For Whom The Ringer Tolls

"I hate Ashish", she said, extracting another cringing expression from her mother. “All of 21 and no control over her tongue”, add her father with a cluck at the end for added measure. Mr. Prashant Dandekar had an amazing ability to comment on everything without contributing anything. He also managed to do that with the least amount of perturbation. His glasses perched low on his nose, his eyes fixed on the editorial of the Times of India, his universe seemingly perfect. His contribution to his life’s and wife’s troubles were wry comments, and if luck assisted, dry wit. Karuna Dandekar had no shortage of wit. Life’s hardships had set her up for failure and she responded to failure with alarmingly smart cynicism. She always likened her marriage to a blockbuster Hindi movie: it could be bad and still have a silver jubilee. In the middle of all this was their lone star (or black hole, as she called herself), their only child, Anoushka. Fire and water, wind and stillness, all rolled into one. Her smile could turn into a frown momentarily, a happy laughter followed by uncontrollable rage, Anoushka was a very volatile person emotionally. In the midst of the million emotions she felt, love came and overwhelmingly swept her off her feet one day. Actually, it was the torrential downpour that reigned on Bombay that forced Anoushka to be stranded on the road when all moving transport had come to a halt. With her cell phone batteries dead, her knight in shining armor came with his own shining blade, the new silver colored sleek Razr phone. She got through to her worried parents and spent the evening in the foyer of an apartment complex waiting for the waters to subside and chatting to no end with Ashish. Oh yes, the same Ashish she has declared she hates at the start of this story. Who is Ashish, you ask? He is our guy next door, if you had a two storeyed bungalow in JVPD Scheme with three cars, three servants and three dogs next door. Born, literally with a silver spoon, Ashish never had to struggle and was not apologetic about it. Like many rich kids who need a degree for degree’s sake and end up doing a B.A. or a B.Com, Ashish chose to do an engineering degree. Stuck in a storm with his Santro half submerged, Ashish noticed the a frowning yet beautiful face of a girl all but ready to break something in frustration soaking in the rain on that troubled day. The gizmo-freak walked up to her and offered her the new phone he had acquired, fresh of the market; grey market that is. As he watched her punch her home number into the phone and speak with her parents, he was filled with the overwhelming feeling that fills all hearts young and tender when spring goes away and rains bring forth droplets of hope and joy and promise: anger. A car went by and splashed a bucketful of water on all three of them, Ashish, Anoushka and the Razr phone. After muttering the requisite curses and finding their way to an apartment complex where they stepped in the foyer of an apartment wing, they exchanged introductions. Anoushka was too carried away in love to bother hiding it. Her eyes, her hands, her heart all betrayed her as she reached for the one that had taken over her entire self. They say love happens in an instance, and Anoushka barely needed a nanosecond to be convinced. Her life had changed in that moment forever. She looked at Ashish and spelt her heart’s wishes to him without hesitation, a trademark Anoushka moment where instinct led the way. Ashish smiled first, and in moments the smile had grown to a wide laughter that spilt over the narrow confines of their shelter. Undecipherable in the laughter were a nod and a muffled ‘Yes’ from the man who never thought life would surprise him thus.

"I hate Ashish", she said, as her mother took her cringing expression towards the door. The door bell had rung twice and Karuna Dandekar took towards it, a helpless mother on a rescue mission. Ashish was waiting on the other side, pacing two steps to his side, restless in anticipation. He had thought long and hard about it, and had decided that he would not pawn his life this way. He valued his independence above all else. A relationship would cost him dear. He would lose his friends, family, everyone he ever knew. Never again would he speak with them. Never again would he sit in an airport and play games and stare at the good looking women passing by. Never again would he be able to wake up on time. Never again would he be able to stand among his friends as equal. No, this had to be ended. This was it. Karuna Dandekar opened the door and asked Ashish in. It was a moment seeped in tension. Everyone knew why Ashish had come. Everyone knew what was going to happen, yet, the pretense of civility was maintained. It was maintained by all but Anoushka, who was too heart-broken to bother with niceties. Her world had come crashing down in one week flat. The classic rich versus poor gap had come in between. She thought this happened only in movies, yet there she was, sitting in Prashant Dandekar’s house, retired school teacher, wondering why such trivialities should affect the grand scheme of things. She walked up slowly to Ashish, tears and temper in check. She had determined that if she had to do it, she’d do it with dignity. She wouldn’t give anyone the opportunity of feeling pity for her. “Ashish, I know why you have come. I know the time is up. I know we agreed to try this for a week and then decide what the future looks like. I cannot complain about the happiness I have got. It has far exceeded anything I had expected. But I guess expecting this to last was unreasonable. I know I can’t keep what my heart wants forever and I can’t keep anything that doesn’t belong to me. You are free to go, and we shall never talk again”. Ashish looked in her eyes, steeled his heart and slid his hands in his pockets. In a brief moment when he reached for Anoushka’s hand, he remembered the moment she had put her heart’s wish to him. In that brief moment, his heart melted, his resolve wilted and he decided to relent. The passion in her eyes did the trick. He didn’t want to break Anoushka’s heart, didn’t want to separate her from the one thing she clearly valued above everything else. A few words later, he turned around and walked out of the apartment, staring at Anoushka’s decrepit T610 mobile phone. Behind the doors, Anoushka was crying tears of joy. She held the one true love of her life in her hand, never to be parted again. Hers to keep, forever: her Razr phone.

P.S.> I keep hearing a lot about kids in India getting new phones every year or so. This story was inspired by that need. I have had two cell phones in my six year stay in this country. I must be unfashionable.
P.P.S> As you might have guessed, I own a decrepit T610 phone. If Razr isn’t exactly state of the art anymore, my apologies. My knowledge about cell phones is minimal. If it dials a number and lets me speak, it is generally good enough for me

Blood

Blood suffers as only blood can
Flowing through clogged arteries
Surfacing on a cut
To be washed away

Blood travels as only blood can
From your head to toe
Coursing, cursing, living
Ultimate, dried away

Blood splatters as only blood can
From struggling smiling bodies
In the air of terror
On mangled train doors

Blood rises as only blood can
In a city that can never sleep again
In a common man's breast
In protest to utter: Enough

Life's a stretch

Feeling stretched?

This one's for the environmentalists out here. Photograph taken in 'Hip-hop Hollywood', as the kind billboard behind reminds me. How do you take a bad idea and extend it to make it 'badder'. Badder rhymes with Hummer, doesn't it? Wonder what rhymes with stretch hummer!

P.S> Substantial posts coming up. Blame the absence from the blog on visiting parents. Seeing this country and myself anew through their eyes is a learning experience. For once, I am being a good student.

Bring your Alibhais

So goes Hotel California somewhere in the middle of its (oc)cult lyrics. I was reading a discussion board some place where they were discussing what the lyrics mean to you. A common theme in people's explanations dealt with drugs. For eg.

"Some dance to remember, some dance to forget."
(People use drugs to remember, others to forget.)

"We are all just prisoners here, of our own device."
(Drugs are initially taken by choice but quickly become addictive.)

Cut focus to India and Hotel California may well be Hotel Calicut or some such rhyming place. Alibhai, our fictional drug dealer, must be cursing Rahul Mahajan. Suddenly, there is a big focus on the 'partying' crowd and the snort club, as India Today calls it. Imagine if there would be a public uproar and people can't do their favorite brand of drugs anymore. Where would Alibhai go? How will he afford his shanty in Alibag?

Several reams of press have been devoted to the reasons behind Rahul Mahajan's drug orgy. Does it matter frankly? Be it stress or depression or plain pleasure as the reason behind his step, if he got caught with a rolled up paper stuck up his nose digging into white powder, he has every reason to be in trouble. My heart doesn't go out to the Rahul Mahajans of the world. If having money gives you the license to throw responsibility out the window, then I am glad that not all those who have that license exercise it. Speaking of license, wait till someone decides to make a movie on the Pramod Mahajan's death and Rahul's self-destruct mode. Its just a matter of time. While on Bollywood, the only brand of drugs that was smuggled and used extensively in the early 80's movies was brown sugar. I can't help but grin every time I see brown sugar in my trip to Starbucks for my trusted latte. Oops, I am self-destructing with caffeine :-)

Wired for Weird

Got tagged by Aparna to come up with six weird things about myself, so going along with it. Skipping the tagging part though. Here goes the list of weirdness that I can come up with (including a bonus one at the end)

