bits and bobs

happy valentines day!

2009-02-12T08:32:00.000-08:00

and love lost ...
http://music.msn.com/photos/unlucky-in-love/?GT1=28130&

:)

2008-12-11T21:09:00.000-08:00

2008-11-14T10:32:00.000-08:00

VLAN configuration can easily become a black art, requiring the classic combination of guru, wizard, and hacker (guru knows “the way”, wizard knows the incantation, hacker knows how to make it all work).
I believe we can do the guru part now, we’ll need to consult with the wizard when he returns.

2008-11-06T13:55:00.000-08:00

and now i can get my american citizenship!!

uma

2008-07-14T14:51:00.002-07:00

Uma was given the Iowa tests of basic skills in April 2008. At the time of testing she was in second grade at the B academy.
Uma earned a composite grade equivalent of 5.4 on the level 8 test. This means that her test performance was approximately the same as that of a typical student in the fifth grade at the end of the fourth month. Uma's Composite national percentile rank of 99 means that she scored higher than 99 percent of the second grade students nationally. Her overall achievement appears to be high for second grade.

how did I get to be this lucky?

Excellence

2008-07-13T13:09:00.001-07:00

that's what is is about.. not competence, not winning, not accolades. Not about seeing adulation in the eyes of the admirers, not about acceptance, not about fame and power.. it is about the satisfaction of pushing yourself farther and farther -- and learning and growing and being better than the best you could be ..
i should never forget this...

oh Mimi!

2008-05-02T12:45:00.002-07:00

Mimi -- better known as Mariah Carey, this month broke Elvis Presley's record for the most Billboard No. 1 hits by a solo artist ...

http://www.slate.com/id/2190184/

Here's to the scrappy girl, with a cloud of curly hair, who sang vision of love and who, all of us fell in love with...

The IPL --

2008-04-25T10:34:00.010-07:00

...

2008-04-25T09:47:00.002-07:00

It has been a busy year -- but suddenly i feel restless-- and if I know myself-- it can never be good, this restlessness-- it always leads to trouble-- dissatisfaction- the where am I headed, question. Major upheavals in life have resulted from this. I feel trapped -- trapped in what, I don't know. All the chains are of my own making and all of them readily worn... I have shed entanglements to stay this way.. but a new chain is wearing me down.. part of me tells me this is what it is to be grown up -- but somehow-- it irks me.
commitment phobia was alien to me -- I committed, with joy and it scratched my soul to bits -- I must have been seeking something, I tell myself. The tattered soul convinced me that whatever I needed was mine to give-- mine to allow-- and then I stopped.
this latest act of commitment seems unnatural -- it is weighing me down --
there is a fight within -- will i stay or will i leave?
time will tell i guess.

Loathe , actually

2008-02-06T09:29:00.001-08:00

This article made my day ---

It is the middle of the week and the work is up to its frenzied pace, as if to make up for all those easy days of snow and holiday cheer.
When this --
http://movies.msn.com/new-on-dvd/feature-article/?news=298765

I was tickled at her utter hatred of all things fuzzy and cute. Her list includes-
Pretty Woman, Sleepless in Seattle, The Way We Were, Four Weddings and a Funeral and My big fat Greek Wedding--
Today, I agreed with her --her misanthropic attitude in the month of pink and red hearts made me strangely cheerful.
Its triage on my calendar next --- there will be bloodshed!

"it is a malaise with us Indians,

2008-01-09T09:46:00.000-08:00

we have far more opinions than information"

-Shabana Azmi

Gulabi Dal

2007-12-03T12:01:00.000-08:00

They wear pink saris and go after corrupt officials and boorish men with sticks and axes.

Full story here --

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7068875.stm

winter wonderland - season's first snow

2007-12-02T13:35:00.001-08:00

Reno

2007-12-02T13:33:00.001-08:00

facebook

2007-11-02T03:01:00.000-08:00

"Once upon a time the darlings of Silicon Valley were companies making things like chips and software, computers and networking routers. Hot shops were Cisco Systems, Oracle and Sun Microsystems. Then came Netscape. Then Google. Right now it's Facebook, a sort of corporate version of Paris Hilton--a company that's famous for being famous. Soon it will probably also be rich, though right now nobody quite knows why."
-Daniel Lyons

Niagara

2007-10-24T09:40:00.001-07:00

..

2007-10-10T09:44:00.000-07:00

" The Poet does not invent, he listens"
- Jean Cocteau

yikes

2007-09-27T13:52:00.000-07:00

reading

2007-09-20T13:25:00.000-07:00

" My favorite thing to do is read. I love my books, they are my precious possessions. I would be lost without them"

-Uma
Journal entry- 9/17/2007

JBJ

2007-07-25T10:38:00.000-07:00

It has been a long dry season without any good music releases. I saw the posters for JBJ and heard about its music being directed by SEL and gave it a wide berth, see my last few purchases for Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy have been heart breakingly bad. The trio was so talented and the mediocre scores have been becoming a constant source of depression for me.

However, this weekend, I made a trip to the panjabi market in Vancouver and heard a the JBJ song - quite inadvertently- there isn't much you can say when faced with a formidable Panjabi kuudi with fake lashes and paranda, is there?

But, I was intrigued with what I heard and went on to get a copy of the CD. Let me say- it is the best they have been since BnB- and in some respects I think the music is one of the best scores they have ever produced - In one respect they have pulled all stops- the singer list is quite impressive- Neeraj Shridhar, Rahat Fateh Ali, Vishal Dadlani, KK, Sukhvinder, Sunidhi, Alisha Chinai and Vasundhara Das ...quite a list wouldn't you say? Shankar sings one version of the title track -

Jhoom
Shankar Mahadevan
The title track sung by an itinerant jack sparrow meets baoul is an attempt to keep fragmented narrative of the movie seem somewhat contiguous. The sound track does not pay heed to the number of people enacting the song to the number of the playback singers- leav alone trying to match voices to the personalities – apart from Shankar Mahdevan and Amitabh in the various tempo's of this song. Shanaker Mahadevan is very good-he would have given Mohd Rafi a run for his money with his lovely punju accent. I was astounded :) The song is a typical SEL song - lots of synth and a strong beat - with a very good baritone provided by Shankar. The carpenter technique of over laid vocals is very successful in lending dimensions to the song.

Ticket to Hollywood
Neeraj Shridhar, Alisha Chinai
I love the slightly nasal -echo-ey voice of Neeraj Shridhar- the lead singer for Bombay Vikings. I can never forget the 'Woh chali -' in his voice, still makes me go weak in the knees. The song is played as a pleading- conversation between the two - somewhat like ' ‘panch rupaiya barah anna'. Alisha Chian is a perfect foil to the male voice and the transitions are handled nicely with the single time beat and the repeating refrain of 'Ticket to Hollywood'.

JBJ
Zubeen, Shankar Mahadevan, Sunidhi Chauhan
One part of the multi part dance competition song. It has a re-mix-y touch to it with super-imposed beats and vocals.The song required strong vocal chords, what with the overpowering beat and background- Sunidhi , Zubeen rise to the occasion beautifully, there is a section where the two pass the baton, so to speak, with the title phrase - 'jhoom- jhoom barabar', reminds me think of a two duelers bowing before they jump in - Shankar's voice is mostly relegated to the background echo vocals- as always adding a nice dimension to the track.

Bol na halke halke
Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Mahalaxmi Iyer
Love the way the song starts off … the same beat cycle playing over and over again, each time around a new instrument is added - you hear the harmony building - ghatam, synth, jal tarang, flute and the final round the voice of Rahet Fateh Ali. His voice is like a caress, very well matched with Mahalaxmi's dulcet soprano. The only song that can be called -hindustani in the olde world Indian classical music sense, it uses a lot more instruments than I have heard in a typical SEL number- there is a fairly heavy reliance on synth and guitar- still. The song is given to transitions as it relates a whole story of the two young lovers; it is perhaps the only song in the album that relies on the vocals as much as it does. The strange attempt to show old-age in the last few lines by morphing the voice to some weird back play is tacky. The song shines despite it though.

Kiss of Love
Vishal Dadhlani, Vasundhara Das.
This unexpectedly is my favorite song in the album and the credit goes to Vishal( of the Vishal-Shekhar fame). The raspy voice and no holds barred rendition is one of the best I have heard him do... the first time he says ..
Oye baand kar le, oye baandkar yaara dake dalti aakhe!!
makes you want to jump up and join him in the hoarse plea.
Thoroughly danceable, This is one of the songs in which Gulzar's genius shines thru- simple words twisted to match the beat and yet they convey the passion ... Vasundhra is usually pretty good and she holds up her part in the song - but she cannot match the ferocity of Vishal's voice.
The Oompha Lumpha warning starting and ending song is kinda nice - it does end abruptly - but it is too impassioned and simmering down the tone might have been lot worse than the abrupt edge.

Jhoom Barabar Jhoom
KK, Sukhvinder Singh, Mahalakhsmi Iyer, Shankar Mahadevan
Part deux of the dance competition song- delightful. The lyrics are amazing - nutty imagery and wordplay-- Gulzar had a ton of fun writing this- so must have the music director and the singers- it is foot-stamping-longing to dance-rhythm. The puckish guitar and the strong bhangra beat ( with the authentic drums) plays amazingly well with a ton of synth work and reverb- effects.
Mahalaxmi sings at a lower octave - she is unrecognizable - I have only heard her render the higher octaves of mellifluous soprano so this comes as a complete surprise. A lovely one I must say.
KK and Sukhvinder Singh are amazing as is Shankar who appears midway thru the song ( as amitabh's appears half way thru the song) - changing the pace of the song- very smoothly done!

Jhoom jam -
Passable instrumental jam of all the songs -

Over all the album is a look at how SEL is maturing - using varied vocals and moving away from the synth and guitar based accompaniment - while keeping their signature strong beats and a frothy spirit. Very nice effort indeed- this album has not quite redeemed the unqualified disasters a few of their last albums have been, but the star is on the rise again.

I wish the movie and the choreography was as inspired as the music – alas!

'arry potter!

2007-07-17T16:20:00.000-07:00

The fever is on where ever I go ( I only go places online, if you must know), I see images of the scrawny boy with untidy black hair. Speculations about what is going to happen in the final book 'Deathly Hallows' - does Hogwarts re-open? is Snape evil or good?
is Albus Dumbeldore really dead? does Harry destroy the four horcruxes and Lord Voldemort ? Who Dies? and who lives?

Harry potter is a phenomenon- a world wide phenomenon. Teachers and parents are grateful to the books for making kids be interested in reading. Each of the book has been widely publicised and has, in my opinion lived up to the hype. It has been quite a ride- one about to come to an end with the publication of the final book.
I have heard of such age and race defying obsessions - star wars, star trek and even lord of the rings to some degree ... But this is the first time I truly am part of one. I feel I am much to old to be so anxious of this book, but I am, I read the last two books of the series and I have been seeing Hogwarts in my dreams for the past three nights - I know my inner nerd is showing.
I grew up in the post feminist era - with no flower children, no bra -burning and in a very balanced and focused family- there was no time for obsessions and manias. I am little off- kilter with this, my first one. It is almost as good as being in love :)
So, I will be at the book store midnight on Friday, getting my copy of the book - and then spending much of the weekend ( to the dismay of the folks around me) sneaking off to read at every chance I get.
I will be back next week raving about the book.
But most of all I will have all seven books on my book shelf next to my famous fives and what Katie did, waiting for Uma to read them- and for me to read them again with Uma - thanks to these books, I will never forget what it is to be a child.

Of books and such

2007-05-31T13:42:00.000-07:00

Mom got me a few select books this time. Chetan Bhagat has become a house hold phenomenon in India and I knew nothing of him. So I hastened to fix the lapse.
Over the past two days I have read two of his three books, Five point something and One night at the call center. There is a third book, not by him, but I have had enough; I am not going to read the third book.
He writes coming of age books for middle class Indians. One is focused on IIT, a dream that every for every middle class parent dreams for his child. And the second about a call center, a place where the highly educated, perfectly accented 20 something’s work thru the night helping the ‘dumb Americans’, making as much as a burger flipper in MickeyDs.
the books
He writes in first person present. The book feels like an enlargement of a very low res picture. He skips any in descriptions of surroundings, state of mind anything that would be passive voice. No delving into whys-- just a description of what, sometimes how.These are plays. To be specific a screen plays for a bollywood movies. I could compare it with DCH and fine them comaprable.however DCH brough nuances and depth to charecters by association and suroundings and the actors. The book does nto have this option. You don’t love characters and are only mildly moved by them. The entire 270 page story could have been told in 30 odd pages.
the characters
It might be because I did not go to an IIT or work at call center, but the treatment to me seems very cursory. He wants you to believe that Alok and Ryan and Hari are real. They might have been based on real life people, but they are either based on a single myopic aspect of a person or many people. Allusions to Ryan’s errant sexuality are interesting as is abuse in Hari’s past but Alok's whinny parents take over. The dialog inside the guys head is funny and fairly appropriate, but the female charecters are stereotypical, perhaps that is how women appear to men. The set of values these guys use to judge each other are black and white. Ryan's hidden hatered of Hari and Hari's love for Ryan or all that Ryan represents... interesting angle, but it goes no where.
the language
American idioms with a generous sprinkling of crap, damn and fuck thrown in. No hindi words in English, some of the comments are a complete translation. Some of the constructs are very indian, but no trnaslated words. Wonder why he did that, does it make the book more readable for non -indians? but it does not carry enough descriptive material to be something that a non -indian eng would read to, say findout more about IITs or life in delhi or IITs. Most people would read this for nostalgia, college ke woh din, and what a strange time it was when friends were closer and we lived without the wand of parents for the first time, they would miss the hinglish, No? Or is it IITians and call center folk do not speak hinglish ?
The narrative is inconsistent. Hari starts with ‘acknowledgement’ that indicates that though this is the story of the three of them (and what of Neha?) he had to have his way because the other two could not ( or would not) write …. And yet includes a chapter by each of them. In the second book, he starts of in narration mode… yet he starts at the beginning of the evening and somehow never ties up the thread of narration at the end. And the epilogue is depressing cliché.
I am a little surprised at the 50th reprint. The books are dismal. When I compare it to Interpreter of maladies or Incantations or Arranged marriage, Chetan Bhagat’s books are a sad comparison. The other three are short story collections written by people of Indian origin about their view of the Indian experience. I compare each of these short story collections with CB’s three books because to my mind each of his novels is really a bloated short story.
The question that comes to mind is why is each of these short story collections not ubiquitous as the five point something book?
The snob in me says that is because it is easy to read, no need to think or concentrate and you have read a book. The realistic part of me says that it is an approachable book, with images and characters we know and identify with, evil bosses and professors and parents whose expectations we cannot meet. and familiar is good. it highlights the good in each charecter with a naive optimism. It is tangible and has no lofty aspirations. The credentials Chetan Bhagat possesses, lend him an air of authenticity, he went to an IIT, even if it was not IIT - D. And then he made it to an IIM, IIM - A no less. In the post-independence area, meritocracy is the new royalty. Even the snob in me relents, it takes a lot of mugging to get there :)
All in all a pretty decent effort, but it will be forgotten.

opt out?

