Scars And the Psyche

So another year has passed since the brutal event.

Very late last night (actually well into early morning today), I was preparing a slideshow for our sales team, and as I was doing some screenshots, I suddenly noticed that the date had turned to 9/11 and it showed on one of the application screens I was capturing. I backed out of the application right away, changed the system date to 9/9 and started all over. I just didn't want that date to be on my slideshow!

I once considered requesting a room change as I was checking into a Hotel in San Francisco and saw the room number on my key card. It was 911.

Such is the nature of the scars. And how our behavior is influenced.

Ganesha Revisited

I couldn't believe Ganesha festival came back so fast! It felt like it was only recently that I bought a "Made in China" Ganesha idol, performed the pooja and blogged about it! And here he was, yet a gain, dominating the weekend and the days on either side of it.



This time, I managed to perform the pooja in much more detail. What was even more special was that, for the first time in my life, I attempted something which I believed I would never do -- prepare steamed kaayi kaDubu (ಕಾಯಿ ಕಡುಬು)! It turned out to be pretty tasty, but the appearance was a disaster! I guess I am not sophisticated enough for certain things!



To make up for the disaster, I also prepared Gulab Jamoon which I consider myself pretty adept at (is 3 times in 14 years not enough of an experience?!).



I surprised myself by preparing two types of sweets in a day because, you know, I don't like sweets. I hardly eat any. This was only for naivedya (and others with a sweet tooth) -- so maybe I earned more puNya because of selfless cooking :P

By the way, lamps (and clouds) form in so many interesting ways that sometimes I am amazed by their uncanny resemblance to familiar shapes and forms. But what I saw in this lamp while doing Ganapati pooja simply stunned me! Do you also see what I am seeing?

Blast from the past

Certain days just don’t start right. That is just how it goes. There is not much you can do about it. You could wake up to a harsh scream next door or a loud bang on your door or the unbearable sound of the lawnmower right in the morning of a summer weekday that you chose to sleep in! Or it could be the loud and incessant ringing of a junk call on your landline. Or it could be the sweetest ring tone you chose for your cell phone which, when you reached for it, turned into possibly the most unwelcome voice at the other end. **it happens. Like it did for me this morning.

But then, some beautiful things do happen, almost riding on the back of the ugliest of things. Life has a way of teaching you that the good and the bad appear, almost always, together. It is up to you to take in what you want and leave out what you shouldn’t want.

OK, back to what happened this morning. As soon as I hung up the unwelcome call that woke me up this morning, my BlackBerry beeped again. I was not inclined to reach for it, I wanted to go back to sleep and get some much needed rest as this was the first weekend I was fortunate enough to have just for myself after weeks of crazy work schedule that spanned several time zones across continents.

Reach I did, half willingly, and realized that it was an email. I opened the inbox with droopy eyes.... and my eyes lit up in an instant! I just couldn’t believe my eyes, I thought it was a dream. I had received an email from a long lost friend whom I cherished a lot and tried very hard over the years to find! And he had found me and sent me an email!

This friend, a very very nice guy, was my closest buddy when we lived in Delhi. We did everything together, from roaming the streets of Delhi (and nearby places), visiting the most wonderful and tiny book shops around Chandni Chowk, taking the DTC buses to wherever we felt like going, eating wherever we felt like eating, shopping anywhere from the amazing by-lanes around Janpath to the vegetable market in Mandawali Fazalpur..... and, yeah, discussing career and life plans... and everything under the sun. The innumerable evenings we spent talking both our grandiose plans and utter non-sense sitting on the terrace of his mausi’s house sipping tea and munching various snacks....

I have visited Taj Mahal only once in my life despite living in Delhi and passing by Agra soooo many times. And it was Dinesh who was with me when I saw Taj Mahal. It was also his first time.

The last I saw him was probably in 1994. We kept in touch for quite sometime after that. I moved to US and he moved to Mohali. We had ‘snail mail’ contact after that. He had occasional email access which he rarely used, and as I finished grad school and my email addresses kept changing in the pre-gmail days, we were slowly cut off. I couldn’t reach his parents back in Himachal Pradesh. And this was probably about 1998, before cellphones became common in India. So we lost touch. Completely. Until this morning.

