mera mann

bulb above the head

2011-07-27T21:22:00.002-04:00

Have you ever felt like a genius and stupid at the same time? I mean, you have an "eureka" moment all of a sudden and a minute later once your euphoria has calmed you feel stupid. I know, one Mr. Archimedes would have felt after the real eureka moment when he looked back and realized how embarrassing it was to run naked. Not to the same scale but till I do get my moments of contrasting emotions.

I usually have a light dinner during weekdays. One - a heavy stomach makes it hard for me to sleep early two - spares me the pain of cooking proper dinner. So I either have some fruits or bread or milk and biscuit. Before I get any sympathetic sighs for my bachelorhood, let me say I have no regrets. (I rather cry when I have to eat cereal in the morning, so if anyone needs to sympathize with me, let that be the one to take it). I used to have steamed vegetables for lunch on some days and over the course of time, I started cooking for my lunch so that I can have proper food once a day. Moreover it was a pain to buy raw vegetables, cut them into pieces and steam them and all. And I didn't want to buy sliced vegetables since it was not 'value for money'.

So, few weeks back, I was with a friend of mine (a fellow bachelor) and casually, just as a conversation piece, I asked what he usually does for dinner and I was told he has steamed veggies and chicken usually. As I gave a "cool" remark and that was it.

A week later I was in my bed at night trying to fall sleep and suddenly I felt hungry. I already have my milk n cookie dinner so somehow my thoughts drifted to the conversation I had with the friend and there it was "voila"! I could have steamed vegetables for dinner!! It just opened up a whole new source of food and adds variety to my diet!

The very next second I felt stupid...my fridge has been stacked with many packs of frozen vegetables which I use to cook my lunch as use it in my noodles from the very beginning. It was always there and it never occurred to me to steam them and eat! Since I always need them to cook, I always have it handy in my freezer. And here I was struggling on many nights wondering what to eat and settling for something just enough to satisfy my appetite or something which will not make me hungry again at the middle of the night.

Now I know what they mean by "Buddha got enlightenment" or whatever Newton or Archimedes felt! It’s the bulb above your head turning on, that’s all it is! And it took more than 3 years for that bulb to start glowing for me.

AVS

what dreams may come

2011-06-13T21:09:00.001-04:00

I am a dreamer. I mean literally; I do tend to see a lot of dreams while asleep and many times I can recollect them with quite close accuracy. As weird as it has been most of the times, I do have seen some sensible ones too. But never before have I seen one which remained sensible for its entirety and was able to remember it vividly up until last month.

Ours is a loud family; more precisely, my brother and I are loud. When we argue, we usually take the intimidating path of arguing in a louder octave. So, here we were – my brother, my mother and she - travelling to somewhere in a car. I have been told by her sometime back that she gets intimidated when someone raises their voice, even if it’s not directed at her.

My brother is sitting in the navigator seat and in the back seat, I am sitting behind the driver and mom is right behind my brother. She is in the 3^rd row of the SUV behind my mother (it got to be a SUV to have that many rows of seats). Our occupied position relative to each other is a crucial information, since I am at a vantage point of being able to see the other 3 fellow passengers with just a sideways glance.

So, as usual, some conversation had escalated into an argument and my brother and I have started arguing with our mom. That’s when I notice her behind my mother petrified at the audacity of two boys launching a joint verbal assault on their mother. Mind you, of the 3 of us, only I am aware of her aversion to confrontations; and neither my mom nor brother knows about it. Here I am in the middle of a heated argument with my mother in the company of my brother, who is oblivious of the reaction of others since he is in the front seat of the vehicle. And my mother can see only me who am sitting next to her.

So, here I notice the reaction of her and suddenly realize that it is making her uncomfortable. This puts me in a pickle since I need to make a quick call as to whether continue with our argument since it was something important and we have to drive in our point. But at the same time I need to make sure that she does not feel bad. And thus, when I was struggling with my moral dilemma (which I would, unless someone raises an issue about it, gladly compare to the predicament Arjuna faced with in that battle field). It could have been the pressure of being at the vantage point or just my alarm going off, I suddenly woke up from the dream before I could make a judgment call.

In fact, I am glad that I woke up before I could visualize in which direction I would have swayed – not the best of options when you have to choose between whether you care for yourself or for the other person. You should not be giving up on something you feel strongly about and at the same time, you do need to be considerate. And given that this dream is as realistic as any of my dreams can get, such an event is highly likely in our real life. I am sure a déjà vu moment will present itself in the future and I would have to make a quick decision then. And I hope I would by then what it is going to be.

AVS

the hamburger moment

2011-05-15T22:42:00.002-04:00

Remember that scene in Pink Panther (Steve Martin one) where Inspector Clouseau has the hamburger for the first time? Initially he is dismissive of it saying it’s a stupid food made by Americans. And as he takes his first bite, the whole world starts the spin around him taking him to a phycadelic trance with the taste of hamburger. For some reason I just love that scene. I believe it’s exactly how I would feel if I am to taste something exquisite and that's what happened earlier this week to me. Though it makes me feel naïve, the experience was so sweet (pun intended!) that I don’t mind it.

P was in town for the weekend and I went to meet her at an Indian restaurant for lunch. And one of the desserts there for the lunch buffet was this thing which looked like milk soaked break called Sahi Tukda. Since I had my eyes on gulab jamun and the payasam, I didn't pay much attention to this item and I went about stuffing myself with the crispy vadai, masala dosa, naan etc. It was when I had just about a bit of space left in my tummy for just tasting the desserts that I went back for the final round. Since I am a sucker for trying out unique items, I thought I will give this Soaked bread and see how it was. All it took was just a single bit of it for me to fall in love with it. It was neither too sweet nor too bland. It was perfectly smooth and it literally dispersed in my mouth. But P didn't share my enthusiasm for the dish, not because she didn't eat it, but because she was familiar with the item. Apparently, it’s also called Double ka meetha and is a popular sweet in Hydrabad.

I am not a great fan of sweets and desserts; but I had reached that conclusion having tasted pretty much all common sweets and have not developed a liking for it., but this one was different. The world was spinning around me and I was sitting there alone savoring the taste of milk and bread fighting to occupy a place on my taste buds.

Later that day I raved about it to M & R and it turned out they have also had it in spite of them being from Chennai (so, it’s not just Hyderabadis who know about it). Coincidently when I went to work on Monday, my colleague offered me a bowl of a dessert which her Aunt had made over the weekend and guess what...it was Shahi Tukda again! Of course she was also from Hyderabad. Thus, in a span of 2 days, I got to have something twice which I had not even heard about till last week. This one was a much more sweeter version and also more diligently made than the one in the buffet.

It was a pleasant happenstance that I got to eat two different variations of the same sweet which I fell in love with a day before. And sure enough, as of now, it has taken up the unoccupied position of my favorite dessert.

AVS

apparently so

2011-04-21T20:10:00.000-04:00

Don’t you use a phrase or a word quite a lot in your conversation? “Like”, “whatever”, “you know what” etc. being some of the common ones I get to hear here in US. Little did I realize till some time back that a word had crept into my vocabulary as well which I tend to use it quite frequently. Apparently, I use the word “apparently” a lot. I was notified of this by my brother sometime back. He was telling me how he mentioned it to my cousin and she also concurred with it. And since, I am conscious of it whenever I use it. Not that it has stopped me from using it or I have deliberately tried not using it; I just chose to ignore what my brother told.

It’s been a while after that and recently when I was chatting with her and I used the word. Since I was weighing what I was saying so as not to make a fool myself (well, at least not more than what she knows!), it occurred to me that even she might have noticed it. And so as to be cool about it and give a “all part of game” feel to it, I confessed myself so that she knows that I am aware of it. And that’s when she said that even she was about to say that I used it a lot.

So it wasn’t just my brother being whimsical or my cousin just agreeing with him to pull my leg. There was some validity to the inference. But when I think back, the word apparently fits well into the structure of sentences I make. I never give a thought about the meaning of it or if I can say the same thing without using that word…it just flows well out of my mouth I suppose. And it does not for most part stand out like a lump. Well, apparently people do notice ! (see, this is what I am talking about)

I don’t know if it is as annoying as using ‘like’, or ‘whatever’, at least I don’t feel that it’s a word I am forcing into my vocabulary. It is something which comes naturally to me (at least after I have started using frequently). I have no plans of making any chances to it.

Update: I have been told that my frequency of ‘apparently’ had reduced and has been replaced by excessive “oh crap!”

AVS

alarm for an alarm

2011-03-07T20:27:00.003-05:00

I am not at all an early riser. My tussle with alarm to wake up has been well documented here before. I still continue my 3 alarm pattern, however, the only problem is, on first look, what can only be described as a case of my cell phone developing its own personality or intelligence. I recently got a smart phone on which I can set many number of alarms and can schedule to ring at that time on the days I want them to beep. It worked fine for couple of days. I realized something was wrong when I woke up an hour late than usual. I thought it was one of those days where I was very sleepy and switched the alarm off in my sleep. Since I keep my cell phone beyond my arms reach just so that I don’t turn it off while in sleep, still I gave it the benefit of doubt and took the blame on myself - given that it was a new phone and I was a deep sleeper.

Last month, when for the nth time I woke up late since I started using this phone, I started doubting something wrong with my cell phone. This time, I didn't hear even single one of the 3 alarms. Even though I tried to tell the weirdness with which my phone acted, they blamed it back on me saying I would have switched it off in sleep. I installed an alarm app just in case if it was some problem with the default phone clock. Guess what, none of them beeped again and I overslept for the second consecutive day!

Just as it was trying to play with my mind and making to start to wonder about myself and take the blame back on me, at last, last week I got an opportunity to verify what was wrong. Last week, one day, I somehow managed to wake up with 5 mins to for my first alarm. Since I didn't want to oversleep, I somehow tried to stay awake to see if my alarm really does ring or not. And it did ring. Since my second alarm was only 15 mins later, I stayed up again fighting my sleep off (the secondary objective of keeping multiple alarm is just to wake up and realize that you can go back to sleep for few more minutes! If you have not tried it, please do...it’s a heavenly feeling!) And then, proving my suspicion to be true, my alarm didn't ring at 5.45 am! It cleared my mind up and immediately I woke up and reassigned the alarm to 6.00 again. And sure it did ring at 6. But it was good enough proof for me that my alarm was not all perfect.

Off late I have been waking up right before my first alarm goes off and reassign the times and ringtones. As D said, I have been waking up the alarm for last few days. The height of it was today morning. I had stopped scheduling my alarm to ring all days of the weeks and had started to set it ring for that particular day before I went to bed which I forgot to do last night. However, owing to a disturbing dream I had, I woke up at 5.20 am. Just as I was about to drop back to sleep did I realize that I had not turned on the alarm to ring for today. Immediately i turned it on, wondering even in such deep sleep, I had started to care and think about my alarm details. The thing I forgot to do when I was fresh last night occurred to me in half sleep! It was indeed as D had joked...I have started to wake up to wake up my alarm!

AVS

obsessive compulsive driving

2011-02-04T15:24:00.003-05:00

I am not superstitious...okay, maybe a little bit. Of course I have my own share of tiny obsessive compulsives, but nothing that would disrupt my well being or those of my fellow beings. One such thing which I do regularly is taking my car forward when I take it out for the first time in a day. I have to obsessively put the car in the drive gear and move it a step forward before I can reverse it out of the parking spot. I have been doing it since the day I bought my car.

I think it started with the ritual we Indians usually follow of doing this right the first time. And since it was my first car in my life, I didn't want to piss of any superior powers that might be watching over me. And something which was meant to be for the first time only became a first time everyday thing.

Come to think of it, it might have been my horrible attempt at drive right the next day I got my license. I learned driving in India when I was in college. I learned it in a good old ambassador car with huge stick gears which you had to literally pull and move into the required slot to change the gear. And turning the steering meant using all the force you can gather on your hands plus the added push by swirling your body in the direction of the turning of wheel. And once we managed to get the license, a roommate of mine had a maruti car and he encouraged me to take it out and take it for a spin. The thing he never mentioned nor I thought about was that it was power steering. It was parked in front of our hostel facing our room window. So, here I step into the car and changed the gear to reverse. The smoothness with which the gear shifted was a new experience for me. And like I had done for the last few months in the ambassador, I pressed the accelerator as hard as possible and the car just jerked back. In the panic all I could do was pull the hand brake with my feet still rooted on to the accelerator. Don’t ask me if it is the safest or wisest thing to do, say if it was on a road, when your vehicle speeds up uncontrollably, you have no idea how mind works in panic. And his almost new maruti skidded back and halted at 90 deg. from its initial position with the hood now facing the wall. It still is a mystery how I managed to do that given that there was not much space available there to perform such a maneuver.

I immediately stepped out of the car and handed over the key to my roomie. Surprisingly he didn't appear to me much ruffled, most likely because he, being a new driver himself, might have pulled off such a trick before. Anyway, that day I decided not to drive someone else's vehicle so that I don’t end up in the wrong side if i cause even a slightest scratch on it. And mind you it was my first attempt at driving a car without any supervision and i felt I should have started on the right note - in this case a move forward. Hence, when I got a car of my own car, I wanted to take it forward as a good omen for my future rides. However it had gotten to me like a habit which I cannot get rid of. And the sad truth that I don’t know how to reverse parking is presenting me with opportunity to continue doing it every single day.

A small foot note: For the most part I have stuck to my resolution of not driving someone else’s personal car. I have done it only on 2 occasions in the last 8 years; and need I say I was extra cautious taking it up.

AVS

up in the air

2011-01-24T19:51:00.001-05:00

I feel jet lag is an overrated concept. I have come to the conclusion over the course of last few years with my trips to India as well as those by my friends. If you can sleep timely and comfortably in the flight; I am sure it’s possible (maybe in the luxury of first class!). Though I know that people get bogged down by traveling across time zones, and I, myself, am a victim to that, though I have wanted to prove that people give undue respect to jet lag.

My recent trip to India gave me an opportunity to test my theory. It was a very short trip for a week and I was sure that I would not have the luxury of taking time to get over my jet lagging at home. So, I was all prepared to 'sleep tight' in the flight. I was optimistic of catching a good sleep at some point of time of the flight given it was the longest ever time I had spent on the single leg of a journey. Mind you given my long legs and wide torso, just about managing to sit in the flight seat comfortably itself is a big deal, forget about sleeping well sitting. And adding to my misery was a severe and literal pain in the neck. I just could not keep my head leaning against the support and take even a small nap without feeling a pinch on the back of my neck. It was the most excruciating 18 hrs I have had to spend on a flight so far. I ended up watching 5 movies and about 3-4 one hour TV shows goes to prove that I just could not sleep at all!. I could not even sleep during the multiple layovers and ended up sleep deprived for good 32 hrs and more.

Despite of the self inflicted insomnia, I was determined not to sleep during day time in India and wait till its night there to sleep so that I can negate the effect of jet lag screwing up my biological clock and I was indeed successful in doing so. I was out of the house the very same day I landed and was back home only by night and went to bed when others in the house did. I woke up fresh the next day morning and for the next one week I was there I was successfully following the Indian timing. I was glad to have proven once and for all that jet lag was indeed not a big deal and yeah, I did spoke volumes about it to anyone who asked.

And my equal long return flight could not have gotten any better for me. The seat next to me was unoccupied and I had the luxury of lifting the hand rest and lying down and sleeping. And I did utilize my space well. I watched only 2 movies in the entire flight time is good enough testimony that I had good rest and sleep. And one of them I watched just for the heck of it. And back in US, I was again back to my US timings for I could not catch any more sleep.

Just when I was feeling jubilant for having successfully beaten the jet lag; not once but twice within a span of a week; it came back with vengeance. Two days after my return, I was walking around like a zombie in the afternoons at work - many cups of coffees having no effect on me. And for straight 2 days I was out as soon as I reached home and work up only to see the dawn of next day. Fortunately for me, it was the week of New Year and work wasn't heavy and the week was short. And within 2-3 days I was fine.

Given that I had slept for over 10 hrs in the flight, I am sure that the fatigue I was feeling was not from the return trip but from the 32 hrs vigil during my on flight to India. It took a week and more I succumbed to the jet lag. Not bad given the hectic and long flights I had! Though I didn’t prove conclusively that you can beat jet lag, at least I partially proved what need to be done to do so. Had I not had neck pain or if I had the provision of more space to sleep, I would have felt anything after a total of about 50+ hrs of air travel. And I look forward to my next trip to close this once and for all.

AVS

meri awaz suno

2011-01-10T21:06:00.002-05:00

Last week I came across a news article about a homeless guy with a radio voice – the unique tone of speech which you can get to hear only from a radio host. And sure did he not look anything like what he sounded, which made me reconsider writing a blog on a related topic which I have had in my mind for some time now. Many months back, I thought of writing a blog post about one's voice and had started drafting it couple of times. But for some reason I scrapped it. But this news article was sort of a divine intervention; or so I feel; that – (1) I need to do something about my dormant blog (2) I had to get this thought out of my mind into my blog.

