Kids n Kalahari - A Wonderful Thanksgiving

This thanksgiving holidays, I flew to Chicago to meet nearly all my relatives residing in the US. Four families with seven kids in total were to spend thanksgiving at Kalahari water resort at Wisconsin Dells. It had been a while since I had been near both theme parks as well as little cute kids. So it was easy to predict correctly that it would be one of my best thanksgiving vacations till date.

****** Confusion at Kalahari ;-) ********

Kalahari is one of the world's largest indoor water parks and makes for an excellent family destination during winter. Complete with an indoor surfing setup, it has several awesome "rides" which are pretty much water slides that splash into a pool. The best of them was this one called the Tasmanian Twister... Meant for only "experienced swimmers", this fast water slide ends with a free fall into a 9-foot-deep pool out of which one has to swim out deftly before the next rider can enter the tunnel from top.

Since sometimes inexperienced swimmers end up trying this ride and nearly drowning, there was a lifeguard stationed at the free fall deep pool. Now I am relatively good at swimming underwater and had tried this ride twice. So for kicks, the third time, I thought I'd free fall head-first and upside down instead of leg-first and upright into the pool at the end. Unfortunately, as I dived below head first into 8 feet deep water, the lifeguard stationed on top thought that I was one of those inexperienced swimmers and jumped in to rescue me! He flung his lifeguard rescue pad which hit me hard on the head. Not knowing what was going on, I assumed that the next rider had entered the tunnel too soon! So while I was trying to swim deeper and away from this guy, I did not understand why he was trying hard to catch me!! A nice game of hide and seek went on underwater for some time before the exhausted lifeguard finally caught and pulled a confused/angry me out of the water :-)

******* Learning with Kids *******

I totally love kids. Surrounded by not one or two but nearly seven really cute adorable children, I could not have asked for more. At the waterpark, I would happily volunteer to watch over the kids while their parents would go for rides. Of course they would cast their suspicious eye on me first wondering if I was some kind of a nut case. Kids say the darnest things. My 2 year old cute cousin went to sleep in the van on our way back and woke up in the van after nightfall. She looked up at the night sky and informed her mom, "Amma! Look someone turned on the Moon!"

Of course I learned a few lessons after being with them for five days...

Lesson 5: Don't try to play proper piano in front of 2 year olds, they will often jump in and add their own sound track.

Lesson 4: If you want to role play star wars light saber with 4 and 7 year olds, it's a good idea to be one of the good characters. Playing Darth Vader simply means they are all going to gang up and hit you.

Lesson 3: If a one year old lady likes to grab your nose, picking it up and trying to teach it other parts of the face might just be futile. She is going to keep pinching your nose no matter which part of the face you mention.

Lesson 2: "TIME-OUT" is a disciplinary mechanism for kids 7 year old and lower only. If you are over 20, you do not have to sit on the floor with them and count till 30.

Lesson 1: If a little one says either "Poo Poo" or "Pee Pee" don't bother trying to clarify which. Better to just take it there asap. Otherwise chances are the kid would have already completed the job in-place.

Of Gujjus, Dandia and Sanedo

I, like many many Mumbai brought-ups, have known gujjus for as long as I can remember. A lot of important people in my life have been or are gujjus - my project partners from my undergraduate era, my cool dude roomies from cmu days and some of my best friends here in the bay area. Now, although I am very familiar with several Gujarati traditions, customs and can even understand parts of their tongue, back in India, I had never really been able to pass off as one of them. I can recollect how some new folks I would meet during my college days would automatically shift to speaking Hindi or English, from Gujarati, when they would talk to me in the group. Something about my tam-bram-ness I guess was involuntarily forthcoming. I thought this could never change... until I went to attend bay area's biggest dandia event - SEF Dandia 2009 at the Santa Clara Convention center.... Well, almost!

Dressed in a red kurta-pyjama and armed with two bamboo sticks, I stepped, prepared, into the super huge Convention center hall. Throbbing and pulsating with live music, there was an ocean of multi-colored Ghaghra Cholees, kurtas, salwars and sherwanis. Following a durga puja, was a series of garba and dandia numbers. Garba being the harder of the two, joining a garba dancing group takes a little getting used to. It is a rhythmic sequence of steps and rapid turns that I had taken some time to get familiar with last year. So this year was much simpler. I was in-sync with doing garba with a bunch of true blood gujjus. Here's the fun part ... whether it was my ability to move with them easily, or perhaps because I appeared prepared with dandia sticks, I could not tell, but the gujju dude next to me assumed that I spoke Gujarati and started giving me instructions in Gujarati. I followed what I could understand, and by his response I think I might have guessed the meanings right! Finally, after long years, I felt happy -- I had managed to pass off as a gujju!! :-P The feeling was exhilarating!

