12B

My trip to my friend's place was almost symmetrical. I had to take two buses from my place to reach his. The first one was to Majestic (to which I happened to get 108B) and from there I had to take 12B to reach his place. The bus number brought back memories of the tamil movie 12B that me and my 4 other friends had gone to see back in Engineering days. Although I understood little of tamil back then, the movie was well rated and I could follow it by the sequence rather than by the dialogues. The movie was about the Hero trying to catch the bus 12B to go to an interview. The movie splits at the point he misses the bus - One part of the story shows what would have happened if he did catch the bus and the part if he didn't. The movie was pretty interesting and Shyam did a decent job. I think the heroine was Jyothika who is one of my favorites when it comes to acting. As I sat in the bus, I tried to recollect some moments of when we went to watch that movie. It was 5 of us - 3 guys and 2 gals. We could have been called as the Famous Five back then - but then as circumstances change, the group is no longer a group but we still keep in touch with each other directly or indirectly. 2 of us in the group couldn't understand tamil but still ended up watching the movie by force of the other 3 or 2 rather since one person hardly forces anyone to do anything. So coming back to this trip, I went to his place, met another 3 friends there, we played cricket in his room on second floor. It was fun playing cricket after a loooooooooong time as well as playing with them. We then went out for a walk in the dark (since there was no power), drank tender coconut and then went to Cane-O-La to drink Sugarcane juice. I was surprised to see the cleanliness they maintained in this little shop. It seems this is a new chain of stores that has come up recently providing quality sugar cane juice. There were even choices as in Salt-pepper, ginger, lemon, masala. We all had a glass and then they walked me to the bus stop to get back. All along we spoke of past, present and future and some rubbish too!.. As I waited at the bus stop, there it was again 12B taking me back to Majestic. The bus was pretty empty, took a seat towards the end of the bus, looking outside the window, I was thinking "How quickly time flies by...". I got down at majestic and 108B was ready to leave, hopped in. Midway the bus broke down because of jammed brakes. Waited for a few more minutes for another bus and reached home.. This was my 12B story, no second part to it....

Back to Reality!

The last time I blogged - it said 11 more days to go... and now its already 1 day gone :-( after coming back! Got back after 3 awesome weeks back home... one of the best trips I have had in years (gone back about 6 times now). Almost everything went well, got to spend so much time with Parents (visited Coorg, Mysore with them), got to spend time with friends, got to spend time at home.. and best of all didn't get sick at all which helped throughout. Guess I was sick enough before going home..

Well, coming back was even more difficult this time - for once, I didn't have one bit of a mood to come back. I had all my necessary documents to stay back - all that was left behind was material possessions which I could have let go anyway, but thats not whats in store for now I guess :(.. Add to this, mood back here wasn't that good either.. I get into the cab from the airport and check my voicemail - the first one is from my boss, saying not to get worried when I get in next morning since 20 ppl got laid off! oh well how unlucky ME - I am not one of them.. on the contrary - more work for me because others are leaving :(... If I should go by the latest book I read "God Does Not Play Dice" - this is the way it should happen and I should not think of alternatives happening, if I should go by my horoscope which I happened to read a bit while I was in India - I would not be able to settle back home for the time being; I would be travelling or staying away from home is what that said, If I should go by my own decision - even then I will have to wait here until next August (which is when my parents would be heading back after their trip here). So like it or not, atleast for the next 8-10 months, I am stuck here in this challenging economy with still a job on hand... oh well, i will tell myself if I get through this, I would have learnt something more in life

It was a dream for last 3 weeks, waking up to coffee and nice South Indian breakfast (Idli, Dose, Avalakki, sometimes obbattu), great weather, watch cricket match for a few hours, head out for sometime, come back for awesome adige (see kootu, saaru, pongal, all types of huli, etc).. please note - these are a daily thing and nothing specially cooked because I was there.. and now the first day I get back, I had to settle for Bagel, somehow forced myself to cook some cabbage sabzi for dinner at night.

Ok, enough of feeling bad that I am back, let me just tell myself - all's for good and get on with life.. woke up at 4:30 since I went to bed at 9 - didn't know what to do so wrote this, found a couple friends from India to share my feelings..

My next few blogs will be about some of the trips I made in India and in Bengaluru!

Seems like I've been waiting for ever...

11 more days to go....

The other day I realized this has been the longest period that I have ever stayed here in US. The first time I visited it was just a year and 3 months and then I went back every year. But the last time I visited it was in Feb '07. Its now 1 year and 8 months! phew! plus I guess the fact that I have not been well for the last few weeks makes it even worse. Especially the sick days - when mama used to cook just the right food to get you back on track ASAP. Having to cook myself with no appetite is like frying peanuts and no teeth to eat! I was telling myself that this is a kind of wake up call. When everything was going well, you have a speed breaker to make you realize where you are and what you are doing. Although my intention still is to head back by next year end (provided mom dad visit me in the spring'09), life's not so easily plannable when you start commiting yourself to a lot of things. I have to say this lifestyle gives anyone ample opportunity to fulfil their dreams. I can't imagine doing all these: entrepreneurial ventures, running, reading, watching movies, attending concerts, learning guitar, stress free work, travel, enjoying good health and more in India without difficulty. As for what I have understood from my friends' views, life's a lot more challenging back home than here. Especially work-life balance is a lot harder back home in the current situation. What I miss here is friends, just walking in the neighborhood, running into someone, visiting temple, eat outs, good home cooked food, festivals, delicacies. If one can get adjusted to the food habbits here then its a little better. But with me turning to complete vegetarian food - my choices are limited to tasteless indian restaurants, italian pizza, mexican tacos, american veggie burger, pasta or salad. Go a full circle and you will come back to saying whatever I cook is better than everything else and when you get bored, you have the above to choose from.

