Taare Zameen Par

Rula daala is movie ne....thats all I can say about it. There is no way that I can put this movie into words, so I will save the effort. All I can say is watch this movie, its a masterpiece. I would be damned if this movie is not the one sent for Oscar's.

Salman does what he is good at, whatever that may be. Sharukh does whatever he gets paid for, which unfortunately happen to be movies. By the way is very fortunate for him, it is us who are the unfortunate ones. But Aamir does what he loves. This dude is by far the best actor the industry has got rigth now. DCH, RDB, and now TZP this guy not only gets a new hairstyle in each of these movies, but he rediscovers and redefines himself as an actor. Although it would be biased to credit him for all of it, but I guess its fare enough to say that he does play an important role in each one of them. For heavens sake he directed TZP.

Maybe this is just me but I guess Karan Johar should learn from movies like TZP. This dude (questionable if he is a dude) makes a movie like K3G to potray his relationship with his father. But does a really pathetic job at it. Whereas TZP although a movie about a dyslexic kid, does potray that relationship (or its absence) in a much better form. Karan I hope you read this post.

Enjoy the movie!

Dude! Where's my towel?

I guess I am once a month blogger, or atleast so has been the case for the last 2 months. But anyways, do you remember those dreams where you walk into your school campus and notice that everyone is giving you a wierd look or laughing at you. Then suddenly someone points a finger at your legs, thats when you look down and to your shock you realize the you are not wearing any pants. If this doesn't sound familiar, maybe its just me who gets this kind of dreams. This is not the only one, in the other you reach late for your exams, so late that when you walk in everyone is already walking out.

Ok now this "No Pants On" is something you dont want to ever face in real life. But by now you have guessed it, yes I got lucky. I always wished that some of my dreams come true, but I never would have thought that it would be this dream.

It was a normal day, like any other. I had worked my ass off in office, so to kick back and relax I got my stuff together and drove down to my gym. After an hours workout, I dropped my clothes, wrapped a towel and headed to the steam room. Now in LA Fitness (my gym) everyone gets in the steam room stark naked, now I know this is a culture in most countries. But cmon, give me a break I hail from India. So I keep my boxers on. By the way just to let you know, there are two different steam rooms for men and women.

So I sit and relax in the steam room, while my body takes the heat and sweats. If you haven't ever tried the steam room you should. Its very relaxing. After about 15mins in the steam room I let myself out and to my amazement my towels missing. I was angry and surprised at the same time. Angry at the guy who accidentally/intentionally picked up my towel and surprised at the fact that this could really happen. My dream staring right back at me, maybe even smiling. I think rationally after the initial panic and walk right back into the steam room. My reasoning was that sooner or later (hoping it be the former than the latter) the person would realize that it isnt his towel and put it back on the hook. Once again after 5mins when I walk out, my towel is still missing. So I accept the reality and with all the confidence (maybe some over-confidence) walk out to my locker, to check if by some miracle I have brought another towel. Who was I kidding? I was lucky enough to bring one towel.

Now that it was confirmed that I did not have a towel, I thought to myself, do heck with it. Towels are overrated anyways. I walked back to the , cooled off under the cold water (both my body and anger) and changed back into my clothes. Now if you are wondering, I used the papertowels to dry myself.

I also walked to the pool after I was all dressed to check if someone had put my towel back there, but with no luck. After that incidence I never carry my towel to the steam room, I just walk there in my boxers, its better that way I save the papertowels and the surprise.

Pet mein thandak aahhh......

I guess the picture to the left says a lot about this post. But then again the title doesnt match...but then maybe it does. Pet mein thandak ka matlab....soda. Yep just guzzled a masala soda, indian style. Ofcourse a goti-wali soda would have been a dream come true, but that will have to wait for now.

