter coffee has been irrevocably altered with the addition of a substitute called Chicory. I have no idea how it came to be added into my daily cup, but I do know (having mistakenly purchased half a kg of 45-percent-Chicory once) that it spoils the "Degree" taste.

My stomach now gives a not-so-pleasurable growl as I squirm about impatiently, my headache getting worse, waiting for the coffee to drip. Finally, I decide I can hold it no longer and check the filter. Thick brown heaven. Without further ado, I go through the ritual of transforming it into something drinkable.

The first sip slides down my throat, and it is a scene out of Ratatouille, where the food critic, Anton Ego is reminded of his childhood when he eats the dish presented to him. Likewise, I am transported to a time when my eyes barely skirted the top edge of the refrigerator; when my dad would give me Degree Coffee at 5 AM as I studied for my 12th Standard exams. "Digiri-'kaappi", he would say, pronouncing it with an endearing, thick accent, his eyes sparkling at the prospect of having some of it himself.
The scene changes, and a younger version of me is walking down to the store near Mulund station. I greet the person manning the counter, and introduce myself as "Venu's son". He instantly livens up and says, "Filter Coffee, no Chicory. How much, saar?" As I smile, I think about how I am dead sure that I, my children and grandchildren will definitely buy from the same store.

I come back to the present, shaking the sepia images from my head. And then I realize that the headache I had, has vanished. I throw my head back and start laughing uncontrollably. It works every single time!
Perhaps things would have been different; perhaps it's just psychological. Perhaps I've simply trained my body, over the years, to accept only Filter Coffee. But whatever be the basis behind my preference, I know that Filter Coffee in a Steaming Tumbler and Davarah will always conjure up images of me walking down a crowded Mulund street. Every sip reminds me of home.

For another post on Coffee (and how it has unknowingly permeated and added color to our mundane existence), visit my roommate's blog.

Dharm ke naam pe ....

2009-04-19T08:40:00.000-07:00

I still remember this scene from Black Friday, a movie I'd gone to see more as an on-the-spot, post-assignment-chaapofying decision. The line I refer to in the (admittedly heavily censored) title of this blog is perhaps very pithy and controversial, and most would immediately close their ears. But today, when I read about the scores of dead from undeclared wars in the name of religion in every country in the world, this line is the first that comes to me.

I read an article in today's Hindustan Times that suggests that most of the perpetrators of the shocking violence across Gujarat in 2002 were shockingly ordinary people. But one line in the article stands out for me - that some regarded their acts of murder as simply a manifestation of God's revenge in human form.

Shockingly ordinary people, who simply regarded themselves as carrying out God's work?

We - every one of us who ever attended Sunday school or went to the temple, mosque, or similar place of worship - were all taught about a God that would strike down those who were bad. Perhaps we were taught this in an attempt to make us be 'good children'. But has this backfired? I refrain from making generalizations or further deductions, for its not the ideology that has failed, but our interpretations of it that have taken a turn for the macabre. We have made God, as with everything else, a form of property that can be possessed, or an ally in a meaningless war. "Bhagwan hamare saath hai" - that simple line which used to be an encouragement to have faith in the belief that good will happen one day, has been violated beyond recognition by giving it a new face: that of a warrior - perhaps with an AK-47 or with a sword and saffron bandanna. If it ever was a war fought with weapons, it is so no longer. The battle is now waged on people's minds - their beliefs, their faith and interpretations thereof. And that is the problem: we are fighting an unknown enemy, a foe that cannot be killed with bullets.

Edit: I just saw "Firaaq", a sensitively crafted story by Nandita Das. I can't help but be filled with revulsion and a strong urge to throw something at a wall and see it break into a million pieces. I also followed up with a documentary that was banned in India. ( Google video link here ) There is something about a kid describing how his aunts and other females were murdered (I cannot describe it here) that will make you take a long hard look at yourself and wonder, "Is this the world I want my child to grow up in?"

Friendship

2009-04-13T05:23:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how a simple event can change our perception of things for a brief moment...

It's a rainy morning here in Atlanta. I've just been woken by my roommate's alarm and am wishing I had an umbrella - not to go out in the rain, but to hit myself back to a state of semi-consciousness that I hope will morph into sleep.
With my mind working on overdrive, I go through the rituals of brushing my teeth and washing my face ever so slowly, as if to convince my brain that I have to sleep. But it just won't get fooled.
Blearily, I turn on the computer, wishing it would lull me into boredom, and then sleep. But the time forces me back to reality - it's Monday, and I have to go to work.
I just had the worst coffee of my life. Just as well, I think sarcastically. After all, coffee is only the life-blood that flows inside my veins.

And then, my best friend sends me a chat message. My initial reaction is that I am dreaming, for it is office time in India, and she can't access chat from work. But it is her indeed.
As it turns out, she wanted to apologize for something. I'd completely forgotten about it, but the fact that she came online on Google Talk just to tell me this, makes me forget everything. It makes me forget how irritated I was, and the furrow in my brow vanishes as if by magic. I then realize that she has been making me forget for a long time now, without me realizing it. She made me forget about tightly stretched finances, about wondrously thickheaded roommates, about sadistic professors, about assignments that I couldn't make head or tail of, about interviews that only contained a "Hello" and a "Have a nice day", about the job search that turned out to be a wild-goose chase, about the economy that burst like a balloon, showering me and millions in the slimy muck of this crisis, about everything that happened in the past few years.

I finish chatting with her, and turn off the computer, wanting to get ready for work, but with my mind still on overdrive, albeit for a different reason.

It's a rainy morning here in Atlanta. I've just been woken by my roommate's alarm and am wishing I had an umbrella - so that I could go out in the rain, throw it high in the air so that it gets carried away in the wind, and then dance in the slush-filled puddles.
I remember my mind working on overdrive, as I went through the rituals of brushing my teeth and washing my face ever so slowly, as if to convince my brain that it has to relax. But it just wouldn't get fooled.
I turn on the computer again, wishing it would lull me into boredom, and thus relax my rapidly beating heart. The time forces me back to reality - it's Monday, and I have to go to work.
I just had the best coffee of my life. Just as well, I think dreamily. After all, coffee is only the life-blood that flows inside my veins.

To you, friend.

Update

2009-04-09T20:27:00.000-07:00

A month ago, I wouldn't have believed that things would come to this day. Sometimes I still can't. But the lord, or fate, or the economy (depending on what school of thought you belong to), works in mysterious ways. And I am now the proud owner of what most people in the current economy would love to covet - a job.

It's probably ironic that ultimately, what got me the job wasn't those thousands of job applications I'd put in; it wasn't the thousands of forms I'd filled online and the thousands of resume copies I'd uploaded. It was one flyer on a noticeboard in the university I no longer went to, which I responded to in hopes of at least securing an interview.

I remember that my parents used to tell me, "Kondhe, score full marks in the 10th board exams. That's all!" As though those exams were the final obstacle in a hurdle race. Probably more comically, I remember actually believing them. I'd love to say now, that the race is run. But after 19 years of running races for others, I've at least learned that the race never finishes.

I can, however, say that I now have more patience and optimism than ever; things I tried unsuccessfully to achieve as I believed they were the two qualities that would get me a job. See the irony there?

It remains to be seen what I have lost so far in the quest to get a job, for it's only at the end of a battle that one assesses one's wounds. Perhaps lost is a tall word, for even though my last poem, for instance, was in September, last year, I still hope I haven't lost that hobby.
I know I haven't lost my integrity, though: I could have taken a rather more dishonest (albeit easier) route, and came very close to it, but happily I didn't. And I gained a passion for photography and cooking. Hopefully, I have also gained a better understanding of life as it relates to me.

Anyway, that's it for the update. For now, let me get ready for work :)

Time Lapse

2009-03-07T08:31:00.000-08:00

Apologies for the lack of updates; just came back from an India trip, and managed to finally make a significant advance on my current pet project; time lapse photography. Here is a significantly better attempt of mine; took 2530 photos in the space of an hour and then replayed it at 60 frames per second.

And on request from The Illuminator (find his blog here), here's how you do it.
All you need is:
1. A tripod that extends to about 42" or more. These are available for about 10-15$ in the US; really cost effective for the photographic flexibility they offer. I bought mine, a Targus TG-42TT, from Walmart for 14$.
If you don't have a tripod, a steady hand and any suitable flat surface will do the trick.
2. Any digital camera that has a multi-shot mode. Canon cameras, for example, can take up to 10 shots automatically at a time.
3. A lot of patience and a desire to see the end result.
4. A scene.
Here's what a time-lapse shot really is. As you now know (having, hopefully, read the wiki article on the link), it can be used to condense really slow activity into a space of seconds, but can also be used to show an onslaught of activity. How you choose your scene depends entirely on your imagination.
Before we dive into this, I have to emphasize the importance of stability of your camera. Experience, and GBs of wasted memory have shown, that if you don't have a tripod, the best spot for your camera is a solid concrete ledge. Anything even slightly less firm than this can cause a small amount of camera shake. And since you are gonna be taking thousands of photos, even that small error in position can screw up all future photos and spoil your week. So either go the extra mile and buy the tripod, or make sure nothing, not even a fly, settles on your camera.
If you have a tripod, then make sure all the knobs are tight :-)

Next, all you need is an empty memory card, and settings chosen for your particular scene. I used the Sunset mode on my camera for the above shot, but it's recommended to use full manual mode, as in the former, the camera chooses shutter speed and exposure according to the changing light, thereby causing rather unpleasant changes. In the above video, the sun's rays increase and decrease in intensity; I suspect my choosing an automatic mode has something to do with it.

With your scene composed and your tripod (or boxes stacked on top of chairs :D ) stable, you are ready to start shooting.
I found that the auto-shoot setting that works best (for my digicam) is a 1 second delay, followed by 10 sequential shots. This allows the camera to stabilize after you press the shoot button.
Some tips:
1. Make sure you have a place to sit, and a warm coffee :) It can get pretty boring, especially because you can't take any other shots during this time.
2. Spend the first few minutes setting up your scene. If it is a once-a-day event like the sunset, you can't spend time adjusting your scene in between.
3. One caveat if you take time-lapse photos of an object in zoom: any motion of the camera due to wind etc is more pronounced. Make sure you have adequate protection (for the camera) against the wind.
4. Choose a resolution that will allow taking about 1500-2000 photos in one go, with enough space left in your memory card afterward (cameras get slower as the memory card gets full).
5. Batteries! Make sure you have high quality batteries that can take 3 hours of photos/videos at least (I purchased Polaroid batteries that died about half an hour into photography. Been there, done that, I guess).
6. Explore the Camera Software that comes with your cam. Many digicams support remote control, that is to say, you can connect your cam to the PC and take autoshots through software. My camera, sadly doesn't support it.
7. Resist the temptation to view the photos on the camera itself. In fact, disable the 2-second long review that comes after you take the shot. Would even save battery.
8. Be alert to your environment. While time-lapsing the sunset on Marine Drive, I had to take pains to prevent beggar children who, excited at the tripod and possibly imagining SlumDog 2, started moving in front of the camera! (My considerate cousin actually told the little girl, "Photo Shoot chal raha hai, 2 minute ruk." Imagine my pride!)

Once your 2500 or so photos are done and you are in the comfort of your home, you may or may not want to do some post-processing to make sure your photos look homogeneous. This is a recommended, albeit tedious step, as it involves a lot of looking back and forth. Adobe Photoshop's batch process feature is really, really helpful, although it freezes after processing about 40 or so batches of 25 each (mostly because of the low space on my C drive).

The final step is to drag and drop the photos in the timeline of any movie-making software, although a word of caution: drag-dropping 2500 photos can and will freeze up your computer for some time. As always, Be patient.
That done, produce the movie, add some snazzy music and you're done!

Hope this little review helps. Drop a comment in case you have any questions!

The thin line between love and hate

2009-02-08T21:10:00.001-08:00

I hate whoever/whatever caused this.

Whoever or whatever? Mostly because I can't be bothered with blame-gaming, something we Indians do only too well. But also because I am too busy rearranging the pieces of my own life and trying to survive through each demoralizing day.

I hate the fact that because someone, [probably] sitting in an air-conditioned room, made some kind of error or complacent oversight, and because [probably] someone, on his high-end mobile phone, made the order to unwittingly proliferate the chaos, I am suffering... I am jobless... I am having to decide between attending a wedding and a reception... I am having to pretend to like a country that I hated for its artifice and honeyed call-center tone of voice as soon as I came here [And no need to get all Oh-My-God-He-Hates-America about it. I like this country for lots of other reasons].

I hate the fact that a month after graduation, I am still 'in school'. Trying to learn stuff I wouldn't have cared about in a better situation. I hate the fact that I am not able to digest it fast enough or well enough to answer tricky questions fired at me by zealous [and admittedly well-meaning] roommates. I hate the fact that when others are trying to learn subject A (which requires knowledge of B and C), I am learning X which is the prerequisite for A, B and C.
I hate my stupid undergraduate education that gave me tonnes of soft skills and an affinity for laziness and plagiarism. I hate myself for not taking the initiative like some of my seniors [and idols] who learned and excelled in spite of the education system, not because of it.
I hate anyone who says, "The Past is Past." To even nurture that thought is to be blissfully ignorant of the fact that the past will come back to haunt you.
I hate that I get thoughts about not fitting in, about being made for other careers; after burning 2.7 Million rupees and 6 years of my life.

And still, because to end this blog now is to admit defeat; because I know that a small set of people have their hopes tied to my handling this situation; I dare to smile at the end of each day.
I like the fact that after burning 2.7 Million rupees and 6 years of my life, I know what I am made out for; what I can and cannot handle; what I excel or suck at. I came to the US for a purpose - to discover who I am. I am closer to my target than I ever was.
I kinda like the fact that I am unemployed, for it means I can cook more and click more :) [Any one who has seen my orkut profile or my photo album to the RHS of this blog will know]
I like the fact that I am learning X, the prerequisite for a lot of subjects. At least I am beginning at the bottom. The trusty JKR says that the bottom sucks, but its a good place to start. I have never agreed with her more.
I am grateful for my undergrad education for giving me at least the ability to talk. I would be nowhere without SFMC.
I still hate people who say, "The Past is Past" :) But I accept that dwelling on the past is no way to fight this particular battle.
I like the fact that this battle will temper us, hammer us into shape to face the war that lies ahead.
So, my best wishes to all of you for a happy and prosperous [not necessarily financially] 2009!

P.S. Check out one of my amateur attempts at Time Lapse Photography below. Also check out a TRULY professional effort by 599 Productions, with amazing music and awe-inspiring footage. The Time Lapse of LAX Airport was especially riveting. This video was my inspiration to try out the whole area of time lapse. Regular visitors to my photo-blog, please be patient... taking 2000 photos in near-freezing temperatures does take its toll on my Clicking finger as well as Hard Disk space!

Friends?

2009-01-02T17:32:00.000-08:00

Season 10, episode 19-20.
It is so hard to register that I am at the last episode... "The last one", which was viewed by over 54 million souls when it aired. I am seeing it six years later, courtesy Youtube [which for some really benevolent reason, hasn't deleted episodes].
It was a journey that began with skepticism in August 2008, on recommendation from my roommate. And after 5 months, I feel that "Friends" was the weight that tilted the balance away from the pressures of the final semester at Tech. An evening of balance-sheeting (and facing hard realities) later, I would turn to another season and another episode, if only to take my mind off things and exercise my increasingly stiff laugh-muscles. Yet another day filled with equations and algorithms would round itself off with dinner at 12 midnight and the prospect of my roommate coming to my room with a full plate, asking, "Friends?" It became so routine that dinners without Friends became bland, tasteless affairs.
Friends walked with me throughout the past five months, and as is the case with such good friends (if you'll excuse the word play), I adopted some of their mannerisms and language. In fact, I now recall that a very good friend (and a fan of the series) of mine [sometimes] talks, perhaps inadvertently, like the 6 lovable protagonists.
Oddly, though, I found myself most attracted to the on-again-off-again relationship of Ross and Rachel, so much that when we saw filler episodes with no sign of that particular sub-plot going forward, I'd be frustrated :)
Although I'd have loved more (at least a 1000 more) episodes, my roommate summed up the follies of such a move aptly, saying, "You have to leave the stage when people are applauding." They quit when they were at a high in terms of viewership and interest. If they'd carried it on, the story would have become diluted, and perhaps I wouldn't have seen the series.

I so want to see it again and again, and treasure those little moments. When Joey realizes that Ross is the father... When Rachel and Ross realize they are having a baby... When Ross reacts to the news that Rachel is pregnant... When Monica proposes... When Rachel says goodbye to Ross... and all those moments that made the Friends life worth living.
Friends wasn't a series of episodes. It was just a collection of moments that simply took your breath away.

I am planning to buy the DVDs from Planet M next time I'm in India :)

Food and lodging

2008-12-24T18:02:00.000-08:00

Wow! I opened Blogger with the sole purpose of blogging today, and found that it has only been about 3 weeks since my last post. Feels like a month or more since I blogged :-)

I'd like to blog about something else. Not the same topic which I have thought about 24/7 for the past week. I'd like to blog about hope where there is none. I'd like to blog about feasts where there is famine. Anything to not think about the same triad - recession, terrorism and money.

I finally moved out of that roach-and-rat-infested urban slum they call 'Homepark', into a plush new (and surprisingly affordable - coming from me, that's definitely true) residence. As my roommate puts it, at least the 'living' part of the Worries (it's been present for so long, it deserves to be a proper noun) is factored out of the equation, so that we can freely concentrate on finding a job in this most perilous of times.

The first day I will always remember. Everything we did, from turning a tap to opening a wood-paneled shelf, was as though we had never ever done it in life! As I gingerly opened everything, wincing when I shut the door too hard and taking extreme care to switch off every light when not needed, my roommate tried his hand at microwaving some coffee. I succeeded in setting the electric stove coil (which is flameless) on fire, and Sandeep managed to let the coffee boil over. Of course, he later proclaimed the overflowing milk to be a good omen, while I had no defense for my blunder...except perhaps, a housewarming yagna? :-)
Perhaps the most astounding discovery was the fact that despite the heater being off, the house was at 70 F. This may not seem like a big thing to all you insulated-house-dwellers, but I cordially invite you to spend a night at my earlier "Homepark" house in January. If you are not a shivering, stiff wreck with vapor trailing from your mouth, I give you another week's stay free! Oh, and you may want to mind the roaches and rats. Try catching a rat with your hands. I did it once.

And the most prominent feature of the house, for me at least, was - any guesses? - the kitchen. Frequent visitors of my Orkut profile will have noticed an abnormally large collection of food photos. Well, I modestly admit that I have acquired a certain - shall we say, taste in cooking. The best way to a man's stomach is after all, through his mouth! Besides, my mom, at least, is relieved that in this age of resume-making, my shaadi ka resume at least (and I'm damn sure my mom will make me one) will have one point worth noticing: "Can cook Rasam, rice and dry sabji in half an hour".
Conditions apply, of course, so if you are strangling yourself in a bout of inferiority complex, don't. Half an hour is the time to set everything on the flame to simmer. I don't count stirring as cooking, obviously. Any half-wit (sorry if I hurt your sentiments :D ) can stir.
[Speaking of someone who can't stir, I'd have to recall my first roommate. His idea of stirring was to stab at the food with a long metallic object, whether it be a pakkad (the tongs that are a staple of any Indian kitchen) or a fork]

On a more serious note, I can take hope that at least two issues that are prime in any student's mind are mostly non-issues, and leave me free to focus on the road ahead.

"Chalta hai."

2008-12-03T21:18:00.000-08:00

7.30 AM in Mumbai, 9 PM in Atlanta. I started the code which I'd just written, running on its 500th iteration. Then I pressed Ctrl-Tab to open topsamachar.com for the latest information on Mumbai.

Like an oft-watched movie, the script had unveiled itself over the past few days. Heads had begun to roll. The media had begun to harp on to any piece, re-running it to the point where even you who were initially horrified, began to inure yourself to the ever-rising death toll as mangled bodies were shown again and again. The inevitable Pak link had by now been conclusively established. Bush had sent someone over.
And yet... something felt different this time. The whole feel of it felt foreign. I wondered what...