Every person has a fitting voice. Like, you cannot imagine Amitabh Bachchan with Sachin Tendulkar's voice, right? I tend to assign a face and a vague image to a person, whom I have never met, based on their voice or what I have read about them. I am sure that I am not the only one who does it (and I have checked it with few of my friends just to ensure that I am not weird). And invariably the person would be nowhere close to resemble my mental image of them. A colleague of mine from our overseas office who appeared to be a 6 footer with a thick mustache over the phone turned out to be clean shaven 5 footer (just quoting one to prove that it can be as different as chalk and cheese).

The city where I live in US had a high density of desi population and hence a number of desi radio stations which I listen to whenever I am driving. One particular station which I tune to most often had this radio host with a deep voice. Sometime back, I happened to see a photo of his in a news paper and to my utter surprise, he was EXACTLY the way I had imagined him to be. What is more baffling is I had even imagined him to have a goatee which precisely resembled the one he had! (he was a tad thinner than what I had figured, but it was certainly within the ‘uncertainty limit’ of the estimation)

Okay, I don’t what to make any claims of having gained sudden psychic power or anything of that sort; neither am I admitting to the possibility that I might have seen his photo somewhere sometime back and it might have forgotten about it. Let’s say it was just coincidence – after so many misses by a mile, the law of probability had to catch up with me at some point of time or other. But, just the fact that I am a huge fan of spooky movies and what I had conjured up was eerily close to reality makes me marvel at my revelation.

AVS

ramblings of a whiny viewer

2010-07-22T21:59:00.001-04:00

I am a self confession movie buff. Ok, I should rephrase it - I am a connoisseur of movies - for 1) I don’t watch any and everything that gets screened on screen 2) I don’t go to the extreme of risking my life to catch the fist day first show of a new release 3) I don’t have the posters or clippings of my favorite actor/actress on my walls.

Watching movies is one of my favorite past times, but I do make sure that on most of the occasions, I have atleast a vague idea about what I am getting into before really getting into the theatre.

I have somewhat of a high standard set on the quality of movies I like. The hind side of this is that most of the times I come of the theatre not completely happy or satisfied by what was offered. I tend to over analyze what is shown on the screen and as one would know, majority of the movies releasing in a year, irrespective of the language they are made in, are at best average to mediocre, with just a few really good ones to a lot of abysmal ones. I clearly remember, when at Cincinnati, of all the movies I saw at AMC (which is pretty much every other weekend), the movies which I was happy with are so less that I can actually recollect the names of each of them.

To contrast this, my colleague at work is the other extreme of mine. He, by his own admission, can watch any movie and invariably comes out of the theatre happy with what he saw. His justification is that I don’t go in with high expectations and once you know exactly what you are going to get, it’s not that bad. Hence he is happy with a movie like Last Airbender, whereas just the thought of watching that movie itself is sacrilegious for me.

How I wish I could think like him, for most of the times I feel my money was wasted, its time well spent for him. Blame it on my upbringing in Kerala, where the quality of Malayalam movies made in the 80s when I was growing up were extremely good. Even the so called movies made for the masses had some really good direction and/or screenplay associated with it. Unfortunately it’s no longer the case, with the quality of movies deteriorating alarmingly that I have almost given up watching Malayalam movies completely and been hooked to Hollywood movies.

AVS

fried oreos

2010-04-11T03:38:00.001-04:00

I am not sure how many out there has heard about a snack called Fried Ores. Yes, you read it right and it’s exactly what it sounds like - Oreo cookie which is fried! I heard about it first from a co-worker from work who was from Louisiana. She was telling me it was a very popular delicacy in New Orleans and how she hated it. It was also mentioned in one of the Jay Leno Show episodes I happened to watch around the same time. They are prepared like any other fried snack- dip the cookies in the batter and deep fry it.

I am not a fan of Oreo cookies in the first place. but, being a sucker for any fried snacks, when you add a ‘fried’ to it, even fried cookies sound enticing to me. I had been wanting to try it out just out of the curiosity to know about how two contrasting items would add up or how bad can it be. In my defense, other items which you would expect to be the last item to be fried, tasted awesome – fried ice cream, fried vazhapazam etc.

Recently, I got the opportunity to try it out at Houston Rodeo. It was not just Oreo they were frying, but fried brownies and fried snickers, fried M&M, fried cheesecake etc. I think they fry pretty much anything one can think of to be NOT fried. We tried out Oreo, brownies and snickers and all sucked equally bad! Infact, friend brownie and snicker were so bad that fried Oreo was the least offensive of them all. Maybe it got something to do with the oil in which they fry it at the Rodeo; I couldn’t take more than 2 bites of it. It baffles me how can someone even like it!

I am one who always gives a second chance to any food item; before making a conclusion on how good or bad something is (I have even tried Dr. Pepper more than once!). So, I might try it again sometime in the future, but I think I am certain I have made up my mind on this one.

AVS

what's god?

2010-03-16T20:41:00.005-04:00

A poem, called The Blindmen and the Elephant by John Godfrey Saxe, so beautifully written that I was compelled to post it. Thanks to RSK for introducing this to me

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approach'd the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, -"Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!"

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"

The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he,
"'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Then, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

MORAL:
So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

AVS

kerala born confused polyglot

2010-03-11T18:54:00.008-05:00

I think I am an Indian equivalent of an ABCD - to be born in one culture and been brought up in a place of another culture. I am, by birth, a Tamilian and belong to that clad who have come to be known as ‘Palakkad Iyers” whose ancestors migrated to Kerala and settled there many generations ago.

However, I consider myself to be a Keralite since I have always lived there. Moreover, though I speak Tamil at home, I am more comfortable and fluent in Malayalam than any other language. Inspite of some serious canvassing and cajoling from one of my dear friends to convince me that I am a Tamilian, I stand adamant on my mallu stand much to her annoyance. She had to settle with the truce that she would consider me to be a Tamil and doesn’t give a damn about what I consider myself to be (It’s a miracle I still get invited for dinner at her place!)

However the bigger issue was when it came to what is my mother tongue. Much before I had to confront this question of picking an identity, I have always been conflicted by the same issue whenever I had to specify my ‘mother tongue’ in application forms. I have used both Malayalam and Tamil for that particular column depending on how I felt about what my mother tongue is at that particular moment, though I never could convince myself which one was it for me. I don’t buy the explanation that mother tongue is the one your mother speaks (which is just the literal translation of the word and not I am certain that’s not what it was meant to be when the word was coined).

Sometime back a friend of mine wrote about the language one thinks in. I thought it was a good way to figure out the mother tongue for polyglots like me (I know 4 languages and working on the 5th one ;). A person’s mother tongue should be the language in which he/she thinks. It doesn’t matter where you live or what you speak. The language in which you have thoughts has to be considered your mother tongue since that is the one which comes involuntarily to you and by that theory; my mother tongue has to be Tamil. I have always had my silent thoughts in Tamil, the one which I have used and still use to communicate with my family even since I can think of. So, does that make me a Tamilian? Maybe it does, when I put it that way (my above mentioned friend would be delighted to read my confession :)

I know there would be people who refuse to accept this argument of mine. In fact, a very close friend of mine vouches that he thinks in English though he hails from Chennai and speaks Tamil at home (well, at least most of the times!). For him, English is the language in which his thoughts flow. In my defense, he doesn’t have confusion as to what his mother tongue is and is certain that its Tamil. This hypothesis stands true only for confused souls like me.

Spare a thought for a friend of mine from Mumbai; she has lived her whole life there and can just manage Marathi but converses in Malayalam Tamil at home since her parents are Tamil speaking Keralites like me!

AVS

worst ARR album

2010-01-05T18:44:00.003-05:00

I got hold of an extensive mp3 collection of ARR songs from a friend of mine sometime back and ever since it has been playing on a loop in my music player – starting with the genesis ROJA and other majestic creations from the 90s like Thiruda Thiruda (90s, being the decade in which I grew, brings back all those nostalgia too). It put me in a really hard situation of picking the best from the list which was impossible for me. Hence I thought it would be easier to find the worst ARR album of all time. I had shortlisted on few of the in consequential hindi track and those tamil songs which he made for Prasanth (Jodi or something), Manoj (Alli Arjuna?) etc. But even in those there was atleast one track which was good, since ARR had rehashed them from hindi to tamil or vice versa (The criteria I used to gauge the album was it should not have even a single track worthy). A quick inquiry in facebook and couple of my friends unanimously suggested a real gem (!) which I hadn’t even heard of. An Arjun starrer tamil movie – PARASURAM. I was told it has the least noteworthy songs Rahman has ever composed.

I managed to hear the songs of the album last day and yes it is the least spectacular album of the Maestro. However there was one song in that which Rahman had used in the hindi film Zubeida. But I can confidently say, if not for that track, it is by far the poorest album by ARR’s standard (which would still rate better than some other so called ‘music composers’. Hence, my wait for the utter rubbish from Rahman continues. I have to add that I will be more than happy to be disappointed in this one.

living offline

2009-10-26T18:32:00.000-04:00

I am addicted to my computer. Even if I am watching TV or on phone, I need to play around with my fingers on my computer, either you tubing or gaming or something like that. And this includes checking my 5 email ids every 15-20 mins. It’s not that I cannot live without going online, but just knowing that I have the access at hands reach is a comforting thought (there is some reasoning behind my Uncle calling me a ‘Googler”, as per him, I can find him anything he wants online). So, you could imagine what I would have to go through if I am to get past a day without my laptop. And quite befitting the Halloween month, I am having to the horror of parting with my computer.

It all started few days back when I resumed my attempt to connect my laptop to my TV. Mind you my television is a good ol’ CRT TV and for some reason I was not able to get any display on TV though it said in my laptop that it’s connected. I am someone who preferably likes to resolves issues my verbal conversation rather than by email or chat. That’s the reason why I usually call up the customer care of any company for troubleshooting so that I could explain my concerns to them in detail. But for the last one week, I have been on phone for almost 3 straight hours after going home from work with my laptop company customer care. Even by my tolerance level to talking, this has been quite a tedious effort.

So I made my first call to the support team of my laptop makers. One of the major pains of customer service is that it makes you go though all this menu options and voice recognition stuffs before you can reach a real human. And every single time, despite of my best efforts to sound as “american’ as possible, the automated lady on the other end refuses to recognize my menu option. So after all the yes and nos I get connected to a representative who turned out to be located at Kolkata (fortunately, he still had his Indian name intact, rather that a Dave, or Andy with Indian accent). I spend good 3-4 hours on phone troubleshooting my laptop and updating some system drivers and all with no luck. Next day on, I noticed that the fan inside my laptop was making unusually loud noise and my laptop battery wasn’t getting charged though it said so. So I made my second call in 2 days to the company to complain about the sound and charging issue going though all the options which the auto lady utters (including the spanish lady).

Another thing that irks me is that every time you call, you get connected to a different person and you have to start explaining the issue from scratch. This time I was connected to a lady in Canada and it turns out that the pervious guy had updated the wrong drivers on my laptop and she updated the right ones for me. Still my laptop refused to charge. And to add to my frustration, here was that guy from Kolkata following up with me to see if I could get my laptop to display on TV (He seemed more interested in fixing my problem than me).

So, after my 3 call in as many days explaining the story from the prelude to the epilogue to the 3rd representative, I got my laptop battery replaced. Still, even with a new battery, my problem remained unresolved. Anyway, the long story short (I have already lost the credibility to say that!) after 2 more calls and couple more hours on the phone, I had to send back my laptop to the service center for detailed diagnostics. It is expected that I will be out of computer for good 1½ weeks (and it’s been only just 4 days so far!)

Update: Its been a week without laptop and my vitals are all good so far and I am yet to manifest any withdrawal symptoms. I am surviving and weathering through it. Just the fact that I am posting this entry even in the absence of my laptop is proof enough for my well being.

AVS

dry spell

2009-10-17T10:51:00.000-04:00

Its been years since I have published a post here. In blogosphere, months are the years, days are the months….you get the drift. Its just that I was preoccupied with work and rest. I have never been a systematic blogger, though, even by my standards this had been a long dry spell. A glance through the archive list this page would tell you that I often go through such phases where I just can’t get myself to blog about anything. At times I run out of topics, and some other time I want to write, just that I don’t know how to put it in words. This time the lack of posts has been due to the former during the earlier months and latter in this month. By now you might have figured that, I don’t have any point with this entry and it’s just meant to shake off the cobwebs from this page. I have some quality free time with me now a days and hoping to get few things, about which I want to write, posted.

AVS

a mouthful of feet

2009-06-26T18:33:00.000-04:00

I am sure I will not be the first or the last person who would have experienced this. You blurt out something and the very next moment regret why in the bloody hell you said that. Not only the whole thing is embarrassing, but your every attempt from then on to save yourself from the disgrace can be equally embarrassing or even dangerous. I, for one suffering from acute case verbal diarrhea, am prone to such situations. And the worst one comes out when I try to make a casual conversation.

It was during my first year in US and I was at my on-campus work place. I was in the coffee bar and I, along with two employees of the plant was waiting for the coffee to brew. Since I was new there, just like all people waiting for coffee in any coffee bar in any work place, those two were chit chatting with me about what I was doing and how long I have been in US. It was a hot summer time and one of the person asked how the weather in India was like. And since I had received so many questions from curious minds in US about India, I started explaining with zeal how much hot the weather in my part of India was. “Is it this bad there?”, asked one of the two. “Its worse, that’s why we are this dark” and immediately I felt the taste of my foot in my palette and a sudden brain freeze. One of the two guys was an African American!! Since nothing I would say from then on could make it any better, all I could do was to conjure up the strength to pour my coffee and just vanish from that room forever. I was never to come across that guy again.

What made me recollect this was a similar incident my brother who was in US few weeks back. This one too, curiously enough, involves brewing coffee. He was at the coffee bar having a coffee. An African American person who was next to him spilled some coffee on his own shirt and was trying his best to clean up the stain. And my brother in an attempt to lighten up went “you should wear a dark shirt like I have; then no one would see the stain”. And that person in his broke English went “you mean….I...me…dark?” (it was his first visit to US and as part of the orientation I gave him, being the ‘more experienced one’ here, I had instructed him specifically to avoid any conversation which could be misinterpreted as racial) and immediate he too felt the delicious taste of the feet. However, unlike the not so gracious exit I made, he managed to convey it to that person that he was referring to the shades of shirt.

Though there have been other instances where I have regretted saying something, none has freaked the bejesus out of me like this one. Maybe its one of the drawbacks of having a mouth which works faster than the brain. Or maybe it as a rookie mistake made in an alien nation…or maybe it just runs in the family.

AVS

one man show

2009-05-20T22:59:00.001-04:00

Houston is one of the few cities in US with a large contingency of Malayalee population. Hence it is not totally surprising that new Malayalam movies release here every other week. Though the movie theater is very close to where I live, I hadn’t seen a Malayalam movie, partially due to lack to company and partial due to the abysmal standard of the movies churned out from my home state off late. So I had pretty much forgotten about it till last week when someone asked in chat if I get to watch Malayalam movies here; if so there was this new movie which was really funny. To my surprise, the same movie had released here and was still playing. Given that I hadn’t seen a Malayalam movie in a theater in a long time and the fact that it was a sequel to a very funny and super hit movie released almost 2 decade back, I had to watch that movie in the theater.

Since it was a Saturday night, I expected many of the mallu families in Houston to flock to the theater and hence I set forth a bit too early so as to get a good seat. Also, it was a good opportunity for me to meet some of my fellow Houstonians from my home state and maybe strike up some conversation in Malayalam. So here I was all geared up headed to the theater.

The theater was surprisingly deserted for a Saturday night. Given that there were Telugu, Tamil and a Hindi movies too playing, I expected some Indian crowd…...nope, none was seen even going out of the theater.

I purchased the ticket and the usher directed me to the theater. I entered the hall and there was no soul there. Here I was all alone in an empty movie hall with about 200 empty seats. I picked the seat right in the middle and settled myself. Minutes passed and start time was near, still no sigh of any other human. It would be absurd to carry on with the show when there is no audience (which has been the case in India) and I was certain that the show would be canceled and I would be refunded the fare me.

As I was thinking of what to do with the rest of the night, now that the show would be canceled, to my surprise, the screen lit up and the titles started to roll and the movie started! And here I was watching the movie all alone in the theater as if it was my personal media room.

To cut short the tale, the entire movie 2.5 hr was played for a single person. It was a unique experience for me. Never before have a seen a movie in such solitude. Did I like it? Not really. Not just because the movie wasn’t as good as I expected it to be, but because I was so lonely. Not that I would chatted through out the movie, but I don’t prefer watching movie in a theater alone. I am sure everyone enjoys the movie in the company of friends and so do I. But this time, I wished there was a stranger atleast.