Alas, everything was good, until Sanedo started! It's an interesting "game", where the song is divided into 4 poetic lines, now for the first three, following gujju instructions from the singers, the whole ocean of dancers all across the floor sit down low on the floor and beat their sticks to the ground making one hell of a racket. Then on the last instruction, they jump high up into the air throwing their arms about, yelling, "SANEDO SANEDO" and dancing furiously, until the singer instructs everyone to sit down again!! We could barely understand what the singers were saying, so just followed the crowd and jumped up after they jumped up. This repeated a number of times.

Still pretending to be a gujju, I asked the dude next to me if he understood the commands, in the best Gujarati I knew. He responded saying its too noisy to hear. But there was too much excitement in my head created by my feigned gujjuness. For some who-knows-what reason, I ended up thinking that I could decipher the singer's instructions on my own in the next round of jumping and dancing. I wanted to be the leader and not a follower! Alas, I so wish I were lucky. Instead of jumping at the 4th instruction, I started off at the third! While the whole hall of dancers were low on the floor, only I was high up in the air, yelling "SANEDO SANEDO" like a crazy maniac. Time slowed down as I felt a thousand eyes turn toward me, several with sympathetic glances, others with sinister HA-HA smiles. All cover was blown. A cocktail of embarrassing emotional currents coursed through my spine. I held time with frozen breath until the singer's last instruction brought up everyone else into the air with the same din I had started off with earlier. Phew!

The cool thing about dandia is mistakes are easily forgotten and forgiven. Back to being myself, I was glad, my fellow dancers feigned, if not truly felt, short term memory loss and continued to dance with me! Sanedo after-all means sneh or love.

Happy Navarathri

Labor Day Weekend at Catalina Islands

What started out as a pointless hey-what-are-you-doing-for-long-weekend type phone call on the Friday night, became a let's-leave-right-away plan in less than an hour. Shoving down chapatis, dosas, we hurriedly packed and left house Friday night itself to the car rentals at San Jose airport. Our insta-mix plan was to spend 2 days and a night at the beautiful Catalina Islands!

Pulikachal (Tamarind rice) in a convertible at LA

Fortune favors the brave. Four mavericks reached the car rentals at 2.30am Friday night only to discover that Hertz had run out of regular economy cars to rent and ended up giving us a free upgrade - a Ford Mustang Convertible! YEAH!

We drove to LA all through the night, taking turns. By morning, it was show off time -- with the top down and AR Rahman tamil songs in full volume, we scoured the streets of Beverly hills, as if we were kewl dudes who have been doing this since ages. Perhaps the only contrast came when it was breakfast time. My friend's wife who was with us, had made delicious pulikachal rice or spicy tamarind sauce rice. Now the very scene of us, four desis, eating pulikachal in paper plates from a ford mustang convertible, with its top down in downtown LA, amidst curious onlookers, is something I am not going to forget very easily.

The Enchanting Catalina

It is truly a pity of the human condition that although we have two eyes, we can only see one "item" at a time. At Catalina, this condition sorely gets exacerbated. Even a simple walk to our cottage became a problem of economic choice. Let's put it this way - when looking at a scene with a rose, the moon and some pigeons, the wise thing to do is to look first at the pigeons, since they might fly away, then at the moon, since clouds could block it and later at the rose, since it probably isn't going anywhere. If one looks the beautiful rose first, one could miss out on the pigeons!

However, our hearts went out to all those poor island inhabitants -- while we all had good clothes to wear, several members were dressed in nothing more than the very bare essentials. If Kofi Annan had walked there, I suspect, he might have had UN air-drop clothing relief packets to these poor island dwellers.

Snorkelling and Scuba diving

Snorkeling is probably one of the most fun things to do on the island. The water was just warm enough and the fish, colourful and plenty. Many thanks to our hotel manager who gave us this idea of carrying bread with us. One handful of bread crumbs into the water and the whole marine ecosystem came alive in an eye-candy feeding frenzy!
It takes a little getting used to breathing through the mouth via a pipe, but once comfortable it is just pure fun!

After spending the morning snorkeling, we headed out to the main highlight of the visit - SCUBA DIVING! Two divers are accompanied by a scuba diving instructor. We being four in number, made perfect pairs for the dives. My instructor Frank, was a very experienced professional. He helped us with our air tanks, the breathing regulator, the wet suits etc. He also gave us instructions on equalizing pressure in our ears as we descend and the most important under water hand signals.

"I am OK, why do you ask?"