So is it going to be sacrifice what I miss in India for the benefits here? or just don't think too much and head back? Well not everything is rosy in India either but again.. no place is perfect .. you just have to see what you desire more? Add to all this, I got a bad news that my colleague's (Indian) father died over the weekend. He was sick and my friend was to leave to India on Saturday. Poor guy - I don't think he made it in time.

I don't know if things would have been different had my parents visited me this year - probably I would have been looking for job openings right now. With the job cuts globally, I am not even sure if I will find a decent job back home. Well its another thing that I want one (would love to start something on my own and slog at it rather than have financial security and no satisfaction). But that can delay any wedding/settling plans quite a bit - again depends..

My 3 week trip is going to feel so short since my first week is already booked with domestic trips. I am planning another domestic trip 1st week of Nov which is essentially the end of my trip. Before long its going to be Christmas and another year gone and I am going to be back to the daily grind to begin accumulating holidays for the next vacation!

Hopefully, I can brainstorm this vacation to see if I find my calling to some project in India...

The Countdown begins tomorrow!

Eating right vs. Eating Home Cooked Food

So, I ended up being in the ER for a night and under observation for another day. With 4-5 pipes running into my veins for almost a whole day supplying my body with IV fluid, antibiotics - I wondered laying on the hospital bed whether deciding to go with home cooked food was the right thing to do on that Tuesday night. I think I jinxed my good health off-late. Been running 5 miles atleast once a week and 3-4 atleast 2 times, eating an egg everyday, eating healthy (salad, rice, roti, vegetables, occasionally pizza and fries). Come tuesday night - I was debating if I should cook something and eat or just have some ready made parathas since my roommate had rice and chicken from a restaurant the night before. I decided, fine let me cook instead of eating something ready made. Picked up frozen green beans and mixed vegetables from the freezer and cooked a simple sabzi. Boiled an egg and had roti along with it. Wednesday morning was almost normal apart from diarrhoea in the morning which I should have realized then that something wasn't right. Around 11 am felt surprisingly hungry - I was thinking to myself what was wrong, pushed my hunger until 12 and decided to eat roti and THE SAME sabzi from the night before. That was it! God Knows (really even after spending a day at the hospital - all that doctors could say was GI infection) what went wrong that I had total uneasiness in my stomach. Pushed it until late evening on Wednesday hoping it was a condition of usual indigestion or gas. But when it didn't detiriorate until night, I decided to show it to a doctor (in this country going to a doctor when you are sick is going into ER unless its a regular check up). So even though it seems big - by the time I entered ER, I was 60% better than what I had already gone through.

What I am getting to is these situations can demotivate one to live healthily. I don't see anything wrong with what I did but still ended up sick :-(. May be I should have ordered a pizza, or had parathas.. but thats all now not at that very moment when it happened. Well I guess recovery wasn't too bad after all (I guess me being fit helped a bit). I am almost back to normal. Now I have to regain my stamina to be able to get back to running 5 miles under 40 mins and I am looking forward to it. I can saw it was good in a way this happened coz they could analyze my system to see if something was seriously wrong - Thank God! nothing came up - phew. Now I can recover for the next 3 weeks before I can enjoy good Indian food :D.

Off to home to get some lunch!

World Famous yet Humble!

So I got to witness the fantastic brothers from Mysore (Nagaraj and Dr. Manjunath) perform over the past weekend. These two have become famous for their amazing talent in playing Violin. They have played with other world famous musicians. You can get to know more about them here: http://www.violinindia.com/MNM.htm. One of my friend's cousin learns music and she suggested I watch them play. I have attended the past two concerts (one theirs and the other of famous vocalist Sanjay Subramaniam) at a nearby auditorium over the past couple weekends. This weekend was mind blowing. 3 hours of technically sound, synchronous violin concert. I also got to witness them perform against each other during the performance. More interestingly, I got to meet and speak to these two great maestros personally (courtesy: my friend's cousin). She has known them for a quite sometime and thus introduced me and my friend to them. I was dumstruck to say anything to them since:

1. I have musical knowledge but not as much to be able to commend about the specificities and
2. I couldn't come up with the right words (both in English and in Kannada).

All I could muster up and say was "Adbuthavaagittu" to the older of the two Mr. Nagaraj. They were not interested in people showering accolades on them but to just have a chat about general things. Both of them are quite funny in conversation. It was great to listen to jokes in Kannada after a long time. My respect for them kept increasing as we began to spend more and more time. I felt great when Dr. Manjunath shared a compassionate moment when I said I was born in MysoreImagine these both have been performing almost non-stop for the last 15 or so days and were scheduled for almost another 20 days. The night before they were in Florida and on Saturday they were in Philly and were scheduled to perform the next three days in Chicago and so on. I was amazed at their energy level - neither looked as if they had just 3 hours of sleep the night before. I even got to have dinner with them (courtesy: my friend's cousin again). As we (me and my friend) were uninvited for dinner and had to join in at the last moment, we let all the others start their dinner and then jumped in at the last. By the time we served our plates and came out, everyone had already sat down to eat, so we three sat at a table closeby. Seeing us sit by ourselves, younger of the two brothers invited us to join them - he moved out from his circle to join us on our table along with the three of us and another person joined us. It was great seeing both of them have dinner in our traditional way - eating with hand and not spoon and fork. We meanwhile were eating the westernized way. One would imagine that being world class performers would have changed a lot about them but not really! We had a nice conversation for the next 20 mins on everything including his PhD in music. We had fun pulling my friend's cousin's leg quite a bit. In the end when we left - he was as happy as us to have been a part of this concert/dinner. Truly humble Maestros!!

