Gee's Spot

Bandra-Worli Sealink

2011-09-10T06:23:00.000-07:00

The Bandra-Worli Sealink is a fantastic achievement of this city. It shows that if the Environmental agency, the transport authorities, the municipality, the private sector and fisheries councils can get together then we can build 3 lanes of a 4 km bridge in around 10 years.

Facts aside, I wanted to talk about the driving pleasure on that piece of concrete. Driving on the roads of Mumbai is like leading your life in an unhappy, sex deprived marriage (not that I would know what that's like). It's frustrating, agonizing, painstakingly slow and devoid of pleasure of any kind.

Driving on the BW Sea Link though, is like that little spark that THAT married man needs. It's like, what's the word -MASTURBATION! It's smooth, pleasurable, free, quick and at at the end of it you feel a little guilty (toll naka).

Working in India

2009-07-13T09:14:00.000-07:00

I'm guessing that most of you have never owned an ass before - and no - crass conversations about owning someone's booty don't count here. Working in India, is, to my mind, like owning an ass. I haven't owned an ass either but I can imagine what it would be like with my brief stint working here. People are generally smart - like an ass would know how to survive, when to eat, when to take a shit etc. But when you need the ass to work for you (no pun intended again), well you have to really give it a good wanking (sigh - I can't control these innuendos anymore).

Even though you own the ass, the ass knows that you can't do without it. there's a sense of frustration but someone needs to do the heavy lifting. And you don't really want to get a horse, cause let's face it - horses are expensive and race horses - forget it. So that brings us back to the ass (back to the ass - nice nice).

The ass serves a few very limited functions for you - the only way to be successful it to recognize what those are and not expect the ass to, well, I don't know, say play the piano. Not recognizing limitations are going to get you to only going to give you ulcers and a shorter life expectancy or lunacy - take your pick.

Finding horses is not hard in India - if you find one and do get him to work for you and not one of the Parsis who own a race horse stable, try and pay him a mule's salary (slightly more than an ass and slightly lesser than a horse). This will hold you in good stead.

But it's very important, to try and change the culture little by little. Take an additional few minutes everyday and try and explain things to your ass. Make it understand that it doesn't have to just serve one purpose., that there's pleasure in being an ass., even though it's hairy, not pretty, it an still take some serious riding and be of assistance.

Blurb ...

2009-07-13T08:49:00.000-07:00

Where I ask is my own little privacy
In a world filled with frivolous fallacy
Everywhere I look, there're faces galore
Rich, poor, happy and torn
Why are we driven by so very little
A few gold coins make our values brittle
Our souls are decaying with cold contempt
Of human life, property, nothing's exempt
Were we always this greedy, green-eyed person
Raping, severing, looting, committing arson
This world is no longer the place it once was
Humans - you and I, are the primary cause
What's it going to take to bring back sanity
Or is the point of no return, not within vicinity
Hope - the quintessential human flaw
Keeps us going, fighting till the last straw
Morose I may sound but that's cause I'm hurting
Don't know why but healing by writing ...

Moving on ...

2009-06-07T12:42:00.000-07:00

New beginnings out at my door

Making me wonder what's in store

The past, still throbbing, alive

It's hard, hard not to look behind

Yesteryear had happiness, it had joy,

Had friendships, independence ... but toying

Never found my place, struggled to identify

Where I should invest and convince myself why

I'm hard to please, but I tried hard

Give it all, held back a shard

In retrospect I'm happy I did - helped maintain sanity

I am to be blamed for my own naivety

Utopia is called that for a reason

Beautiful Spring can't be the only season

I tried to dig hard to find honesty

To forgive, to forget, without indemnity

But everything you wish for doesn't come true

Lessons learned in life are often shades of blue

Trying to end this post with something wise

In the words of One Republic "It's too late to Apologize"

Salamanca - Day 2

2009-05-12T16:56:00.000-07:00

Should have started writing this a lot sooner but here we are anyways. Haven't written for a while now (seems to have become a pattern really), but life is all about new beginnings. Speaking of which, a new, big beginning awaits. There's a lot of almost every kind of emotion that's associated with it. Leaving behind friends - some will stay in touch over the years and some that will fade in mututal consciousness, a change of environ and the memories associated with the one I had learned to call home-away-from-home for the past 7 years and so many many more memorable intersections in the time-space continuum.

Leaving tomorrow morning for Las Palmas. This trip is turning out to be therapeutic in a few ways. When you need to move on in life, it helps to be immersed in something that you have no expectations from and something that offers beauty on so many different levels.

One thing that I've noticed about myself, no matter how many good memories I have, the thing that always lingers is a feeling of introspection trying to find what are all the things I could have done better. This really is one of the more pensive posts I have written and I attribute that to trying to find honesty and truth in our lives both - inside and outside. We as a species, love to lie to ourself, to others, personally, professionally, sometimes to hurt someone, sometimes to save someone and sometimes to mask our insecurities - it's one of those acts that is only punishable in the professional setting but personally, it's only morally reprehensible - interesting thought ...

In addition to having a few things that I find very attractive in friends, I have really learned to appreciate honesty. In fact it's something that really draws me. Honesty of thought. Honesty of word. Honesty of action. In the words of Paris Hilton - "That's hot"

You can't be serious...

2008-10-02T22:45:00.000-07:00

The first (and only) Vice Presidential Debate was held today in Ohio. This was one of those rare opportunities that you got to see Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska in an unscripted (ha!) forum fielding questions from a neutral moderator.

In a nutshell, I feel that Palin was adequate, purely because the expectations after the Katie Couric interviews were so low that anything from thereon was an improvement. Now, what we are looking for here is the No. 2 person who is going to be the leader of the free world (although democracy seems to be a fading notion in this country). What we saw today, was a person on stage who does not understand the question or chooses not to answer it (I don't know which is worse), changes her position on Gay rights while on stage, has zero substance in the entire 90 minutes that she was on stage (probably quoted 3-4 statistics in her entire stint on stage), has more in common with the Bush-Cheney regime than ever imaginable, repeats the same catch phrases like "maverick", "hockey-mom", "executive experience" etc over and over again to cover up for the lack of substance and then comes out and tells Biden repeatedly not to look back into the past? Isn't this another George W. Bush with breasts?