The signal shown to the left means "I am OK" and Frank told us to show this when everything was good and we could descend further. Now, since we were first timers, Frank started out by holding each of our hands and guiding us lower and lower. Me and my roomie started out ok, but soon my roomie started experiencing some discomfort in his ears and decided to go back up before coming back down. I, on the other hand, had already reached down. Frank was with me for some time, but suddenly shot back up, asking me to wait. So I spent my time trying to touch some beautiful bright orange fish. After a while, I saw the familiar green oxygen tank and so quickly swam up and grasped his hand. To my surprise, he turned and made a hand motion as if to ask "What". Wondering what Frank meant, I responded with a "I am OK" signal... A few confused moments passed between us. It was only after I saw his underwater video camera did I realize that this guy wasn't Frank!! The poor cameraman's look was as puzzled a look as a scuba diver can possibly make :-)

After nearly an hour of under water fun, it was time to head back. A beautiful 1 hour boat cruise brought us back to the mainlands. What started out as an unplanned outing, became one of my most memorable trips till date!

Modak Conquest - A humble tribute

As a Mumbaikar for most part of my life, I have seen several pompous celebrations of Ganesh Chaturthi. Many people choose to keep idols in their homes/colonies and drown them later in the sea, some travel far to visit temples without footwear and a few others break coconuts loudly near other people's feet :-) As a silicon valley engineer far from home, I thought that any tribute to the elephant god, should be both refined as well as humble ...

In Hindu mythology, lord Ganesha is called by several names. Two such names are Modakapriya (lover of sweet rice dumplings) and Sarvasiddhanta (Bestower of Skills). Putting these two together, I felt I had found the best way to offer my tribute - to hopefully learn the coveted skill of preparing kozhakattais or modaks and feed my roomies, after presenting one before the god's idol of course (the former are generally hungry and hunger knows no taste, the latter is known for tolerant silence). But, this is not an easy matter for a guy at all! The art and skill of preparing these rice dumplings is known to reside only deep within the bastions of the culinary secrets of select Indian women. Few men are even known to dare attempt this undertaking, let alone achieve success at them.

My first attempt lasted about an hour and a half (inclusive of cleaning vessels and preparations). The results lay here in pictorial form...

I will spare the gory details of the effort but jot down a few quick random lessons to self...

Lesson 1 - Do not be ashamed to ask: Sometimes this first step that seems so easy might be really hard. As long as you have your reasons, there ought to be nothing to be ashamed of in asking women for help. Many many thanks to my ever helpful Maharashtrian friend at Rayleigh for giving me guidance and sound advice regarding this matter.

Lesson 2 - Even old dogs can learn new tricks: The human brain is known to be an adaptive organ. It may have its imperfections that may seem to manifest more stubbornly with age, but with sustained interest, it can be taught just about anything. No worries if the few modaks don't come out well, chances are the next one will look better than the current unrecognizable blob.

Lesson 3 - Watch out for surface ruptures: Modaks contain a sweet stuffing in the core, which may boil in the cooker. If the covering isn't prepared adequately, the latent steam may choose to find the weakest point in the surface and tear apart the covering. The resultant mass may still possess taste, but may make the hands oily before touching the camera ;-)

Lesson 4 - Take pictures even at intermediate stages: This allows for shameless boasting even if the end product were to be a disaster.

Results...
My first attempt had 8 modaks (since 8 bits make up a byte)
1 resides before god as I type this... 7 have been consumed with content smiles!

Ganpathi Bappa Morya

The Swapped Towel

Few days back, at the gym in my work-place,
I went to take a shower after a workout phase
I had hung my towel outside, on a hook,
but later when I came out to look,
I realized a guy from the next shower room,
had gone with my towel leaving his to loom!!

Only two grim choices I could see on inspection -
Either drape his towel around my mid-section,
risking the possibility of some weird infection
Or nude-walk to the towel rack, risking detection!

I made up my mind and chose the latter,
but this was hardly an easy matter,
as the towel rack was nearly a hundred feet away!
So like a secret spy on a trail of a prey,
I tip-toed to the nearest corner after much delay,
waited to ensure the coast was clear my way,
took a deep breath hoping my fears would allay,
And made a Big Bold Dash with Everything on display!

Time seemed to slow down and the towel rack afar
my birthday dress was dripping wet, it was bizarre!

But finally after what seemed like eternity,
I had made it, no sneak peaks to the fraternity
The soft towel covered critical real estate
phew, I was relieved ... never felt so great!

But just as I thought none had seen me zoom,
a gentle voice went, "It's ok man, you're in the Men's room"
!