AVS

choice control

2009-05-16T23:53:00.005-04:00

“There are many parameters that determine your course of action now a days...…..and your control over those are reducing”, I remarked recently to couple of friends. Though it was one of those comments which I ‘uttered-before-thinking’ (which I do quite often), this one made complete sense when I heard it back as I said. The work and the related intricacies are making the decision making a hard nut to crack. Like, for example, taking some time off or going home for vacation. Other than the obvious difficulty of getting the leave, there are further issues like the stringent rules imposed by the immigration off late. I have heard the horror few people had to go through with the immigration that I am more than willing to put off my travel plans. It is true about life decisions too. The economic situation and the uncertainties associated with it have forced many of my friends and acquaintances to postpone their marriage or relocation or buying a house. Life’s always been about making choices, but think the number of if’s and but’s have increased, which is making the task even tougher. You control over your own life is getting loose.

Then I hear about this former college mate of mine who has decided to go back to India for good. And his reasoning is because he felt like doing so. And how I wish if it was that easy for me to make a decision! For a person like me who finds picking between one or the other is one of the hardest things to do (and would be more than happy if there were no choices), it would be nothing short of a blessing. I am sure it would make my life much simpler.

AVS

avan, aval, naan

2009-04-29T22:23:00.006-04:00

He was 5’11”, well built, brownish complexion, handsome and smart. She was almost 5’7”, wheatish, lean, beautiful and gracious. We were not surprised when he fell for her. “I was hooked to her the very first time I saw her”, he confessed. “There is something magical and magnetic in her eyes that attract me towards her whenever I see her” he went on, typical of him given how filmi he was.

Invariably I would be there with Raj when we would come across Anu. I swear it was coincidental and not deliberate. In my defense, whenever possible, I used to excuse myself from the scene to facilitate any course of action from Raj, if he may.

********************************

“Did you talk to her?” I quizzed

“No da, not yet”, he gave me the same answer he as been giving me for the last one month. Ok, I have been asking the same question to him. Maybe I should rephrase my question.

“Are you ever gonna?” I deliberately put a tone of warning into the query.

“I will, I am just waiting for a right moment.” I think valentine’s day would be the right time”

That’s a whole month away!….i sighed

***********************************

Namrata Shirodkar in a navy blue mini skirt smiling at me from the wall right across my bed, when I woke up

She was nice, infact, she looks really gorgeous in the pioster; not only on the one on the wall, but also on the 2 which had appeared behind the front door.

“What the heck?”……my eyes were searching for Raj.

“Don’t you think Anu looks like her?” you can’t but agree with Raj, when he puts in such innocence in his questions (don’t believe, try being his roommate for 3 years)

“She might be, if you think so”…the most I can do is to give him moral support.

There is something magical and magnetic in her eyes that attract me towards her whenever I see her”.

*************************************

“Hey come.. she’s there in the caffeteria”…he dragged me out of the library and threw me behind his bike. I don’t need an life insurance as of now, but if such events are gonna recur frequently, it wont be a bad idea to get one…..a rather big one given the speed at which he was beating the traffic.

“ Why do you need me if you are gonna talk to her”…..i could help wondering.

“She’s with her friend”

“Who?”

“Your labmate Megha”

“So?”

“So get rid of her from there. I have a thing going on for her, don't you?”

“heyyy, nothing like that!" I pretty much yelled back wondering how he figured!. "So, you want me to kill her?” I had to crack the PJ. It invariably help hide my blushing; as well as change the subject.

“Poda….shut up if don’t want me to do that to you”

“Given how you are driving, I think you are trying your best”

******************************************

“I will give the card to her today”… I had heard that million times in the last one month. Atlast the day had dawned.

“Good”, atleast I will be spared from now on from your countdowns”. I had to be sarcastic irrespective of the mood of the occasion.

“Its today or never”…he vowed.

When I got back from college, Raj wasn’t home yet. Being an optimist, I assumed things worked out well with his card giving and my best chance of catching him would be in the caffeteria with her.

I don’t know when I dozed off, but I was in the middle of a nice dream – I was practicing dance with Rani Mukherjee; which would have been a nightmare if it was real! - when Raj banged on the door.

“Haaaaiiiii” my yawn sounded like a greeting. “So, how did you give it to her?”

“Naaaaa”…his dejected tone sounded more authentic than my yawn.

“Whats wrong”?

“Nothing”…..he paused ...”I think she is already with someone”

“Oh damn”, I felt sorry for my roomie…"Did she say that”?

“Kind of, she said she has personal reasons, what else it can be!”

“Its her misfortune da, take it easy. I am sure you will find a much better girl”…I had to do my part in consoling.

“Com’on Raj, let’s go out, the beer's on me”, I felt like doing more than just consoling for my dear roomie. I swear, my urge to have a beer after the nap was only a secondary reason.

“It was a good card by the way, maybe someone else can use it”…I hoped my inopportune jokes which usually works its charm in cheering people up with do it this time too.

*****************************************************

“Hurry up man, you are getting late for the match”…..Raj shouted over the revving of the bullet.

“In a minute, can’t find my wallet”

“Make it fast, I wanna warm up a bit before the game”…Raj was quite sure of the expectations from the best batsman in the team.

Just as I was retrieving my wallet from the drawer, I noticed a green envelope addressed to Megha under the directory. It is cheap to read others mails, but curiosity got the better of me. It might have got the cat killed, but I had to take my chances. After all it was addressed to Megha. Having decided to find some excuse later for my defense, I opened it. Inside was a small sky blue color card with lamination like finish and written inside in lovely print like handwriting were the words I had come to memorize listening to over the last few weeks.

“there is something magical and magnetic in your eyes which attacts me towards you whenever I see you”

AVS

lost in translation

2009-04-26T14:04:00.000-04:00

I had a dissapointing revelation few days back!

As most close to me know already that though I am a born Tamilian, I am more comfortable with Malayalam owing to my upbringing in Kerala. That also accounts for me being more fluent, both in verse and speech, in Malayalam than Tamil or Hindi or for that matter even English. Malayalam used to be a compulsory subject for me in school and I can confidently claim that I am pretty good in it (I learned the Tamil alphabets on my own and still can only stutter through reading any text in that language and my spoken Tamil, well, all know how that goes).

I have not got any opportunity to use Malayalam in writing for almost 5 years now ever since I landed in US. I never lost touch with the language (or so I thought) since I regularly read Malayalam news online. But what I forgot to realize was how much I had not used the language in my writing. And to my own horror I realized it few days back. I had to translate some notes to Malayalam and I just couldn’t get the letters right! Usually, I just sleep walk through the words, but this time I messed up the letters with similar looking scripts (and there are quite a few similar looking letters in Malayalam).

I am afraid I have to confess with at most shame that I might be losing touch with my first language. I feel embarrassed about myself since I never expected it to happen…feels almost like what I would feel if I ever forgot how to ride a bicycle. I maybe over reacting a bit, and for as much trivial as it sound, my worry is valid given how much low I feel about the whole issue.

I recollect an incident last year. The last time I had to write something in Malayalam was for Vidhyarambham (Aayitha pooja) and while writing in Malayalam, I misspelled the very first letter itself...no wonder I had hard time finishing my studies last year!

AVS

i wonder why

2009-04-21T23:49:00.004-04:00

I used to be stubborn kid. I have been the recipient of many self inflicted injuries as well as those inflicted by my mother given my mischief. (If anyone is surprised to read about such a version of me should be thanking the god that they got to see a mellowed version of me). I have been very unruly and short tempered which has landed me under an auto rickshaw, on a concrete floor head down from the terrace etc other than the innumerable slaps from mother (well, those are stories for another time).

Sometime in the early nineties, at around the time when the bollywood movie Phool Aur Kaante released (which launched Ajay Devgan as the new action hero), I was at my unmanageable best - getting pissed at the slightest of things and throwing tantrums and yelling to a stage of physically attack - and my cousins gave me the name Ajay Devgan….for being the angry young man I was!

Cut to year 2004, I was at the wedding reception of my cousin at Utah. There I met one of my other cousin’s husband and he remarked that he had recently seen the movie Raincoat and Ajay Devgan in that movie reminded him of me. Mind you, it is a movie where the mentioned actor played a gentle character which a heart of gold.

It was a surprise for all of us present there since he had no idea that I have been previously compared to that actor. And my cousin said “See, we told you that years back!”

In my personal opinion, I don’t think I resemble Devgan in anyways. The only similarity can find is the skin texture we share ….(also, maybe the unconventional good looks too *wink*). Yet it still bewilders how I was compared to AJ all over again. After all those years, my alleged similarity to the actor surfaced again albeit for different reasons.

(Maybe a cue for future filmmakers, who wants to make a movie on my life, whom to cast as the lead actor....or maybe vice versa ;)

AVS

the man who wasn't there

2009-03-27T01:16:00.006-04:00

Note: Though the characters in the story are real, the incidents narrated are fictional.

He had a noticeable hunch on his back, which was more pronounced when seen from the right side than the left. Sometimes he was seen wearing an orange monkey cap. Other than these, there wasn’t much noticeable about that old man. I am told that he was always found sitting on that bridge over the river. My father says he has seen him there ever since he was a toddler. That might be exaggerating a bit since he himself mentioned on another occasion that bridge was not built till he was in his high school. I think he just meant to emphasis that the old man has been there for a very long time.

I have seen him at the exact spot on that bridge every time we visit our ancestral village with my parents and brother. It was almost a ritual for me to look out through the window of the bus whenever it crossed the bridge. “Wake me up when we cross the bridge” I used to instruct my mom as I dozed off during those 6 hr bus journey.

My father always mention about that great flood of 1970 to everyone, which drowned his village and forced him to move to the city. He says even as the river was overflowing over the bridge, the old man refused from there. He clearly remembers noticing the old man, standing waist deep in flood water near the middle of the bridge as he and my uncle paddled over the bridge on their canoe with all the stuffs they could salvage. As if it was that old man's sole responsibility to stay put. My father appreciate his courage; at the same time,he confessed to us, made him feel guilty - for abandoning his village at the time of distress. When he heard in the radio that his village wasn’t washed away, almost a miracle given the intensity of the flood; he was certain that it was that old man and his will which saved his village.

I believe it was also an act of redemption for him to take my mom, brother and me to his village atleast once a year, visit the temples and meet all his childhood friends, old neighbors, acquaintances or whom ever is left of them. So, even from when I can remember we have been making the trip to that village. And every time we crossed that bridge my father would look out to see that old man; and so would I.

From what I can remember, than man always looked the same, disheveled, and shabbily dressed. He looked weary and tired, but never unhappy. I couldn’t picture him being young. My father said he couldn’t recollect how he looked when young. I believe he was born this old and lived that way his whole life.

I didn’t know anything about him. But his act of defiance against the Mother Nature and the fact that my father admired him was good enough for me to respect him. His constant presence on that bridge made him a cult figure of me and he was an identity of the village whenever I mentioned about it to someone. He was the guardian of the village and I believe his presence there was one of the factors which made us connected to our roots in spite of our city upbringing.

Over the years that village underwent many changes. The panchayat built a check dam over that river not far away from the bridge few years back. And another bridge, bigger one for heavy vehicles was constructed adjacent to the old one. Bus no longer made service through the old bridge and the traffic was confined to pedestrians and light motor vehicles. With less time to dispose in hand with the fast paced life, we switched the bus journey to a faster and sophisticated car trip. And thus we still commuted through the old bridge and never missed the sight of the old man. It was as if, we shifted to car because a trip in bus would make us miss him.

With my studies and subsequent employment, I was not able to make the trip to the village in the last couple of years and I had forgotten about that man for a while now until last year’s vacation. When I was told by my mother that she had planned that trip this time around my thoughts went back to the old man. I realized I never knew him. Did he ever leave that spot? When did he eat? How did he eat? Did he ever have a family? Was he abandoned by them? Or did he abandon them? - I didn’t even know his name. I think I never bothered to know anything about him. I wanted to be detached from him that way. I sympathized with him, yet was not willing to do anything for him. I felt meek and inferior and wanted to redeem myself.

“I am sure that man will be still there on that bridge”. I told my mother, “I think I should give him some money this time” and immediately feared if I sounded like a pompous NRI who pitied the less fortunate, albeit inadvertently.

“Yes, we should”, agreed my father. “And I will inquire more about him and know him better”, I told myself.

A long blast of air horn from a truck behind our car woke me up when we were few mile away from the bridge. “Slow the car when we reach the bridge”, I instructed the driver. As we approached the bridge, I glanced outside to see the man. He was not to be seen. “He’s not there” said my brother. “Not on this side either”, my father said with his head still stuck out the car window on the other side, sounding as if a close relative of his was missing. I could understand, that stranger he has been a constant frame of reference throughout his life; one whom he might have seen more often than many of his relatives.

No one seemed to know anything about him around the temple area. After much inquiry, we were told by the nearby restaurant manager that our old man passed away almost a year back. And no one seemed to care much. He was a nobody to the new generation there. Even to the surviving older folks, he was just a pavement dweller. For some unknown reason I felt that I was more disappointed to hear the news than my father. He was definitely more wiser to know the truths of life.

While going back, I involuntarily gazed out through the window as the car approached the bridge. I am certain I will continue to look for him whenever we cross that bridge. Our future trips to the village will not be the same without that old man on the bridge.

As we were crossing the bridge I noticed the traffic was slow across the bridge. I want to believe it was to pay respect to the man who wasn’t there.

AVS

unspoken language

2009-03-20T17:33:00.003-04:00

Today at work, my manager wanted me to help him out with some reviewing stuffs. So, I took the material and sat in a empty cube in front of his office room. I was about to return it to him after completion that I noticed someone was already inside his room. So I was there standing on the corridor in front of his office leaning against the wall with crossed legs with a document in one hand and a pen on the other running the tip of the pen going over each line again to make sure I have done a neat work. Just then an engineer passed by me and he impromptu asked ,with a straight face, “Getting ready for exam?” and immediately we both burst into laughter simultaneously. It is not a hilarious incident, but was one of those genuine moments.

Even after he was out of sight I just couldn’t stop giggling picturing myself in his shoes and seeing me standing like that there and I cannot but completely agree with his perspective. t was so true….standing like a college boy right before he enters the exam room, uncertainly going through the study notes for one last time. My body language fitting that scenario perfectly.

It makes me wonder how much your body language and mannerisms can gives away a lot about you. I don’t recollect having seen anyone else in my office who was standing the way I was in the corridor or say, with that kind of body language. I have seen people waiting outside offices, I have seen them with documents in hand; but none ever looked like ‘preparing for exam’.

I do feel at times that I still have that student hangover in spite of having done away with college almost 2 years ago (maybe the after effect of spending a bit too much time there than expected).

It was entirely involuntary from my part to stand there the way I did, but now that I am conscious of it, I do want to change it. Not that there is anything wrong with it, its just that I j don't want it to be that way anymore and I certainly do not know how. It could either be one of the two - maybe there a fine line between acting like a student and a professional which I need to cross....or maybe I just need to grow up!

AVS

baby talk

2009-03-16T22:49:00.002-04:00

Disclaimer: It is just a goofy post for the heck of it. Neither it made much sense while drafting, nor is expected while reading.

The very first word of a kid holds a special place in the life of his/her parents. And invariably the magic word would be 'ma' or 'pa' (or some other close variant of that). Hence, its of at most joy when he/she starts to talk and they go ecstatic and with much delight they spread the glad news to all near and dear, going over the moon explaining how their own blood called them out for the very first time.

In the last few months, I have been in gatherings/get-togethers where I have come across couple of my married acquaintances with toddlers. And naturally, someone would ask about the kid and the conversation would slip into how the babies are doing their growth developments. In one such gathering the conversation was about how one of the babies had started to talk and an attempt to make him repeat 'ma' in front of the present audience. He did repeat his performance much to the delight of the parents and the joy of the others, but it got me wondering….why is it that the first words of most toddlers are either 'ma' or 'pa'. Why is it always that? And why is 'ma' is the short form for mother in almost all languages around the globe?

Couldn’t it have been the other way round - that sound 'ma' started representing mother since most children manage to utter that sound before any other. Maybe it’s the easiest phonetic that a toddler is capable of producing and hence there so called first word. So the question to ask is not from when the kid started talking, with the word ma; but from when on did ma became a synonym for mother.

I am not an expert of the etymology and no way claiming to be an linguistic expert, but it cannot be just chance that Ma or Pa became mother and father universally!

Maybe some clever elderly in some family many many generations ago might have come up with this idea “first sound produced by all in our family has been ma, since they have been in close proximity with his/her mother, lets make that then synonym for mother”.