I ask this not out of spite, disgust, frustration or despair (all of which are very acceptable emotions at this point) but is this Hockey-mom, soon to be hockey grand-mom, wolf hunting, wild life hating, "drill-baby-drill "chanting ex-Mayor of crystal meth Town the best that the Republican Party can come up with? I can't understand who needs to be blamed more - the direction-less Palin or the senile McCain.

Biden, to me was more than adequate. I thought he smiled a little more than he needed to when all he was getting from the other side were snide remarks and twisted truths. He controlled his emotions, kept his gaffes to a minimum, spoke to the issues, backed his answers up with numbers, spoke about the direction this country needs to take and offered genuine leadership that a lot of people felt comfortable with in case something were to happen to Obama the President.

The political dialog in this country has plummeted to the point that the polls are still close ?!?! Shocking is a word that comes to mind. Is this what this land of opportunity has been reduced to? What happened to separation of State and Church? What happened to objective discussion? What happened to equality? WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FUCKING TRUTH!

Curry Influx

2008-07-25T14:16:00.001-07:00

I have been trying to find the right topic to get me back into the blogosphere and it never materialized. I have half a dozen incomplete posts that I thought would signal my comeback but alas they all stay on the back burner in the dreaded and rarely visited "Drafts" folder. Surprisingly the topic that is getting me back into writing mode is something very very near and dear to my heart.

In the short time that I have been in this country, I have seen things change pretty drastically. I happened to come into the US post 9/11. No one knew (or anticipated) how much damage a President could cause. We are all living proof that the elected, so-called leader of the free world has messed up pretty much everything that he wanted to "improve".

Anyways, this particular post is not about the whether the President of the most powerful nation in the world is smarter than a 5th grader or not but it's about the changes, specifically the influence of the Masala Mafia on this nation or as I would like to call it - The Curry Influx.

It seems like each decade belonged a specific Asian country where they established their influence on the American lifestyle. This decade (and perhaps the ones to come) seems like it is the decade of the Indian influence to take center stage.

Call it a coincidence (I wouldn't) that Madonna decides to get Henna put on here hands for the filming of her Video Frozen and travels to Varanasi to learn Sanskrit, Richard Gere Travels to India to return to his Buddhist roots, Bollywood dance is featured on "So You Think You Can Dance" (and is very well appreciated), an Indian comic makes it into he finals of the "Last Comic Standing" and the list goes on.

Don't get me wrong, this is not about an Indian blowing his own trumpet. If anything, the Indian experience and culture teaches a lot of humility and respect and the Indian parent teaches a lot of self deprecation. Put those 2 together and the point I'm trying to get at is that phenomenon is one of joy not arrogance. There is a weird sense of pride in giving something back to the West - the same West that has always held the beacon (and the bacon if you count the numerous porn movies) and almost every imaginable field of note.

The tide is changing - there is not doubt about it. India is booming today and it's footprint on the world is getting bigger with every passing day. Writing this post sitting in California, I feel like a guy who keeps missing the boat time and time again. The first instance was the dot com boom here in the 90s. Back then I was too young and didn't know what the Internet was. My parents are to blame -they should have had me (and not my older sister) first! The second one is the India boom happening at this very moment.

This post is hopefully the start of more to come. So for the millions and millions of readers frequenting this page, tune into both - this blog as well as the Curry influx around you!

Save the Planet - Little by Little

2007-07-03T11:36:00.000-07:00

I have not written this article but I am just reporting it for all the 3 people (including my mom) that read my blog. But seriously, even if we can do 1-2 things out of this list, we are making a difference.

1) Replace your incandescent light bulbs with compact florescent lights (CFLs). Look closely at labels when buying light bulbs. Those marked as CFLs last 10 times longer and use 66 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs while delivering the same light levels. As a result, CFLs accrue net savings between $30 and $45 over their lifetimes, depending on your cost of electricity, the wattage size of the CFL, and the lamp's lifespan (manufacturers make CFLs that last 6,000, 8,000, or 10,000 hours). The return on investment is 15 times higher than leaving your money in a bank account or the average return on Dow Jones stock investments. CFLs also reduce the release of greenhouse gas emissions and are safer because they burn at a lower temperature (160° F or less) than incandescent and halogen lights, which can burn at temperatures up to 500° F.

2) Inflate your car tires. When walking or biking isn't feasible, you can do something to better protect the Earth while driving. Take a step in the right direction by inflating your car tires. Pumping them up can improve your gas mileage by about 3.3 percent – a savings of about 7 cents per gallon. It's the right thing to do for your wallet and the right thing to do for the Earth.

3) Weigh your ecological impact. It's far easier than stepping on a scale. Take CI's short eco-footprint quiz to find out if you need to tread more lightly on Earth's biodiversity. Measure how last year's habits stack up, and you'll be well on your way to becoming a full-fledged eco-warrior in the year ahead.

4) Turn down the hot water heater. Set your water heater to 130° F. While you're at it, turn down your house thermostat during the winter to 55° F when you go to bed or leave home. These simple actions can have enormous positive consequences, preventing the emission of more than 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide over the course of the year, while cutting your energy bill by more than 10 percent. And that's just from you! Get your friends on board, and the benefits will multiply.

5) Choose your seafood wisely. We can't afford to wait until 2008. The world's seafood will be entirely depleted by 2048, according to an early November report in the journal Science. That means the moment to shape up is now. By buying and eating certain types of seafood, you can discourage harmful fishing practices and avoid the more depleted or threatened species. Take a look at Seafood Choices Alliance or Seafood Watch to make smart choices.

6) Replace your showerheads and faucets with high-efficiency models. Retrofitting just one showerhead and two faucets will reduce water usage by 50 percent to 70 percent, while maintaining the same user experience. The cost savings you'll see on your water and electricity bills will pay for the retrofit in only three to 12 months.

7) Offset your carbon footprint. Carbon footprints are soooo last year. Luckily, CI's new carbon calculator guarantees you'll be on the cutting edge. It empowers you to offset your personal impact on Earth's rising climate. Donate $10 to offset your cross-country road trip, $20 for the upcoming family reunion, or $7 for a domestic roundtrip flight. Your money will help protect the roughly 832,000-acre Makira Forest in northeast Madagascar and prevent millions of tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere.