This is how it all started, yesterday night I wanted to eat some good indian food. So along with Arjun and Vishal, I drove to "Golden Harvest" a desi restaurant. But to our bad luck (vishal jo saath mein tha, bro if you are reading this am just kidding) the restaurant was not only closed but it was shutdown (read out of business). So the next option was to go to "Sita" but with our luck, when we reached there it was closed too. In fact this place is open only until 9:00pm. Now what kind of people are done eating their dinner by 9:00? So we ended up at UNO's and while munching on a pizza imagined it to taste like naan and paneer tikka masala.

But that was yesterday. To make up for the void of indian food in my stomach, today we ate our lunch at "Harini", which was pretty ok. Lekin kitna bhi kha lo kam pad hi jaata hai (the original dialogue is "Pyaar kitna bhi karo kum pad hi jaata hai"). So this is how it all began, I got into my car to drive back home and it was raining all along. Now we all know what this kind of an atmosphere does to people. Back in India I would have stopped by a chai ka thela and would have ordered a cutting along with some bhaji. That wouldn't be the case here, not in Morrisville atleast. So I figured lets go home make tea and some bhaji. Lekin akele khane mein kya maaza. So I called up Shailesh and told him to get vish and arjun along. Its after I hung up that it struck me, "kyon na batate wade banaye jaaye?"

With that noble thought in mind I pulled into the parking lot of Giants (a local supermarket) and bought some chillies and corriander. Got home and put in some potatoes to boil, chopped chillies, garlic, ginger, corriander etc., and started cooking. An hour later we had the wada's ready (shailesh fried them - I wouldnt want to take his credit). Vishal was making us tea, but then again with his luck ;) saala doodh hi fat gaya...lol. So here we were eating homemade wada pav in USA with fate hue doodh ki chai (which was good, due to the hot chillies we never actally felt the difference). And by the time I realised that I was on a diet (just kidding), I had already stuffed myself with 31/2 wada pav.

That was at around 9:00pm today. At the same time yesterday were searching for indian food with no luck. Isnt it funny? Atleast I think it is. By 11:00 I was still stuffed so we decided to go out and get some club soda. I guess what followed you can figure out yourself.

Ready Aim Fire

Yeah this is eaxtly what the experience was like. The experience of holding a real stainless steel gun in my hands. The Smith & Wesson’s 9mm M&P Semi-Auto Pistol.

I had been wanting to go to a local gun range (with the same name as this post) and fire a couple of rounds of real bullets. After being lazy for almost the entire summer I finally got to it. Today Pratik and I we both drove down to the gun range on Ellwood road.

Being a first timer we listened carefully to all the instructions the owner gave us. He showed us how to load the bullets into the magazine, how to insert the magazine into the pistol and how to lock it secure. Next came the correct posture to stand in, how to hold the gun, aim it and shoot!

We were given two guns and two different shooting lanes, and ofcourse 50rounds of ammo. Before we entered the range we had to put on a pair of standard industry earmuffs. The entrance to the range was double doored to prevent the noise from getting out. The moment we opened the second door I could hear the sound of bullets firing, and no sir it didnt sound like crackers at all. The sound is so loud and so real that you cant mistake it for anything else.

Once we got to our lanes we put up our target charts on the pulley and placed it at about 7yards, that what the owner had told us to start with. Loading bullets into the magazine was the difficult part, it looked easy when the owner showed it to us, but I really had a tough time loading them in, especially the 9th and the 10th bullet.

Firing the first couple of rounds was really fun and it was more or less hitting the target where I wanted to. So with my confidence up a notch I pushed the target at 15 yards. Now as I started shooting I wasnt even sure if I was hitting the target at all. It wasnt as easy as it all seemed.
Finally after 50 rounds I looked at the target board and it seemed that atleast 28 of my bullets found their way onto the target. Not bad afterall.

Drive to the range 5 dollars, Gun rental 20 dollars, 50 rounds of ammo 25 dollars, hitting 28 bullets at the target priceless.....