2007-05-16T18:12:00.000-07:00

I am a single mom, who works fulltime to pay for her child’s private school education and the suburban house mortgage. I have been working my entire adult life, having been brought up with the notion ‘women in no way are inferior to men as far as intellect is concerned’, it was a brutal blow when I was told at the highly coveted job at campus recruiting, even though you are the most qualified for this job we cannot hire you because you are a woman.
That was the beginning. Since, I have seen a lot of subtle and not so subtle ways in which I have had to work hard in a market place that is almost entirely comprised of men. It has been harder since I had a child. I have known days when I felt like I was living surrounded by Neanderthals, what happened to the so called post-feministic era? And I have often wondered, enviously I might add, about those lucky women who 'opted out' to be moms.

And apparently I am not the only one who wonders.
http://www.cjr.org/issues/2007/2/Graff.asp
Do they really opt out? Or are they getting a little help from the system?

Still, if they were pushed out, why would smart, professional women
insist that they chose to stay home? Because that’s the most emotionally healthy
course: wanting what you’ve got. “That’s really one of the agreed-upon
principles of human nature. People want their attitudes and behavior to be in
sync,”

The article has many interesting ideas, like, what propels the moms-go-home campaign ? The usual suspects are lowered opportunity for women who are moms, high barriers to re-entry and a family hostile workplace. But there is another, interesting though very intuitive co-relation-

the all-or-nothing workplace. At every income level, Americans work
longer hours today than fifty years ago. Mandatory overtime for blue- and
pink-collar workers, and eighty-hour expectations for full-time professional
workers, deprive everyone of a reasonable family life.

A recent snarky book about French women I read mentioned the oh – so unbelievable work ethic of the French; with 6 weeks of paid vacation and so forth, but what we often forget is how hard and how much we have to work here in the good ol’ land of opportunity with the most family-hostile public policy in the Western world.
Out of 168 countries surveyed by Jody Heymann, who teaches at both the Harvard School of Public Health and McGill University, the U.S. is one of only five without mandatory paid maternity leave—along with Lesotho, Liberia, Papua New Guinea, and Swaziland.
Good company I would say!
So, while I write my treatise on ‘ Zen and the art of work life balance’ which helps me work without tuning out or burning out, and not being trampled penniless by the charging herds of corporate America, I take hope in knowing I am not alone pondering the way out of this madness.

It must ha' been ...

2007-05-09T09:37:00.000-07:00

There is a curious lull in life right now, last couple weeks were crazy and I was sick which made it worse and suddenly when this week dawned, the frenzy went away...
And as I do with most of my un-frenzied moments I pick up a book that I have wanted to read for a long time, but didn't because the time was not right. Last such lull got me thru Swann's Way. This time is it good ol' DHL.
He (or his characters) talk at length about love, most despise it. The book is of a time when the industrial revolution was new, and romanticism had been replaced by world weary cynicism. Idealists and puritans fought over what is the crux of the relationship between man and women was ...
In a conversation one of Clifford's high brow friends exclaims

"I like talking to women, and when I know a woman thru a
conversation the desire vanishes. I cannot have sex with a woman I have a conversation with."

It baffled me as it baffled Connie, she has a very holistic view of love and sex .... a view which drives her to and contradictorily, also away from the gamekeeper. All encompassing view of a person, and of love, someone without boundaries, within and without.

It is idealistic and a little naive, or is it wise? To know that one cannot compartmentalize one's angelic and animalistic urges, and it is possible to love someone with all of you, or maybe until all of you loves someone something, it is not really love?

And what is love anyway? Like Auden says, is it a selfish exposition of the way it makes 'you' feel? is it what you want? is it what you give? is it desire? tenderness? passion? or all of them together? how much of it is you and how much of it is the one you love? or it is the connection between the two people, a connection that transcends explanation, understanding? It is as Joesph Campbell says, a way to experience something greater than you and your loved one, it is knowing that the whole is much much more than sum of parts?

I am not thru yet, thru the book I mean, it evokes in me a faint understanding of what it is like to be in love. Though that love is no more and I see clearly the faults, I know that it was love.

And perhaps for the first time in my life truly understand what they mean when they say 'don't cry because it is over, be glad it happened.'

Are we there yet?

2007-04-06T09:14:00.000-07:00

I realize I like this thing, this thing called going older. I don't know how many of us have this experience. No, not of getting older, I am sure the entire human race has this experience, where they watch their mortal body reach its peak and then start to decay. It is a sad thing to watch, because it is very human, this penchant for not noticing the reaching of the peak and being at the peak, it is when the body starts dropping away from the peak, that one thinks of it, and then the mourning sets in.
The experience I spoke of earlier is not that of noticing or mourning the body’s decay. It is the experience of knowing myself, I find myself noticing my reactions. Most of these reactions accompany a feeling of Deja Vu, especially the strongest ones. When I say reaction, I am talking of a response that occurs without you thinking about it. The flush of anger, the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, butterflies too. As my senses react to someone, some incident and my thinking mind says,
"Ah ha- caught you!"
And then they both proceed to laugh.

As I attempt to describe what happens inside me, I find myself personifying these thinking and feeling parts of my being. Sometimes I like to think of them as my conscious and subconscious, one thinks and the other reacts because it feels. With every attempt to explain what I mean, the feeblity of this language drives home. But for now, this will have to do.
Back to the two parts of the being, they drive each other, argue sometimes over who gets to dictate my reaction, but as I get older, I find them more in accord, as though they signed a peace treaty.

Thinking back on my late teens, and early to mid -twenties, I passed years in a funk! A funk introduced by a series of reactions - enamored by a concept, or a person, crushing mind and body to achieve a principle. I operated out of the subconscious, feeling, experiencing, part of my being. Everything, well almost everything was a reaction. Very little was understood, everything was experienced. I guess you need to be young to take on that mode of being; you are always out of balance. But, by golly, you are alive!

It is different now, I react, and participate and live, but my thinking mind is ever present, part of me is always centered.
It is amusing to watch yourself get off kilter and then recover, the recovery gets faster and faster as I get older, and a sometimes, I can actually watch the stimulus, and smile without reacting to it. It is like my unconscious and conscious mind are stand facing the situation like co-conspirators. It is an epiphany , every single time it happens!
Sometime I ponder, what has this self knowledge brought me, do I live better by standing at the edge of the precipice and not jumping in? Where is the experience, what happened to being alive, to living? You can theorize all you want but until you jump, you never know what joy or terror is…
This is when I get a peak at the answer; the next step to self knowledge is to reacting with knowledge. To jump from the precipice with full knowledge. Choosing when you jump, choosing the experience because you want to, rather than being thrown into it willy nilly by a herd of stampeding hormones or fears or hopes and dreams.
And I do jump. And it is so much better than being thrown in …
They say life is a journey, a journey whose purpose is not the destination, but the journey itself. Anyday now, I will understand that and stop saying, Are we there yet?
Till then, I will continue my walk towards the horizon.

French men ...

2007-03-21T14:56:00.000-08:00

In one of its weirder moments, windows live offered this article up to me:

French men don't get caught
In America, a lapse in monogamy ruins marriages, bankrupts couples, and condemns families to divorce-court hell. In Europe and elsewhere, infidelity is considered a bump in the road, if it's considered at all. Here's why.
By Jardine Libaire, Best Life

With the world largest divorce rate, where over half that marriages end in divorce ( 17% of them cite infidelity as the reason). It is a very interesting topic.
There are a few interesting hypothesis offered.

First Americans have higher expectation of marriages

In the ideal American marriage today, we are told to look to
one person for everything—sexual, spiritual, financial, intellectual,
emotional—we need. It might be that the way our perception of marriage has
evolved leaves little room for marriage to thrive.

So because we want have such lofty ideas, the marriage is pre-destined to failure?

Second Most Americans think of a heightened sense of autonomy as a threat or an abnormality.

We compulsively look to media, to society, to our partners for our own
self-esteem, without ever stopping to wonder how our self-worth ended up in
someone else's hands.

This carries a little more weight with me, as long as you are looking for that someone else to complete you, you are bound to failure. However it is the presumption that Europeans have an edge over Americans in their ability to reckon with one's own soul, that irks me.

Third Most other countries women have lower powers.
..in other countries women have fewer rights. Men cheat, and women have no
leverage to stop them or to complain. It's not a matter of tolerance but of
unequal freedoms. He reminds me that in some countries, women are stoned to
death for adultery.

Even as I wince at this one, I know it to be true. Not for Europeans however. So there is that.

All in all an interesting read, some holes, but this is a tricky area to offer theories on, and it is very American to offer theories and recognize pattern definitely. Next time you are at a book store ( or at amazon) look at the number of books that will help you detect that your mate is cheating.
Maybe the question is what fidelity is and what is love, Is it too much pressure for your spouse to be your soul mate? it is normal for a human being to be monogamous, is it the price to pay for the security of a marriage?
Maybe it is….

Google?

2007-02-28T18:38:00.000-08:00

Uma, what do you want to do for the science fair this year?
Can we do Crystal growing thing again, mom?
You already did that last year, how about i go do some research and get you a list of things you could do?
OK, mom. Mom, I can tell you how to do your research?
Yeah? How?
You can Google 'science projects for elementary school'. I am sure you'll find some great ideas!

This has to be it. Google has so arrived! My seven year old is recommending it now!

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=elementary+school+science+fair+project+ideas

Corporate Athlete?

2007-02-23T14:10:00.000-08:00

Work is tiring.
I am in a business where I do not have to move from my chair very often, the biggest energy expenditure of a typical day is a stroll down to a conference room or to the cafeteria for a meeting or a meal. Yet, at the end of the day I often feel like I have run a half marathon. I am exhausted.
When not at work, I usually find myself hiding under a rock, engaging in activities like painting, running, gardening, cooking, cleaning... most of them have very low people interaction requirements. My friends and relatives complain, we never hear from you!!
Early in my working career I made a rule, weekends are for recovery. A time to re-group and be ready for the next week. I have been working for the past 12 years, without a break and I have found that every time I break the rule, I head for a serious burnout. So, at the cost of having people hate me, I don't engage in catching up on the phone on the if the week was particularly brutal. As a friend would say, if I use up my 'quota' of words at work, I wait till the next week for the quota to renew.
This week has been especially harrowing. I was out on a business trip for the first three days of the week, the flying and customer visit and the sense of every free moment spent talking about work surrounded by my colleagues, had me ready to collapse by beginning of Friday, when I run into this article.

"The Making of a Corporate Athlete" Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz ( HBR, Jan 2001)

Sustained high achievements demands physical and emotional strength as well as a sharp intellect. To bring mind, body and spirit to peak condition, executives need to learn what world class athletes already know: recovering energy is as important as expending it.

The High Performance Pyramid
Peak performance in business has often been presented as a matter of sheer brainpower but we view performance as a pyramid. Physical well-being is its foundation. Above that rests the emotional health, then mental acuity and at the top, a sense of purpose. The ideal performance state- peak performance under pressure - is achieved when all levels are working together.

Rituals that promote oscillation- the recovery of energy- link the levels of the pyramid.

They promote rituals as a way of creating the oscillations that take you between expending and recovering energy.
If executives are to perform at high levels over long haul, they have to train in the same systematic multilevel way that world-class athletes do.

The message is clear. I need to concentrate on recovery and built it into my daily routine. Not wait for the weekend, make the cycle shorter and consciously recognize when I am flagging, learn and train to institute cycles of recovery. The simile, awkwardly is weight lifting:
it involves stressing the muscle to a point where the fibers literally start to break down. Given an adequate period of recovery the muscle will not only heal, it will grow stronger. Conversely failure to stress the muscle results in weakness and atrophy. In both cases the enemy is not stress, it is linearity- the failure to oscillate between energy expenditure and recovery.

Here's to working in Corporate America, and surviving it !

Denim so distressed...

2007-02-14T12:32:00.000-08:00

it is distraught...

- from A& F

Who, me?

2007-02-11T00:15:00.000-08:00

met a few new people tonight, they were not very new, just new to me ...
It isn't very often I ponder my affiliations, but tonight I did. I am an immigrant, in this shiny land of plenty. Where I come from there isn't much, but it is my own land and tonight I wondered about how far I had come along in this journey. Many thousands of miles, in time and in space and the place where I am now is not quite the land I came from, and yet I am not ready to call this sparkling place my home. Not yet. Will I ever? And more importantly, will I ever be ready to call the land I left, not my home anymore? I know the land I left lives on in my mind and sometimes I wonder if it lives just in my mind? Was it ever really there? And the place that I am in now, what is it? it not very sparkly from where I sit... how many roads do I still need to travel before I reach my home? is it a distance I can make? for it is really a distance in my mind. Maybe I am already home, I always have been, I just need to be able to make others see it, the way I see it.

Happy New Year

2007-01-04T10:36:00.000-08:00

Much of what happens in history", [Taleb] notes, "comes from 'Black Swan dynamics', very large, sudden, and totally unpredictable 'outliers', while much of what we usually talk about is almost pure noise. Our track record in predicting those events is dismal; yet by some mechanism called the hindsight bias we think that we understand them. We have a bad habit of finding 'laws' in history (by fitting stories to events and detecting false patterns); we are drivers looking through the rear view mirror while convinced we are looking ahead"

Being Jane and tales of labor day

2006-09-04T11:20:00.000-07:00

Tarzan has been missing so missus spent the weekend being Jane. Cutting bushes, laying paths, a new sprinkler system, raised bed and the ususal fall stuff, mulching-composting and planting bulbs.
Labor day is very American holiday, Monday off to make the last long weekend of the summer. Schools start after labor day, but way back from my childless days, labor day has been about last labor intensive projects of the year. Such projects involve dirt, rocks, beams , power tools etc and ofcouse a week long administration advil post adventure.
1998 my first ever intensive labor day, my friend asks,
so what are you doing this labor day?
I have renter a rototiller, I plan on re-sodding the back yard.
My dear friend V has since learnt, that I am not kidding.
I have laid concrete pathways, build arbors, painted the house, build raised beds, re-planted, installed water features, built Japanese gardens, installed sprinkler systems, deleted trees and bushes and ofcourse, re-sodded the back yard. This year was relatively less adventurous, apart from the installing the sprinklers, there wasn't much of technical difficulty. Mostly it was wheel barrowing the landscape rock to raise the retaining wall of the raised bed, placing the sprinkler pipes in place, new plantings, taking out some 10 year old ( and very well entrenched bushes) and mulching. I also placed some landscape spotlights( the solar panel kind). The yard doesn't look much yet, just kinda large and clean, but at night the lights light up the place well.
The sprinkler system has been a huge fight for me. I live in the pacific northwest, it rains nine months a year here, why should I need a sprinkler system? I don't care that my yard turns brown and crispy by the time July ends. I don't care much about the lawn, it comes back like the neighborhood cat, every year.
But after my third clematis Montana died this summer, I have been thinking. The arbor has been there for three years and the hydrangeas look puny, the the honeysuckle is on its last legs, the wisteria is doing great, but my darling clematis is dead again. I have a south facing back yard, on a quarter of an acre lot, I get all the sun I could hope to get in this place. The down side of the nine months of the rain is that there is so much water on the surface that the plants never root too deeply and then comes the droughty three months of straight sun. Sigh! So, sprinklers it is. But I really need drip system, fine I need to find something that can do both and I am NOT watering the grass.
Now as I sip my reisling and watch my micro-filters spray droplets of water and the laser cut soaker water the roses, I smell the musky end of the summer as the water hits the parched earth . Spring is full of the hope of the elusive Ms Elizabeth showering me with the tiny white-pink blossoms I have been dreaming of ....
Here's hoping!