Hail The Mysore Maestros ;-) !!! ("Kombu bartha ide") If you are interested in carnatic music - please listen to them playing if you get a chance.

Being Respected or Liked?

So which do you prefer? Respected among friends and peers or liked among them? or both? well - I don't know if both is possible though.. may be it is... if so, I would like to be there.. The fact that I have been the latter almost all my life hurts me and now I want to start being respected.. Can you be totally funny, outgoing and yet when it matters your friends/family look up to you? I feel people have a tendency to take you the way they see you and not the way you behave at different situations..Some just take you for granted (which I am dead allergic to) and some just want to deal with you the same way they deal with you all the time. So is it possible that a group of friends or a family can work together and still one person lead the way? what defines credibility? how does one build it? experience? so without actually giving someone a chance, how does one get experience? the same story with jobs and experience.

Being liked is easier than respected - for example I can pretty much say I am very much liked in the whole family, although my sister probably might be more respected when it comes to certain situations. She keeps telling me that I am a volcano waiting to explode. In the habbit of being liked and pleasing everyone, I am probably hurting my ego. But wait, isn't ego bad? well, err, i guess not as much as long as it is controlled well - so how do you know if you are controlling it? what acts constitute bad ego and what doesn't? All this adds to your management style. I guess I need to be more assertive and clear if I am heading up to lead a company or just a team or even a family. Has looks got to do a lot with the way people treat you? My uncle and a neighbor used to tell me that my height and personality suits for a leader/manager. Well, granted I was the President of my school, was captain of the sports team, used to be the captain whenever I played cricket with friends (atleast most of the time), but now that I can look back, it wasn't all because of my height or look - it was either moreso that people didnt want that responsibility and I enjoyed it. Whatever it is, I will try and figure it out someday... until then I will work on improving my "Respected" qualities :-) !

The Secret is No Longer a Secret !

So I started reading "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne. Supposed to be a motivating read and an eye opener to a simple concept that we have forgotten to notice. The bottom line that I have got so far from reading it is that "Law of attraction" has tremendous power. If we need success, we need to attract success, we need to act as if we are successful. This should be applied to everything we want in life. To some extent I agree with the author. Remember all those occasions where you know something's gonna happen (good / bad) both and indeed it did. We keep hearing to people say, I knew I was going to get it, I knew this would happen. When reading this book, all those incidents came back to me. I think it does make some sense. For example, think you are going into a crucial match and you are the only known good player, rest of them are out/injured/etc.. You have prepared day in day out for this one moment, although you have butterflies in your stomach, something tells you, "you are gonna make it".. and from nowhere you see this talent flowing like a river and before you know, you are tasting success... I have experienced this more than a few times. I had read something similar to this and would like to call this state as "The Zone". It is a time period, at which each individual is at his/her best.. he/she doesn't have to think whether he/she is going to succeed.. things just happen.. everything goes through so well that the individual is oozing confidence and if its a team event, the entire team is affected by this one person. Ofcourse, there's background to it - one has to have enough practice, training, etc. to be even in a position to experience this. I call the effect "Blanking effect" - it is where one can blank out all noise and purely focus on what he/she needs to achieve. A lot of what this book says is about believing! I agree, if one believes enough and has the confidence, he/she can achieve his/her goal. but ofcourse remember that confidence only comes by practice and natural ability. Believe it or not - I still believe that what Keanu Reeves showed in the movie "The Matrix" is possible. Call me crazy but I think human mind has that ability and power to make things happen + the fact that most of us use less than 10% of our brain!..

But some of what the author confuses me. For example, I was reading an article on the Cosi River Flooding in India. One lady said "We worship this river every day but still she did this to us - Why??" Interesting I felt... we all do, we all worship, land, air, water and any natural resource almost and sometimes as GOD! and the same thing we worship causes such damage that it baffles people ! Do people lose hope? stop worshipping? The author says - we attract what we want - it is our thoughts that go out into the universe and the universe delivers it to us - of course not magically but with our involvement. So my question is all those people who die in earthquakes, floods, hurricanes - did they attract death?? According to the author - they probably had negative thoughts floating more than positive thoughts..

Takes me back to my school/college days when I was forced into not going to long distance trips, "all thumba danger appa - hogbeda", "neera, beda kano... ", "mooru dina trippa?- no", but when it came to going to "Religious place" - not many qns asked ! Should I call this their Love personified as negative thoughts?? or just negative thinking which probably carries over into children??

So while I continue to read and analyze further to see how I can start believing in my goals, you start to think on what I have written and comment!