Projekt Revolution

Oh...so you think its either a typo or I need to really use a dictionary.....nah..
Projekt Rev is a tour that was started by LP (Linkin Park) to promote the new age music, the fusion of rock, techno, hip-hop, etc. And this time I had the opportunity to watch it live at the Camden Waterfront in August. Yeah I know, I need to do some catch up on bloggin. But the thing is that when I get a new subject/inspiration/experience to blog about I dont have my laptop around. Even if I would have I think I am too lazy to type it thru. Moreover, its difficult to type my ideas as fast as the come to me. So I am planning to go the podcast way, but then again there is a certain freedom that a reader gets in reading a blog that he doesn't in listening to a podcast. But anyways I am willing to give it a try, soon...

Coming back to the Proj Rev, I have been a big fan of LP for a long time now, I listen to their music when I am driving, running or working out. For that matter I listen to them whenever I feel like.

Now before I continue this post there is another thing that crossed my mind, I have noticed that I dont have enough patience to ever complete a post and most of the times end them abruptly, which you would know if you have read a couple of my posts. But I guess patience is a virtue that I never had; no regrets.

See this is exactly what I was talking about earlier, there are too many ideas crossing my mind and I just can keep it on one topic to complete the post, without running through some others.

Anywas the concert was on Aug 24 or was it 25th....hmm...doesnt matter; it was a saturday I remember that. We entered the auditorium at around 12:00 noon. It was a hot day and I for some reason had decided to wear a pair of jeans, which I regretted the whole day. It was a covered auditorium but not completely enclosed. The first thing I did is line up at the stalls and buy a Prj Rev T. The rest of the day I was sweating myself in the new T. The arena had a big parking lot which was converted into a side stage, where all the budding bands were playing. I am not going to list all the bands out there, because I dont remember them and I dont think you would want to read through the entire list of 13 bands. All I was wondering is that when was LP going to play, which happend to be at 10:30 in the night. Cool so we were in the arena and could not get out because the tickets were single entry.

We could have listened to all the bands playing on the Rev stage, but then it isnt fun to listen to bands that you have no clue about. Especially when you are standing in the harsh sun. So we spent most of our time sitting in the airconditioned snack area, sipping beer and eating junk food.

I also happened to meet this guy from Wilmington, DE who was excited to see us "desis" in that concert. He was originally from Ahemdabad, India. And abused big time in gujurati, showing us his excitement.

After 4:30 the auditorium was finally open for us to take our seats and enjoy the better known bands. Julien-K, Placebo, and My Chemical Romance really rocked the stage with their music. After the show that MCR put up I was wondering if LP would be able to out do them. But then again they would have to, it was their tour.

When LP finally showed up on the stage they rocked the crowd and put a show that was second to none. The entire arena was jumping and shouting along with the band. At one point Mike Shinoda asked everyone to hold up their cell phones and then asked to take a look around. When I looked back it looked as if I was standing in the middle of the stars rather a galaxy. The lights on the stage were really blinding, but those cell phones up in the air were really soothing. I have been to Nickleback's concert earlier but that was like a college band when compared to LP.

If you ever get a chance to see LP perform live, I would say trade your soul if you have to but dont miss it.

So Long.

SouthParked!!

I still remember the first time watched south parked and fell in love with it. It was at gopal's house during a daroo party. Recently i stumbled upon Gagans blog and saw his post of this southpark site which allows you to create your own character....so this is me...southparked!

iCon

I guess the title was meant to be a pun by the authors Young and Simons or atleast I think so. I am talking about the book "iCon: Steve Jobs, The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business". Its an unauthorised biography of Jobs. The price of which for the authors and the publisher was to get banned from the Apple retail stores. Now if you would have read this book you would not be surprised by Steve's reaction.

The book talks about Steve and some of his closests friends, colleagues and enemies in both his professional and personal lives. It is full of facts from new papers, televison channels and interviews that in any small way relates to Steve or Apple. Some of the facts are really shocking, like this one, did you know that the only think that Steve contribute to the making of the first Apple computer was the external design, everything else inside was Woz (a.k.a. Steve Wozniak).