And was I thrilled!! I am so glad he renewed his search and found me. He has a good job, is happily married, and works/lives not too far from his home town. I am so happy for him!

Why am I writing about it here? Of course I am happy and excited about regaining a very good friend. But the bigger reason is to highlight the positive impact internet can have on our lives. That is, only if we allow it to. And only if we use it in a positive way. I have seen people who use internet as a weapon of destruction, to harm others, as a means to satisfy their greed, their hatred, their lust, and to basically extend their evil existence. But you can also use it to unite people, find friends, find and spread happiness, and to basically extend your good existence. What you want to do with it is a reflection of who you are. You choose!

Oh, by the way, I totally forgot about the unwanted call that woke me up. Actually, there was no other choice. A wonderful event had replaced it almost immediately.

A lazy summer afternoon...

More here...

A day to remember

It is one of my most favorite events ever. It happened today. Exactly forty years ago.

Man landed on the moon.

Celebrate!

"Light & Lines"

One, the raw material, and the other, the most fundamental building block in 2-D visual design.

तोच चंद्रमा नभात

There are certain chores I don't mind doing over and over again I guess. One of them is "preparing" to convert a seemingly infinite collection of audio tapes I have collected over the years to mp3 format so I can carry them on my iPods. So, over the last few days I went through a whole box (out of several such) full of tapes that I hadn't played in a while since I don't have cassette player anymore! There were really, really old Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, Marathi songs, both from movies and bhaavageethe, and of course Carnatic & Hindustani music. And I picked a few Marathi cassettes, as usual, as my first set to be converted. They are way up on my priority list because they are harder to replace. I want to convert them first before they quit on me. Why don't you just buy the CD versions, you ask? Because I don't want to spend a fortune! Just look at my collection and you will know! So, I organized them, as always, in the order of priority, keeping away the ones that I also have on CDs, and..... put them all back in the box. Why? I told you, I don't have a player to play them on! How can I convert them without a player?

Anyways, here are some of the songs I "looked at" and then played on the net. Again. And again. And again. Haven't stopped yet.

1. One of my all time favorites, "Ghanashyam Sundara" from Amar Bhupali, sung by Panditrao Nagarkar (and also Lata Mangeshkar -- this song repeats a few times in the movie). If you love music in V. Shantaram's movies, here is why: The music was composed by Vasant Desai, who also composed the following song:




And lyrics:

घनःश्याम सुंदरा श्रीधरा अरुणोदय झाला
उठिं लवकरि वनमाळी उदयाचळी मित्र आला

आनंदकंदा प्रभात झाली उठी सरली राती
काढी धार क्षीरपात्र घेउनी धेनु हंबरती
लक्षताती वासुरें हरि धेनु स्तनपानाला

सायंकाळीं एके मेळीं द्विजगण अवघे वृक्षीं
अरुणोदय होताचिं उडाले चरावया पक्षी
प्र्भातकाळी उठुनि कावडी तीर्थ पंथ लक्षी
करुनी सडासंमार्जन गोपी कुंभ घेऊनी कुक्षीं
यमुनाजळासि जाति मुकुंदा दध्योदन भक्षी

कोटी रवीहून तेज आगळें तुझिया वदनाला
होनाजी हा नित्य ध्यातसे हृदयी नाम माला


2. "तोच चंद्रमा नभात" by Sudhir Phadke, arguably one of the best Bhaavgeethe singers of India:



And lyrics:

तोच चंद्रमा नभात तीच चैत्रयामिनी
एकांती मजसमीप तीच तूहि कामिनी !