.... I still wonder!

(On an personal note, I have been told that my first word was aani or aana. Hard luck either way, since it means nail and elephant respectively in our dialect. Please spare a thought for the horror my parents would have had!)

AVS

i, me, myself

2009-03-04T18:34:00.006-05:00

Has it happened with you when you did something which you didn’t feel great about but was loved by others? You are given a task which you managed to do just about satisfactorily by your own judgment yet ended up satisfying the others very much. It has happened with me few times in my life and as recently as last week! A trivial example would be during the taped ball cricket I played recently. I had hard time adjusting to this format of cricket and had an ordinary performance. It was much harder and less fun than the real hard ball cricket which I play regularly every weekend. But, somehow, for reasons unknown to me, the captain was so impressed that he wanted me to come regularly. Moreover, he recommended my name to a team in Houston Cricket League (which is the highest level of hard ball cricket I can play in Houston!) who invited me to play for them. Though it has helped me to boost my morale and spirit, the skeptic in me can’t help wonder the reason behind this.

It could be either due to the high self confidence which makes me set high standards for myself in whatever I do - which never makes me satisfied in entirety or the other side of the coin- due to the very low self confidence – that my work is never good enough. Given my track record, I highly doubt the former, and I wish it not to be the latter.

Or it could be due to the low expectations others have from me. They might not have given much into my performance that they were taken by surprise. There is another possibility of some people I have interacted with has low standards set for themselves, but, when it is this random, it can’t be coincidental.

And a third -most likely-reason would be that I just did fine as expected and I am just conjuring up something from nothing.

I used to have a thought process when in school - I used to hope for the worst, be it in exams (or say, when India plays cricket). In that way, if I do badly, it would have been as expected and would have prepared me for it. And if I did well, it would be pleasantly surprised. I know it was a pessimistic way to approaching challenges, but it used to work like charm for me and I have been 'pleasantly surprised' more often.

(It all got messed up once it came to Masters level -I expected it to go bad and it did! Well, that's story for another time.....or never)

Anyway, in spite of all this rambling and confusion, whatever the rationale is; at the end of the day it makes me feel good about yourself and happy for what you have done. Ultimately that’s the only thing that matters. After all, it’s all about loving yourself ;)

AVS

sliding doors

2009-01-29T22:46:00.010-05:00

Circa 1998:

“Ram and Abu were flying kite in Kutch near the India-Pakistan border. Suddenly a gush of wind snapped the string and the kite fell on the other side of the fence”

This is how a story I had started to write when I was in 5th (maybe 6th) grade began. Unfortunately this is the only 2 sentences this story ever had.

Mind you, it was an period of my life when I had the misgivings of being very imaginative and creative and thought that I had a flair for writing stories and poems. I still have a diary full of my literary works at home. Infact, I was pretty good for a kid of that age (given that I have to confess that I have done grave injustice to the literary world by not letting that side of me to flourish ;)

So, just as I had finished writing this much, I noticed my brother peeping over my head. Before I could act, he snatched the piece of paper from me and started laughing incessantly.

"Amaam, India-Pakistan borderle alluva pattam paratha viduva! Onakku geography ethavathu theriyuma, manda" (Yeah, they let you fly kite in the border! Do you know anything about geography, u fool).

I have to accept that at that age, I didn’t know much about the topography of Ind-Pak border nor about the accessibility and hence I had to believe what my elder brother was saying.

I agree that at the time of drafting, the only basic idea I had was that the two kids try to get to the Pak side of the border to retrieve the kite and are spotted by the army and are thus trapped there. But having been ridiculed for the basic premise on which I was hoping to waive the story, I didn’t have much to proceed and hence I dropped that story there.

Circa 2004:

An Indian movie by the name Little Terrorist gets nominated for Oscars as the best short film. I was surprised to find that the premise of the movie bore an uncanny resemble to the above mentioned.

Well, I am not saying that my story would have developed exactly into this one. Nor I had any clue how to proceed with it. But just the fact that I could imagine a plot similar to an Oscar nominated film, at an age when I hardly knew how to ride a cycle, was quite self astonishing. At the same time I was pissed at my brother for nipping the confidence of a budding author (or maybe even a probable Oscar winner ;)

And the first thing I did was send my brother the synopses of the movie. And his response was "ethu pole oru kathai nee pandu ezuthallaya?" (didnt you write some story like this long time back?) which only aggravated my anquish.

To this day I haven’t forgiven him.

AVS

(Anyone is wondering if the title has any relevance to the plot, it is in reference to the namesake movie implying how India would have got an Oscar nomination had I completed that story then :P)

life

2009-01-27T18:06:00.002-05:00

I struggled for freedom and she liberated me;
Only to let me struggle with my freedom.

AVS

story

2009-01-20T13:02:00.001-05:00

Her 3 yr old was playing with his toys when the baloonwala came in through the gate. She went inside to get the purse and their life was never the same again.

AVS

hits and flops

2009-01-19T18:24:00.006-05:00

The posts which have got maximum hits in my blog (courtesy to the sitemeter) are this, and this.

However, in the last one week, my last post has overtaken the collective hits my blog has ever received. Quite amusing that a deliberate malapropism in the title of my post has resulted in a record number of hits. Equally unfortunate that people from various corners of the world are searching for ‘slam'dog millionaire (and my attempted word play has completely missed the mark and flopped!)

AVS

slamdog millionaire

2009-01-14T20:27:00.005-05:00

Slumdog Millionaire won 4 golden globe and is a mighty contender for the Oscars. More importantly, it brought to India the first ever globe.

The movie has achieved such high acclaim and recognition all over the world that I HAD to watch it. Let me play devil’s advocate here...I felt unsatisfied after the movie. Please note my use of term unsatisfied and not disappointed. Its not a bad movie by any means. It is a nicethe triumph of good against all odds kind of movie, but really is this movie that good to sweep all the awards at the second most prestigious awards in the world? I beg to differ.

It is a well made movie and is well scripted. The story as such is not a masterpiece but the clever screenplay does the charm. I feel that the script takes a bit of cinematic liberties as well as cinematic inconsistencies.....the people talking in English to each other?In Mumbai? That too brothers? Agreed it maybe to cater the western interests, but why then bother providing subtitles when they were kids? And by the way in which part of world is KBC telecast live?

Ok, I might be nitpicking here, it might be a fantasy or a feel good movie, but heck it’s not a realistic movie as the media is portraying it to be. To project it as the true depiction of rags-to-riches tale is absolute rubbish. I have not yet seen the other probable (milk, curious case of.., revolution road etc) contenders for the best movie, but if I go by the past track record at the awards, I am certain that we have come across ‘real’ realistic films . This could, at best, be described as a well made masala movie and so all the hoopla about this being a realistic movie or is a bit far stretched. All I can assume is the westerners were very pleased to see Mumbai as they want it to be seen- poverty struck nation with huge slums and beggars.

I don’t have complains about the acting department. The kid Jamal, Salim and Lathika are one of the best I have ever seen on screen. They were at absolute ease and were literally living in those roles. Same can be said about Dev Patel too. His nonchalance even as he kept winning millions was exactly the emotion I would expect of one who’s answers are based on own life tragedies.

I would call it a a well shot, well directed potboiler with all the ingredients to entertain the audience. It deserves to be a hit, but definitely not a milestone movie. It is one of those feel good movies. Infact it resembled a bollywood movie more (and that could be intentional) but again, thats not one expects from a academy award nominated/winner movie.

I know majority would disagree with my comment on this movie. Maybe the huge hype and rave reviews about the movie made me expect much more it failed to meet my own heightened expectation. I anticipated the movie to be path breaking, whereas it ended up being one in path less trodden.It was a movie I enjoyed as long as it lasted.

And by the way, ARR will win the award even if he’s pitted against all the music scores ever made in Hollywood.....see how much the music is integrated to the movie to know his genius!

AVS

revenge, served steamed

2009-01-12T22:02:00.004-05:00

Puttu can be as well considered the official food of Kerala. Combined with kadala curry, it forms a made-for-each-other combo which is hard to resist and I can gorge on it for ever. Since the preparation of it requires a special utensil as such, I haven’t had the fortune of eating it ever since I set foot in US. I was spared of the sacrilege of forgetting about such a dish, thanks to P. Ever since he brought a puttu kutti from India after his vacation, he has been bragging about how tasty puttu he makes tastes. Not a single call to Cincinnati has been without him enthusiastically blabbering about the puttu he had.

Adding to my torment was the guilt that I let myself almost forget about one of my favorite dishes, which made my urge for retaliation sky rocket. It was sort of a vengeance for me to get a puttu maker for myself when I went to India last month. Infact, that’s one of the first things I wanted to get from home. And hence I possess now a stainless steel pot and a cylindrical attachment which would create a heavenly tasting food from mere rice powder. Last week I tried it for the first time and, I am not saying because I made it, it tasted awesome! Now that I have experienced the delight, I can completely understand why my friend brags about it. Its hard not to mention and I bet anyone who talks to me in the near future are sure to hear me brag about it.

AVS

year end tale

2008-12-31T13:15:00.005-05:00

Yet another year has passed. I thought 2007 would be one of the most memorable years of my life, given that I managed to be self sustained; but seems like 2008 was more significant one owing to the miracle my life witnessed – my graduation!

The first 3 months of 2008 can easily go down as the most stressful time in my life…..I was working almost 20 hrs a day with my job followed by long night and earlier morning sessions typing out my thesis report (had I put in 1/4th of that effort when in college, I would not have had to go through all these)….running against time to finish my graduation by deadline to get H1B…..managing to do that (by the mercy of the professor) at the nick of time……lucky enough to be picked in the visa lottery…..as said and done...all well that ended well!

Another heartwarming development in the gone year has been the realization of a small dream of mine - to be able to play cricket with real ball and all the accessories….and to be able to do it on a regular basis...kya kehna!

I made some really good friends (thanks to R!). They have been a bunch of wonderful people and I am having a great time....its indeed a mentionable development given how hard it is for me to make new friends(might sound quite ironic given my general demeanor, but its a fact!)

Got to go home after almost 3 years…..one thing for sure, god forbid, it things are all fine, I will never ever let such a gap between my India trips.

Well, nothing much more I suppose….ok, 2008 may not have been eventful, but just for the fact that I am no longer a most eligible bachelor, makes it the best!

I am refraining myself from mentioning anything about the tragedies and heart burns of this year - both personal and universal. Enough has been written and heard about the latter and none will be interested in the former. In a year marred with fall of streets, hotels and aussies, its highly self indulgent to highlight the synopsis of one’s personal life, well, what the heck, its my blog afterall!

WISHING ALL OF YOU A FABULOUS AND TERROR FREE NEW YEAR!!

AVS

surviving Ike - part 2

2008-10-05T05:06:00.007-04:00

(....continues from here)

Next day morning, or rather noon (depending on what you define as morning - the time you get up, or the time sun gets up) we got a glimpse of what Ike had left along its path. A huge tree on the other side of the fence was uprooted and had fallen towards our lane breaking the fence some distance away from our house.

And all along the near by main road, similar sights of huge uprooted trees were visible. To my surprise, fortunately, all the trees had fallen towards the road rather than to the buildings. None of the traffic signals were working, few of them broken and hanging tantalizingly close to the top of the cars, most traffic posts now facing 90° offset of what they were before, many brick walls collapsed, people standing over the uprooted trees and posing for photos, streets flooded were few of the spectacles.

One bad thing with life in US is that without power you cannot survive in US for long. Unlike in India, we cannot use gas stove for cooking since most houses and apartments have electric stoves. And we were hoping to survive on the food and water we had stacked at home for god-knows-how-many-days-without-power. All the grocery stores and gas stations were closed. And fuel for car is as critical as fuel for stomach for survival in US.

All though these we were listening to radio news to know much damage Ike had caused especially to know how Uncle’s house was since we had no idea what was happening in that part of Houston. (Did I mention all the cell phone lines were jammed too? Yeah, cell phone is another addition to a survival kit here).

The Galveston was completely shut for transportation and, call it courage or foolhardiness, about 40% of the people didn’t leave that place despite the mandatory evacuation notice by the Mayor there. So, it was as good as being quarantined for people trapped there.

One good thing about waking up at noon on a ‘powerless’ day like this is that, you have to spend that much less time awake before hitting bed again at night. So before boredom set in, we were back to sleep still without power, without water.

By Sunday Deepa’s house got water supply back; but still no power. We got information that few places have started getting power back ‘Rice University’ where Deepa is doing PhD was one such place. Having exhausted our sadham supply the previous day, Deepa, GK n I set forth with a rice cooker and a vessel full of water to cook Rice at Rice! (No; that is not why that university was christened so ;). On the way we got to know that the roads leading to Uncle’s place was opening up and also that power has been restored at my apartment. After lunch, Uncle could no longer stay back knowing they could return and hence the 4 of them (Uncle, Aunt and his In Laws) decided to return. They didn’t have power there, but water supply was intact and they were using gas stove which was working fine! That left Deepa, GK and I with nothing to do but head to my apartment and finish off the remaining 2 dvds of Heroes!! Due to the damages and debris, we were given Monday also holiday and with power back we were back to enjoying the holiday.

We camped at my apartment that night and Monday returned to Deepa n GK’s house just to assess the situation. And when we were loitering there deciding on he next plan of action, Voila! The power was back!

After playing tennis for sometime I returned home and we all lived happily there after :)

My office and Deepa’s college resumed the next day; GK’s company gave him off for one more whole week! But, even after 2 weeks, normal life has not been restored in Houston to its entirety. Uncle’s house hasn’t got power yet as I write this and it’s true about many other parts of Houston too. Traffic signals still have not been fixed and we still have curfew at night after mid night.

But I realized the real extend of damage caused by Ike only when I saw these pictures.

Having seen these, I thank God that we were indeed spared. I know we have had worse natural disasters, but I haven’t lived through one in such close quarters. Was quite an experience indeed.

This is basically a mail I posted in a yahoogroup. Given the non activity in my blog, I am forced to utilize it as a blog entry. (I was so close to posting some of my office emails as blog posts, since those are the only things I draft now a days!)

AVS

surviving Ike - part 1

2008-09-30T20:05:00.006-04:00

Warning: This is a very very long post.

I don’t know how many of you were aware; Houston was hit by a rather nasty Hurricane ‘Ike’ couple of weeks back. Being the south of US, and facing Gulf of Mexico, Texas and near by states are rather notorious for being hit by hurricanes and tornados. You might all remember Hurricane Katrina, Rita etc, which affected this part of US few years back.

This year also we have had few hurricanes originate in the Gulf of Mexico, but many of them had deviated away from us as it moved along the sea (last month we had hurricane Edouard and Gustav, which was heading towards to Texas but eventually it the nearby state of Louisiana. So we were really hoping that this one would also spare us. Unfortunately it didn’t and Houston got hit real bad. The eye of the hurricane hit Galveston which is the coastal area in Houston which is not much away from where my Uncle n family lives.

I would think that, having been on the receiving end of Hurricane Katrina 3 years back, Texas was much better prepared this time around for they evacuated people from Galveston and nearby areas well in advance (Apparently during Katrina, the evacuation process was so bad that people were stuck up on the road and highways and travel to safer places like Dallas, which would have taken about 4 -5 hrs on a normal day, took about 22 hrs!). It was supposed to hit land on Friday night and hence we all were given holiday from work on Friday. Since my uncle n family were the closest to Galveston of all of us, we decided to camp at Deepa n GK’s (my cousin and husband) house. Uncle’s house was not in the mandatory evacuation zone, but the nearby zip codes were. Moreover, all the roads to that part of Houston were to be blocked anytime, so it was safer and wiser that they move further away from there. So we all assembled on Thursday night itself with lots and lots of water and other food items since the power and water supply was expected to go of anytime the hurricane hits the land.

Deepa’s house and my apartment were not to be affected by hurricane, so we were not much worried. Moreover I, GK and Deepa got a holiday on an Onam day!!! We were all set for a real party time. There is nothing good about natural disasters; but from a trivial view point, it was an ideal day I often dream of - no work even if you want to, no going out; just sit at home, eat and watch TV…which is exactly what we did! GK got 9 dvds and all we did on Thursday night and Friday was watch those dvds and eat the great Onam Sadya!!

As expected, we had power and water outages Ike hit Houston by late Friday night. I think we all dozed off as soon as the power went out. Watching dvds was the only thing which could keep us awake after heavy lunch and dinner….so no power, nothing better to do that sleep! There is a TV show named HEROES which is about a bunch of people all around the world with special powers which is an excellent show. This is as exciting and thrilling as any movie and we had finished 5 dvds of the 7 before the power cut. So, our disappointment was more because we were at a crucial juncture of the serial.