8) Buy locally produced meats and produce. Sounds like a good idea, but you don't know where to start? Just type in your zip code on Local Harvest's website to see a list of farms and farmers' markets close to home, as well as nearby restaurants committed to supporting their neighbors. Buying locally produced food cuts out the middlemen and the vast amounts of energy required to get your products onto store shelves. Most produce in U.S. supermarkets travels an average 1,500 miles before it is sold!

9) Drink more water from reusable glassware. It's great for your bank account, your health, and your planet. The average American consumed more than 400 beverage bottles and cans in 2006, leaving behind wasted glass, plastic, steel, and aluminum. That adds up to excessive amounts of fossil fuels and hydropower for mining, processing, refining, shaping, shipping, storing, refrigerating, and disposing of those materials. Of course, changing your drinking habits both at home and at work is applicable to just about every other habit, as well. You've heard it before and you'll hear it again: Reduce, reuse, and recycle.

10) Turn down the thermostat just three degrees in the winter and up three degrees in the summer. You can prevent the emission of nearly 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide annually.

Note to self...

2007-05-10T14:52:00.000-07:00

There are questions and then there are some more
Where am I going, what's in store

Should I follow the light or should I ignite the fire
Should I keep trying, or am I allowed to tire

Feels like an uphill struggle, maybe it's really not
Maybe it's things I once did right, but now forgot

Having reached a crossroad, sooner than I thought I would
How do I proceed and how do I do what I should

What are my next steps, how hard can it be?
Hope to forget the destination but enjoy the journey

It's scary to see change, more so when it's in me
But how long can I ignore unperturbed reality

My problems seem small, they're the biggest I've faced
Picking myself up from fallen grace

Don't get me wrong, I ain't whining or complaining
But keeping myself honest, with this piece of writing ...

Desi Men

2006-04-05T14:16:00.000-07:00

Some consider a lot of the Desi population in the US to be Fresh of the Boat or more affectionately known as an FOB (kinda like SOB but, with a more racial innuendo as compared to a family-oriented one) which is some kind of slang for a person who is not totally familiar with the American way of life. By that equation, most people I know fall under that bracket.

Coming from a land of arranged marriages, picking up women at bars is not something that comes to us naturally! We expect that our parents would do the talking (read picking-up) for us and the next thing we know, we have picked up a woman, a bride, for life! The rest of this article is an attempt to try and classify the types of Desi men that you might come across in your daily (if you live in The Bay Area or New Jersey. For the rest of you, more like a weekly occurence) life!

Lets start with the Uber-suave know-it-all Desi Frat Boy Wannabe. This breed has swagger, money, intellect and all the right moves. All of this to make up for an exceedingly small penis size.

The next breed would be the Bumbling grinders. A member of this breed would usually stand in one corner and stare at Indian women at the club with a "I'm a hungry man and you are an Indian buffet" look. These guys will sneak up on their preys from behind and start the proverbial (uncomfortable) grind. Not to mention by the end of the night their either grinding with the fat chicks or leave early to go appease themselves.

The third would be the Lonesome too-classy-too-approach-anyone Drinker. These guys perhaps have everything but lack the confidence. So in order to make up for that fact, they will sit at the bar and pretend to be engaged deep in thought in the hope that some lady will fall for the Manoj Kumar (the Tragedy king of Indian Cinema) look.

Then there's the Insane Disco-Dancer. Straight out of a Bollywood movie and does the pelvic-thrusts and shoulder-shrugs. These guys are usually the carefree variety and are not afraid to make an ass of themselves (knowingly or unknowingly)!

And finally, I would enlist the Virgin Clubber as our final variety. Coming to America, living the dream, making money in USDs, there are a lot of people who would like to use that opportunity to check out what the great Western Civilization is all about. So, well, the Indian guy who is supremely uncomfortable, like someone just put a tadpole in his trousers which accidently made, ummm, a wrong turn is the guy I'm talking about.

Well, all I want to say to everyone is, have a good time, experience everything, but just don't expect to do it with the women I am with at the bar!!! Go do your time to land you one! Or, well, just arrange for a ... you guessed it - arranged marriage!!!

Never Ever??

2006-03-15T11:32:00.000-08:00

Is it ever going to be possible to know what we were cut out to do professionally? There was an era when my parents (and maybe yours as well, depending on who's reading) had few choices. They had to pick one and feel lucky if they managed to make successes out of those choices. In today's times, there are choices galore. Some that are more conventional like architecture, engineering, medicine and then there are some which are newer like mass communication,event management etc.

If it was just an educational choice, then perhaps it wouldn't be the crux of the problem. In today's world though, it is possible to switch careers overnight from medicine to art from engineering to music. Its the possibility of these choices that really pisses me off. Not to say that choice is a bad thing, but this much choice?

Being a jack of many trades has never been more difficult, perhaps, in the history of mankind. If you are multi-faceted, chances are people will know about it. And if they know about it, chances are that they will compliment you and encourage you to take up one of those facets as a career choice. And if you like analysing your career and pretty much everything else in your life, chances are you will always question your decision! In the end you are filled with questions. It is very difficult to be true to your task at hand when you know that perhaps (and that's a key word here) this isn't the path for you in the first place!

So, my point is, will there be a moment of truth where we will stumble upon what we feel will be the perfect choice? A choice thats not only reasonably lucrative but also supremely satisfying? Or is it up to us to live a life of mediocrity, raise kids, show up to work, have a few laughs, fiddle with a lil something on the PC (Mac for you Apple supporters) and go back to take care of daily chores?

Will these questions ever be answered? or will it be more like never ever??

Evolution...

2006-02-06T11:05:00.000-08:00

I was breezing over my previous blogs. Its pretty amazing that at certain times in your life, certain things take up so much of your brain's processing power and your energies that you almost lose track of the bigger picture.

What IS the bigger picture? And I have been quizzing myself about that question as well. But your bigger picture need not be the same as mine. In fact in all probability, it won't be. But the important thing is to try and find out what it is and then always keep that in mind.

I know for sure that working as a Software Engineer in the Silicon Valley is not part of my bigger picture. Its fantastic exposure, I have learned a lot and I have met some truly fantastic people. But again, this means of earning a living does not figure in my bigger scheme of things.

What does? With the help of Srini, one of my colleagues (great engineer, good human being, good father etc etc are all some adjectives that I can effortlessly associate with him) I managed to do some psycho-analysis as to what I want to do and what perhaps will make me happy. I arrived at some conclusions which weren't totally new to me.