· I like to cross lanes without stepping on the lane markers (this will be familiar to those who have driven in the US). It interrupts the smoothness of my drive :-)
· I remember the lyrics of each song of a movie that I am going to watch in the theater so I can sing it out loud. I always do.
· I like to get a sense of deja vu when I visit a place a second time round, especially if that place is one I am unlikely to visit regularly. For eg. a spot en route to Crater lake, a random STD/ISD call booth en route to Sion. And yes, I like smiling at the little triumph of having made that connection
· Punctuality is (I wish it still were, but it used to be) an obsession. I used to reach before time on most places, and prided myself on readjusting my time accurately to accomodate traffic delays in Bombay.
· I was superstitious of about it raining every year on my birthday. If it didn't happen (and I can't recall a single year in India that it didn't), it probably wouldn't be a good year. Given that my birthday is in July, it would almost always happen in Bombay. There would at least be a very small drizzle. If I go by what happens in the US, I have been having six bad years in a row :-)
· Oh, and taking a cue from Aparna, here's an interesting one. My board exams: physics I paper. At the fag end of the two hour time, I went up to the supervisor to get a supplement sheet. When I got back, my main paper was missing!!!! Turns out I forgot to put a weight on it and it had flown. I traced my eyes upto the window. There it was, hanging gingerly on the grill, just a few inches between it flying out and my entire career down the drain. I just smiled, took ten steps to the window, took the paper, sat down and finished what I was doing. Result was 39/40 and the weirdness was that I didn't panic.
· I have vivid and detailed memories of the cricket matches I have played. With my brother in Surat in summer vacations, to my school games to the current matches I play in Seattle. I remember specific shots I have played, wickets I have taken, catches I have caught (and dropped), my scores and how I got out. While on the subject, I am always playing shadow cricket in the house (you know, no bat, no ball, no ground, no players ... just actions)

Death Knell

The procession streamed out
Men bound by a collective sorrow
Some lashed out in anger
Some slouched their shoulders having abandoned
The will to talk, the will to reason

Could it be perhaps that
life had been altered thus?
The sun would join in protest
The stars would turn off their lights

Could it be perhaps that
Apocalypse has come soon?
The world shattering to pieces
Shaken to its core
By the following five seconds of mayhem?

The middle of three wooden sticks
With two twigs completing a perfect house
Shattered by a vicious demon hurling
A cannonball of leather
And dashing thus, the hopes of a nation?

Revverie

The city deconstructed and reconstructed itself around his bike. It was as if he was flowing through a viscous fluid, cutting a straight line across the forces that were trying to hold him back. They ultimately lost, those silly molecules. Rearranging themselves around him, they paid obeisance by shaping a green outline around his form. The lights danced celebrating his speed, the life in those molecules turned around to look at their hero as if watching a ticker parade.

This was his day. He was Iceman and Maverick rolled into one. Beneath his helmet, the wind whispered the secrets of the stratosphere to him. Iron and steel and fuel were needed to be privy to those words. The common people, who trudged at the speed of snails could never aspire to that knowledge. Not everyone can have a conversation with the wind. The wind will hear you, if you can talk at its frequency.

Today he reached it. He found that perfect pitch, that audible tone. Thrust into that realm by the engine of his Kawasaki, he felt nature coming together to fill in his loneliness. An invisible hand guided his progress out of the city. Beyond the mundane, beyond the static, beyond the teeming masses. He watched the world move around him, rotating in its own turmoil, as he felt an odd sense of detachment creep in. At 180 miles per hour, he found stillness.

P.S> A colleague of mine recently bought a bike. This was inspired by his acquisition. I never had a bike and probably never will. That shouldn’t stop me from writing about it, should it?
P.P.S> I beat the bridge.

Life's A Sneeze

Oh ignominy, oh humiliation
A sorry little sight to behold
Of all conspiracies to bring me down
The one that worked is common cold?

P.S> I have contracted the popular sore throat, body ache, fever, cold 'viral' going around, and its irritating to the core. Especially when the 5 mile beat-the-bridge race is due this Sunday.
P.P.S> Given that the thought process is too blocked to allow creative writing, I'll just wait for the mucus to settle.

A Writer As A Muse

An orphaned idea
Clothed with words
A look of confused confidence
I search for a title

Puns lined up
Witticisms ready to launch
Twist after twist itching away
A touch that will elicit a tear
A lyric waiting to flow
Am I trapped in my own clichés?

The joy of creation
And the art of savoring it
Is heightened when consumed
And consumed it is
As I watch the words disappear
The backspace key leaves no traces

I reread it for the fortieth time
And smile to myself in disbelief
And appreciation for the chord it touches
Oh this is the perfect poem
Why of why wasn’t it written by me!

Five lines
Twelve words
One image
An audience captured
A poet triumphs

I am a Cling-on

With the immigration debate heating up in the country, being labeled an alien has never rung more truly in the United States. Given that Uncle Sam thinks I am an alien, and Uncle Sam is always right, what kind of an alien must I be? Should I own to up my actual entity and risk my green card process being damaged? I might as well.

With due apologies to all Star Trek fans, I am a Cling-on. Cling-ons are a rare species (or rarified when it comes to hair). Characterized by their ability to hold on to things they hold dear, cling-ons walk among humans in an indistinguishable fashion. Why, you may meet me and think I am an ordinary software engineer who did his engineering in India and a Masters in the US. One among the millions. Its just a guise, but the government is smarter than I thought. Its after us, and I might as well reveal the faces behind the masks.

Cling-ons are characterized by these traits and their tendency to hold on to them.
· Old memories
· Junk food
· Movies, everything from Ramsay to Ramu
· Loyalties to sportspersons
· Refusal to work
· Bad hand-writing
· Cricket
· Music

The list goes on, but I must take time out to reveal the main secret. The blog too has been a masquerade. The blog is used to reach other cling-ons in hiding. Are you one? If not, what kind of alien are you? If yes, what do you hold onto? Come out with your answers and trek with the stars.

All Things Considered

One of the books that I am currently reading is ‘The monk who sold his Ferrari’ by Robin Sharma. I picked up the book in India solely because it was recommended to me by someone and the fact that it was cheap. The thrill of buying a book at the Four Bungalows traffic signal for about a third of the cost of the original book while sitting in a rickshaw waiting for light to go green is unique. Hey, don’t blame me. I compensated by buying a hard bound copy of ‘Maximum City’. While I am not exactly wasting away in a mid-life crisis, I could completely identify with the talk of utilizing the potential that the author touched upon. It is true (and I am feeling it more often nowadays than ever before) that we tap only a limited amount of our potential. Take writing for example. I have this blog, I have lovely readers and I like to write. And write I do, the unspoken word, in my mind. For every one article that you see on this site, there are ten that I have started and left incomplete in my imagination. Potential wasted, lots of it. If I look at my blog, the last two posts were written totally spur of the moment. I started typing without a clearly direction and five minutes later I had posted something on the site. While spontaneity is a good thing at times, there is no way my writing will go places (wouldn’t it be nice?) unless I have the discipline for it. I guess this is a lecture more for my own good than yours. Perhaps, writing this out and reading it on my own blog might prompt me to take action on my plans. While I am at it, do I really need a topic to write about? Why can’t I just jot down the few things on the top of my mind. So, here goes.

I don’t mix work with blogging pleasure. That was something I decided a while back and I have stuck to it largely. Here’s an exception. We released the Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 yesterday. It has been a great product to work on and the results are rewarding. We are still a little while from releasing the final product, but this product does kick ass. If you are an XP user, you can give this a spin. You can find it here. If you are a Firefox user (for eg. a very close family member), I would definitely encourage you to try this. We are here to win you over. When you use it, do remember. My tears, sweat and seeds of carpal tunnel are all within the product.

Sachin Tendulkar turned 33. There hasn’t been a single sportsperson who has evoked such emotion in me as God has. I am among the worshipping hordes, and I don’t care if I am the last one left on the planet by the time he is done. Loyalty means not abandoning your hero when is suffering. I despise the ungrateful souls who do. You can have the dependability of Dravid or the vicious batting of Ponting or the flourish of Lara, but one shot, one cover drive, one cut, one flick is all it takes to feel the perfection. You need a sense of aesthetic to understand this. You just feel genius, you don’t dissect it. The straight drive six that he hit of Kasprowicz in Sharjah is beyond the realm of mortals. Today, while he struggles, I wait patiently, as do his other fans. It is weird but his failures become our failures, just as his successes were worn on our shoulders by us. God is testing us by being human, and we are just being the ordinary humans that we are.

As the controversy about the Harvard sophomore Kaavya Vishwanathan simmers, my question is fundamentally about the kind of novel she is writing. What is chic-lit? Is it chick-lit misspelt? Reading about her did open my eyes to a few things happening out there. People spend upto $30,000 on agencies that prep your application for the Ivy league schools. That’s incredible. I guess merit can get you only as far. On the controversy itself: what was she thinking? Copy and say sorry? How can you expect people not to notice? By sheer probability someone is bound to notice, right? Unless she didn’t expect anyone to read her book. Things they don’t teach at Harvard, eh? I guess I am being a little harsh. Perhaps, it was unintentional all along. I haven’t read either book (or will be reading it) to decide. Will wait for the media to tell me how this story goes.

