How do I ...

....get over my blogger's block ?!

Kerala - some pictures

This is the view looking out of my "tharavaadu" or ancestral home in Kerala -
This is the Sri Rama temple in Karimpuzha  



 

Our trip to Kerala was a whirlwind 40 hours trip to meet my grandma - and amazingly enough we found time to visit relatives and also pray at Kadampuzha and Guruvayoor !
Of course, that means no time for photography - although I used my new Casio Exilim in the Video mode (amazing clarity of video in HQ resolution - 1Gb = 17 minutes of video) to capture motion clips wherever possible

A few more pics behind the LJ cut including one from my grandma's kitchen

 

 

The Fall and Fall of The Times Of India

Oct 2nd of this year must have been a special day (not withstanding the fact that it was the birth anniversary of the father of our nation). It seems, the world was taking a vacation that day. Nothing worthwhile or worth reporting happened that day !! For the world of reporting it must have been like the eerie silence that you feel after a continuous burst of fireworks or like the day after end of a long hard project when all you have to do is clean up your desk and catch up with friends or like the day after your final exams in school when you had nothing else to do but sleep. I know it is hard to believe that the world of journalism would ever get a “vacation” – but it is not impossible. If you can not imagine, all you needed was to browse the headlines on the Times Of India on Oct 2nd 2006. The biggest and boldest headline on that day that Times of India could gather was some cockamamie story on the boredom facing H4 wives in the USA !! 



I just could not believe my eyes when I saw the newspaper that morning. I had been cribbing about the steady deterioration in the quality of articles in the Times of India for a long time, but this had to take the cake. I think (or at least I hope so) that the newspaper just hit rock bottom that day. I just cannot fathom what must have gone through the editor’s mind when he approved this edition of the newspaper. Maybe it was the journalists at Times Of India that were taking a vacation !! 

Oh!  BTW, forgot to mention that if this story does not interest you, the Times Of India gives you more variety - look carefully at the headline above the "Bored Housewives: H4 Saga" - The other story is much more interesting - " Avril Lavigne is sorry for spitting on and abusing the papparazi".....
Wondering how many people in India actually know who Avril Lavigne is ??  I for one, did not (that is until I googled her now :) )

I am back !!

I am back in the US after a wonderful 4 week vacation in the Matrbhoomi - starting with the  Navratris in Baroda and culminating with Diwali in Dombivli and encompassing trips to Palakkad, Trissur,  Pune, Shirdi in the mid -

I have lots to post - especially pictures - so stay tuned 

Hope everyone had a great Diwali and wish you all a great year ahead !

Happy Onam

Of course, I know this post is a bit late.
I hope everybody had an enjoyable time celebrating the bountiful harvest season 
Happy Onam .,.
V made Pookalam this year with the flowers from our garden 

The High Risers ...

Type your cut contents here.

Wish I could be on that boat ..

13 years ago this day  I started my professional life !

Trinity College, Dublin

Still working on old pictures !
From our Ireland trip in 2004

A WTC picture from 2002

I was going through some of my old pictures and thought of sharing this one ...

talking of bird droppings ..

Talking of bird droppings, cannot complain that the Indian consulate could not  clean up the bird dropping on the steps down to the consular office given that the bird dropping on the wings of Space shuttle Discovery survived the launch, the space flight and are back on earth after a space flght - still intact on the Discovery wings !!

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/ap_060705_sts121_bird_droppings.html

  

So, I do have an update my passport saga –

 

After a few hiccups , which reinforced my belief that me and the passport have a figure of thirty six (chathees ka annkda), I finally descended the  bird dropping covered steps into the undergrounds of the Indian consulate to collect my new magnetic readable passport on a Tuesday evening (submitted on Monday morning). 

The highlight of the visit was running into another person in his late twenties, who like me was among the chosen few with a figure of 36 – or rather I should say, he had a figure of 72 !! The poor guy got his passport back only to find that his place of birth was printed as Nasirabad, Pakistan – and he swears, he had filled out his form very clearly indicating a place of birth Nasirabad, Rajasthan.  To add to his fury, the person at the counter kept insisting that his old passport  had also  indicated Pakistan – the handwritten Rajasthan apparently looked like Pakistan ?? ..

Could there be anything more annoying than Himesh Reshamiya lending his nasal twangs to Imran Hashmi's bobcat antics ??