I hark back to more than 2 years ago. 6.30PM IST, Dadar Station on the 11th of July, 2006. I remember thinking that the train I'd run breathlessly (as usual) to catch was emptier than usual. And so had been the vicinity of Dadar station, and especially the Dadar Flower Market, which was usually an ebbing and flowing tide of mankind.
As the train pulled creakily away from the station, I jumped on to the 1st class bogie. Without a ticket. It was probably the most comfortable ride ever.
I reached home, mentally prepared for my mom's hot dosas, and was greeted by a frantic mother, who asked me in no uncertain terms, where the hell I'd been.
Apparently, there had been some bomb blasts on the Western Line in the exact time frame that I'd been travelling home on the Central Line. Casualty figures were mounting every minute.
I must have thought a moment about it, or perhaps a minute, or perhaps an hour. Perhaps I must have answered some SMSes, replying that I was safe. And then I probably returned to what I was doing.

Back to the present. I was writing some code with my roommate, when I heard the reporter, "....a week since the horror unfolded...." My roommate wondered, "Wow! Has it really been a week since the attack? Seems like yesterday." That was when I realized what was different: it seemed just like yesterday, as my roommate put it.

Perhaps it was the brutality of the attacks or perhaps it was the audacity. I don't really wish to know. But something has inadvertently forced us Indians (and even non-Indians) to sit up. To not respond to this as "Oh my God! What is happening to the bloody system?" and then change to ESPN. To not let it die down even after a week, which is probably the ceiling of the average Indian's memory of an attack; something publicised in the media as part of "Mumbai's Spirit". To not make us simply repeat the cliches of "We will bounce back" and "We will overcome".

Strangely, however, I feel the remotest, most miniscule sense of guilt. Guilt at not having given a damn when people died in earlier episodes. At not having given it more than a passing thought. Of not having had the patience to brave the long lines, just to get a black-blue mark on my index finger. Of not having hesitated to break the rules on some occasions (however minor) if it meant my own selfish interests were advanced.
I try to be honest and upright, thanks to a superb set of family and relatives and an at times foolishly idealistic set of values. But somehow I feel inadequate. For I am one of a lot of people who do the same; who don't hesitate to bypass the metal detector, and then indignantly berate the hapless guard who later shrugs (Read it Here) and says, "Chalta hai." I myself have stood by and seen an officer of the law shamelessly accept bribery, and then suppress the surge of rage with a "Chalta hai."

I hear the whole world talking about catalyzing change, but how can I raise my voice in support, when I know I am so critically flawed myself? So much so that it has almost become a character trait, almost the ethos of my community? I know I wouldn't hesitate to raise my hand to help a fellow being, but why can't I correct a fellow being who puts a religion, a race, a colour to terrorism?
One may say that this post a thinly veiled accusation upon the world around me, specifically the Indian society, for it is what made me who I am. I agree. But I know that whatever society has made me, it is only I who can unmake the changes, one step at a time.

I'd heard of Candlelight Vigils before, but never bothered to attend them. This time, something made me go, in spite of the near-freezing cold. And as I stood there with my candle in one hand (and digicam in the other - the photographer in me couldn't resist the imagery of the glow from a hundred candles), the presenter sang the anthem with a clear voice. Slowly one, then two, then a hundred voices joined in. As I sang, I saw the vapor from people's mouths evanesce into the night air. And suddenly, a lump choked my throat and I couldn't continue.

Here were just a hundred people in a corner of the US holding candles that would soon be thrown away. However, I hope it meant a beginning of something tangible for some; perhaps, of a life that could shake off old habits and start the real change we all need.

SFMC

2008-10-16T16:34:00.000-07:00

Today, out of the blue, I remembered something that had been the cornerstone of my extra-curricular activities at VESIT. The Students' Forum of Mathematics and Computation (SFMC).

[Funny; as I write the name, I remember Aparna B.S telling me, "Its of, not for." I didn't much realize the significance, but only now do I realize the importance of branding]

I went to the site that had been built/maintained by the webmaster, Pushkar and his juniors. And... it wasn't there. What greeted me was the inevitable 404. Never before did that number mean more. Never before did it bring to bear the full import of what had happened at VESIT in the recent past...

Recently, the honorable principal had taken the questionable decision of dissolving all societies; SFMC wasn't spared either. Of course we pleaded, of course we did all that we could do. But she was immovable.

Cut to six (!) years ago....

I had been given an earful by my sister barely a week into college: "Join societies.... become someone.... formative years of your life.... don't just bury yourself into books...." And so, when the short frame of Aparna B.S walked in (even then, she looked as potent as a compressed spring) and she talked about a Math society recruiting council members, I signed up along with Sahil, who was to become a good friend and confidante. We walked in the next day into class, and our gang pounced on us, good-naturedly pinning the top button of our shirts and congratulating us for joining the geek society :) If only they knew that everyone in the society, no matter how 'geeky' they looked (if ever they did), had a heart of gold...

I didn't realize it then, when I worked till late in the evening planning the events for the semester... when I walked in the hot sun for a meeting with a potential sponsor... when the society's disappointments and victories became my own... when, after I'd been made a General Secretary, I felt so inadequate initially... when, after it was all over, I didn't have to memorize a farewell speech...

What I didn't realize was how really involved I'd gotten with the society.

Wow, I think now. All those events...

I look down at the google result for 'SFMC vesit'. Interspersed with irrelevant results are resumes of past students. Each one of them, at some point, presented some paper or participated in some event. Some of them, admittedly, did it for the so-called bullet in their resume (to use a cliche). I hope some of them took back something from it. The future of this society is uncertain to me at least, but for now, it lives on as an acronym in people's resumes. And I know that when I say the name to some prospective employer, I will always say it out with pride.

Vijaya Dashami

2008-10-09T17:34:00.000-07:00

It was yet another chat conversation, until my friend said:

"Happy Vijaya Dashami, by the way."

My fingers typed an automatic response, but my mind set off on a tangent. I thought, Damn!

I'd completely forgotten!

As my friend detailed his celebrations, most of which, apparently, involved visits to near and dear relatives, I was tempted to hide behind a defensive plea. "But I don't have any relatives nearby!"

But sooner or later, the floodgates had to collapse, and I began thinking...

I live a simple life, mostly. Life, for me, revolves mostly around my friends and family, my computer games and my studies. Sometimes, a few hiccups disturb the peaceful waters along which my boat of life sails, but I bear it, thank God and move on.

A lot of things that I should know, I don't. For instance, I have to scrunch my eyes and try to remember that the capital of Nagaland is Kohima. More to the point, when someone is talking about a mythological story, I do a 'Joey' [a la 'Friends']- that is, I give sagacious nods while desperately clawing at the insides of my skull for any memory of that story.

I never really thought much about how I can remember the specifications of aircraft used in the Persian Gulf war, but have difficulty recalling mythological stories my grandmother used to tell me while feeding me curd rice after school. However, on this Vijaya Dashami, I am compelled to think about this.

I won't go into whether this is right or wrong, for there are schools of thought that support both sides of the argument. What is right, however, is that I make an effort to learn.

Vijaya Dashami is typically celebrated at the end of Navaratri. It commemorates the victory of Goddess Durga over Mahishasura ('Mahisha' meaning bull). [I couldn't resist putting in a little etymology: 'Mahishasuramardhini', meaning vanquisher of Mahishasura]. This event is said to have happened near Mysore.

Maybe I ought to start celebrating festivals in some miniscule way, instead of propping my legs up on the computer table and eating chips like I do every day. It need not be a full-fledged Durga pooja. It has to be some celebration in which I participate heartily and derive complete satisfaction. What could that be?

I leaned back, smiling at the ceiling, for I knew what to do. I went over to the mantel where I kept the religious calendar that listed all festivals and other occasions for the year. Scanning the list, I found the date: Oct 27.

"Hey Sandeep..."

My roommate looked up from whatever he was doing.

"I was wondering... This Diwali, do you want to make Gaajar Halwa?"

From the Hindustan Times, 5 Oct 2008

2008-10-05T15:01:00.000-07:00

Courtesy http://epaper.hindustantimes.com. I liked this article; thought I'd share it with you.

Here is a response to a similar post made by Savita on her blog:

Recently I happened to go thru your blog about skin color racism. I am a dark skinned indian and I am living in Africa. The local africans consider Indians to be racist and even the whites have started mixing with blacks. But rarely indians. And I know few indians who are living with white woman and I know Indians who got married to a black girl. Black people themselves have developed an inferiority complex lot due to societal conditioning. So an awareness should be created thru education. So far no white person treated me bad because of my skin color. But I met with lot of black people trying to tell me that I am black and I am like them. In any discussion with black people, it will finally end up in skin color issue which is not the case with the white people. It is due to the reason the black people are still thinking about how they look rather than what they could do. Its more evident in Africa. Thats the reason why africa is what it is now.

Societal Conditioning... Something that is being practised at various levels in every nation. The idea is not new either. Think Hitler. Think a whole nation being conditioned to hate a race they originally held few, if any, grudges against.

I recently saw 'Bowling for Columbine' by Michael Moore, and one thing he focused on was the excessive fear psychology that had been fed to the masses by American media, politicians etc. So much, in his opinion, that it was an indirect cause of the Columbine killings. [Not altogether far-fetched, in my opinion.]

For me at least, that is enough proof that it is time we moved out of our own stereotypes, albeit self-inflicted. But perhaps we are moving on. I am sure discussions like these and active debates will, eventually at least, help us break free.

The Shrug

2008-09-24T20:46:00.000-07:00

Criminals thrive on the indulgence of society's understanding.

- Ra'as Al Ghul in 'Batman Begins'

It's the shrug that does it.

He witnesses the stereotypical policeman with a fat belly approach the crouching raddiwallah, and not offer the poor blue-collar worker the simple courtesy of a question, but merely extend a calloused hand, asking for a bribe. He then watches the equally mute response of the raddiwallah, handing out a twenty, then another, then another until he is faced with the receding rump of the corrupt government servant.

For a second or maybe more, he feels anger. But with each step that takes him away from the scene he just witnessed, the anger lessens, as though being consumed by the earth beneath his feet that silently witnesses it all.

He shrugs. Ah well, it's not me.

He reads next morning's newspaper over his morning cup of corn flakes, with banner headlines proclaiming the deaths of innocents. Some chocolate-flavoured milk drips on to the table top; he clears it, turning the page only to see more updates of other news issues.

I am so out of it, he thinks.

He shrugs. Yeah, well, I have my own problems.

His first impulse is always a product of his conscience. His first impulse always says, "Have that guy arrested!" or "Report that offence!" Increasingly, however, that first impulse is being lessened in intensity by what his father, or his uncle, or his teacher used to call, being practical. Nowadays, when that first impulse boils his blood, he takes a moment, as his mentors used to say, to think. To think about his own life, his own goals and aspirations, and how pursuing the wildly impractical first impulse to its end will waste his time. Time that could have been spent achieving his goals, whatever they are. Already, the impulse is fading thanks to his focusing on the practicality of the situation, and he 'moves on', with another injustice forgotten, another injustice condoned.

In 'A Wednesday', Naseeruddin Shah, playing his part of the common man [of Laxman fame], highlights society's growing intolerance of all that is wrong. He plays the part of the common man who has finally decided to stop shrugging and start acting. But that begs the question: Has he?

Over the rainbow

2008-08-27T18:35:00.000-07:00

"Damn!"

I let out an expletive as a car whizzed by, spraying multiple jets of puddle water over my clothes already wet from the rain.
Instinct told me to wave a particular finger at the occupant, already a hundred metres away by then, but what came out was a wave and a "thank you!" dripping with sarcasm.
I tried to commiserate with my roommate, Sandeep who had also been a recipient of the uncalled-for shower and was debating returning home. I didn't want to take the trouble of walking back, especially when we had succeeded in covering the 200 metres to that particular junction for a purpose other than classes (Only now, at the head of a particularly slack semester, am I realizing how lazy students - and I don't exclude myself from the species - can be). Ultimately we decided to move on, when Sandeep noticed it. I kid you not, when I say that I was not at all impressed at first. Maybe my mind had formed a mental block to such bright colours, in complete denial of the ability of nature to produce colours of such astounding vividness. Whatever be the reason, what we were looking at failed to make any impression on me: for the first 15 seconds, that is. And then, the reality of it struck me with all its import. What we were looking at, had to be the brightest, most vivid rainbow I had ever seen.

Still reeling from the realization, my ringing ears perhaps failed to hear what Sandeep was parroting over and over: Take a photo! And then, coming to my senses, and perhaps realizing that this was a one-0ff incident, I whipped out my cell phone and took as many pictures as I could. "Wish you had your digicam," Sandeep said. Oh, if he'd known how much I wanted my digicam (I'd foolishly stepped on it, breaking its LCD. Yes, I'm an idiot)! I couldn't help noticing that the rainbow seemed to dim with every photo I took. Part of me was already commiserating with myself, saying that this was meant to happen, that good things weren't meant to last, and uttering all those platitudes that talk a lot but say nothing. We finally walked on, having exhausted our energies talking about how splendid it had been, me wishing there had been more. And then, quite magically, the rainbow brightened again. And it was then we noticed, that there was another, albeit dimmer, rainbow above it!

CLICK PHOTO TO VIEW THE SECOND RAINBOW, ONLY SLIGHTLY VISIBLE

I ran through a parking lot to get a clearer view of the rainbow, arching over the skyline of Atlanta, barely caring about the policemen standing in the corner, watching me with a degree of curiosity. I stood there for a while, drinking in the view. For a moment, it was just me, with no concerns about tomorrow, or next month, or life after MS, or paying off of debts, or dollar dilemmas. For a while, my smile was straight from the heart, and it was like I was over the rainbow, in utopia. And then, a little reluctantly, I returned to my world. But because I was lucky enough to have been given a glimpse of what was never to be, I knew I was taking back a piece of that world with me.

Memories of India

2008-08-22T11:35:00.001-07:00

SUNSET AT MARINE DRIVE

India! I thought as I stepped on to the vestibule, the no-man's land connecting the aircraft to the airport. Ahead of me was a really overweight lady who seemed to have problems walking, I judged by the way she was hobbling along. I was right, for she asked the first attendant she saw, for a wheelchair.
"Sorry, ma'am, no wheelchairs on the vestibule," he said.
The lady was clearly distressed, and voiced her contempt of the shitty rule, but the attendant wouldn't budge, expressing in what I thought was a really useless helpless tone, his inability to help.
"Don't you think that is a really cruel rule?" I asked him, and, not wanting to hear his commiserating response, walked on. As I entered the airport proper, I saw the wheelchairs - with blue-clad workers lounging on them, chatting in Marathi. Typical, I thought wryly, Welcome to India.

After the long wait for my baggage that was thankfully, still pristine, I dragged it on to a trolley (Free trolleys! I thought) and trundled it through the under-construction airport, past the duty free outlet and on to a swamp of people that clamored like they were waiting for some celebrity. Overcoming my initial shock, I looked for a familiar face and found my sister and dad.

The first thing I ate? 2 Vada pavs from Kunj Vihar, in the taxi home :-) Barely had I burped from this rather unhealthy meal, when I espied dad sliding out a very characteristically Indian metal container from a plastic bag. Dosas and Mango Pickle!

A BREATHTAKING VIEW GREETED ME AS I REACHED PALGHAT, MY NATIVE PLACE

Naturally, friends were near the top of my priority list; and it felt good to attach faces to the voices I had heard through the ISD calls made to them for the better part of a year. This girl was more beautiful than I remembered; that guy had become more hep; this one was sporting a new polished look, while that one was still the same. But beneath the cosmetic changes, they were all the same gang of friends that I remembered. Or were they?
"Sorry dude, have work. How about meeting Sunday?"
"Hey, cool, you are back! hmm... Not today, man..."

It was fast becoming clear that, like it or not, my friends had a new set of responsibilities now. And it was my responsibility, in the interests of a long lasting friendship, to understand this and accept it ASAP.

A VERY CLEAN ROAD NEAR ANUSHAKTI NAGAR. HAS INDIA CHANGED THAT MUCH?

The few meetings I had with some very special friends, though, made the whole trip not only worthwhile, but memorable. It was refreshing to know, for instance, that I could still share conversations at the N-th plane of complexity with Savita, frequency-hopping with complete synchronization until one of us gave up [:)]. It was relieving to find that Rani was the same bastion, notwithstanding the pressures of a job that (at least I believe) she was not suited for.
Lastly, it was surprising when I met an acquaintance called Vineet, and talked and talked and talked!

THIS, UNBELIEVABLY, IS A CART-PARKING LOT IN MULUND (W)

Between friends, family, relatives and long solitary walks along Marine Drive, I had the best 22 days of my life in Mumbai. And before I knew it, I was in Bangalore.

NATIONAL GAMES VILLAGE, KORAMANGALA, BANGALORE, WHERE I STAYED

My eyes were unceremoniously dragged open by the rhythmic thumps of the subwoofer in my roommate's room. I felt like swearing, but instead, exchanged a look and a wry smile with my dad who was with me for a few days in Bangalore, while I got settled before my internship. So that's the way it is to be, I thought.
I didn't know that I had barely scratched the surface.

Amid a cold water bath (later pronounced by my 'battle-hardened' dad as too cold to be unbatheable) at 7 AM, leaps out of crowded buses on to the pavement (there wasn't a bus stop where my office was located), attempts to sleep on the cold hard floor, and worst of all, cloth-washing rituals that made me wish for Rani (she claims to actually LIKE washing), life turned out to be quite a bit of a challenge. Worst of all, was the suffocating loneliness.
Not that I was complaining, though. Food, thankfully, wasn't a scarcity, and I gained a significant amount of weight which I could safely lose in the next semester at Georgia Tech without killing myself.

I AND COUSIN 'TRANSLATOR', IN OUR VILLAGE, BESIDE THE TREE WE PLANTED 5 YEARS AGO

The internship as such was a huge mystery, until I finally swallowed my pride and admitted, "I just don't know this." After about the 7th week, my work output increased, probably assisted by my finally making a very good friend who I could roam around with and thereby assuage my loneliness.

A SEASONAL WATERFALL IN THE SAHYADRIS

And all of a sudden, I was bidding my goodbyes on a rain-soaked night that threatened to delay my flight to the USA. Due to some bad planning on my part, we had had to hurry our packing, and a combination of factors led to me checking in without so much as a goodbye kiss to my mom. I shudder to imagine her thoughts on that night. But, all in all, I reached Atlanta, safe in body but utterly dead in my mind, having left my heart and soul in the humid, potholed, overpopulated country of my birth.

Money 2

2008-07-23T21:18:00.001-07:00

Life would never be the same again, he remembered himself thinking, long ago, sitting at a plush cafe in Georgia Tech that spring. While all around him were the flowery signs of spring, the desolate reaches of his soul had been caught in a raging winter blizzard.

One shouldn't be forced to make such decisions, he thought now, walking down the streets of Bangalore, an action that had become mindless enough to be performed without the slightest hint of thought. Money or friends? Who can decide?

On one side was the prospect of saving 38$ a month, something that would cost him the company of a good friend, cooking partner and roommate. On the other was the company of that special friend, in return for a little added worry about money.

38, such a small number, he mused, reflecting on the fact that it meant almost nothing in the US, but the cold reality was that this money came from a country where this number was times 43 in cost, and times 100 in value.

Knowing all this, in what could be described only as a momentary impulse, he had chosen friendship.

He barely remembered reaching his apartment, flopping down on the hard floor and staring at the ceiling fan, as it took him to a different place, a different time...

Lines and lines of numbers, meticulously recorded over the course of a year, fill the pages of the pocket-sized blue book. The expenses for each month are totalled and recorded in the top margin. Each month of heavy spending is followed by a lean one; possibly the result of guilt and belt-tightening. Like the decorative feathers of a warrior headdress, long shopping bills attached to the pages protrude out of the edges. There are shopping bills for almost every single item that was bought during the course of his one year-long stay in the US. Each page represents the headache of totalling bills, come rain, sleet or snow, of adjusting shares and making sure everything stays fair.

His mother sees the book, and an incomprehensible look passes her face. Perhaps she was thinking, he is so like his father.

Was he letting them down? Or was he being firm about what he really wanted?

He thought about what he would rather have; a lifetime in the pursuit of money, or some good times spent with good friends? The answer was painfully obvious in the way he had felt lonely in his initial days in Bangalore; in the way he used to make ISD calls even, to avoid being alone; in the way he had talked 3 hours one day on the phone; in the way even his work output had improved, coincidentally, the day he finally found a friend in Bangalore.