The book also accounts how these two young guns, or rather a young gun (read Woz) and the gun-man (Steve) got out there and created the only competition that IBM ever had in the hardware industry back then. It also talks about how Gates allegedly stole his OS ideas from the MacOS, which originally was a Xerox idea. But mainly its about how Steve after creating Apple Inc. got all power crazy and got himself fired from the very company he built.

He then started another venture NeXT which didnt work either but finally by a stroke of luck ended up owning Pixar. Yep Pixar, Steve bought it from George Lucas for a modest price as Lucas was trying to get a divorce from his wife. Although it was always treated as a step child because Steve considered himself a "harware" guy and gave all his love to NeXT.

There is also a spiritual side to Jobs, in fact his spiritual journey got him to india, atop the Himalayas. During his stint to India he almost got himself killed. Once back to US he got into Zen and till date is a big follower.

The big closing to the book is how Steve got his way back into Apple infact a sinking Apple and not only salvaged it but also took it to the heights, where it is today. I guess most of the credit goes to iPod, the best electronic device on the market today. Today apple has a cult status, a very loyal fan following and the market image that Windows or IBM could never have.

My next book is going to be iWoz which is an authorized biography of Steve Wozniak as narrated to Gina Smith.

Hope to see you back soon.

Sometimes love is hiding between the seconds of your LIFE

I have been watching movies all my life......but every once in a while you pick up a movie that really gives you the feeling of fullness as you watch the end credits. Cashback is one such movie that I happened to watch. The director Sean Ellis has done a great job....both visually and in terms of the story. The original was an 18 min short that actually is used in its entirety in the movie. Before I go on to describe the movie here a some facts. The story of the movie was written in 7 days, the movie was shot in 25days. Out of the 25 days shoot, an entire day was used for shooting one scene where Ben falls from the payphone to his bed. This scene looks as if it were special effects but it was shot using just a camera. The old school way.

For some reason this movie reminded of the movie Dream of an Insomniac. The only reason I guess is that both these movies rotate around a character who at some point in their lives suffer of insomnia. If you get a chance do watch this one too. But just a word of caution its a romantic kinda movie. Not for the strong hearted ;)

The movie (Cashback) is about a young lad who has dumped his girl and now as a result suffers of transitional insomnia, how he copes up with it and falls in love all over again....or rather in LOVE for the first time for real. The movie is full of very well formed quotes (I dont think you can call them quotes, but anyways). One of them is the title of this post. Another one was about the word "crush" and how it not only refers to the feeling of attraction but also disappointment.

Its a narration kinda movie, another reason I loved it. Also reminded me of American Beauty. However if you are an anti-nudity person you might get offended with some scene which have been put in to give an artistic justification rather than sexual theme to the movie.

I was too sleepy when I put this movie on but it soon got me glued to the screen. And now I am writing this post before I finally hit the bed.

Gnite!!

P.S. I guess we never choose a movie, the movie chooses us.

Sachmuch Solid

Now picturise this, A man walks into a bar and orders a particular brand of beer, takes a sip, picks a dart and hits a bulls eye. To out do this gentleman another guy orders a beer, picks up a dart and hits bulls eye. The caption reads Sachmuch Solid.

Sounds familiar? you bet...the first guy ordered a Haywaryds 2000 and the second one ordered Haywards 5000.

And why am i telling you all this...because yesterday i had the heavenly experience of driking Haywards 5000 in US of A. Yeah you heard it right...indian beer in america :)

We were tipped by one of our friends (Jiten) who by the way does not take alcohol, that a particular place sells indian beer. So being such a big fan of indian beer (american beer sucks!!) we had to give it a shot, maybe we would return empty handed but then what the heck. If we did get the beer we would be as victorious as the Spartans.....(really??)

So we set out on our journey to Edison, Oak Tree road. It was almost 5months that i had been to this place so it took us a while to get there. We were racing against the clock as it was already 8:40PM and we were stuck in a jam. If we didnt make it to the liquor shop in 20mins all the effort would be nothing but a waste. I really never understood why the liquor stores have to close by 9:00PM. But time was on our side and we made it. The store was more of a supermart...with different liquor bottles lined up on each wall. It was huge. It took us a while to figure out where the Indian beer was lined up, but when we found Haywards 5000 lined up against the wall......our eyes popped out....it was a moment we will never forget.