I also realised that sooner rather than later, I want to try and transform these dreams into living, breathing albeit successful or failing realities. There is also some sort of trail that I have laid down before me to try and achieve that! What needs to be seen is if that trail can actually lead to my destination.

There are primarily 2 kinds of people when it comes to taking risks. The first kind who prefer to have taken them and learnt from their successes or failures and others who prefer to stay way from them from the fear of a bad after-taste in the mouth. I'm trying to transform myself from the latter to the former with minimum fuss. And writing about this in a blog is something that will always keep me honest to my task...

Rang De Basanti

2006-01-29T23:57:00.000-08:00

I watched the 8 - 11 pm show of Rang De Basanti at Naz8 in Fremont, California. Its 11:58 pm. I've just got home, changed and I'm writing this post.

That is how strongly I felt about the movie. I have a colleague of mine who tells me that I am still a child and I need to discover myself more. Well, I would let that remark pass by with a wry smile. But the point is that, with each moment of eye-opening reaslisation, there is a piece of knowledge, sense of self-awareness, call it what you may. I just felt that after watching the movie, I felt that way, like I have miles to go before I sleep. And which is why I wanted to write this blog before I slept.

There are times when I feel that I haven't blogged for a long long time and I feel that I need to think of some instance in my life that is worth writing about, humourous or otherwise. In this case the words aren't fabricated or forced but are coming to me natually, without much effort. Perhaps thats what real writers/poets feel purely because they have a strong belief in an idea, a cause. I just feel blessed that I can write this way, even if it takes a film to create that effect, which could in effect be once in a few months. Ofcourse, nowhere do I claim to be a writer par excellance, but just the experience of writing in this frame of mind is so much more rewarding. How it feels like from a readers perspective, that I leave open to you, the reader to comment.

I did not know what to expect from Rang De, and I really feel that thats the right way to approach the movie. The producers wanted to (and managed to) release the movie in theatres worldwide on Thursday as compared to the customary Friday. That date was also the 26th of January, Republic Day of India Now I know why...

If this blog seems vague, or incomplete at this point, well, the intention is that I want it to be that way. I want to encourage all of you to watch the movie and form your own opinions.

This movie, didn't feel like a movie. For once, I felt that the actors and the director were on the same page. They weren't mouthing the dialogues. They seemed to feel them. There was a purpose and the actors were fantastic in their roles. But the plot thickens. In an average film, an acting performance stands out. Here there wasn't one that stood out. Why? because all of them were natural and naturally fabulous. Which is why i keep reiterating that something like this is not possible if you don't believe in what you're doing. There are a few movies that really move you, shake your foundations, make you realise how inconsequential yet self-centered you are. This one does exactly that. This movie is targetted at Indians, and being an Indian, I felt emotions of anger and helplessness when I saw the movie. I think the movie struck a cord that I had perhaps not been struck in a while.

I'm writing this blog as I'm listening to the soundtrack of the movie. Rehman has once again composed soul stirring music. The lyrics, by Prasoon Joshi, fantastic. I think Rehman has also given the background score. They are extremely integral and add to the impact and message of the film. For once, the actors are not seen mouthing the lyrics of the songs. All the songs are playing in some form in the background and the actors continue in their characters as compared to getting magically transported to Switzerland, surrounded by 20 dancres, dressed in designer threads. Well, I found that unique and refreshing as well. The song Roobaroo just started playing. When you hear the lyrics, or even the tune of this song, you will never guess the situation in which this song was picturised. Brilliant again. The threading of the past and the present as portrayed by Rakeysh Mehra is seamless. History repeats itself. Times change. Situations change. But the fire within remains unchanged. Thats what the song Roobaroo is about.

In conclusion, this film would not have such an impact if it wasn't made with the cast and crew used in the film. The technical brilliance of the film is only overshadowed by its message. Which I think is victory for the film maker because the message gets across with minimum fuss.

There are things we think we can do and there are things that we can do. This film shows you how a bunch of college students breach that gap. The manner in which it was done is perhaps a bone of contention with some of the people who saw the movie. Like a buddy of mine who I went to watch the movie with, felt that the film conveyed a wrong message. I can see why he feels that way. But I took away a different message from the film. We are all entitled to our opinions. I'll let you form your own.....

Software vs. Hardware

2005-11-01T11:52:00.000-08:00

Take a look around, perhaps some of the biggest companies around you are not software companies. They're perhaps engineering/infrastructure based companies. These companies really do rake in the billions but these billions did come at a price. Is it possible for a person like me with very little financial backing to be able to erect a infrastructure of that sort? The thought is almost Utopian.

On the other had there's software. 2 PhD students at Stanford created Google with little more than a PC and a great idea. Microsoft, Ebay, Yahoo, IBM, Oracle etc have been acquiring companies almost at will. These companies are mostly small firms which started out in a garage somewhere in the Bay Area. My point is this - in a software company, intellectual property is what is of prime importance. In order to create that intellectual property, the resources needed are basically a personal computer and some accessories around that. Now look at the returns on that. Agreed that perhaps 1 out of every 30-40 startups does any justice to the funding pumped into them, but if they do reach a certain level, the returns are healthy multiples of the investment. For e.g. Shopping.com, a 40+ person company was bought by Ebay for about 700 million. Now, assuming that abt 35 million went into the company, thats 20 times the investment. Thats a winner for you no matter what calculator you use.

No other domain affords you that opportunity to go out there with an idea that overnight becomes a resounding success, a household name, a brand.

Comparison Shopping

2005-10-25T17:12:00.000-07:00

To compare or not to compare, that is the question. In this dynamic world of Google search, Ebay Auctions and Yahoo! is this market really saturated?

There are 100's of websites out there that merchandise and point the consumer to a particular product. Now its left upto the user to pick from a foray of technical gibberish to arrive at a match.

There are a lot of sites out there namely www.shopping.com, www.nextag.com etc which provide search and navigation features. Search is primarily when you look for something, say "Canon SD400" and find an exact match. Navigation is when you consider various attributes/features about a product and drill down till you find a product.

These 2 methods do serve the purpose for the intermediate user. But what about someone who has no clue on how to differentiate between Compact Flash and XD Memory? There needs to be a site out there which will take that into consideration, integrates it with a catalog of the latest products and recommends something to me.