Before dark we had our cars parked in a confined area as the hurricanes have a reputation of toppling over the vehicles of uprooting the fences and trees (The housing management issues a warning asking all the residents to remove the flowerpots of any objects kept on the balconies due to the danger of them flying and hitting near by windows or objects).

I had no clue how strong the wind was since we couldn’t feel much from inside the house. My attempt to experience the strength of wind by stepping outside the house was thwarted by my aunt. And this was many hours before the hurricane hit and even then the wind was strong enough to knock down relatively less solid objects.

I could see huge trees in front of the house swaying violently when I looked out through the wind when I woke up during middle of the sleep.

(........to be continued)

AVS

6 classics explained in 6 words

2008-07-17T22:38:00.009-04:00

An attempt to explain 6 well known classics/legends/myths in 6 words.

Disclaimer: Not at all an ingenious idea; though the topics are.

1) Brothers kill relatives and wins kingdom

2) Ideal man lost wife to demon

3) Prince loves courtesan, gets her murdered

4) Disciple betrays prophet for silver coins

5) Moor trusts lieutenant, kills wife

6) Ten incarnations for universal peace restoration

Anyone can do a better job....so please!

AVS

pop the corn

2008-07-15T19:18:00.005-04:00

For all those who max out their cell phone minutes regularly and spent long hours on phone.

I don’t know if this is fake or not; if its not, then its good luck all!

AVS

sitcomer

2008-05-22T19:59:00.008-04:00

I have been watching a lot of sitcoms now a days. Since I have not got a TV in my apartment yet (yeah, I am not kidding!), I utilize the time to catch up on previous seasons of few of the on going sitcoms on the net and I have reached a stage now where, come this fall, I would have 4-6 sitcoms to watch every week other than the unlimited re-run of the laugh-my-ass-off-every -time-I-see-it F.R.I.E.N.D.S, which I can watch as many times as they show it on TV.

I wonder how my preferences (or rather patience) have changed over the years. Till I came to US, desi moves were my bread and butter. I could sit through a Mera Naam Joker or Lagaan (those 2 being one of the longest movies in the history of world cinema spanning over 4 hrs run time) without even moving a muscle.

It took 1½ years, after I set foot in US, for me to see an English movie in a theater; but since then I can proudly claim to have compensated for the lost time by having caught up with majority of the really good movies of my generation. At a point of time, during my UC days, I used to watch at least 7-10 movies a week. The result was that it got difficult to sit through Indian movies which stretch to over 2-2.5 hours easily. Off late, I have not been able to watch any Indian movies completely at a go. This is quite a change, given how much irritated I used to get if there was a break in my movie watching when in India.

Thanks to the small dosage of ½ to 1 hr capsules, I am finding it hard to watch a whole English movie in one sitting. In theaters, its fine, since I cannot pause the movie and go out; but at home, my English movies’ fate is fast becoming that of desi films.

AVS

divine intervention

2008-05-02T06:44:00.005-04:00

Staying on the topic of my last post.......

Till last year, though I used to wear seat belt always while seated in the in the front seat of a vehicle; I hardly used to do the same while traveling in the back seat. It all changed thanks to a trip in a van in San Diego last July.

While seated in the back seat of that vehicle, I noticed a notice sticker on the side window. It said it was a state law to wear the seatbelt irrespective of wherever one is seated. I ignored the message since I was seeing it for the first time in a vehicle and I thought it was just unique to California. However, the very next day, I had to travel in another van in Cincinnati and was seated in the back seat again and I happened to notice the same law sticker in there too. This surprised me, since, having lived in Cincinnati for almost 3 years till then and having traveled in van on many occasions, I hadn't noticed such a notice before. Call it intuition or fate or judgement, I just felt like wearing the seat belt on that occasion. In about 10 mins, as my van was crossing a traffic signal; a car came cross us breaking the traffic signal and collided with the van in spite of the effort of the my driver to apply brakes. The impact of the collision was such that the book and my cell phone in my pocket were thrown to the wind shield.

Had I not worn it, I am certain that I would have accompanied that book to the windshield. The collision was so severe that the car had to be towed away. From that day on, in spite of being made fun of for being too scary and being called a paranoid by my friends, I make sure I wear the seat belt anytime I am seated in a vehicle. I am sure had I not done that, my friends would not have had me to make fun of!

On a philosophical perspective, is this what is known as divine intervention? I am not sure; but, being a strong believer of God, I can’t think else wise.

AVS

save your talk, save your life

2008-04-29T19:05:00.004-04:00

I am posting this link at the risk of sounding like a hypocrite for I am also guilty of committing the same; but I had to utilize my blog at least once for useful purposes.

save your talk, safe your life

Driving is the only time I put my Blue tooth headset to any use. I am really trying to get rid of this vice of mine; one which is much more injurious to health that the other vices which I don’t indulge in.

AVS

sleepy head

2008-04-11T17:39:00.002-04:00

My work starts as early as 7 am. Being an incorrigible nocturnal I am, I find it hard to sleep ‘early’ (10 pm is too early by nocturnal standards) and also to wake up before sunrise (an utter sacrilege in the nocturnal law book!). In spite of doing it for the last 6 months, I still haven’t adapted to the early-to-bed-early-to-rise-routine. So, to maximize my sleep time; I wake up just early enough to get ready. Within the 45 mins, I manage to finish my daily ablutions, eat my breakfast and even find time to press my dress for the day.

I manage to do these thanks to the 4 alarms I set in my cell phone; all with different tones, the first two set at 15 min. apart and the last two being 5 min. apart. (idea being not getting used to the tone or the periodicity of the alarms). Also the cell phone is kept at distance which cannot be accessed without getting up.

I hope you all would be thinking that in spite of all these struggles, if I still manage to oversleep then there has to be something terribly wrong with me. And yes I did manage to oversleep last day....good one hour.....Reason: I forgot to activate the last of my 4 alarms... Sigh!

AVS

triolet

2008-02-20T19:11:00.005-05:00

Taking a lead from this which led me here

State of Mind

I wish I wasn't in this state
Makes me yearn everyday
Its all my fault to make it late
I wish I wasn't in this state
I would have a better fate
Just a wait till next Monday
I wish I wasn't in this state
Makes me yearn everyday

AVS

Update:......and it made it to the list

napster at work

2008-01-17T20:47:00.000-05:00

Catching a nap at work is not just the trait of college students. It doesn’t matter if you are a professional or a student; irrespective of age, the temptation for sleep is irresistible. This is one valuable lesson I learned after getting out from college.

People who know me well also know well how good a class sleeper I am. It is more comfortable and easy for me to sleep sitting in a chair, with someone shouting at the top of their voice, than say, in a bed in a quiet room. I can proudly claim to have dreamt during some of my drooping sessions. Ok hope you all get the picture.

When I landed a job few months back, the only thing I carried over from my college life to my professional life has been this small naps (Of course frequenting the restrooms in the pretense of loo breaks is also there, but hey, most of the time it is for real!) On most of the mornings, during my part time employment on campus at UC, I have had this thought of taking a nap in the restroom. But I did not resort to such ‘gross-some’ activity. Hence, I have had many mornings at work where I have struggled to keep my eyes open with dose after dose of strong coffee. I believed I had got a grip over my addiction to sleep till I started working full time. Not only my tendency to sleep in front of the comp. reappeared with more vigor and venom, but, being at work more time than ever before, it happened more frequently too. Big and clean restrooms became too much of a tempting for me. I had all planned that if I cannot get over this sleepiness in a weeks time, I am sure heading to the restroom.

I was all set to perform the test act, till my colleague returned from restroom the other day. He was all giggling “Someone is sleeping in the restroom”, he said. I was pleasantly taken by surprise to know someone was already putting my idea to use. I was in complete taken aback when I heard his next sentence “….and he is snoring”. Wow now this is called taking it to next level! The person in the restroom was not napping, it was a solid ‘sound’ sleep! This also means my idea is discarded. Being notorious for my snoring, I am pretty certain that there would be snoring, irrespective of where I sleep. This means more coffees and back to the drawing board for fresh ideas (isn’t it an irony that I am looking for fresh ideas to be lethargic)

(If anyone is wondering how come a person who’s blog - which was on the verge of extinction; where the longest posts, off late have been at max. 2 lines- has two quick updates, it is due to those work-less mid-week days. Most of the sites are blocked here and all I can do to act busy is ‘draft emails’! Or maybe I am out from the drawing room with a new test run :)

AVS

stupid is as stupid does

2008-01-10T18:29:00.000-05:00

My relation with the HRs of this company is jinxed. Whenever I have been in need of help they have let me down. The first person who handled my hire has already quit when I wanted to process my OPT; followed by another who took up from him, who too quit at a time when I had to get my full time employment details and I have had hold ups in getting things done including the denial of my relocation amount which was promised initially. For the last 3 months till date I have been after my current HR person to get some tax refunds and every time she has carelessness or excuses. So it was just a matter of time before the present one quit or go on indefinite leave and she chose the day to be today.

I have not been doing well with a sore throat and congestion for the few days and being a total anti-hospital guy, I was managing myself with some home remedies and self suffering. Since my situation wasn’t getting much better even after a week, I decided may be it was time I utilized my insurance. After all, I am now a professional and paying more to my health care than when in college! As a first step, I decided to figure out the list of physicians and hospitals which work be ‘within the network’ for my insurance (My vision has gone from bad to worse and my wait to go to India to new eye check and glasses isn’t seeing any light).

When I called up the health care providers, I was told that they could not locate my records and I contact my HR. I was not surprised and was sure that my HR person would definitely have messed up again To add to my misery, she had gone on maternity leave (she would have anyway gone on maternity leave even if it was just her 4th month of labor… thats how jinxed stuffs work)

I conveyed my issue to the lady who was in the next cubicle and hearing me 2 more ladies joined her. They searched all around the place to find my record without finding anything. They asked if I submitted it to my HR person or not and I went in detail how I had opted for ‘Plan A’ and not ’Plan B’, how I filled up the 20th rather than wait till the 23rd etc etc. The ladies started worrying if my benefits were submitted of was misplaced from their record and a series of phone calls and email searches ensued. To substantiate the claim for irresponsible attitude I have had to bear from my HR-on-leave, I poured out my chapter of 3 month old struggle to get my ‘un-refunded’ tax. When the ladies were not able to lead anywhere and I was sure that they were convinced of my HR's incompetence, I decided to make their life easier and offered to go up and get the copy of my enrollment form I had submitted for that they can redeem their department in general.

To my utter dismay, what I found in my folder was not the copy but the original health insurance enrollment forms. I never made any copies of them and what I had filed were THE originals and the truth was I never ever submitted it to the HR. Its true I filled it on 20th and I opted for Plan A; but all these matters only had I submitted them.

I ran down with the documents and backed it up with lots of apologies to all 3 of them and was told by them that they were almost starting to censure my HR for her ignorance. Thank god that she had gone on leave, or else she would have killed me for my allegations. I had made a complete fool of myself today and felt like a stupid for wasting good half an hour or more of 3 others. For all my complaints about carelessness and irresponsible behavior, I ended up on the receiving end today.

Mistakes are bound to happen with anyone, after all we are all humans (verbatim: one of the HR ladies); but what is more scarier is that all these months, I have been driving around without insurance in a country where having a health insurance is the first thing a person has to do after arriving in this world. Fortunately, by god’s grace, I have been safe and driving defensively so far; but the very thought of what did not happen freaks me out. This would also mean that till I get my paper works into the system (which might take from a week to two), it would be all walk in the park. Not having an insurance will always weigh in my mind and I don’t want to risk anything now. I would not have given a damn about such things if I were in India, but not in US!

Well, I think this is what insurances are meant to be, isn’t it? Not something which you should expect to be utilized, but something which is there on your back as an assurance that nothing would go wrong with you.

AVS

'pet'ty thoughts

2008-01-04T12:56:00.000-05:00

From my childhood days on, we have had a pet; be it a cat or a dog. May be my love for the pets have generally extended to a love for animals. I love seeing animals or interacting with them. May be that’s the reason, when people used to ask me about what is so great about Cincinnati, I used to say very high about the Cincinnati zoo and been the recipient of many a weird looks from the listeners.

In fact, one thing that I am so glad and proud about my upbringing has been our love for animals especially dogs. And it just baffles me when I people say they hate pets….how can someone just hate pets? It is one thing not liking pets and hating them! I have many close friends and relatives who freak out or panic as if on seeing a monster or a ghost while visiting our home. Imagine someone scaring looking at a door behind which we have locked our dog and worrying what if it comes out…and that too for a dog who is scared of news paper!!

There are few who refuse to come to our house for the same reason and I am more that glad they don’t. I treat my dogs like my family member itself. In fact Veeru and I used to eat together. He would eat anything if I act as if I am giving it from my plate!
Why such a senseless post? Having not gone home in 2 years, I miss seeing Veeru the most (it not the ‘mostest’!) To add to my misery my lab dog, Jean, gave birth to 5 puppies last week :(...had to take my helplessness out on someone!

AVS

happy new year!!!

2008-01-01T07:05:00.000-05:00

Wish you all a WONDERFUL AND MIND BLOWING NEW YEAR!!!!

Yet another year as passed by. Was a theek-thak year for me. Not the greatest one, if I could script it again, I would have done a much better job. But, hey...how can a year be tat bad in which you got a job and brought a car for the first time in your life. It was indeed a milestone year on a personal note.

For me New year comes with some roll-over unfulfilled challenges from 2007. Few resolutions which I have to address in the beginning on the year itself.
As I have been wishing all...may this year be the bestest all have had in our lives so far!!!!

WELCOME 2008!!!!!!

AVS

india accused of mass murder!!!!!!

2007-11-01T20:10:00.000-04:00

well, not really :P

AVS

cultural surprise

2007-09-18T22:39:00.000-04:00

Its been exactly a month since I moved to Houston from Cincinnati. Ironically, Cincinnati for all its Indian population studying at the University, has a very small Indian community outside campus and hence just a handful of Indian stores and restaurants.
Its not that I wasn't aware of the large indian hub in Texas, especially Houston. But from one fine day morning on you start seeing Indians....people from my part of the world everywhere from grocery stores to malls, from buses to streets......it was indeed a pleasant sight. As I was telling my cousin, even after a month, I still tend to stare whenever i see one on the road. And not to mention the number of Indian groceries and eateries.......the street named hillcroft near to my place is nothing short of a street just cut out from Mumbai or Chennai or Delhi and directly pasted in US.
I always wanted to be in a place with los of people and desired to be with a good indian population (call it my inability to adapt to US culture or homesickness or whatever!)......even though I know that I am gonna see indians all around the place, i still find it amusing to see my own race around me in plenty.....its a new kind of cultural shock for me....... reverse cultural shock.....the one you get on seeing your own culture in a foreign land!

AVS

battle at kruger

2007-08-09T11:48:00.000-04:00

Now, this is what I call a real retaliation !!

AVS

jai kaptan!

2007-07-31T16:59:00.001-04:00

If you thought this was a joke......see again!

AVS

my list

2007-07-24T22:04:00.001-04:00

1) Charlize Theron
2) Katrina Kaif
3) Yana Gupta
4) Demi Moore
5) Salma Hayek

.............soon to be laminated ;)

AVS

ultimate truth

2007-07-15T12:26:00.000-04:00

AVS

bittersweet

2007-06-11T18:43:00.000-04:00

Should I be feeling happy or sad???

Either way, I cannot agree more with the last paragraph.

"Whatever be the reasons, one thing is for sure, the call of the homeland is getting difficult to resist. Be it the unhygienic street food or the dusty sidewalks or your mother’s home cooked biryani or the madness during festivals, India is where the heart lies! "

AVS

just amazing!!!

2007-05-27T12:37:00.001-04:00

Thanks dada for sending this to me!!

A must listen....You will need Headphone

Close your eyes and just listen....

AVS

cute

2007-05-06T12:27:00.000-04:00

(with my friend suspecting the death of my blog, here is one!)

How cute is this ?

AVS

have you ever?