There was a bright light and I was running to grab the bottle of Haywards 5000 in it. The beer was mine for the taking, then suddenly something hit me on the head....Damn you Mayank.....couldnt you have waited until I opened the bottle and drank it. What the heck it was a dream anyways..... (by the way if you are still wondering....this never happened, thats why its in a paragraph by itsef)

So we picked up the beer and now our next challenge was to find a BYOB....cmon you dont know what that is?? Dont worry neither did anyone in Edison. Its Bring Your Own Booze.

Since i was driving us around, Mayank was responsible to walk into every indian restaurant and ask the owner if it were a BYOB. Now since no one knew what a BYOB was he had to explain then in words, what followed was an angry NO from the owner and a sneer of hate from all uncle and aunties at the tables nearby, who obviously overheard the conversation....bloody desis :) (no offence)

We tried a couple of places but none of them were BYOB's, but as they say....At God's house there is Late but not Dark (bhagwan ke ghar der hai andher nahi)...we finally landed at Rasoi II which served Haywards 5000 and ofcourse Chichen tandoori!!!

After waiting for about 15mins we finally got a table and the server was amazed at the fact that we knew what we were going to order even before he got us the menus. 3 Haywards (for Me, Mayank and Pratik) 2 chicken tandoori and 1 chicken lollypop. What happened in the next 2 hrs was an experience that cannot be put into words.....there was beer, chichen and some really heavy philosophical conversations....that how you know its true indian beer...it has the power to make a philosopher out of anyone!!

Cheers to Haywards 5000 (P.S. This blog is not a marketing gimmic and the author of the blog is not sponsored by Haywards...but if you are a marketing guy from Haywards i am open to offers)

the BOSE experience

Yep i am writing a post about one of the most famous names in the business of sound. I have proudly owned a bose triport headphone for more than 3years. Thanks Akta for gifting me the headphones (and sorry for making you gift it to me).

Trust me to know what a bose feels like you have to wear it over your head......nothing else comes close to the experience......but ofcourse you would have heard about it and thats not the reason that i am writing this post.

So the first reason that i am writing this post is beacuse i havent written one in a long time.....and i wanted that to change....

It was about a couple of months back that my bose headphones quit on me.....the ear cushions got spoiled.....now we all know that i was born lazy.....i know some people struggle thru life to be as lazy as me...but what can i say i was born with a silver spoon...
So i never bothered to get the cushions replaced......until last week when i really got fedup of not being able to use my bose pair.....and finally called up the customer centre to place an order for the replacement cushions. Now what happend next just caught me by surprise.

So i called in the customer centre and talked to Jason....which could have very well been Rampur Deva from some call centre in India, but i doubt that, because Bose doesnt need to employ that many customer reps....now does it.....not if they make the products that ppl say they make.

After i placed the order for ear cushions...i just asked jason as to why i couldnt pick up a pair of cushions from a Bose showroom...to which he proudly replied that "Sir they dont need replacement except for a few cases" and i guess i couldnt disagree. I had owned this pair for a long time without any trouble, i dont think many ppl would be able to keep the headphones in a good shape for this long. Then i just happened to mention that one of my head bands was loose....and if i could get a replacement for that too.....

To this the reply was "Sir you could just send us your pair, instead of charging you for the repairs we will just send you a new courtesy replacement" i was shocked.....it took me a minute to realize that i was not shocked but surprised. Here i had a pair of bose that were a bit messed up and needed repairs....and this gentleman was going to send me a new pair if i returned my existing pair...Now thats what i call service...mind it the headphones were no longer within the 1 year warranty period....

Jason told me that they just get a few cases each year and they would rather replace them instead of charging the customer for repairs. I generally say that with higher cost you wouldn't necessarily get a better service....but guess what...BOSE does deliver better quality....of sound and service....with the higher cost.