नीरवता ती तशीच धुंद तेच चांदणे
छायांनी रेखियले चित्र तेच देखणे
जाईचा कुंज तोच तीच गंधमोहिनी

सारे जरि ते तसेच धुंदि आज ती कुठे ?
मीहि तोच तीच तूहि प्रीति आज ती कुठे ?
ती न आर्तता उरात स्वप्न ते न लोचनी

त्या पहिल्या प्रीतीच्या आज लोपल्या खुणा
वाळल्या फुलांत व्यर्थ गंध शोधतो पुन्हा
गीत ये न ते जुळून भंगल्या सुरांतुनी


3. "प्रिया आज माझी नसे साथ द्याया" by Sudhir Phadke:

Play from this link

And lyrics, of course:

प्रिया आज माझी नसे साथ द्याया
नको धुंद वारे, नको चांदण्या या

नको पारिजाता धरा भुषवू ही
पदांची तिच्या आज चाहूल नाही
प्रियेविण आरास जाईल वाया

फुले सान झेलू, तरी भार होतो
पुढे वाट साधी, तरी तोल जातो
कुणाला कळाव्या मनाच्या व्यथा या

न शांती जिवाला, न प्राणास धीर
कसा आज कंठात येईल सूर
उरी वेदना मात्र जागेल गाया

अता आठविता तशा चांदराती
उरे मौक्तिकावीण शिंपाच हाती
उशाला उभी ती जुनी स्वप्नमाया


I can go on and on....But I must stop here. For now. Will add more later.

ಸುಮ್ನೆ ಹೀಗೇ ಚಪಲಕ್ಕೆ....

ಬಾಯಿ ಚಪಲ ಅಲ್ಲ, ಫೋಟೋ ತೆಗೆಯೋ ಚಪಲ ಅಷ್ಟೆ! :P

When insensitive morons get to run businesses....

This is what happens.

As if this, this, and this, just to name three, weren't enough.

It reminds me of the horror I felt when on a lazy post-lunch stroll in New Orleans a few years ago I happened to see a "hookah cafe" flaunting the following painting out on the street trying to entice people to come in for a smoke or two. The French owner apparently believed he knew how to put Ganesha's multiple hands to good use.

Morons. Really.

Happy 4th of July!

Celebrate Freedom. Celebrate Liberty. Celebrate Democracy.

Pardonable addiction?

Blackberry Addiction - The top video clips of the week are here

Sounds very familiar! ;) But hey, it is not just a toy for me, it is also my development platform! So I guess it is a pardonable addiction, eh? :P

The real test of popularity lies not in life but death?

Jeez! I never thought I would write a post on this MJ, ever! Michael Jordan, oh yes, most definitely! Magic Johnson... maybe, but not likely. But Michael Jackson? Very very unlikely! But here I am writing one specifically on him before the other two got a chance!

No, I am not a fan. Have never been one. I have watched him, listened to his songs, admired and enjoyed his performances, sure, done all that. I would even say that no performer danced like him. Not many can, without looking ugly and/or risking total realignment of neck and other major joints in the body. His performances were full of passion and rhythm, and if you had even the slightest bit of that innate urge we have as a species to move our limbs with no specific purpose or pattern as a means of expressing emotions, he could make you dance. He was seriously electrifying.

But his eccentricities defined his legacy as much as his dance moves, the turns, the twists, the twirls, the moonwalk did. He remained somebody you would love to watch but would not venture anywhere close to. He remained somebody whose personal exploits you would want to filter out and only talk about his musical exploits. We would never know what caused him to fall from "The Thriller" he was to the loner he died as. But that is not my concern now, anyway.

The reason I am writing this post is not Michael Jackson, per se, but pure nostalgia. Seeing so much coverage, on TV and internet, of MJ's death, kinda pushed me back into the days I used to listen to him, and brought me back some memories. Back home in my school days, he was probably the most "known" face of western music. That was before I discovered other greats. At that time, it was fashionable to talk of or own a few Beatles albums, and we listened to "Osibisa", "ABBA", "Dire Straits" etc., but the real craze was Michael Jackson. His posters were everywhere. Indian youth gobbled up everything Michael Jackson produced, and contributed to building a huge international fan base. Again, I was not a big fan. My music preference was, and has always been, over everything else, Hindi movie classics, Carnatic, and Hindustani, not necessarily in that order, but I followed him with a kind of curiosity and amazement that ensured I didn't reject him though I never accepted him.