He'd never thought it would come to a day like this. Had it been that day in March, and were he making this decision sitting at that cafe, he knew what he would have chosen. . So yeah, life is not the same any more, he thought with a bittersweet smile.

Office Doodles 2

2008-07-10T23:42:00.001-07:00

Is feeling inadequate a part of work?
If I get the feeling that I am nothing compared to my colleagues, is it needlessly glorifying them?
Will thinking so spur me to work better, to give my all?
What makes me digress from my work and imagine a future where I am being rebuked for my lack of output?
Am I supposed to go through this to find a vocation I like?
How much longer?
If I keep smiling falsely everyday, will I feel happier?
Is someone keeping tabs on when I arrive and leave?
Does anyone give a damn?
Did I go wrong somewhere?
Where?
Why do I feel so guilty whenever I check my inbox?
Am I allowed to say, "I don't understand"?
Can I ask them to repeat their instructions as many times as I like?
Will this make me look like a fool?
Is working really about proving oneself?
How does one not take one's worries at work home?

Is there a restart button somewhere, coz, you know, I'd really like to start over.

Office Doodles

2008-05-27T23:54:00.001-07:00

I wish I could play CounterStrike Condition Zero's Office level in this floor of my office...
I wish that my mode of travel to get home would be to jump off the terrace, sprout wings and fly, X-men style.
I wish this cube were more private, with 4 walls and a roof, retinal scan, voice recognition and fingerprint access (Okay.. maybe a bit too much)... I wish Bang-galore had just ONE of those millions of hotels situated near my office.
I wish there were a pill to dramatically improve concentration and reduce distraction.
I wish the guy who I work with would reduce his talking speed just a notch so I can begin to grasp the alien language he speaks in.
I wish someone would send me a mail right now.
I wish there were a pipe in my cubicle that spewed tea... No no no... Cancel that... Going to the terrace with the excuse of a tea is the best timepass ever.
I wish I had a pair of 8x binoculars to see the military jets that take off from the HAL airport better.

Tagged, eh?

2008-04-27T18:12:00.000-07:00

So... the 'tagged' phenomenon has found its third bakra in the US.. Atleast the third I know of, with the other two being Arvind and Kunal. By some weird logic I have been assigned the letter 'W', so I will write the word which went whizzing through my war-torn brain when I wrote this down:

WHAT?????
As in, What am I doing, playing tag, when I have models in my mind? Not your kind of models, but the Linear Predictive kind, stuff I am cramming for tomorrow's Speech Processing test, feeding to my reluctant brain which barfs it out as soon as I feed it this crap.
As I turn the page to yet another complicated model that supposedly generates speech from white noise, I sigh,

Waste....
An oft-used word by me, picked up during the formative years of my life in VESIT, this word can signify frustration (Waste! Waste! Waste!), boredom (Waaaste...), ridicule (Waste hai tu!), castigation (Waste-giri mat karr!), surprise (Abbe Waste!?) and what not. But the way I use it, it means regret that I wasted (there you go again) 3 valuable credits on Speech Processing.
I need some distraction, so I turn on Firefox to browse....

The Web. Kudos to CERN (If I am right) for pioneering the idea. Sometimes I shudder to think how I will ever survive in the 256 kbps temporal slowdown that my home is in at present. Over here, with a 54 Mbps line, life is one long list of downloads. Now that I think of it, the web has spun its web around me.
Without ado, I start my ritual: checking my mail for the 1 unread message that popped up. As the rainbow colours of Gmail load, I mutter again, Waste. For in the subject line is:

WAYN. Grrrr.... I wish all social networking sites were banned. 'Where Are You Now' is the latest in a long string of social networking chain mails from people who don't think before adding their entire address book in the Forward To list. Don't they know they are at risk of perpetuating a slew of horrendous deaths due to self-strangling, jumping off the top floor, jumping into a hot oven, falling on to a bed of knives, etc? The simple fact that a whole site is formed on the foundation of answering one simple question begs the question:

WHY? My friend at Georgia Tech, Atita, often asks this question in an endearing, Marathi-accented tone. Whaai? Whaai would someone waste their valuable time on answering one simple question? They definitely weren't thinking that people could fall in love like this. Picture this:
Where Are You now?
B:I am in Mumbai.
G:I am in Calcutta.
.
.
.
ummmm.... Okay, bye...
Cya..

Weird.. But equally weird are sites which are riding the Orkut/Facebook wave of popularity.
Weird might be a strong word; but I have never understood the popularity accorded to such sites. For me, the Orkut friends' list is simply categorized into three: People who were my friends, but who I don't talk to anymore due to lack of common ground; people who I met purely online, with who I tried to find a common ground out of what I call a hot-blooded social streak; and finally, a small list of people who I regularly stay in touch with, not through Orkut (where others can read my pant sizes and what movie I watched lately), but GTalk. I don't even use Orkut for its Orkut-like functionalities any more; I use Orkut to watch videos on Youtube and browse other people's Picasa albums (not that Google cares which google product I use)
Wikipedia is the next site I choose to visit; an amazingly meticulous document of historical facts. And predictably, my favourite haunt is...
War

“War educates the senses, calls into action the will, perfects the physical constitution, brings men into such swift and close collision in critical moments that man measures man”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson
If I were to put a finger on when I first found an interest in war, I would put an official date as my 10th standard, when I read and re-read a book issued from the school library; a condensation of 26 books on World War II. I even kept the book over-due, paying a fine quite readily. But, now that I am plowing the very fertile fields of my memory, I recall myself, sprawled on the speckled floor of my home, drawing a war scene from World War II, recreating Pearl Harbor, with fuel tanks burning from a dive-bombing attack by Japanese Zeros. So perhaps the interest was present before.
I suppose most boys would take an interest in war. Guns blazing and all. Boys' Toys, a very good serial on History Channel, focuses on war, from a real Boys angle. I also have an interest in war for the emotional pull [CONTD]

Einstein's equation of doom

2008-04-06T05:40:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I think how anything so horrific as seeing Chernobyl victims 20 years after, heads swollen with Hydrocephalus, or a desolate rubble-covered landscape, or a mushroom cloud that causes minor atmospheric turbulence throughout the world, can be... interesting. But yeah, that is one of my interests.

I have collected, over time, links to some photos and videos that I'd now like to share...

Chernobyl, Russia:
This is a link to a photographic journal by Robert Knoth, about the dangers due to nuclear testing.

Atomic Cannon: This was a towed artillery gun that was capable of firing sub-10kT nuclear shells, tested by the US.

At the peak of the Cold War, the US had Strategic Air Command (SAC) B-52 Stratofortresses circling the Soviet Union 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, refueled by air continuously by a fleet of seven hundred KC-135 tankers. Each of those Buffs carried a Multi-Megaton nuclear warhead, capable of decimating a city.
The most unnerving statistic that gives some idea of the knife-edge that we were living on, is that a Stratofortress was refueled, somewhere in the world, every six minutes.
Perhaps the greatest fear in authorities' minds was of one of those nukes being misplaced, and landing in the hands of a fanatic fundamentalist unafraid of the political consequences.
Ever wondered if any of those nukes were accidentally dropped or lost?

This video talks about the Scorpion 'boomer' (nuclear submarine) that mysteriously sank somewhere between the Arctic circle and the Canary Islands in 1968. The Scorpion's debris was scattered for miles around. The nuke-tipped torpedoes it was carrying, were never found.

The documentary, Nuclear 911, talks about so-called Broken Arrows: accidents involving accidentally dropped, lost or stolen nukes.

It is well-known, that some time after Einstein emigrated to the US, he realized the awesome power his equation could unleash. He knew that the Nazis were researching uses of this equation, and shot off a letter to Roosevelt. This one letter (he would later describe it as the one mistake of his life) set off the chain of events that caused Hiroshima.

It would be pragmatic to say that the nuke would have been invented anyway; Einstein was only preventing it from falling into the wrong hands. But I wonder, what good came of it anyway? He gave it to a country that was prepared to make war to find peace, to kill tens of thousands in order to save millions. The equation shouldn't have been discovered.

2008-04-04T05:47:00.001-07:00

Since I have to attend class in the Van Leer building (circular building seen in photographs), I used to pass by this tree. Around my birthday, and all through March, I took these photographs as the tree metamorphosed into a tree. Spectacular display of colors, especially as I have never seen a tree bear white flowers before.

Places I want to visit...

2008-03-21T15:51:00.001-07:00

When I go to India this summer, these are the places I will visit:

Mulund:
1. Have Vada pav from Kunj Vihar, opposite Mulund station
2. Have 2 extra-butter, extra-spicy Pav Bhajis at the road side stall in RRT road, making sure that I watch him make it :-)
3. Then go home :-)
4. Play a round of Table Tennis with my playing buddies.
5. Go for a walk through Mulund colony and P.K road with Santosh
6. Buy potatoes from the local bhaajiwalla :)
7. Get a haircut at Vijay Hair cutting saloon, and pay less than 100 rupees for the first time in almost a year.
8. Visit each of my friends at their homes and get them to come out with their cricket bats; play in the ground at Chirag's place.

Thane:
1. Gobble 10 Kunj Vihar Vada Pavs all at once
2. Drink in the vista from Sahil Desai's Terrace, eating his mom's Brinjal Fries and Batata wada
3. Trek up Yeoor and have a picnic on the Mama-Bhanja peaks
4. Visit Upvan with Sahil and company, eat Sukha Bhel and watch the sunset.

Chembur:
1. Go on the 399 BEST bus from Vivekanand College to Anushakti nagar.
2. Meet the gang at Tastings and order Chocolate Brownies; watch "Adi" Aditya Naik gobble up ten servings and claim he had only 1.
3. Visit the corridor on the 4th floor of VESIT, a place where I did most of my thinking, pondering, worrying etc...
4. Play a round of cricket in the college ground, reliving my class's victory in the tournament of 2007.
5. Play pool at Acres, if the price hasn't gone up :-P

Other places:
Travel to college by train during rush hour :)
Visit Khau galli, Ghatkopar and empty out their stock of Malai Gola and Pani Puri.
Buy a packet of sukha bhel and walk along Marine Drive.
Travel by the new buses that have sprung up.
Use smart cards to travel by local trains.
Surprise someone at their home and watch the smile on their face as they exclaim, "Oh, you are here???"
Buy birthday gifts for all those whose birthdays I missed....
Buy memoirs for people who are in the US and cannot go home in the near future.

[CONTD]

Money

2008-02-01T09:13:00.000-08:00

DOLLAR WEAKENING. AND THAT MEANS WHAT TO ME??

He looked at the people around him, each involved in some activity or the other. All of them were wearing Georgia Tech T-Shirts. He knew those cost a whopping 30$ at the GT store, Burdell's. Money, he snorted and dismissed the image from his mind, returning to what he was doing - applying for the internships he so desperately needed. It would take away some strain from his parents, the strain of having to pay for an extra semester. Then his eyes flicked back up, to where an Indian girl was bringing a cup of coffee from the nearby cafeteria. The invigorating smell of coffee would have normally left him, a coffee addict, relaxed. But it only served to darken his already dark thoughts about the lifestyles of the new rich. What do the French call it? Nouveau riche?
His thoughts turned a corner, and, moving his mouse cursor absently in an ever widening spiral, he mused about the days when food meant a Vada Pav at the corner shop amid all the flies and dirt. Five rupees. Five. A little over a cent. Twenty rupees - 50 cents - could leave you well fed. And here he was, in this alien country of aliens. Where even after belt tightening, skipping lunch, having tortillas [cheap and tasteless alternatives to chapatti] that were guaranteed to give you a stomach ache, learning to cook [because it was cheaper], missing eat-out parties with friends because of the cost, not giving them treats, having arguments over how much money someone owed you, he STILL SPENT TOO MUCH.
Pride can be a dangerous thing, he reflected, remembering the day he turned down an offer of a pizza from his friend because he didn't want to be pitied. More so, because he would then be forced to give his friend a treat, something he could not afford.
"We should go to Mirch Masala someday.. its this great Indian restaurant with a buffet line.. 8$ all you can eat!" Strains of that conversation came back to him as he recalled a talk with another of his friends, some girls whose company he enjoyed. He'd have to think of some excuse to not spend that money with them...Friendship was becoming a costly affair.
The first piece of advice he had gotten about life in the USA was, "Don't ever convert dollars to INR. You will never survive in the US if you do." He now knew what they meant.
He sighed, trying to return to where he was. But it wasn't the same. Life would never be the same.

Snow

2008-01-16T15:53:00.000-08:00

It snowed today! I was getting ready to attend a seminar [which, incidentally, was by the CEO of Red Hat, Jim Whitehurst (!)] when, on hearing the word "snow", I looked up, and Lo! It was snowing! First snow of my life...

And it was indeed, all that I had expected it to be, me having imagined how it would look and feel and taste, based on second-hand descriptions in all books from Blyton to Potter.
I could not wait for the seminar to get over, and immediately rushed out, strangely the only person hatless. [I would have imagined atleast some enthusiasm from people]. Nevertheless, I had a monkey of a time pelting my friend Varun with snow as he simultaneously tried to capture pictures of me and avoid my snow missiles. It is soft when you pick it up, and indeed, when it falls, it seems like bits of fleece are drifting down. But whow! When you make balls of snow, does it become rock-hard! In those ten minutes of enjoyment, I have to say I laughed more than probably all of my life.

Running through the snow to catch the just-leaving shuttle for home was another experience, with the combination of cold and adrenaline-induced heat creating a wonderful sensation. I couldnt stop smiling, even when the shuttle was stuck in traffic for the whole of the mile-long trip.

People walking under the cover of umbrellas reminded me of a similar day, when it had been raining, back in India. A certain person very close to me, had shut her umbrella and come under mine. Cant deny I didnt feel a stab of loneliness...

I barely noticed, when I swiped a wad of snow from on top of a car, that the occupants were inside, smiling at me! LOL... I didnt care though, and made a ball of it and threw it in the air.

Here's to my first snowfall!

Turtle doves

2008-01-02T17:48:00.000-08:00

"Mr. E.F. Duncan, Owner Duncan's Toy Chest: You see that tree there? Well to show our appreciation for your generosity, I'm gonna let you select an object from that tree that you can take home with you.
Kevin: For free?
Mr. Duncan: Oh yes. May I make a suggestion? Take the Turtle Doves.
Kevin: I can have two?
Mr. Duncan: Well, two Turtle Doves. I'll tell you what you do: you keep one, and you give the other one to a very special person. You see, Turtle Doves are a symbol of friendship and love. And as long as each of you has your Turtle Dove, you'll be friends forever.
Kevin: Wow. I never knew that. I thought they were just part of a song.
Mr. Duncan: They are. And for that very special reason."
- Scene from Home Alone 2

Long ago, I watched this scene from the cute movie featuring the cute kid. I thought nothing of it then. Afterward, long afterward, when I was thinking of "going-away gifts" [a rather sordid phrase I coined] to give to the gang that had become my heart and soul, almost out of the blue flew an image into my mind: turtle doves. Yes, I would give them turtle doves.

I scoured the markets of Mumbai in the search for the small white doves featured in the movie. Aiding in my search was Nirav, who I had met that day, for one last time before he left for IIM Lucknow. He was someone who thankfully understood my determination and, even though it was the last day we would be spending together, he spent the evening walking up and down predominantly Christian Bandra searching for two white doves.

"Cheap Jack", the sign said on the first floor. We climbed the stairs and came into a small gift shop. After practically turning the shop upside down, we found two doves carved in Plaster of Paris against a backdrop of trees and foliage. It looked nothing like the small, delicate ones I had seen in the movie. I did buy almost their whole stock of doves, though.

It is the end of a very lonely Christmas and New Year season here in Atlanta, and God knows I could do with some symbol, something to remember them by.
I am now in the country that probably popularized the tradition of Christmas trees, for all I know. And still, after searching a mall in North Carolina and one here, I havent found them. But yeah, I intend to find 16 pairs of turtledoves.

What is a ghost?

2007-12-28T08:06:00.000-08:00

At my friend Mehul's place for the holidays, I got into a pretty active discussion about the supernatural, mostly with Dev and Sachin Shetye [Incidentally, I never knew how philosophical these guys could be :) ]. We discussed ghost sightings, life after death, etc.. and at about 4 AM, I wrote this marvellous definition of what a ghost is. It may not be accurate; indeed, it may even be blasphemous to some orthodox people, but kindly treat this as fiction, and read it for its imaginative value:

25 Dec, 3.38AM:

A ghost is in you.
How? Well, when you associate with people around you, they know you as an individual. Part of your character is embedded in their conscious, subconscious or both. Thus, all the people who ever knew you, can define you completely.
When you die, what remains is these memories. The conscious can forget, but the subconscious lives on.
[Thus, over time, it may appear to the person that he wasnt REALLY thinking about you, when in fact it was his subconscious that conjured up thoughts of you based on parallels with some real life occurence.]
Now, Picture this: You are long dead, and subconsciously, someone is thinking about you. If their association with you was strong enough, their subconscious will conjure up a sufficiently lifelike illusion of you. Perhaps this image will be so lifelike that they will be presented with an apparition of you. Ghost ready!

Have I just reduced a ghost to a memory? In essence, yes. But I have not reduced its significance by any means. In effect, I propose that a ghost is an entity within man's self, and not an external, floating incorporeal being, as pictured in pulp fiction.

Is this possible?
Einstein said that man uses, on average, only 4 percent of his brain. What if it is the other 96 percent, that, in a blinding electrical impulse, conjured up the ghost? It could happen.

So, a ghost is JUST an illusion? Conjured up by our minds?
Cynically speaking, yes.

THE review of Georgia Tech

2007-10-29T19:18:00.000-07:00

Georgia Tech! The university in many an Indian student's dreams. Or so it is, judging by the fact that 75% of the students in MS CS and 42% in MS EE are Indians. Indeed, one university administrator actually remarked that the flights from New York to Atlanta would not have any American students joining Georgia Tech for MS CS!

Having had the honor of obtaining an admit into this exalted, hundred plus year - old yet laid back institution, I have been swamped by calls, emails and the like, requesting me for feedback on MS in general, and Gatech in particular. Of course, these calls increased exponentially after my mom blabbed to no one in particular [and therefore, everyone] that I had gotten an admit at Georgia Tech... lol...
Being of a kind and helpful nature [ahem...], yet presently neck deep in work, I have come up with this idea that will help people, hopefully, to get an idea of Georgia Tech, MS, GRE, teaching in the US, etc, from a students point of view.

Disclaimer: Please Please Dont take this as Law. These are merely running opinions, and will change as time progresses. At no time will I give ratings on professors, comment on things I dont know about or give half baked information.

That done, Lets Begin!

Character:
Perhaps the best feature of Georgia Tech is that it is set in Georgia, a [supposedly] sunny Southern state with laid back people ready to help. I say supposedly, because the temperature outside has ranged between 57 F and 28 F during the past 2 months.
The temperature of this place oscillates a lot, and where as I first used to castigate my huge double layered winter jacket for being too big, now I am grateful to it for being alive because of it.
A note about climate in Atlanta can be found here.
Personally, I would advise you to buy a double layered jacket; the ones with wool on one side and waterproof stuff on the other, cos it rains at the most unexpected times, and you would be real unlucky if you were caught out in the open with your laptop bag...
AND it snows. And snows hard! So better prepare yourself [see the post "Snow" on this blog]

The people are ready to help. I was walking past the library once, when, as luck would have it, my folder tipped over the wrong way, with open end facing down, and a dozen papers fluttered out. Before I could say, "Damn!", some samaritans were already arranging the papers and handing them over.
Virtually anyone you ask for directions is ready to help, and respond with, "Have a good one!" as a parting shot. Cool... A far cry from Mumbai, where people are crammed together in a crowded train and still havent gotten a look at the one beside them by the time the train pulls into Kurla station.
The Management is a far cry from the long lines that have become an epitome of Mumbai University. An example: When I got into MU, it was through standing in a line for hours. When I got my Georgia Tech Identification, the "buzzcard", I waited exactly 10 minutes. Oh, and did I tell you the ID has an RFID tag and gives me access to all of Georgia Tech? Or, that it is also a debit card, and money can be loaded into it? [Smug Look]

At the Student Center, the hub of all student activity at Georgia Tech, is a pillar set in brown stone. This pillar is a so-called Time Capsule and is supposed to be "opened" at a specific date in the future.
Every hour, on the hour, steam is belched out by a towering pillar at one end of the campus, and a siren sounds.