New Signboards at Indian Airports

INDIA
The world's largest democracy welcomes you **



**Some restrictions apply
Blogs restricted for security purposes
SMS messages may be blocked for security purposes
Please watch out for updated media restrictions

Talking Of Hypocrisy

There would not have been a better time for India as a nation to exert its newly found international recognition than in the aftermath of the Mumbai bombings, but unfortunately (and expectedly so), we did the “our usual” - which is to alternate between basking in self glory and wallowing in self pity – of course taking no reasonable actions at any point in time. I am not at all an advocate of unnecessary violence, but in the world of politics and policies you do not get counted by merely surviving. It is the ones who can walk the talk that matter. The customary speech of “no one can make India kneel” is nothing more than a required part of our unreasonable response to the Mumbai attacks. At a time when there is strong international support for India, we could have done more than what we did.

I have always been bewildered by many of our positions. To me, it seems we are high on rhetoric, but low on action. Our actions do not necessarily back up our positions. On the one hand, we want to have permanent UNSC membership, but our foreign policy has never been able to mature beyond Pakistan. We do not have any response to the situation in Sri Lanka and take a hands off approach. We hardly did anything that the world noticed in Nepal. We have no comments on the situation in Iraq or Iran. We have had no reaction to the situation in North Korea or the recent crisis in Middle East. We have not offered our diplomatic efforts to any major international affair (at least none that the common man knows of). It is arguable that we are more concerned at this point with our own economic development, but, opportunity does not keep on knocking. If we need to be recognized as a major international power, economic strength is an absolute requirement, but then so is political clout. This is akin to the situation we face daily in our lives. It is not just enough to work hard – you have to be able to work smart to move up!! By the way, if you recall, this is not the first time when our hypocrisy has been so evident. Recall the era of Non Aligned Movement (NAM) – (Do not know why it still exists because the Cold War has been long over), when we were the founder of this movement and we were shamelessly “aligned” to USSR for all practical purposes!!

Finally today we have a government that has more economic sense than any government since our independence. I hope in the near future we get a government that is savvy on the foreign policy front as well!!

your fiber is lit

This line from an Econmost article sums up the future of the wireline telecommunications

"After a century of communication over copper, the future will belong to those who can best replace it .."

BTW, if you subscribe to the Verizon FIOS service in New Jersey, they will not only install the fiber to  your home and light it up, but they will make sure that they have removed the copper lines coming into your home so that you have not way of going back to the old ways !

They hoped for Tut's mom, but tomb has no mummy

The tag line caught my attention ! very catchy 

Read the article at 
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/06/28/new.tomb.ap/index.html

S.O.N.Y (Skies Over New York)

Skies Over New York 

The first one from my collection.
(for some reason, I am having trouble adding images on LJ today.  I will upload more (in smaller frame size) when it is fixed) 

On filling out a Passport Application Form !

On one of these morning when the New Jersey weather decides to remind the “immigrants” here of their great great gandfather’s heritage by being miserably wet – just like in the real Jersey across the pond, I realized that my passport needs renewal. Of course, the next thing to do was to “google” the Indian Consulate in NYC and get on their website. I download the application forms and the 2 page long requirements document along with that….

I finally got to it the next day and decided to start filling it up. Now I do not really remember the first one I filled out in 1996 (because in India you have “passport agents” do most of that work for you – but not here. Here you have to be a “self made man”!!), but this one looks a bit different. Hmm.. if the Indian food here can be customized to the American taste, what is in a passport application form?

Memories of 1996 when I first filled in the passport form in India with the help of my "agent" still haunt me – the trouble I had in getting my name matched to the right columns with the Surname, Middle Name, Father’s Name, First Name, Father's father's name et al.. It is obvious that the Indian government recognized the variety in naming conventions in the country, so the new application form just says Full Name (Surname followed by Given Names) That was a big relief…..Whoohoo.. I think this one should go easy …

Now I am down to line 6.