The music scene this year has been very bad. Barring RDB, there has been no album worth its salt. I heard Fanaa and I was a tad disappointed. Given that this was supposed to be Jatin-Lalit’s last work together and it was a Chopra production with Aamir-Kajol, I was expecting a scintillating score. Perhaps, my expectations laid me down. Don’t get wrong. The songs are still melodious, but not all. ‘Chaand Sifarish’ is good, but as a friend suggested, Udit would have been a better choice as a singer. ‘Dekho Na’ and ‘Mere Haath’ will grow over time, but that’s about it. Likeable, but not extraordinary. In the meanwhile, ‘Himess’ comes up with the irritating ‘A-a-aashiqui mein meri...' from China Town. My friend who just returned from India said that you can only hear Himesh wherever you go. He has managed to come up with a consistent string of hits, so I guess that’s bound to happen. One song you can like: ‘Bambai Nagariya’ by Bhappi Da from ‘Taxi no. 9211’. He has sung it superbly in his inimitable style.

Oh well. Enough for now. Will try and come up with a longer short story soon. I tend to finish mine in a paragraph. Till that happens, enjoy the five minute outbursts of creativity.

Betrayal of the muse

A fluttering letter on the desk
Edging to fly out
Held together by the will
Of an ugly letter-head

A heart of stone
Chipped at the sides
And black as the night
Barely holds his weak resolve

He pauses, looks down and pulls the paper
And tears it as the stone falls down
The heart breaks into a million pieces
His tenth attempt at a poetry submission

Hook, Line and Stinker

"I am out of change", pleaded our protagonist and decided to disembark ten miles before his stop. The driver gave little of the sympathy he himself got and got ready to close the doors
like everyone did on him. "Here, take this", cooed our mellifluous heroine. Quarters quivered in her hand like the smile on her lips. Gladly, he paid the driver. And then repaid, with a frown for the driver and a smile for the girl, followed by a solemn promise to return the money. She smiled again and fell on him as the driver braked hard, perhaps in revenge? To pay his first installment, he turned on the charm offensive. Blushing, smiling, entrenched: the girl seemed to have given her heart for a few quarters. Ten miles came too soon. He got off the bus waving his hand at our exiting heroine. She gave him a smile that made his heart skip. He smiled and looked again at the paper with her number. And then, she made his heart skip again. Twice in two seconds. His hands fumbled as he searched his pockets for his missing wallet.

MaraThorn

Men were born to run. Actually chase. I am being very gender specific here. We are good at it. We chase skirts, sarees, remarkably, all of feminine couture that humanity has conjured thus far. It seems we need a sense of purpose. Put us in a shopping mall in an effort to buy something that has not yet been spelt out clearly and we are lost. We tire in a short time, headaches spring up out of nowhere, feet ache and the body simply sends signals that are so apparent it can get the owner in trouble. Put us on a golf course and we can spend all day walking around trying to put tiny balls into eighteen tiny pockets on a vast lush green pasture.

Nonetheless, I digress. I am not delving deep into generalizations. Back to the point of the post, if there is one. Men were born to run. Someone needed to have knocked that into my head early. My gym philosophy has been blogged about before. Treadmills are difficult creatures to tread. By virtue of excuses that no one really asked for, I would escape the boredom of stepping in the same place repeated number of times. But the sense of purpose finally appeared. I am training for Beat The Bridge. I’ll be participating for the 5 mile run. The beating the bridge part is interesting. There is a draw bridge 20 minutes from the start of the race. You have to finish that distance within twenty minutes or else the bridge is drawn and you are out of the race. That’s the first challenge. The second is completing the other three miles.

My wife and I started training for this a month back. Given that my running was limited to 0.6 miles (0.2 walk+0.6 run+0.2 walk) before, it was fun to build up in small increments. Of course, the presence of a more committed spouse serves as good motivation. Last Saturday, I managed to run 5 miles at a stretch. It was a thrilling achievement. The lazy bones in my body tell me, once is enough, let’s try it again on the day of the race in May J Of course, that’s not a great idea. Turns out peaking so soon is not a great idea either. You should apparently build up to that distance.

Nonetheless, this is a great idea for anyone looking to induce a degree of regularity in their gyming and like me, look for a really good reason to maintain that rhythm, you should look to something like this. Of course, there’s the marathon or MaraThorn as I would like to call it. It’s an insurmountable length. A big challenge. A couple of friends are training for the half marathon, a mere matter of 13 miles while some others will run the full 26 mile stretch. As my paining knees (yes, something wrong with my technique) and generally exhausted body feel after five miles, the other eight or twenty-one seem a stretch. Not that I am planning on running either of the two. But hey, a month back, had someone told me I’d be running five miles, all eight kilometers (or close) within fifty minutes, I’d have told him to go take a hike. Or a run.

Telegram for my readers

Consumed by work. Exorcism underway. Promise great reads shortly.

Take a haiku

I am currently in Las Vegas attending the MIX06. Surrounded by an army of geeks and put up at the rather plush Ventian, this has been a good experience for me around getting to know how these technology centric events work. Its not over yet. There's work to be done, money to be won (or lost) and fun to be had. Inspired by the imageries of Las Vegas, I wrote up some haikus. My first attempt at them. If you have been to Las Vegas, the words and the images will make sense to you. If not, I recommend you go to Vegas :-)


The wing lifts
I see from the window
Myself fly

Daily miracle
Crooning on the big stage
Elvis in flesh

The dice rolls
Ten broken hearts pay for
One man's smile

Shrinking world.
The Coliseum seen from
The Eiffel Tower

A Dreamer's delight
An eternal day under
A fake sky

Self Portrait

Three spots on that face
Speckles of white
Is that rust on her hair?
A cleft on the left lip?
A gash on the wide forehead?

She shudders at the sight and feels
Pity, anger, defeat and fear
Amidst the ruins stand bright
Her eyes. Clear, true.

Then the cleft lip straightens into a smile
A hand wipes the stains on the old mirror

A Kill to Time

Oh verse and rhyme, Oh fate and time
Oh patience and virtue, Oh penny and dime
Poor old Sam waits for his turn
Poor old Sam watches time churn
No one lets him move ahead
No one lets him take his place instead
Sam is stuck between several bodies
Sam is stuck between several nobodies
He has planned his flight away
He has planned to fight away
The crowds cheer as their leader arrives
The crowds cheer as a hope revives
The leader throws his garlands on the waiting crowd
The leader throws his best face on, stern and proud
Sam extends his hand, reaching high to make a catch
Sam extends his hand, no the other one, in a flash
A finger pressed hard catches a flower in mid-flight
A finger pressed hard sends a bullet at the speed of light
An eternity of glory breaks a smile on Sam’s face
An eternity of glory shrouded in public disgrace

The light within

I have been meaning to post these photographs for a while. On an odd Seattle day a couple of years ago, I saw a huge rainbow from the balcony of my apartment and rushed there with my camera. The first snap below is a beautiful image of the different zones of light that form in a rainbow. Notice how the light within the rainbow is much different than the light outside. It is like a lazy attempt at painting, the elements very obvious and beautiful.


Different light zones 

While I watched in awe at the sudden spurt of brightness and color, there came along another rainbow. Perfect concentric circles, one inside the other :-) (An arranger at a dandia said the exact same words). The second one lives on the outer edge and pales in luminosity to the first. A servant to circumstance, a lamp to a sun.


A band of brothers 

It was an enjoyable sight. I am wrapping up the post with a close up of the first rainbow. Made me wish I had a better camera or better photography skills, but the result was still enjoyable. Hope you feel the same.


Bow before the rain 

Storming up a cook

Food is the focus of life. It is a way of life. It is what we are brought up on and what we are brought up for. We fill intervals between two meals with such varied activities as travel, work, television, and chatter. Alright, this seems like an exaggeration. It probably is. While I do enjoy food, I cannot approach food the above stated way. What’s my food philosophy then? Food has to be eaten at regular intervals, a little spicy is too spicy, a little sweet is not enough sweet, fruits rock, so do French fries, gulab jamun is the best sweet in the world, and an ideal day looks like this: South Indian food for breakfast, Gujarati lunch and Punjabi food for dinner. Of course, too many ideal days of this kind will send me to heaven a bit too soon  My stay in America has help expand my taste palette. Mexican, Italian, Chinese, Malaysian, Mediterranean, Thai, to name a few.