And then I discovered my most favorite western musician, Eric Clapton (via "Unplugged" and "Slowhand"), which influenced me in a big way. The kind of western music I listened to changed drastically. I stayed away from hard rock and moved onto soft rock, blues and jazz, and a bit of R&B. I was so much into Blues that I even got a chance to shake hands with one of the most successful Blues musicians of all time, Buddy Guy, who even autographed a poster for me at the end of his stunning performance in front of a private audience at House of Blues, Chicago. And the very next night I watched "The Temptations" perform at the same venue in front of the same private audience. Joy!

When I moved to US, Janet Jackson, MJ's sister, was one of the top singers and was on TV all the time. But even that failed to re-trigger in me any interest in her brother's music.

And then MJ's downfall began. And now, the end. Or, is it?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CAESAR!

7 years of love, affection, companionship. Happy Birthday, Caesar! How can I thank you for what you have given me?

Sad state of Indian elections... When will this change?

When will our people understand that giving a free color TV is NOT good governance? Good governance is about empowering you to BUY that color TV yourself, creating an atmosphere where you can watch something beautiful and relaxing on that TV instead of brutal killings and bombings we see so regularly......

Sad to see people dance like this:



Picture taken from Rediff

Squint is better than blind, but it is the blind that won!

It is an unfortunate day. Not just for the millions who voted against the UPA, the Third Front, the Fourth Front, etc. For all the people who consider India their home and want to see it safe, secure, stable, and prosperous.

India has voted UPA back to power, and this time with even bigger mandate. Not that UPA's victory was unexpected. Nobody really expected NDA to win a majority anyway. The general expectation was that UPA and NDA would be very close, and who formed the next government would depend solely on who was better at horse-trade. There was an outside chance of a situation emerging where a maniac like Mayawati would bargain and beat everybody to the PM's chair. That scared the hell out of me! Thank God that it didn't happen.

I am really disappointed that the people thought Congress was the better bet than BJP. I hope these results won't prove too costly for India. Congress has ruled India for 50 years, and everybody knows the kind of progress we have made in those 50 years. And people still vote for that same party. BJP did so much better under Vajpayee and still it was voted out at the end of its term. How do you explain this!?

I accept that BJP was partly responsible for losing it this time. And it was not totally Congress' win -- others' loss was Congress' gain as was seen in UP, Bihar and West Bengal. And now that Congress has been backed by Muslims, you will see the game of appeasement go up a few notches! Congress and the other socialist jokers have already redefined secularism -- and it is only going to get worse now.

Manmohan Singh may be a decent, well-educated, and even well-meaning guy. But I don't want people like him to lead my country. What I want is a strong and patriotic person who doesn't hesitate to show his spine in defense of his country and his countrymen. What we have now is a person who is nothing more than a brilliant but mute loyalist of Sonia Gandhi. Given a choice between national and Sonia interests, he will choose Sonia's any day. If that is not true, I'm sure I am not the only one still waiting for him to prove me wrong. As if to show his loyalty (and maybe his desire to continue as PM?), one of the first few things he uttered as soon as he realized that UPA would form the next government was that he would be "delighted to have Rahul Gandhi in my cabinet." I am sure he meant "honored".

So, would Rahul Gandhi join the cabinet? As what? Of course, any portfolio would be his for the taking, but what would it be, I wonder. Something that doesn't expose him to controversy but keep him in the limelight, I guess. I hope it is not as big as a Deputy PM! You never know with these Congresswallahs --Manmohan Singh might suddenly "retire because of health reasons" and all the MPs might "request" Rahul Gandhi to save the nation by ascending the throne! After all, Manmohan Singh was only keeping it warm for him all these years. Oh well, I guess we Indians deserve this!

One really good thing in the middle of such disappointing news is that blackmailers like Laloo, Paswan and Mulayam have been kicked really hard in their back side (note that I didn't say they have been taught a lesson -- because they will never learn!). Another good thing is that the Left have been spat at. As long as the Communists are close to power, the possibility of them gifting a part of India, if not the whole, to China is never dim. And then, the final good news, great news in fact, is that Mayawati has been cut to size. I used to have nightmares of her becoming PM -- with the way Indian politics work, it was always going to be a possibility. Just look back at how Deve Gowda became our PM not too long ago!