So if you ask me which headphones should you go for....you know my answer .....BOSE!

Safari

Hello there.....its been a long long time that i have posted anything here....but trust me i have lots of explanation....i always do...
Now comeon you dont want to hear me talk about why i couldnt post.....lets talk about this post....the latest one.

I havent been to africa....and nope i havent been on a safari in US either....this thing is about the internet browser Safari. Yeah if you know OSX...you would know what i am talking about. This is the web browser that apple keeps on bragging about. And trust me its all that talk and more....in fact i have been a fan of apple softwares for quite sometime now. I have been wanting to get myself an imac or maybe a macbook...not yet decided....but the only reason i have been postponding my plans is, i have been waiting for the OSX Leopard. Apple with the OSX started naming each release on a big cats name....panther....tiger and now leopard.

I have loved steve jobbs keynotes...and the latest one at WWDC07 was worth watching. They unveiled some more features of the new OS...the iPhone and finally released a new version of Safari 3....even on windows!!! And thats not all....Safari works twice as fast as IE7. I guess the developers at Microsoft would be really ashamed of themselves, or maybe not because they always knew they were not the best.

Its really wierd how 3rd party softwares always run faster on XP than those marketed by MS. Picasa is a good example. It has loads of features and still runs faster than the picture viewer that comes bundled with XP. Firefox runs faster than IE6 and IE7 and Safari3 just beat that too!! Quicktime works better than the WMP11.

Dont take my word for it...try it out yourself and you wont regret it.....log on to www.apple.com/safari and download your copy...its just 7mb...so its not that heavy on the bandwidth either....

Enjoy! And hope the next time you visit this page...you are using Safari :)

I have been here before…..and its not the same anymore….

Its really funny how we would feel two completely different set of emotions for the same situation or experience spread apart in time. I still remember the last time I landed on this foreign soil – USA – Jan 18 2006. It was very different then, I would have imagined the same feelings this time around too but I guess I am not even close. The first time around I was really excited, a bit scared and happy. I was looking forward to getting here, as I had been waiting for it for a very long time, almost 6-7months. Today I wasn’t even looking forward to it. I wouldn’t have boarded the plane if I wouldn’t have had to, so much for a free soul. I have always believed that I would live my life on my terms but still at times I find myself doing things which I wouldn’t have wanted to do.

The charm is gone, the anxiety is still there but due to other reasons. I know I know I am cribbing a bit here, but cmon this is my blog afterall . I guess this time its not the same due to a lot of reasons, I cant put it to just one. I love Bombay (Mumbai if you prefer to call it that) have been fascinated by the city for over 25years. I guess you always have a special bonding with the city/town/village you are born in. I would have loved to do a lot of stuff in Bombay on this trip but then time was not on my side. I did most of the things that I wanted to and trust me all of those were related to food. Cmon if you have lived in the city you cant deny the zillions of food joints, ranging from a small cart famous for tea to a dhaba to a restaurant and ofcourse home. Lekin time kitna hi kyon na ho kam pad hi jata hai!!

I really cant understand what makes people from India choose to settle here, I know they too don’t understand what makes people like me choose to settle in India. The last time I came here I was looking forward to go places and enjoy my time. This time its not the same as I have already seen a lot of places and done all the fun sports and after a while you don’t feel like doing the same anymore. Now I guess I am also thinking a bit more seriously about my future, my career options, my life personal and professional and much more. Not that I have a very clear idea of what I want to do, I haven’t been clearer about this kind of stuff since my 12th grade. That time I was determined to get into a good engineering college and make an engineer out of myself. With that done I had achieved what I wanted but I never set up new goals for me, or maybe I did but I never worked towards achieving them. When I look back I am not sure why this happened and there is no one else but me who’s responsible for it. But I guess once you make a mistake you learn much more about not making it again. Do I regret any of it, no I don’t. Infact I am happy I have made all the choices that I have till date, immaterial of weather the outcome has been good or bad. I am pretty sure if I were to press a restart button in my life I would reach the same place as I have today, nothing would be different this time either or maybe it would….??

