Sweet Taste Of India

Today i landed at Indira Gandhi International airport at New Delhi after 4 long years. A lady from Greece was sitting next to me on the flight from Munich. "Wow, the architecture of the buildings is so impressive layout of the houses seems so organized" she observed, as we peeked though the window at the landscape down below, squinting into the sun. "Its so much better than Athens" she said.I did feel proud when i heard it looked better than Athens from the sky! but then a city whose architectural foundations are based on Edward Lutyens's blueprints couldn't have looked so bad from the sky after all, i figured. While disembarking from the plane, i had my first whiff of dust, the ramp winded through a dilapitated corridor, with white paint/chuna peeling off from the plastered walls, crimson pan stains in the corners, mangled, exposed wires on the ceiling. There were absolutely no signs guiding people on where to go. I just flowed with the crowd which led me to a jam packed escalator and an adjoining empty staircase. The stairs were faster to walk down, the ecsalator emptied into a stagnant pool of confused people who did not know which immigration line to stand in (there wasn't any line by the way). The crowd was too heavy and was getting backed up onto the escalator. I found it funny, that people still preferred to go down an escalator for a short distance when it was apparent that they couldn't get off of it. Thankfully i got my baggage off the carousel really quick and walked out through the green channel as i pretty much had nothing to declare. I walked out alone and there was this sea of anxious visitors/parents/relatives/taxi drivers on either side held back by a barrier, trying to spot their known ones. Felt pretty much like a member of the Indian cricket team while walking out there into the crowd. My parents ushered me to their vehicle and i missed out on being approached by those "non-prepaid", over-zealous taxi drivers with their amazing 30 sec sales pitches. I think Delhi roads are not world class, but they definitely are among the best in India, the first thing that struck me was, the ride felt so slow! Traffic in India can really take you from merry to melancholy in a heartbeat, though I must admit the city has also done a pretty good job of keeping those ambling bovine beauties off those traffic intersections. There were lanes on the road and there were road signs, but beyond that its pretty much left to you as a driver to figure out a method in that madness. I had really missed this cacophony, people honking for no rhyme or reason, thela-wallahs peddling their wares, kids playing cricket on the streets, people standing around in groups for no apparent purpose or reason. All in all it felt good on the first day, experiencing all that hullabulloo after such a long time! Like they say, "You can take a Man out of India but you can never take India out of a Man" :) right?

The road less travelled..

The lemmings metaphor is by a now a well known myth. I am intrigued by the social ramifications of this urban legend as applicable to us. How often are we willing to step out of the comfort zones of our inner circles and befriend unfamiliar connections? Its true that I hail from a country well known for its diversity of language and traditions but why does this have to make me and my fellow countrymen so parochial? Why do most of us buy Hondas or Toyotas? Why do we conform to trite norms of being engineers, doctors or lawyers? Why do we think and fret so much about relationships and marriages? Isn't it true that the best love affairs are the ones that we've never had? I personally feel that this ubiquitous behavior stems from a deep rooted middle class mentality which mandates walking the crowded street as the best way to get to a successful destination (whatever or wherever it may be). Does this not stiffle the propensity to indulge in your dreams, your passions, to take risks?
I should steer clear from singing to the choir.. but have you ever paused and discerned the right reasons from the real reasons? have you ever walked a road less travelled...