...

2006-08-30T13:02:00.000-07:00

And so it goes.
churn in life, in life of people around me. It is amazing to see how many differences of opinions exist. It is easy to say everthing is relative but when you see it implemented around you, it is baffling. Life, relationships, needs, connection, trust, love, family, truth, right or wrong? It is weird how everyone is convinced that they have it right, and truth be told, they do. Only it is their version of the truth, something that lets them go on with their life, take actions and feel good about themselves and their actions. Are they right? What gives people the right to tout their version of truth as the only one out there? Impose it on others?
I see people in every phase of a relationship, the good, the bad and the ugly. And all of them have their valid stories. And what about me? The truths I have learnt and what I know? Where does that stack up against all this?

big question to be pondered.

Omkara

2006-07-31T10:05:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I went to watch the movie, Omkara, 15 mins into the movie, I was itching to go buy the soundtrack. The movie was very nice. Othello, has been one of my favorites, mostly because of my feministic tendencies. But more about the movie and Othello at some other times, this is about the music.
It has been a dry season as far as new hindi music is concenred. But the wait is so over!
Ah! I couldn't believe, I did not buy this CD earlier, with music of Maachis, Satya and Maqbool under his belt, I should have known better.

Omkara. Sukhvinder Singh
Uma’s favorite track in the album. It has captured the iterant –singer-retelling-a - folk-lore element very well. Very very nice.
The song starts with a jangly sound akin to an ektara . The music wells, as a metallic clang of a matka and percussion join and then tinkling of ghunghroo, the beat is taken on by the Nagada and unexpectedly, sound of clapping hands. The beauty of the song is in how the beat is carried forward on varied instruments, like a relay race the baton is passed from the booming drum- to the war drums to the matka- to the clapping hands- to the wooden stick- to the voices of the chorus and then back- to the booming drums. The song relies very heavily on Sukhvinder Singh’s voice which waxes and wanes and moves thru the octaves effortlessly. There are plenty of modern tricks like multiphased echos and reverb and the synth filling in spaces; it is done with subtlety, cleverly disguised by overlaying chorus. Masterful.

O Saathi Re Shreya Ghoshal, Vishal Bharadwaj
Starts with keyboard piece which with a very subtle use of the metal kabbas, transitioning to Shreya’s voice. Flute, subtle beat and occasional twirling of the kabbas. There is a full orchestra in the background( a bevy of violins in tow), but it doesn’t overwhelm the song. The short synth piece in the middle seems false. The guitar is nice, Vishal and Shreya’s voice blend well and convey the languorous, sensual mood of the song very well. The ending piece when the orchestra lets off is very nicely done.

Beedi Sunidhi Chauhan, Sukhvinder Singh, Nachiketa Chakravorty, Clinton Cerejo
The raunchy lyrics are uttered with a relish! Sunidhi is awesome, the song utilized her vocal chords well as she backs up Bipasha’s seductive eyes with her voice. Sukhvinder Singh is himself ( love the way he rolls his r’s :)). Nachiketa Chakrotrovorty is an interesting find, the male voices blend well except for the first few lines where hand offs have an edge. Somewhere in the middle the song switches for a bit to good old harmonium and dhol, and the song carries on as if nothing happened. The end is nice and abrupt.

Gulzar out did himself in this album, I never expected this from him. The dialect is perfect, the imagery, leaves you a little stunned. The vocabulary is a little arcane; you feel the impact, rather than understand it. Very in keeping with wordsmith image.

Jag Ja Suresh Wadekar
I haven’t heard the guy in a while, in the movie the lullaby-like song doesn’t have any musical accompaniment, in the CD the music is at its minimum. The minimalistic style adds to the song very well. The words are amusing, the guy is trying to wake up the girl, calling her a doll, a princess, a fairy a queen and then things like ‘ Mooi’ and ‘Maari’ ( god forsaken). Very pretty.

Namak Rekha Bhardwaj, Rajesh Pandit
Sung by Rekha Bhardwaj, a fully trained classical musician ( and Vishal's significant other), it has definite makings of the 'item' numbers. She has rich trained voice. Song is sung in a semi-sufiana style ( with the back ground chorus a-la- Qawali), with harmonium, tabla as the instruments of choice. The training in Rekha’s voice is very obvious as she renders the semi-classical vocal gyrations with ease. The pace is controlled, as always, by the percussion.

Naina Rehat Fateh Ali Khan
Of the ‘Rahet Fateh Ali’ style, strong on vocals and

minimalistic in music, yet it manages to distinguish itself. The overwhelming sense of betrayal; helplessness, anguish is palpable, some of it is the words-some of it is the music. Naina thag le ge…
Haunting.

Laakad Rekha Bharadwaj

Laakad jal kar koyla hoye jaye, Koyla hoye jaye khak;
Jeya jale to kuch na hoye re, naa, dhooa naa rakh

Nice rendition, in keeping with the tone, wistful, melancholy ….
The song starts with a sound of a oars dipping in the water, the dhak carries the beat of the oars. Synth backdrop, mostly keyboard, violins. Rekha's voice emotes better than Kareena's face. The song ends with a huge audible sigh. Very well done.

Tragedy of Omkara
Short piece, instrumental. Stands up on its on an not just a medley of the soundtrack. Ominous, overwhelming cresendo. What seems like the marching army, or is it Othello’s destiny?

Verdict? With this one album, this guy is now on my list of composers to buy before I listen. One of the best albums I have heard in a while.

Never assume malice...

2006-07-25T11:47:00.000-07:00

... when ignorance will do.

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna

2006-07-15T16:51:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I wrote about Hindi film music,a dry season so far, not much to write about. There are three Hindi movie music directors that I would buy, without listening. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy are one of the trio. While their sound is not heavy duty, the soul gripping kind, it is, light and frothy, easy on the ears, without sounding like a total rip off. Vocals are ususally the best you can get ( I love the Shankar's voice) and the songs are usually grounded with a very strong underlying beat.
This is one of their weaker album, I almost didn't write this post, I was so disappointed....

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna- the title track is insipid and uninspiring. I am not a big fan of Sonu Nigam and Alka Yagnik, I wish I could blame them... The opening bars on the piano and synth transition start out nice, the solo voice with just the piano bars kinda keep you listening to the first 15 seconds. As soon as the percussion ( a ghatam like sound) starts, the song is lost. From there on it is banal. Reminiscent of a hundred songs you might have heard. The musical interlude borrow the theme from kal ho naa ho.
Disappointing.

Mitwa- Shafqat Amanat Ali, Shankar Mahadevan, Caralisa.
This is typical Shankar Mahadevan fare. Reminds me of one of his initial albums, breathless. Full of energy, he completely lets go of his voice, the result is very nice. The two male voices blend really well. The beat is at odds with the song, it overpowers the song. The dhin-chak after the first salvo makes me want to cry, it ruins the effect, subtler beats would have been so much better ....The lyrics are the by Javed Akhtar, the words make this an introspective song,
yeh jindagi jo hai nachti to
kyon bediyon me hai tere paon.
Alas...

Where's the party tonight-Shaan, Vasundhara Das, Loy, Shankar Mahadevan.
As the words say, a dance floor song, strong two step beat and tons of echo effects. Vasundhar's voice has so much substance to it, it is not the typical ephemeral, ethereal voice ( like Lata, shreya et all), earthy without being all character, bordering atonal (like Ila Arun) and fills the song nicely. Between Vasundhara and Shaan and the occasional taan's by Shankar, the song is dancable, listenable, hummable version 2 of 'its the time to disco' ( kaal ho na ho).
Okay...

Tumhe Dekho Na - Sonu Nigam, Alka Yagnik
Extention of title song. Pretty much the same stuff. forgive me for not being inspired.

Mitwa Revisited - Shafqat Amanat Ali, Shankar Mahadevan, Caralisa.
Umm, being better acquainted with the song does nothing to improve its charm. This time the beats are heavier, while the heavier beats take away any pretense to introspections (words or no words), it transitions to a good old dhin- chak song. And it fits in with the 50 million songs produced in bollywood for this category. :( Ok, that was too harsh, but serously, I expected more from these guys.

Rock N Roll Soniye - Shankar Mahadevan, Shaan, MahaLaxmi Iyer
Now, this is what I was talking about. It is, as the song says, bhangra on rock n roll. The song is high energy with a hyper beat. But the beat is not the only thing contributing to the soongs charms, it has numerous little interludes that come in and change the song's pace.
The attempt at baritone by Shankar Mahadevan adds a little something to the song. The sar pe -topi lal interlude is interesting as is the boogie woogie piano work. The wham-bam reference threw me off a little :)
The mainstay of the song is beat, the basic beat is a two step which sort of holds the song together. The second beat which overlays moves it between, rock and roll and bhangra and at times goes double time into with the typical shift level piano work...very very nice.
Love the 50 rock n roll with jazz, R& B and gospel influence. I love they way they have merged the two different music genres and made it sound so seamless and comfortable in each other's proximity.
rock and roll - to the beat of the dhool
Honey honey honey honey mere sang dol -- to the double time is lovely, it makes me break out into a big ol grin even when I hear it in my head :)

Farewell trance-Shweta Pandit, Caralisa
Erm, what? this is a plain old instrumental for the title track, need I say more?

Over all, the album was redeemed by that one number. I am sure, all songs will look lovely on the screen.

As far as the movie is concerned, all I can say is I am intrigued. Karan Johar has made a lot of name for himself in the past few years. The movies he has directed or produced have been lavish affairs, exceptionally executed with remarkable attention to detail. Stylistically he is wonderful. But the topics addressed and the treatment of the topics has been, erm, naive. The settings are ususally affluent and the motivations noble. Sordid details, petty meanesses have no room. That is not real. So this venture, which talks of relationships, with the byline "what do you do, if you meet your soulmate, when you are married to someone else?" leaves me, as I said before, intrigued.
There are rumblings of the movie being a rip off of silsila and/or closer. The guy is shah rukh khan, and from the previews, it looks like he is being his usual self. So despite Rani and Abhishek, my hopes are not very high content-wise. But one thing I am sure of, it will be a treat for my eyes :)

Perfectionism ...

2006-07-06T16:24:00.000-07:00

... is the highest order of self-abuse.

how's that for a rattling thought?

Seattle

2006-07-03T10:25:00.000-07:00

Sedona

2006-06-06T10:03:00.000-07:00

the eggs

2006-06-02T13:00:00.000-07:00

I though of that old joke.
This guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, "Doc, my brother's crazy. He thinks he's a chicken." And, the doctor says, "Well, why don't you turn him in?"
And the guy says, "I would, but I need the eggs."

Well, I guess that's pretty much how I feel about relationships. They're totally irrational and crazy and absurd...,but I guess we keep going through it because... most of us need the eggs.

( Annie Hall)

Arizona

2006-06-02T12:52:00.000-07:00

2006-05-25T11:29:00.000-07:00

I can't hear what you are saying....
.. because who you are speaks too loud!

( i am a collecter of witticisms.. here's another)

Demings principles

2006-05-22T12:29:00.000-07:00

Create constancy of purpose towards improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive, stay in business, and to provide jobs.
Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.
Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by creating quality into the product in the first place.
End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead minimize total cost. Move towards a single supplier for any one item, on a long term relationship of loyalty and trust.
Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.
Institute training on the job.
Institute leadership (see point 12.) The aim of leadership should be to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better job. Leadership of management is in need of overhaul, as well as leadership of production workers.
Drive out fear so that everyone may work effectively for the company.
Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and in use that may be encountered with the product or service.
Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force that ask for zero defects and new levels of productivity.
Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership. Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute leadership.
Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality. Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride in workmanship. This means inter alia, abolishment of the annual or merit rating and of management by objective, management by the numbers
Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job.

Something new?

2006-04-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

I am at the edge of a change, no, not that kind of a change, I not quite 45 yet. Another kind, where I am looking at what I do for a living and what do I expect out of it in addition to keeping a roof on my head, bread on my table and my daughter in expensive private school. The kind of contemplation that should start when one is done with the raising of kids and happens at the same time as the empty nest syndrome. When people who were running around like headless chickens from work to home to pick up the kids to buy groceries to cooking the meal to feeding to cleaning and back to running to drop off the kids and being late for work meetings... wake up one morning at 55 with kids gone and nothing to rush to anymore. I do things ahead of my time, so I guess, I entered the vanprastha earlier too :)

Back to, what do I do, what does it give me? what do I look for in a job? what would I love to do? When I come upon this article in slate.
http://www.slate.com/id/2132576/?nav=navoa

It is about the joys owning a charming neighborhood cafe. And i start dreaming ....

The small cafe connects to the fantasy of throwing a perpetual dinner party, and it cuts deeper—all the way to Barbie tea sets—than any other capitalist urge.

It can't be that hard to make money off coffee, the trail blazed by starbucks has gotten people used to expensive coffee ... An espresso that required about 18 cents worth of beans (and we used very good beans) was sold for $2.50 with nary an eyebrow raised on either side of the counter. A dab of milk froth or a splash of hot water transformed the drink into a macchiato or an Americano, respectively, and raised the price to $3. The house brew too cold to be sold for $1 a cup was chilled further and reborn at $2.50 a cup as iced coffee, a drink whose appeal I do not even pretend to grasp.

Just when I was being lulled by a vision of cozy life with no hurry mornings , where I could take the time to chat and make coffee, here it comes the reality check. with numbers, Budgeting $15 for the payroll for every hour your charming cafe is open (let's say 10 hours a day) relieves you of $4,500 a month. That gives you another $4,500 a month for rent and $6,300 to stock up on product. It also means that to come up with the total needed $18K of revenue per month, you will need to sell that product at an average of a 300 percent markup.