Sit tight ... cause thats just what you will get pretty soon!

Write or Wrong?

2005-07-15T15:36:00.000-07:00

This is a contrversial blog. I'm sure there will be a few people who agree with me and a lot who don't. We live in a day and age where we are surrounded by so many things that catch our attention that it makes us almost oblivious to somethings in life. Some basic rules.

Growing up, I was always taught "values". I love my parents and I respect them for what they have achieved in their lives. I also love them for instilling in me an instinct to judge right from wrong. But what has been bothering me is, what is right and wrong? And should I stir the hornet's nest by writing and questioning?

If killing a person is wrong, then why are our soldiers celebrated for generations to come? Why is adultery such a bad thing? Why is being gay an anti-faith concept?

The root of all these answers lies in our repeatedly re-written religious scriptures. Men preaching whats right and wrong to other men and millions following blind-folded. Propaganda and more propaganda. Some old farts thought of their own convenience, devised a mechanism of mass-control, wrote a few lines which included flowery adjectives, notarized it with a seal of religious approval and expected that everyone under the blue sky would live by that. How does that work? When we go to a doctor for treatment, does he give everyone the same medicine?

The easy thing to do is fall prey to this mundane life, earn money, have babies and die peacefully leaving behind wealth for the family. The difficult thing to do is question. I'm the first person to admit that I also fall into the bracket of people who do the easy thing, but does that make it the right thing is what disturbs me? Its not ok to pull the plug on a Terri Schiavo but it is ok to slaughter hundreds of thousands in the name of democracy?Adultery, is considered a grave crime. Why can't it be treated like murder where its acceptable in some cases and not in others? Straight people can have a 50% divorce ratio but gay people can't even be married?

What's even more frustrating is that after writing this blog, I would have managed to vent some of my frustration, but nothing changes. Life goes on. Paychecks come in. But hopefully, it just cultivates a little more tolerance and understanding in me about not judging things for what they seem and being open-minded.

A Weighty Problem

2005-05-20T14:25:00.000-07:00

Ok...agreed that most of you who have seen me would scoff at the very title of my blog, but its true. I don't really know if the United States of Calorie Consciousness had anything to do with it, but thats exactly what it it has made me-calorie conscious.

Back home in India, I don't ever think I counted anything (my elementary Math class included) let alone calories. But , somehow, somewhere down the line (and that line happens to be my chest), things got ugly.

So, becoming a lean, (almost) fat-free individual has become the new motto of my life. This involves a lot of sacrifice and tireless hours of saying "no" to friends who ridicule your decision and also to everything that looks, smells and feels fatty-gasoline being the only exception cause, lets face it, there's only that far I can push my car!

To compound my problem, I'm vegetarian. So my options are limited as it is. But now, with the weigh-and-watch game, I have started looking towards white meat as a feasible option (and perverts reading this, I'm not hinting at Californian belles).

That is my 2 gm worth for the day!!
Have a nice weigh..oops day!!

WOMANipulate!

2005-04-28T11:15:00.000-07:00

Why do they call it MANipulate! Isn't that the birth right of women? I'm not accusing all women of consciously doing it. But I am making an argument that women possess that special power, the cajoling, the coaxing, those inadvertant whispers into the ear which eventually, in the the worst case scenario cause death, sometimes in the thousands!

There's a phrase I have been hearing for sometime now- "Behind every successful man there is a woman". The next part is mentioned by few people- "Behind every unsuccessful man, there are two!". A woman is very capable of making or breaking a man. And yet, inspite of having all this great knowledge about women, their powers and their mysticsm, we, the guys still fall again and again into their trap, and well, the rest is history...

just_anything: What the obscene term actually means

2005-04-13T17:01:00.000-07:00

just_anything: What the obscene term actually means

The Full Circle of Trance

2005-03-30T00:08:00.000-08:00

I have finally come full circle (I seem to be saying that about a lot of things lately..sounds kinda cool in a tantric, osho, zen kinda way). I started off in my early teens by listening to Trance/Techno. I always saw underaged kids drive by in their cars blasting trance from their newly fitted my-dad-spoils-me-silly stereo systems. Have to admit that I was influenced at that time and wanted my dad to do the same for me. But in retrospect I understand how obnoxious that whole scenario was. That said at the time, I was inflenced by that music.

Then there was metal. I can't say that I'm a metal fanatic. I do like the odd song from bands which are considered to be metallic in nature. But somehow I haven't really felt the loyalty to a single band (except Metallica) . My exposure was at a college festival. We had a band called Brahma perform for us and the performed all covers. It was pretty captivating to say the least. The power, the depth, the fact that these guys were in some way defying convention, rebelling, calling themselves sons (or neighbors or plumbers or whatever) of Satan all appealed to me.

I would try and listen to metal while trying to write code or do some assignments. A futile effort. I realised that I can't really hum along and think about a problem about algorithms at the same time. Thats the reason (I like to give) for my grades being, well, not the best.

So, I'm sitting at work (yes...I did get employed inspite of those grades) and I try and listen to rock and sing along. Well, it doesn't work again. And now its a little more than a bad grade at stake. Its my job, visa status yada yada yada. So i switch my attention to the trance/techno section of Yahoo! Music. I have subscribed to Launch (about time I gave back something to Yahoo! after the amount of free services I have used) and they have a decent selection of music.
And somehow, it just clicks. The trance plays and is heard by a seperate part of my brain which basically then zones me out from the outside world, the only effective external stimuli being the call of nature, the call of lunch and the call of my manager not necessarily in that order.

So from being the first cassette that I actually bought, to being the only online music service I have ever bought, I have come full circle ...

Beer

2005-03-18T14:14:00.000-08:00

I apologise, I really do, I have been finding topics to write about! Stuff that excites me, that stimulates me! I have written about emotions and movies and actions and feelings and everything else that is more complex than a ball of intertwined thread dropped in super glue. The one thing that is so close to my hear, I totally overlooked.

I like to think of Beer as a pal I made somewhere in my Graduate School days at USC. I distinctly remember a USC vs Arizona State football game that I had gone to at the Colisseum (cause we had free tickets). There was beer everywhere. It tasted like crap (I thought at the time) but yet it was being guzzled almost like it would give men the power to become irresistible to women (or other men..whatever your preference). I did not understand that philosophy at all. How can people pay that much money to drink something that tasted so horrific and at the same time made you fatter and increased your trips to those make-shift excuses for toilets?