Hey There Delilah

New Set of Wheels

At the fag end of the tumultous month, i decided to leave home early from work and left at 4:00. So i was driving down on 92W at around 60mph and of all the god forsaken things to happen, my front right tire hit a stone and burst. The automatic traction control kicked in but could do little to control my steering from veering to the right on the gradient and into the grass.
So i get out on the grass and look at the remnants of my stock michelin tire splattered over the rim, in disgust. Changing tires while jacking up a car on the grass on a gradient in rush hour traffic, surely features on the list of the 10 worst things to do in life. Limping back home with my donut spare tire, i was dejected that my precious vehicle actually backfired on me for the first time since i'd owned it. Kickstarted my tire research and realized that the stock Michelin Energy tires that come fitted on Pre 2003 hondas actually suck, and my car used slide better than a figure skater on the icy roads in Chicago (but to be gracious enough, dem' Michelins lasted for 60,000 miles ). After a bit of googling and asking around i had a fair idea that i needed Yokohama Avid 4S or Falken Ziex 912 all season tires for my Honda with dimensions P205/60R16. Went to this wheel store and the guy at the counter sucessfully pimped out the Falken to me. Being a typical male my decisiveness and bargaining ability went to the dogs and i blindly accepted the tire talk. So my car was hoisted up and all four tires were replaced, with Falkens. While watching it i guess i had the good sense to measure the tread depth on those ones and saw, that it was just 8" instead of the standard 10" on a fresh set. Thats something to watch out for while you tire shop! So i had this guy remove all of em and replace them with Yokohamas and had them wheel aligned. Yokohamas had 10"/32". Another interesting thing i got done with the Yokohamas, is an inch up adjustment which is extremely useful for fast cornering on curvy exits/entry ramps especially with V6 engines . Any good tire shop worth its name should understand what this is all about. So 4 Tires, Labor and Wheel Alignment included, i spent around 620 greeners, not exactly a bang for the buck, but hey Yokohamas are the top of their class. The handling seemed pretty good later on, and i could test out hydroplaning on the stangnant water pool outside the store at around 45mph. Felt good on the freeway, (kinda hard though probably because the tires hadn't heated up enough?) . Comes with a 60,000 miles warranty (provided you get your tires rotated and wheels aligned every 5000 miles) . Hmm so that took care of my precious car tires, and now the transmission seems like its programmed to groan after 60K miles. Damn these expenses.

Social Networking Rant

Since most of us (in our generation) have had an online prescence for the past 10 years, we have managed to leave a trail of breadcrumbs on the internet, which search engines conveniently pick up and associate back to us. I often wonder about lack of privacy and personal space in this day and age. To borrow from Omid Kordestani's commencement speech at San Jose State University, "If you know a girls name, you can google her up to find out what she's been doing in her life, look her up on orkut or facebook or myspace to see what she looks like, to find out her preferences and what her friends have been saying about her. You can then check her out on linkedin to find out what she has been upto on a career front and when you finally hook up on the first date you pretty much have nothing left to ask! ". It probably is good in a way to know what you are getting into, ( on the flip side, isn't it a much more romantic endeavor to get to know a person of the opposite sex, in person?) . Social Networking sites force us to stay relevant in life, since we are under the online spotlight all the time. I personally feel, it is good and bad in a way because there is a a lot of self similarity in the way human emotions work. We have our occasional larval phases insterspersed between our Social butterfly intervals. Social Networking sites help us stay relevant during our larval phases. At a whole different level, this is a dream for marketing folks, because based on my social profile, my age and other demographics and my likes and dislikes they can target advertisements to me. Well the bottom line, its a whole new online ecosystem and it does implore us to protect our privacy and preferences. So much for blogging :)

Dude, Where's my Conscience..

I was shopping at this typically californian grocery store whose name rhymes with John Doe, when I heard this irritating muffled noise, cross between a yelp and the sound of fingernails screeching on a blackboard. Then I felt someting nibbling at my jeans round the ankles, i looked down and was shocked to see a huge skinny freakin albino rat with long ears and big hazel eyes!! I was outraged, that a store which i revere enough to buy my groceries from would allow rodents to scoot around and would send its customers out with torn pants!! I was just about to shake that thing off and stomp on it, when out of the blue, a humongous UFO in the guise of a woman descended in front of me, spread out its arms and scooped up this critter and put it its purse! On closer observation, it was a woman... the rich, uber types who probably would spend the most productive hours of her day, ruminating about Tai Chi as opposed to Chai Tea with her other bossom buddies. Her better half (or whatever what left of her other half) was standing next to her giving me a sheepish smile. The smile looked like he'd been force fed Wonton Soup with 20 sour lemons squeezed into it. Well anyways the lady apologized to me and scolded her critter (which apparently was a dog, because it barked an acknowledgement) and i could now see its huge circular eyes ,pointy goblin ears and a long pinnochio'ish wet nose and a rodent like tail sticking out of the lady's ornate purse. Then i had an epiphany, it was a chihuahua, (not all Chihuahuas are lucky enough to hang out in Paris Hilton's purse). Hmm so much for dogs that look like rats, i almost wanted to ask the lady if she got the right animals mated, but then i noticed her hubby had an eerie resemblance to the Chihuahua himself, so i decided to keep my thoughts to myself.