This is just part of the tradition of this place. And the best part is that, you are immersed in this tradition; it is not some object in a museum that you admire and imagine about. It is a palpable feeling that envelopes you, every living moment.

Coursework:
Man! I could write a blog about this! In a nutshell however, coursework here is completely different from that in India, atleast in MU. Why?
1. Professors here know and like what they teach. In some cases they have pioneered research in that field, so they can give you current information in addition to the basics.
2. Everyone happens to be a PhD with atleast 4 or 5 journal papers to their credit. A professor, Dr. Altunbasak once told me that to be a teacher at Georgia Tech, the requirement is atleast 4 or 5 journal papers, and it is intensely competitive. Beat that!
3. Superb facilities. Although I have only attended classes at the time of this blog, and not visited any major research facilities, I hear that the amenities provided are top notch.
4. Tough and application oriented problems. Homework here is not a 1 hour job.
5. A flow is seen in the course structure. Often, a professor has taught the prerequisite course for a specific graduate course, and he frequently refreshes the prerequisites so that you never feel out of touch.
6. You have to be on your toes all the time. Never have I seen so much information passed on in a 1 hour lecture. Fortunately, lecture video DVDs are available, but nothing like the real thing.

Research, Assistantships, Jobs, Aid:
From what I can gather, if you are not a PhD student, your chances of aid are pretty slim. However, if you have built a vital component for a satellite, or done a BE from an IIT, or have maintained top notch grades in your undergrad, you may get aid even though you are an MS student.
Jobs here are insanely scarce. Even a 2$ per hour job is not to be found here. Maybe it all depends on luck, but for now atleast, the fact that so many students have been admitted into Gatech is stinging. However the most number of jobs are in the HTML and Web development areas. If you know any of these skills, you stand a chance of getting an oncampus job atleast, which will pay your monthly rent and food expenses.
During the exceedingly lonely winter vacations, I would be seen everyday in a corner of Tech, posting my resume for on campus jobs. But I didn't get any job, just the benefit of one interview. It is fastest in, fastest served out here. You better be quick and dirty!

Craziness...

2007-10-11T19:11:00.000-07:00

What is craziness?

Sitting in my dark front porch at night, in near-freezing temperatures just because a stray wireless network is available at that location.

Sitting at that same location with teeth chattering due to the cold, blogging away about how stupid the whole idea of sitting there is.

Sitting at that location just because I want to download a game.

Brrrrr..... Its freezing out here. I am sitting in my front porch at night in a temperature of about 40 F. My teeth are chattering but the only reason I am here is because I have picked up some stray wi fi network signal and am using that instead of the connection at my home.
The reason being Rapidshare downloads... Damn!

Aaah.. thats better. Marginally....
I am back, having wrapped myself in a sweater. Hands are still numb though...
Hope the download completes soon, else I will be the statue of the
"Frozen Downloader".. LOL..

Songs

2007-09-24T19:39:00.001-07:00

Songs that have moved me...

When I'm sad...

"Teri aankhe ab honge kabhi na nam...
Woh beete din, unhe yaad phir se karlo tum......
.....Ki dil tu rona nahi...
....Ek din aayega.. Tu yun gayega..."

- Ek din aayega by Jal

When the schedule gets me down...

"Raah pe kaante bikhre agar, us pe to fir bhi chalna hi hai
Shaam chupa le suraj ko kal, raat ko ek din dhal na hi hai..."

- Yeh Honsla from the movie Dor

When I am remembering my friends...

"Maana bikhra hoon main abhi.. maine khwab piroye they...
Tere saanso me ghum hun abhi....meri chaahat adhuri hai.."

- Bikhra hoon mein by Jal

"Pirona", according to the dictionary, means "decoration". It lends quite a touching meaning to the sentence...

"Teri yaad aaye jab mujhko
Mein laut aaoonga...

woh bheeghi raat aur baarish boonde
mein bheegh jaoonga...

faasle simat na sake..
raste jo mit na sake
in faslo ko simatna hai
in rasto pe chalna hai..."

- Teri yaad by Jal

"Phir se mile jo hum deewane
To yeh samjhen.. To yeh chaahen
Hum bhi rahe, rahe yar hamare jahaan....
Aaye nahi, kabhi hum mein koi dooriyaan..."

- Dil Chahta Hai (Reprise) from the movie of the same name

Cooking . . .

2007-08-17T10:44:00.000-07:00

"Hold thumb on potato and other 4 fingers on potato. Use thumb as the reference to pull back the 4 fingers and peel potato...If completely cooked, it will be soft and the potatos will break, if you just touch them. However if they don't then they are not ready and add H2O to cook..."
- Excerpt from my roommate's leaflet of written instructions on how to cook potato.

When I read the above instructions the first time, it looked like Fleming's Left Hand Rule or some law of Physics...LOL... My roommate had actually gotten written instructions, presumably from his mom or some benevolent auntie, on how to cook some basic food. To his credit, he seems to have prepared well for this US trip!

I know, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, "Yeah Yeah, just coz you have cooked some excessively spicy mixture of veggies with lots of junk and called it food, you think you are a touch above the rest, eh?" I assure you that is not the case. Recently I have been trying desperately to make a decent pasta, having tried every possible combination of my very limited repertoire of spices. But all I was able to do was make something that looked and smelled like pasta, but just wasnt Pasta. So I cannot call myself a cook.

Nevertheless, I just can't help feeling relieved at my love for the kitchen and sticking my nose up a little with pride, when the other occupants of the house ask me, "Hey Vishy, How much salt to add to this? Hey Vishy, I am not sure what I cooked, but can you tell me whether it tastes good? Hey Vishy, What's Haldi in English? Hey Vishy, Tell me how to operate the microwave."

Pride apart, the only thing I can say I have learned, from my few years of having stayed alone in my home in India with a hungry stomach, is to trust my cooking and like it. So.. here's to my cooking... Let me make a pasta [4th attempt].. stomach's growling...

Adventures. . .

2007-08-04T10:30:00.000-07:00

For the uninitated, the ones with a pathetic memory for such things, and for those who chanced upon my blog, this is Vishy, presently in Atlanta, Georgia, US, for an MS course beginning Aug 20 2007 at the prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology, est. 1885.

Arrival in the land of opportunity, as i expected, was peppered with experiences, some good, some quite bad, and some downright unnerving.

Again for the unitiated...etc...etc, my flight took off 12.20 AM on 2[ thats 20 minutes after midnight... I have found that this timing confuses EVERYone :-) ]

I can honestly say that I never saw New York proper. My only view of NYC was a glimpse of a long sandy beach that I think was Long Island's seaface, and then a neat row of toy houses.

Check in at new york.. man! That was bad, coz our flight landed at NY at 615 AM local, and was scheduled for take off at 835 to Atlanta. We had to complete all check in and immigration witihin 2 hours. And it took so much time that I was on the flight at 832 :-x Just 3 min before takeoff...Imagine the tension.. My roommate actually came looking for me before we met each other on the gangway.

After extricating myself out of the seat, I checked out my baggage at ATL airport, only to find that the lock, once pristine, was now gone! Momentary panic followed, complicated by the fact that I had found "Pappa's" [a friend of mine] lovingly wrapped Theplas gone, when I had unpacked some of my luggage.

I surmised that perhaps the authorities had taken them, and laboured under this delusion for around 5 days before finally finding the Theplas hidden in a corner of my capacious bag. Opening the wrapping, I found them covered with mould... obviously. Wasted!

There are NO ISD or long distance phones here! and very very few public phones... As I found out ....the hard way...
We roomies Had gone to Papa John's Pizzeria for one of the last pizzas I would ever have, and I met a guy i knew there. As i chatted, my 2 roomies went off without me... I look back and they are gone! I didnt have a cellphone to call up my roomie's cell and neither did the guy I'd met. So i walked 3 km to the nearest public phone, which was inside georgia tech... And then i find that i cant call my roomie's Florida number as the phone can call only local numbers... I called a person i knew in atlanta and asked him to call my roommate and tell him to pick me up :-)

The people here are super friendly. They greet you with a smile, they help you with stuff.. And they all say hello and how are you and all, on the street while walking.
But They wont really go into it and get chatty and all. The friendliness is skindeep. Just like the city, whose beauty is skin deep. Below the city with its skyscrapers looking like jewels in the night sky, you have crime, stabbings in public places, hospitals that take half an hour to 3 hrs to treat you except if it is an emergency.

[I have actually seen these things first hand or heard em second hand]

The other day, I had travelled with my roomie to the center of town through MARTA which runs a public train and bus service. We wanted to try it out, you know.
As we were inserting coins into the machine for a ticket, my roomie muttered, "Hurry up..." I looked back and saw a hippie, clearly high, mumbling something and shuffling toward us. My heart rate was doing 160 as I hurriedly packed my purse and actually ran from the place into the platform... Man, I had heard that they hit you if you dont give em what they want.

As we walked into the platform, out of breath from running, our breaths caught in our throats, for the entire platform was occupied. Now this wouldnt normally be a cause for tension, but the women for God's sake were 180 kilos... the men all looked like boxers, and wore rap singer wear.

A train thundered in [it actually made so much sound i could nt hear anything else] and we got a glimpse of the people inside. Again all of them looked like they could take a bus headon, and ALL had a Dont-mess-with-me look. The conversation in the bogie dimmed a little as we boarded, and I felt a hundred eyes on me. As we got a seat strategically placed near the exit, I refrained from looking at my roomie, or at any of their faces [or any part of their bodies :-)] or even opening my wallet, for i was afraid of doing anything that wud provoke them ... just imagine sitting rigid for 1 hr...

I stared outside, barely taking in the great skyline, all the while aware that a rowdy gang in the back was poking fun at someone.. Have no idea if it was us...

I was really relieved and shared an un-typable expletive with my roomie when we got at the rather more civilized Midtown station....

The home i have moved into is an adventure in itself. The roaches walk the kitchen tables like they own the place, and when i opened the microwave i saw remains of some long eaten food. The fridge is packed for some reason, even though we are the only occupants. Perhaps it has been left as a generous gesture by the previous occupants of this home [seems more like a curse though.. "You clean my mess"]. Or perhaps they forgot to move it out. There are some closets in the kitchen you simply Do not open, for inside is the source of all those cockroaches :-x Some long forgotten detritus of food...

The owner is a Pakistani by the name of Syed Ali, speaks perfect hindi and has a son called Salman, who speaks hindi rather imperfectly with an American accent. Syed Ali has indian parents from aligarh and delhi and has almost all his family in the US, in Chicago. Reportedly he seems to have quite a good real estate business.

Recently the shower scalded my chest, coz i turned the nozzle on 'hot' instead of 'off'... minor injury though... took it out on the shower curtain, punching it on my way out.

There are locks that dont lock, floor boards that creak like a ghost house, heaters that when turned on, spew smoke, and 'movable' plastic closets that actually break when you close them [ive tried them all], but overall, we are happy for a roof coz everyday we see the rush outside our homes increasing. The situation is quite bad for people coming in to the US this week.. they ve gotta keep persevering for a home close to campus..

One day, we were chatting outside our ghost house.. oops.. our new home... with Ali, when a guy drew up in his car, whose left window was completely gone. He says in an excited voice, "Hey Ali, i was chasing down this bad guy who stole something from this store.. He got away, man..." And then he pulls out a gun and shows it to Ali!

I am like, 'what the ...!'

After he drove off, Ali told us that everyone has a gun here, coz licences are easy to get. Thats it! im gonna get my pepper spray ASAP, not that it has any use against a gun...

More when I get a chance. For now it is gbye from here in Atlanta, at my plush workstation at Student Center in Georgia Tech!

A sobering thought

2007-07-23T09:27:00.000-07:00

Suddenly, like pure, honest white waves lashing rocks on a seaface, the truth came crashing down: I was leaving this country.

I was rinsing my mouth after a dinner of curd rice. I doubt that I would be able to recall, say a week later, what I ate; for like many things, I had taken for granted that dinner would be delivered to me at the computer table by my overwrought mom, as I hunched, ministering to my PC, probably building my 100000-strong city or writing a blog - yet another.
I looked in the mirror, and as I saw my face, the truth struck me. That on the other end, life faces me. And its not the rosy, sky-scrapered, blue-skied future of dollar dreams.

Strangely, the one thing that strikes me is that I will probably have to work for every piece of food I eat. It is weird, imagining having to cook every time you want to eat. Over here, i can take a break when I get too bugged.

Somehow, mom's worries feel momentarily trivial: she is worrying about how to stick labels on to suitcases, whether to seal or to simply pack pickles, and a host of other things.

In hindsight, I am also relieved that mom is doing the worrying as regards such things; for they are important too. I am left in peace to worry about other matters.

Money. Loads of it.
The other day, I spent exactly Rs. 629137.10, in ten seconds, for forex conversion. My momentary awe at seeing a dollar bill for the first time, was later eclipsed by the simple fact that it came from father's provident fund. Lakhs of it, accumulated over years, whisked away in an instant.

Provident [adj]: providing carefully for the future

The future is here. A sobering thought.

The ambulance

2007-07-22T20:48:00.000-07:00

Which scenes can evoke strong feelings in you? I thought I knew, until I saw the ambulances.

The other day, I was in the window seat in a home-bound bus stuck in traffic on SV road, just out of Jogeshwari. Suddenly, the wail of an ambulance siren pierced the honking horns and the stuffy, still air of that monsoon-laden day.
Looking back, I saw an ambulance hurtling down the opposite side of the road going, which was relatively empty. Its driver was clearly in a hurry, and was swerving to avoid the oncoming traffic.

Probably it was because I have never seen this before, although I know that an ambulance has the right of way in an emergency. But a lump formed in my throat and my eyes misted. I couldnt help, unconsciously, praying for the health of whichever poor soul was in that ambulance. I couldnt help praising the dedication of that driver.

Some days later, I saw another ambulance. This one was stuck in the section of road outside IIT powai at the rush hour of 6 PM. Now, for the uninitiated, once you enter this narrow strip at any time between 10 AM and 9 PM, you are doomed to inch forward at 10 kmph.
The vehicle was futilely blaring its siren,but could do nothing, for the traffic was intense. And I couldnt help cursing the authorities for letting the gridlock in that section of road happen in the first place.

How many you have? One...Finally :-)

2007-07-22T20:22:00.000-07:00

Finally got a Fasttrack wristwatch of my own! It has three different time displays, two digital and one analog. Sis gave it to me in a 'ceremony' of sorts recently.. love her for it..

Working...

2007-07-10T10:25:00.000-07:00

I had been working my ass off for another day, in my typical style. Mayur describes it as, "Study in the morning and night, and spend the whole day playing games on the PC". [Never heard of a more concise description.]

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah.. my ass was coming off...

Well, it was literally coming off, as I had had a really painful vaccination done from a rather shady doctor who had a clinic in a nook of Mulund [All vaccinations done here, a signboard proclaimed, reminding me of one of those sex clinics in Kanjur Marg which boasts a remedy for all STDs :-)]
He had inserted a 9 Inch long.... Needle.... into a pore just below my left hip. And after that, MAN, did it hurt for the next one week! My whole body screamed with every step I took.

So, jokes apart, I was hunched in the most relatively painless position I could find, in front of the PC as usual. Not gaming though... I was working on the interminable search for housing.
Dad had told me to create duplicates of his photo while he went to Worli for a letter from his employer.
I generally tend to get engrossed in whatever I am doing at the present, to such an extent that I forget to do other things. Possibly more important things.
I didnt take the duplicates for the next one hour while I tended to my tensions about a place to stay in Atlanta by keeping up the search.

I can imagine dad's consternation when he called me up and I told him I had not gotten to it yet. But then he shouted at me.
Again understandable, coz I had gotten glimpses of my parents' and specifically dad's tensions over the past few days.
Nevertheless, I was left feeling like I had done nothing at all over the past few hours. Why, I had actually left the PC on as I went for a shower, because I did not want to waste time turning it on again! And although I had played the usual game, it was lesser than usual.
I heaved a sigh and tried to forget it and concentrate on leaving for the duplicates.
One sigh was not nearly enough though. When I came home, I tried to emphasize that I had not whiled away the time in front of the PC. But although dad seemed to accept that, my mind was churning.

I moped for a few days, feeling a little like the kid who slogs to make a present for someone, but the end product isn't all that good. I was working. maybe not as much as some of my friends especially a person called 'Chaiwalla'. But, as a friend told me, I had my own way of working hard. And when push came to shove, we both would deliver.

May be mom had noticed the mope, coz she came to the nook where my PC is crammed one night, and gave me a hug. I told her this is how I had felt, and we talked about it. I realized how stupid I was to make a meal of such matters when we had bigger battles to fight. And it was alright again...

Remembering...

2007-07-03T09:55:00.000-07:00

It is said the dead live on through the living... They live on through the memories that their descendants carry with them.

A tired night in June, last week, 2007 was when this happened. As I remember, it was a particularly hectic day, and I was quite ready to sleep. Sudu came home late as usual, squeezed by her IT sweatshop till dry and drained of the energy to think.

As per the unsaid 'norm', we talked for quite a while. Our talks usually range from jokes [the kind you can say only to your sister :-) ], her work, my day, the situation in Afghanistan, why the ice is melting in Antarctica, and Mother Hen's Laundry list.

Late at night, say around 12, the topic shifted to my grandmother, who had been gone ten years. Perhaps it was a coincidence that we were to hold an anniversary on the occasion of her passing, a few weeks later. I, however, think it was much more than that...
I talked about how she used to read stories about Mayil [Peacock] Ravana, a mythological figure, to me, while persuading me to eat my lunch after school.

The topic shifted to how she died, something I hated not knowing.
This topic is a mystery as far as the younger generation in most families is concerned. The mystery is because perhaps, parents do not believe in burdening the minds of children with details of the death of loved ones. Perhaps, they believe it may dent the mind of a child at a formative stage.
But to not know how your grandma [we used to call her "Am'ammai" :-)] died is in my opinion, something bordering on shocking. I cannot explain why I find it so.

I had seen two pots made of water, sealed tightly, kept in the sanctum in our home. When I was young, around the time she died, I saw it for the first time. Not knowing what it was, I shook it slightly, and found that it contained water. It was later that I was told it contained Ganges water.
Sis reminisced about seeing one brass/copper pot of water opened, and its contents being sprinkled on the body. She surmised that that was perhaps the only time the pot of holy water would be opened.
I had never thought about the purpose of Ganges water in our house. I assumed it was just because the Ganges was considered holy. I was little surprised to find myself repressing a shudder.
"She died of cancer, did you know?"
"No."

For some reason, I felt grossly inadequate. How could I not know?
I forced myself to the present, listening to my sister.
"You know, while you had gone on that trip recently, I and 'cousin Translator' were talking. He... we both... have seen her."
Perhaps due to the instinctive link we shared, I somehow knew she was talking about seeing her after her passing on.
One day after she had passed on, during my school days, I had been watching television alone in the house, when it was as if I saw my grandmother silhouetted in the light streaming from a window at the end of a passageway.
"I have too," I said.

"So goddam unfair," I said. The tears came then. I felt my sister pull me closer as my shoulders heaved.

After it felt like thousands of memories had churned through my mind, I finally blinked away the tears and pulled away from my sister.
"You know," I said, clearing my rather hoarse throat, "maybe she lives on through us."

Maybe they manifest themselves in our imagination... in the way we make judgements everyday... in those disjoint memories which suddenly appear in our minds and moisten our eyes. We dont need a face or a voice for the memory of a loved one; it is not necessary.

Living in the present...

2007-06-29T07:03:00.000-07:00

"Ek pair past pe, aur ek pair future pe, tabhi to hum aaj pe mooth rahe hain!"
- From Rang De Basanti

These crude words are quite apt in reminding me to live in the present. Especially when every moment spent with the world around me is a moment to be treasured, only if I remember to look out for them. And that can be done only if I live in the present.

Yet, this is a time when doing so becomes so difficult. Every place, chance phrase or event is a potential trigger for a torrent of memories. What do I do then?

And thus I bring another topicless GD to a close... :-)
BTW even the phrase, "topicless GD" has memories attached...
Happy memories... painful memories...

The joys and horrors of being sculpted...

2007-06-29T06:28:00.000-07:00

Sometime ago, during the last weeks of January, a teary conversation with a pal of mine reminded me that I was leaving. Leaving, as he put it [yes, I had a teary conversation with a Male pal :-) He was Sahil], to become adults.