I don't have a marriage to fear for, but apparently, it can have detrimental effects on one...Two highly educated professionals with artistic aspirations have just put themselves—or, as we saw it, each other—on $8-per-hour jobs slinging coffee. After four more months, we grew suspicious of each other's motives, obsessively kept track of each other's contributions to the cause ("You worked three days last week!"), and generally waltzed on the edge of divorce.

but the coup de grâce was the quote from the bad boy chef Anthony Bourdain "The most dangerous species of owner ... is the one who gets into the business for love."

That seals it, the only reason I would go into a business would be for the love of it ... essentially making it a bad proposition. Where did the entrepreneurial skills of my immigrant grandpa go I wonder, they haven't been handed to me.

So another day and another dream squashed. But tomorrow’s another day, and I am sure I'll find an occupation which will allow me to bring world peace, or utilize my sabre tongue to write some scathing reviews... while allowing me to make the six figure salary that I do right now...

Closure

2006-04-19T13:04:00.000-07:00

what is it about things that makes us wants to paint things in clear black and white, even though a side of us knows about the grayscale-ness of the palette that paints this world and the people in it? The things I talk about is people and all situations with people in them are cloudy.
They say an unexamined life is not worth living; so, most of us thinking beings go to murky places and people in our minds; to wander through misty landscapes to see clearly and alas, pigeonhole; something we euphemistically call 'learning from our past'.
Let me take you though one such journey ....

Why did he do that and why did I let him?

the proponents of Lean Software Development say that every time you attempt root cause analysis ( RCA), you ask ‘why’ five times . So, here goes:

Why did he do it?
It was in his interest to act this way.

Why?
this way he could have his cake and eat it too.

Why?
Because he did not want to choose(lose).

Why?
because choosing would make him lose either the cake or the eating of it; and he did not want to lose either.

Why?
Because he is a effing loser!

Brilliant, RCA leads to pigeonholing and since X was a loser, I was a better person and it is so much better this way. Good riddance to bad rubbish etc.

well, thinking minds are not so easy to quieted, middle of the night I am up again, if X was such a loser why did I let him go on so?

RCA at my rescue again ...

Why did I let him go on so?
because I did not see it at first.

Why ?
because I wanted to believe.

Why?
because I am an optimist, and I don't want to give up on hope.

Why?
because if hope is gone there is nothing to live for.

Why?
because I need a reason outside of me to live.

Why? because I am an effign sop who cannot live just because.

Great, so now I was in a pigeon hole too,
I stank because I was needy
And he stank because he was greedy...

What a great world, all is black!

Next morning after enough coffee to drown a child, as I was driving to work, my mind flashed back to the moment by the lake; peace, calm that was palpable, it felt good sitting silently, feeling really still inside and being able to share the beauty of the moment. That was good. And suddenly the blackness of the world lifted. It is not all bad. It never is. There is good in everyone, and believing needs you to be able to see the white despite the black.
I guess that is as close to closure I will get in this life time, and it ain't so bad.

Khana khazana: a restaurant; a review

2006-03-28T12:37:00.000-08:00

Those who can, do; those who can’t, review. There is a whole career to be made out of nit-picking; it is called being a critic. So, here I go try to be an amateur critic. This time it is a restaurant. My work takes me to recruiting trips across the college campuses in the country. Most of these trips I spend time fighting the strong urge to back to school and taking photographs of the beautiful buildings and the old trees( I also do tech interviews somewhere in there). American school campuses seem to be the last place where you see old trees and old buildings any more ... in snob-speak culture, art and history :). When on these trips, I eat occasionally and this review is from my recent visit to a college campus in the mid-west.

The Review
A simple enough shop front. Double-door entry, presumably to keep the cold out? The dark carpet and off white walls with yellow lighting greets me.
Hello, table for one?
The nice blond girl asks me, her black tie and white shirt don’t make her any less of a pleasant girl next door. She guides me to a secluded corner table by the window, the maroon and gold drapery overpower the window and weird Grecian statuette in bronze sits in the window, I don’t quite get the point, but then I look around. Christmas lights drape a pillar in the middle of the eating space and the walls around. The big-wide dinning hall is set up with cheap formica table and ‘tent house’( rental) chairs. The tables have linen table cloths covered with a sheet of transparent glass and solitary bud vase with a fake orchid. The silver ware is wrapped in a paper napkin, which seesm vaguely at odds with the luxurious look of the table cloth and draperies. I look around; pots of fake ferns and ivy cling to the ceiling. A wall scone with ugly red leaf caladium, which is horrible enough real ... plastic, does nothing to improve its charms. Framed posters of blooming renoir roses on the walls and the madhubani- style prints of radha, Krishna and gopi(s). As if to remind the diners of the Indian culture a golden temple poster and strip proclaiming jai shree ram, a poster elucidating geeta -saar and another one with gayatri mantra.
The decor in indian restaurants always leaves me surprised... There is some much going as far as Indianizing a look is concerned.. what happened? Why is it limited to cheap posters of taj mahal and golden temple and completely unbalanced madhubani knockoffs with unbelievably long torso-ed (with choli's that defy description) and shockingly blue ( or black ) face Krishna? I have seen a couple Indian restaurants that look pleasant, one had done a decent job with draped saris on the walls, the look was very harem-ish and not quite Indian, still it was better than the regular fare.
The other one was a cafe, with garage sale gathered mismatched tables and chairs painted pretty spring colors ( lime and lemonade and cherry blossom), the lighting was turned over colanders as lamp shades for bulbs hanging from the pipes in the ceiling ( it was a turned around warehouse), each table had mechanical puzzles, I used to spend hours and hours, the food was awesome, non greasy and wholesome( very home cooked) and the owners were an adorable couple who talked of a Delhi before my time... they closed. Sigh!

The Food
It was buffet, in the evening... which took me by surprise, not very many offer a buffet in the evening. The spread was limited on the number of items but there were some unusual things like bhel-puri, fruit cream, upma, aloo bhaaji, chicken vindaloo, kadhi and non-orange-tandoori chicken.
I opted for Kadhi, Upma, Goat curry and raita with Naan. Kadhi was lovely, suitably tart and non viscous, with pakodas weren’t that great, hard centers and too much besan. The goat curry was awesome, the meat was succulent( not dry) and the curry did not overpower with tomatoes or garam masala. Upma was nice and grainy -- perfect consistency and tasted light and fluffy, rather like a well stirred halwa, only salty :) .The raita had grated carrots, which did nothing for the texture or the taste.

Dessert
The pièce de résistance, fruit cream. I haven't had fruit cream since my mom made it for us, when I was in high school( you don’t want to know when that was :)). It was suitably sweet and creamy, and tasted nothing like the knockoffs in condensed milk or sweetened yogurt. It had apples (fresh) and cherries and pineapples (canned).... delicious. I (in a generous mood) had once taken someone to have a cherry coke from Ruby's. It was a sweltery hot day and this elixir called cherry-coke is coke on ice with grenadine and canned cherries. It is a little piece of heaven when it is hot and you are parched. My guest took a sip and remarked upon the artificial flavoring in the cherries 'I can smell it from a mile away'... um, that was so not the point dude, this is not gourmet coffee… it is coke... But I digress. So canned cherries in the fruit cream, along with the pineapple and grapes and apples, made for a yummy dessert. The gulab jammun, standard out-of-a-box fare, nice and hot with no lumps in the center, so not bad.

The Chai
As my Brit friend Tony said, you Indians ruin a perfectly good cup of tea. He must have been talking about the tea I had here. They had taken delicate Darjeeling tea, light and very fragrant and added tons of tea masala and boiled itlong enough with enough milk to murder any delicacy. With the first sip I wondered if it was the case of over-boiled tea-- made with leftover tea leaves that have been boiled for long. But then, I realized that it was a 'weak tea leaves' made in 'strong style'. What a waste …

Verdict

decor - 4/10
food - 7.5/10
dessert - 8.5/10
chai- 2.5 /10

Regret

2006-03-08T20:01:00.000-08:00

My life seems to be full of the usual struggles right now. It is quaint, this feeling of deja vu. Work stress and work hope. As you might have guessed work forms a fair part of my life ( the rest of it is my six year old.. and yes, I know I have a limited life :D)
Anyhow, questions I ask myself... where do I want to go? What is most important to me? When I look back in 10 years time what things would I have regret doing? and more importantly what things would I regret not doing? And what could I have done differently (knowing what I know now) ten years ago?
The last one is the easiest question. I think for a bit, but I know, I would not have done anything differently. The decisions I took and the life I've led, the mistakes I have made and the tears I have cried have very much made me who I am today. And I really like who I am, now, more than ever. Looking back at all those years, I realize that I have almost no regrets of having not done something. I have, if anything taken crazy risks... and put everything at stake, I have lost and lost some more, yet.
So, the question then --- what is it that I am really afraid of?

I am afraid of regret.

Ha, nice!

So, here's to regret--

He said I was in my early forties,
with a lot of life before me
And one moment came that stopped me on a dime
I spent most of the next days,
looking at the x-rays
Talking bout' the options and talking bout' sweet times.
I asked him when it sank in, that this might really be the real end
How's it hit 'cha when you get that kind of news?
Man what did ya do?
He said:

I went skydiving
I went rocky mountain climbing
I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu
And I loved deeper
And I spoke sweeter
And I gave forgiveness I'd been denyin'
And he said some day I hope you get the chance
To live like you were dyin'

Child 'o mine....

2006-02-17T06:52:00.000-08:00

Feb makes me mushy, I stop and look at places I walk by everyday and the cherry trees that start showing signs of life.... and the hundred things that I take for granted everyday, but most of all it is the little girl asking me millions of questions a day, sharing her discoveries and secrets with me that brings tears of gratefulness to my eyes.
Thank heavens for her.
Here's carol king... saying it much better that I ever could....

Although you see the world
Different than me
Sometimes I can touch upon
The wonders that you see
And all the new colors and pictures you've designed
Oh, yes, sweet darling, So glad you are a child of mine

You don't need direction
You know which way to go
And I don't want to hold you back
I just want to watch you grow
You're the one who taught me
You don't have to look behind
Oh, yes, sweet darling, So glad you are a child of mine

Nobody's gonna kill your dreams
Or tell you how to live your life
They'll always be people to make it hard for awhile
But you'll turn their head when they see you smile
The times you were born in
May not have been the best
But you can make the times to come
Better than the rest
I know you will be honest
If you can't always be kind
Oh, yes, sweet darling, So glad you are a child of mine

What have you seen lately ...

2006-02-03T14:15:00.000-08:00

I consider myself a well hardened cynical sort of a person, but over the course of past week, I managed to see not one but two movies, which nearly moved me to tears ( there were actual tears in one instance only …) .

Brokeback Mountain. Set in breathtaking locales (mostly Canadian Rockies), It is a story to two men and a strange relationship. Love stories don't move me so anymore because the obstacles to love seem so artificial. Religion, color, caste, marriage, duty all of these have oft been explored and in this day and age, it is so hard to believe that someone would give up all consuming love because of them. But this was slightly different, in that set in the early 60s -70s when a different sexual orientation was equated with being 'queer', the fear of ostracism was fear for your life. The portrayal of the way the relationship starts and what it becomes, is amazing in its credibility and subtlety. As it progresses, it is painful to watch the toll the relationship takes. If you can't fix it you gotta stand it... so says Ennis, and stand it, he does, as stoically as only a cowboy could. And Jack, the rodeo cowboy, full of life... you see life slowly seep out of him as the secrecy and elusiveness of the relationship take its toll on him, I wish I knew how to quit you...

Rang De Basanti. The story of generation born in free India. This has been a somewhat common phenomenon in Hindi movies in the past decade.
Maachis comes to mind as the first movie where a bunch of young men and women find themselves caught up in something far beyond their meter. Dil Chahta Hai, ended up being a coming of age movie while Swades focused on the 'what have you done for your country lately' sentiment, albeit from the NRI standpoint. Lakshaya was perhaps the most direct of them all.
This generation does not have a purpose, it does not have a belief system. They are mostly culturally and religiously agnostic people cut adrift in the society. They hate the system, the corruption, the ostentation... and yet they feel helpless when it comes to doing something about it....partly because they lack role models and partly because the job is so huge they can't fathom starting it. Rang De Basanti carries the story a bit farther. It is an extreme story. But the amazing part is how real the portrayal is.
No mushy-unbelievable melodrama. You see these young people transforming. Doing things they used to think were completely and utterly over the top. The testament to the movie was the stuffed movie hall in which I saw the movie. Usually smart alec-y comments abound from my co- movie-watchers, for the buffoons watching the movies are just as incredulous of things like purpose, belief in something beyond themselves. The first half was all laughter and fun (with the high point being the blue-eyed blond Gwyneth Paltrow look-alike letting out a full fledged Hindi epithet 'ma-ki -'... oh the thunderous applause!). The second half the pace changes, there is blood and gore and the crowd of some 400 viewer is carried thru the journey of transformation, not a single cackle. Maybe the change wasn't just in the movie....

Children...

2006-01-20T10:04:00.000-08:00

You spend the first two years of their life teaching them to walk and talk. Then you spend the next sixteen telling them to sit down and shut up.
Grandchildren are God's reward for not killing your own children.
Mothers of teens now know why some animals eat their young.
Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said.
The main purpose of holding children's parties is to remind yourself that there are children more awful than your own.

I love my child to death, but she does have the moments when I wonder, why O h Why did I decide to have a kid :). It is a completly different story that mommy bear will not let anyone else growl at her baby bear .. infact she will growl them out of her house, if they as much as attmpt to look mad at her baby bear ... parents!

Glory...

2006-01-19T12:24:00.000-08:00

yippee..
Glory Road is the right now highest box office grosser... 16.5M
( it will probably change soon…)
My two loves in the same place, Josh and basketball
:D

'appy New Year!

2006-01-04T14:36:00.000-08:00

It is new year.. time for resolutions! One of those boring things that most people do. The most popular ones being 'getting in shape' and 'getting organized' which account for the lack of parking at the gym and the million storage sales in the first week of Jan. I have been trolling the headlines ( and the sales signs and gyms apparently) to glean this information and another interesting resolution seems to be ‘getting the personal life in order’, finding that ‘someone’ in earnest, as evidenced by the flood of dating tips and statistics and all those discounts by the online dating services. Someone resolving to find a mate is great but others making the resolution for them is a bit, erm, daunting to say the least. I have had my once-a-year-contact-married friends dropping not so subtle hints ... all I got to say is , wow!!!
Anyhow, my resolutions.
This year I resolved to yes, like the rest of the mere mortals get organized, so storage container sales came in handy :). My house is organized, garage not so much.. but well begun is half done… and I have tons of containers.
Reflecting on the year past, I decided that I'd do at least one thing that I would regret not doing, if I were to die today. So traveling is the thing this year. Let’s see where it takes me.