Life on Cruise Mode

Life was on a cruise mode yesterday night! Coming back from my uncle's place in Maryland, I had the highway for myself (surprisingly no traffic on the last day of a long weekend - courtesy: higher gas prices and slow economy). I set my speed to 65 mph, inserted Amruthavarshini CD into the player and it felt like heaven! I usually take the route 1 (parallel to Interstate 95) which is much quieter plus I avoid all the toll. Sang along with S.P.B. all along the way.. was even able to pay attention to the lyrics more than before since it was so quiet. My Acura TSX felt more like a plane than a car. The 8-speaker surround sound made it even better! Stopped on the way to get the cheapest price per gallon of gasoline between MD and PA, got a coke for myself to calm my stomach down after eating as if competing with Lord Ganesha over the past two days! The drive felt way much shorter than it usually is... I realized I need some time off like this every now and then. No one to critize my thoughts, actions, words and even my singing ;-)... The movie is from my list of favorites and so are the actor/actress. The song "Bhale Bhale Chandada .... " reminded me of my Eng. Days! Singing was one of our favorite lunchtime things to do.. After this CD, I plugged in another one - this time it was an assorted Hindi cd. It feels so nice when you accidentally find out something you have that you cherish a lot and had forgotten for sometime.. This CD was one such thing! The songs that were on this one were: Maine Dil Se Kaha from Rog, Khoobsurat wo itna from the same movie, Fana title song, Bin tere sanam (remixed version), Jal Jal ke dhua .. (forgot the movie name), Tanhai mein basi hai zindagi - Another great one from lucky ali - not sure if it is an album, Aadat from Zeher movie I guess and a few others..

Music can definitely change a person's mood in minutes if the person is into music. No matter what, just humming the tune of a song you like makes you either happy or sad! I was all along a happy kid singing on top of my voice on board my Acura TSX!

Indian Culture and Tradition - Gone or Going?

Has India lost its culture and tradition to go more western? or is it losing? Is more Indian culture-tradition followed in US? I was at my relative's house last weekend and this was one of the topics we were discussing on the auspicious festive day of Krishna Janmashtami. I was probably the youngest involved in the conversation, ofcourse there were kids but other than them. On my previous two visits to India, I myself felt more Indian than people who are living there. So you can imagine what would have happened to people in their 40's, 50's and 60+'s.. the phrase "we are frozen in time" kept coming up again and again in the whole discussion. I was wondering whether I was frozen too (but in a different time zone than them). On my way to work this morning I remembered my father's birth year for some reason which is 1947. I tried to go through all those years from 47-08 and felt what an experience it must have been to go through these generations. So I told myself, before I get frustrated next time on him for not understanding something related to our generation, I should try and remember which generation he comes from (lets say the gen. of B&W). So Indians who came to this country say 10 years back having an idea of getting back once they accomplish what they came here for (money, success, whatever) are now facing a major dilemma. Now that they have children, the dreaded question of where to bring them up is beginning to haunt them. They had thought, once kids reach 4th or 5th grade, they would take them back, educate them there and since they are already citizens here (by birth) they would have a choice to get back. Well, now there's complications... on their recent visits, they realized what the booming economy has done to our culture. No longer can someone staying here for say 10 years can think of seeing the same India that they saw back then. Neither should they expect to according to me. After all development comes as a package, one can't ignore certain things and accept others.. Kids are growing up in a whole different world - the world of media, video games and what not! With zillion channels, the haze of bollywood and hollywood, video games covering young brains .. one can no longer say this is the same old place we grew up. I keep thinking even now how I used to spend my summer holidays (playing outside from 10-6 or 7 every day), watching a movie occasionally, no video games, spending time with friends. I can't imagine what kids do these days. After all even my community decided to turn a play ground into a park!!! where the hell are kids to go if they want to play?? Oh well.. my story about my favorite ground in another blog.

So I thought to myself, is it right to expect that from our country? or is it just too much to ask for? Be it dressing or cell phones or tv or even food, things have changed so much. But ofcourse there's disadvantages to bringing up children here too.. It will be very interesting to see what happens next..

Well, for me.. I am not even married yet, so as of now I can stand and watch what happens and may be in a few years be in a better position to decide ;-) !!

Life is all about Balance!

We are all a part of this balancing act.. day in and day out we are acting knowingly or unknowingly. Imagine a world full of non-vegetarians or a world full of vegetarians, neither could have existed for long. Why do we blame people for eating meat in that case? If all meat eating people turned vegetarian, there would be a shortage of food and the other way is true too. Similarly we need to learn to value other's beliefs and not try to force on them what we think is right. It is by the absence of something that another thing gets its meaning (light from dark, day from night, joy from sorrow, happiness from sadness, etc). We give more importance to things that make us happy than that make us sad.. why? is that because we are all hard wired for happiness? or is it because emotions play such an important role that it changes the way we think and that we are too weak to face tough times in life? Speaking of emotions, I was reading Chetan Bhagat's "3 mistakes of my life" - an interesting and a different kind of read. Didnt expect that after reading an excerpt on the web. The tale is about 3 friends (in Ahmedabad) one a pujari's son, another a gujarati, and another a die hard cricket fan. He brings out some intrinsic characters and values of all three which was interesting to read and link to real life to people whom I have come across. The gujarati mindset is all about business and emotion takes the last seat (if available) whereas for me it's quite the opposite. I was speaking to a friend of mine over the weekend who is from Ahmedabad as well. He works for a finance company and we got talking about accounting, finance in general and he was so enthu about it and was like "aasaan hai.. accha hai" about finance and i was like thinking - damn.. why dont i feel that way?? for me its more so to gain knowledge rather than liking it, for him its liking it and being good at it.. I read this somewhere "Toughness is when you have slogged your ass off and give your best and be able to take that someone out there is better than you!" .... Should one slog so much just to find out someone out there can do it as if they are drinking water?? Coming back to the story, The gujurati is of the same mindset as my friend and this reinstated my belief that they like numbers and they are good at it!.. Barring some rough language the book was a good read...