Sometime ago, during the crazed dance that was life during the final exam week of BE, it became apparent that I was really leaving. That this was the last examination I would be giving here in my country.

Sometime ago, during the material-gathering procedures, I drifted off in my mind...to an airport terminal, where a ticker tape on a billboard proclaimed the words, "Delta Airlines, DL 0017 - Mumbai to Atlanta - On Time." And it became apparent that I was really leaving.

At different phases during the last and most eventful semester of eight, the implications of leaving a country were revealed, like a billowing fog that uncovers a shrouded pathway, a few sections at a time. And finally now, it seems like a significant portion of the hazy road ahead has been unveiled. I hold in my hand a Visa and a ticket to the US.

Ahead of me, until 27 July, the date of my departure, lies a period when I say my last goodbyes. Such a desperately short while, and cut even shorter by the realization that many of my pals leave in start to mid - July.
Ahead also, lies a month during which I gather fragments of memories like pecking at crumbs of bread in the dust. One major chunk of the things I have to do before leaving, will be to 'balance my books'. No, this doesnt involve an accounting operation. I will be writing down some events of the recent past in my diary that went unrecorded, to complete it, so to speak...So that, when I leave this soil, it will be with eyes to the future. Symbolically speaking.

Behind me lie memories of some of my best [and worst] moments with my pals, with my family, with relatives, with unknown individuals I knew for a fleeting moment... Moments and individuals which shaped Vishy. As Michelangelo put it, the sculpture is hidden inside the rough block of stone with which a sculptor starts. It is up to him to uncover it. Time and people were the sculptors in this case...And thankfully, the sculpting continues, for there are a million things I havent learned yet.

The future holds dozens of new sculptors, each of whom will play a part. But the biggest one is me, I suppose. Perhaps I should be the one to decide who shapes me. Perhaps I should not let my character change with every situation. Otherwise, with each scenario, I will change, and thus never become an individual, with a unique and constant identity.
Changing oneself is quite joyful, almost like a breath of fresh air. But what we fail to realize is that such joy is transient.
However...
I used the word 'perhaps' because a grain of doubt remains. I have realized that it is quite harmful, but could'nt it have worked for someone somewhere?

Be your own sculptor... but be prepared to accept whatever you sculpt yourself into.

My Visa Interview - 28 June

2007-06-28T09:59:00.000-07:00

The first thing I noticed about him was his smile. Or, rather, the lack of it.

"Good morning," I ventured as I entered the booth where my Visa Interview was to take place.
He seemed to notice me then. "Oh, hi."
I stepped up and waited, placing my accordion folder on a table. My nervous gaze passed over the hubbub of activity in the background and focused on the rotund, slightly unshaven, bespectacled man with ruddy cheeks caused probably by too much alcohol.

"Can I have the Pink coupon, please?"
I handed over the card that held my appointment number, observing his soft voice, unnatural for his size.

Having memorized the positions of every financial document in my accordion file, 'neatly' organized them into FDs, MFs, PPFs, ABCs and XYZs, and read them raw, I now reflected that it would be a poor show if I fumbled with the clip while opening the folder. I opened the clasp of the folder and waited, for the man to ask for financial documents.
It was never to happen, for the interview was a farce... fortunately.

"What kind of program is this?"
My mind turned the question over, possibly probing for some misunderstanding, before I replied, "Masters in Electrical and Computer Engg."

"Oh..kay.."
"What is your undergrad percentage?"
"65.46%," I replied, my by-now overstressed mind suddenly conjuring up a scene where he professed shock at my 'disgustingly low' percentage.
Just as my mind was yelling, "Concentrate!" he asked me, "In which subject?"
Naturally, given my state of mind, I confused this as "In which subject did you score 65.46?"
I said blankly, "All subjects," my face [possibly] showcasing an expression like "huh??"
"Oh, Im sorry, in which subject did you... you know..."
Oh..

Who is gonna fund you?
How will you fund your education?
What do your parents do?
Whats the total annual income of your parents?
"Congratulations, your visa is granted," he replied a minute and some later. And gave that excuse for a smile again.
"Thank you, Sir!" I gave him the benefit of the most genuine, sunniest smile I could muster.

And thus I got my student visa...

Waves...

2007-04-02T07:23:00.000-07:00

I stare at the 'last post' section of my blogger home page. "Last post on Jan 27, 2007", it reads. Three months, I think.

Jan 27th bring to light another significance. This was the day I brought an LG cellphone. And today, 2nd April, is the day I lost it.
Waves of guilt combined with anger come crashing down, as I reflect on the fact that this is the 2nd cell I have lost. Not just my cellphone. A 128MB SD card's whereabouts are also unknown. A Rs. 1000 cheque, that same cellphone which i lost, my college ID card, all would have gotten lost had it not been for my friends' presence of collective minds.

What a day, I think. We had a project presentation today.
Waves of guilt, combined with anger come crashing down, as I reflect that I never really worked for the project. Sure, I moved PCs to and from my home, arranged for laptops and generally filled in. But I never got down to the bare-bones coding, or soldered a circuit, or designed one. I feel angry for letting "other responsibilities" become a reason for never giving my all for the project.

Other responsibilities...
Waves of guilt and sadness come crashing down as I think of SFMC, the council that made me what I am. Sadness because I think I wasted the final year I had with SFMC. I get the feeling I never gave back anything material to it. I think I was a Society head only in name. I did not lead from the front. But was I a good enough BE Council member?

Cricket. A complete waste of time, and an endeavor behind which I wasted such a lot of evenings practising for. This can be identified from the fact that, all my life I had been a fast bowler, but went into the class team as an opener...
Waves of frustration crash down as I reflect on my scores in the 5 matches we played. I scored decently only in one match, playing till the 8th out of 10 overs. And that too, only because I was injured and had to pick a runner. Not making the calls for runs myself ensured that I did not get run out [I make notoriously poor calls] and therefore, lasted at the crease. Small consolation for a good score.

I curse myself almost daily for wallowing in self-pity after a recent breakup. I am forever cloudy, and it is as though I have forgotten how to smile. I simultaneously cry out for company of my friends, and shun them. I am forever confused as to why all this happened, why this is happening. I want to cry out, I CANNOT TAKE THIS ANYMORE, and I want to shush that voice because I think I am made of better, more stronger material. I feel like a surrounded soldier desperately calling out for reinforcements. Moments of pure happiness are plenty, but as soon as they come and go, I am back in the gutter.
I have responded by multiplying my appetite for food tenfold, and retreating to the PC whenever I get a chance. I play games that center around global thermonuclear war, with the destruction of millions earning you points. I rarely glance up. One day my dad was scolding me for some matter, and I scarcely gave a look at him, preferring the glow of my PC screen. He stopped shouting and went away. I wonder what he thought then.
If you read all of this, you are probably wasting your time. But thank you for lending a (virtual) ear to this sadistic, self-centered, confused, insecure, possessive, oblivious, adamant prick.

A view of Peb and Matheran

2007-01-27T04:08:00.000-08:00

Panorama point in Matheran can be seen to the left and our objective - Peb fort - can be seen to the right. Although it seems like a plain, it is around 1000 feet above sea level. We thought we had neared the end of the trek, but then we saw the peak, soaring high above us...

The forest strikes back!

2007-01-27T03:42:00.000-08:00

Thats cousin Translator in the video, taken by me...
[Sorry, but no sound in the video]

Solitude amidst chaos - The trek to Peb - II

2007-01-05T17:52:00.000-08:00

2 Jan 2007

Home

As I began to make calling lists [a measure to save money, this technique ensures that 15 people are quickly and efficiently contacted by as little as 3], slowly the excuses began, initially a trickle, then a flood. Out of a promising initial number of 12, we were whittled down to about 7 including me. Desperate times called for desperate measures, I reflected, calling my two cousins who were more than willing to come. By the end of the day, even my most robust fellowman was beginning to feel the itch, and "uska bhi sanak raha tha." It took all of my efforts to convince him to hold his own.

3 Jan 2007, 5.33 AM
Mulund station

All said and done, only five, I couldnt help thinking as I sat in a rickshaw with my cousins [who had arrived the night before] hurtling through the chilly deserted streets to Mulund station.

We caught the 5.33 Karjat slow local, Sahil and Mayur having arrived on time for a change. Even their good natured ridiculing at my "poor planning" [that had purportedly caused so many to opt out of the trek] threatened to get to me, but I tried to forget the fact that it was only five of us, and not 15 as I had been hoping since the beginning of time.

Munching contentedly on apples, bananas and oranges brought for the trip, we reached Neral station, but not before we had heard examples of my cousin's literary expertise. It seems, living in Dombivli, he had picked up the native lingo, Marathi, despite being a Southie. If you think that is natural enough, wait till you hear this: He speaks the language like a native! As was confirmed by Sahil. Every inflection, every nuance, even the names of little-known village recipes!

THE SUN RISES, VIEWED FROM THE RAILTRACKS AT NERAL

3 Jan 2007, 7 AM
Neral

Taking happy snaps like any group of tourists, we walked merrily down the road that led to Peb. For the record, we took a left from Neral station [in the direction of CST] and walked along the road, walking past all the Taxis parked for Matheran. The road forked, one going along the tracks and another toward the hills, which was the road we took.

After walking through the village, we came across a big field with palm trees in a straight line. Matheran was visible to the left and our objective was barely discernible through the fog. The environ was ideal, it being around 7.30, and the most perceptible change was the complete lack of city sounds. My initial misgivings about the gang [specifically Sahil, as he seems discerning enough] not liking the trip vanished, as Sahil said, "Perfect!"

MATHERAN VISIBLE IN THE FOG FILLED DISTANCE

PEB [CENTRED], RELATIVELY SMALL AMIDST OTHER MAJESTIC PINNACLES

Locals pointed us toward Peb killa, marked by electric poles stretching one after the other, vanishing over the top of the hills.

After a walk through the plain, we came across a village practically hidden in the brush: Thakurwadi, a hamlet, as my cousin kindly informed us, where the dialect of Thaakri was spoken. He even roped in three juvenile guides for us, translating their directions which were given in the native Thaakri! He.... simply rocks!

2 OF THE GUIDES, WITH A NOW-DRY WATERFALL AS THE BACKDROP

JAYAWANT, RAMESH AND MANOHAR

After bypassing "Thakur Complex", as we jokingly referred to the poor village, the difficult part began. Up and up the track wound, through almost - virgin forest. The three kids had no difficulty navigating the 30 to 45 degree slope, something that was not lost on us as we scrambled clumsily.

PANORAMA POINT, IN ALL ITS SPLENDOR

Even though the slope was so steep, we did not get an idea of the height we had travelled, until we came to a sort of plateau with a view of the valley below us. The only marks of civilization were the electric poles we had seen earlier, the electric tension in them creating a buzzing sort of sound.

THE PLATEAU WITH DRY BRUSH

PEB SEEN FROM THE PLATEAU

If we thought the earlier part was tough, a glance at the path that lay ahead told us that we were barely halfway up. Battling determinedly through plants that seemed to have a life of their own, while all the time going upward, we soon began to feel the heat welling up from inside us, soaking our shirts thoroughly. Cousin Translator had the most trouble, his ample physique not exactly suited for the sort of physical exertion we were being subjected to.

With frequent stops and almost half our water supply gone, we were beginning to seriously question our decision to trek till the top. Our resolve was really put to the test toward the end, when a really steep rocky face daunted us. But Sahil, with his "Animal-like" inner strength, egged us on, leading us to call in our last remaining reserves and climb the rockface. As we climbed, I reflected on the fact that just one wrong step would mean a body tumbling down and down...

2100 Feet! At last, we were on cloud nine!

THATS, LIKE, A 60 DEGREE DROP, DUDE!

I immediately put down my gear and took out my compass, plotting the bearing of various other hill forts in the area. Sahil paid off the three guides, Mayuresh started whining about how tired he was, while cousin took out his cellular and started searching for a carrier. Typical!

CHANDERI [LEFT CENTRE] AND NAKHIND FORTS [FAINTLY VISIBLE, IN BACKGROUND, CENTRE] WITH PEB [RIGHT]

We walked along the ridge that marked the top of the mountain fort, Peb, and came to a halt near a 10 foot rock face. At this point, even the Animal - Sahil - decided he'd had enough. The fact that the rockface had a 2100 foot drop on both sides might have had something to do with his decision, but nevertheless, we decided to call it a day - half a day in fact, for it was only about 10 AM.

THAT ROCKFACE, WITH "FULL NETWORK" CHATTING AWAY

After dabaoing the sumptuous meals our moms had packed unwillingly, we burped contentedly. Sahil and one other cousin - lets call him King RAIT - climbed halfway up the rockface and I, salivating at the rich photographical opportunities it offered, followed them up. Cousin Translator and Mayur stayed down, investigating the vagaries of cellphone signals.

Silence. The howl of a fox in the distance, echoing slightly through the valley. The rustle of the wind through the dry brush. The gentle caress of the midmorning cold, lulling the three of us to a carefree sleep. The distant horn of a train. The buzz of a pair of bumblebees whizzing past.

And then...

"Full Network?"

Aargh! At a time when one is expected to connect with nature, to explore oneself, to think about nothing but the wonders of nature, Translator comes up with a gem of a question that is designed not only to shatter the tranquil sanctity of cloud nine, but also to send the three of us half - asleep souls practically crashing down the hill with infuriation!
[Calm Down, Vishy]
[Deep Breath]

We didnt exactly crash down the hill with infuriation, but the question was so hopelessly practical, so mundane, so I-am-already-missing-the-civilized-world, that we laughed our asses off for the next ten minutes!

SNAKE SKIN THAT SAHIL [INEVITABLY] FOUND

[CONTD]

Solitude amidst chaos - The trek to Peb - I

2007-01-03T18:47:00.000-08:00

Chembur
A week before Christmas, 2006

"'P. E. B'? And where is that??" One of my friends asked.
"Its not an acronym," I said patiently. "Its a fort called Peb, and it is the place for our next trek."

We were, as usual, planning the next "big" trip to a getaway scheduled for the 23rd of December, and I and a compatriot had shouldered the task of planning the trip, a task I love. A trek was chosen as ideal for the kind of weather we were experiencing. A place called Peb, remote and located near Neral in Thane district had been handpicked after weeks of deliberation and frantic phone calls. The date had been chosen mainly because [a] we were bugged after the days follwing the exam made us feel as though the vacations were a farce; and [b] A female member of the group was leaving on the 24th.

"Hmmm..." She said dubiously. "Look, frankly speaking, Ill probably have a hard time convincing my parents that a trip to an unknown place called Peb with me being the only girl is safe. I mean," she attempted to reconcile, "They will probably say yes, but it will be tinged with words like, 'I am sure you know what you are doing.' which indicates their reservations about the trip."

What could I say to the fact that the only all-terrain girl member [if you are reading this, that is a compliment]in our group was doubtful about her coming on the trip? I did not offer any objections as her argument carried weight.

"Chalega, you guys go on an all-boys trip later. No need to rush things through and plan a trip for the 23rd. Anyway, I am going away on the 24th. We girls will come later on another trip."
[We girls...I later reflected on the fact that this phrase which hinted at a coterie of females, in reality referred to only two or three.]

The repartee over, we parted and went about our work. My work being the rather tedious job of advertising a place called Peb, which probably had never seen the inside of an advertising agency. Located almost next to Matheran on the same hill range, it is rather lesser-known than its more commercialized counterpart. Owing to the lack of "amenities" - it is in effect, a rock: climb up and come down - it is preferred only by people like us who scream for solitude.

"No yar... Mere dad ka kaam hai, and I have been putting it off for weeks now due to other responsibilities..."
"Hey, what the...??? I thought we were going to a beach!"
"Sorry man, my sister's coming..."
"I have to go to temple on that day... No, to my mom's parlor..."

A trek that been slated for the 23rd, owing to reasons such as the above, got postponed to the 27th, in coherence with the words of that omniscient female described earlier.

Bandstand, Bandra
Christmas, 2006

I was meeting my pals at this most unsuitable of locations, at the most inconvenient time : 7 PM, a time when the sea is too dark to see, and the beachfront is as crowded as Dadar station in rush hour [the difference being that the population thronging the promenade is composed of couples].

As soon as we settled down a bit from the usual raillery that is characteristic of any group, I gathered them [a relative term as they never really gather] and told them about the plans for 27th.
"27th? Who said so? We are going on the 2nd ! "
In Hindi, mera totally sanak gaya. In English, I got thoroughly irritated by this change of plan after the frantic work of the past few weeks.

As it turned out, many, believing the trip was for the 2nd, had already made plans for the 27th. So I forced myself to go into General Secretary mode, calling up schedules, eliminating possible dates and checking calendars for public holidays. Finally, the 3rd of January was chosen, it being a day when Group Discussion training for MBA aspirants would not be held [according to a rather confident member of our group].

"Don't think about it yar, " one of them consoled me as I slouched about grumpily. But how could they have known how much these trips held for me?
"Most of them will turn up on the 3rd, and to hell with those who don't turn up."
He had no idea how wrong he was...

[CONTD]

Murphy's Law

2006-12-13T07:01:00.000-08:00

"If something can go wrong, it will."

- The original Murphy's Law

The statement above is pithy, and rings true in the most adverse of situations. Indeed, each "situation" in which we find ourselves can have a law associated with it, thanks to Mr. Murphy.

Of course, what you think is a Murphy's Law, may or may not be law, for everyone worth his name has coined one or the other version of this law, causing an agglomeration of statements for a variety of situations, from the most mundane [waiting for a bus] to the most unusual [rocket science].

Dr. Murphy was a rocket scientist who, having borne the brunt of a twist of fate, quoted the above sentence, something that became a maxim for the next 6 decades.

Obviously I was a victim of this law too, else I wouldnt be quoting it to you.

I was at the bus stop in Kanjur Marg the other day, waiting for a bus along a route that most buses ply through.

[FYI, I wanted to go to my GRE counselor's at Tunga Village, along the Saki Vihar Road, or near the Prometric GRE/TOEFL testing center. The buses that go through this route from Kanjur Marg are 396 398 307 424 422 425 :-) Glad to be of help in advance]

The first bus that came, I missed, because I was five metres away, investing some money in a packet of groundnuts. [For 2 rupees, its a great and filling buy!]

The second bus I missed cos I was looking for a bus that would hold my 70 kilo frame in reasonable comfort, and preferably in a sitting position. In other words, this bus was so crowded that I could not have stood in comfort, let alone found a seat.

The third bus was - you guessed it - around 30 minutes late, causing me to have waited for a total of 45 minutes till then. When it finally came, it was well hidden behind another non-destination bus, with a truck trying to overtake it from the wrong end [the left of the bus]. Ever heard of a bus travelling with protective cover??? It was as though the driver didnt want anyone to get on to the bus!

Trying to avoid the truck careening toward us, most of us travellers inclusive of myself tried to get out of the way. But as fate, or rather Murphy, would have it, I was "destined" to step not merely back, but diagonally, causing me to be exceptionally far behind when the bus finally stopped at the bus stop.

Loaded with a folder weighing around 50 kilos and worth my weight in gold, I didnt want to spoil precious documents by running to catch the bus. So.... I left the bus!

Face it; you have to commend me for my patience!

End result: I was immeasurably late for the counselling session, and as coincidence - No, Murphy! - would have it, the supposed-to-be-uncrowded office was chockfull, to the point where people were sitting on tables next to the PCs being operated on by three at a time!

Aah... well...

Performancing for Firefox Rocks!

2006-11-15T04:20:00.000-08:00

This is my second post using the New PerFormancing for Firefox (PFF for short), and I am hooked! I dont even have to log on to blogger.com using the web browser! And the best part - it allows me to make a post anytime I feel like it... and I dont even have to publish it. Can save it as a note.

Take it guys!

A lesson in management

2006-11-05T08:45:00.000-08:00

Pav Bhaji. That eternal epitome of everlasting.... whatever. Words cannot, and should not describe this atomic-bomb-on-a-platter, for if you waste time using your mouth for any other purpose than masticating the spicy red gravy of this dish, you better go to hell.

But I am waxing eloquent here. Perhaps I ought to explain the reason why I am going all verbose. I have before me, a dish full of steaming hot Pav Bhaji. THE dish of choice for all street-food junkies [like me, I proudly proclaim], it drives the edge out of any gluttonous appetite, for the pure reason that it possesses the golden triad - Spice, vice and everything that dieticians will despise! I bought this as a parcel earlier in the day from the Pav-Bhaji Wallah over on RRT road, on a request from [of all people] mom, who wanted desperately to eat something wicked, I guess.