I also decided to yell at myself less-- for instance, not go shopping unless I had written out list. I am old now, I should not yell at myself if I cannot keep a 30 item list in my brain. Doing so I will be following some very good advice 'brain space is at a premium, never memorize anything that can be written down on a piece of paper'. Then again, my brain is notorious for selectively picking up things. It is like the unpredictable child that picks up pebbles off a beach as it fancies. But the larger goal is to be nice to myself... I am sure I can mange that :)

Last thing, I will floss regularly. This is one of those things that I attempt to do... and then forget. I have bought a big box of waxed floss from costco, so that I don't fall short of this because of resources.

Uma surprised me with one of her own. She told me ' I want to take better care of my things' and as I was wondering where she came up with this from, she came running and gave me a big ol' hug, 'like giving you more hugs, mommy '
:D

the spice trail

2005-12-22T10:38:00.000-08:00

I am on my Christmas break these days. This year, I am cooking (last year I re-did a couple rooms in my house). It is something about time of from work, this time of the year, I always find myself new projects.
Anyhow, this year I decided I would cook. I love cooking; my audience has dwindled over the years. Uma and me aren't big eaters, or for that matter much interested in eating. But both of us agree that cooking is a lot of fun. My kid brother ( not such a kid anymore ) was my best audience ever. He would eat most anything I made and tell me it was wonderful :). Ah those days ...
Anyhow, back to cooking. I was shopping online ( at Amazon) for a couple friends of mine when I came upon this book, actually the website thought that I might like the book( how thoughtful). I hadn't bought a cook book in a while and this looked interesting ( From Curries to Kabab's, recipes from the Indian spice trail). So I got it. It is a lot of fun. It is full of tiny little history bits about spices and origins of recipes. Madhur Jaffery, the author, has traveled quite extensively to Africa, Caribbean, Europe, south-east-asia. And she traces the recipes from these places and retails stories about how the immigrant Indian population modified the recipes to work with the available spices or sometime add Indian spices to local recipes to give them Indian flavor.
The recipes are not for the amateur, she misses out important processing steps sometimes and unless you know how to cook, you'd be a little lost with what to do with the celery tops and scallions. It is fun reading the book, and cooking from the recipes in it, I guess I am a little old-fashioned, I like books and CDs even in the digital age.
The book is by no means complete. Madhur, being from the western part of India, seems to know more about that area and since these recipes are culled from friends and acquaintances, have extensive coverage from Kenya, South Africa, Trinidad. They cover Thai, Indonesian, Malay and Chinese food too. Eastern Indian isn't and Kashmir food is completely missing. There are some attempts to go south but most of them are tentative (limited to seafood and some hyderabadi recipes). It is a pretty ambitious undertaking, to trace the cuisine of the second most prolific people in the world. And the attempt is very good.
She writes with love for food like a patient aunty teaching me to cook. And then she throws in some wicked comments, which make me look at her in surprise before I burst out laughing. I have tried a bunch of stuff, but this is one thing I tried just because I loved the way she described it.

South-African Chicken Biryani While a moghlai biriyani is mild, pale, elegant and delicately savory. Designed to be eaten with equally delicate yoghurt preparations, the South-African one is vibrant, spicy and piquant; definitely the hot chick at the dance.

Rang De Basanti

2005-12-16T10:59:00.000-08:00

I have to say, I take umbrage to the loose translation 'color me yellow'. I guess Hindi is a hard language to translate to English, but color me yellow is horrible ( esp. if you think about the connotations that ' yellow' carries in English!!). Anyhow, my humble translation, Basanti has more to do with Basant( ie spring) and so basanti carries with it a notion of spring. Color me the colors of spring? it does go better with tag line of the movie ' a generation awakens'.

The music.
It is by A R Rahman. I was quite in love with the mangal pandey music, but with this album the ARR I used to love is sooo back :). The album is strange, almost weird, but boy, do the songs grow on you! It conveys the unrest and indecision of a young generation And he is doing what I love, picking out the right voices to support his songs steering clear of the popular.

Ik Onkar : sung by Harshdeep Kaur, it the authentic rendition from Japji Sahib, reminds of the sunday morning guru-bani in the ye olde days of doordarshan when we did not have ten thousand channels on the Indian TV. ARR didn't mess with it, left it as is. Good.

Rang De Basanti: The title track, sung by, hold your breath, Daler Mehndi (and a cameo by Chitra). It is lovely. None of the brit-panjabi-pop, tunnu-tunnu's. When reined in, the guy can sing! The lyrics are part-patriotic and ARR uses the traditional bhangra instruments, the single strand ektara, plucked with the finger and the dunnalli( the double barrel flute) and the dhol ( the drum). Very dancable, and Daler Mehndi does an amazing job, esp the end, which is a couple, unadorned by music, lines. Chitra's shrill couple lines are note perfect ( with a teensy south-indian accent) and provide a nice dimension. This is my favorite in the album so far.

Paathshalla- This track features twice in the album. Very hip, pop-rock number. A little bizarre with its asymmetric three beat cycle. Sung by Naresh Iyer, Mohd Aslam, ( second version has Blaaze). I could almost see a hiked up car with the immense tires on a dirt track.
Love the lyrics: talli hokar girne se/samjhi hamne gravity,
ishq ka practical kiya/thaab aiye kilarity;
Even uses words like alpha, theta and H2SO4, college kid anthem:D. Hilarious. Uma loves it. My whole car was reverberating with the beats in the song. It was fun!

Tu Bin Bataye: the only romantic song in the album, much different from the 'kho gayi meri gathariaya' song from Swades, thank goodness! Uses some of the same ebb and flow of orchestra tricks. Sung by Madhushree and Naresh Iyer. Background is very subdued, the focus in on the vocals, the full orchestra of violins and some nice subtle touches like ghungaro, church bells and echo effects. The song is nice and mellow with a dreamlike quality to it. very nice.

Khalbali: This is middle-east inspired song, full with arabic lyrics ( Nacim) and the vocal gyrations ( which echo a belly dancers movements). ARR sings, but he is good in this song. The two other voices are Nacim and Aslam. This is one of the places the ARR stamp shows, interweaving themes (including a ‘khaalid’ strain ) give complexity to the song, which saves it from a horrible monotonous death. Not bad.

Khoon challa- Mohit Chauhan, a lead singer from one of the hip new pop bands, apparently. Nice voice, an untrained voice, can't manage complex tunes but does wonderfully well with this very simple tune with minimal music. The voice is reminiscent of Shailendra kumar, the same freshness. This guy loves singing, he puts his soul in the song; and it shows. It is a fragile song and ambient noise is going to distract from it. It shows has the unfinished touch. But it is not unfinished, the attention to the small details surface if you listen to it carefully. Low on layering and orchestration, mainstays are guitar which complements without distracting. Well done.

Luka chupi- It is a funny song, not literally. The words suggest a song sung by mom to call out to her kid, lullaby like… however, and here comes the twist, it plays out more like an amateur jam session. The music is minimalistic, there’s guitar, table and flute and jal-tarang simulation on a synthesizer(weird combo, I know). Lata’s voice is lovely ( and I usually don’t find her voice lovely anymore). ARR sings.
The guys’ been learning classical and practicing, but there are a few things he should leave to others, like singing.
It seems people want to be known for things that they are not very good at, while they take for granted the things they excel at. I have a hypothesis that folks let ARR sing so that he will direct music for their movies, just like folks let MM Kreem direct music just so he’ll sing for the score. ARR should really think twice before singing. Really.

Lalkaar: Aamir Khan recites in guttural tone ( it would sound so much nicer with a baritone like Amitab, but, Aamir does a decent job). Love the words…
Sarfaroshi ki tammana ab hamare dil mein hai …
Good job by the lyricist, Prasoon Joshi. The war backdrop is well done, chorus echoing the voice and the plaintive but subdued taan. Nice!

Roobaroo: Naresh Iyer and ARR. Reminds me of that ‘purani jeans aur guitar ' song, which was the archtypical college-dorm-dreaming-of-your-future-song. Naresh Iyer fits well, not a very well trained voice, but seems to possess raw talent and obviously loves singing. His voice fits in very well with the strumming-guitar-and-singing-along-popular-college-hero that rule the inter-college festivals persona, we all know and love. Minimalistic music, very in keeping with the mood of the song. Like the ‘aye saala’ bit. Nice touch!
It is small touches like this ( and the scatting) which belie the impression of the simple- almost rough edges in the album. It may seem unfinished, raw, but its lack of finish is like the frayed edge tweed coat by Channel. It is intentional and very much a statement.

All in all- love it.
Verdict? typical ARR fare, will not do well… Also, can’t wait to watch the movie… with this much attitude in the music, the movie looks promising.
Another Aamir Khan flick?
I am happy :)

.. cold...

2005-12-15T10:05:00.000-08:00

.. I was so cold yesterday, that I actually ate a piece of chocolate to feel warm....
and I never eat chocolate....
brrr...

Tis the season to be ...

2005-12-07T15:56:00.000-08:00

Everywhere I look there is world weary cynicism, loves lost, pangs of being misplaced, within and without.
I was introduced to the glitzy(!) new world of blogging thru my younger siblings. Most of the blogs I visit when I go blog hopping are similar. I start from a twenny blog, the incestuous cycle may turn into a spiral but it does not stray far... the back patting, the handholding and the inane commenting. Till it dawned on me that whatever the age, it is just a bunch of lonely people reaching out. Even though most of the blog-facades seem egoistical exaggerations or single faceted views into people.. they are revealing. And this new-fangled ( hardly) media called web does make world a smaller place.
Most of the blog-spheres consist of people who have never seen each other, but they mean more to each other thru their words than the folks they meet in their daily life. Sometimes it seems like escapism, but who am I to say anything, whatever makes one get thru a difficult period and friends with masks are much better than drugs and alcohol :)
It amazes me to see the world weariness I see in these younglings, the attitudes and the coping mechanisms.. it is an insight into a generation, or is it? I wish there were more of my generation ( yeah, I know I sound like I have a foot in the grave ).. I'd like to see if there was a difference or if it is more about personality types and not age groups.
I am reading the latest Vikram Seth book. I am not done reading it, it is a slow read. Vikram Seth is much older now than he was when he wrote 'heaven lake ..'. And the pace of the book and the subject, full of filial ties and the long drawn out relationship descriptions is tedious... As I read, I wonder if it is an age thing? do these things become more important as we get older, Suitable boy was completely fictional but the plots and subplots and descriptions were far more engrossing. I found the same thing in my recent visit to India. All of the people I used to find fascinating ... had become somewhat unrecognizable in their conversation... surely it was not so before?
Or as my favorite therapist, Bernie ( who also styles my hair to perfection) said, maybe it is you who have changed, sweetheart.
Change is a good thing I guess, but what do you do when you change so, and the world you knew becomes a foreign land? I guess, you start discovering things again, with your new self.

Hanuman: the music

2005-12-05T10:29:00.000-08:00

I am back once more, with a music review of an album where the music is not done by any of my favorites :)
I must say, I bought the CD purely on the cuteness of the little hanuman. And I have not been disappointed.
Let’s start then ...
Mahabali Maharudra: So many of my favorite voices, Kailash Kher, KK, Shaan, Palash Sen, Madhushree, Sneha Pant and alas Sonu Nigam. It starts with khadal and manjera and the chants from hanuman chalissa. The thunder and lightning as the music picks up and ebbs. The mix of voices is magical. The words, Mahabali maharudra shauravaan .. hanuman. The track does justice to each of the voices, it is grand and magnificent, my favorite track so far.

Jay Hanuman: Two voices I never thought I'd hear together, Kailash Kher and Shankar Mahadevan. So different and yet they go so well together. The hunger in Kailash Kher’s voice fits the supplicatatory note required for this song. It is a spin on the hanuman chalissa- Jay hanuman gyan goon sagar, Jay kapish theun lok ujaagar. The song has repetitive meter, the four lines cycle back over and over, it could have been monotonous, but the richness, interplay of vocal contrast from the two singers and the semi-classical taan's in the background, which add a dimension to the song, lift it from the ordinary to memorable.
Akdam Bakdam: The exploits of little hanuman, as he flies thru the sky and creates all kinds of mischief. Sung by shravan. Reminiscent of the jungle book song ' chaadi pahen ke phool khila hai'. The hyper active song with nonsensical lyrics ( akdam bakdam) is so far uma's favorite song and I can see why :).

Jay Bajrangbali: Baby hanuman's exploits continued. Sung by Palash Sen and Kinshuk Sen. The lyrics stray a little bit from the traditional in this... Sabse solid gada kiski../ yeh magic poonch bhi hai uski ... sing it kid! Lovely mix of classical/ pop. Very euphoria and very Palash Sen( even has 'dhoom pichuk dhoom' in it ). Very nice and utterly danceable.

Hanuman theme: it does a great job of mixing the tranquil bits with the crazy high energy bits. Chorus and taan's in the background with jaal tarang and trumpet, mostly synthesized music, but blends in the transitions and seemingly opposing elements well.

Hanuman Chalissa:( Vijay Prakash, Nandini, Rashmi) The only piece that could qualify as the old school devotional music. The verse of Hanuman Chalissa is very well adapted. The rendition is lovely, with clear enunciation and the background theme (mostly taans by the female half of the vocals and some chants) add a nice dimension to the number.

Destroying Ashok Vatika: very nice, I can almost see Hanumna jumping around destroying the places, uprooting the tree... bam bam bajrang bali :)
Bridge across the Ocean: slightly serious and somber tone with chants of jai shri ram. Nice.
The war begins: somber to signify a marching army perhaps.
Kumbkaran: interesting, with the resounding drum beat to mirror foot steps?
Ravan goes to war: Very tantric, with the invocations to the Mahadev Shambhu, Lord shiva. Suitably ominous and the lone conch shell at the end. Very nice.

The music is by Tapas Relia. Impressive. The music is not very complex or subtle, most of the number have a couple themes which are laid out with simplicity. The numbers are short enough to not become tedious and repetitive. The voices are well used. The music is energetic and well arranged. He definitely has used the best vocal talent around. I am not sure I am ready to add the guy to my favorites list yet, He has potential, I was impressed but not quite blown away. I am buying his next album. The jury is out still :)
The lyrics by Satish Mutatkar are mostly amalgamation of Hanuman chalissa and Hanuman astak, which take me back to my childhood (I could recite in entirety by the time I was 6-7 years old). He has held true to the words, and any additions and manipulations sound suitably supplicatory, joyous or ominous as the mood demands. Very nicely done.