California Dreamin

Often times the rustic beauty of Northern California strikes deep. I'd been out with a few of my friends on the 17 mile drive at Monterrey. I normally drive on Hwy 1 past Carmel all the way down till Bixby Bridge and head back and this was the first time i'd been on this stretch. I was totally overawed by the lush green golf courses at Pebble Beach winding along the rugged Monterrey coastline along the azure pacific. We got ourselves a table facing the ocean at Stillwater Bar and Grill and picked out a bottle of Bennessere's 2005 Pinot Grigio. This wine had a crisp taste and pineapple and peach flavors blended in. It was a real peaceful, easy feeling listening to surf beat against the shoreline, soaking in the cold, fresh air and the wine offcourse. I must say we were all pretty tipsy after two bottles. There were lots of old rich folks wearing Greg Norman Shirts and hauling around Calloway clubs on fancy golf carts. There were a few vintage cars parked outside. Bouganvillas in bloom were wrapped around the pillars lining the corridors. It was a great two hours basking in affluence and class. I remorsefully headed back to my Honda Accord and drove back to the gut wrenching reality and mundaneness of everyday life.

Dallas Cowboys - My Prognosis for 2007

Sometimes I so regret being in the Bay Area and not getting to watch the cowboys on local television.

Offense:

Tony Romo should get more time in the pocket behind a beefed up Offensive line whose average height is 6'.5" and average weight of 300lbs. Wide recievers core is good, with TO and Patrick Crayton, Isiah Stanback showed potential in the pre season , Mile Austin and Sam Hurd are good backups, Jason Witten has safe hands and If Terry Glen makes it back ever, it should be a strong unit. Running game is exceptional with Marion Barber III and Julius Jones splitting carries, the ramped up O-Line should hopefully make good holes for the running game.

Defense:

Defense is really shaky with a very weak pass coverage. Injured Line Backers, flaky cornerbacks. Rush defence seems good. Well Wade Phillips is a Defensive Guru with the 3-4 scheme, can he conjure up something to stop the likes of Tom Brady, Marc Bulger, Brett Favre and Donovan McNabb, will Tory Holt, Randy Moss, Steve Smith burn us down?

We have some real tough opponents this year as opposed to last season. Will the Offense be able to relieve some pressure on the defense? Will Tony Romo step up and have a breakout year?

Time will tell. I would be surprised if we reach or break the 9-7 record we had last season.

Minimalism

My parents were trying to convince me the other day about how beautiful the Bhadohi Carpet that they bought, would look in my living room. While this thing was an exquisite oval handcrafted carpet with curvy designs, i was struggling to explain to them about how i prefer regular shapes in my bachelor pad. My IKEA furniture, my TV and its stand and the rest of the stuff that i have, due to some uncanny coincidence, conform to a regular shape. After some degree of rumination and Googl'ing, i now realize that i belong to this huge subset of a population who prefer Minimalism in most material possessions of theirs. My car's a silver coupe, I like accent rugs with Squares or Circles, i like flat panel TV's mounted on Walls, i think bright colors are cool and i like to focus on single wavelengths and not a myriad of colors, i prefer less walls and everything to be open, i like to furnish my meagre apartment surface area with things that occupy least amount of space.

Taking Stock- Part Deux

Hmm guess i'm real bored at work and i need to serialize my Day Dreams so that i can bring them to fruition someday.

Things i need to do this year, apart from working for a living.