Watching the Bhaiyya make PavBhaji is a sight to see. Combine this with the fact that today was a Sunday, therefore a holiday with extra demand for this dish, and you have something to think about. Any normal shopkeeper would have buckled under the tremendous pressure, but this one was a force to reckon with. Indeed, I bet IIM gives most of its crisis management lessons at a Pav Bhaji Stand on a Sunday!

Firstly, Be Well Prepared. The bhaiyya has all the requisite chutneys and mashed potatoes ready in assorted cans. All he has to do in order to prepare a Bhaji at a moments notice is to mix 'em up.

Know your job. He has two helpers, and their roles are welldefined. One always keeps track of who has made a demand for what. He also keeps track of how much a client has to pay, which hints at efficient job distribution - since he knows each client's demand, it is more efficient if he calculates the cost. The other helps with the logistics: provide plastic covers, salad ingredients, masala and other "materiel".

Be interchangeable. At one point, the load was becoming too much to bear, because there were simply too many orders for bhaji. One of the helpers took an additional spatula, poured ingredients on to the very wide tawa, and both of them started making bhaji together. It was worth capturing; the way their hands moved about the hot tawa without spilling a drop.

Learn your job. The way they do their work smacks of plain and simple experience. There is no substitute for this most basic of lessons.

If you want more proof that Pav Bhaji wallahs require a 6 SIGMA rating, consider this: When I came to the stall, the vendor was handling about 4 orders. In the time I was there, he handled atleast 10 more orders, but still, his stall was empty, with all orders disposed of, within 20 minutes!

Home Alone

2006-10-20T21:05:00.000-07:00

Today is a very significant day in my 21 years of life. Today is the day I ll be left alone in my home, all alone for 5 day, as the family goes on a much-vaunted trip to Tirupati.
As the preparations, reservations and cancellations took their shape over the past few days, I watched on as a detached observer, watching mom cut 2 kg of potatoes, boil some 1 tonne of rice and make loads of idlis, around 16 at a time. Its weird, to see all the hectic preparation going on, yet to think that you wont be going with them.
The reason for my not going was - as usual - Engineering, with its fickle band of rule-setters. A constant flow of rumours concerning the date of the vivas [27th Oct, officially; we return on the 25th] caused my mom to alternate between blue-blooded fury and unfounded ecstasy.

But hey! Look at the bright side. Its like the good old childhood days when I used to play "House". Now I get to play with the real thing...except that in this case, I could actually blow the house up :-)

The Raddiwallah

2006-10-15T08:10:00.000-07:00

"Is it OK if I throw this away?" I asked.

Dad cast a critical eye over the pile of waste paper and gave a long reproachful gaze at the old books I was determinedly throwing off. Dad doesnt like to throw books, you see.
"Yes...." He said, mostly out of a reluctant acceptance of the fact that waste paper, or raddi, as it is called, was becoming a menace. Which was why I had been assigned the job of sorting through and disposing off the agglomeration every month or two, keeping the proceeds for myself.
I was a hardliner when it came to raddi work, never letting off the chance to hurl an old engineering book into the big blue "reserved for raddi" bag. Why? Because the guy over at the paper mart gave money by the kilo. And engg books are historically heavy.
Of course, dad was the exact antithesis of me, unqualifiedly preserving all books.

"Thats it then, I guess," I said, heaving myself up to call up the guy from the nearby paper mart. The lovely aroma of pizza wafted from the kitchen as I made my way to the phone. Tasty...

The raddiwallah sent the kid over to collect the huge pile from my house. I watched as the scrawny kid - he couldnt have been more than 10 - hefted the huge pile on his narrow shoulders and hobbled to his rickety old bicycle parked outside my building.

Some time later, we were at the raddiwallah, his "shop" being a little larger than the average toilet. I had walked ahead, faster than the kid's bicycle - that should give you some idea of how old it was. Wheeling the cycle in, the kid again began the laborious procedure of heaving the pile on to his shoulders, then piling it up on to one of the plates of a pair of rusted iron scales.

"How are you?" the raddiwallah smiled up at me as he started to measure the pile. "Your dad doesnt come anymore." It was a question.
"Well, he is busy, and entrusted this job to me."
We both smiled [I guess we both knew that I was in this for the money :-) ] and made small talk.
I knew this man of old, and had witnessed an example of the kind of life people like him led in this island city. One day, as I was standing, waiting for my lot to be weighed, a police constable, with the biggest paunch I've ever seen, pulled up on his jeep and stomped up to him. The raddiwallah made some small talk, then opened his cash register and gave the constable a twenty. The constable stared at the note, then at the man, then at the open cash register. Again, few words were exchanged as more money changed hands. The constable turned without a word, glancing at me as he walked back.

I looked at the raddiwallah as if to say, What the bloody hell was that?
He shrugged his shoulders in a classic gesture of defeat and said, "This is a daily matter. We have to give them kharcha pani or else they beat us up. I have seen some beatings in my life. Better to keep quiet and give them what they want."
Ever the human rights activist, I remember saying, "Why dont you go to the police station and file a complaint? [This is the best part!] I saw the name on his shirt. Come with me, we will go now and lodge a complaint."
He gave me this strange look, and said, "Rehne do saheb."
But that incident sealed an unlikely bond between us. Not of friendship per se, but of mutual respect.

I now watched as the man totted up the kilograms and calculated the amount I would get. But a slight clink behind me made me turn my head. At my feet was a small girl - probably 5 or 6 years - who, it seemed, was stealing some used glass wine - bottles. The raddiwallah, incensed, shouted at the boy to get the bottles back from her. But the girl stood her ground, repeatedly saying, "These are my bottles." She had these big innocent eyes, I later noticed.

It is not that I do not know the extent of the poverty that hogs India's streets. But the scene unfolding before me brought it into stark focus. Here was this girl, who couldnt even speak properly yet, who ought to be learning A B C, or playing with a doll named Pinky, or playing tag with an imaginary friend, but who was instead forced to steal used bottles from raddi marts.
And here was the kid, who went to posh homes and did the dirty work for them for a living.
Of course, I am sure even the raddiwallah has a story, a reason to employ children.

As I walked back home, I fingered the hundred rupee note that I had gotten from the raddiwallah in exchange for the waste papers. Where earlier I used to be really happy at earning some extra dough to finance my "expenses", today I looked at it insipidly. I would have gladly given it away to that girl or that boy...

My doctor

2006-09-04T21:01:00.000-07:00

I am not a very prone-to-illness kind of person. Illnesses, for me, have always been gadflies which I flutter away with a flick of my hand, impatiently riding them out, waiting for my return to the world. Nevertheless, the times I was forced by fate to slow down and smell the "roses " [Roses being a metaphor for Vicks, Rasam and other concoctions prescribed for some of the common illnesses], I would frequent the doctor at the other end of G street - Dr. Shetty.

Durga Prasad Shetty, MBBS, first began his medical career around the 1970s, with a small clinic, I think in his hometown in Karnataka. He later came to Mumbai, attracted, no doubt, by the varied opportunities. One of the first things he learnt, something I learned early on from him and which shocked me to the core, was that prescription of medicine is very much a cognitive practice. You learn as you go on. There are no books! Nowhere is it written, "Take Paracetamol and Ciprofloxacin, three times a day."

The fact that, not only Dr. Shetty, but the millions of practitioners, prescribe medicine purely on experience, speaks volumes about the medical profession. Indeed, a quote from Erich Segal's Doctors goes,
"Of the thousands of diseases known to Man, medicine has found a cure for only 26. The rest is guesswork."
Profound, I am sure you will agree.

No doubt, in the thirty or so years of his medical career, he has accumulated a lot of expertise. Because his treatments simply rock! One dose of tablets and you are FREE! And no added side effects, a persistent bone of contention for those Homeopathy freaks [I am a "moderate", a proponent of mixed medicine, using the fastest and safest "pathy" for a particular malady] Indeed, I know of no side effects incurred during my three or so years of swallowing his medicine.

Oh, and I ought to add, I have myself gained some knowhow of over-the-counter medicine from this amazingly charming man. Indeed, when I fell ill during a field trip to Ganpatipule, I remorselessly ordered the In-Charge about, in a quest to acquire Paracetamol, Phenylpropanolamine Hydrochloride and Chlorampheniramine Malleate - three drugs used to combat fever.
[Of course, the fact that I had a 103 F complicated matters a bit, and I happened to fall ill again on coming home :-) ]

More than his tech knowledge is his "soft skills", which he uses to amazing effects. As mentioned, he has superb charm, and puts at ease any patient, young or old. Whoever said that doctors are stuck up!

He is amazingly generous. The last visit I made, I saw him waive off the consultation fees for a poor patient, of which there are lots, owing to the proximity of slums to his clinic.
Philanthropy apart, he charges no fees and take no time to churn out medical fitness certificates - documents that are very valuable for many uses nowadays.
Always one with a good word for everyone, he believes in the maxim that kindness cures.

He is really sensible, and doesnt give placebos for common maladies. The day I had a cold, he turned me away, to the chagrin of my mom. [By the way, it was she who forced me to visit him] "Give him a nice bout of Rasam," he said in his characteristic Southie accent. Interesting!

And Oh! Is he funny! Although his brand of humor is not particularly ribtickling, seeing him laugh at his own jibe will inevitably draw a smile from us.

I have seen him angry on only one occasion. A patient entered the "sanctum" [the section where patients are treated] of the clinic without knocking, while Dr. Shetty was administering another patient medicine. He instantly turned him out, crimson in the face. But not one raised word. Intriguing...

He always seems to have this kindly look on his face. Eyes that look benevolently at you, the lids wrinkled and only slightly weighed down, by the ages of experience that he embodies.
It is a huge comfort to know that he is watching over us...

The end - and a revelation

2006-08-22T07:17:00.000-07:00

I was happy. Happier than I ever knew I could be.
I carefully removed the earmuffs from my head, big rubber monsters that were by-now, almost 4 hours later, nearly one with my head. Placing them beside the monitor of the computer I was sitting on, I leaned back as far as my seat went, stretched my arms wide, and gave a kind of silly grin. A grin, that was partly caused by the semi-sensuous, semi-luxurious feeling rushing through you when you take a stretch. And partly by what I was seeing on the computer screen. The screen showed the words -
Verbal - 760
Quantitative - 800
It was the end of almost two years of anticipation. Yes, even though I had started study officially only four months ago, I had nurtured this in my 6 inch- diameter brain for almost two years. Since 2003, which was the year my sister gave the GRE, I had been drilled endlessly by her. I had dreams too, as I have elucidated in the previous blog. Which culminated in today.
A score of 1560. I leaned forward and sent a silent thank you to Him.
I was happy. Happier than I ever knew I could be.

Coming out, I found Mehul, and was happy to know he had secured a solid 1310, despite many setbacks during the course of the exam. As we waited for Mayuresh, our third partner- in - effort, he told me just how concentrated I had been. It seems I was typing so furiously that the Centre Manager came over a few times, presumably to check whether any keys were popping out of the keyboard...lol... So that was why he had been lingering about!

Its been two days hence. To tell the truth, I am a little uneasy. It is impossible not to gloat over such a high score, something which I have always hated. In fact, I have made a conscious effort not to express anything about how I feel :-)

They say I may be the highest scorer in my college for the past twenty years. I advise all readers, specifically those who know me, to take this news with a pinch of salt. Talk about specious information...

But...wow...it is so amazing! I mean, two days before the exam, I was like, on the 22nd, I will either be terribly happy or terribly sad. I am of course, happy that fate selected choice 1, but a grain of doubt creeps in: It could just as easily have been choice 2.

Simultaneously wrestling for center stage with the above thought, is an even more amazing revelation. A little background: I talked to Savita the night before [always talk to "A" girl for a calming effect] and she was confidently confident [sic]. "Tu maarega re, I have full faith in you," she said in that mellifluous lilt that, I am sure, is the prime factor that earned her a 100% trusty rating in Orkut [After you read this, don't hit me tomorrow in college :-)].

Exceedingly happy as I was at this continued faith, the full import strikes me in its entirety now. We tend to underrate ourselves almost as a chronic disease, don't we? My entire life, I have approached exams with the same apprehension. Five days before any exam, I am the same nervous wreck as anybody else. Someone said that tension is good. Now I ask: Is it all that good? I feel almost sure that if I had not been the bundle of nerves that I have been before any exam, I would have scored atleast 10 percent more.

GRE does stultify the mind . . .

2006-08-19T06:38:00.000-07:00

By the way, the usage of a hitherto obscure word in the topic should intimate you of one aspect: I am studying for GRE.
Yes, I am allowing my dollar pipedreams to take a somewhat corporeal form, like millions of students from India.
Well, actually, to call them dollar dreams would be unjustified in my case, as I plan to return to India - My Swades, maybe after around 7- 8 years or a Million Dollars, which ever comes first :-)
Over and above that is my kinda- desire to do something related to aircraft.
Initially I was eyeing Aeronautical Engg, or AeroE as it is affectionately called. But information that the study of this would involve fluid dynamics and other recondite areas of study, obfuscated my plans. So I settled for good ol' EE, Electrical Engg.
Those of you who know me will say, HUH??? What's a Telecom engg doing, talking about electrical? Well, the thing is, the 3 fields electrical/electronics/telecom are grouped as EE.

So....my study plans being laid out - on the drawing board atleast - it is time to pursue the topic of this discussion.
Do studies indeed stultify the mind? They do!
Proof of this was evidenced by me in the week preceding today. For some reason, I felt like mera akkal ghaas charne gaya hai.

My sister was talking about some mundane topic that sisters always talk about. She was justifying the reason why young officegoers always buy Brands. And I was only half listening. It being 1045 in the night, anybody would think it is natural to only half-listen. But the actual reason for my lack of attention was NOT stupor. It was the fact that I was mentally thinking up points with which I would refute my sister's argument.

Is that unnatural? Definitely, if you consider the fact that, in the GRE, there is a section which gives you an argument, which you have to refute.
Weird? You have not heard of weird yet.

How do you make tea? Boil water, add two spoons sugar, add two spoons powder, add milk as reqd.
[Any deviations from the actual procedure are regretted]
I walked into the kitchen and started the flame. Doing all the above mentioned, I was at the stage of adding milk, a crucial step which requires the ultimate in dedication, concentration and temperature control [approximately]

At this point, brain cell number ALH 2001 fired synapse A45. Synapse A45 sent a flash override to nervous center Zulu Alpha, which responded by shooting my brain with Dopamine.

[In English]
At this point, my mind drifted, as it usually does when I make tea, something I have been doing for the past five or six years. I dunno what I was thinking as I poured milk on to the by-now boiling decoction.

hmm, thats odd, I thought. The milk usually mixed beautifully, almost poetically with the tea essence. But today, the color of the boiling decoction was stubbornly golden brown.
Something's wrong, my mind said. Two fatal seconds had passed since the first drop of purported milk hit ground zero. On a hunch, Sherlock Holmes - me - sniffed the jar of "milk".
AND I FOUND THAT IT WAS DOSA ATTA!

I refrain from making any more comments on this issue, as I am so mortified I can feel the blood saturating my face.

One issue: Unlucky coincidence. Two issues....hmm....

But three major issues with my mind are definitely enough to present a persuasive argument in favour of the above mentioned topic.

Third topic:
I HAVE FORGOTTEN HOW TO PLAY COUNTERSTRIKE!

Misinformation at its worst

2006-07-20T01:56:00.001-07:00

I am a regular "Joe". Or a regular Vishy, whichever you like. The point is, turbulent events like bomb blasts, riots and suchlike, dont affect me directly atleast.

Today was like every single day. Having woken up at 5.30 AM and crammed a few more GRE words, I reached my 8.30 AM college at 10.30 AM [kinda late, huh?] and left at 11, sneaking past the gatekeeper.

Reaching Kurla station, I bought a papercone full of my choice Sukha Bhel, boarded a slow train towards Mulund, my peaceful little haven.
Having thrown the bag on the luggage rack, I was leaning on the edge, drinking in the monsoon greenery whizzing past, munching the snack, when I heard someone calling me.

"Hey you...Is that your bag?"
"Yes it is," I said, reluctant to leave my place.
"Carry it with you. We didnt know whose bag it was," he said. "One never knows..."
"Sure." I obligingly picked up my bag from the rack and slung it around my shoulder.

But as I returned to my windy vantage point, the significance of this little exchange dawned on me.
Mumbai was on the "road to recovery" from a spate of serial blasts on local trains in the Western line. Since then, police had been conducting spot checks everywhere, CCTVs had been installed at positions on the overbridge at the slovenly Kurla station and there was an atmosphere of general tension. But all of this had failed to penetrate my thickheaded, middleclass Mumbaiite mind. Until now...

So-called NEWS papers like Hindustan Times and TOI, bastions of the Indian Media, carried news like "STUNNED!" "SHOCKED!" "MUMBAI TOTTERS BACK!" a few days after the event on 11th July.
I have never seen such misinformation in my life. True, the impact of the serial blasts on the mind of the average Mumbaiite has been to frighten him to hell. And still, clad in his offwhite shirt and drab brown pants, carrying his Nokia 2300 cellphone and speaking in Marathi- accented Hindi, the average Mumbaiite plods on daily to his office. Even though he is scared to death, aware that an inconspicuous mudgreen bag like mine, may be the carrier of a deadly dose of Semtex or RDX or Gelatine. Even though he runs the risk of being ripped apart.
Now THATS courage.

Sitting on the sidewalk...

2006-07-07T09:17:00.000-07:00

I glanced at my watch again, standing at the corner of PK and Zaver Roads. She's late again, I thought, not really exasperated. The reason I wasnt exasperated, was due to what I clutched tightly in my hand: 4 new Readers' Digest issues and two novels; one of them was the much awaited [by me] Love Story by Erich Segal. I had been itching to read the novels ever since I got them for 10 bucks apiece [RD came at 2 per issue] from the Raddiwallah. Fine, I thought, since we are gonna be waiting, might as well start now. I saw a marble-crafted signboard nearby with a ledge to sit.

Half an hour later, I was still involved in a very good article ["What Men are really thinking"] in Readers Digest. And still no sign of my sister...
As I shifted my position and shielded myself against the ever increasing rain, I noticed one thing. Every passerby was giving me this strange look. And since it was a busy intersection that I was sitting on, you can imagine the stares I was subjected to..

But the stares got me thinking. Why is it that we are so unaccustomed to doing things we dont normally do? [Ok Ok, I guess that statement was both a question and an answer; we dont normally do those things cos we are not accustomed to doing them] We dont dance in the rain, we dont look at the sky and admire its azure blueness, we dont look at the stars and thank God[or whatever we believe in] for just being alive, we dont luxuriate in the warm embrace of a partner...We dont do all those things we would have otherwise liked to do, because we are afraid of someone looking.
This feeling takes us so far, in my belief, that we are even afraid to help a fellow human in distress, for fear that we might be noticed[atleast some of us have this feeling]. Bad...
But for some reason, I have found that doing these things does bring with it a sense of liberation. When I do a happy skip in the rain, my initial reaction is Ohh..someone might have seen that, but that is eclipsed by the plain fact that 80% of the people on the street havent seen you before, and probably wont again. Who gives a damn what they think? OK, so they think Im mad, skipping around childishly. Mind your own business, I say. In fact, skip around yourself...It will probably do you good...hehe...

From the Vishy diaries - The Singer

2006-05-19T05:05:00.000-07:00

It was the first day of our month-long semester examinations. I was sleepy, tense, and locked up in the typical arcane sequence of routines that precede every exam. Having had a quick bite and ignoring the concerned ministrations of my mother, I had dashed out of home, with a bag in one hand and a tattered copy of Students' Series "Industrial Economics and Management" in the other.
It was when I was seated in the dusty station seat [waiting for a train or my pal Mehul, whichever came first] that I heard it.

In the midst of the announcements for the next train, came a voice singing so melodiously that for an instant I thought someone had turned on an exceptionally Hi-fidelity radio to the FM channel. Then I remembered that even the most expensive radio couldnt reproduce a voice so clearly and faithfully.

One would typically have craned his neck back and forth to locate the source, but I...I was transfixed.