6. Color of Eyes: Black

7. Color of Hair:

Wait a minute, that is the first time I came across that… Is the color of hair something you would have on a document like the passport?? I guess if you get old or your hair decides to change silver/white, you should report to the nearest consulate and fill out a change in appearance form (which incidentally requires you to apply as if for a fresh passport).
Regardless, I answered –

7. Color of Hair: Predominantly Black


13.
Full name of father ……………………………………………………….. Country of his Birth
Full name of mother …………………………………………………….. Country of her Birth

Oh Oh .. This questionnaire is starting to get really tough now. I scratched my head a couple of times to figure out a way to fit in my father’s full name into this miniscule space? I don’t think even if I type it in a size 8 Arial font, it would fit!! And I am pretty certain that over 90% of Indians would run into the same problem unless their father’s full name were Dev Anand or Raj Kumar. Heck, wonder how Abhishek (Bachhan) would fill that out – Amitabh Harivanshrai Bachhan .. I doubt if he would be able to squeeze that in? But then, I am sure the Passport Application forms in India are not Americanized as this one ….

I decided I should write “*Note Below” and enter my father’s full name at the bottom of the page. Is that wise, I questioned myself again. What if I get a passport that read:

Father’s Name: * Note Below
Mother’s Name **Note Below.

That would be a disaster, because then I would have a hard time explaining it to the people at the consulate as to what is wrong with my passport (judging by my last experience, where they entered my date of birth as 18 may 2001 – the date I applied for an additional booklet !) What could be worse is that I go to collect my passport in the evening only to find that they have returned it marked “Incomplete” because “Note Below” does not seem to be a middle name or grandfather’s name !! Maybe if I write “Please Note Below” I can get around that one – but still the question remains, how do I explain it when the passport comes out with

Father’s Name: “Please Note Below”.

The dilemma is killing me. Oh Wait! There is more underlying politics and diplomacy here that meets the eye. I realized seconds later the Indian government’s strong support for Bush is very evident in these forms. See the line after Father’s Name? It reads “Country of his birth” and for mother “Country of her birth”. There is not a chance in the whole wide world that we are going to toy with the idea of same sex marriages and same sex families. Line 14 reinforces it again

14. Full Name of Husband ……………………………………………………………………………………
HIS nationality

15. Full Name of Wife …………………………………………………………………………………………………..
HER Nationality
(BTW, Note there is a full line to enter these items as opposed to Father/Mother’s names)

Marriage is a union between a MAN and a WOMAN!! Is that clear enough??Did our PM not say " As you're all aware, India and the United States are working together increasingly on global issues. This is not just good for our two countries, but for the international community....

Looking out from my college campus @ Stevens

Looking over the Hudson to see the NYC skyline after the evening class @ Stevens gives me the caffeine for the long drive home :)

Self Fulfilling Prophecies

Calling the Opposition in India as the “Opposition” is like a self fulfilling prophecy.   I think it leads them to do exactly that – show their opposition to anything and everything that the ruling party does and wait on the watch to pin any random event on the ruling party! I could not believe my eyes when I read in the Asian Age the day before yesterday that the “opposition” parties in India are calling on the Finance Minister to resign over the Sensex crash of the past week!!    I wonder why they did not call to make PC the Prime Minister when the Sensex was going all guns ?! hmm… I got it – that will not be considered “opposition” I guess !

 

If the idea of self fulfilling prophecies in indeed true, what we need is to instill the idea that the opposition parties are constructive and sensible, while the ruling party(ies) should be deemed to be progressive and rational.    Maybe, that will cause them to behave in a progressive manner rather than pushing the country back into the dark ages of “casteism”

Lowered Expectation = Less Chances Of Disappointment

After reading the reviews for the DaVinci Code, in which users gave it an average rating of C (on Yahoo Moview - Friday evening - out of 2000 reviews- now upto a B- from 16814 ratings) I was unsure of what to expect when went to see it last Saturday evening.  The reviews, both on radio and TV, over the last few days had somewhat dampened our enthusiasm as this was movie that V (my wife) and I had been had been tracking since Aug 2005.   Contrary to what most reviews listed, I found the movie interesting and reasonably well made considering the depth and details to which the book enters into.  We were not too thrilled at the subtle changes they made in the last quarter of the movie, but for the most part, the movie was faithful to the novel and is a genuine attempt to capture the best selling book into a 2.5 hour capsule for those who do not (or cannot) discern the simple pleasure of kicking back and reading a great work of fiction !
Beware though - if you have not read the book, it is going to be a challenge appreciating the movie - and that probably explains the lower ratings early on for the movie!  As the guys (and gals) who read the book start going to see how the movie turned out, the ratings will get back to what it deserve !

Hit the Ground Running

Achumama, at the grand old age of 82, becomes Kerala’s 20^th Chief Minister today.