In flight with Delta.

I had promised you another post about my experience when I land in India, but little did I know that I am going to have to write one about my in-flight experience too. Hope you enjoy this post because I didn’t enjoy the flight at all.

Delta an (un-)trusted name in the airline business. While standing in the check-in line at the JFK I was talking to a Brazilian guy settled in NYC with his business in Dubai. Talk about how technology is changing the way we live our lives. He enlightened me with the fact that of all international carriers Delta was the one with the maximum percentage of lost luggage. Man I was surprised, I would have thought Air-India would have take the top spot. One more bad thing about we Indians is that we are rarely proud of anything that’s Indian. So guys don’t blame me if you ask me “What did you get for me?” and I reply “I did get something for you but Delta misplaced it”.

As I write this post the entire plane is shaking as if it’s a BEST bus plying on the Bombay roads. See I told you we never appreciate anything….Indians!!
“What?”
“Did you say you are not like that?”
“…cmon don’t lie…not atleast to yourself….we are all the same…”
Anyways that’s completely another topic of discussion. As of now lets concentrate on my inflight experience.

For starters the flight attendants are not at all good looking. Secondly they are not young except one who looks like a gujarati from Ahemdabad trying to talk in a fake English accent and crack the same dumb jokes to every person he serves onboard. Then there is this gujarati uncle (I know it because ever since I mentioned that I was Gujarati, he has been coming around and cribbing about other passengers, to me in gujarati, I don’t have against gujarati’s Trust ME!!) His face looks like my grandma, or rather like any other elderly who has lost all the teeth. If you ask for his help, to get a glass of water, he stares right back at you and that looks just quenches you thirst there and then. Then there is this lady (I am not sure if she is gujurati) who thinks that she is really good with Hindi and repeats all the announcements made by the captain in Hindi for those who don’t understand English. But then my guess is even if they know hindi they wouldn’t be able to decode what she’s trying to say. She talks Hindi the same way as a Bengali would talk, mixing all the genders (striling and pulling). Last but not the least there are 2 firangs who would be in their late thirties.

Now I was pretty exicted when my friend told me that in Delta you have your personal TV and you can choose which movie you want to watch. So I thought then whats the use of bringing my laptop along, but now I know otherwise. Once we were airborne the captain announced that now we can enjoy the movie that we like. I chose to watch “Stranger than Fiction”. If you haven’t watched this movie, please do because the actress is pretty HOT and then it also has a good plot. I was just 20mins in the movie and the captain announced that some of the television screens were not working and the ground support had advised to reboot the entire system, which meant we all would have to wait for 15mins before we can start watching the movies again. But then if only technology worked the way it should. For the sake of a couple of complaining passengers (why couldn’t they be happy that atleast their neighbours were enjoying the movies) most of us lost our in-air entertainment. I always wondered who uses Red Hat Linux, now I know the answer. Boeing 777 does. So now that the TV’s were out I had to fall back on one of the three things iPod, Book and Laptop. I am mixing and matching them to keep myself from getting bored. But I noticed one thing, each time I start with the book by the time I turn the third page I am asleep. I guess doctors should change the prescription for insomnia from sleeping pills to books. I am sure it would work for me, but then again maybe because I am not an insomniac.

I guess now its time to switch back to my book and sleep because my thought stream is drying out for now. I had one more couple to write about, the one whos sitting by my side, an elderly gujarati couple “Patels”from Bombay with Greencards. But as I am writing this the uncle is reading every word I type, or atleast I think so, so I cant write much about them. Lets just consider that they are a typical elderly Patel couple  and leave it at that.

The longest wait.

I have been looking forward to this day for a long time now. The day when I return, home, Bombay, India. And now today the day has finally come but the wait is still killing me. I just cant wait to get home, see my parents for the first time after almost 14 months. Cant wait to see their reaction and more so my own reaction….