Hello December

2005-12-01T12:24:00.000-08:00

And it is snowing out :D

It is December today. My favorite month of the year. For many a reason. It is the end of a year for many, but for me it is the beginning of the next year. It is also the beginning of the cold season, and I love cold. The extent of this love came crashing down on me during my recent visit to the tropics. I hate the heat; I bore it somehow earlier, but now my body and mind revolt vociferously. My skin was stretched thin over my(now) bony frame and looked extremely splotchy. I got mysterious cuts and bruises all over my arms and legs ( bil and sis think it is a case of voodoo magic). My brain refused to function, surrounded by the yummiest food ever, my appetite deserted me and I felt anything but me. I was greeted by below freezing temperatures on my arrival. Today it is snowing, suddenly all is well :)

Back to December; most people are off for most of the month, which means I can get a lot more work done at work. It is an efficient month... somehow days seem to be unhurried and a lot longer. I like that. And I get to not talk a lot. I love that. It is my month of re-charging.

It holds some important days too. I get officially older in this month( even though I insist on rounding of to the next number after six months have passed). December also holds the day I came to live, in this city I call home, many many years ago. That to me, is perhaps, one of the most important days in my life (next to the day my child was born).

December is also the holiday month. I have a brightly decked Christmas tree (which I have been setting up on the thanksgiving weekend for quite a few years now). Holiday season also means gift giving season, means I get to shop. I love that, mostly because I am shopping for people I love. Packing the gifts and putting them under the tree as I imagine the look of surprise (and hopefully joy) when they see them.
I love the smells of this month, the fire in the fireplace, the warm spices and soups, ginger and nutmeg, the smell of cookies and pies and meat curries... hot chocolate doesn't taste this good any other time of the year.

Despite the cold, it is a warm month. My home is warm and welcomimg each time I come back.
Maybe it is the cold outside that puts warmth in perspective or I just love the frost and the dreamy white look of the lanscape... either way

Oh the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightful
And since we've no place to go
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

Ode to Ma and Papa

2005-11-02T20:34:00.000-08:00

November is the month of b’days in our family. Ma and Papa have their b’day’s in this month, this is the first time in the last ten years I’ll be home for a part of the month...

So, here’s it is.. my ode to Mom and Pop.

Nature and nurture, I owe them both to you. Thank you. I could not have asked for better parents.

Ma, as I call my mom, is the most talented person, I have ever met. When I was a kid, I thought that there was nothing that she could not do. She could cook anything, she could make anything better ( from people, to stray animals and birds to dying plants…), she could make anything-- dresses, projects, anything… and she never gave up. New dresses appeared magically on the morning of the birthday, whole house was decorated, food for parties of humungous number of people was ready in our magical kitchen…. Most of this magic seemed to happen when we kids were in the land of nod. Thank you Ma, for all those sleepless nights you spent in making our wishes (many of them unspoken) come true.
Ma gave me some gifts I can never thank her enough for. The gift of reading. When I was a kid, she banned ‘popular fiction’ for me (I did read her M&B’s hiding in bathrooms and closets) but thanks to her I had read the classics before I was 15. She got me tons of books from her school library, and everywhere else she could...
The gift of music… we all love listening to music, she sings very well (one of her three masters degrees is in Music) and is one of the few people who, when given any string or a keyboard instrument can figure out how to play it. None of us can live without music … we went to music and dance classes when other kids were watching TV and playing. It was hard to come by these classes in the suburban town and required immense amount of planning and resourcefulness on her part to get us to these classes, but she did. We went there complaining, but today when I can recognize a raga or Indian instrument and tell my daughter about it, I am thankful to my Mom.

Papa, on the other hand is the most disciplined, structured and hardworking person I have ever seen in my life. He can even now, put his finger on the exact file where the negatives from our 1982 Ooty trip are. Truly self made, my Dad came to this new town for a new job and rose thru the ranks to be where he is. He has a system for everything. I still add the way he taught me to some 26-27 years ago, using a mark for a carryover… and I can still add faster than most people around me :) . Growing up my favorite subjects were Maths and Physics and I remember picking up most his engineering books when I went to college ( his Reedhill still lives in my office bookshelf and I pick it up once in a while when I get sick of software :)). My dad loved his job and was very good at it. He is my yardstick for what hardworking and honest person who has not cheated anyone of his due should be. Someday, I hope to be like him.

Ma and Papa are very independent. If I might be so bold to add, perhaps the most independent people I have seen in their generation. They are both from widely divergent backgrounds, Ma from a very hardcore Bengali family and Papa’s parents were the Punjabi’s driven out of Pakistan at partition. Together, they built for us a home where there was tolerance, talent, hard-work and love. We celebrated all festivals from Christmas to Id. We read all kinds of books and listened to all kinds of music and ate all kinds of food. The only thing you were not allowed to do was ‘not be the best you could be’. We were told that we could be whatever we wanted to be, encouraged to make our own decisions and push the limits of the known world.

Thank you, Ma and Papa, for everything you are and everything you gave me. I know I have been vociferous about my complaints in the last 15 years :)
… this is just to tell you, I know and I appreciate everything you are and you have done.

another thought...

2005-10-26T11:53:00.000-07:00

Live like there is no tomorrow.
Work like you don't need money,
Love like you've never been hurt,
And dance like no one's watching.

it is easy to say ... but oh so hard to do :)

smoldering leaves

2005-10-21T13:31:00.000-07:00

Thought for the day ...

2005-10-18T09:25:00.000-07:00

Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel.

A yellow tree

2005-10-17T12:13:00.000-07:00

Tree by the wall ...

2005-10-10T13:58:00.000-07:00

Tagged

2005-10-06T09:23:00.000-07:00

the fifth line of the 23 entry.
well my 23 entry happens to be a photo entry.. pic of Mt Rainier.. titled 'Seattle-- my Home'.

So, a blank then?

Done.

Short Tales...

2005-10-02T05:58:00.000-07:00

It was a dark and gloomy sunday morning. When did it become fall again?
The face in the mirror, familiar and yet...
The hollowness had left her cheek and the emptiness her eyes, her jacket didn't smell of cigarettes anymore...
I guess, I am finally over him, she thought to herself as she took a long satisfying sip of the dark roasted Sumatra.

***************************

She ran up the incline, panting, she was just 26 dammit, she was going to finish this god-awful marathon- she chided herself, even as her body complained. In ten years, she might not be able to pull it off. Besides, she was not sure she'd find the motivation again.

She stopped for a breather at the volunteers table and picked up a paper cup of water.

Peter, do you need some water?
No dad, I am good.
Ok, lets go then... all set?
Yup, Dad.

The balding man put the little boy with paralyzed legs in a harness and attached the harness to his back and took off.

Maybe, she'd find reasons. Her hand went instinctively to her flat belly and her mind to the unopened six pack of EPT she had bought at costco last evening.
She tossed the papercup, missing the gray bin, smiled at the volunteer as she started running. Suddenly, it seemed easier.

*****************************

Words were blurry, the cursor blinked crazily. Her fingers could not find the keys on her laptop. Thoughts formed and as she went to type them, they vaporized... and she paused, with her fingers poised above the keyboard.
What is wrong with me? it is a fucking online ad-copy for godssake.. I used to be able to rattle them off in my sleep... I am getting old and senile and happy and fat, I can't keep a thought in my head long enough to see its colors...
Life had taken away the angst and without the angst her words weren't poignant enough. Her thoughts were like well fed puppies, they held people for less than five seconds before they left to read about someone else’s searing pain. Love was killing her career.

Hey you! up so early?
How can you see anything, you are wearing my glasses!
Here, coffee, just the way you like it, black without sugar,
he said, as he dropped a kiss on her tousled head.

She watched him close the door behind him as she nursed her favorite coffee cup.
This was worth everything.
She smiled as the blinking monitor shifted into focus.

******************************

Mom, why are the cars not moving?
umm, sweetie, I think there is an accident.
oh! what happened mommy?
I think someone was not being careful and they bonked their car.
Why is that person not moving?

I was not sure what to tell my child, I had not yet figured out whether I believe in God, if there existed such a thing as heaven, if there were souls, What was death? What happened to us when we died? I did not know how to answer her question.

Mommy, do you think he is dead?
Yes, sweetie. I think so.

I guess, for now, this is enough.

Time

2005-09-27T10:45:00.000-07:00

A little over eight years ago, I started working for a software firm. It was the pre-dot-com era and I was glad to be finally doing what I loved doing anyway and getting paid for it. I loved my job. Thru the ups and downs of my life this one thing has been constant. Almost.

In the last couple years I have seen the stirrings of the seven year itch. This is not the job I loved, everywhere I look I see mediocrity and politics... coming into work is not a rush anymore and I do not long for my vacation to end so that I can go back to work.
What happened to it? Did I just get bored? Is it mid-life crisis? Or did the world at work really change?

I see so many people complain about the workplace.. most of them are just bitter 20-something 'grass is greener on the other side of the fence' complaints. Complaints of how people had it good 10-15 years ago and they could make easy millions by joining some software company and how they have been robbed of the opportunity ... basic complaints about having to work hard for the millions now.

But, I see things around me that I don't like, the firm is getting fat in the middle... Too much management and not enough people doing real work ... and most of the middle-management is pitiful anyway. Unhappy, scared, de-motivated, de-moralized people, not enough leadership in everyday life. Bad product strategy ... higher ups not in touch with reality and then the 'spin'-- for everything. Too much politics and not enough 'lets fix it.

This is not the place I started at... I was a green college grad student, who felt like she had finally come home. People were smart and worked hard. Nothing was impossible or too hard, there was integrity and fun. I loved it. I could walk down the hall to talk to the guy who wrote the API and have him tell me how and sometimes even acknowlege, my way of doing something was better than his original design.

I have given this place eight years and it has given me a lot back in return, a place to learn and grow, contribute to the world with what I do, a fat paycheck and a fatter benefits packet, friends and co-workers who are like my family now.

I have fought with people on why it is not the evil empire and why it is a great place to work.. why the review model and the curve are not arbitrary, how the interviews need to be that long. Folks tell me I have been drinking the company cool-aid too long:) but I just believe in a lot of these things that form the foundation of this place. I have seen really good managers who have used the tools of recruiting and reviewing in ways to promote happy and healthy teams. There is nothing really wrong with the system, every system can be used in ways that are counter to the principles that created it. Quoting Warren Buffet, Three things to look for in people you hire, they should be honest, hardworking and smart. The first two being essential, without which the third one actually becomes dangerous.

I read in JWZ's blog a long time ago, when he quit netscape he said, there are two kinds of people, people who make a company successful, and the kind of people who want to work for a successful company. I do believe the place I work for is now getting heavier in people of the second category. Sad as it sounds, this is not home anymore. Will I stay and try to fix my home or will I quit? Time will tell, I guess.

playlist

2005-09-23T15:06:00.000-07:00

Devo - girl I want
Korn - freak on a leash
INXS- the stairs
Elvis Costello - indoor fireworks
INXS -Faith in Each other
Faith no more - I won't forget you
Cure - close to me
Hootie and the blowfish - only wanna be with you
Elvis Costello - lovable
Fleetwood Mac - Go your own way
Elvis Costello -I hope you are happy now
Cake -Friend is a four letter word
Chris Cornell - Can't change me
Billy Joel - And So it goes
INXS - not enough time
The Cardigans - Lovefool
....

If there were a way to psychoanalyze a playlist, what would my verdict would be ?

2005-09-19T13:13:00.000-07:00

Coprocephalic -- or Shithead
I agree!

Technology

2005-09-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

I am an engineer by education. No, not a namby-pamby software engineer, but a blacksmith-mechanical one. I spent four years learning how metals work, how things are built, how engines work and take them apart and put them back together. As it turns out I work as a namby-pamby software engineer now, moving bits in machines that are of interest to few geeks like me… to send out things like email and stop viruses from infesting your email system and arcane things like that.
Yet, there are times when technology takes my breath away.

I bought a sewing machine last week. A computerized sewing machine, Janome harmony. It has a microprocessor that controls thread tension and needle placement. I am in love.

I learnt to sew when I was very young; my mom had a mechanical Singer, a black thing made out of cast iron with black shiny paint and gold lettering. By the time I was 13 I knew how to take apart the bobbin housing and put it back together, change the needle, the belt, and pretty much fix anything that was wrong with it. I used to love that machine. My Barbie’s had the best wardrobe ever and I even remember making a huge patchwork quilt out of that mechanical contraption.

My mom replaced it with a modern expensive electronic machine while I was in college. I could never work that ... it was like trying to work with VB after programming in C. I couldn't use pointers and make my application have a smaller footprint... it had a lovely UI though. Needless to say, my love for designing and sewing waned.

And then I got the Janome. It adjusts to the fabric and changing the needle is just like old times, It responds well to pedal pressure and best of all, my love for sewing is back. It was like that when I bought a Steamer for my clothes or the Kitchen Aid kitchen machine which could knead the dough to the perfect elasticity for rolling out the yummiest chapattis or the mix the best chocolate chip cookie dough.

I have never stopped to marvel at the tin box that I can drive to over 150kms/hr to get where I need to, or the rolling belt on which I can run indoors or the perfect temperature of the hot water in my kitchen or bathroom, or the wonder of inoculation or traveling at the speed of sound or the incandesent glass bulb that makes candles an ornamental fragrence source. I do marvel at the sound of a CD, it seems like the orchestra is playing just for me or the amazing photosensitivity of my digital camera that gets wonderful pictures in almost any light or the clarity of the images from the DVD which brings places I have never seen so close...and then there is my steamer and the kitchen machine and sewing machine which makes me marvel at this thing called technology..
I guess I am girl after all :)

Ah Men...

2005-09-07T12:35:00.000-07:00

According to Mary Beth Ellis the sexiest movie men are as follows:

Sean Astin
Antonio Banderas
Tom Selleck
Michael J. Nelson
John Cusask
Harrison Ford
Will Smith
Viggo Mortensen
Heath Ledger
Hugh Jackman

link: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9066263/

The lady likes her men dark and handsome(not all of them are tall :)).

That got me thinking to my list of top movie men... I realized I did not favor 'Dark' men as such, I had a fair sprinking of blonds and tawnys... Yeah, tall was important, but apart from couple all show some signs of an active brain( you gotta have one dumb blonde that you adore :))...
so my list:
Robert Redford -- what can I say, tall- blond, blue eyes , smart with a twinkly smile... my perfect dreamboat. "He was like the country he lived in, everything came too easy to him" thus he is described by Katie in 'the way we were' ... the perfect description, methinks.

Tom Hanks -- Dark and goofy with a penchant for witty repartee. Twinkly eyes and a lovely open smile. Big, Man with one red shoe, Turner and Hooch... ofcourse Sleepless in seattle, Philadelphia and not to forget 'that thing you do'. Sigh ...