Lessons from Surfing

Everybody has a at least a little craving for "new experiences". I am not really an always-hungry-for-adrenaline type at all, but when my cool ex-roomie asked me if I'd like to join him surfing today, I just couldn't say no. After my first nearly three hours in a wetsuit with the surfboard and waves, I suspected I have reflected enough upon life itself that I'd be writing this blog. My top 10 lessons in decreasing order of relevance are...

Lesson #10: To begin surfing (in bay area at least), you need both a wet suit as well as a surfboard else the water may be too cold. In life too, if the surfboard is like food, clothing and shelter(basics for survival), the wet-suit may be like a stable job and decent income - without which life may be too harsh for fun. Family and close friends are like that rope from the surf board that is tied to your right leg (reason may get clearer later).

Lesson #9: Surfing isn't just about riding the wave, although that is the part people see and notice easily. There is lot more to it... for starters you need to paddle against the current and waves for at least sometime to be able to catch a good wave to ride on. If riding the wave is like success in life, the paddling against the current and smaller waves would be like the effort needed to get to it. The paddling or the overcoming of smaller waves, are harder to notice but extremely important and often the reason for the result.

Lesson #8: Identifying and catching a good wave is an important part.. It need not be the perfect wave, for there may be no such thing, but a good wave that you can at ride on till you get as close to the shore as possible. In life, this is like waiting for a partner or a business opportunity or a good time to do something big. There may never be a perfect choice, just good and bad ones. It does not matter if you have picked the perfect one, it's just nice if you can pick a good one.

Lesson #7: Bigger waves start deeper. To get to them you need to paddle harder against smaller waves. Sometimes while doing this, you might fall off your surfboard. That's ok. Just need to get back on it when the big wave seems to be coming. In life, it's ok if you have setbacks while in your efforts, what matters is you still catch a wave.

Lesson #6: Once you have caught a wave, the job isn't done, it actually gets interesting. Surfing the wave without toppling over is just as important. You need to balance! Some manage to stand up straight and do noticeable things, others just manage to get half up without falling. In life this is like marriage or commitment to a post or business. In your pursuit to do stunts make sure you are still on the surfboard. If you don't balance well, you might fall badly. That's probably why your leg should be tethered to the surfboard just in case (decipher yourself).

[Ok were those too deep? Better not attach double meaning to these notes to self..]

Lesson #5: Don't surf on an empty stomach.

Lesson #4: While carrying the surfboard to the water, either look at the ground for sharp stones or wear surfing footwear. Better to not get distracted at this stage.

Lesson #3: After battling the waves, if you are terribly exhausted, please look before falling like a dead log on wet sand... you could be squishing a dead jellyfish or yucky sea weed!

Lesson #2: If you are not wearing spectacles do not try to squint at not-too-far-away but possibly good-to-view beach members, no matter how interesting their er... "attire" might be.

Lesson #1: While lying on the sand out of of exhaustion, do not talk to who you think is listening, esp if you eyes are closed. Dogs do not respond well to foreign languages.

A "Rocking" Long Weekend

Even if it did not involve the near death experience and flying roomie, this 4th July long weekend would have been a thing to blog about. When three busy-at-work-but-otherwise-super-lazy bums can almost fully plan a long weekend road trip, you really got to hand it to Americans and their infrastructure. Click here, click there and Lo!, its time to go! I can't help but reminiscence those days, my dad used to hire travel agents to stand in long lines to buy RAC railway tickets so our family could go places. Our plan to visit crater lake and mt shasta on the way was made with less than an hour's effort.

[Day 1 - Shasta Caverns at Mt Shasta]

"The Desi Reassurance factor" - If you are visiting a famous place around say California and not sure if your GPS has brought you to the correct place, just look around - if you can spot a few desis, well, rest assured, you have probably come to the right spot ;-) No kidding! The first day, we weren't completely sure if we came to the correct place where the mt shasta caverns tour was supposed to begin, but we were quickly reassured by the sight of a number of desi faces.
Now, people say an average guy's dream is to have, an European house, a Japanese car, an American salary and an Indian wife. I don't know about the first three, but it appears several silicon valley gentlemen choose to go great lengths for the last. I dare not attempt to guess why, but along with us on the tour were several couples, clearly discernible as newly weds. Our tour began with a boat cruise to the actual caves, where a tour guide explained the science and history behind those beautiful stalactites and stalagmites formations. Now every time the guide would pop a question to the tourists, something like "Can anyone tell me what translucence means?", there was this one young gorgeous newly wed desi female who would put up her hand like an eager school girl and reply with an accent so thick one can almost pin point the lattitude and longitude of her geographical origins, "thee yeability to paess laite tHroo"

[Day 2 - Crater Lake]