2007-02-18T02:27:00.001-05:00

Found this in K's profile

Have you Ever?
1. Thought your cousin was hot?		No
2. Been in love?		No
3. Gone over the speed limit?		Yes
4. Painted your room?		No
5. Drove a car?		Yes
6. Danced in front of your mirror?		Yes
7. Been dumped?		No
8. Stole money from a friend?		No
9. Gotten in a car with people you just met?		Yes
10. Been in a fist fight?		Yes
11. Snuck out of your house?		No
12. Had feelings for someone who didn't have them back?		Yes
13. Been arrested?		No
14. Left your house with out telling your parents		Yes
15. Had a crush on your neighbor?		No
16. Ditched school to do something more fun?		No
17. Slept in a bed with a member of the same or opposite sex ?		Yes
18. Seen someone die?		No
19. Been on a plane?		Yes
20. Kissed a picture?		Yes
21. Slept in until 3?		Yes
22. Love someone or miss someone right now?		Yes
23. Laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by?		Yes
24. Made a snow angel?		No
25. Played dress up?		Yes
26. Cheated while playing a game?		Yes
27. Been lonely?		Yes
28. Fallen asleep at work/school		Yes, ALWAYS!!
29. Been to a club?		No
30. Felt an earthquake?		No
31. Touched a snake?		No
32. Ran a red light?		Yes
33. Been suspended from school?		No
34. Had detention..		No
35. Been in a car?		Yes
36. Hated the way you look?		Yes
37. Witnessed a crime?		No
38. Been lost?		Yes
39. Been to the opposite side of the country?		Yes
40. Felt like dying from embarrassment?		Yes
41. Cried yourself to sleep?		Yes
42. Sang karaoke?		Yes
43. Done something you told yourself you wouldn't do?		Yes
44. Laughed till some kind of beverage came out of your nose?		Yes
45. Caught a snowflake on your tongue?		Yes
46. Kissed in the rain?		No
47. Sung in the shower?		Yes, everyday
48. Had a dream that you married someone?		Yes
49. Played getting married?		Yes
50. Got your tongue stuck to a flag pole?		No
51. Ever gone to school partially nude?		No
52. Sat on a roof top?		No
53. Didn't take a shower for a week?		Yes
54. Ever been too scared to watch scary movies alone?		No
55. Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on?		No
56. Been told you're hot by a complete stranger?		No
57. Broken a bone?		No
58. Been easily amused?		Yes
59. Laugh so hard you cry?		Yes
60. Cheated on a test?		Yes, many times and I don't even regret
61. Forgotten someone's name?		Yes, many people
62. Blacked out from drinking?		Never
63. Played a prank on someone?		Yes
64. Gone to a late night movie?		Yes, every time
65. Failed a class?		No
66. Choked on something you're not supposed to eat?		No
67. Played an instrument for more than 10 hours?		Yes, if u mean continuously,then No
68. Cheated on a girlfriend/boyfriend?		No
69. Did you celebrate the 4th of July?		No
70. Thrown strange objects?		No
71. Felt like someone?		Yes
72. Thought about running away?		Yes
73. Cried over someone?		No
74. Have a dog?		Yes, more than one
75. Own an instrument?		Yes
76. Been in a band?		No
77. Drank 25 sodas in a day?		No
78. Broken a cd?		Yes
79. Shot a gun?		No
80. Been on facebook for more than 5 hours?		No
81. Have a major crush on someone right now?		Yes
82. Have a religion?		Yes
83. Thought about what people would say at your funeral?		Yes, coincidently yesterday!

AVS

amazing chair

2007-02-04T02:57:00.000-05:00

Check this out......amazing, isnt it?

AVS

it happens only in India

2007-01-03T11:29:00.000-05:00

Just when I thought I had seen the worst case of atrocity, here comes one.

AVS

nayi saal, nayi shuruwat

2007-01-02T12:26:00.001-05:00

My last post of 2006 was the most oppressive and gruesome post I have ever made. Well, it was that kind of year when nothing went right for me (that includes the final blog post too). I did have few good memories in 2006,but they are far less in count, or, are out numbered by the not-so-fond memories. I have had instances were I have burst into tears! Anyways, on the positive side, I did some travelling in US (which I didnt do in the first 2 years of my stay here), drove car for the first time and......... ! . This is exactly what I am talking about....the good memories are too less and too trivial.
Have quite a few resolutions. Main one being bringing back my weight to where it was till last summer ( have put on almost 10lbs in 6 months!) and ofcourse the graduation...which is more of a desperation than a resolution!
Saw 4 movies on the 31st.wanted to get rid of the uncontrollable urge for movies in 2006 itself ;)
Hoping 2007 brings better luck and better times for me and all!

WISH YOU ALL A HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!!!!!!!

AVS

inhumanity

2006-12-31T11:46:00.001-05:00

WARNING: Very graphic content. Will be disturbing for some

I wont say he was a good person. But, he was a HUMAN and should have been treated like one......atleast in death

AVS

memoirs of me

2006-12-06T17:30:00.003-05:00

Yesterday noon, for a change, I was taking a nap in the TUC study lounge (for a change should be associated with TUC study lounge and not with 'taking a nap') and all of a sudden, out of no where and without any provocation, the memories of my first day in school came to my mind. By first day I mean the very very first day, when I went to LKG. And the most heartening part about that is I remember the day very vividly and it is so damn clear in my mind. (As clear as how I remember what I did yesterday). Like many other days and years to follow, my paati took me and to the school. Unlike as shown in the umbrella and school bag ads, I didnt want to go to school at all. I obliged to go upon the condition that my paati would stay at school with me the whole day everyday. I was comparitively emotionally restrained than what I used to be in those days. My Paati entrusted me to my teacher and she waited outside (I think she suspected something terribly wrong was gonna happen seeing me uncharecteristically quiet).

My teacher's name was Gracy and she wore a round golden frame glass and a red saree (details just to remind the readers who have survived till now to read till here about my photographic memory). All went fine till about half an hour. and I was all set to step into my new phase of life with a chalk and slate in my hand. Thats when paati might have felt safe and she decided to leave.Just as she turned, I saw paati leaving and I jumped out of my seat and rushed out bursting into tears. She told that she was not leaving but just went to drink some water but I didnt buy it. I got the plot and I insisted on going home with her. In the mean time, my teacher was trying to pull me back into the class and make me sit. I couldnt free myself from her grips. And during those days, I believed in 'action speaks louder than words' (you all know now i believe just the opposite). I just swirled the wooden slate I had in my hand at the teacher's face. It hit her face and broke her glasses but by god grace missed her eyes. I dont exactly remember if I saw blood (or rather, i dont wanna rememeber). She was completely shocked was just released me. I ran to my paati only to be slapped by her for my atrocity which amplified my cry. But atlast my perseverence paid off and I was taken back home. That marked the beginning of my academic life. Dont know if its the curse of that teacher or not, maybe thats why I am still a student even after crossing the sell by date. So when people say studies are a pain, I would say, it literally started for me from the very first day!

I would like to add one more thing here. Later, once i 'got tamed', I was Gracy teacher's favorate. I too liked her so much that I refused to attend the class when she was on leave on her marriage. Last year when I went to India, I think I saw her crossing the road when I was in the bus. I am pretty sure it was her, for I remember her very well. But again, I am not absolutely sure.The image I have of her is when she was young and its hard for me to think she would look the same even after two decades!

AVS

birthday blues

2006-11-21T16:27:00.000-05:00

Yet another year passed by. Turned 26 yesterday. Didnt have any kind of shor-hangama. No cakes, no parties. Actually i managed to surprise my roomies and friends rather than the usual other way. Basically I didnt want any celebrations. I know, age is what you feel and not the years you have spend in this world,but still 26 is a bit too old for such things. I am kinda feeling bittersweet- donno to be happy and thank god for taking me till 26th without much trouble to myself and to the world or rue the fact that still I am not out of the college.
Anyways,
Happy Birthday to Me !!!!

AVS

shattered idols

2006-11-15T21:42:00.001-05:00

People who know me know that I am a big time movie buff, especially when it comes to hindi movie songs. I can, with the fear of sounding a bit arrogant, say I know almost all the hindi songs. Being a connoisseur of hindi music, you can imagine how much shattered I would have been when I came across this . All my favorate songs, all my favorate composers....didnt know that I was appreciating the wrong persons. Now I feel, It would have been better had I not realised the truth. There is indeed some bliss in ignorance! Some are so brutally picked....all they have done is just used the karaoke! And I came across the worst possible case too!

AVS

identity crisis

2006-11-14T18:40:00.001-05:00

Aravind Subrmanian and Aravind Subramani is one and the same person. People who dont know me still dont know who it is and those who know me still dont believe its me

AVS

gotcha

2006-11-09T23:06:00.000-05:00

Seems like its the season of license. Got mine couple of days back...without hearing any honk ;)

AVS

happy deepavali

2006-10-22T15:18:00.001-04:00

Had a great Deepavali weekend.For the first time after coming to US, I enjoyed, rather celebrated a festival,thanks to SABHA, Priya and Jaya et al. Organised and enjoyed an excellent evening of carnatic music by Sudha Ragunathan on friday and got to taste amazing kalakhand and gulab jamun on saturday. Well, infact,yesterday it got me home sick after a long time. Iyya asked me if i am coming home this dec. or not. Though she said 'many relatives asked if you r coming this year', i am pretty sure it was more of her query rather than anyone else's.Added to that the lemon rice of Priya was just like how pattiamma wud make and channa dal by Priyanka was exactly the way iyya makes it....got me all senti to go home. :(

AVS

wishful thought

2006-10-17T00:17:00.000-04:00

Here i am sitting in my lab at mid night with the hope of getting some work done whereas my mind seems to have other plans. Cant concentrate a wee bit, no mood to study.I am utterly distracted and my hands involunterly opens mozilla and goes to inboxes and other sports and movie sites. I wish......if all my phaltu timepasses were to turn into useful work and my useful work into timepasses, i would have graduated by now! Wish I could turn my wishes into realities!

AVS

original mile sur mera tumhara.....atlast got it!

2006-09-01T12:51:00.000-04:00

The video i have been searching for online for a long time. Eversince the MITians came up with their own version of it, i realised how much i miss the original video of this one (could find only the lyrics online so far)
Check Out the Video here
Lets relive those beautiful 80s when all doordarsan telecasted was videos on national integrity,unity and social welfare like ek chidiya and mile sur and a screen with rainbow color strips with rukawat ke liye khed hai

AVS

the long wait

2006-08-22T20:11:00.000-04:00

I was waiting for her near the Garuda Statue. It would have been about 15mins., but I felt as if I have been waiting there for years. In a way, thats not totally untrue.It has been for some years now- ever since she flew to US 3 years back. May be I was nervous. I perspired more than ever. She sounded very confident and happy over the phone...as usual.
That made me more nervous.....
I dont knwo whether it was love at first sight. I hate to think so.Infact I dont believe think that a 7 yr old would be able to diff. friendship from love.I hated the thought of someone dismissing our love as a childish infatuation. We grew up together. Amrita was my best buddy, my childhood friend .We where there for each other in our joys and sorrows since our childhood.
There isn't anything in my life which I haven't discussed with her.And I strongly believe its the same with her too. Many a times I have wondered how much similar we were. We had the same taste of music, movies , food, dress etc. (hope she doesnt find out that I started eating non veg. just for her). We both were die hard hindi movie fans.We made sure that every friday, wherever and how ever much busy we are, we would not miss discussing the movie released that day.She was a huge fan of Sharukh just like I was of Kareena.And like many she hated her. Everytime she mentioned Sharukh, I made it a point to mention the name of Kareena that used to infuriate her. I enjoyed pissing her off, she looked more attractive with a reddened nose and staring eyes. Except for such trivial compromises and adjustments, we were just perfect together. We have never told that magical 3 words to each other......we knew that we were made for each other.
Oh! I forgot to mention the glaring difference we had. I was a momma boy and Amrita was a tomboy! I was the most introvert person one cud ever come across. "Its all because of you" She used to complain. "You are too much an introvert that others get the feeling that I am outspoken and extrovert".Though I didn't agree with it completely, if I look from her perspective, she cannot be blamed for thinking so.
All wasn't well in our love story. I still wonder how can two families who have been friends for decades can turn against each other just over a small strip of land! . Had we told our parents about our love before , I am sure they wouldnt have objected and it would have been a perfect ending for a perfect love story.......only if!
I wish my parents were not professors. I was too much disciplined and awed to even meet their eyes , forget about saying something like this against their wish. I wish I was as strong willed as she was.When her parents sent her to US for studies, it was she who convinced and consoled me that it wasnt all that bad to happen. She believed that parting for sometime would calm down the issue for a while and she was optimistic that we could sort out the problem later (many a times I wondered whether she was the superior gender among us.Well I dont mind losing out to her!)
It was her 'mail a day keeps the worries away' that kept us going. She never made me feel that she was thousands of miles away from me. "Its you I am concerned about" she used to say. She knew me better than me. She reassured in every mail that all we had to do was to wait for 4 years before she returned.Even when her parents were vehemently persuading her to get married, she managed to sway away all those with some excuse which only she could come up with.
In the mean time, though I tried to keep myself from getting into all the legal complexities of the case, I couldn’t help myself realizing that we were drying up financially. The fact that I am still a student (even while doing doctors i need to go to college!) didn’t help our cause. Nor their situation was good, but was definitely slightly better than ours.
When she returned, the first thing she did was to call me up to meet her near Garuda Statue. Though she didn’t mention anything, a tone of assurance made me feel that she sounded confident of convincing her parents.
That made me more nervous....
"HIIII".......she yelled as soon as she spotted me. It was a pain which I didn’t want to bear any longer.
"Hi Ami", I sounded feeble.
"What happened, Abhi?” her smile vanished in a second, "you look disturbed"
I felt there was no point in justifying myself. All I would have told her was about our financial crisis and how my uncle came forth with the proposal of his daughter to bail us out. But if those could make sense only to my parents and uncle,what is the point telling her.

"Is everything alright?" I heard her as I was trying in vain to come up with some words.

"I am engaged".

(Product of the long acting sessions we used to have in undergrad. Dedicating this to the 'actor' amongst us. Its just for u PC !!! )

AVS

independence day thoughts

2006-08-15T14:58:00.000-04:00

Today is the independece day for both of us - 2nd one for me and 60th one for India.It was on a 15th Aug. that i left India in search of better life and enlightment to this land of opportunities.
What all did i achieve in this 2 years of independent life?
Learned cooking: To my surprise, I exceeded my own expectations as a cook. Hereafter I wont starve to death if left alone at home. Also i can guarentee that no one would die of food poisoning or malnutrition eating my food.(except may be a rare chance of Hypernatremia)

Became social: I have become more social with people. Given how much of an incorrigible introvert i was, it is indeed a commandable transformation in me.

Made friends: Made good friends and that too quite a lot in count...from all parts of india (Infact a couple of them would directly walk into my list of all time best buddies). They have made my stay in US enjoyable.Always indebted to u all !!!

Once a vegan, still a vegan: The only thing my buddies back home challenged and I vehemently opposed is that I wud turn into a meat eater.Thankfully I have managed to cling on to my belief and live healthy here .And I can say the same abt my abstinence from alcohol and smoke.
But the sad part is other than these, i cannot think of any other creditable thing I have manged in US.(well, i cannot include orkut here though it has become an indispensible part of my life here)

I am still the person who hates school and studies, who is mad abt movies and cricket, and who would keep on talking non stop once initiated and one who loves to sleep long hours.

Now the most cliched question which pops up on the 15th aug. and 26th jan. resurfaces again in a broader and personnal sense: Have we/me utilised our/my freedom fully and wisely?.......with a bit of shame and dissapointment i would say NO!!

JAI HIND to all INDIANS around the world

AVS

most eligible bachelor

2006-08-06T03:40:00.000-04:00

Scene: UDF, Cincinnati
Charecters: Me, Roomie, Friend

Roomie (to Friend) : U know, tat girl has a huge crush on u... u better watchout
Me (sarcastically) : Yeah right...not only her, many girls seems to be lattu over him, isnt it?
Friend blushing.......Me & Roomie chortling
Friend: But one thing is for sure, Aravind is the most eligible bachelor in UC!
Me (delighted) : Thanks yaar...so nice of u to say so
Roomie: Him??? but y??
Friend: Becoz we both have graduated.......hahahaha!!!!

I was sooo heart broken that it rendered me deaf to the huge guffaw the other two were having!!

AVS

me in hogwarts

2006-08-03T16:09:00.000-04:00

Am not a HP fan and I know very little about the Hogwarts house (except that Harry is in Gryffindor).So, I suppose being in Hufflepuff is not tat bad!! Atleast my traits which got me in there look good :)

Which Hogwarts house will you be sorted into?

AVS

copied with permission without shame

2006-08-01T12:09:00.000-04:00

Just when i had ran out of all ideas or topics or link to blog about, just when i thought of shutting down this blog due to literary exhaustion, just when cob web stared appearing in my blog due to inactivity...i found a life saver.

I am thinking about...
how to get me away from infront of this comp. and get some work done
I said…
rather lied...that i am really busy now a days
I want to…
go to Chicago, NY and Houston in summer....not able to work it out though
I wish...
i had a laptop if my bank balance was as rich as my desires. Need one urgently
I hear…
fellow grads whining the same way as I do about how thesis work and life in general sucks!
I wonder...
how I manage to find time to see one movie a day and not work on my thesis
I regret...
anything and everything in life. Life is all about improvising.
I am...
a normal,just one the millions who have come to this world with limited dreams and aspirations in life
I dance...
like a man with two left feet
I sing...
always and everywhere
I am not always...
a good company to hangout or party with
Food...
is not a thing to be wasted at all
I write...
just for the heck of it.Others do,so should I !
My passion...
cricket.....cant imagine a life without them
I confuse...
Jessica Sara Parker?...or is it Sara Jessica Parker???
I need...
a break....from everything.Wish I could go on hibernation or so!