 

But, of course, be it LDF or UDF, the infighting in the state politics NEVER stops!! 

 

The AKA – KK era provided mimics with constant material for the numerous “albums” like “De Maaveli Kombathu” ... and this new government promises to provide even more of the same entertainment !  With Pinarayi Vijayan wresting away the key home ministry position, the fireworks started even before the swearing in ceremony. 

 

Now this is what you call “Hit the ground running” - no wasting of taxpayers time (now, can’t say that about taxpayer’s money – can I ??)

Colors

Really prolific flowers, these pansies ! 
and virtually maintenance free

    

    

    

Colors of a Nation

 

It is amazing how much of the people of some countries identify themselves with its national colors!

 

I was recently in Brasil and it was very interesting to note that there were more “Brasilieroes” buying the Yellow and Green than tourists –

Of course, the Sao Paolo airport was full of yellow and green – anything you want from Bikinis to beach sandals were available in the Brazilian colors. A lot of that can of course, be attributed to the upcoming soccer tournament, but not all. I have been be Brasil a few times now and the airports are always yellow and green and I had always wondered about it … The same was true in the Buenos Aires airport – blue and white; and in Ireland – all shamrocks – all green.    Of course, the United States surpasses everybody when it comes to displaying the flag proudly. I think it is pretty hard to go any place in the US without seeing the flag. 

 

I cannot but wonder are we Indians are not attached to our flag? Even with the changed flag code, I do not see (well, I haven’t been to India in almost 2 years) us Indians putting on a bashful display of the tricolor. I wanted to buy a flag last time I was in India (a small one) and I got the really bad plastic ones (which to be frank, I was ashamed to buy due to the quality).   The cricket season, of course, brings out the INDIA caps and T-shirts, but is that tantamount to a proud display of the national colors?   When would I be able to buy a tri color cap or bag or shirt or jacket at the Mumbai airport?   When would we able to see all houses in the country have a flag on their porch or balcony??

 

 










 

EOS - End of Spring

A tulip lay martyred as summer marches on ...

An Evening at the Marine Drive Promenade

If there is a place in Mumbai that is a near perfect example of a social class equalizer, I think it is the Marine Drive walk or the Queen’s necklace (as our erstwhile rulers chose to call it).    A paradise for people watchers, this amazing stretch of the pedestrian walkway or promenade on the coastline is flanked by a perpetually busy eight lane highway on one side and the often impatient waves of the Arabian Sea on the other.     I had the opportunity to work a few days at the Air India building nearby a couple of years ago and I have been meaning to write this article since then.   As I arrived there in the early mornings, I could see people jogging in anything from an elaborate Nike track suits to a shorts and “banian” !! Now isn’t that amazing – it does not matter how much you earn or who you know at this location where the sea washes away your social strata !   As the morning wore on, the traffic on the highway increases exponentially and the promenade settles down to a lazy pace of activity – a few children throwing stones at the water or a couple walking on the beach.    It is as if the city sucks in all available energy and life into itself as people go about their daily rushed pace of life that are usually programmed down to the exact minute of the hour (5.08..8.17 – each person has a different magic number!)

The evenings on the walk are just amazing, especially during the “Butta” season.  I could never wait to get out of the office to spend an hour or so before taking a taxi to the VT station to get on the central line!  As the busy day wound itself down, an amazing evening awaited me on the promenade. The sights and sounds of the golden evening provided a much needed respite from the pressures of work.  Once again, the steady sea breeze washed away much more than the weariness of a hard day – it washed away all notions of social classes as the janitorial staff from the high rise building and the executives they served waited patiently for their “butta” to roast on the improvised barbeque apparatus (which is nothing but smoldering coal blocks in a rusted iron bowl). Elsewhere small groups of people start pooling around street vendors selling “chana jor” and Vadaa Paanv’s.   The fitness conscious joggers and evening walkers make their way precariously through the crowds of the “ekdum mast hai” taste conscious street food connoisseurs (which seem to be almost everybody!). 

As the sun finally makes its way to the horizon, the pace of activity on the promenade nears its peak. Couples scan the busy pavement for anything that would provide a modicum of solitude or privacy. As the water starts shimmering and the sun melts into the yonder horizon, a sense of awe prevails …

A few taxi drivers pull to the curb for an expresso shot of rejuvenation –

I hastily turn around to find a place to discard the newspaper plate that I had been enjoying my “chana jor”from and tell him “VT chalna hai”

He took one last look at the crimsoning sky and flipped the meter down with a big smile and nodded me in ..As he merged artfully into the endless stream of cars, I wound down the window and tried to take a few pictures more.