Crater lake offered us several scenic views of the pristine lake along its 33 mile rim drive. I think there is only one place where you can hike down to the water, and again we located that place by spotting numerous persons from, yup, the Indian subcontinent :-)

[Day 3 - Lava beds National Monument and power boating on Lake Shasta]

Our concluding day was clearly the most eventful. After a quick visit to the lava beds national monument where we explored underground volcanic caves on our own with torch lights, we headed back to lake shasta for some action. After all, we are all young unmarried youthful men right? Enough of these caves and tours man, gemme some real action, some real adventure, yeah! Ah, well, that was pretty much our attitude when the four of us rented a high performance speed boat to ourselves. None of us had operated speed boats before and I was the only one who knew swimming. But the way we ravished with it, taking sharp 360 degree turns at 50 miles an hour, we would have easily passed off as regular daredevils straight from a mountain dew ad. There is something about that adrenaline rush you get as the wind rips through your hair at 50 miles an hour over an open blue lake surface. Our speed boat explored nearly every part of lake shasta. Being the only swimmer, I even sort of attempted jet skiing. All was fun, until it happened...

At first it felt just as if we were attempting another one of those fierce 360 sharp turns, but on my first glimpse of my roomie literally flying through the air and tumbling across the boat surface, I could tell all was not right! The boat had hit that dreaded thing that has sunk many vessels - a rocky landmass in the middle of the lake. The fierceness of the crash, had knocked the speedometer out, screwed up the propellors and damaged the steering rims, but fortunately the boat had not toppled over like the last scene in Face Off movie. As if hitting a rock wasnt scary enough, few bikini babes from nearby boats began to yell out, "You are going to sink, if there is water in your boat". By the grace of some divine overseer, the boat did not choose to sink, and allowed us to make it back to the docks in, one badly shaped albeit single piece.

We were charged heavily for the damages caused, but no one cared. We were just thankful to be breathing..... to be alive!

Horn OK Please

On the many Indian roads I had just been,
few new lessons I learnt from what was seen
Motorists seem to have a road goddess to appease,
and too often use the mantra, "Horn OK Please"

Driving style's bit different from the likes elsewhere,
for moving objects may intercept you from anywhere
Not just cycles, rickshaws, lorries or bikes
but dogs, pedestrians, even buffaloes yikes
Angry cow on your path? Well don't freeze,
just remember to "Horn OK Please"

Waiting for intersections to clear may take forever
we just pray and move forth with a brave endeavor
Motorists love you, so may come very very close,
Don't worry, smile at them and say cheese,
but don't forget to "Horn OK Please"

A lone light may not be a bike on the highway,
but a truck with just one headlight & a sway
It's risky to investigate so put your fears at ease,
better be safe, chant with "Horn OK Please"

Red lights in some places mean nothing, folks,
lane lines are mostly decorations, practical jokes
Looking over the shoulder? don't bother mate,
there are always vehicles there, sometimes 7 or 8
you'd rather want to scan ahead in an alert state

Driving Indian roads may take some expertise,
but it seems to begin with the mantra, "Horn OK Please"

***

Based on what I recently saw, I feel Indian driving expertise come in 4 levels.
1. Newbie: Waiting and yielding, shy of using the horn, driving within lanes, fearing the cop etc
2. Beginner: Just starting to get brave, moderate to regular honking, foot ready on brake etc
3. Intermediate: More brave, not yielding, heavy honking (even in heavy long traffic) and most importantly gentle swearing at other motorists
4. Advanced: This stage requires certain prerequisites in addition to that of the Intermediate level, such as knowledge of swear words in native tongue of that locality and physical strength (since many road accidents seem to get resolved by hand to face combat)

The Charm of the Mirror

Someone once told me that if you begin your day by first looking at yourself in the mirror then your day will go well. For some reason, I decided to give it a try. This other morning, after my alarm rang, I groped my way to the bathroom and opened my eyes in front of the mirror. Instantly there was dazzling light everywhere, as my eyes got adjusted to sunlight, but after it did, I couldn't help wonder for an instant, "will this really be a lucky day?"

I carpool to work everyday, and so after dressing up, I put on the helmet and rode my bike over to my carpool partner's place. Along my way all signals seemed to turn green as I neared them and traffic too seemed totally minimal. The weather was pleasant and a few passersby actually smiled at me... Nah.. all this is just coincidence, I thought, the mirror's lucky charm can't really work this real, can it? I put the bike at my carpool partner's place and then we drove in her car to work.