AVS

daivathinte vikruthikal

2006-07-17T22:23:00.000-04:00

Just when i thought God has his fun only with humans, I came across this.
Astonishing.........painfully astonishing, for i dont expect it to survive, though i sincerely wish to be proved wrong.

AVS

what does my birth date mean

2006-07-14T12:34:00.000-04:00

I am not a serious believer in online predictions about u, ur future, ur nature etc etc. But off late i have come across few stuffs which makes me feel " how true it is about me!"

Here is one such...

My Birthdate: November 20

You are a virtual roller coaster of emotions, and most people enjoy the ride.
Your mood tends to set the tone of the room, and when you're happy, this is a good thing.
When you get in a dark mood, watch out - it's very hard to get you out of it.
It's sometimes hard for you to cheer up, and your gloom can be contagious.

Your strength: Your warm heart

Your weakness: Trouble controlling your emotions

Your power color: Black

Your power symbol: Musical note

Your power month: February

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

AVS

top 5 tamil movies

2006-05-20T01:48:00.000-04:00

This posting has been overdue by a long time, almost an year to be pricise!! Neverthless better late than never!
This one also not necesserly in order of preference.

1) ANBE SIVAM
Director: Sundar.C
Cast: Kamal Hassan, Madhavan etc
Argubily one of the best movies to be released in the 21st century. Only a master like Kamal cud hv managed to make a movie like this. And it was pleasently surprising to see Madhavan given equal footage in the movie and more surprising to see him managing to hold his foothold even in the presence of the genuis. Kamal has often been accused of ghost directing his movies and this is one movie where it was visibly evident. the possiblilty of a mediocre director like Sundar.C directing this movie is as strong as uganda winning world cup cricket.

2) HEY RAM
Director: Kamal Hassan
Cast: Kamal Hassan, Shahrukh Khan etc
Yet another master piece from the supremo. A imaginary story of a man who was all set to assasinate gandhiji until destiny had it say. A controversial movie for its anti-gandhian stand though i felt that it really glorified gandhiji and his beliefs. Unfortunate that people couldnt see it in that perspective. A truely international class movie which was ahead of its time.

3) IRUVAR
Director: Mani Ratnam
Cast: Mohanlal,Prakash Raj,Aishwarya Rai etc
Another movie ahead of its time made by Mani Ratnam. The movie was based on the real life story of MGR and now CM Karunanidhi. This movie started Mohanlal in the role of MGR and Prakash Raj as Karunanidhi. Aishwarya Rai marked her debut with this one. It was really gutsy of Mani Ratnam to make such a senstive topic into a movie tat too at a time when DMK was the ruling party in TN. Both the leading men were excellent in their roles and it was rather surprising to me that only Prakash Raj managed to get the national award for best supporting actor. It also had heavenly music by ARR. "Narumugaye" is my alltime favorate song. Even today i listen to it atleast once a day.

4) MAHANADHI
Director: Santhana Bharathi
Cast: Kamal Hassan, Sukanya etc
The story of a father of 2 teenagers who was betrayed and lost everything in his life including his kids. Another senstive and powerful performance by Kamal was the highlight of the film. The scene were he confronts his daughter in sonakachi still hurts me. Not many movies have managed to emotionally haunt me, but this one tops the list. If i am to list the nightmerish experiences i dont want to have in my life, this would be one. All blame on Kamal for making me feel its soo real.

5) SERVER SUNDARAM
Director: R.Krishnan & S. Panju
Cast: Nagesh,K.R.Vijaya,Muthuraman etc
The story of a hotel waiter boy becoming a movie superstar. I suppose this was the first movie in which Nagesh acted as the hero. What makes this movie interesting is that the message of this one, even decades after its making, is still revelent. Dont you think u lose your simple life, your close ones once you go after the comforts of life? These are the kind of movies which i would call evergreen, were the revelence to the topic doesnt fade away even years after its making.

There are many more movies I would have liked to add , like Kannathil Muthamittal, Roja, Nayagan etc. If the readers have noticed a bias or excessive laudation from my part for Kamal and Mani Ratnam,then, I would like to add that its intentional. because I consider these two greats to be in a league of their own much above anyone else in tamil filmdom. On any given day, I would prefer watching the crapiest of Kamal or Mani Ratnam movie over any others best.Also,its quite sad that most of these movie bombed big time at the box office.Maybe, we audience havnet grown to that level of maturity to apretiate good movies.

AVS

rotflol

2006-05-06T01:30:00.000-04:00

hahahahahaha Can it get any more ridiculous???

AVS

kalikaalam

2006-05-03T23:21:00.000-04:00

This is quite unfortunate.Shouldnt have happened anywhere.To be killed by own brother??? Unthinakle and unfathomable for me.This is not the first sibling murder i am hearing, but such a thing happening to a person in the upper stratum of the society......i cant digest it.Its just tarnished the value and trust of blood relationship (my patti would have said 'kalikaalam').Till i heard the news, i was optimistic that he would survive and i honesty wished too!I wish this world be a better place hereafter.
May his soul rest in peace!

AVS

cleveland diary

2006-04-29T05:01:00.000-04:00

Sometimes ignorance can be a bliss. Thats precisily what i experienced couple of weeks back when i went to attend Cleveland Thyagaraja Sangeeta Aradhana.I am not a compulsive carnatic music enthusiast.So, i donno much abt the stalwarts in that field. This ignorance is what saved me from being overawed in the presence of the greats of carnatic music.
For the 2nd year in a row, i made it to Cleveland for the Tyagaraja Aradhana.Its an annual 10 day carnatic music concert held in cleveland for the 29th year in the running ! It has concerts by well known personalites and also by some budding and aspiring talents.My cousins sisters have been performing violin there for last 16 yrs or so and my uncle is an active volunteer of that.So, last year my sole purpose of visit was just to meet my relatives, which i lived upto by sleeping thru most of the concerts :) But this time, may be coz i got a taste of the music 2nd time around, or may be it was much better tis time (first one seems to be more probable), i enjoyed it throughly.I got the oppurtunitu to listen live to eminent figures like Sudha Raghunathan,Aruna Sayeeram,Dr.Ramani,Ravi Kiren,Ranjini & Gayatri,Umayalpuram Sivaraman etc.Also there were superstars like Sanjay Subramaniam,T.M.Krishna,Papanasam Sri Ashok Ramani etc. which i missed.
I am not an expert in this field, neither i have any previous reference of their concerts attended...but indeed it was enjoyable.Though i had heard of Sudha Raghunathan and Ravi Kiren, the other icons were ,to be honest, completely unknown to me.Its only after my return to UC, that i go thru net about them and realised their stature.Indeed it was a priviledge for me to see them perform live.But the stand out even for me was the bharathanatyam performance by Sujatha Srinivasan.It was too good.Even a completely stranger to dance would have been captivated by there 'natya'.And equally excellent was the mridangam demonstration by Umayalpuram Sivaraman assisted by Chitraveena Ravi Kiren.His dexterity on mridangam was magical.
I think even i hv started developing taste for carnatic music.i am the only odd one out in my family- each single member in my family is good in some form or art, either music or instruments. though my parents and others desperately made me learn mridangam,i was lazy enough even there to be a 'drop out'.If I say that I attened all the concerts of all artists even without dozing off even once, then that speaks a lot about how much i enjoyed it ( people who knw me will understand, hw easy i sleep if made an audience-be it class,seminar, concert or anything).
I still donno any nuances or technicalities of carnatic music, i still manage to fit all songs in my 'adi or roopaka thalam'(only 2 i knw), but i think i hv become more receptive to this kind of music.It has become like how english movies were like to me till sometime back-its hard for me to sit thru the first 15 mins, after that i will be completely engrossed! Am already looking forward to next years concert.And i hv promised my cousisns that i will be better equiped with the technicalities so as to enjoy it more.
It was refreshing to see how many kids and youngsters here in US devote much of their time and energy to indian music when its facing much neglect from youngsters in india (that includes me too!).I met 2 youngsters coming all the way from UK and Ausralia just to perform tere...thats for dedication and commitement! Maybe its another case of we indians need to learn abt India from NRIs!

AVS

travail of a scoprio

2006-04-26T23:58:00.000-04:00

Being a scorpio, its in my stars that i am sensitive. Not that i will be distured easily, but even small incidents, at times,refuse to go away from my mind.again, not tat it haunts me or so, but time and again, it just reminds me that they r still alive within me.

This is about a highschool mate of mine and this incident took place long time back when i had just joined engineering.This guy was pretty close friend of mine.Like, one with whom i used to do homeworks,play games and all.He was one my closest buddies.Since we both had names with A, we often fell in same groups in most of the group activities (u knw, all those roll no.wise classification of teams).But after highschool, due to the lack of developments in e-communication at tat time and lack of privilage for free use of telephone, i lost touch with him.So, there was tis new hindi movie released which we all had been anticipating for a while and so, we friends in the engg. college went for FDFS.We went tere about 3 hrs in advance (given only collegiates fight for first day first show for hindi movies in kerala,3 hrs was good enough time in advance!).But when we reached tere,i realised all youngsters in all enginnering colleges in tat town think alike-just like us!Since the ticket counter hadnt opened, we all were hanging out, chattering, bird watching etc and then i happen to see this friend of mine with his college mates.I called out his name -he didnt seem to notice. I thought,ok may be he didnt hear me so i frantically waved my hands along with shouting his name.He did see me, but his reaction was just limited to a smile.As soon as the counter opened, there was tis sudden gush of junta. Since i was standing near the door, all i need to do was just to stand relaxed as i was just pushed right to the front of the counter and managed to in the top 10 in the queue.and i cud see this serpentine queue to some distance beyond the reach of my vision.Suddenly, this friend of mine came near me and "Hi aravind,how r u?"."Am good", replied me.Before i cud ask him wat he is doing he asked "could u get me 5 tickets?" I didnt have to think twice before shouting back "NO". But being inherently diplomatic, i somehow managed to curb my instincts and reasoned him that i already hv more than 10 tickets to purchase... and he vanished amongst the crowd.What hurt me most was hw 'matlabi' he was.I would hv still got him tickets had he been courtious enough to enquire about each other before asking for tickets.I am someone who cherishes friendship a lot and who believes good friendship lasts for ever.Its absolutely fine with me, if people wants to move on with their lives, but what he did that day was quite ignoble.I wonder, wont he himself wud hv realised how improper he was?. I wish he did, so that he doesnt repeat it.If i happen to meet him again, i dont think i can treat him the same way as my close friend. I am not upset coz i lost a friendship, i am upset coz he lost my trust.

I donno what reminded me this incident.Maybe i wud hv thought or tried to act the same way as my friend.Or, maybe i have had mostly pleasent memories of my friends, that such incidents stand out as sore thumb... i am not sure.I donno, if I am just making a heavy weather out of such a small issue.But i cant help it, it doesnt quit my memory. I am helpless....i am a scorpio!

AVS

influential problem

2006-04-25T10:11:00.000-04:00

seems me and ash have trouble with the same !
:)
AVS

priceless moment

2006-04-19T23:14:00.000-04:00

Going to cleveland to attend Thyagaraga Sangeeta Aradhana............$70

Getting to meet your uncle and family ............................$100

A friend asking if Thyaragara would be performing this year........................Priceless

(when it comes to expertise in carnatic music i am not any good than my friend. But i feel I am better of the worse)

AVS

a story for motivation

2006-04-07T18:55:00.000-04:00

Do you feel you r worthless? Are you frustrated in life, with your work, feeling abyssmally low and depressed feeling you are heading no where? Does ur future looks as blank as a printer paper? Do you see a question mark infront of you when you think "what's next ?" Ok, in short - are you a grad student?....May be this story would help you feel better...atleast it did for me!

A well-known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $100 bill. In the room of 50, he asked, "Who would like this $100 bill??
Hands started going up. He said, "I am going to give this note to one of you but first let me do this." He proceeded to crumple the note up. He then asked, "Who still wants it?"Still the hands were up in the air. "Well," he replied, "What if I do this?" And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his Shoe. He picked it up, now all crumpled and dirty. "Now who still wants it?" Still the hands went into the air.
"My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $100.Many times in your lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value.You are special. Don't ever forget it!

(Courtesy: Sundeep Kasimsetty)

AVS

mile sur mera tumhara...

2006-04-06T16:59:00.000-04:00

I have been hearing this song on national integrity since my childhood.This one,which used to be a pain at that point of time when it used to be telecased every 5 mins. in Doordarshan, has now been etched in my heart for ever. Infact,I used to claim i knew most of the indian languages and used to sing this song for the skeptics (oh! how trivial!).I never bothered to know what those lyrics meant,but had byhearted it (including the interlude music) which a bit of my own lyrics!. So, here is the original song lyrics which those celebrities sung on screen.

Mile sur mera tumharaa, Thoo sur bane hamaraa.... sur kee nadhiyaan har disha se behkee saagar mein milee. Baadalon ka roop leiker bharse halke halke... Mile sur mera tumharaa.. thoo... sur bane hamaara.. Mile sur mera tumhara...

Chaain taraj tahin nyay tarajek but baniye saayen taraj

Tera sur mile mere sur de naalmilke bane ek nava surtaal

Mile sur mera tumharaa....tho sur bane hamaara..

Mohnja sur tohi desa pyara mile jadein geet ashaanjo madhur tarano bane tadein

Sur ka dariya bahte saagar me mile badlaan da roop leike barasan holle haule

Isaindhal namm iruvarin suramum namadhakum.. Dhisai veru aanalum aazi ser aarugal Mugilai mazaiyai pozivadu pol isai ...Namm isssaiiii.... Thik thakida thathikakidA....thaka thimi thaka junu

Nanna dhwanige ninna dhwani-ya, seridante namma dhwaniya..

Naa swaramu nee swaramu sangammamai, mana swaram ga avatarinchey

Ende swaramum ningalude swaramum otthucheiyum Namudeya swaramai....

Tomaar shoor moder shoor srishti koroor koi ekshoor[2]...

Sriishti karoon woi katha

Toma mora swarer milan srishti kare chalbochatano

Male sur jo taro maro, bane aapno sur niralo

Majhya tumchya julta tara madhur suranchya barasti dhara

Sur ki nadiya har disha se behke saagar mein mile...

Baadlo ka roop leke barse halke halke..

Oh...Mile sur mera tumhara tho....sur bane hamara...

Mile Sur mera tumharatho sur bane hamara tho sur bane hamaratho sur bane hamara

AVS

a riddle

2006-03-29T17:16:00.000-05:00

Some years back,my rudram mama (one who thought us rudram, chamakam etc which r sanskrit vedic hymns) asked us this tamil riddle.

It goes like this:
One day Deepa was sitting infront of her house with a small kid on her lap. Came in Divya and enquired: " yaar intha kuzhanthai? " (who is this kid?)
Deepa replied: "Intha kuzhanthayudaye thahappanar yaarukku mamanaro, avarudaya thahappanar enakku mamanar" ( The father of the person, to whom this kid's father is the in law, is my in law)

How is that kid related to Deepa?

Though it doesnt sound that complicated to crack now, at that age (12- 13 yrs) it was an unsolvable puzzle for us. Now i feel it was more because of the heavy tamil (given, how much adultrated the tamil i use in kerala) he used rather than the intricacy of the puzzle. Infact,I still feel it will take more than a single attempt for any to crack it!

(I had forgotten this one for sometime now, so jotting it down when remembered)

AVS

a milestone

2006-03-23T11:41:00.000-05:00

hey! just now noticed a thing.......its been 1 yr since i started my blogging...........uh! so soon?and also this marks my 50th blog posting (if i dont take into account a couple of drafts i have).ie, just above 4 blogs per month or roughly 1 per week...not bad going at all given how much i hate writing ( it reminds me of the horrendous days in high school where i had to write page after page of essays and my animosity goes back to those days!) and how much little i have tell the world through print media. I am a practitioner of the school of thought that tongue is much powerful than sword and not words!Summerizing, i hv managed to survive whole one yr in the blog world! This gives be enough conviction and courage to keep going!