Going back to balance in life, we are all trying to make ends meet and when we are successful, we would already have created new ends to meet.. and so life goes on... The normal tendency of human mind is to think about future... people might say they live one day at a time, but do they??

As my friend rightly put it "Everyone Dies ... But Not Everyone Lives" ... I will try to LIVE from now on!!!

Wish me luck!

To strive or not to strive

So the question thats been on and off on my mind is "Should an individual strive too hard to achieve success or should he start enjoying life and take things as it comes?"

Two extreme scenarios that come to my mind are:

1. Michael Phelps: Probably the most searched on google for the past few days. He is even being considered as the greatest sportsman ever! not sure what criteria one would use for that but anyways, I read a few articles about him on BBC and other places. Here are a couple:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7562840.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/olympics/2008/08/can_anyone_spoil_phelps_pool_p.html

So after reading his routine, I was like no way would I be able to do something like that unless I am motivated so much by the fact of winning medals at olympics or becoming famous or whatever motivates him. Plus for those who consider perseverence trumps talent, check out his physical structure, thats in born - I dont think perseverence can trump something like that. He was probably trained right from young age to be what he is today. All he does is eat, sleep, swim. Can you imagine not being able to eat when you want, what you want, have no routine, take one day at a time. I can't imagine training like that most of the year or even more than a year leading up to the olympics or whichever other event he is taking part in.

This was just one such extreme example, but I guess it applies to a lot others in various other fields. To be really famous, one has to be extremely dedicated, determined and disciplined + has to have the talent.

2. A friend of mine who has been working for the past 15-20 years at the same place doing pretty much similar work. Grew up in the same neighborhood where he works, has his year planned out to do different things at specific time in year. He is married with kids, hopefully enjoying his life with all the +'s and -'s it comes with. Should he have strived harder to become something more than what he is today? Should he regret as to why he didn't push himself enough? should someone else have pushed him more? was it circumstantial that he would not have been able to? Or he is just happy the way he is and has nothing to complain about enjoying the little things in life!

I guess where I am heading with this argument is at what point in life does one decide how much to strive for and what to strive for? Is there an end? a limit may be? Should one be concerned about the society he/she lives in and strive accordingly to live and match up to it, if he doesn't can he/she still survive? with ever rising prices of everything, should one be considered as to how much is enough? is there a target? Would I be regretting if I didnt lead a company one day? would I regret of not giving my best if I just keep chugging along as I am now? Each day passing by is telling me "there goes one more day and not much has changed!..." should each day really change from the previous day? should I just give it time, put my best foot forward and leave the rest? if so, how do I know whats my best?...........................

Sports and India!

So finally the first "Individual" Gold Medal for India. Abhinav Bindra finally breaks the jinx!! will this be the beginning or the beginning of the end??? Have been watching Olympics every night.. and see USA, China bag medals after medals... Michael Phelps gets his 9th today winning the 100 m free style. USA also bag the 100 m backstroke womens and mens (gold and silver). Damn i said to myself.. where the hell are Indians??? dont we seriously have talent?? are Indians just too submerged in books that there's nothing to life other than that??? Is Cricket the only sport??? Wish I was trained like one right from age of 5! I would have been in Beijing making my country proud instead of working my ass off for a US company.. phew! thats called fate yeah??? or destiny??? or the price of following the norm??? Dont we have technology?? Dont we have money?? Monika gets banned for testing positive on drug test and then gets cleared??? what the hell is going on.... Politics is just killing everything in India... I just F****** can't believe this.. I hate it... talk about perseverence and talent... BS!!!! I am totally irritated and frustrated with everything !

Change your Mind -> Change your Life??

I was watching Larry King Live at my uncle's place this past weekend and saw this interview he held with 4 psychologists and some were scientists too i guess. I dont remember their names since they looked nerdy and so were their names. One familiar person who appeared later in the show was Dr. Sanjay Gupta - Senior Medical Correspondent on CNN. He was the scapegoat for a test to find how mind works and if we can control it. The jist that I got of the interview was this - Mind is a process, non-existential while Brain is. Can you control your mind? mixed answers on that one - one theme was common though - If you can control your thought process, then you could probably make some progress in controlling your mind. Well one of the interviewee went on to say one could cure a disease like Cancer if they made up their mind!$#@& .. baffles me but nothing is impossible (as my friend puts it the word itself says i m possible) .. what intrigued me more was what the other person said on the show - Humans are wired for Happiness!! got me thinking deeply on this one -- I guess thats so true... everything we do, every action we take is linked to happiness in one way or the other, be it for happiness or against. Human brain definitely is the most complicated system designed yet ! Well after seeing this, I started to think if a person really can change his mind, can he possibly achieve anything?? For now, if I can motivate my own self to study a little harder for the exam coming up in December, I will be happy to say I changed my mind :-) ....

In between the interview, me and my uncle got onto the topic of telepathy. We were debating as to whether it really existed. Apparently he has experienced it as well as one of my other friend too mentioned a similar instance. Its all eerie but I guess there's no science to disprove this theory.