All throughout the day, was it my imagination or was it real, I could not tell, but for some reason, I found people noticing me much more than usual. It felt like they were holding on to their gaze a bit longer and smiling a little more! Right from the security personnel, to some workplace acquaintances, to some of my own team-members, everyone seemed happier to see me! In fact at lunch time, as I walked my way to the cafeteria, I found people, even ones I didn't know, smiling at me. More so, as a flock of ladies passed by me, one of them kept staring at me until she actually broke into an unmistakable smile, which I managed to shyly return. Wow, I told myself. My last straw came when this cute lady on my floor actually smiled at me as we met at the kitchen (she typically never smiles at anyone!). Bless you Mirror Magic Charm, I thought. But wait, I had to be sure...

So I walked over to my friend's desk and told him about how people (esp of opposite gender) were noticing me more than usual. He too gazed at me for a moment, but then turning to his computer, he said in a rather matter-of-fact tone, "Yeah, that's probably because you are looking very horny today". Without thinking I snapped back, "Are you sure no one slipped vodka in your coffee this morning?". Not turning back, he lazily replied, "Go look at the mirror if you don't believe me."

One look at the mirror and I almost burst out laughing myself... Jutting out of my scalp, result of wearing my bike helmet incorrectly, were these two naughty standing bundles of hair, making me look like I had horns on my head!!

The Unforgetable Look

Just last Saturday that went by,
we went on a drive, roomies and I
Deep down south on page mill road,
a forest so scenic, like god's abode
Dense dark clouds above the head,
we just drove, where the roads lead
A gentle drizzle blessed our way
A fresh breeze made it a spray

I lowered the window,
put out my face
as the car picked up some pace
Opened my mouth, lowered my tongue,
to taste these drops so very young
The wind and water felt so great
I was in one, really happy state!

Then our car stopped at a red light,
beside us was another car, in close sight
Staring at me was a poodle so white
Our eyes met - the moment felt like eternity,
it gave me this look - all smart and witty
I pulled in my tongue, but it was too late,
it had already made its statement, mate,

"Behave yourself, will ya?"

A Tamil Day - Part II (Comedy Drama)

Continuing on the tribute to our tamil roots, I and my friends headed toward the Sunnyvale temple from UCB visit where the Bharati Tamil Sangam was having its Tamil New Year Celebrations. We were there to check out a tamil comedy drama by CMU students working in the bay area, most of whom graduated in the same batch as me. We reached well over an hour early for the play but were glad that we did! Entertaining us were a number of really talented performances by young and old alike. I particularly enjoyed the Pattimandram or a debate. These debates are one of those things that make you happy that you understand the language :P The topics they select are typically controversial (this one was, "Who are more responsible for marital bliss - men or women?") and so brings out some cool debating action and some really funny retorts.

Our final takeaway for the day was of course the tamil drama. Titled, "worstu begaviouru" it was about this indian dude and his 'hot nondesi gal' who he is dating. Things start to get interesting as his very cultural parents come over to US from India for his birthday surprise. Now, perhaps it was just something leftover from the morinig ucb visit where I er.. discovered some facts about my ancestral history or it was because these were all CMU alum, I once again found this sense of pride welling within me as I watched their hilarious performance. Fortunate to have been carrying my cam with me, I managed to shoot the whole drama and put it up on youtube. If you understand tamil and have some time, I would certainly recommend checking it out. It may start off with some random mokkaification, but gets you giggling soon enough.

Kudos to you ppl! Keep it up.

A Tamil Day - Part I (UCB visit)

With the dual intent of visiting the famous campus and also attending the annual ucb tamil conference held there, I left with my friends early in the morning. UCB campus is really worth visiting if you live in the bay area. Apart from the panoramic Sather tower views or the beautifully architected buildings and museums, every street corner or park may help you understand why US is such a big consumer of sunscreen lotions ;)

After shamelessly helping ourselves to free lunch, we made our way to the room where the annual berkeley tamil conference was held. If the feeling of being back at campus, attending lectures was anything great, it was only to be surpassed by an even more pleasant surprise - many panelists in that room were of non-Indian origin and were telling us about some of the most intricate details of the tamil era of kings from 14th -17th century. I felt a strange sense of pride welling up within me as the professor recreated the history of pandiya kings and their valor in battles. For all I knew perhaps these were my very ancestors, my own blood! As the prof spoke, I felt myself instantly being transported to those ancient lands of glory...