Tomorrow, I promised myself, I should spend a littlemore time here ...

But tomorrow will turn out to be yet another today 

 

Colors of Spring

Not one of Flora's brilliant race
A form more perfect can display;
Art could not feign more simple grace
Nor Nature take a line away.
                  -James Montgomery "On Planting a Tulip-root"

I never cease to be amazed by the grace that tulips have, whether standing alone, trying to hold its own in the wind or arranged neatly like soldiers on a parade ground, arranged by colors... I have always felt that they are the most photogenic of all flowers

Most people always associate tulips with Holland or The Netherlands, but did you know that these flowers were originally native to Persia (Iran) and Turkey and introduced to Western Europe only in the late 1500s? In fact, tulips are the national flowers of both Iran and Turkey !

I am in Florida today and have not seen many tulips around here, but New Jersey has tulips in various states of bloom all over -

Here are some pictures from our own small garden...

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."
-Thomas Edison

Is "writing" an art ?

As I was driving the turnpike this really wet, not so Aprily morning, getting into the final week of the Spring Semester, I could not but recall the mayhem in the class last Wednesday. When the professor of my marketing class said that next week we will have to “write” a case analysis as a part of the final exams, no body really gave it much attentions – rather than the usual “oh ! Sxxx – I thought we did the paper and she said she was impressed by all the work – why do we need to have another exam …” It was not until she said “ I will get you the paper books and make sure you have good pens” that the diverse islands of chatter converged to the same …. “Write an exam? - 2 hours??...Can we not bring our laptops and type it in?

That is so true …I think writing has now literally become an art. As the laptops become ubiquitous, Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is starting to show another obvious example. My thoughts don’t start flowing until I have my hands on the keyboard. I even take notes in class on my laptop. It is not that I do not like “writing” by hand. In fact, I still buy fountain pens and go looking for ink (it is so hard to get bottles of fountain pen ink in the States), but that is purely for scribbling notes and doodling while on endless conference calls. If I have to do some serious creative “writing”, I need my laptop.. that is how I write…

I wonder if kids need to learn to “write” or rather handwrite anymore? All you need to do is recognize the alphabets, isn’t it ? or maybe I am taking it too far …

The sun never sets on the British Empire - because God does not trust them in the dark !!

....saw that on the foot note of an email i received today

Rone de aaj humko,
Tu aankehin sujaane de.
Baahon mein lele, aur khud ko bheeg jaane de.
Hai jo seene mein qaid dariya, who choot jaayega.
Hai itna dard ke tera daaman bheeg jaayega.

The Gulzaresque style of interspersed monologues accentuated by Aamir’s sultry voice – I heard this once and knew instantly that the album would be great - It is, in fact. I haven’t heard a better Hindi soundtrack in some time. Jatin Lalit has turned out a great album – probably his best since Hum Tum.

The Fanaa soundtrack has 6 songs.

The first one “Chaand Sifarish” is a catchy number – reminds me of the Abhijeet songs form the SRK era (not that the SRK era is over or anything ..).

The second one is “Mere haath mein” – that is the one with monologues from Aamir and Kajol. The lyrics are great, the music with a Middle Eastern overtone is fabulous and Sunidhi and Sonu Nigam have done a great job rendering that number.

The folksy dancy number “Des Rangeela” is not bad either.. kind of grows on you.

The one I like best is the “Dekho na” – beautiful lyrics “Phir na hawaayein hongi itni besharam ….. Jugnoo jaisi chahat dekho jale bujhe” – but what I like best is the lower pitch of Sunidhi’s voice. She is great in that song, Sonu, of course, has his usual Deewana style. This song reminded me of the “Dekho na” from Swades. That was a great song too.

The kiddo song with limericks is something I could probably live without – it is funny and catchy, but don’t see myself playing that one on repeat…The instrumental and remix numbers are not bad either -

So after, having this album for 4 days now, I have narrowed it down to 4 tracks that I keep playing again and again –

Dekho na
Mere Haath mein
Chaand Sifarish ..
Des Rangeela

Thoughts that never make it to words ..
Die an unnatural death
A treasure that could have been ..
Lost for ever, never to bequeath