My Shoulder

Poor thing! It spoke to me so much, I never listened to it. I kept on pushing it beyond its limit. Ah! thos blissful summer days of sports... play from morning 10 til 6 .. Volleyball, Cricket, just Catch-Catch and Tennis in the evening.. what more did I need. Being allergic to egg, not eating any meat, was strictly on "Anna saaru" to build muscles (yea rite!).. My tennis coach used to say "drink a glass of milk but add a raw egg into it" - prepared it one day and thats it.. never to get close to smelling that thing again is what i said to myself... Those days of glory at school.. was the President, was the school volleyball captain.. a role model for all (good, bad!)... what more.. just kept on jumping and hitting smash after smash. Not enough?? train others to receive smashes by making them stand in a circle and keep smashing at them... macho man huh!! gave it a small break during Pre-University days, but then only to resume more fiercly in Eng. Every free period, weekends, evenings, knew nothing but to play volleyball! well it gave me a glimpse of what was coming when I could not deliver when needed (we lost our match against Electronics team) :-( .. sad but true.. that opened my eyes only to close again... came to the U.S. started shuttle badminton.. oh this is easy.. not much stress at all.. and then one day in January .. it said.. here you go! pay for it now! my shoulder clicked.. felt as if I was holding a 100 kg weight !.. stopped for a few minutes to relax and contd... thinking.. yea yea.. i know its ok..

And now...
Diagnosed with SLAP (Superior Labrum from Anterior to Posterior) .. in simple terms have a tear that won't heal with simple physical therapy.. need to sew it together.. (its weeping - my shoulder ofcourse)... but there's no other go.. if i have to get back to some sort of sport or physical exercise routine.. Unfortunately my other shoulder is saying.. i guess you tore me too... now i feel like thakur from Sholay - the only difference - he lost it when gabbar cut his both hands and me! I TORE THEM BOTH !! SOB SOB....

“Man needs his difficulties because they are necessary to enjoy success.”

The title was quoted by Hon. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Azad. I think thats very true. The very fact that success gets its meaning is from difficulties. The fact that light can earns its meaning is by the absence of darkness. But most of the times we engulf ourselves so much in difficulty that we fail to notice success. I guess its each individual's perspective. Man's basic nature is to correct others and make them think and act like him - because he thinks he is right! I read this book called "Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus". I found it very interesting and still keep applying a few things now and then when I come across situations. Man's basic instinct to find solutions to everything, Women's need for a compassionate listener - I think these form the building blocks of any marriage. If they can understand the simple fact that Men are Men and Women are Women and not try to change each other, things would be much better. More often than not, husband finds fault in wife and vice versa and tries to correct each other's behavior. I once learned that no matter what you can change in a person - you cannot change their intrinsic behavior/character. But inspite of all this, we still try to convince/pressurize/force people to change their intrinsic behavior and become something else. Why??? Why can't you just let people be what they are? (this line I learned from my friend's comments on my blog). In spite of people advising me to read books like "How to Win Friends and Influence People" - one of the seven or (how many I forget ) liners was "Don't Condemn, Complain or Criticize" - Is this truly possible? Knowingly or unknowingly we all keep doing this day in day out - some even make it their full time work! So why blame others that they don't learn and implement anything after reading? Fact is person cannot live without those 3 C's I mentioned. Its what level you go to in doing those that differentiates individuals. So my title has not much to do with what I am writing. My friend send me this quote this morning and just felt like using it in my blog.

The other day I was mentioning to one of my friends how we argue on simple issues like wasting water, electricity, food, etc. Although I do think we shouldn't be wasting all these since they are not available in abundance - knowing for a fact that how many rich people in this world are wasting these in large amounts gets me to think - is it worth arguing at home or wherever and create bitter moments? As long as each individual realizes the value of it, I don't think there should be any more discussions on these topics. Because no matter what we save, what we don't - someone somewhere is wasting 10 times more than what we are saving.

So my new philosophy in Life - " Enjoy Optimally while it lasts " - Pretty general but I apply it to natural resources and optimum applies to what I consider optimum. I guess my up bringing will not allow me to waste food and other resources which were hard to come by back then.

Anyways.. thats it for now!
Take care,
SanDeep!

Optimism is the name of life!

Well, I guess everyone wants good things to happen to them. Interestingly, they don't want to know their complete future, but still they'd love to know in bits and pieces- "only if good things are in store". I guess we all live our life in optimism - well almost all I should say, coz some people say living in Pessimism is better - that way, even a small good event brings a lot of happiness. I know a few people who live like this. My blog's header says "Script your own destiny" - and I am about to say - Life takes its own course! we might want things to happen, in certain ways, at certain times, at certain places - but it always doesn't. We try to steer our way in that direction and as one colleague at work used to say "Lord Willing" - it might happen or it might not. If it does, we are happy, else - we reason out - by saying "what happens happens for good" or cribbing about how our luck is rotten!. Life still goes on!

Just watch any world news and you will know how Life Goes On No Matter What Happens. Nature has begun to cure itself - in this process thousands of lives will be lost. Its interesting to note how man has always invented things that lead to his own destruction in the end. Imagine all those people burried in China because of the earthquake - they build it with Brick and Mortar so as to shelter them from Rain, Storm, etc but not when Nature decided to go with Earthquake. Now they blame the government for poor safety regulations. Well we all need someone to blame when things go wrong.

We dug up earth because we didnt find anything better to do - extracted oil, used it to drive our lives and now thats leading to our own destruction. Now we are planning for a band-aid solution to it! We buy stuff we dont use and trash it - only to end up in landfills. These never disintegrate and in the end again will lead to destruction!...

Well, inspite of all this happening, people still fight for no reason, are upset on all silly things...hate each other...

I guess its true that when God was creating man, he kept asking what he wanted, God kept filling a glass with every want that Human desired, in the end when he asked for PEACE, there was no place left in the glass! and that explains why we are what we are today!

Keep Looking for Peace!
May 22, 2008

Its OK to be Vulnerable!