As the mighty prince Jatavarman Sundara, I feel the hot afternoon breeze in my hair as I stand watching over my splendid kingdom with ministers and princess. My fair lady huddles close to me worried, "O noble prince, look, the evil Kongu king and his armies are marching here. Will you go to battle?" Taking a deep breath, I return a reassuring smile to her, "That will not be necessary, O fair princess. I am the powerful warrior of the lunar race and I shall unleash the mighty strength of the sun god on these insolent fools"... My wise ministers eye me skeptically, but they dare not question my power! I step forward and eyeball the situation - it is true, the Kongu king army is mighty and is marching fast at the horizon, but he will be defenseless against the power of the sun god. Reaching inside my robes, I take out my canister of deodorant and spray liberally into the air, chanting some deep incantations. As the pressurized canister empties itself, its vicious CFC compounds rise high up into the atmosphere. The ozone layer is temporarily wiped away because of this and the sun's harsh UV rays scorch the marching Kongu king's armies... his mighty men burn to the ground as ashes. After I complete the incantation, I turn back to my people. They are rejoicing, "Hail King Jatavarman!". I hear the Azeem-O-shaan shahenshah song being sung. In the midst I see my fair princess walking toward me. Her face as splendid as the moon. As I smilingly reach out for her, suddenly without warning, she kicks me hard in my shins!! "Why did you do that? my lady", I am shocked. But she does it again, even more hard this time. "Princess! STOP IT" *...

Suddenly, the whole scene transforms and I find myself back in the ucb conference hall. I think my last words had broken the silence in the room and a few educated heads had turned to look in my direction. The prof made a momentary pause before resuming with an unmistakable smile. It wasn't my princess kicking me, it was rather my roomie kicking me awake, "Get up you sleepy lazy bum! We need to leave now, or we'll miss the CMU tamil drama at the Sunnyvale temple".

to be continued...

* - Jatavarman tales date nearly a thousand years ago. Ozone layer depletion is happening right now. Yet to some of us the latter interests us no more than the former.

The Incredible Restroom ;-)

(Some facts mentioned here can be verified by visiting the IHOP restaurant at Santa Clara)

If you like pancakes, chances are you probably love the ihop restaurants. Apart from their array of different pancakes and waffles, every table has this "sugar boat" with different sweet syrup dispensers - strawberry, blueberry, butter pecan and so on, which are fun to experiment with, if not just delicious. Sometime back I had gone for dinner to one such restaurant at Santa Clara. My friend had chosen this place after looking it up on an i-phone (it seems to be a hip thing to do these days for some reason :P ). At first sight I somewhat felt like this place was a little oddly located, but didn’t know what was exactly odd until much later...

Towards the end of our dinner, I decided it was time to answer Nature's call. The thing about nature calls is that there is a limited number of times you can hit the "busy" button before running the risk of either prostrate distress or taking the call in public! Therefore, I excused myself from the table and hurriedly made my way toward the door where the signboard clearly read "RESTROOMS". The moment I entered this door, though, I knew instantly that I had made a mistake - before me was a small carpeted room with four comfortable looking chairs, a little table and a young lady in uniform who seemed to be waiting on something. Before this lady could notice, I hurried back through the door and asked the nearest IHOP waiter where the restroom was. To my surprise he pointed back at the same door! I was confused, but my nature's call was getting louder. So I suspiciously re-entered the neat room. This time the uniformed lady was expecting me, "How may I help you?", she asked in a thick accent. "Er.. I'm just looking for the restrooms?” I stammered. As if expecting this question and barely letting me complete, she quipped, "Please take a seat sir, someone will be here to assist you"!! I was aghast, "Excuse me?! I think I'd rather do this on my own!", I replied back, but the lady wasn't even listening, instead she quickly disappeared behind another door. Honestly, I didn’t know what was going on... I truly appreciate Americans and their professionalism but this had got to be the heights...

Seconds later; another officious looking lad, entered the same door the lady had disappeared through. "What may I help you with today?” he asked in a rather pompous manner. I was a bit restless, but I repeated my question patiently. "Oh", he smiled, "please follow me, sir, I can help you with that"! ... It felt a chill run down my spine. Did I really look like I needed assistance with this thing? Before I could object, the lad was already leading me via another door and a small corridor. Not too far away was a more familiar pair of doors with the men's and women's room symbols. I felt a wave of relief, but before I entered, I curtly, said a "Thank you" and saw to it that this lad walked away before I entered my much sought after restroom!

Relieving minutes later, as I exited the restaurant, my friend pointed out that this ihop joint din't really have restrooms of its own and so they just made people go to the Holiday Inn lobby in the building right next to their place when needed.

Phew.. what an experience!