1) Drive a Formula 1 in Vegas
2) Steer away from bunny slopes and become an Advanced level Skier by the end of this year.
3) Fall off a plane from 14,000 feet (Skydiving?)
4) Learn to Snowboard without killing myself.
5) Do the Half Dome Trek
6) Build a collection of at least 10 Californian red wines.
7) Go to a Broadway and a Circue De Soliel show (and also learn to spell it right).
8) Suck it up, let go of my hippie traits and visit the East Coast (er the real America) once.
9) Go white water rafting in West Virginia
10) Watch a 49'ers game and a Playoff game.

Rooting for the Underdogs

Well the Cowboys lost in the first round of the Playoffs. Its always fun rooting for the underdogs though. Looks like Bill Parcells might not be back next season. Tony Romo was still the find of the year. He made mistakes at crucial times, but he probably has the best prescence of mind in the entire 53 man roster and some skill to go with it. With a new offensive Coordinator, new coach, who knows. Next year might be the Cowboys season all the way to the Superbowl. Till then GO PATRIOTS

Cursing your luck? Read this.....

Jason exemplifies the traits that British researcher Richard Wiseman ascribed to lucky people in a 2003 article called The Luck Factor: "They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophecies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good."

In one experiment, Wiseman asked two groups of people - one who described themselves as generally lucky and one who said they were usually unlucky - to count the photographs in a newspaper. The unluckies spent several minutes flipping through and counting the photos. The lucky people got it in a few seconds. How? On page 2, Wiseman had inserted a message in giant headline type: "Stop counting - There are 43 photographs in this newspaper."

The lucky people, always on the lookout for unexpected good fortune, spotted it right away. The unlucky people, whose minds are closed to such signs, missed it completely.

(I grokked this from CNN money)

Lyrics that Rock...

Some songs have these thought provoking verses/lines that just stay with you for life.
These are a few that i can think of on the spur of the moment:


I know you'll be a star in somebody elses sky,
but why can't it be mine?

Pearl Jam - Black

Moving on is a simple thing
What it leaves behind is hard
You know the sleeping feel no more pain
And the living are scarred

Megadeth - A Tout Le Monde (Dark, tragic, like most of metal)

Megadeth - Peace Sells but who's buying? (All of it)

I'm running down a dream
that never would come to me
working on a mystery
going wherever it leads

Tom Petty - Running down a Dream

The Waitresses discussing politics
as the businessmen slowly get stoned
and they're sharing a drink they call loneliness
But its better than drinking alone.

Billy Joel - Piano Man (Awesome song about how everybody is trapped in lives that they don't want to lead)

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
How many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind

Bob Dylan - Blowin in the Wind ( The whole song is beautiful, anti war)


Well maybe I'm the faggot America.
I'm not a part of a redneck agenda.
Now everybody do the propaganda.
And sing along in the age of paranoia.

Greenday - American Idiot (Very relevant song for the political scenario in 2004 very californian, what say ?)


Life is bigger
Its bigger than you
And you are not me
The lengths that I will go to
The distance in your eyes
Oh no Ive said too much
I set it up
Thats me in the corner
Thats me in the spotlight
Losing my religion

REM - Losing My Religion

(Losing My religion is a southern slang which means 'to lose ones temper')

We're Just, two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
Runnin over the same old ground, How we find
Same old Fear , Wish you were here.

Pink Floyd- Wish You were here (Pink Floyd's tribute to Syd Barret )

My child arrived just the other day
Came to the world in the usual way
But there were planes to catch and bills to pay
He learned to walk while I was away
He was talkin fore I knew it
And as he grew he said,
Im gonna be like you, dad,
You know Im gonna be like you.
And the cats in the cradle and the silver spoon,
Little boy blue and the man n the moon.
when you comin home?
son, I dont know when. well get together then.
You know well have a good time then.

Ugly Kid Joe - Cats in the Cradle

What else should I be
All apologies
What else could I say
Everyone is gay
What else could I write
I don't have the right
What else should I be
All apologies

Nirvana - All Apologies (Probably one of Kurt Cobain's best)

"After a While" -- All Time Favorite

"After a While"


After a while you learn

the subtle difference between

holding a hand and chaining a soul

and you learn

that love doesn't mean leaning

and company doesn't always mean security.

