The Secret Behind Braiding.

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

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

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

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

Some things done by our ancestors are worth an applaud.

Its the Holidays!!

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

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

The Joy Ride!

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

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

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

Its that Time of the Week !

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

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

Festive Season.

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

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

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

Time to make some cookies! So Trick or Treat?

Caught in the Wave!

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

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

 Ok easy enough now try this...

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

Ok fair enough, now this.

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

And this

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

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

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

A Happy Dasara!

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

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

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

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

Bombing our Beloved Moon

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

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

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

Leaving a foot print...

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

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

Red-Winged Black Birds!

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

To the south of Tundra they go in autumn

Back to Alaska when the spring blossoms

Moving black cloud blocks the sun

Oh its the black birds having fun!

They gather as groups, split in formation

And regroup to the onlooker’s confusion

Do you hear the sound "oak-a-lee”?

A bright red patch you will see

The male black bird is in delight

Singing to impress the female in sight

Oh I see black dots on the fall sky

It is the black birds on migratory fly!

                -Inspired by Wallace Stevens &

                  the Black birds I see everyday

Pookolama illai Idhazkolama?

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

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

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

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

"Green" Pillaiyar - Past and Present

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

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

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

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

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

Sweet Rights

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

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

The Art of Language

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

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

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

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

- In Tamil it is the 12th consonant

- In Hindi it is the 11th consonant

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

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

Our Medicine for Their Well Being

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

Happy Independence Day!

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

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

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

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

Over Protective and Concerned Moms

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

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

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

Looking Outside My Window

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

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

Stop the ADs your Sales will Grow

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

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

Natural Selection - Inspired by Darwin

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

Not a Drug, just a Pain Killer!

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

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

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

Waiting Time

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

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

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

Is Ignorance a Bliss ?

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

Surprise Party

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

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