By the way, aren't these Electronic Voting Machines supposed to be error-proof? Then what's up with the "Lost, Lost, and Won!" result of P. Chidambaram's Shivaganga seat? It does sound fishy! So, you mean these machines can be manipulated? In that case, it makes me wonder, did UPA manage to find a chink in these machines that others couldn't? I hope not!

Game over. Nerd wins .....

This is a bit old but I stumbled on it today on another blog. (Thanks, Bill Buchan!)

Michael Jordan the basketball player having "retired," with $40 million in endorsements, makes $178,100 a day, working or not.

If he sleeps 7 hours a night, he makes $52,000 every night while visions of sugarplums dance in his head.

If he goes to see a movie, it'll cost him $7.00, but he'll make $18,550 while he's there.

If he decides to have a 5-minute egg, he'll make $618 while boiling it.

He makes $7,415/hour more than minimum wage.

If he wanted to save up for a new Acura NSX ($90,000) it would take him a whole 12 hours.

If someone were to hand him his salary and endorsement money, they would have to do it at the rate of $200 every second.

He'll probably pay around $200 for a nice round of golf, but will be reimbursed $33,390 for that round.

He'll make about $19.60 while watching the 100-meter dash in the Olympics, and about $15,600 during the Boston Marathon.

This year, he'll make more than twice as much as all U.S. past presidents for all of their terms combined.

Amazing isn't it?

However...

If Jordan saves 100% of his income for the next 500 years, he'll still have less than Bill Gates has at this very moment.

Game over. Nerd wins.

Wow! And to think Bill Gates made his fortune making and selling some of the crappiest of software ever written while Michael Jordan (whom I am huge fan of and whose games I rarely missed even if it meant skipping classes ;)) earned his dough producing some of the most reliable, most efficient, most entertaining, cleanest, craftiest and swiftest of Basketball plays ever witnessed on a Basketball court! Mind boggling!

The (not so) Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Long (overdue) post. Read at your own risk.

I miss the general elections in India. I miss the sight of the largest democracy in the world thundering over the slumbering junta and bringing live shows of its comedians and villains (most of them playing both at the same time) to the nearest galli, circle, playground, and railway station. For free. Sometimes, even with a gift or two if you are considered (un)worthy enough. I miss the loud cheering and jeering, yelling & squealing of everybody and anybody even remotely associated with the elections.

I also miss the self-important journalists trying yet again to get their equations right, on TV and on paper, everyday and every sleepless night. I miss watching every TV channel and newspaper, suitably compensated by various political parties for their outstanding journalistic service, parading its own number-theory experts, psychologists and psephologists who claim to have understood the most ununderstandable of all species - the Indian voter. I miss seeing them go wrong election after mid-term election and still not give up!

And I also miss taking an active part in this whole mela! Of course, voting is one of the ways to take an active part in this democratic process. If you can vote, you must vote. And not only must you cast only your vote but also make sure nobody else casts your vote. I haven’t had a chance to vote since I did a few years ago back in Delhi. And I don’t think I will get a chance to vote again in India in the foreseeable future. I really miss it.

But what I meant by ‘active part’ was actually participating in the electioneering process itself! Yes, even before I attained the voting age, I had been playing my part as a volunteer. For BJP, of course. I really miss those days of crazy activity which involved putting up posters on every blank and non-blank wall, going door to door and distributing pamphlets, putting up buntings along the streets only to find them torn or missing the next morning, crying hoarse at the Congress hooligans (when they weren't around) for taking them apart, and putting them up all over again till we ran out of buntings, roaming the whole city in “on-election-duty” autos throwing handbills, screaming into the portable loudspeakers, getting chased from hostile areas, putting up makeshift “stages” for the leaders’ public speeches at all hours of day and night (one such night stands out when we had LK Advani at Chamundi Circle in Mysore – he showed up at midnight for an hour’s speech and there was not a single empty spot in that big circle and the buildings around it – and I got a chance to shake his hand as he was getting back into his car!). We would roam around the streets with copies of voter list in hand making sure the voters were accounted for, urging them to vote in general, requesting them to vote for our candidate in particular, and advising them to vote as early in the day as possible to defeat the illegal voters (we used to do this after the deadline for public canvassing was over!). And on Election Day, we would gather at the polling booths, sit at a rickety table holding a copy of voter list and “take attendance” of our voters, and spy on the other camps! At the end of the day, we would go back to the party office or the candidate’s home and soak in the news pouring in from other polling booths, areas, and cities. We would sit around the radio and the TV to gather news and analysis from folks who pretended to know everything. By the end of it all, we could barely speak because of all the yelling and screaming! And then the results would come in…. The voters would have spoken. And some of us would have shut up.