My mother is a fabulous cook. So if my wife. I am lucky to have access to great food on a constant basis. But between the two great parts of the movie, between the two acts of an appetizing play, there was an interregnum. The duration of my Masters study. My tour de force at Texas A&M University. Before coming to the US, I had barely ever stepped into the kitchen. My expertise was limited to boiling milk and ensuring my best to not let it spill over as I sneaked into the hall to catch glimpses of whatever TV program was running. Before heading to the US, my mom attempted to give me a crash course on cooking a few dishes. I also duty noted down some rather precise instructions on cooking up palatable food. I realized how theory and practice are dissociated once I came to the United States. The initial few attempts went a long way to establish me as the worst cook among my roommates. Ranjeet was a terrific cook and Avinash was competent. That left me and my rather inept abilities in an unfair match.

From the watery chick peas to the daal that was a little off, the range was limited and the results consistent. It is a difficult thing to beat reputations. I learnt it the hard way with my cooking. The few times that I did attempt to make good food, the inherent assumption that my food would be intolerable preceded me. To contribute to the same, I took it upon myself to notify one and sundry that my cooking wasn’t talked about. Self-deprecating humor and all that.

Everything that goes around comes around. Times change and people change with time. A skill I had deemed unlearnable is slowly revealing itself to me in parts. While I’d love to continue eating my wife’s fabulous cooking, circumstance dictates that I give her a helping hand. My job from doing the pre-processing and post-processing for dinners needed to move to the center piece. My wife has been kind enough to bear with my cooking experiments and help me along. This version of a live recipe book has served me well. I have picked up some new things with adeptness. Things taste as they should taste. Likeable, palatable, repeatable. Time has come for a revolution. Time has come for reputations to rebuild, old myths to be shattered, critical tastes to be satisfied. Only time will tell if this will work.

Till then, here’s a parting shot at self-deprecating humor when it comes to cooking. Signature statement of a bad cook, straight from Godfather: “I’ll make you a refuse you cannot offer.”

P.S> As is evident, I am back. Thanks for all the inquiries and the words of support. Hopefully, the flow will stay in tact.

Hitting the Bottom Rock

For those who religiously do visit this site, this post is for you. I have been playing truant with posting anything on the blog for the past couple of months. "Believe you me", as one cricket commentator (oh, someone please remind me who that was) used to put it, I have tried to think of things to write.

There's the lack of inspiration, the drying up of topics and arguments, passions and peeves, lost loves and love's lost. And then there's the plinth below the edifice of attempts. Boredom. It has sunk in and is refusing to go. It has come in the most irresistible and inexplicable ways. It is as if I woke up one day and decided: Enough of blogging for me. It has spread and how. I have even stopped visiting the blogs that I have frequented with unfailing regularity for a couple of years now.

It does not make sense, and I am hoping it is a temporary thing. The words will start flowing again, and the break in time-space continuum will be restored. Until further notice, the blog is suspended. Hopefully, you'll visit back when I do start writing again. Till then, take care, keep blogging.

And so it has begun

I am sounding like a character from Lord of the Rings. The amplitude of each battle is raised, the destiny of each skirmish worth being a legend. Where does my battle fall? To be precise, the one that I am witness to? As I sit here at 1.30 in the night witness to Younis Khan and Mohammad Yusuf completely dominate a lacklustre Indian bowling attack, I am feeling a mix of emotions.

Happiness: I finally am watching a cricket series in the comfort of my house on TV. Yes, there have been a couple of seasons where I have fought with the frustrating futility of streaming telecasts. But this is the first time since I bought a house and bought Dish TV that I am going to see an entire series live.

Puzzled: How do you expect to win a match with a bowling combination that reads Pathan, Agarkar, Kumble and Harbhajan? Your only hope is to win the toss and bat first. Your spinners will be largely effective only in the fourth innings and the medium pacers will hardly run through the batting lineup. Pathan needs some help from the pitch to be effective and Agarkar averages 46. And as Michael Holding wryly added, that's not in batting.

The shoulder shrug: Ganguly got picked. I don't know if he is going to open or someone else will be made to be a scapegoat. Somehow, I don't think this is going to impact the match enough. Its the bowling that we need to fix. Unless some genius decided to pick him as an all-rounder. I have felt before that his entire case has been badly handled. Now, you are in a situation that can't be salvaged. Let's see how he fares in this test.

Excited: I love watching cricket. Especially test cricket. Most people I meet prefer one-dayers, but I think there isn't enough excitement in watching one team pummell 350 and have the other team chase it. There is no contest, just a slog-fest. That's precisely the reason it would be difficult to enjoy 20-20. Perhaps I am anachronistic. Most people my age enjoy the instant gratification that one-day cricket provides. I am comfortable with enjoying the game and the intricacies and the battles for five days. The pleasure is in the journey, not just in the result.

Nostalgic: About the lengths to which I have gone to watch cricket in this country. I was remembering how we would stay up late in the night to watch the India-Australia series in 2001 in the SCC (student computing center) to get the free feed from dd.now.com. That was a brilliant series and the webcast was brilliant too. What wasn't brilliant is how the other non-Indians in the lab would be troubled with sudden hurrahs that would emanate when Sachin imposed himself on the Aussies.

I don't know how the series will unfold. It seems to me that this will be much tougher for us to win that the last time we were there. On paper, I'd give our opponents the edge. Simply because their bowling seems stronger than ours. But stranger things have happened. As one really funny flight attendant advised us at the end of our flight to watch for displaced luggage contents in the containers, 'Shift Happens'

Hindi Film Songs: Best of 2005

Apologies for my continued absence from the blogging sphere. No excuses. I just didn’t seem to have much to contribute. Many thanks to those who questioned my absence. You guys are super. This one’s for you all. Last year, I wrote up a rather popular entry about a list of Hindi film songs from the year 2004. I had mentioned that if I liked the exercise, I might do it on a regular basis. So, here I am.

A few disclaimers:
1. The songs aren’t listed in any particular order. I have just listed them in the order in which I remembered them.
2. I try to listen to each new album that comes out at least once. However, there are simply too many new movies and too many songs to follow. It is possible that some may have been omitted
3. Some of the movies will be releasing next year (eg. Rang De Basanti) but since their songs have released this year, I am including them. Similarly, movies that released in 2005 were covered in the 2004 list if their music was out then (eg. Kisna, Shabd)

I am open to suggestions on songs that you think should be on the list but are missing.

Song : Aashiq Banaya Aapne
Movie : Aashiq Banaya Aapne
Music Director : Himesh Reshammiya
Singers : Himesh Reshammiya, Shreya Ghoshal
Lyricist: Sameer
Why is it on the list? : Himesh surprised everyone with his singing. The tune is good too.

Song : Halka Halka Sa Yeh Nasha
Movie : Chocolate
Music Director : Pritam
Singer : Sonu Nigam
Lyricist: Mayur Puri
Why is it on the list? : Zippy, contemporary, well-executed, well-sung track. Pritam followed Dhoom well with this album.

Song : Zehreeli Raatein
Movie : Chocolate
Music Director : Pritam
Singer : Kay Kay
Lyricist: Mayur Puri
Why is it on the list? : This one is a rip-off from a song called Aadat (which now appears in Kalyug). But the lyrics and rendition of this one are better.

Song : Salaam Namaste
Movie : Salaam Namaste
Music Director : Vishal & Shekhar
Singer : Kunal Ganjawala , Vasundhara Das
Lyricist: Jaideep Sahni
Why is it on the list? : Aditya Chopra’s new move into the urban youth heartland begins with this title track and it rocked. The choice of the singers did the trick.

Song : Yeh Hain Meri Kahani
Movie : Zinda
Music Director : Strings
Singer : Faisal Kapadia
Lyricist: Anwar Maqsood
Why is it on the list? : Well written and very well sung. This was a good year-end surprise. This one will grow on you.

Song : Zinda Hoon Main
Movie : Zinda
Music Director : Shibani Kashyap
Singer : Shibani Kashyap
Lyricist: Virag Mishra
Why is it on the list? : Visceral, energetic, different. Goes with the theme of the movie well.

Song : Rang De Basanti
Movie : Rang De Basanti
Music Director : A.R. Rehman
Singer : Daler Mehndi, Chitra
Lyricist: Prasoon Joshi
Why is it on the list? : Rehman strikes once more with a varied album. This one’s written beautifully and Daler infuses great energy in the song. Even Chitra’s shrillness doesn’t take away from the end effect.

Song : Lukka Chuppi
Movie : Rang De Basanti
Music Director : A.R. Rehman
Singer : Lata Mangeshkar, A.R. Rehman
Lyricist: Prasoon Joshi
Why is it on the list? : What happens when you get a legend (that’s Lata), a great music director( Rehman) and a not-so-great-singer(Rehman) together? You get away with a composition that threatens to go below par, be excessively maudlin, but avoids it. The lyrics are good, the tempo of the song well paced, and the orchestration is excellent. Why Rehman won’t have anyone else sing it beats me though?

Song : Dus Bahane
Movie : Dus
Music Director : Vishal-Shekhar
Singer : KK, Shaan
Lyricist: Panchhi Jalonvi
Why is it on the list? : Should I even bother explaining?