Then over the Summer of 2003 (doesn't have the same ring as Summer of '69...ahh 69...), I went to Chicago for an internship. There I had the distinct privilege of meeting a man by the name of Pratik, who opened my taste-buds to a whole new beer-a-lity! Although the stuff I drank with him, I wouldn't even use that to water my plants now (I have some grass and weeds growing in the backyard...wait...I don't have a backyard!) .

My taste in beer grew. I started liking stuff that was darker and darker! From the Urine coloured (and tasting) Millers, Buds and Coors' to the dark and flavourful Bass, Guiness and Gordon Biersch - my journey was complete.

Why people like beer is still a mystery. I for one feel that Beer is not alcohol at all. Ofcourse it has alcoholic content (and as Lord is my witness, the best highs that I have ever got have been because of Beer) but its still not a smash-me-out- tonight drink. Its a sip-n-slide drink. Its a lazy afternoon drink. Its a lunch-time drink...in Europe (in case my colleagues are reading!).

I don't know who discovered/made/brewed Beer for the first time, but whoever did May God Bless his/her Soul!

Swades...

2005-03-13T19:30:00.000-08:00

I have been an admirer of Ashtutosh Gowariker's work. I think the attempt that was "Lagaan" was a true adventure. His foresight of taking two topics so closely intertwined into the Indian culture namely Bollywood and Cricket and making them actually converge at the horizon in a way that appealed to our melodramatic psyche was creditable.

With "Swades", I personally think that he has gone one step further. Challenging topics that so many film-makers so easily overlook. His movies are real, concise and they definitely make you think. According to me a movie that doesn't make me think could still be a good movie, but one that gets forgotten easily.

I heard mixed reviews about this movie. Some people felt that it was slow and dull and others felt that it made them want to move back to India. I don't think that there is a particular dialog, or a particluar scene that touches you to believe the latter. I think that people who felt that way even for a small part, just felt relieved that someone echoed their emotion and actually made a movie on that. India lives in you, you don't live in India. That familiar fragrance, a particular flavour, a special festival they all force your brain into calculating the various permutations and combinations of what would have been if we had been back home, with the same materialistic assets from this country that bring us here in the first place.

For once I think Shahrukh Khan was not over the top. Rehman was at his predictable brilliant self. The cinematography was contemprary, something that we have gotten accustomed to with movies shot in foreign locales and then movies like Lagaan which have rural India as a palette.
For me, apart from the refreshing storyline, was Gayatri Joshi...a breath of fresh air....ahhh... I think its love ...

Think ...

2005-03-07T14:01:00.000-08:00

So I have been away for quite some time. Its not because I forgot to write or had no time but because I feel that I need something that I'm passionate about to write. More often than not a trigger in my life gets me into that passionate mode! But lately life has been to peaceful!

The fact that I haven't been in the "thinking" mode lately is what got me all keyed up to write this blog. I have been looking on the outside for some kind of prodding or stimulus to get the juices flowing...somehow I just feel that it shouldn't be that way! I don't have to be a parasite on triggers. In fact I need to be just the opposite. I need to trigger things off myself...

Ticket Please!!

2005-02-23T17:06:00.000-08:00

A familiar phrase to us desis, even the ones like me who haven't been fortunate enough to travel by public transportation as much as now, in retrospect, I would have liked to.

My context is a little skewed this time! I'm the one asking for the tickets and its not because I have decided to leave my (not so) lucrative software job and become a Ticket Collector. But in fact, I have been lucky enough to be at the recieving end of those oh-so-joyous multi-colored slips of monetary leakage - Traffic Tickets!

I have been driving in India, for a long long time. Officially the age limit was 18. But I somehow convinced my parents to let me get an underaged license at 16 something with the promise that I wouldn't drive! Go Figure!

After having done that, I obviously wanted to drive! I wreaked havoc but in vain! Finally my parents agreed to let me drive if I would be with them and them alone! Well, thats an improvement. Wasn't the coolest thing though - telling your friends that you can drive, only with your parents around. Then they would suspiciously glance southbound to check if I had diapers on.

I did get caught on a few occassions for looking young (I use L'Oreal to make those wrinkles disappear) more than any offense I committed. But I would always get by with my wallet feeling a little lighter. How light all depended on how the cop who had caught you felt that day!

Here, its a little different. Its almost like I subscribe to "The Ticket Times". If I get pulled over by I cop, I definitely lose. Why? For those who haven't seen me, I'm not a visual treat like a Southern Californian artificially chiselled belle. I'm your regular desi guy with very little to offer apart from a breath mint perhaps. But wait...thats not it! There are other ways by which I get periodicals! There are cameras installed in specific locations and if you're unlucky enough, they will snap you! Happened to me on a couple of locations where I recieved a ticket at home! Yes! Without even being pulled over by a cop! I thought its a Christmas Special wherein the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) thanks its regular offenders! But alas! It was another ticket!

Even now, sometimes at night, I can see the lights change- green...yellow...no wait...its red already...(siren)...dammit!

Piece of Mind...contd!

2005-02-21T15:30:00.000-08:00

The sorrow absorbs all other emotions,
The truth I cannot hide,
My mind, a crowded place of commotion,
Pushing all sanity aside.

On Judgement Day, I see the stars,
Bright spots make me blind,
If what we see, isn't who we are,
Where is my Piece of mind?

-G

Piece of Mind!

2005-02-18T14:49:00.000-08:00

The calm before the storm arrives,
This storm is from within,
The shredded peace, the painful eyes,
Is this because I sin?

Is it a tempest of emotional struggle
Or might it be True Me
Every occurence I cannot juggle
Need to be set free...

-G

The Modded Xbox

2005-02-17T13:42:00.000-08:00

Microsoft did a good thing (for once) by getting the Xbox out. Its a pretty neat system for the price. Its a Celeron 733 Mhz with a 8 Gb HDD, 64 Mb RAM and a high-end NVidia Graphics card. The one thing that I don't think they accounted for (not well anyways) was the mod-chip.