I don't understand why some people think it is unacceptable to show your vulnerable side once in a while... what happens if you show? why do people fear others will consider you are weak? what's wrong in showing you can be weak too sometimes? its very natural...Honestly i can't understand. I was talking to someone very close to me and felt how that person was trying to suppress their feelings by saying.."yea it will be there and i will feel better in a few days time".. what was going through that person's mind? "No-no i should not say anything that will make him feel bad and he will start worrying and thinking" I mean how unselfish can people be? is it valid? is it worth it? makes me feel i am not the same... should I be? isn't it my responsibility to give what i get? or what they deserve at least? I am all confused! as ever... 

Tale of a mediocre middleclass boy!

This is a short story with no end so far of a mediocre-middleclass boy from a small town somewhere in Europe. I am sure there are many others who fall into this category. He was born into a middleclass family. He does not remember a lot of his childhood other than a few incidents here and there. His childhood was quite normal from a middleclass family point of view. He has now grown into a successful yet unhappy professional. His father is a very ambitious man probably life made him so. Working all his life for his family now looks forward to his kids achieving something great their lives or probably the boy thinks so now! At a very young age, he learned to respect his parents and probably decided never to hurt them. Thus began his journey of keeping his family happy. In this process, although he became the most loved child of his family, he was not loved by his own self. As he grew up, he started agreeing to career as well as personal decisions that was utilitarian in view. He felt this was the best way to go about it. After all his brother was a rebel and wanted to do things on his own and even did so on many occasions. So the being the younger for a change he decided he would go as per his parents wish. One of the other reasons that compelled him to agree to his parents wish was because he was quite indecisive and low on confidence to stand up for what he wanted to be in life. So he chose the path of least resistance - just agree and believe everything will be for the good. In the process of his career, he made great friends, had a comfortable college life and also ended up getting advanced degree finally ending up in a decent job. Now that life seems to have slowed down, he is beginning to reflect on his life - trying to make sense of what happened and whether it makes sense or not. For some part, he feels "Yes, what I did and what I am doing is for my family" - another part of him says "Oh, what have you done, In the process of making your parents happy, you have lost your own self, you never did anything for your own self"... Now that he has a decent job, decent salary, he wants to give back to his parents who have done so much in his life. For various reasons, he is now realizing that he might not be able to give them what he wants to and feels regretful for not being able to do so as well as regretful for his own self for not being a little more selfish all these years. He is seeing signs of his family not being in a position to accept what he has to offer. At this point in life, he is trying to make sense of where his life is heading to, why he has to work, earn. It is difficult for him to motivate himself for selfish reasons. Hopefully, he will find a meaning - well even if not - time doesn't wait for anyone and will keep chugging along - and so will his life !!

Bored

Bored !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hmmmmmmm! So writing after a loooooooooooong time........ Have one more exam to go tomorrow. I will be done with first semester of MBA. Did enjoy it but it has been tough..... tough to cope with work and studies as always. So here I am sitting with about 5 chapters more to go for my Economics exam. Dont feel like studying :-(.... dont feel like doing anything, looks like I am ready for a break....... the one I am looking forward to :-). 11 more days and I will be flying to my hometown (Bengaluru... yeaah).... looking forward to meet parents :-), Friends :-), Mom's home cooked food :-), and much more........ Will be there for almost a month. Hope to regroup my energy during that time, have fun and get back to another semester of slogging!. This is LIFE ! at least as of now. The temperature outside is -10 degrees which makes it harder to sit and study, I have been sleeping a lot :-(, this weather is definitely not for me when compared to heaven (Bengaluru), hope to get there for good sooooooooooooooon. Routine life is as boring as loneliness, Change is the only good thing and as is told is the only Constant thing. Listening to songs from "Aandhi" makes it a little better, no one on messenger to chat with :-(, no emails, the heat in my apartment draining me out of water makes me sick !!!! ok enough of my saga .......... gotto get back to understanding how economy works!!!!!

Will write the next one in BENGALURU :-)........
Adios,
Sandy

Another Hot and Humid Night

Another hot and humid night!

ooooph! . Another hot and humid night. Its about 11;35 Pm on Tuesday night. Its not really hot but yes it is. Thanks to my staff member, we now have an A/C in the bed room. Can go and sleep in a cool environment. It was really hot last couple of weeks and the heat seems to have come back. I had been to my unc;s place over the weekend. It was a good trip except for the delay in reaching his place. I and all others on the way to Washington were detoured because of some problem close to Silver Spring. Had to go through the interior roads. I got to see Laurel (name of the place) because of this, it was new, it was nice, I passed through the entire town( I assume it is one!). Used a little bit of common sense to take the US 1 south route since I drive from US 1 North. I called my uncle to know I was in the rt direction and would meet the junction where I could connect back to the highway to reach his place. The only thing I did wrong was going into Downtown of Silver Spring which was not needed. But I enjoyed that too, even at 11:45 at night there were a lot of ppl, the city was full of lights. So it was a nice 15 minute drive into the city. So finally reached unc;s place at midnight, had a light and nice home cooked meal, went to bed after a long 4 hour drive. The next day went to one of aunts relatives house for lunch. Lunch was really yummy ! More than that, I liked their house. Lot of greenery around, we had lunch in their back yard on a deck ( shape of a mantapa). Hard to describe but harder to forget!

So after lunch, got to play carrom board! does anybody even remember this ???? It was such a nice break, I simply enjoyed it. Though it took me about 5-6 boards to get back to a lil form, i enjoyed every bit of it, It was fun.