Song : Jaaniya Ve
Movie : Dus
Music Director : Vishal-Shekhar
Singer : Hariharan, Mahalaxmi
Lyricist: Panchhi Jalonvi
Why is it on the list? : One of the lesser lights of Dus, but this is a brilliantly sung song. Hear it if you haven’t already.

Song : Deedar De
Movie : Dus
Music Director : Vishal-Shekhar
Singer : Sunidhi Chauhan
Lyricist: Panchhi Jalonvi
Why is it on the list? : I think I am partial to this movie, but what the heck. I love the beats in this song. Trivia for those interested: the song is picturized on Mayte Garcia, who is the ex-wife of TAFKAP (The artist formerly known as Prince)

Song : Barsaat Ke Din Aaye
Movie : Barsaat
Music Director : Nadeem-Shravan
Singer : Kumar Sanu, Alka Yagnik
Lyricist: Sameer
Why is it on the list? : Strictly for Nadeem-Shravan fans. Now that they have split, we won’t be seeing them on the list anymore.

Song : Sabse Bada Rupaiyya
Movie : Bluffmaster
Music Director : TrickBaby
Singer : Chetan, Mehmood, Saira Hussain
Lyricist: Majrooh Sultanpuri
Why is it on the list? : My distaste of remixes is known. However, this one is genuinely a mixing of sounds. The use of tromobones, the change of rhythms, the very jazzy getup of the song makes it sound like a completely different song altogether. Importantly, it sounds great. Hats off to this first genuine ‘crossover’ album.

Song : Right Here Right Now
Movie : Bluffmaster
Music Director : Vishal-Shekhar
Singer : Abhishek Bachchan, Sunidhi Chauhan
Lyricist: Jaideep Sahni
Why is it on the list? : Abhishek takes to the mike and takes to it pretty well. I like the languid pace of the song and the beats.

Song : Azaadi
Movie : Bose – The Forgotten Hero
Music Director : A.R. Rehman
Singer : A.R. Rehman
Lyricist: Javed Akhtar
Why is it on the list? : Got to hand it to him for doing another patriotic song and still making it sound interesting

Song : Kajra Re
Movie : Bunty aur Bubli
Music Director : Shankar Ehsaan Loy
Singer : Alisha Chinnai, Shankar Mahadevan, Javed Ali
Lyricist: Gulzar
Why is it on the list? : National anthem of the year. Miles above any other rocking song that came out. Brilliantly written, this modern mujra had it all. Aishwarya, Aishwarya, Aishwarya, Big B, little B and a masterstroke to have Alisha Chinoy sing it.

Song : Jal Jal Ke Dhuan
Movie : Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena
Music Director : Pritam
Singer : Sonu Nigam
Lyricist: Amitabh Verma
Why is it on the list? : The guitar piece at the start has been lifted from ‘Fragile’ by Sting (courtesy RTD2), but I like Sonu’s rendition of the song.

Song : Jiya Dhadak Dhadak Jaaye
Movie : Kalyug
Music Director : Faisal Rafi and Rohail Hyatt
Singer : Rahat Fateh Ali Khan
Lyricist: Asim Raza
Why is it on the list? : Soothing composition set in the Pahadi raag. These guys can teach a thing or two about making a melody without heavy orchestration. The flute is the predominant instrument and the subtlety and romance is never lost. Excellent work.

Song : Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi
Movie : Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi
Music Director : Shantanu Moitra
Singer : Shubha Mudgal
Lyricist: Ghalib
Why is it on the list? : The song haunts you long after you have heard it. Shubha Mudgal can create that aura with ease. One of the best movies of the year, Shantanu Moitra complemented with a competent ‘period’ based score.

Song : Sun Zara
Movie : Lucky
Music Director : Adnan Sami
Singer : Sonu Nigam
Lyricist: Sameer
Why is it on the list? : Adnan’s debut as a music director was the first big musical hit of the year. And rightly so. This song was composed with Adnan himself in mind, but Sonu does a good job of making it his own.

Song : Shayed Yahi To Pyar Hai
Movie : Lucky
Music Director : Adnan Sami
Singer : Adnan Sami, Lata Mangeshkar
Lyricist: Sameer
Why is it on the list? : I liked this one better than the Anuradha-Udit solo Jaan Meri Jaa Rahi Sanam (it reminded me of a song from Sahibaan a bit too much). Lata and Adnan define a soft romantic mood for the song, which takes it above the ordinary.

Song : Guncha (Unplugged)
Movie : Main Meri Patni Aur Woh
Music Director : Sanjay Jaipurwale
Singer : Mohit Chauhan
Lyricist: Rocky Khanna
Why is it on the list? : Alright. So I discovered this song at the very outset, didn’t think too much of it initally (I still think the lyrics are mediocre, but hey, I listen to too many ghazals). However, the raw feel to Mohit Chauhan’s voice (lead singer of Silk Route) is undeniable, and the song definitely sticks in your mind. It did wonders for him too. He got a song in Rang De Basanti.

Song : Soona Man Ka Aangan
Movie : Parineeta
Music Director : Shantanu Moitra
Singer : Shreya Ghoshal, Sonu Nigam
Lyricist: Swanand Kirkire
Why is it on the list? : It is going to be a tough job to leave out songs from this movie (all except the terrible Dhinak Dhin are good), so I am going to pick my favorite. Sonu Nigam has excelled in this song and taken it to another plane. Swanand and Shantanu Moitra have teamed up to a great job in this album and while I won’t list the rest of the songs here, they all deserve a place.

Song : Mumtaz Tujhe Dekha
Movie : Taj Mahal – An Eternal Love Story
Music Director : Naushad
Singer : Hariharan , Preeti Uttam
Lyricist: Naqsh Lyallpuri
Why is it on the list? : I was dreading this album. Naushad is right up there in my pantheon of great music directors and I did not want him to come back and spoil the image (like he did with his music in Guddu). As expected, the music was short of the mark, but was tolerable. This one was more tolerable than the rest.

Song : Mai Vari Vari
Movie : The Rising - Ballad of Mangal Pandey
Music Director : A.R. Rehman
Singer : Kavitha Krishnamurthy, Reena Bharadwaj
Lyricist: Javed Akhtar
Why is it on the list? : Another dissapointing score, but this qawwali stood out because it is a difficult composition rendered very well by the two of them.

Song : Kahan Ho Tum
Movie : U Bomsi N Me
Music Director : Neeraj Shridhar
Singer : Neeraj Shridhar
Lyricist: Neeraj Shridhar
Why is it on the list? : Neeraj Shridhar of ‘Bombay Vikings’ fame dons all the three roles and comes up trump. Very hummable track with good music.

Song : Naam Adaa Likhna
Movie : Yahaan
Music Director : Shantanu Moitra
Singer : Shaan, Shreya Ghoshal
Lyricist: Gulzar
Why is it on the list? : Beautiful lyrics by God, as Shaan lets Shreya take centrestage in this romantic composition set in the backdrop of Kashmir.

Song : Agar Tum Mil Jao
Movie : Zeher
Music Director : Anu Malik
Singer : Shreya Ghoshal
Lyricist: Sayeed Quadri
Why is it on the list? : Loved the way Shreya says “chhod” in the song. In general, Anu Malik scores points for his brand of melody. Good composition.

Song : Woh Lamhe Woh Baatein
Movie : Zeher
Music Director : Mithun and Naresh Sharma
Singer : Atif
Lyricist: Sayeed Quadri
Why is it on the list? : Another track that stays with you after you have heard it. Powered by strong vocals by Atif, this one stands out for its lyrics as well.

Song : Khaali Hai
Movie : Paheli
Music Director : M.M. Kareem
Singer : Hariharan, Bela Shende
Lyricist: Gulzar
Why is it on the list? : One of the most brilliant songs of the year. M.M. Kareem is all class in this composition which features some excellent flute interludes.

Song : Dheere Jalna
Movie : Paheli
Music Director : M.M. Kareem
Singer : Sonu Nigam, Shreya Ghoshal
Lyricist: Gulzar
Why is it on the list? : This one's for Gulzar and the brilliant imagery he constructs. Sonu and Shreya excel in this song which is again high on melody.

Song : Tauba Tauba
Movie : Kaal
Music Director : Salim-Sulaiman
Singer : Sonu Nigam, Sunidhi Chauhan, Kunal Ganjawala, Richa Sharma
Lyricist: Shabbir Ahmed
Why is it on the list? : This movie generated a lot of curiosity, especially since it was a SRK and Karan Johan production. Three songs made the cut for me, but I liked this the most. The duo of Salim-Sulaiman are the champs of giving background scores, so I was expecting a little better product from them. But I guess the producers too had a role to play. The followed it up with the terrible Neal 'N Nikki which finds no place on this list. Even if their music was not bad, the lyrics were terrible.

