A Walk (on the Water) to Remember!

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

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

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

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

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

To all you Mac Lovers there...

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

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

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

Has the Technology really Advanced?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spring Romance

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

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

Is Partial Truth a Lie?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When you want to go Left,

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

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

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

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

When all at once I saw a crowd...

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

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

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

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

Is man really at the top of the food chain?

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

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

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

Happy Tamil New Year and Vishu!

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

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

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

Hope you had a wonderful day as well :)

The First Step to Long Miles...

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

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

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

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

Low Post Density

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

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

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

Lion King - Off the Broadway!

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Winter, the Beach and the Stars!

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

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

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

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

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

Subtle Beauty!

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

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

For the Love of the Flag!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Labored, Resolved on its Own!

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

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

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

Not so "Friendly" Friend

Hey Listen, Your "Friend" just called up.

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

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

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

Well Said by Us!

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

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

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

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

"Curb" Appeal of Maharashtra Government!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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