The song sang poignantly of love - some old Hindi song, I guess, but what was important was, no professional singer could have reproduced the fervour with which he sang. Indeed, it was as though he had actually experienced the emotions he sang so ardently about. He sang of love, its immortality, of belonging with the one you love, and it was as if I was transported.
A series of firsts here- it was the first time I was listening to a Hindi song to decode its mystic Hindi words, first time I d sat through three songs without "changing the channel", so to speak...But, well, he outdid the original song by a mile.

Coming to my senses and pushing back the lump in my throat, I searched for the source. He was a reasonably well-dressed man who seemed to be blind, sitting unobstrusively behind a weighing machine. Accompanying his song, he drummed rhythmically on the side of the machine, and the sync was , well, perfect.
By now, a fan following had gathered around where he sat. But the strange thing was, he didnt sing for alms. No, he didnt have the typical aluminium coke can that is characteristic of a Mumbai beggar. He just sang and sang.
As he sang, a curious silence seemed to gather, muffling even the train announcement. His voice permeated every bit of sound.
And the most noticeable fact - he sang uninhibitedly, raising his voice effortlessly and then just as easily lowering it.

If there is one curious nature of us Mumbaikars, it is the fact that, to a degree all of us avoid dragging attention to ourselves. Acts of explicit kindness, generosity, etc, are always guaranteed to drag the public's eyes to us. And to complicate matters, we find this attention unsettling, and avoid doing such things.
By now I was locked in my private struggle -should I give him the coin I was fingering in my pocket? I wasnt normally given to donating my "hard-earned" money.
Part one of my mind said, "Give him the money. "
"What?? You ll draw attention, " said the Mumbaikar part of my mind, scandalised. "Besides, he probably doesnt sing for money, did you see him accept anything from others??"
"No, you have a point," said part one, crestfallen, and shut up uneasily.
But then I saw a man dropping money into his pocket [the singer barely acknowledged it] and the verbal volley started again in my mind.
Sadly, by now, most of the audience had dissipated, and the majority now was composed of unconcerned college students who didnt give a damn. With a heavy heart, I decided it was time for me too, to leave for college.
"Shut up," I told the warring factions in my mind and walked up to him.

"You sing really well," I said, trying hard to show how much I really felt.
He fingered the 10-rupee note [which was what I decided to give him finally] and gave one of the most beatific smiles Ive ever seen.
"Only those who deeply appreciate music would have given this. Thank you. "
I was mildly embarrassed. I was not really the benefactor here.
"Why dont you go into the film industry?" I voiced a doubt that had been growing in my mind.
"Thats why I am here. " said a voice, and as I turned, I saw a fellow- admirer staring up at me.
"I run an orchestra and well, that explains it."

I could say no more, for I was filled with a joy so pure it needed no words. I was-am- happy for the man, happy that he has the privilege of finding a job he loves.

If we meet again, Ill try to sit for his concert.

While trying to find a suitable image for this blog, I came across this - thought Id share it with you...LOL...

A coerced burning of the candle at both ends, owing to ingenuous behaviour on part of relatives...LOL...

2006-05-08T06:23:00.000-07:00

It is the beginning of the PL [preparatory leave]. I desperately try to cram in 3 hours of study in the morning, because I know the rest of the day will be spent Orkutting, Blogging and chatting.
Kinda unsatisfied with my performance over the past sems, I tried to make a schedule for study.[Even alloted time for play...LOL...]

"Complete 3 chapters of IEM," proclaims the schedule for May 07, rather optimistically.
Cramming in a little before dinner the night before, I casually ask dad, "Is it OK if I wake up at 3 tomorrow?"
[Such questions are no longer earth-shattering. At one time, my dad would have asked me concernedly, "WHAT is the matter?" Nowadays he knows...baccha is trying to pass...]

Dad says, "Oh, didnt you know? We are having the so-and-so function tomorrow. All your relatives are going to come. And we all have to wake up at 3 anyways to prepare for it."
[For the average uninititated blog-reader, South Indian Religious Functions require preparation beginning from 3 days before...So waking at 3 AM to ready things is normal...]
The words strike me like lightning hitting a tree. This new maneuver, I am sure, will nip all my plans to get a 65 in the bud.
[Wait a minute, am i being a little too exaggerating here?? One day wont make sure I fail, Obviously]
But I am careful not to comment. You see, such comments may be considered Unreligious by some, more orthodox relatives.

I get to my usual routine before bed at 9 PM, disregarding the trainloads of relatives who are by now flocking to "4, G-street" [My home address].
As I carefully ready the bed, complete with pillow, bedsheet, good-knight and alarm clock, a certain relative called Janaki chitthi asks me, "Can I sleep here?"
Ever the tolerant nephew, I say, "Fine." And I give my place to my favourite chitthi.
Assuming everyone will accept my routine, I switch off the lights and turn over to sleep.
In the midst of a dream involving my best pals, a flash of light pierces my eyelids.
"What...?" I groggily mumble. It is a naive relative of mine, apologising because she wants a towel or something. Ever the hospitable host, I hitch on my best smile under the circumstances, and direct her to the correct wardrobe.
I fall back on to the pillow, only to be interrupted again...and again...and again.
Finally, it is 10.30 PM, a time I consider late. Very late. I have finally drifted off, and the last of the interruptions have ceased.
"Srini, are you trying for MBA?" My chitti chooses this moment to break the ice.
Giving an invisible shrug, I decide to chat with her, by now joined by my sister,whos never been a heavy sleeper anyway.
Fortunately, fate intervenes in the form of my mother.
"Srini, havent you slept yet?" [By now, you must have gathered that I am called srini at home...]
"Oh, sorry, I forgot..." My chitti apologises.
Aah well...

I got only 4 hours of sleep that night...

Grr.....

Breaking news...A flight of fancy

2006-04-30T21:44:00.000-07:00

"BREAKING NEWS!" proclaim the news channels as I switch on the 'box. I read brief snatches, horrified as the typical ritual unfolds...."SURYA KILLED"..."TRIED TO ESCAPE"..."EMERGENCY MEETING CALLED IN DELHI"...
Media jargon would have called this dispassionately, a "scoop", a piece of information so devastating that it is enough to ensure zooming TRP ratings for all the news channel.

The news of the poor engineer's death shocked me, but also got me thinking. How would the US of A have reacted to this?

Well, for starters, the CIA would have had 'assets' [spies] working at the top echelons in the Afghani government. After all, Hamid Karzai, the Prez, himself has a lot to owe the USA. I bet the CIA would have had whereabouts of all the Taliban hideouts currently active.
Faced with news of an American national been kidnapped, they would have launched a 'black' operation [meaning, the agents undertaking this op are doing so without the knowledge of the Afghan government, and will most certainly hang if caught] to extract the hostage. There are specialised outfits to handle such situations, such as the Delta Force.

A lone Apache helicopter flies into the coordinates supplied by the CIA, staying low to avoid enemy radar, with four black-clad commandos. [Delta has always kept a fighting unit small, preferring skill over numbers] Setting the commandos down in a lonely gully, the Apache sets off.
The four commandos immediately set about securing the perimeter and establishing base camp. An encrypted signal is sent to HQ. 'The eagle has landed. Over.'

At 3 AM, the hour of the hunter, they set off, navigating using GPS coordinates from the Magellan satellite system [24 Geosynchronous satellites], accurate to 10 sq.yards. Progress is quick over the featureless desert terrain and they arrive at their destination at 0500 hrs. The hideout is sparsely guarded, depleted by the war with the Americans.

They split up, approaching from four sides. Sleepy guards are taken out silently, efficiently. The hostage is out before the Taliban know what hit them. Escorting the 'cargo' to a waiting 'blackbird', jargon for a US helicopter, the commandos finish off their work, handing off the coordinates of the target to a waiting F-22 flight somewhere in the vicinity.

As the commandos reach the extraction point and board the waiting copter, a muffled boom shatters the clear, quiet morning air. The commandos look at each other. Mission accomplished.

'The eagle has flown. Over.'
That morning, a report arrives of an explosion somewhere in Afghanistan. Rebel warlords are blamed for it.

Quick, quiet and efficient....

A nice forward...

2006-04-30T20:45:00.000-07:00

A Gem . . .usually such mails get deleted, but please take the time out to read the message it delivers...

One day a teacher asked her students to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name. Then she told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down.
It took the remainder of the class period to finish their assignment, and as the students left the room, each one handed in the papers.

That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that individual. On Monday she gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling.. "Really?" she heard whispered. "I never knew that I meant anything to anyone!" and, "I didn't know others liked me so much," were most of the comments..
No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. She never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn't matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another. That group of students moved on.

Several years later, one of the students was killed in Viet Nam and his teacher attended the funeral of that special student. She had never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. He looked so handsome, so mature.
The church was packed with his friends. One by one those who loved him took a last walk by the coffin. The teacher was the last one to bless the coffin. As she stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as pallbearer came up to her. "Were you Mark's math teacher?" he asked. She nodded: "yes."
Then he said: "Mark talked about you a lot." After the funeral, most of Mark's former classmates went together to a luncheon. Mark's mother and father were there, obviously waiting to speak with his teacher.
"We want to show you something," his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket.. "They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it."
Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times..
The teacher knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which she had listed all the good things each of Mark's classmates had said about him. "Thank you so much for doing that," Mark's mother said. "As you can see, Mark treasured it." All of Mark's former classmates started to gather around. Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said, "I still have my list. It's in the top drawer of my desk at home."
Chuck's wife said, "Chuck asked me to put his in our wedding album."
"I have mine too," Marilyn said. "It's in my diary."
Then Vicki, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook, took out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled list to the group. "I carry this with me at all times," Vicki said and without batting an eyelash, she continued: "I think we all saved our lists."

That's when the teacher finally sat down and cried. She cried for Mark and for all his friends who would never see him again..
The density of people in society is so thick that we forget that life will end one day. And we don't know when that one day will be.
So please, tell the people you love and care for, that they are special and important. Tell them, before it is too late.

Temporarily unVIVAilable . . .

2006-04-25T07:10:00.000-07:00

"Are you kidding?" I told Sahil, my friend and council colleague, as we walked along the relatively busy (4 PM) crowd thronging Mulund station on the 24th April.
I had gone to meet him after he came out of the first of 4 vivas that we had in Sem 6, EXTC. His being the first, and mine being the second batch, I could gather valuable "Intel" [short for intelligence...duh...] on the external examiner for my batch, on the 25th.

"Nahi, it is true. Khopdi sab ko faad raha hai!" [euphemism for "We are being wilfully screwed out of proportion!"] I muttered an imprecation under my breath. The news that the external was screwing around with nervous "viva-ees" was possibly the worst piece of info I could possibly get.
As if things could simply not stop getting worse, I was combating a loose stomach (perpetual harbinger of exam time) with parents angry that I was spending too much time blogging, and a sister who returned at 10:30 every night to (Unintentionally) wake me up just as I had drifted into a dreamless sleep. These days, my studyless days were being compensated for, by desperately burning the "early morning oil" - waking at ungodly hours like 2 AM, when the only things that stir are cockroaches, monsters [courtesy Monsters Inc; the movie] and bats.

"Damn!" I said again. Sahil launched into a lecture of sorts of what the external could ask, what he had asked, what he thought of asking, how he faadofied Sahil, and how Sahil was gonna kill him, I was unconsciously ticking or off the questions that I had atleast heard of. You see, in Engineering, having heard of a question ["ohh...kahin to suna hua lagta hai..."] is certain to earn you the appellation of "Sudeep"....LOL.... [well, he happens to be an overstudious guy, stuck to his books, and always with the same flaccid countenance. Never a change of expression] But I stopped counting pretty soon as Sahil launched into a seeming mix of Greek, Tongan and Maori...
" 'Compare loop antenna with half wave dipole," he asked me! The two arent even related! "
"Oh....so they arent, huh? " was all I could manage. As far as I was concerned, my mind was conjuring a Worst Case Response: "Umm...Sir, a loop antenna shapes up as a loop, while a half wave as a half-sinusoid...so they arent related purely because their shapes are different..."
Imagine telling the external that!

By now I was pretty much convinced about my chances, which, incidentally, were less than zero. "How do I pass?" I put it to him, plain and simple.
"Arre, idhar to mere pass hone ke vaande hain aur tu..." [I am at risk of failing here, and you...]
Fat lot of good he was, I thought. But then, thankfully, some other pals arrived, rather more unconcerned about their fate than Sahil, who was looking peaky now, as if he had a fever.
Preferring to leave him to his own self-castigation, I started firing questions.

"Does he faadofy??"
"How much??"
"What were you asked? Did you answer? What did he say? Did he nod or shake his head?"
"Will he fail anyone?"
"What happened to A, B and C? "[names withheld; they were involved in some Jhol with the examiner...and rumors had it that they were 'doooooomed']
"Will he do the same to me?? I havent studied...."
"How many hours did u study? From where? When? How? What? Why? Which one? "

By now, my mind was reeling with information overload. Sahil was reiterating the whole litany to Mehul, who by now must have fallen on his face...
Preferring to leave the crowd to its misery, and remembering the spate of work that I was now supposed to do to scrape thru, I left for home.

Study. Rather, try to. Have a bland meal of Rasam Chaadam around 9 PM. Go to bed early against all the protests of sis, who wants to stay up. Wake at 2 AM, groggy and half-drugged. Nursing a cup of bitter coffee, try to knock up together a skim-thru of all major topics. Leave 15 min before, in Denil's car, which conveniently has Rock music playing, and you cant tell him to turn it off, coz you love the song and, well, he is the benefactor-telling him to turn it off would be rude. So, grin and bear it. Revision goes down the drain as 50 friends throng the corridor, all trying for solitude at the same time, at the same place. Leaving the place for some secluded spot would mean missing out when important tidbits of information[rumors, mostly] are "leaked" by students with contacts. So you stay in the same spot, wasting 2 hours for what would have meant a good revision.

Finally, my number was called. Being Vishwanath Venugopalakrishnan, I am second last. A fact that is never lost on the examiner. I remember back to my Sem 4. Prof. Murugan says, "aa. so. you are the last number, aa? I think i should take some dhing different. aa?"
I blink, finally realising that "aa" means a question. "Whatever you say, sir," I mumble.
I got 18 marks out of 25 in that one, an injustice which still rankles. Well, sorta.

I entered, carefully keeping the jaunt out of my walk and keeping my eyes downcast. Pretending to be a student who has torn KD Prasad [our reference book] apart in his quest to create an ideal antenna....[called an Isotropic antenna, by us misplaced souls]
Eyeing us, the external took our roll numbers. I took a closer look. Sunk eyes, greying pupils. Black grey hair, maybe a touch of dye. Pukka Marathi Moustache. Typical plain [or vertical stripes, I dont remember] shirt, possibly bought at the Dadar flyover. Cheap 2 rupee pen.

This guy was gonna faadofy us, alright.
I gave a surreptitious gulp.

"So," he said finally. "By now you guys must have thoroughly researched up on what I asked till now. Did you?"
"Yes, Sir." we mumbled.
My heart, erstwhile resident of my shoes, rose up to its normal position again. Was this guy actually giving us a chance to redeem ourselves?
My hopes were confirmed. Says he, "Do one thing. Tell me a question that I asked earlier, which was not answered. Tell me its answer and you can go."
I started thinking hard, but it was Denil who took point.
"Sir, why are there holes in parabolic reflector?"
My heart was racing. I cut in, speaking very fast, "ItIsToAvoidWinding..."
"They already answered it," He said. The sly dog!
I rallied, thinking furiously. Some remnant of a question struck me. But it was again Denil who stole my thunder.
Again and again, we chipped in with questions, thinking harder than we ever had in our lives. Indeed, we could have powered a Nuke plant!
But the _______ kept No-Noing as he was programmed to do.
Finally, he said, voice dripping with self-satisfaction, "Main tumhe faad sakta hoon...[I can really screw you...]"

Ohh, yes you can, I thought viciously. Just try once.

At that juncture, the internal, a supposedly familiar prof, interrupted, saying that they had to go to RJ college [to give poor students there, heart attacks, obviously]. Our viva was over.
Well, almost.
The external started writing mysterious figures...80 13 14 16 was what I saw, before he fixed us with a beady eye. "What are you staring at? Do you think these are marks I have written?"
Ohh...welll....
As soon as we exited, we were surrounded by students. The same inane questions that I had wasted time over, were asked again, and this time by students who already had their viva completed. "Go home!" I wanted to yell at them...

Reaching home, all I wanted was peace and solitude. And a gun, perhaps. But I was once again inundated by phonecall after phone call by anxious fellowmates.
How I wish there were a button on your phone that says,
"The number you have called is temporarily unVIVAilable. Please try again when Mars attacks. Thank you."

R.D.B.

2006-04-21T03:47:00.000-07:00

Just got up after watching RDB for the tenth time. Come to think of it, I didnt see any of the movie after the scene where "DJ" and "Karan" die, because by then, I was crying full tilt...

Dunno what moved me so much, that even after having learnt every single dialogue by-heart, I wet my shirt regularly and infallibly every time I re-watch it. I guess one reason, is also the reason why the movie was a smash hit; the injustice, corruption and double-dealing that is so evident in everyday life, is beautifully portrayed.

I have not undergone ten percent of what the protagonists underwent in the 4-star movie. Never had to bear corruption on a daily basis,etc etc. So there is no empathy that I could have felt.
So why did I cry?

Why do people still flock to the movie to patronise the theatres with house-full audiences? Is it just because they are starved for a movie when there is a dearth of hits in Bollywood?

Why do people, especially teenagers, still hum the songs, rattle out the dialogues and rave about the movie to anybody that will listen? Is it just because they revere the movie as any other and try to keep its spirit alive?

Is this movie like any other, or has it spawned a revolution, as armchair discussions about the movie predicted? Almost all the reviews about the movie prophesied an upheaval among the student population, mostly. But has it happened?

I can testify that, to one degree, Yes, it did happen in my college. We protested against the substandard facilities and faculty in our college, to a panel from the National Board of Accreditation. BUT, it did not make any difference, save for the fact that our college did not get accredited, and maybe all we did[according to some of my more pessimist friends] was screw up the careers of average students. So why did we protest in the first place?

The reason why I cried...The reason why the film is a smash hit, the reason why it is so popular, especially among teenagers is that they identify with the character. Inside all of us, we have a "DJ" who is afraid of facing the world where "acche acche DJ pis gaye hain". There is a funloving "Kakke" and a poetic "Aslam" in all of us. We all wish to be like rich, spoilt-brat "Karan", at the same time, want to be as simple-living, high-thinking as "Pandey".

One more reason...it is not that we all have experienced the loss of a loved one. But according to me, the death of Ajay is symbolic. Of the death of honesty and candour in today's life. Plastic smiles on the faces of politicians, movie stars, Ad endorsers. What we see may, in many cases be silicone and Botox. We attempt to replace with chemicals and surgery, our lost beauty, playing Mother Nature.

And the throwback to the earlier times is, in my view, an advice to start living like our forefathers did. Without guile, hardworking and candid. It was this message which many viewers unconsciously identified with.

Cutting to more mundane topics, I simply loved the cinematography, especially the scenes where modern blends into ancient. The songs were first rate. The character of the "villain", James Mckinley, was beautifully portrayed. Unwillingness to torture the revolutionaries...prayers to God for their safety...that takes skill.

RDB Rocks! Reviews anyone?

CUSTOMER I - DONT - CARE !!!

2006-04-11T06:35:00.000-07:00

"HelloThisIsHathwayCustomerCareHowMayIAssistYou?"
"Huh???" I let out, before recovering and saying, "My net connection does not work."
Thats the way to say it, I reflect. Clear, concise. But my self-gratifying reverie is interrupted by the voice of the rep saying...
"Whats the status of the modem lights?"
"Two ON, one blinking, " I rattle off, feeling like a customer care exec myself.
"Is the PC activity light on?" Another way of saying, "Have you turned on the computer?"
"Yes." I say. Of course it is, dumbo. I am not the kind of deranged paranoiac who turns on modems without turning on the PC.

At that instant, the modem decides to relent, having had enough of lording it over the puny mortals who made it. In other words, at that instant, the modem lights turn on, and it registers online. A fact not lost on the exec at the other end of the line.

He says, "Sir, we are continuously monitoring your modem[sounds like a line from Enemy of the State!!!] and, Sir, we find that your modem is registering an online status with high power. So sir, I am forwarding your call to our RF engineering department, sir. They will address your complaint, Sir."

Noting the iterative sycophantic usage of the word SIR, I ask the Million Dollar Question. "When?"