Now this chip is a way to bypass the security mechanism built into the Xbox and the Xbox games. Microsoft has to put its 2048 bit key in every game for the Xbox to be able to read the disc. This is the exact mechanism that the modchip bypasses. "So what" you may ask. My dear fellow bloggers, this one chip is what will make life for all us gamers a much better place. Not only can you have this whole new, linux-based interface on the Xbox , but you can now use it as a DVD player without the frivolous Microsoft DVD kit. And, my personal favorite, you can use games which are ummm ... not exactly bought from stores! So there you go!

There is a whole army out there dedicated to ripping apart anything that Microsoft throws at its consumers. The Xbox is no exception. There was an article I read that Microsoft will throw consumers out of the Xbox Live network if they had modchips installed - even if they were using original games! Well, the modded X-Box Junta answer's that with setting up their own network where you can play with fellow modded Xboxes.

I think the Xbox and similar games, are transcendental. A female friend of mine likes to address us as "boys with toys". Well, I think its a little more than that! Its another reality. A domain of power and technology. A world of suprises! No Worry No Care! No Woman No Cry ... wait...thats Bob Marley!

Any more Xboxers out there?

Logic! or something like it!

2005-02-16T16:50:00.000-08:00

Ok, this blog is going to be very concise as compared to all the stuff that I would like to put down here.

What is Logic is the question for the day. If you are to dig deep (nose picking not included), you will realise that all our facts are based on axioms that are unrefuted. For e.g. the simple assumption that 1+1=2. Although its a mathematical notation to signify an operation, its still an assumption on which we base all of our mathematics.

Ever since we were enrolled into institutions to "educate" us, we have been trained to believe all these notation on which we have based our world are the single truth and the foundation for future learning. Everything from ground up is based on these axioms which have remained unchallenged. If tomorrow, some unconventional, progressive thinker proposes a new system for anything logic-based, he might be awarded the Nobel Prize or pelted with stones or maybe both.

My question arises from this, if we are basing everything that we pride ourselves on, on foundations which are not more than assumptions, then isn't everything we call logic a farce? They say that the most intelligent human being, over a lifetime, does not use more than 1% of their brain. If thats the case, then the possibilities are endless!!! Maybe thats what they mean when they say "think outside the box"!

Sideways! and wanna be that way!

2005-02-15T10:56:00.000-08:00

Went for this movie over the weekend! I know its a lil late to write about it, but yesterday was "Taint My Love" Day!

Its about 2 friends as different as possibly can be! Miles and Jack. Miles is a divorcee and a commercially unsucessful writer and Jack is an altar-bound casanova who does voice-overs for a living. They're college buddies and so Miles decides to gift Jack a good time in the form of a week-long, Santa Barbara wine-tasting trip before Jack takes the plunge into the ocean of marital bliss.

Without actually getting into the specifics of what happens on the trip, this movie is a fantastic example of what a camera can bring out without the frills we have gotten so accustomed to seeing in contemprary films. There is simple camera work, too simple at times! Then there are priceless expressions (full credit to the actors for this). Although this movie does have its fair share of physical humour, it can't be categorised in the slapstick category. Its a mature, subtle-in-parts, real movie which hits the sweet spot.

Things to look out for:

1. The near-orgasmic conversation between the characters Miles and Maya about the life of a Wine (even after which Miles can't make his move. It's painfully funny).

2. The obscenely hilarious encounter between Miles and Jack and the guy who's wife Jack has an affair with.

3. The scene when Miles finds out that his ex-wife got remarried and goes for an unconventional run with Jack in close pursuit.

All in all, a definite watch!

Taint My Love

2005-02-14T11:57:00.000-08:00

Slightly controversial title for the blog considering its Valentine's day! 14th February. In Exactly 9 months it'll be Children's Day (14th November). What are the odds of that!!

I for one, thought (sometimes still do) that I'm one of those guys who would fall in love with a girl I would meet in the place I least expected and we would quarrel annoyingly ever after. But alas that wasn't meant to be! Its been anything but that!

When you break it down to the 0's and 1's (geek talk!!) its all about pro-creation! Its about chemistry and its about marking your territory. Man hasn't changed that much from the times when he communicated in grunts and groans (not the grunts and groans you're thinking about you perverts!). He still, deep down follows the same old laws of survival and social belonging.

Now here's where the "tainting" comes in.

1. Man by nature is not a monogamous creature. He needs to spread his seed around. Some men can fight that urge, but a lot of men eventually become horticulturists cultivating multiple gardens of life.

2. When a man is single, he craves companionship and when he has a companion he craves solitude. So its more like, the grass is greener when you smoke it cause there is no other side!

3. And finally, is there any love to taint at all? We talk about the greatest love stories of all time, and it all comes down to a man and a woman fighting to be together. I don't think I have heard of a successful "famous" relationship wherein the man and the woman never consummated their relationship! So they either mated or they died trying!!!

So if thats the meaning of this enigmatic 4-lettered word (amazing how another 4-lettered word, albeit a little crude, expresses that very sentiment without the layers of abstraction), then I think I wanna fall in love everyday OR do I??

Why Blog?

2005-02-11T10:24:00.000-08:00

Went for dinner the other night to a friends place. There me and this friend of mine, got into a heated who-can-scream-louder debate about what's the need to blog?

If you want to get your point across to a person, call them, email them, chat with them. If you want to get your point across to a vast number of people, go write in some forum or magazine. If you feel that you need to share some important information, goto a place like slashdot and post it there and if the article is "good enough" it "might" get its due on the first page.

But what if my urge is just to write about something that matters to me and might not matter to a very large audience. Hell it might not even matter to my close friends. But, its just something I felt like typing out!

There's a lot of good that comes out of blogging
1. Over time, a person's blogs can tell you the kind of person he or she really is (so you know what you need to carry with you when you meet them- pepper spray or protection).
2. In this day and age where its getting increasingly difficult to keep in touch with junta, its a great place to let people know what you have been up to (if they care).
3. Also, if you're lonely and you think that you have your way with words and blogging might get you laid, well, its a thought...

The Man, The Legend, The Cricketer

2005-02-09T16:02:00.000-08:00

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar - Small man in stature, but has a persona thats larger than life. Came from a humble background, but gave us rich memories. Didn't know too much English, but took a sport introduced by the English and taught them a thing or two about the game!