Its just not cricket

Its just not cricket when ....
.... the greatest batsman the world has ever known passes a landmark that trivialised every other thing he did. It is a challenge, a bottleneck, a millstone around the neck, an increment of a number that takes a year to happen, a throne that was so close to touch but difficult to get on. Its not cricket when his true fans in the far corners of the world run down the staircase in the morning, having dreamt of seeing a number greater than 100 against his name, and have their wish comes true. Sachin, blaze away. That's a flame's destiny. The last hurrah isn't named in vain. With apologies to Douglas Adams, the meaning of life is not 42. It is 35.

Its just not cricket when ....
.... the most successful captain of an Indian team is treated with such ruthlessness that he earns the sympathies of even his opponents. Ganguly may have had his problems, he may have outlived his stay as a batsman, he may be anachronistic in the current scheme of things. But this is no way to dump him. After having performed reasonably in the two innings of the Delhi test, he was dropped by the selectors. For all the times that I believe he may have been supported unduly, this is the one time my support is with him. Legends deserve better exits. They should bow out, not be bowed out. The selectors reaffirmed their ability to make wrong decisions on the fateful day by making another one. They picked Wasim Jaffer.

Its just not cricket when ....
.... a player of limited abilities (yes, that’s me) leads his team to a first ever league victory in years of playing. It is a dream come true for all those who have pursued and failed. Those who came close (yes, me again, on a few occasions, with the select faithfuls) and strived. Those who struggled their way from one close match to another in this league (yes, that’s my team), from one controversy to another (match suspensions, pitch invasions, you name it), from one great performance to another. We won. It has sunk in, and it feels great. Its just not cricket when a left-handed opening batsman leads his team to victory (yup, that’s me in case you didn’t get it). It is a warning, that he is close to getting dropped :-)

Hawa Hawaii

Sorry for the long break in posts. I was in Maui, the second largest island on Hawaii, during the Thanksgiving break. I think the slowing down of pace that the place infected me with carried on when I came back as well. Here's a small sample of the beauty I came across.



Wayside Panorama


Wailea Beach


Ho'okipa Beach (One of the best in the world for surfing)


More of the big waves


Keane Peninsula


I caught that guy in the middle of the dive!


Can't-recall-name Waterfall


Seven Sacred Pools


Sun peeking through at sunset


Sun peeking through in the morning


Back to sunset again


Haleakala Crater (Dormant volcano)


Awesome texture


Block long banyan tree


Black Sand Beach


Need I say anything? 


Authentic Hawaii Chappals! 

Your dreams in a box?

Here’s a tech post that was waiting to happen. XBOX 360 released yesterday. I don’t know how much that appeals to most people, but the build up around it in Microsoft was big, especially among the gaming geeks that also pose as employees :-) There was constant talk around the coolness factor, the power of the new platform and the excitement for it. I don’t think it was too misplaced. A friend of mine went to the local Best Buy yesterday and reported that there were people waiting in line since Friday. That’s four days in advance!!

Such mania is beyond my understanding. But gaming dudes are serious about their priorities. There are people who spend endless hours of their lives locked up in their rooms in front of the PC or their TV playing games. They live and die by their virtual identities. I wonder if the boundary between the real and the virtual world blur for them beyond a point. The good thing is that the new Xbox has things to offer beyond just the gaming experience for the average user. That is important for people like me. The only games I like to play are sport-oriented (I have a Cricket 2005 that I am passionate about) or strategy games (Warcraft). First person games like Halo give me nausea in about five minutes.

However, if I could combine my occasional gaming ability with some other function, the Xbox would serve me well. Which is what the new version allows. It serves as a great one stop shop for my music, movies, pictures. To list a few (quoting the website of course), here are some of the major Media features of XBox 360:
• Create picture slideshows, add music, and share with your friends and family.
• Connect to your digital camera and display your latest pictures on your TV.
• Access the classics in the photo collection stored on your Windows XP-based PC.
• Display the pictures saved on CDs.
• Play DVDs in progressive-scan and use the Xbox 360 controller to navigate the onscreen DVD menus.
• Receive game invites or chat with friends even when you’re watching a movie, listening to music, or viewing pictures.
• Combine Xbox 360 with Windows XP Media Center Edition for more digital entertainment options. For eg. I can record or pause live TV. Watch movies On-demand and more.
• Listen to music while you game and create your own custom soundtracks.
• DJ your next party—create custom playlists, and set the mood with interactive visualizers. • Rip songs from your original CDs to your Xbox 360 hard drive for easy access to your favorite music
• Stream music to your Xbox 360 from your MP3 player or Windows XP-based PC.

And there’s the coolness factor. The design is really slick and well thought out. It has an “hourglass” figure. Wonder if their was any psychological research involved in arriving at that :-) The last one was pretty boxy and not that attractive. Oh well, this almost became a pitch for the product, but I think this one deserves some space. I intend to get one for myself sometime next year, as long as I don’t have to wait four days in a line to get it :-)

I haven’t done much justice to the numerous features of this magic box. Find out for yourself. Here, ogle. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/explorexbox360.htm

Ri-post-e

I didn’t realize that the issue would turn out into an all out deep-rooted defense of the IT industry in India when I wrote about it. Which is good. I wanted opinions from back home and I got some. The only way to do justice to the amount of emotion and effort that the responders put into their comments would be to summarize them once more. So, here goes.

Sushil
(One of my best friends who is working in an IT company in India. I have edited his response for brevity… yup, it was much longer than this :-))

I agree that the attitude issues that u have talked about is there. Ibelieve, it is there everywhere. Moreover, America is a dream realized for very few in this country. So it is obvious that people are envious or jealous about it. Moreover, people do carry attitude when they come from USA. Talk about their fake accent, their behavior, their attitude as if they know a lot is always there.

About the work culture. It depends on your boss how he judges you andyour attitude. Ok Let me tell you, I never reach b4 my boss reached andnever left after my boss left in my 6 yrs of career. I always followedthe work centric approach. But what you mentioned is not false. Yes!This attitude prevails in the industry and I believe it will take timefor us to change this and it is changing. The problem here is that mostof the sr. Mgmt is very old and they have been groomed like that foryears and so they expect the same. But let me tell you, there arecompanies where late sitting is strictly no no. About your friends' wife who works in infosys. I am sure it is a project problem I believe. Not everyone in the project have to work late and neither everyone in infy. Also parth, if u know, even you guys stay up late to complete the work. So how is it different than infy.

"Management" I don't what u mean exactly. But at some point You have toget into people management if u have to move up the ladder. A techie guys doesn't understand the business. It is a different perspective alltogether. But if u mean that people who don't dream to be "CXX" and want to remain techie than they can. But if the person moves to some product company he is again at a higherposition.

Moreover parth, remember one thing america is made up of immigrants soobviously no one is going to have the attitude issue that you aretalking and moreover it has a capitalist economy. This I believe are the main differences between india and USA.

Look parth, All the things that u have written are excuses for notcoming back. People attitude problems are there everywhere and I stillface it more. The percentage of it may be more in India than in US butit is there.

PARTH_SPEAK: I don’t believe you can count these as excuses for not coming back. The whole idea that the discussion veered in this direction is that I intend to come back. When I stay back to work, it is never because I am asked to. There have been days where I have worked from home, or left early. The flexi-time culture is rampant here. The services industry gets its work culture from India, having born and developed over there. The product companies import their culture along with their plush offices. Or so I have heard. Thanks a ton for your detailed and passionate response.

Avinash
Again, one of my closest friends and a PhD student at Texas A&M University

I think parth, I had pointed out a website to u in this regard. I don't know if u read it.http://atcweb.atc.tcs.co.in/~sagar/scit.htmlOf course this dude, M. Vidyasagar, is a well-known academic andreturned to India after a good career in the US and Canada and that tooas a Director of a DRDO lab. So even tho it might seem that hisperspective is different, what he has to say is remarkably similar towhat sush said. It all boils down to being practical vs. emotional.Staying in US is practical. All said and done, less population = lesscompetition. Better quality of life (QoL). More material comforts. Being in India means being close to family, not having the feeling of being a foreigner all the time. Plus for me at least, being the emotional patriot that I am, Vidyasagar's point that u can make max contributions to India only by being there does have some appeal. So I think going to India is a decision which depends on whether u are willing to make the required, financial, QoL, health (ya this is an issue too. I find that my general health in the US is much better than it ever was in India) etc sacrifices to be in ur country.