"Sir....[He actually gave a pause at this instant, as if considering the magnitude of the storm of invective that was about to befall him] within the next 24 hours, Sir."
"Thats too long! Have you any idea of how busy I am???" My restraint cracks, and I rattle off a story in which I am supposed to have a submission of a 100 pager report and a paper presentation and am supposed to ISD-call my bro in the USA through my PC. Hmmm...

He dilly-dallies, but is creditably firm on his ceiling of 24 hours.

"OK," I relent. Got better things to do than talking to service reps.
"OK, sir," He says, visibly relieved. "Ill give you a complaint no. which you can give to us any time when you call us. We will address your complaint as soon as possible, Sir."

This is one timesaving system which saves me the cumbersome practice of having to speak out my problem to 15 techies everytime I call Hathway.

As it happens, its been 4 days since the problem with my modem reared up. Not solved yet. Makes you think that the Hathway customer care center runs on Mars time[Cos 24 hours for them is 4 days....]

But cut to the other end of the stick; the receiving end. Hathway, like many such big companies, runs a big network, including a Cable distribution system. While I am certainly not heaping encomium on them for their exceptional customer service, we do have to keep in mind the fact that every customer care exec, behind his facade of stilted would-be formal monotone, is an individual, who has been brainwashed to speak that way. He is just a nine-to-fiver who is looking to finish his shift so that he can go home to a wife, a girlfriend, kids or parents. And it is excusable that he treats us as just a Caller, and not an individual with a genuine problem. After all, we treat him the same way!

I tell you this; the next time you speak to a customer care rep, treat him as a person, not as an IVRS voice without a brain. If he fumbles with his English, switch to Hindi. If he does his job well, say a simple Thank you. Ask him his name. I am sure your problem will be solved faster than you think.

I tried this once with an Airtel Customer service rep called Vibha Singhal, and, you know what?

I GOT HER CELL NUMBER !!!

My Room

2006-03-22T06:15:00.000-08:00

One raging month has passed, filled with birthdays, feverish searches for gifts, a magical time with Pals, turbulence with SFMC colleagues, and frantic posts on my blog.
And today, here I am on yet another day, woken up to try to study, more to appease my conscience than anything. It is the morning of the SFMC symposium MAT[H]RIX 2006, an event that will bring temporary closure to one phase of my career. "5.20 AM!" proclaims the analog clock on my table. After a draught of tasteless "Degree" Coffee [which as mom says, is good for loose bowels, and which I drank against my will] and a few bites of apple [never drink coffee on an empty stomach] I sit down at my untidy workstation, staring tiredly through bleary eyes at the filth. A multitude of wires crawls through the combobulation of books and stationery, as though it were the innards of some space-age monster. Off to one end are the coagulated remains of a candle which I used during the dark power-cut days. A few flash cards, alienated from their fellow mates, lie here and there as if to remind me how many words still remain to be memorised.
The backside of the closed door flaunts a single, small "Post-it", with the words "Dont day dream!" written in red. This is the only vestige of the difficult days during the semester 5 exams, a souvenir that I have preserved to remind myself of my insane urge to prove myself.
My roving eyes move over to the side walls. My room isnt really a room, more a converted balcony. The tiles adorning the walls are therefore multicolored, picked up from the leftovers after decorating the rest of our home. I stare at the collage. And it reminds me of my checkered career. More than that, my multifaceted character.
The cellphone takes pride of place on top of the conglomeration on my desk, a grim reminder of how enslaved I have become to technology. There is no picture of God to adorn the walls. But I dont need a picture of him because I believe when I pray to God, I pray to myself.
The distant whiz of a passing vehicle awakens me from my reverie. I glance back at what I have written. Is my life so depressingly mundane?
I have to rearrange myself . . .

Just why . . . .

2006-03-13T07:02:00.000-08:00

In lectures you waste 5 hours a day copying down worthless junk, and wait for that final bell to ring. A bell which brings with it the more invigorating prospect of extra-curriculars and a chance to hang out with pals...funny how extra-curriculars take up more time than curriculum...

Society work seems to take all day, all week and all the year, at the end of which you find out that all your efforts were for nothing; coz your pals still think you are working for nothing, and the worst part is, even you have no idea why the HELL you are doing it, when you could hang out at MaC or The Acres. After futile meetings which council members use only as a platform for expressing their grievances instead of putting their heads down and working, really working, you trudge back home, resentful with life. And you wonder why. Just why.

You try your very best to hang out with those dear so-called pals, some of whom really dont give a whit about you. [At the same time, many do; they are the gems in junk.] You try your very best to chill out according to their definition of it, which implies staring at anybody with a remotely beautiful figure 24/7, talking in invective, talking about the latest Crap hindi movie, talking about sex, about nonveg jokes, about our most recent porn movie watched, and other crap. When there are a whole lot of topics to talk about. Better topics. "Boring" topics.
And you tolerate it all with forced smiles which are easy to generate on the spur of the moment. But later, you wonder why. Just why.

At home, as soon as you are in, you waste your already spent energy screaming at the top of your voice to TURN DOWN THE VOLUME of the TV coz YOU have a headache. If it was your mom in your place, would you have turned it down???? Would you????
You bang through the house, ostentatiously proclaiming your arrival. Bang goes the sanctity, out the window.
The bag goes flying into its dusty corner, the shoes and socks the same way under the shelf. A trail of removed clothes and undergarments lies in your wake. Without so much as a hello to the woman who gave birth to you, you make a beeline for the machine which has enslaved you- The PC. Straight begins your world of Orkut, IM, Email, XXX....
A cup of steaming tea appears as though by magic at your desk, but you barely acknowledge it, engrossed in your world of make believe. Click click goes the mouse, and the tea grows colder. You then turn away from the PC two hours later, barely satisfied. Only to find the malai floating on your tea.
Yeeuuch! You proclaim to no one in particular. You hate Malai. Furtively, you throw away the whole of the tea and with it, moms effort and love, into the drain. Coz you do NOT give a DAMN.
Bang comes the PL, when you break your head open, wishing u had paid attention to the professor during lecs. Scrape through your exams through a combo of luck and "generous" friends who propogate plagiarism by passing chits. Then, after 5 miserable weeks of vacations during which you try and fail to chill out but only end up erasing your memories of the previous sem, u make the same mistakes during the next sem...chaapofy assignments, criticize the prof who has problems of his own, entreat the professor to give us that extra mark, flirt with girls we are not going to marry...

You take tension over entirely unwarranted reasons. Because your girl friend just said something temporarily bad. Because you fear FEAR.
You eat the roadside VadaPav with impunity, thinking you are immortal. And when blame-putting time comes, you blame other reasons for the ill health you have acquired, unwilling to acknowledge that your diet is your undoing. Dont eat chilli, Dont eat VadaPav, go home and eat, mom tells you, but you think that she is also just concerned over the wrong reasons. [When your Girl friend tells you the same, you obey meekly! But thats beside the point...]
But you do have guilt, right? Coz every time you eat the Vada Pav or the samosa, you wonder why. Just why.

You are unreligious. In the name of Breaking off, of being liberal and independent, you do not follow the same traditions which our ancestors followed for years. You go so far as to question GOD. You curse Him. You ceremoniously reject the possibility that there can be a higher being than your own, puny self. All in the name of being accepted into your agnostic friend circle.
Lets leave the friends out of this. You yourself, try to rationalise. When all is good, there isnt a God. But the shit hits the fan pretty damn fast. And you find yourself performing hypocrisy, praying to the same God you once cursed, and promising that you will break 10 coconuts or sacrifice 20 sheep or make 21 modaks on Chaturti.
DONT you know?? Just Because I gave God 20 more Modaks than you, I wont get more favour. Its whats inside that counts.
But you know, dont u? Because whenever you curse Him, you wonder why. Just why.

You are the next generation, who is going to carry the world on his capable shoulders. HA!

Dear Aparna BS

2006-03-04T05:14:00.000-08:00

Dear Aparna BS:

Hi
The issue of commitment has cropped up again. Mr___[SFMC colleague] today told me that i have lack of commitment bcoz i have not been seen for around 10 days(thats not the exact words he used).
I feel guilty that im not giving time enough for sfmc....i have to ask sahil whats going on, from time to time. you have seen how sahil is better informed than me.
but what saddens me is that he inferred my disappearance as Lack of Commitment. That is a phrase which ppl use for X![an errant fellow council member]
if i had lack of commitment, would i have felt guilty all this while and almost cried today at his words???

i am again losing kgs; i am tense that those project grups which are better than me, may get the project that we are striving for;
i am unhappy at the college bureaucracy, for almost cancelling the TV workshop; im accused at home of putting pals over family; im losing marks again- got 40s in 3 subjects; i have forgotten all 17 boxes that i wasted mornings over; i fear that i may have to study C++ to appear for placements(if i dont get a good score in gre); i fear at what the public will think of me when they find that GRE guy f**ked up(sorry) his future.....
AND on top of that Mr ___ accuses me of being not committed. Real nice. Damn decent of him to tell me on the face; at least its not like last time when ppl were talking behind my back. But then last time, i was guilty and they were right. This time, Im not guilty dammit!
He says someone saw me in the playground a few days back during Knoppix[a sub-event of "C+"]. Where was I when i was not conducting C+ [SFMC event recently conducted]? He asks.
The point is, I WAS in the playground. I was there to convince(scold) M_____[yet another council member] to start working for the TV thing.
M_____ threw the list of registrations from our class in my face, when i simply asked him to convince ppl a little better[to sit for the workshop named C+]. I guess i was a little too harsh; but i was just giving him points from what I had learnt in life. I felt really hurt...(and K asked me to chill and forget it...seriously, over the past 3 weeks, K's been the only one i have been turning to in times of distress. The only vestige of sanity in an increasingly inane world...
And to top it all, I fear that one fine day, Ill lose her to Some one from her own cast, who she does NOT love. Im talking marriage here.

Now do u know where my white hairs came from??

Oh by the way, with due respect, Do not talk to Mr_____, coz i want to talk to him. and explain everything ONCE more.This is my problem, in the end, and I want to try sorting it out.

If you reached this far, I commend your patience at hearing me out :-)
--

The Bard Of Mulund has been buried alive by the poems that he penned...
And with his pen, nay, sword, he shall smite,and all will end...

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http://thebardofmulund.blogspot.com
http://venue4venu.blogspot.com
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KIHIM - a home away from home - Part III

2006-01-17T07:56:00.000-08:00

We came out of the picturesque Birla temple, heading for home. We spent quite some time searching for our Sumo, which was parked out of the way. I chanced upon a Pav Bhaji shop and gave nearby Aakash a knowing look. I was gonna eat, definitely!
As I feasted on the delicious Pav Bhaji, I heard raised voices from the direction where the others were standing. I religiously ignored them, because I knew what they were talking about.

This topic had been brought up earlier. Sahil, I think, had earlier suggested that we all take the evening off at one of the many bars that dotted the place, and have beer. Being the teetotallers that many of us were, we decried his suggestion, something that I thought was just HIS rebellious fantasy. But, as it turned out, he was not alone. Partners in sharing (I refrain from calling them "Partners-in-crime") were Aakash (not a surprise at all; he would have done it anyways) and Nirav.

Let me introduce you to Nirav. Perpetual Mr.Smile of our class, I ve never seen him too busy to talk to me, or give a grimace and say that he was in a bad mood, or verbally abuse me. These traits can be found in quite a few of our very dynamic class, but one thing separates him from the rest, and makes him a "Gem in Junk" (That was for u, K). It is the fact that I have seen him become upset for the most incongruous of reasons. He became upset once, just because the whole class didnt stay together during one particular trip, and formed groups which drifted away like they always do.

I like all my classmates (except 1 or 2) but I hold a special place in my heart for some special people. Chief among them is Nirav. It is not just the fact that he is so likable. He reminds me of Rajesh Khanna in the movie Anand. He lives each day to its maximum; as if it were his last day of mortal life. He is, in a way, what I have always wanted to be - an instant success with everybody. He is my idol.

Assume Aamir Khan is your idol. NOW...Imagine that you find the news papers splashed with news of him involved in a rape case. Shocking? Definitely.
[People say that I think too much. "K" says so. I defend myself, how is it possible to NOT think? God has endowed us with such limitless mental ability. Besides, how can one avoid NOT thinking about someone who he regards as an idol, or say, more than a friend?]

When I found that Nirav too, was involved (Mayuresh was kind enough to come to the stall and inform me), I asked the storekeeper for some more bhaji. I am not going to involve myself in this.
The bhaji suddenly felt tasteless, but I wolfed it down, if only to refrain from going back to the rest of them, who were now involved in some sort of a physical fight. Oddly, even this transgression did not move me.
As I reluctantly turned back towards them, I saw a scene which I am not likely to ever forget.

The argument was divided into two groups, the active ones on one side being Mehul and Aditya, versus Sahil. As I approached them, I heard raised voices, and saw someone give the other a push....its not relevant as to who pushed whom... and then I guess they broke up, and we drifted away. But for a moment there, it felt like I was a silent spectator to our group breaking up.

We walked towards the Sumo after some breaking-the-ice by Mehul. It was then that Mayuresh, his face contorted as though some dear relative had passed away, told me what had transpired. Sahil announced his view; that he was going to have a beer, come what may. The "good" guys tried to dissuade him, especially Aditya. Perhaps he was a little too aggressive, because Sahil flared up and retorted, saying that we, his friends did not have the authority to decide what he ate and drank. The almost-fistfight came later...

I now felt repulsed with myself for not breaking up the fight, for not getting involved. I stared at Sahil, my executive officer and good friend, who I respected for his solid thinking and thrifty nature. And I felt like wringing his neck. How was I ever going to face him straightfaced in a council meeting again?
I stared at Nirav, who was sitting in the front, away from the alcoholics. Throughout the fight he had maintained a remorseful air, and had not taken any side, as though aware he was doing something wrong. Even now, I couldnt believe that Nirav was with them...

SCREW IT, I repeated sternly over and over. Mayuresh was staring at me solicitously. "They want to spoil their lives, I dont care. I am not going to spoil the 24 remaining hours." I told him.
Alcoholics in the back, good guys up front, I thought savagely as Sahil and Aakash boarded the dickie. And then I broke down...

With a wet hand I tried to jam a pair of cells into the CDman. Linkin' Park was my anodyne for suffering. And then I remembered- the CDman was broken. Sweet.
We took a halt at Alibag beach, where I thanked the stars that my cellphone still worked. I needed an escape to sanity...
Finding the most secluded spot available, I dialled the ten digits that connected me to the only girl I knew, apart from my sister, who could console me at such a time.
I told her as much as i could about the events of the past hour, and about how I felt betrayed by Nirav. As always, she was impassive and listened without interrupting, as only "K' can be.
After she had heard me out [I was crying again by then], she propounded the universal maxim that she had been screaming at me for so long - Chill out.[Forgive me if I sound sarcastic here...] Live and let live. If they want to drink and kill themselves, albeit slowly, let them. It is the fact that YOU are not drinking, that YOU have maintained your sanity and probity, which matters.

I shook my head. She was not understanding the gravity of the situation. This was not some penpal we were talking about, this was Sahil, Nirav, trusted friends, and friends watch out for each other. Dont they? I had kept an eye out all my life for my pals, and helped them at the slightest hint of their needing it. So obviously, like a good pal, i should correct their wrongs.
K reiterated her policy of Live and Let Live. She said, rightly as it turned out later, that I had two options : either continue feeling bad and miss out on the fun that was to be had from a great place like this, or kick dust over it and move on.

As it happened, this was the argument that held the most weight for me. Sometimes, just laying out the equation helps a lot...SOMEtimes....

Things perked up considerably after that. Mehul was of a similar view as K, angry but resigned. Of course, he threw in a touch of his irrefutable "Mehul Confidence" - "They wont drink, Im telling you naa?"
And you know what? He was right. They never got to the drink-and-be-merry part, coz of that old villian - Money. Of course, there was an awkward moment when Sahil mentioned to Mehul in a would-be casual voice that he was just going out for a stroll after dinner. Mehul shot me a warning look as if to say, DONT fly off the handle. But they returned pretty soon, meeting us at the beach (I remember checking whether they were walking straight...LOL). After some awkward moments trying to mix with the Would-be-Alcoholics, I wended my way to the resort with them.

I dawdled on the steps with Nirav after the others had gone in. And I asked him...sort of, I popped the question, only it was a different kind of question.
"Why?"
And you know what? He was awkward and shamefaced, and could not answer. Maybe he did not want to admit his obvious cowardice - coming here, away from his parents' accusing stares, to do something his parents would not have approved of. Or maybe he too felt like he was betraying my trust. Either way, he mumbled an apology (as far as I remember) and we went home.

Sleep did not come easy that night though...

KIHIM - a home away from home - Part II

2006-01-12T08:45:00.000-08:00

I awoke the second day, at 6 AM, having done this every day for the past 20 days. The others, some having dozed off in the middle of Sahil's creepy tales, woke up late. With the excuse of buying a toothbrush, I slipped away, making a beeline for the sea which was 150-odd yards from our resort. It was...no other way to describe it...serene. Me and the sea.

"Vishy!" The voices of the others roused me from a reverie, where i was surfing the top of the waves with "K". Oh, well, I thought. Back to reality. And I resigned myself to ha-ha-ing with the rest of them in playful banter.
After loitering about on the beach and clicking happy snaps, we returned to the resort, where we found hot Kanda-Poha with masala chai waiting for us. Not exactly a Mumbai-style filling breakfast, it was, nonetheless, very very tasty, us Mumbaiites having grown on excessively oily junk food.

At this juncture, I should describe the amenities which Shree Resort catered to. The very basic (for Mumbaikars) comfort of hot water was fulfilled, as i later found out, through a large solar heater. Neat!
After enduring the perfunctory advance admonishments of Nani, the caretaker, we took a luxurious bath (too luxurious in the case of Aditya - he was the single factor in our leaving late for that day's outing), we left for Murud - Janjira.
The drive was mostly accompanied by the raucous tones of some hindi singer singing, "Aap kii kashish!" What-the-HELL-ever that means! To complicate matters, my CDman took a fall during a particularly rough section of coastal road, and breathed its last. No Linkin' Park! Damn!
I was distracted, however, by panoramic views of the surrounding plains of the deccan coastline.As we rounded certain turns, we were treated to majestic castle-forts that overlooked the coast and the Arabian Sea. To be honest, I was quite mesmerised, lost in thoughts of a period when the fort must have been active, cannon booming, protecting the hinterland from the strange-speaking invader.

After a slightly queasy ride of 2 hours (the road was twisty), we entered Murud village and headed for the docks.
If there is one thing I hate, it is row boats. To be precise, the stepping on to the boat is the most spine-tingling. What if I fall? What if a slimy seaweed-laden hand grabs me from down under? What if? What if?
After a beady glance at the murky depths separating the boat from dry land, I settled down, DEAD centre of the boat. But anyways, I recovered as soon as the sail was unfurled and sat on the edge like all others.
Many more photographs later, we were on to dry land - Janjira fort.

The complete and stunning history of this fort can be accessed on the internet, so I wont waste precious blogging time describing it. However, a short version atleast, was given to us by an overenthusiastic guide, who spoke perpetually in the present continous tense (Janeka instead of jaatey they, etc etc...One example - San 1600 mein Siddi Zohar idhar aanekey aur killa bananekey!)
After enjoying some ultra-panoramic views of the sea, we turned back. Our boarding of the boat was complicated by a gaggle of excited tourists, who all wanted to sit on one edge of the boat, almost tipping it over. But otherwise, we reached the mainland, safe and dry.

After having a dubious lunch at a veg-nonveg restaurant enroute, we stopped at Kashid beach - another picturesque way to spend an evening. The usual volleyball was followed by a long stroll towards the end of the beach, accompanied by the fire-red rays of the setting sun as it checked out for the day.

After resting our tired feet and bones using some hammocks strung up onsite, we curled up on our Sumo with a hot cup of tea, watching the sun set. I took the opportunity to think of a house, far away, where a girl called "K" was probably getting bored watching Fear Factor on AXN. I had tried my level best to bring her along, but bad luck prevailed. If only I had tried harder, I thought forlornly, watching the wisps of steam curl away into nothingness.

After a ride of about 15 minutes, we entered Birla temple, exactly at the hour of Aarati. Not merely coincidence, I thought, and prayed for a pass grade in all my papers.

We left Birla temple for home. And here the problems began.