Matt Damon -- Naughty blue eyes, a mischievous smile and loaded with smarts! He stole my heart in Good Will Hunting. Another man who quit harvard to pursue his dreams( I work for another one of those). His interviews read like stories, the guy should seriously consider writing more, he is a damn good story teller.

Hugh Jackman-- Ah, tall -dark and handsome, with an aussie accent, who sings like an angel... What else could a girl want :). Someone like You, typical chick-flick... fell in love with his one-liners ( " oh this? I bit myself shaving") and his smile :)

Others include Jude Law ( the dumb blond), George Clooney ( as Carrie said he is like a chanel suit.. he'll never go out of fashion ...), Will Smith ( everyone has to love him...), Josh Lucas( how could you not...), Ryan Phillippe ( the dumb brunnette?)...
this will have to do for now :)

Harry Potter and the half blood prince

2005-09-06T12:35:00.000-07:00

Harry and his friends sixth year at Horgwarts. Lord Voldemort is back, the world is in panic, death eaters and dementors are on the loose... The daily Prophet brings news of death and mayhem everyday. Harry is the quidditch team captain and Ron and Hermione are prefects. Bill is getting married to Fleur. Harry and Co are 16 now, the tone of the book has changed-- romance tends to throw a different light on things and friends :). Malfoy has a mission and Snape makes an Unbreakable Vow. All in all an eminiently readable 650 pages.

JK Rowling, she is one the most masterful kids story writers in my humble opinion. Soccer’s stone was first published in 1998, by a single mom who had a story to tell. In less than a decade she has become one of the most celebrated authors of kid’s literature the world has ever seen.

The books do not talk down to kids and she does not present the world in clean clear light, she does not hide the ambiguity and grayness. Harry goes thru the most terrible conflicts and self doubts, trying to figure out good from evil and learning most times that both reside in the same place. There are no idols, Dumbledore is the closest to one, but he too says "I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being- forgive me - rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger".

It has the elements of fantasy and unbridled imagination... I love the way she takes ordinary things and translates them to the wizard land. The fireplace transport, the moving people in the paintings and photographs, the crazy candy, Hogwarts express from platform number 9 3/4. The house elves, the pumpkin Juice, the sorting hat, the subject-- Divination, Potions, Charms, Herbology... I love the way the normal things from school have been extrapolated to this wizard world. Fifteen inches of parchment on werewolves! The curses lumous, accio, Expelliarmus, Petrificus Totalus .. and the names Albus, Remus, Minevera, Severus, Sirius... She sounds like she is having a blast, poking fun at all those adult things like discipline and rules and latin that kids find tedious-- as she teaches the kids who read about the things in life that are truly important- loyalty, friendship, love, trust...

And not to forget, the game, quidditch.

I have a couple male friends of mine complain about that game... "it is stupid, how can you not have better rules and how can you just end the game if the snitch is caught?" And as I sat there listening to the two grown men crib about why quidditch was a stupid, I started laughing. This was brilliant. This was a game created by a woman, of course it was going to be a fast paced game that she could end as soon as the snitch was caught( while letting potter being the hero cause he could be the seeker:))

Did I say that I enjoy the books most of all because Joanne Kathleen Rowling seems to write like she is enjoying herself immensly?

Another Thursday Morning

2005-08-25T09:03:00.000-07:00

Hey!
Hey yourself, how have you been!
Good, which floor?
Four. It's been crazy busy.
Yeah, I checked in the watson stuff last friday. 30,000 crashes in one bucket...
Wow!
Yeah, all because a of missing curly brace in a format string.
OMG... really?
uh-huh.
It was not until I was in my office and was checking my email that I realized what a supremely geeky conversation I had in the elevator. And I didn't think anything of it. Yuck... I have become such a nerd.

The 'in' thing

2005-08-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

Tis summer now and most days I get to see more flesh than I can shake a dynaband at.
I am amazed, at what I see around me. Women all ages, shapes and sizes in low rise pants and clingy shortie tubes, halters and sphagetti straps.
There was a time when only the most stick figure of figures would dare to wear the bum-huggers-midriff-baring-stitched-with-you-inside outfits, while the rest of mere mortals would look upon them and sigh.
It can only be a rise in the feministic element, the cry "real women have curves"... which leads to the rise in the number of women I see baring their curves. The feminist in me rejoices at increase in the body image of the average girl that makes her get out of the house in such an outfit...
Or is it just the blind following of the "in" God? The cynic in me asks. Has the body image factor really gone up? Is the number of girls that are secretly bulimic and anorexic become any lower? Statistics do not support my theory. Obesity is at an all time high ... the teen models are unhealthily skinnier than ever... Why this masochistic fashion trend then?
On an average the low-slung hip huggers and the clingy tops are far more flattering than the tied at your rib-cage Katherine Hepburn pants which had no shape to speak off... or the careless-stressed sweatshirts which sat on you like a gunny sack and made you look like an out of shape football player.
The aesthetic in me cringes when I see girls in the too tight-translucent-skinny fit shirts exposing a pudgy midriff. Low sluggers are more flattering but how low should we go? A less than 7 inch rise leads to exposure that is only flattering to you if your BMI is less than 15 (or if you are Jessica Simpson).

So do you stay at home if the ‘in’ thing is something that you cannot possibly look good in? Or do you starve yourself to bits to look what the models on the runways and the girls on billboard look like... Oh wait half the population is already attempting this.
What do you fight then to create a sense of style that works for you without making you feel bad about yourself? Can we change what the fashion trendsetter decide is the 'in' thing? Probably not, but we can change how blindly we follow it…
I guess the pendulum has to swing all the way to the other end before it centers again.
Till then, I reserve the right to cringe every time a I see a peep thru g-string cutting fat into unflattering islands and every time a woman bends down to pick something she dropped on the floor.

Up, Down and Out

2005-08-22T11:16:00.000-07:00

In management jargon, you manage up, down and out --

Managing Down- meaning you manage your team their expectations, their goals and results. This is easy to me. You are in charge and you are ultimately responsible for the results, but you divide the tasks... everyone does their piece; you teach, coax, dictate and manage. Your first priority is the business needs and second priority your people and their well being. They switch sometimes; longer term, happy satisfied employees make for success. Done.

Managing Out- meaning manage your peers, communicate with them, lean on them, have them lean on you... You are equals, partners. You vent, you crib, ask for advice and generally work together leveraging the best in each other. This is easy. Done.

Managing Up- This is about outlining your expectations, aligning your priorities with your manage(ment). Giving them realistic and timely feedback, keeping them informed about the obstacles that come your way. Ask for advice and support.
This is where it starts getting fucked up. You are responsible for your team and you are at par with your peers but where do you stand with your manager? Your manager is your boss, he judges you. He is the one, who awards you promotions and bonuses.

There is a slight tension in the roles of mentor and manager. I expect to be able to go up to my mentor and blurt out all my shortcomings and failures and ask for help and advice. But I would never do that to my boss, would I? But how will I learn, if I do not admit what it is that I am having difficulty with? It is kinda like my (now) relationship with my parents. I am grownup who manages a fairly successful life on her own, but when it comes to my parents, I become a truculent 16 year old. Unreasonable, stubborn. I know how to cajole and reason, but I will not do that with them. I want them to be the grownups ( so that I can be the kid).
I have been lucky to have had really good managers earlier in my career, where I could lay down all my faults and have them help me triage and figure out plan of action, recognize my strengths and weaknesses and help me leverage one and overcome the other. As I climb up the corporate ladder I have to 'manage' my own career and laying out of faults is not allowed. I cannot ask questions without having a plan of action. I can ask for approval but not for a solution... or can I?

I have been puzzling the conundrum for a while now. Sometimes, I get a peek at a workable solution. Learning to balance; just like I have learnt to balance micro-managing and being hands-off with my reports. I need to recognize the issues where I need more coaching and areas where I can be on my own. Present a balanced picture, keep in touch, teach my manager how to help me and stop thinking of him as an omniscient - omnipotent being, leverage his strengths... almost a partner in a way.

Some days I get it and other days the kid in me throws a tantrum...I think I am getting there. One step at a time. There is a lot more to experience. That is why it takes time :)

Another friday morning

2005-08-19T09:07:00.000-07:00

It is a glorious friday morning.
I live in one of the satellite cities of Seattle, one on the less hip 'east-side'. I work in a local software company and my daily commute is about 20-25 mins (yes, I paid big bucks to live this close to work!). On my daily commute I drive alongside a golf course, and even see the (in)famous Mt Rainer on the horizon if the day is clear.
Today while I was driving along the verdant golf course and wondering( read envying) about the people who have the time to 'golf', a golf ball hit our car. Me and Uma were woken out of our complacent rumination ( it was bagel and cream chesse today). As the little while ball bounced of the hood of the car, to the sound track of "I am nut" we were giggling, helplessly....

Good morning!

Self-deception

2005-08-18T22:53:00.000-07:00

You can't focus on the results because you are focused on yourself.
My self-justifying image about being learned is the very thing that keeps me from learning.

We are so afraid of censure and inadequacy that the only way to feel better is to blame others and make them less. We put ourselves in a box so that we can feel righteous, secure even. If the other person is wrong, we are right. We give in, we cope, we apologize... even though we are busy, on the inside, hating and blaming others.

I have done it often. And, everytime I feel inadequate, I do it again. Enter my box, deceive myself to cover up for some fault of my own. The problem is it doesn't make me feel better, it makes others feel worse and my temporary self-righteousness fades and my faults come back and smack me, right in the face.

Leadership and Self Deception - getting out of the box
The Arbinger Institute
http://www.leadershipnow.com/leadershop/5094-9.html

Shortcut to the top

2005-08-16T10:50:00.000-07:00

In this 'jet age' where taking two steps at a time to get to the next level is the measure of success, this article seems like my mom's stern voice telling me "there are no shortcuts to success". Jokes apart, I do believe that there is something to it.
“Leaders are mostly made, not born.They are made by being put into challenging jobs that require them to earn followers in order to perform. Leadership is a performing art, just like diving or singing, and the instrument is you. It takes lots of practice and it takes considerable self-knowledge and self-management.”

The long and short of it is "experience". The much hated word. The word I despised when I was a young twenty something full of vim and vigor, ready to melt mountains. I think I had it in me to do it then. The operative word being 'me'. There is a world of difference between doing something yourself and teaching and motivating and inspiring a team of people to buy into your vision and do it. And that, as cliched as it sounds, needs one to slow down, reflect, learn, and grow, and become a leader.

The image that comes to mind when one thinks of a leader is a swashbuckling knight, up on a white horse --charismatic, larger than life, with impossible to emulate qualities. Real leaders who have inspired me to put in impossible hours and do crazy amounts of work have been much different. "these leaders were individuals who blend 'extreme personal humility with intense professional will.' Although fearless, they were also modest and shy, motivating others with inspired standards rather than inspiring charisma. "

It is sometimes a jolt to the system, when you really get it, because with the getting of it comes the realization that there is so much more that you need to get. With every mountain you cross the series of mountains ahead of you becomes clearer and slowly the brain understands and accepts that it is about how you cross the mountains and not how fast you cross them. Or maybe it is just what I have learnt and there are others who have found their pot of gold at the end of the mountain by jumping three levels ( or was it the end of the rainbow). And maybe, all of us have our own journey and getting it is about the currency that we value.

Read the entire article here: http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/lead_responsibilities.shtml

Moms

2005-08-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

As told by children from 2 grade ( thanks gail:))

Why did God make mothers?
1. She's the only one who knows where the scotch tape is.
2. Mostly to clean the house.
3. To help us out of there when we were getting born.

How did God make mothers?
1. He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.
2. Magic plus super powers and a lot of stirring.
3. God made my Mom just the same like he made me. He Just used bigger parts.

What ingredients are mothers made of?
1. God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.
2. They had to get their start from men's bones. Then they mostly use string, I think.

Why did God give you your mother and not some other mom?
1. We're related.
2. God knew she likes me a lot more than other people's moms like me.

What kind of little girl was your mom?
1. My mom has always been my mom and none of that other stuff.
2. I don't know because I wasn't there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.
3. They say she used to be nice.

What did mom need to know about dad before she married him?
1. His last name.
2. She had to know his background. Like is he a crook? Does he get drunk on beer?
3. Does he make at least $800 a year? Did he say NO to drugs and YES to chores?

Why did your Mom marry your dad?
1. My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world. And my Mom eats a lot.
2. She got too old to do anything else with him.
3. My grandma says that Mom didn't have her thinking cap on.

Who's the boss at your house?
1. Mom doesn't want to be boss, but she has to because dad's such a goof ball.
2. Mom. You can tell by room inspection. She sees the stuff under the bed.
3. I guess Mom is, but only because she has a lot more to do than dad.

What's the difference between moms and dads?
1. Moms work at work and work at home, & dads just go to work at work.
2. Moms know how to talk to teachers without scaring them.
3. Dads are taller & stronger, but moms have all the real power 'cause that's who you got to ask if you want to sleep over at your friend's. Moms have magic, they make you feel better without medicine.

What does your Mom do in her spare time?
1. Mothers don't do spare time.
2. To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long.

What would it take to make your Mom perfect?
1. On the inside she's already perfect. Outside, I think some kind of plastic surgery.
2. Diet. You know, her hair. I'd diet, maybe blue.

If you could change one thing about your Mom, what would it be?
1. She has this weird thing about me keeping my room clean. I'd get rid of that.
2. I'd make my Mom smarter. Then she would know it was my sister who did it and not me.
3. I would like for her to get rid of those invisible eyes on the back of her head.

Get Married ? Why?

2005-08-15T02:24:00.000-07:00

I went to school, got a degree, then I got a job, this is what I am supposed to do next, right?
My parents expect me to get married.
I can't do everything myself.
I want to have my own home.
I want to have childern.
I want to take care of someone.
I want someone to take care of me.
I don't want to come home to an empty house.
This way someone will be obliged to have sex with me when I am ugly,old and fat.
I don't want people to think I am queer.
I got (her) knocked up.
I love them, this way they won't go away when we fight, atleast not that easily.
I can't imagine living without him/her.
I am afraid of dying alone.
I am bored.
I am sick of the merry-go-round.
I met the 'One'.
I get to have a great big wedding.
I am getting older.
i don't want to die a virgin.
I want to settle down.
I love him/her.
I am lonely.
Need to keep the family line going.
I want to have someone to have and to hold.

The many reasons I have heard over the past 20 years from people on why get married.

Memories

2005-08-11T09:18:00.000-07:00

Mem’ries,
Like the corners of my mind
Misty water-colored memories
Of the way we were
Scattered pictures,
Of the smiles we left behind
Smiles we gave to one another
For the way we were
Can it be that it was all so simple then?
Or has time re-written every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we? could we?
The way we were...