The issue of children is something completely different. I personallyfeel that while geographical location and 'surroundings' is a factor inthe upbringing of children, it cannot be the deciding or important onethat it's made out to be. The most imp factor is the parents themselves. After all, it's stupid to think that 'American Culture' is 'bad'. There are enough kids in India who go bad. 'Indian Culture' does nothing to help them. There are enough kids in India who lose their virginity before 16. And lets face it.... more Indian kids today are 'more American than the Americans'. And there are enough kids in America who grow up to be good kids who do their parents proud. I am not trying to defend US culture (or lack thereof). My point is that US or India, how kids turn out is decided by how much time and effort their parents invest in their upbringing. I do agree that in India, being surrounded by grandps and uncles and aunts and neighbors does take some of the pressure off parents. But it doesn't absolve them of all responsibility.

I am unwilling to blame some abstract concept like 'US Culture'. As far as I am concerned, it's a trade-off. If I wish to live in the US and enjoy the benefits it gives me, then I should be prepared to pay the price of extra efforts that I have to put in terms of parenting. My personal feeling is I like what Vidyasagar did. Now that I have come to the US, I wud like to use this opportunity to advance my career and knowledge and go back to India to assume a position of responsibility where I can contribute significantly. There are good and bad things everywhere. I wud like to imbibe the good things in this country and go back to serve my own.

PARTH_SPEAK: This is one comment that is completely off-topic but worth reading nonetheless. The man makes sense on most occasions, and I can always banter him in the future for his use of “wud” and “ur” so extensively in the e-mail :-)

Tarun
My fellow blogger and friend and the self-proclaimed target audience of this post He had a lot to say :-) See this: http://25worldcountry.blogspot.com/2005/11/laut-sakte-ho-somewhat.html

PARTH_SPEAK: Thanks for bringing the cohesion back into the post. You validated my point about pretense. Not everyone will be as brazen and outspoken as you at the work place. So, it is possible that when CoderDude can’t impress the fact upon his managers that he wants to go home at 6, he WILL work till 9. Perhaps he works till 9 because the four cubicles next to him are also occupied with CodeDudes. The manager perhaps notices the one CoderDude who left at 6, and has something to say for it. I know that most product companies have branches open all over the place (well, Hyderabad and Bangalore to be precise). After all the arguments I heard about services versus product industry, the latter seems the lesser evil. Alas, these aren’t in my dear Bombay.

Extempore
A fellow blogger, who works in the IT industry in Bombay

I disagree almost entirely because I work in the IT industry and in Bombay. Granted that there aren't as many places in Bby to work as there are in Hyderabad or Blore, but the work situation in India has changed. It is a better place to work now.

I once said on your blog that ppl at my workplace are unhappy but it is because I work in the IT services industry as a tech writer - MS, by the way, is one of our biggest clients - We are working on the Yukon series right now, having finished with Whidbey a while ago.

The biggest source of frustration for us is unreasonable client demands and our PMs who dont contest anything. Pls dont misunderstand - I am not trying to pick a fight about MS - only trying to make the point that the services industry anywhere - IT or advertising - comes with that huge handicap... of being captive to your client's demands.

From everything I hear, even start-ups here are doing really well and are good places to work at. A friend of mine, on confirmation, got a hike from 27 to 35k, never comes in on weekends and works everyday from 10 to about 7 in the evening. Good life, I'd say, esp in Hyd which is cheaper than Bby. I could go on Parth, but I will stop here. :-)I do hope that I have not given offence in anyway and I am quite sorry if indeed, I have

PARTHP_SPEAK: There is no offense taken whatsoever. In fact, I want to thank you for your comments. This isn’t the first I have heard people complain about Microsoft J It is good to see a point of view in defense of the services industry. I didn’t imagine it that way, but thought of it as a stop and go working experience. The depth of the tech industry in Bombay is good, but doesn’t have the presence of product companies that I was looking at. Thanks once again for your comments, and best of luck with your commute (even if it is to SEEPZ, it can’t be easy) J

Niranjan
Fellow blogger and SPCEite

I'd add that the answer to whether to return back to india is in part based on practicality as you have described, and is part emotional (for want of a better word). I'd been to a talk some months back, where the speaker (a distinguished CEO of a start-up) made a snide remark about how indian students take up most grad positions, and then return home only to marry and come back to the US to work again. And the audience thought it was funny! I've since wondered why I'm still in the US, but then again there is the practical aspect that's aptly expressed in this post.

PARTHP_SPEAK: Indeed amazing that an audience would take it lightly. Perhaps, this is indicative of our mentality here. We work hardest, question little and bask in our little successes.

Graffiti Speak
Haven't seen her on my blog, but boy has she made up with a long long comment :-)

Hi there, let me help to disperse some of your misconceptions and fears you have expressed herein.
I am an IT professional, a senior business analyst in a Telco.

I was in the US on H1 for more than 4 years and I moved back to India owing to personal reasons in 2002. Initially I had lots of apprehension, and infact I had quite some disappointments after I came and I thought that I have done a mistake but things started to make sense in the long run. And I must confess that I have no regrets now… Few changes here and there are required…but overall you are happier here than in the land of lust.

I fell sick the first month I came down because I took a sip of tap water in a restaurant and got viral fever. That was a bad start alright but I learnt a lesson not to take anything but mineral water. Like you mentioned, being in the US while giving you an advantage over your career, it has lots of downside as well.

Attitude issues are there everywhere but in India it could be more apparent and prevalent because India Inc. is just getting professional. We ought to just shrug off these and really give these things time to heal themselves. Work Culture is again getting better by everyday but yes if you are in a service industry chances are at critical times you would be called in to put extra efforts but again you can ask for a comp off when there is less pressure which any sensible project manager would grant. I have personally liked the challenges of a service driven company as opposed to the laid-back work environment of a product driven one. We have both here in all major metros including Mumbai and there is really no need to worry.

“Boss” culture is very much here and your fears are justified. But it need not be a rule of thumb to go or come to office based on your manager’s timings. As long as you deliver quality things at the right times and show your presence as much as possible without chitchatting with colleagues for long hours, it should be ok. And of course while not working you can even play games or solve crosswords even with your manager…to lighten the spirit. This trick has worked for me…

Exposure wise, India gives you a lot as in US we tend to focus on mastering one particular thing, which is not the case here as you are expected to be a jack-of-all-trades as there are variety of clients. If you are not one, you become one automatically once you are in such a demanding environment. There are training requests that you can give to your PM during appraisal sessions and if it is genuine, then they are always heeded.
When I came down, this stark truth (of knowing many things) hit me hard but eventually I found myself easily adapting to the demands of the job. This is actually a great plus when it comes to Indian work environment.
Like I said before, India Inc. is just getting professional, so while changes are happening, the change is slow and steady. So patience would be the key for people who want to come back. This is particularly applicable for climbing up the ladder here. Also, you need to preferably have a Godfather to give you the necessary push…at least in not-so- professional companies who still have this bossism. If you don’t know to butter people, then you might as well be contented with your post and pay and get out of all the politics.

There is an automatic pressure to come up in designation as you age in a company but it is not again mandatory. In my office I still see programmers who are in their 40’s something that is not uncommon in the US of A. However, the most key thing being in India is the job security and citizenship status that is seen as a luxury for all foreign returned people because we know the reality we had in the US. There is constant fear or job loss unless you have a green card or citizenship with which you can be at least safe until you get another one. Here there is no one to kick you out…you are a king …literally! If you have a decent monthly income, and a stable job, then nothing like that! You get anything and everything. The labor is cheap, so you get the luxury of having a chauffer, cook, maid(s), caretaker, etc. which if done in the US, would eat up all you earn…
Finally, Mumbai has lots of major IT companies concentrated in SEEPZ and Navi Mumbai where you have this Millenium Business Park…

The conditions are most conducive right now for all NRIs so much that many foreigners are coming to India seeking secure and better paying jobs. The downside I could say being in India is facing bribery and red-tapism in day to day lives along with pollution. Again you can find ways to bypass these things as you mature here. But all said, it is upto you to make up your mind. Good Luck…but hey don’t think too much to comeback to your motherland. It is she who made us what we are and it is time we show our gratitude to her.

PARTH_SPEAK: Thanks for the detailed response. It is indeed good to hear from people like you who have seen both sides of the coin. I didn’t mean that people take my comments about leaving after the manager too literally. Point being that pretense to work should not overshadow actual work done. Job security is a must. I agree. But job satisfaction is equally important. Mumbai may have a bunch of IT companies (I worked in MBT for a year at Chandivali) but the product companies lie outside the realm. Thanks for your copious comments. They were enlightening.

PARTH_SUMMARY

I don’t think my point came across too forcefully. I am not trying to establish that India is a bad place to work in and that US is heaven. I mentioned that a lot of this is hearsay. Nice to know that people are kind enough to dispel some such ideas. At some level, the responses tended to be over-defensive. Relax guys, I am on your side :-) Several people mentioned the emotional benefits as an offset. I agree with that 100%. Never overlooked that. But the whole point of this post was exclusively to discuss what work life looks like in India. The negativities I mentioned can’t be so important that they are make or break the decision to go back. Sorry for the EXTREMELY long post here, but I felt that everyone’s responses deserved a good space.