And you begin to learn

that kisses aren't contracts

and presents aren't promises

and you begin to accept your defeats

with your head up and your eyes ahead

with the grace of woman, not the grief of a child

and you learn

to build all your roads on today

because tomorrow's ground is

too uncertain for plans

and futures have a way of falling down

in mid-flight.

After a while you learn

that even sunshine burns

if you get too much

so you plant your own garden

and decorate your own soul

instead of waiting for someone

to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure

you really are strong

you really do have worth

and you learn

and you learn

with every goodbye, you learn...

© 1971 Veronica A. Shoffstall


(Author's note: This poem has been plagiarized, bastardized, renamed, reworded, redesigned, expanded and reduced. But it is my work, which I wrote at the age of 19 and had published in my college yearbook. Why anyone would want to claim it is beyond me, but for what it's worth, I wrote it, and if I'd known it was going to be this popular, I'd have done a better job of it. - V.S.)

Mapping Ya'all

Whew man, Orkut is really rockin these days . I totally love this new feature where they show a mashup of your friends list and Google Maps. Totally awesome, i need to increase my friends circle in the midwest! Who's place would i crash at when i go to Denver ?!!

Music Recommendations - Part Deux

• Blue Oyster Cult -Don't Fear the Reaper
• The Who - Teenage Wasteland
• Keane -Somewhere only We Know
• John Lennon - Imagine
• Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
• Lynard Skynard - Freebird
• Five for Fighting - 100 Years
• Pearl Jam - Jeremy
• Nirvana - All Apologies
• Thin Lizzie - Whiskey in a Jar
• Pink Floyd - Coming Back to Life
• Ellis Paul - The World ain't Slowing Down
• Greenday - Boulevard of Broken Dreams
• Tom Petty - You don't know how it Feels
• Tom Petty - Last Dance with Mary Jane

My Music Recommendations for the day

Songs that are on shuffle mode on my Playlist. If you are into Classic Rock/Grunge/Alternative like me, i highly recommend these tracks..

• REM - Losing my religion
  
• Breaking Benjamins - Diary of Jane
• Tom Petty- Runnin down a dream
• Tom Petty - Free Fallin
  
• Trapt - Headstrong
• Soundgarden - Outshined
• Buck Cherry - Yo Crazy Bitch
• Pink Floyd - High Hopes
• Nirvana - Man Who Sold the World
• Pink Floyd - Hey You
• Pearl Jam - Better Man
• Lynard Synard -Don't ask me no Questions
• Jimi Hendrix - Electric Guitar Land
• Stone Temple Pilots - Interstate Love Song
• Greenday - Boulevard of Broken Dreams
• Greenday - Wake me up when September Ends
• Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
• The Doors - People Are Strange
• The Doors - Rodehouse Blues
• AC/DC - Have a drink on me

Oriah-Mountain Dreamer : I love this poem

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your sorrow,
if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own;
if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true.

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself;
if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty everyday, and if you can source your life on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon.

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

Stack Overflow? Not so fast

class Foo
{
Foo()
{
this("bar");
}
Foo(String s)
{
this();
}
}
public class TestFoo
{
public static void main()
{
Foo f=new Foo();
}
}

Hmm i was really eager to get a C'tor loop going to get the stack to overflow, after reading about Contructors in the java cert book by KS and BB . But the Compiler caught a recursive C'tor call at compile time. So i never got to the point where an ambiguous runtime call to Object's super() would cause a stack overflow. Smart Compiler

Jet Ski 'ing on Lake Lewisville

Went Jetskiing last weekend at Lake Lewisville in Dallas. It was awesome. A very Windy day lots of waves and traffic on the water and it was the first time i had jet skied. When you are ripping the waves all by yourself on a jetski, you literally bounce off every wave you hit. It gives you a high. Turning has to be done in wide arcs, ( the sequential left brain sort of assumes that you can make turns because you have a handle to do so) you have to get used to the training. Anything with speed thrills especially if its on the water!!! i look forward to doing this on the Ocean.