Holi at Stanford

An invitation to go to an event at Stanford, whose proceeds will be used to fund education in India was quite irresistible. Now here's my little secret - I am not really a big celebrator of Holi. Back in Mumbai, my definition of Holi was pretty much to not get wet during those 2 days while making trips to the grocery shop or to the nearby temple. Over the years, I had become somewhat adept at spotting those small wet explosion marks on the ground and immediately scouring the high rise buildings for some clown with a ready balloon missile. Oh these missiles quite often met their targets - unsuspecting meek creatures like the postman or a slow old man on his walk or little kids or me. Even in the odd years that I participated, it was always about filling water balloons and practicing casting projectiles at friends and dodging theirs. We never really played around much with colours other than to mark each others' faces with 'war paint'. In fact some of these paints were those Y-U-C-K-Y oil paints and the powders were rough arsenic mixtures that sometimes wouldn't come off for days. Coming over to the other end of the planet, my experience was somewhat different...

Lazy as usual, I reached Sandhills fields a bit late and my friends were already in the fray and their cellphones were totally unresponsive. So as I stepped out of my car I felt a little odd noticing that everyone else had company. Some with hands around one another - the usuals ("hey I'm in the US of A - I can do whatever I want" types). But along my shy walk over to the registration desk, I noticed another guy looking somewhat just like me, wearing a white cisco t-shirt, also alone. At first I felt a bit sympathetic to him, but was I to be proven otherwise or what!

For now let's call him Mr.Confident (I never found out his real name anyways). Both of us entered the grounds at about the same time. What lay before us was a sight worth remembering - an enormous playground filled with a thousand colourful faces. Handful of colour powders were distributed at a desk. Not fully sure what I would be doing with them, I just followed Mr.Confident over to that desk. Along the way as hard as I tried, I couldn't help but get distracted by some uber-gorgeous angels gleefully bobbing along with colours and shouting "Happy Holi". I think I may have even tried mumbling something incomprehensible back with little effect. Now following Mr.Confident, I too filled up my fists with colour powder. His next step was of course much harder to follow.. Bobbing over toward us was a really beautiful looking young lady. I couldn't help notice that her immaculate cheeks were relatively void of colour, perhaps no decent person had the heart to taint them. Mr. Confident stopped her dead in her tracks, and as I watched in dumbstruck silence, without warning, grunting "Happy Holi", he brought both his colour powder laden manly palms down her gentle soft cheeks, instantly transforming a thing of heavenly beauty into something virtually unrecognizable. "Oh you are so dead, dude! ", I thought to myself. But to my utter shock, her sweetness lifted her palms and coloured Mr.Confident's grizzly face back with a chirping "Happy Holi!", before bobbing away. If anyone had noticed, my jaw would have probably been a few inches lower. "Wow", I thought, not only did he survive, he even got rewarded for it. Then I watched as he repeatedly achieved the same success with others. "It's all about confidence", I had decided to myself, but the shyness in my DNA wouldn't let me attempt it initially.

Then the most amazing thing happened, without warning, another nice looking lady (a few inches taller than me), caught me off guard and doused my hair, face and specs mercilessly with green colour powder. For someone who was used to handling rough coarse powders for Holi, this felt like talcum! From where I got my confidence, I have no idea, but I actually found myself returning the favor to her, albeit with trembling hands, before she walked away. Knowing that I was coloured and probably unrecognizable, with all niceties locked away in some corner of my heart, I then launched on my own simpler parade, catching not the unsuspecting ones but the rather expecting ones, class B, C not class A ;) and smearing them with yellow, pink and green. This went on for quite sometime, and was super great fun.. I was wearing a mask, unrecognizable, free! Of course, soon later, to much dismay I heard my name being called out.. It was one of my undergrad friends. Sheepishly I asked them, "am I really recognizable?".. Well once you are with friends its a different story all together. But I shall always remember the inspiring Mr.Confident as the man who taught me Holi!

"Happy Holi"

A Humble Tribute to Back Benchers

They're the daring destroyers of boredom,
drawing sweet smiles in their kingdom..
Should any lecture ever go sore,
they'll bring laughter with a roar..

History or chemistry, it doesn't matter,
class too quiet? silence will shatter..
A few wise cracks, sounds once or twice,
mischief is hatched with splendor n spice,
often the end effects are just so very nice..

Sometimes teachers might give up,
sometimes principals get fed up..
They're but a wise teacher's pet,
for they are not too dumb, you bet..

Like a good press in democracy,
cracking up stupidity, lies n hypocrisy..
They're unsung heroes of the rear,
might even top the class, beware!


Being a back bencher is good fun,
I was proud to have been one..
What's one to do - those days gone past,
Little more time, I wish they would last..
But past is gone and the future yet to come,
so many memories, thought I'd share some..

Blogging seems to be fun, sounds so cool,
its' like your online diary, your own tool..
Just put up these bits for all to see,
servers will replicate n preserve, for free..

But donno if i'll have time - all day I slog,
nevertheless here goes, my very first blog!