Kya Ab Laut Chalen?

NRI's spend a substantial amount of their adult lives outside India reminiscing about India. As a NRI blogger, nostalgia is a genre almost at the tip of my keyboard fingertips. I mean, you are either going to India, coming back from India, and if all else fails, missing it. I thought it would be a good reality check to go back and see how many posts I have written about my beloved country, India, the best city in the world, Mumbai and the centre of the universe, Andheri. Oh, never mind. I am not skimming through a hundred plus entries to determine that which I already know. Several posts. It is easiest to romanticize about my favorite beaches and the idyllic life of Surat and the wonder years in school and college. In my post http://parthp.blogspot.com/2005/08/n5-theorem.html I touched upon the common trajectory that an average graduate student goes through in his initial period in the United States of America. That was a rant, a complaint, a question and a conclusion at the same time.

The main problem is that we keep viewing India through this prism of emotional imbalance. Its all about family and society and festivals to be celebrated and costs of living and the little comforts. We want to go back to India with the expectation that the fourteen days that we spend on an average with our families are a good enough snapshot of the remaining 351 days that we would have had in case we were resident Indians.

A week back a few enlightened souls, my office mates and friends gathered together for a post-dinner munching of good ice-cream. After the initial pleasantries and comments on the housing market, new deals and a few etcetras, the conversation veered to the all-too-common returning to India. Surprisingly though, we managed to focus on a very practical discussion on why it may be difficult to go back and work there. I am listing out the salient points. Feel free to share your thoughts. Most of this is speculation since I haven’t spoken to a lot of people who have made this switch back. These are questions to which I’d love to have accurate answers.

Attitude issues
My wife worked for a couple of years in India and then came here for her Masters. Subsequently, she got an internship with the evil monopolistic company everyone loves to hate. In the interim, she went back to India and met up with her former managers. When she mentioned where she got her internship, the reaction was drastic. The comments were sarcastic and the tone changed. The whole attitude was one of “she used to work here before, and now she is flying high because of being in the US”. This may be an over-reaction, but how far fetched is it from a common reality? This is precisely what I fear. Is the Indian mentality beyond such pettiness? Another colleague of mine had interviewed with Infosys and TCS in India after having done his Masters here. He narrated how they gave him a hard time in the interviews, aiming to prove a point and boss over him.

Work Culture
A colleague’s wife works for Infosys in India. When he narrated her stories to us, I was made to think hard. They have to work weekends even though they are off, to the extent that she had to notify if she was taking a Saturday off. There is a lot of emphasis on the balance of work and life out here which may perhaps not exist in India. That actually surprised me. I worked for a year in India and we had fixed timings (in fact, we had buses we would catch at fixed times to get to Andheri station from Chandivali). That however, was almost, 6 years ago. Perhaps the reality today is different

I am the Boss of you
Indian work culture is steeped in hierarchy. Apparently IT is no different. You have to get to work before your manager gets there and leave after he does. Again, hearsay for me. But I can believe that some of it may be true. The importance on pretense may be too much.

Services versus Product industry
To me, this is the single most important factor. I work for the largest software company in the world. I work on delivering a product that millions of people use. To me, that is a terrific experience to have. There is continuity, there are familiar processes, familiar stages (Software Development Life Cycle, if you remember your Software Engineering class). The impact I as a single employee can have is tremendous. The services industry is a different ball game altogether. You keep getting shifted from project to project, have to sit on the bench when you aren’t on one, and be too mobile for you own good. There is another issue. in the services industry, the emphasis is on knowing as much of new technology as possible. Everything from SAP to SOAP. The more you know, the better. Out here, even though we develop the technology, we are isolated from knowing a million technologies. I even wonder if I’d get hired back if I go back today.

Management the only way up?
We have the concept of an individual contributor here. You can spend several years in the company growing in your role of your choice. Not everyone is good at managing, especially the uber-geeks we have in-house. The good thing is, you don’t have to be an manager if you don’t want to. You can make progress in life otherwise too. In India, the concept of growth is to do a few projects, and become a lead. At least this is what I gathered.

No IT in Mumbai?
A more localized issue, but it impacts me. I have lived in Mumbai as long as I was in India and frankly, it would be difficult for me to imagine living elsewhere. Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad: perhaps. Gurgaon: maybe. Chennai: I don’t think so. Jhumri-Talaiyya: Anyday! I find it amazing that I settled in Seattle without any qualms and find moving around in my home country a big issue. Unfortunately, the big product development companies aren’t in Mumbai.

Wow. That was a long post. I have to put a disclaimer that working in an American company in America has its own set of issues, which doesn’t make it better than the Indian counterparts. The points above have been based on some personal experiences and a lot of conversations with people. So, of course, it may not be all “factual”. Again, feel free to share/discuss your thoughts.

Downpour

Let the odd drop bounce off your shoulder,
As I watch one leap off mine.
Wince a little as the spray hits us,
Walk with me under this pleasant confine.

Black is the color that covers us so,
A well-lit dream under a dark shroud.
A pleasant accident as your shoulder brushes me,
A smiling afternoon under a dark cloud.

A Tale In The Twist

They stood with a mild distance separating them. Parallel to each other. Yin and Yang, if they would have been of the opposite sex. Yang and Yang suited better. Or “Yanger”, as the punster among the two would remind his older friend on every instance. The philistines swarmed around them holding their wine glasses, and smug demeanors. Soft classical music wafted through the speakers. The older man seemed oblivious of everything. He was two feet from the painting, eyes fixed in unwavering attention. He had been looking forward to this exhibition for months now.

“Piece of art”, he mumbled. “Of course it is”, came the retort. The older man didn’t flinch at the rudeness or the impatience of his younger companion. He was lost in the sight his eyes beheld, completely absorbed in its folds. He continued talking, not moving his eyes from the girl in front of him. It was the most melancholic face he had ever seen. “Have you seen such beauty in someone’s eyes before?”. His flair for the dramatic was well-known. His companion ignored the comment. Get on it with it, he said impatiently. He wasn’t in the mood for paintings today. Six months of planning had gone into this. There could be no mistake, no slip-up. He was hoping the others in the room would do their part. There was no let-up in the conversation though. “I would give anything to have her”. “That’s what we are here for”, came the reply. Moments passed and the time ticked to 11.57 pm. The older companion stiffed up a bit. He could sense a body closing in on him. This is it, he thought. This is the time. Everything has been timed to the ‘T’. Every detail covered, every avenue explored. This would be sweet success. His face broke into a smile.

They stood with a mild distance separating them. Parallel to each other. Backs facing in opposite direction. The younger man stared at the painting. The old man took a step forward and held the hand of the beautiful girl. Six months ago, at about the same time of the day, he had popped the question. She had said yes. She took up the job. His secretary, his trusted aide. She reached into her purse and handed him the keys he had asked for. “Thanks. Have you seen this masterpiece?”, he asked. “No, sir”, she confessed. He stepped aside to let her have a view of the painting. “It is perfect. Titled, The Mirage. It is about the surprises life throws us. See the boy in the painting below the balcony. He has come back bloodied from battle to his lady love. She was sitting in the balcony gazing in the far horizon at nothing in particular. Her dream, her deepest wish has materialized and is a few feet away from her. But she doesn’t know or care. She can look through him but not believe him to be true. He can’t believe it at first. Don’t miss the bafflement in his body language. Moments later came the realization. He was dead.” A dramatic pause later, he added, “A picture does say a thousand words, doesn’t it?”

The effect was eerie. She took a step back instinctively. The setting discomforted her. She had her doubts about her boss in the first place. There were red flags all around that she had discounted. He was in a line of descendents of counts who were mysterious outcasts, and he had inherited those traits. He would disappear by late afternoon and would appear tired and groggy the next morning. But the pay was good and she needed the job, so she ignored the signs. Today however was unusual. He had called her to his private art gallery in the night to give him keys to his office. He said he had lost them. It seemed like a big mistake now. And then, the person next to her boss turned. The last thing she remembered were bloodshot eyes and a pair of fangs and the rest of the people in the room gathering around her. And then, sweet haunting pain.

P.S> The toughest part of creative writing is the creativity. To be precise, how many ways can you avoid retelling a tale? I started off writing this piece and had about 15 different plots in mind, all of which were clichéd. So I kept writing it till each turn would be unexpected. You could start to think of the story being one of two men at odds, or art thieves, or love, or a lot of other things. Those did cross my mind. One plot was to have the two as father and son and the woman in question being the mother who thinks the son is dead and gets a surprise. You see the point. There are a million twists in the tale. The tough part is to write a tale for each twist that is worth reading. The end goal was to have something unexpected at each turn. Let me know if you enjoyed it.