Only to start all over again! The elections were never too far those days what with all the jokers assembling in Delhi at the same time and making a tamasha of the whole expensive exercise the entire nation went through for months!

The election campaign scenario is probably much different now. Election Commission has robbed much of its charm, probably with a good reason. The political parties don’t pull governments now as frequently as they used to. But it still is the same rotten game of numbers, it still is the horse trade it always was, and you still can’t tell which party is in which new alliance. Nobody remembers the party symbols anymore. The Congress is still monopolized by the family whose feet its ‘leaders’ are eternally lined up to lick! Then there is a new spineless ‘Secular Front’ or ‘Third Front’ or whatever the flavor of the season is coming up every election consisting of the same old power brokers who have no ideological agenda whatsoever! There is no greater danger than these parties coming together at election time and making a mockery of democracy. Each one of them has a PM-aspirant who will go to any extent to grab that chair.

Sadly, even the BJP has failed to escape the rot that is part of the political landscape. Its moral base has eroded as its power base has expanded. There was a time when BJP leaders asserted that they would rather win only a handful of seats than compromise on its principles. It really used to be a great organization. But somewhere down the road, some leaders got tired of sitting in the opposition, ran out of their patience, and acceded to the younger leadership that argued that nothing can be achieved without power, and to achieve that power, certain principles can be and should be compromised. Good organizers became bad politicians. Powerful people with questionable backgrounds came into the party’s fold. The party tasted success. The decline began.

However, in spite of all this, I believe BJP is still better than other parties. BJP still has a leadership that is stronger, more committed to the welfare of Indians, and more dependable than others. BJP perhaps is still the only party with a true nationalistic agenda in spite of all the negative things the party has become famous for in recent times.

It is our misfortune that we are forced to pick the least evil of all available parties. Every party is corrupt to a certain degree, and every party has its share of fanatics, criminals and cheats. Whether you vote or not, someone will win. Vote we must because that is our fundamental responsibility towards our nation for which our forefathers have laid down their lives. If we don’t vote, we have no right to complain about the sorry state of things. We might as well vote for the party that is most likely to lead us better and/or harm the least!

At this point, I believe BJP is that party. You may not agree with me. You don’t have to. But I hope you will at least agree that you must vote.

The voting starts today.

"Your camera can wait, can I sleep a little bit longer please?"

Exactly a year ago to the day, I took a picture of a tree I found kind of interesting. And all through the past year, almost every single day, I saw this tree, from the exact same spot, and witnessed what the weather subjected it and its surroundings to, and saw how it responded every day. It is almost like witnessing the daily life of a tree and its interaction with the sun, the rain, the snow.... It is amazing!

This is the picture I took on April 15, 2008 which I also posted on this blog around that time:



And this is how the tree stands today:



Same day, same time, same spot, same camera, same lens, same settings. What a difference!

But the tree whispers to me that it is alive as ever, that it is going to look beautiful again. For, the real beauty lies within. And sometimes it takes longer to express itself. I will post a picture when the tree wears the Spring again.

I guess I can cook!

After years of hesitation, for which there was absolutely no reason other than my belief that it was too traditional a dish for me to attempt making, I tried it last night. I don't know if I was just lucky, or because I have been cooking for way too long to screw up any dish, it was a grand success! I made the most beloved of all Karnataka dishes, one of my most favorite, the "Bisibele Bhaat" using a combination of 3 different recipes my mom and sister offered on phone. The result:

Huh?