Jan 18th when I left India for my onsite assignment. I had taken it as a change, something that will help me grow stronger and I had already lost a lot. I wanted to prove to myself that I will stand strong…..and move forward no matter what. Now when I look back I cant believe what I have accomplished, I know I know a lot of kids from India have lived their lives away from their families and done really well in life. But this blog isn’t about them, its about me. I never wanted to spend my life in any other country but India, why? I would ask Why not? Its just that I am sentimental about this place…..the people….the hope…the hate….the love….the life…..and everything I have experienced in the past 24years. Did I grow stronger..i guess so….did I grow smarter definitely…but most of all I have survived….thats what I wanted to achieve and now I have.

Its true that when you face a big challenge you are at first overwhelmed by its magnitude, then you take in a breath and get started with it, and before you know you will have the job done and finally when you look back you will smile or maybe even laugh at that first reaction of yours. I too feel the same now. The recent experiences in my life, when I say recent I mean the past year or so have taught me a lot. How you cant get through your life all by yourself, at times you have to help people out with theirs and more importantly you have to allow people to help you every once in a while, it’s a way of allowing them to say thankyou for all you have helped them.

Now let me come back to the point where I started writing this post. Its 7:30PM 23rd March 2007 and I am sitting in the waiting area at Gate 4 Terminal 3 JFK airport in NY. As I am a little too early for my flight scheduled at 10:20PM I am trying to get through the wait as smoothly as possible. After I hooked up my laptop I realized that there are no wireless networks available and I don’t have any movies on my disk that I can watch. So whats the best way to do TP, yep you guessed it writing this post while I am listening to Nickleback.

I am surely going to write a blog about my flight to India and my experience when I land in Bombay. So cya then.

Under Influence

Yes i am writing this blog at 2:36AM and completely under infuence.....so if i read this tomorrow morning i might be amazed at what i have actually written in here....
Now when i say under influence....its could be only under the influence of alcohol..the only influence i have been under....

I have been dead drunk on more than one occasion, and i have decided that i will quit driking alcohol on each of those incidents.....but then every time i make that promise to myself i find myself under the infulnce once again. When will it stop...when will we start defining our boundaries....how much we should drink....what we should drink, when and how.....too many definitions that have not be laid out correclty....or maybe they never will ....until i reach a point where i get all messed up and quit it for good....Now i did reach that stage .....this 31st to be precicse.....I was sloshed....shailesh helped me out...put me to bed.....the next day when i woke up...and i woke up the earliest..cos i had slept the earliest...i was too embaressed....to face myself.....to face my friends....to say sorrry for what i had done......and to say that i will never do that again....but now i know....i know i could resist it for a month...infact for a month and 9 days....i didnt touch it for a month and 9 days....does that say i am strong...or does it say that i am weak and gave into alcohol after a month....who won...why?

All i know today..is that i have paid my debt...it was on 31st that i made a big mess out of myself and today i helped someone clean up his mess.....does it really work that way...paying it forward.....? You can never pay it back to the people who helped you but you pay it to someone else who needed it?

Is it time...to call it quits...i wish i was strong to make that decision now and stick to it...maybe i am ...then maybe i am not...but i hope i never do it as much again....that i need to be helped....

I have been crazy....i have been dumb....i have been respected by other because i did it all....because i never said no...never said no to ALCOHOL....now was it all worth it...i didnt knew then...i dont know now....and will never know it...but what i have learned is invaluable...that everyonce in a while you will feel invincible...every once in a while you will feel GOD....every once in a while you will want to give in...but then every once in a while you will also realize its not worth it....and thats what i have learned today.....

Late maybe....but i am there now....i am here now....can i quit it...yes i can...So lets try it once again....and it doesnt matter if it gets to me....but for now..i have quit it...yes i have said no to ALCOHOL.....lets hope that i can say no to it for long...long enough for me to miss it......long enough for me to forget how good it felt to lose myself to it....long enough to remember the days when i loved it.....

Lets hope I can do this....lets hope you support me....lets hope we all give up....on addiction....lets hope we all give in to life.....

Skiing at Blue mountain