Recently there have been articles in various newspapers, that this man is past his prime. His tennis elbow injury has taken its toll and he doesn't have the same edge to his batting like he used to. When a player has an injury and a slump, he's written of so easily by critics. Its understandable that these critics make a living by their so-called "critical analysis" of the game. They sometimes say things just to stir up controversy, because, all publicity is good publicity. If they had to say something to effect that "Sachin will bounce back stronger than ever" or "He's too good to let an injury peg him back", well, thats just something that's optimism and not "press" material!

I still remember the World Cup in England. India was playing minnows Kenya. It was a World Cup match nevertheless and it still had to be won! Sachin had just returned after the painful demise of his father. The fatigue was showing on his face. He scored a century in that game. When he raised his bat to acknowledge cheers from the crowd, he looked to the heavens almost saying "This one's for you dad". The pain was evident. The accomplishment - very real. The courage - admirable.

Don't know if he is past his prime. Don't know if he will ever score another century again. Don't know if his injury will force him to retire prematurely. But I do know that those tiny feet leave behind gargantuan shoes to fill and no matter what he scores for years to come...Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, I salute you!

The First Job

2005-02-08T13:00:00.000-08:00

23 years of education. Joyous highs and depressing lows (both alcohol-related ones and otherwise). A ton of paperwork (some worthy of regular paper and the others worthy of toilet paper). The sweet confusion of decision-making. These were only some punctuations in the sentence of my life as a student.

Internships, somehow don't seem as daunting because you know that they're short-term and ofcourse you'll be getting back to school as soon as its all done! Not the case with your full-time job!

When you get employed full-time and after the "I'm finally making moolah to support myself" phase, comes the phase of realisation. The dawn of the fact that this is what you will be doing for the better part of you're life. The intimidating climb up the corporate ladder from the bottom-most rung, from where all you can see are wrinkled rear ends.

And I have been told that the first year is usually the toughest. You know its your first year of work if you have trouble coming to terms with the facts like

1. You report to the same place on every working day (and there are quite a few of those).
2. You can't skip work because you had too much beer the previous night, or the same morning or both.
3. You can't tell colleagues to record their meeting so that you can watch them later (ahhh... school!).
4. You can't curse in the office... f***ing s**t ... that sucks!
5. You feel like you work on Mars because everyday seems like its a lot longer than 24 hours and
6. Every Monday you feel that ... well... the previous week forgot to end!

Superbowl

2005-02-07T13:17:00.000-08:00

Hmmm.. all non-football lovers, please forgive this post. Its just that when you're part of the American culture, I think its very difficult to distance yourself from this game. I know a few people who manage to do it, and for them Superbowl Sunday is the best day in the year to go out and get their chores done cause everyone is home cheering or jeering.

When I first came to this country, I was appalled when I saw the game. To the untrained eye, its just legalising unarmed violence! Its like a wrestling orgy if you may! But after the dust has settled (or in this case after the 300 lbs bodies have), it does look like there's a little more to it than Wham, Bam, F*** you man!

Its analogous to a game of chess in so many ways
1. The Quaterback is the King - he gets protected at the cost of the other guys around him
2. There are so many attacking and defensive plays.
3. The whole field is divided into Black and White, like in Chess. The difference is in football you have both colours on both sides.

One major difference is, I don't think the Grandmasters and the International Masters really get to...ummm..."mingle" with the Cheerleaders.

So it was the New England Patriots taking on the Philadelphia Eagles. The reigning champs against the underdogs. It was a lacklustre performance by the Eagles to say the least. They didn't live upto my expectations. I thought that there would be a sense of urgency in their game which they never really expressed. The Pats on the other hand, seemed like a team who had been there and done that. They weren't overwhelmed by the occassion and although they did make their fair share of mistakes, they managed to pull off a victory.

Terell Owens- fantastic commitment and dedication! I remember Chinar telling me that it was next to impossible to recover from such an injury in such a short time! Not only did he do it, he ran for upwards of a 100 yards! Creditable to say the least.

Taxation

2005-02-04T11:55:00.000-08:00

Its that time of the year again, returns, gains, deductions...numbers, dollars, audits (hopefully none). Resident, Non-Resident, a million forms, hours of time and effort!

The worst part about being single and earning is that you come under the highest tax bracket. Which means you get nothing back from the Government. Well, pretty much nothing. So in a way they encourage you to have kids or dependents! Us Indians have never needed any such encouragement. We just oblige. We have kids with the hope that someday, something will get deducted. Not happened so far.

This is the first time I'll be filing my taxes on my own. That has a lil something to do with the fact that, well, before this I had zero income! A year and a half back, my choices were- "What do I buy next? I need to save $60 a fortnight so in a few months I can afford a digital camera." Saving- Never really cared to understand that word before. Now, I'm surrounded by people who talk about bonds, equities, stocks, 401K and retirement schemes. Something, somewhere went slighly astray!

From submissions, assignments and cafeteria jobs to releases, visa issues and retirement schemes, its been a swift transition and a good introduction to a Miss Reality.

Questions

2005-02-03T13:30:00.000-08:00

There are questions that arise in my head every single day of my life. No, I'm not 3 years old. I'm just, well, still curious!

Who am I? What am I doing here? Was I born to do what I'm doing (write code) or is there some other meaning to what I do? At most times, I lull myself into a false sense of superficial contentment, but the questions are here to stay!

Today, is just one of those days when I have decided to put finger to keyboard. I have spoken to a few trusted people about this, everyone drawing from analogous phases in their lives, have pretty much told me the same thing "Its normal! We all went through it!!". Although that did help me feel a little more "normal", but somehow I don't think I ever want this phase of inquisition to pass me by. Like a colleague from work told me, "We have a brain so that we can think. Nothing has to come out of that thinking. But we would not be humans if we didn't have that option." and that to me, is what gave me the most peace.

I have been lucky in a lot of ways. I sometimes feel that God has given me a lot more than I deserve. And just the fact that I have got everything that I ever wanted (ferraris don't count in this list God!) might be the reason I have these many questions. If I was left fending for myself, without the support system which allowed these questions to seep into my brain, I might be posting something else on this blog today...

The Origin

2004-07-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

Chinar introduced me to the concept of a Blogspot. Had heard about it before, but just like one of the many things in life that interest, didn't get down to actually using it!

The name...hmmm...kinda controversial but I like it. Hope it doesn't scandalise (too many) people!

More Later

-Gee