AVS

state of mind

2006-03-21T20:44:00.000-05:00

I am suffering from asyncronism... an internal mismatch......i am in one of those states in which ur mind urges u to work whereas the body refuses to oblige.I hv a whole lot of area to cover in my research work and it is likely to take up my 15x7 devotion if i am to finish off my research in stipulated time (which i must honestly admit seems more of a hypothetical scenario than a reality).So when your body and mind refuses to work in unison,what to do? solution is simple- let out ur feeling. Let that part of u which wants to work to work on something else which doesnt take much of physical movements, which ideally leads to highly stressful yet strainless processes like surfing the net,reading books, watching tv, listening music etc. In short, anything other than my experiments classifies into the abovementioned catogory for thats the only work involving physical labor that I care to do now a days.To add to the misery, comes the best of winter (ironically at the beginning of the spring) with its timing as perfect as the cover drive of sachin tendulkar.It makes even the best insomnia doze off; so one can imagine what it will be with the i-can-sleep-anytime-a day kinda people.I can easily put the blame for all these chaos on the research ,say it is sapping all my energy and ethusiasm etc.But it doesnt hold good here for you should do atleast an iota of work in your research to point it to be the culprit.Again this has not been a good month for me; everything has gone awry so far.I am a believer of destiny and its fowlplays. May be its one of them. Atleast I found someone to put the blame on. I hope no one will have any complaints........its my internal affairs u c!

By now readers would have realised that this posting is published out of vettiness rather than any real purpose. Just another mean to let my mind work while at rest!

AVS

navarasa-1

2006-03-14T18:04:00.002-05:00

This is what I am attempting to do - inspired by one of the comments i myself wrote in a friend's blog - write stories based on navarasas.
This is the first one in the series:

KARUNA

He never takes that route.Usually Arun prefers the main road.A road accident abt 6 years back had left a scar in his forehead which never let him forget the perils of dark woods.But that day he had no choice.Inclement weather had uprooted that old mango tree right on to the middle of the road. "Damn it" cursed Arun, "not this one please !". Chousier Woods have a reputation of making the safest of drivers lose the poise. The narrow road with literally no light was any drivers nightmare.Going back 8 kms to take a better exit was out of question for Arun as he was driving at the mercy of reserve petrol tank."Not everyday is a friday", consoled himself as he switched on the right indicator and drove along.

He wasnt driving fast.But a reflex application of sudden brake would jolt a person even at that speed."Oh my........" a sudden chill went right up his spine, for what he saw about 2 feet infront of him,as his head lamp cut thru the pitch black darkness, was appaling.The car skidded to the right , made almost a complete rotation before coming to complete rest hitting the near by tree.Those dreaded moments 6 years back flashed infront of his eyes his mind as he got out of the car and rushed back to the road.There lie infront of him right in the middle of the road all soaked in fresh blood was a woman in her mid 30s struggle for her last few breathes.In the fading light of his car, he could she her clasping tightly on to her chest a wet rugged bundle of cloth with a small 5 month old baby inside it. She tried speaking some words.....but the sounds had already left her body.Arun couldnt make anything out of her shivering lips. She loosened her grip of the bundle as Arun tried to take it from her."Goodness gracious, the baby is alive". Arun told her as she took the child from her."Lemme........" Arun didn't complete when he saw that she had given up the struggle. He couldnt but notice a faint smirk on her face.Her child was alive and safe. That pacified mother had a peaceful death.As he walked backed to the car with that rugged bundle of cloth, the woods were reverberating with the cry of an infant.

AVS

if they can, so can I

2006-03-01T16:31:00.000-05:00

.......was the first feeling I had when i read a blog for the first time about an year back. Realised that you dont have to care a damn about anyone or anything in blogging. It gives the same thrill and satisfaction as shouting at the top of ur voice (or singing for the more sofesticated ones) in public. You rule this part opf the web and you call the shots here. A similar feeling came back to me when i read and heard the movie reviews of a recent movie.......everyone had their own take on it . tat same old feeling was back.......if they all can, y not me too.So here I am........

This is my first attempt in movie review in blog.Though I have done it umpteen times about innumerable number of movies released in all the languages i understand,they have all been verbal.This is the first one to be penned down and hence I am keeping it short (I feel mouth is the most powerful weapon and not pen or keyboard)
Atlast saw Rang De Basanti last weekend.It was a well crafted out film though, to be honest to myself,I must confess that I didnt enjoy it as much as thought I would.May be it is yet another case of "much-hyped-much expected-so-dissapointed" film. I felt that the content of the movie was a bit overblown.Seems director wanted to force his message on the public and hence he went into the extreme while scripting. Also the second half of the second half starting from the assasination of the defence minister was not upto the build up it had created.Is it so easy to kill a minister of a nation? That too in a country like India and escape scotfree?? If so, I would love to kill a few! Also the movie was moving in a lethargic pace in the first half. Even after all the lead cast was introduced and their charecters well established, the movie seem to head no were.The 2 aspects of the movie that stood out were the direction and the acting of the lead cast.Rakesh Omprakash Mehra has done a commendable job behind the camera and has managed well to extract the best from those infront it too.The scene which sticks to my mind is when the heroes (i feel all 6 lead actors were the heroes and not aamir alone) decide to murder the minister. The shuffling b/w the present and the past was good example of the command te director has over his craft.Overall, this film was watchable for me for being hatke-both in context and in directionI would have loved it had it shaped out well .....may be it did in the director's perspective!
AVS

the great escape

2006-02-26T14:46:00.000-05:00

"You have any last wish?" asked the officer. Manish didn't hear the words, he was lost in his thoughts.Life has been nothing but a hell for him ever since he was thrusted into the world.His mother who went out with a different person every night; his life in the slums; his younger sister who was forced into 'taking over' from their mother;his wife who was gang raped infront of his eyes and the his massacre of all the 5 culprits.......all flashed infront of his eyes one more time. He grinned.. "this is the last time i will be reliving those dreaded moments",he told himself."I asked if u have any last wishes", repeated the officer."Hang me posthaste" answered him sounding confident as never before.His most awaited moment life had arrived and he didnt want to delay it further.Death was not a punishment;it was an escape for him......the great escape

AVS

the fallen name

2006-02-24T16:54:00.000-05:00

The name had fallen on him - thief.He was never one. An innocuous act taking home an orfan lamb was good enough reason for the people to rechristian him."But once a thief,always a thief" went the village. Stories of great robberies by him flourished in the village.Blame for anything absconding, living or static, was always on him.One day his own sheep went missing."He would have taken it" dismissed the village.It didn't really matter who had stolen it......the name had fallen on him!

AVS

it makes me think....

2006-02-22T19:30:00.000-05:00

I am a born frugal. Me spending on some luxury has as high probability as an indian winning an oscar.So, it came to my self surprise when i really bought a Motorola ROKR (with iTunes) spending a pretty solid amount from my pocket. Still donno hw i managed to convince and commit myself into purchasing one. may be i was too much confused wat to do after my mobile contract expired.Or may be i was lured by this step sister of iPod.I am resisting myself from singing praises about my new 'weapon of mass nuisance', but it looks gr8. Right now i am filling it with songs.Makes me think........how the priorities of people (read "me") have changed over the time.May be sometime back (when i had no idea there was mp3 player cell phones) i wud have gladly settled for any normal phone which wud have served the purpose (making and receiving calls) as competent as any other with extra facilities or features. Wat is the necessity of a LCD display? or a camera or a voice recorder in a cell phone?Does it make my calls more clear or easy to connect or less expensive? I dont think so!This is a simple exemplification of human nature of never to be content with what one have.........always need more........a greed for materialistic pleasures. I dont think this is gonna change..........may be this is wat makes people what they are...........and i dont want to be an exception!

AVS

a bit of filmi gossip

2006-02-14T17:47:00.000-05:00

latest buzz in town.........AB jr to soon get married to Ash!!!I thought it was one of those usual gossips that mashroom in the tensil town every now and then.......but this one seems to be really happening .not that i got any inside info that made me believe it now.....but the more I hear it from various sources, the more I tend to believe it.Ab jr and Ash??? cant take it......i mean......i say this not just becoz i hate Ash, but from the very beginning , i had this feeling that AB jr and Rani wud end up together. they are a really good pair together (if u dont see the diff. in their height as a hinderence).In a way its good.............. Rani is still free ;)

AVS

mother hilton???

2006-02-13T17:31:00.000-05:00

hahahaha........quite an incomprehensible news.
given the director is a mallu and having seen many of his movies knowing how good he is,its quite baffling to me.
beloved mother........safe us from the suffering of seeing paris portray u!!

AVS

chiranjeevs

2006-02-12T21:44:00.000-05:00

hindu mythology is one of my areas of interest and expertise (preceeded by cricket and movies).

while expanding my knowledge in this field, i came across few trivias which i knew;but had forgotten. one of them is the 7 chiranjeevis (immortals) in purana.interesting names in the list, given that many of them were not on the 'good side'.

According to Hindu mythology, the Chiranjeevins (Sanskrit sing. ciranjiva)

Mahabali , a righteous demon king who conquered heaven, earth, and the underworld, but was forced to give it back by Vamana.
Parashurama,the sixth avatar of Vishnu.
Hanuman, a monkey demi-god who served Rama.
Vibhishana, a man made King of Lanka (now Sri Lanka) by Rama.
Vyasa, a sage who narrated the Mahabharata, he was also a sage in the epic.
Kripacharya, a teacher of the princes in the Mahabharata.
Ashwathama, a man "sentenced" (actually cursed) to immortality and eternal suffering without love from anybody for his role in the murder of the five sons of the Pandavas and his attempted murder of Arjuna's grandson.

AVS

what goes round comes back

2006-01-24T16:22:00.000-05:00

Was away on vacation for more than a month. dial up is pain........it pains more when all u have ia a old antique piece which was once upon a time called laptop.it took me 3.5 hrs by the time i checked my 3 mail accounts and 2 other sites. And hence no posting.made an india trip, and boy! hw much i enjoyed it.a quick update:visited thirupati for the first time in life. surprising tat i cud go their only now, givne that most of my 'family trip have been rather pilgrimages, its somewat late in my life tat i have visited Balaji.The temple was nothing short of spectacular!......cudnt believe my eyes when i saw the whole gold gopuram and temple!but to be honest i didnt like the basic administration of the temple.........gave me a feeling i was more of a commercial establishment than a sacriligious one.I cudnt comprehent people sleeping in a whole having foods and refreshments and directely rush into the temple as if the first day ticket counter of a rajni movie.yeah, i too agree that it can be argued philosophically that the purity of heart is more important.....but still, my heart refuses to accept it.anyways, it was a good experience.....next time i will be more 'equiped' to face the 'mass'. (it will no be fair from my part not to mention here that,even after all these, i was the one who managed to ran inside the temple first once the gates opened.....yeah i am a bit hypocratic at times ;)

I could meet many of my undergrad gang! many of them whom i didnt expect to be in town.

managed to attend the marriage of a undergrad friend.It wouldnt have been worth mentioning was it not for the fact that it was a MALE friend! Thank goodness that he got a job 2 months back. I wud have shocked to death if he hadnt finished his mtech. Anyways my good wishes to the couple.also it was a kind of reality check for me.It became more pronounced when my aunt asked my opinion abt the marriage of by brother,inspite of his vehement opposition. Surprisingly, I support him in this case.........he being their as bachelor is always a buffer for me.

then.......landed in US 2 days back and i hate to even speak abt it!...........over and out

AVS

fall quarter

2005-12-05T23:55:00.000-05:00

Ok, lemme come directly to the point - I fell down twice within a span of 15 mins last saturday- once on my back and next chest on - got a cut in between my right eyebroes and the eyelashes.

Initially i thought of blogging extensively about it-how severe hunger prompeted me to go to chipotle when there was warning about inclement weather and slit ice formation; how i fell first while getting down stairs near TUC and then insanely still carried on my trip only to fall chest on near CCM; blaming my stupidity on unconquerable hunger and thus earning the sympathy of readers etc
Then i realised that i was just one of the many who has brought down to earth on that eventful day - even an UCPD who came to help me fell on the way- (though i was the winner of falling competition,if there was any,with 2 falls and a cut ;) .My hope of earning some sympathy is thus eliminated even without consideration.So I stop.Period.

About the title of the blog, doesn't 'fall quarter' makes sense now?

AVS

narcissist

2005-12-01T16:33:00.000-05:00

R: This looks good
Me: Thank you
R:will sent this to J now itself
Me: Is this fine enough? Or should I modify this?
R: No need, this is fine.
Me: *grins*
R:This is really good.Infact, much much superior than what he has done
Me: *exagerrated grin*
R: *sighs* -(looking on the computer screen)-I donno what he has done here.Anyways, forget about his, yours is correct and i am going to sent yours
Me: (with mouth full of smile).........Thank you so much

I just love appreciations, call it a narcissistic graving for compliments ! *wink*

AVS

the feminine art

2005-11-26T03:09:00.000-05:00

Disclaimer:The first paragraph of the follwing blog is entirely based on my personnal experience with my family and relatives.My remarks are solely targeted at them and not anyone else.

From today,i have a new found respesct for women. Coz I ventured into, for the first time in my life, the art (I will have to call it so from my experience today) which the womenhood have mastered over the years- the art of shopping.
I have always wondered what the big deal abt shopping. More than the count , its the time the fairer sex spent in chosing each item that has baffled me.
But today i had a first hand experience of the pain and trouble they undergo.I had to go on a shopping spree today.Given that there was less than a fortnight left before i left for india, it was already late to start. This being Thanksgiving weekend didnt make any difference to me......went only abt 5 in the evening to walmart. I had no idea what to buy and what not to. Though I had got a vague guideline from my amma (guideline what more to help me have a count of relatives I have and who all needed to be 'taken care of' rather than what all to buy for them).Walmart appeared to me a alltogether new place for me. All items unseen before.I strolled through each section,picking a lot ot clothings,watches,googles, shoes etc just to ditch most of them at some other section far away from theirs'.Suddenly I lost track of how big my 'little' cousins were, how far away my 'near by 'relatives were.........total blank.
How I wish my mother was here ! I cud have entrusted the whole task to her without even bothering to get out of my bed!
Without going much into the details of my endeavor, I ented up purchasing some stuffs which went much beyond my budget. When I look into my checklist, still many relatives uncovered,many items unchecked (reminds me of some movie going over budget!).
Given the small cold wars and politics b/w few of my relatives,I have to make sure that all are treated (or ignored) equally.Most of these relatives living in proximity makes my task critical.
I am known for my diplomacy in my family. This is yet another test for my 'skill'. Lemme see how I come out of it!

AVS

cricketics

2005-11-24T15:23:00.000-05:00

Given how much of a cricket fanatic i am, it was surprising to me how come i havent blogged anything about my favorate topic so far. So here you go....I dont have anything more or different from what many have commented before (and still doing),neverthless here is my take:

Amist total confusions and speculations, ganguly has been selected in the indian test team.Having followed the developments and turnaround of events very closely since the controversial press meet by gaguly, i am not surprised.Though i am not a fan of ganguly,it was almost certain to me that he wouold make it into the indian test team(he had a centur in the last test he played). But what dissapointed me is the very process of selection.The selction committe meeting was preponed by a week so that they could announce that ganguly is there in th team right before the cricket match in culcutta so as to avoid any unfortunate incidents.There is a fine line b/w being a cricket fanatic and a cricket lunatic.This act of haste by the selectors is like surrundering to the whims of some crazy people.I feel this doesnt augers well for the indian cricket.Ganguly is(may be was) a good player,but no longer he is. If one is gonna select a player based on his past achievements and glories,then we should be bringing greats like Kapil, Gavaskar etc back in the team.Whatever has happened now is not gonna do any good for youngsters like yuvraj,kaif etc.Forget about them, this is not gonna help even ganguly.The most successful captain of the indian cricket team has been reduced to a pone which people from certain part of the country is trying to use to claim their strong hold in the indian cricket board.Quite unfortunate given how much this player has done for the betterment of the team.The comment by the head of the selection committee that his selection was done ahead of a fast bowler itself goes to show that it was more of an an act of precaution than consensus.Ganguly may not be good enough to don indian colors any longer;but he deserves better treatment.

AVS

25 and still going

2005-11-21T22:52:00.000-05:00

Had my 25th birthday yesterday. everything for the first time in ur life will be cherished more than the subsequent ones. in that respect i enjoyed this birthday of mine, for, the first time in my life, i had a birthday cake!though i am not that concerned or particular abt such corny traditions, i enjoyed hogging the limelight for a day. (may be back in my mind, i might have wished for such things when i was a kid). thats the only positive i can figure out from my quarter century birth anniversery-a childhood dream of mine realised!otherwise, the very thought of 25 years freaks me out. there is no diff. b/w 19th and 20th nov. but, still,it just freaks me out without any reason!
thank god i dont look my age !!! (i have some paid friends to attest it ;)

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we had the much delayed deepotsav this saturday(i heard few remark that the next diwali is much closer now that the gone one, which i would not object). again i was the DJ (i donned the same role for vasanthotsav also).programs went of pretty well,it cud have been done better, then again, as someone once told me, it cud have been worse too.no regrets.

AVS