So came back home, took rest and then it was dinner time again...... so we went out to Madras cafe a restaurant nearby. Hmmm after the waiter informing me they did not have mini idly's ( has anyone had those?), i settled for Mysore sada dosa. After a substantial wait, I got to eat my dosa. Even before I took the first bite, the dosa was cold.... and was stuck to the plate . I turn around to see so many ppl around me eating. I was wondering these ppl should have extra money to waste on such a restaurant(including us :( ). Anyways, went back home, got onto my laptop, was able to connect to interenet with a low speed. Was able to browse through my emails, reply to important ones and then went to bed.

This was like a total DROP from where I was before going there. Imagine working for more than 10 hrs per day and even on saturday and sunday and all of a sudden you cannot do anything ! That was a bit of major pull down and was really hard to take. But I used this time to think a little differently on all the issues i was facing, this gave me some new ideas.

So I was at a Birthday party for twins (2 year old) and satyanarayana pooja. It was nice. The best part of it was when I got to let baby boy(1 of the twins) sleep on my lap. Believe me, to watch him sleep was heaven . Nothing to beat that. Man, kids are heavy when they sleep. My legs were going numb. But when i saw the baby's face, I forgot everything. The pooja was over, everyone did namaskaara and took prasad while I was still sitting. I didn;t want the baby to wake up. After sometime, I had to give him to another person for me to take prasad. He woke up once he shifted, but luckily he had already had a nice sleep and was not cranky at at all . So I had a dinner and got to play with both the twins for some more time with balloons before they cut the cake.

Had a cup of coffee and left for home. The only incident which left a bad taste to me was that two of the guests cars were towed for being parked in the VISITOR lot. It was a catch that nobody except the house owner who was busy with the pooja. So 2 of them had to pay $90. I didnt think this was a big amount to brood over for ppl pretty well off. Anyways all I felt was it was meant to happen and it happened and should have just closed there, instead it became the topic of the afternoon. Everyones talking about this, how one should sue, whom?, where? how oh my god ! Did anyone even think about what would have been the case if this was India? The cop would have taken a 100 bucks and then got done with it. Nobody would even care. What happened now? because you are in America, you need to be like this thinking of sueing and things like that. Believe me the entire time through lunch and till everyone left there was just one topic the one about car being towed. And this was not enough we even were having the same discussion at dinner table at night.

My god, I just stayed away from the whole conv and controlled myself. If anyone of them comes to know the way I am spending money, they will be shocked . Anyways... so stayed there on Sunday nite, drove down Monday Morning to philly in 2;30 mins dead. It was an easy drive.

Came back to my world ! sort of relief .

Thats all for now !

Adios

Sandy

08/02/2005

Its a beautiful day

Beautiful Day!

Its a great day to just work outside. The temperature currently is sunny and 65 deg F. wow that feels like heaven. I was talking to my friend today and I said I wish everyday would be like this, he said well "I like snow sometimes too". So its all about " The grass is always green on the other side" isn't it???.... I guess so. If we have one thing, we want another and then another and then another........... so where does it all end??? I read a wonderful story today. I will paste it here...........

"A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university lecturer.

Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life. Offering his guests coffee, the lecturer went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups: porcelain, plastic, glass, some plain-looking and some expensive and exquisite, telling them to help themselves to hot coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the lecturer said: "If you noticed, all the nice-looking, expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the better cups and are eyeing each other's cups."

"Now, if Life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, but the quality of Life doe sn't change." "Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it."

So folks, don't let the cups drive you...enjoy the coffee instead "

I hope you got the message !

Take care,

Sandy

6:38 pm on April 11th, 2006

My 25th Birthday

My 25th Birthday !

yup!!! its official !! I have entered the 26th year as of today !! boy feels so old to be studying ;).... but I am glad I am happy with what I am doing !!!

My 25th birthday was a silent, nice birthday!! came back from work on 14th, got ready to go running ( ya... have been pretty regular with that these days... for once ;) ...) but ended up helping a neighbor fix her new AC..... and also got to meet her fat black cat :-)...... it was a cute one.... had a good tiring experience... and then came back home, it was already 9 so no mood for cooking... wanted to eat Pizza and so ordered gooooooooood yummy pizza from overbrook (one of the best pizzas I have had around here).... had a nice drink that my roomie made ;-). I called my parents, got their blessings, called my granny, got her blessings and then cousins, and then called my uncle in mumbai and then uncle in maryland... got all their blessings... It is a different feeling when u call up, tell them its your birthday and want their blessings, to me blessings were more important than they remembering it ! waited till 12.. my roommates and a friend were here, cut a nice yummy chocolate cake (with 3 different types of chocolate i guess)... had some of it... and then slept..... got up on 15th around 7:30, went running in a pretty cloudy weather (better than a hot day).... came back to a ton of wishes on orkut and a few missed calls... had to catch up to every message and missed calls... some of them to my friends in India .. it had been some time since I spoke to them..... then was dead hungry... went to produce (vegetable and fruit market).... brought good vegetables, fruits, cooked yummy spinach, onion sambar, rice. Had a nice filling lunch.......... Then we went out for a movie...(golmaal - new) it was hilarious... laughed, laughed and laughed.... came back home in the evening,.... made bhel puri (courtesy: haldiram) ... took a long walk with my friend.. came back home, had a light dinner... checked my emails, did some reading for class... and now going to call my parents :-).................

So that was my 25th Birthday !!!!
Take care,
Adios
Sandy