Two Girls

2005-08-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

A little under six years ago, I went to my doc for the 20 week ultrasound. I was sure the kicker in my tum was a wanna be soccer player and was already bent upon kicking his mom's butt. But then the lady at the exam smiled "it is a girl!". I didn't think much of it at the time, the only feeling can remember is relief... I didn't get men, there was no way, I could raise one.
Over the years i have dared to dream, a little bit. About what mom and daughter could do ...the girlie stuff. I see a young lady whoes favourite colors are pink and purple. She is affectionate and kind, she hides her face when ever people raise their voices in the TV. She loves to talk. She has a ton of little kids who she feeds, dresses, talks and puts to bed ( and does not perform surgery upon) .

And today, we went to a nails shop and got a pedicure. We walked in, picked out our colors. Uma picked out a sugar pink and I picked out a pink too, in her honor. We sat as the girls trimmed the cuticles, massaged the feet and put on the nail color. I turned to look at her about a hundred times in the 20 min interval, while she sat there chatting with the girl who was doing her nails, talking about her school, her favourite color and what kind of flowers she wanted on the big toe.
Then the two girls dried their nails, exchanged notes, put their shades back on and walked out to the car... ready to tackle the summer with open toed sandals and pink toes!

The Rising

2005-08-03T12:06:00.000-07:00

Mangal Pandey
Kyon kaptan sahib... Kaale aadmi paar jor ajmayenge?

Unlike the last time, when I was waiting for my new CD love, this time I chanced upon it. I was in the local Indian store, attempting to locate the latest PC DVD, when I saw the red orange cover. Aamir Khan! Haven’t seen anything by him for a while, and then AR Rahman, my second favorite, ofcourse, I had to buy it. It took me a little bit of time to give it my full attention, but after what seems like a long time I am love with ARR music, again.
He is a master arranger, always think of him as an arranger than music maker, he overlays so many themes, weaving, interlacing and suddenly, when you least expect it, one of the themes takes over. It takes me many listenings to identify the various parallel threads. It is complex and it grows on you. My favorites move around the CD, resting atleast once on each of the numbers. His last release (Bose) was a disappointment, maybe it was the shriek-y bangla rendition of my favorite lullaby or the 'aklaa chollo re...' sung by Sonu Nigam but, I felt saddened.
Joy of joys there is no Sonu Nigam or Alka Yagnik this time. There is Kailash Kher though. I was enchanted by his voice when I heard the qawali by him in Dev.
ARR has done something I used to associate with him in his earlier days. He uses the right voice in the right way in the right place. With recent constants like Mr Nigam and mango face I had started believing that he had lost his knack for locating and using the right vocals. This time around, he surpassed himself, tons of new voices! All in the right place!

So lets start...
Mangal Mangal
Kailash Kher, Nagada and Khadtal.
There is a hindi proverb about a liar singing from his throat, a hungry man singing from his gut and a believer singing from his soul. Kher sings from his gut, something very hungry about his voice. Reminds me of the street urchins singing in the Delhi buses (two pieces of flattened stone clanging against each other for the beat). The song features, thrice in the CD, twice sung by Kher and once a duo by him and Sukhvinder Singh.
The song is a little different each time, probably features in different parts of the movie and somehow ties it together. Lovely renditions, I wouldn't have minded having it on the cd a couple more times :).

Main Vari Vari
Haven’t heard Kavita Krishnamurthy in a while, she is still as shrill and note perfect as can be. Reena Bharadwaj adds a nice balance to the KK voice. Tabla, ghungroo and sarangi mark the ‘mujra’. But the pace changes unexpectedly, I can almost visualize the abrupt ending of the song. ARR claims this to be the most difficult song for him in the entire album, I can almost see why.

Holi Re
By the time I came to this number, I had to go check the lyricist. None other than Javed Akhtar( of the Salim-Javed fame). Reminiscent of Kabir and Rahim in places ( if I might be so bold ). A great mixture of khadi boli, awadhi and urdu. Very period appropriate. And very well written. It is far and away from the fancy words and the vivid imagery of Gulzar, economical and prudent use of simple words. Definitely Bharat Vyas-ish.

Aamir Khan could almost be Mahipal (from Navrang) in his rendition of the initial part. Only ARR can make Udit Narayan sing like this. There is Madhushree, Srinivas and Chinmay too. Very bhraj bhumi. Somehow, ARR always does this. He takes something like a holi number and manages to go against the ingrained sound for the ‘genre’, which in this case is Amitabh Bachan sound-like and does something that is beautiful and still sounds just right. Just like he did with ‘mera rang de basanti chola’ I never thought someone could make me forget the original tune; but he did.

Rasiya
Richa Sharma, a singer who tries to make up with attitude what she lacks in aptitude for singing and a relatively unknown voice, Bonnie Chakraborty. Amazing. Bonnie is the real winner. She sings in the lower octave, usually better suited to male voices and hardly ever dared by female singers. Richa and Bonnie provide a perfect contrast as far as vocals are concerned. The words are beautiful, Richa’s attitude comes in very handy uttering words like ‘Challia’, ‘Rasiya’. The quaint mix of hindu and muslim influences that go by the name of ‘hindustani classical’. The backdrop of the beat and the chorus adds extended character if you will. A single twinkling anklet in the last few lines. Wonderful.

Takey Takey.
Sukhvinder Singh, Kher and Kartick Das Baul. A market place song with a chorus of kids. Hyper paced, with a soul. I heard a rooster crow in the song. It changes beat when you least expect it.
Starts with the snake charmer’s Been. The verbal gymnastics are beautifully rendered. Very nice, most definitely my favorite song so far.

Al Maddaath Maula
Ofcourse, there has to be an ARR sung song, but it seems the guy is learning about the limitations of his singing abilities. His voice is relegated to adding a dimension to the song and not something in the forefront. A lesser known type of sufi devotional music. Not the ‘regular qawali’. This is something that reminds me of a dargah in Lucknow…very sufi and very nice.

The music brings nostalgia …paints a picture of the age all of us read about in our history books, the mutiny of 1857. The hindu-muslim confluence to the patriotic beat is unmistakable. Very different from the pure Punjabi bhagat singh, just as patriotic nevertheless. The walk of Mangal Pandey to the gallows is just as moving as one in Bharat Singh. I think the movie is going to be nice. I hope it is going to be nice, last time I went gaga over a music album ... the movie almost broke my heart. This time it is Ketan Mehta ( not Amol Palekar) and Aamir Khan( and not SRK). There is hope; yet.

The Penguins

2005-07-26T20:14:00.000-07:00

The march of penguins : A story of survival and of love.
It is funny how we think of love something only us humans are capable of. 'The March of the Penguins' is a story of the march the penguins undertake to the procreate and what they undergo to have their younglings make it. It is an amazing piece of work.
The music, the photography, the narration. You are mesmerized by these clumsy creatures and a landscape that is closer to the 8 bit color than the 32 bit world that we live in.
The story of the movement of the male and female penguins to the Antarctic wasteland, where they mate, take turns taking care of the egg and then the young and fetching food. The treacherous weather, the life against all odds. Narrated by Morgan Freeman. I can't think of anyone else they could have picked to tell the story. You can hear hope, despair, acceptance, stoicism, wisdom, humor and a slight east coast accent.
The story leaves me breathless; these creatures undergo so much to bring life? Many of them die! Mother Nature puts in us an instinct so strong, that the life of the little one becomes more important than that of the progenitor. Human beings are no different. The journey from a zygote to a full grown human baby is more invasive to a mothers body than a growing cancer. The fetus pushes all internal organs, distends the skin and muscle, squishes the stomach to a fraction of its size, puts unbelievable load on the heart, lungs, kidneys... The heart pumps upto twice as much blood, all the ligaments in the body relax enough to bend and cave to the growing baby. The survival and growth of the baby wreaks havoc on the mothers body and the body co-operates! The birth is a miracle. How that baby pushes thru the tiny birth canal and all those bones and emerges into the new bright world with a scream ( and an APGAR of perfect 10) is astounding. In this day and age of modern science and technological marvels, it is amazing to witness something as illogical and low tech as the creation of another human being. Suddenly the human body becomes something sublime. It is not just another clothes hanger, it has a purpose. The most primeval of them all; of creating life and... of sustaining it. It becomes mystical and pragmatic all at once.
The penguins take care of the young, the mother, does lay the egg but 'but in one of natures most endearing role reversals' the father takes care of the egg. After two long months during which the males eat nothing, the eggs begin to hatch. Penguins are lucky the male gets to participate in bringing the young to the world as much as the mother. The human beings are not so lucky, males get to stand by and watch helplessly. I have, over the years heard a number of my male friends hypothesizing women's superiority over men. Most of them are complete baloney, except for one. My best friend from my undergrad once told me 'I have to depend upon a woman to make me feel like a complete human being, to feel what it is to be a father'. I had no wisecracks for him.

step on the rooftops and soar ...

2005-07-22T10:41:00.000-07:00

Resolute and focused.

2005-07-21T10:00:00.000-07:00

looking out

2005-07-20T12:01:00.000-07:00

Promontory?

2005-07-19T10:40:00.000-07:00

:)

2005-07-16T15:11:00.000-07:00

Is what you don't see

2005-07-15T16:50:00.000-07:00

the more important thing?

Start a busy day with a ...

2005-07-14T07:45:00.000-07:00

...Survey

you are:
an irredeemably eejitous, liberal, disgustingly generous, relatively well adjusted human being

http://rumandmonkey.com/widgets/toys/compatibility/

Cut to the chase

2005-07-13T11:22:00.000-07:00

Speed dating: When you hear the whistle, your date is over( no matter how cute they are!) After you meet each of them, look at the name tag for their number find it and circle yes or no, make notes!
$35 bucks for twelve, four minute dates, with cheap cocktails! What a deal...

Welcome
A trendy pub in fremont. Everyone looks a little nervous, eyes are studiously averted. My purple shoes with four inch heels and rhinestone buckles provide me some solace, but not much.
Hello!
pink chocolate lips, red chandelier earrings, tanned and toned arms in a white tank greet me.
Did you girls sign up?
What's your name?
Oh I see it, here, you are number 8.

Lets get started
So, the girls sit at 2' by 2' cheap Formica tables and the other chair facing is open .. The music is loud, the light is dim and the cocktails are flowing. A mango comso later, everything seems a little funny.
The host explains. The girls pitch in a tent and stay while the guys move around. Counter clockwise. 11 girls, 12 guys, one guy gets a timeout every round.

The merry-go round
The first one...
Hi! I am number 28.
OMG! he is so young, I could burp him, giving him a bath and put him to bed. Gulp down my cosmo, when "what do you do?"
In a couple minutes, I am giving him career advice, telling him he should not be dishearted because some idiot told him that he doesn't have the right degree. We don't even notice the whistle. And suddenly, I have a new friend, we exchange smiles.

After that it takes off, the smile comes easily, the chatter too. The handshakes limp, clammy, nice grip, firm shake, over powering, too tight... They tell me how my next four minutes are going to be.

And the questions:
Give me a two min bio? ( hello, I did not know I signed up for an interview)
Tell me about yourself? (um, I have strong opinions?)
What do you do? (I run)
What do you do for fun? ( I paint)
Where do you work? ( a local software company)
What do you paint? ( lanscapes in oil)
What is so special about Indian guys? (umm, nothing?)
Would you go up to a guy and start a conversation if you like him? ( yes.)
Let me guess, you are from India, I went to India a couple months ago, why are you here and not back there? ( I don't know?)
How many languages do you speak? ( four)
What is the last book you read? (:) , nice question)
You have a HOUSE?( I am sorry!)
Do you like your job?( I love it)
What did you expect out of this? (maybe, I'll make a few friends ?)
What do you think of the Seattle dating scene? ( Gulp! is there one?)

Not a single compliment! not a single, 'you look pretty'. Guys are such dorks!

The guys:
Four Microsofties, one from amazon, one from cingular, one Phd ( maths and CS), one journalist from Seattle times, one highSchool teacher, one bankteller and one New yorker and one buff ex-Airforce pilot. Not bad.

Damn I am picky, even with a 4 min screen only 3 out of 12 for coffee( no drinks or dinner)... And they were a great lot, not a single jerk.
Although there was one, who was cute and smart and caught my eye... and I definitely know that he interests me cause I though, gosh! he left my table so fast. Just as I was leaving the bar, the dude comes running... "I can look you up, would you mind if I emailed you?"
:)

I love you Daddy...

2005-07-13T09:38:00.000-07:00

Selling Real Estate to Indians- 101

2005-07-13T09:17:00.000-07:00

America is a highly organised society where courses are taught methodically and the basic course is always called '101'. It is the starting point for understanding everything. Here is what some of the basic lessons of 101 for realtors wanting to sell houses to Indians would look like:

Do not assume that a family means two or even 2 + 2. A family can consist of three generations living together. Grandparents, who also double up as resident baby sitters, two 'providers' both with PhDs (work room must need space for two computers, at least), and children (who will continue to live in the house, even when adults).
Do not emphasise the swimming pool. It will be regarded as a liability and not an asset.
Do not assume that the living room is the most important area. It is not, though there should be space for about a 100 when parties are held. (Seating is not necessary. Many will take the floor, so stress on the brown carpet, which will hide the whiskey spill).
The most important part is the kitchen. This is what they will see first.
Identify a closet large enough for about fifty pairs of shoes. Indian clients, however wealthy, will never throw away their old shoes.
If there is a small room, stress its virtue as a potential temple (if you can manage call it the pooja ghar -- it is an important sales pitch).
Do not ask how they intend to finance it or about the credit arrangements. Assume that they will not see the house, before they have saved up.

A sunset promised long ago.

2005-07-12T13:25:00.000-07:00

The Peach Cosmoo

2005-07-11T10:54:00.000-07:00

1.5 oz peach vodka

2 oz cranberry juice
1 oz Kern’s peach nectar
~1/4 oz Rose’s lime juice

Combine over ice, stir, strain, and enjoy (preferably while enjoying a beautiful sunset over the water with friends).

Courtesy Gail.

And ofcourse, I can't let it go without a swipe at men :)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1302640,00.html

the golden sun

2005-07-11T09:30:00.000-07:00

a word

2005-07-08T16:27:00.000-07:00

Came upon an old favorite of mine today "Entelechy" ... it has an icky sound, but I like what it means.. and almost always like the context in which it is used.

Seattle.. my home.

2005-07-08T11:16:00.000-07:00

Lest I forget...

2005-07-07T20:28:00.000-07:00

I will need to remember this when I have a teenager standing in front of me, telling me that I am heartless autocrat and I don't remember what it is to be young.

Uma: mom?
Mom: yes, Shona?
Uma: do you like everything I like?
Mom: I love every thing you like sweetie.
Uma: < Thinks >
Uma: Then you must love yourself very very much.

Gulp!