An apple a day ...

A few days down, you'll be gone, and I'll be left staring at my windows, missing you all along. Hope you find a better partner, and a nice place to live, a better guy and better niche. I must admit, I had a wonderful time with you, never had issues, except for the music, but still you did the best you could do. Your memory has always taken me by surprise, that certainly made you much more smarter and helped me save my cries. A useful partner for my music classes, you've been fantasticallly supportive of the sucky melodies of my flute, quite inspirational when you played something really cool. I should really thank you for staying up late with me, over my sorrowos and agonies, my joys and pleasure, and the moments when I was under immense pressure. You were most of the times the first one to give news about my best moments, my success, my victories and sometimes issues to lament. Wish I could find a better company, who could standby watching the same old movies the millioneth time and the cricket matches all night. Your elegent looks have always caught up the eyes of people around me, being with you made me feel confident complete. Oh! I am going to miss you so much..my dear MAC you'll always be in my heart!! wish I could adopt you for ever, but John Domico will be ready for my murder. (for readers not from PSU.. all TAs in PSU CSE were given macintosh laptops which are taken back once you are not a TA!! (1 Gig RAM, 1 GigHz).. John Domico is the person we return back the machines to)

Desi MapQuest - Welcome MapMyIndia.com

With technology gearing up in India, and lots of new highways showing upon the India map, high time that we need something like mapquest for the India domain. Was really glad to watch an Indian company taking initiative on that front, by introducing a wonderfully novel solution with the existing resources in India. Many of you might just be aware of the site previously, but there are some really cool concepts introduced in the new version. This funda called, elocation, where you can give directions to your house from a popular location in your neighborhood. Hence, any search to your house will give your personalized directions from a well known place in vicinity of house. Have a look at www.mapmyIndia.com, and some of the cool features it has introduced, I was quite excited to elocate myself!!! check it out!!

http://www.mapmyindia.com/elocshow.php?ID=suresh

ensaai

No wonder that I am still single!! Scary.. hmm..

Thinking about thoughts

Just thought about how much time do I really spend thinking, and how productive are those thoughts. As a PhD student, supposedly the people who think a lot, this came to mind while sitting down with a problem yesterday and trying to think of a solution for it. After a while (3hrs), when the problem was getting away from me, my thoughts deviated into thinking about, when did I ever think like this last time. A vague rememberance, I could recollect days from my JEE preperation, when I used to really think a lot about problems all the time. But, I guess since the day I got into a profession which really does not require you to think much, engineering, I have been drven away from that habit. Most of the modern day research is completely google oriented and its probably once in a while that you really sit back and think on problems and usually you end up solving them either within a few minutes or end up googling and finding the solution online. Well, coming to when do people think alone over problems, I can recollect some of the classic examples. I have had couple of friends who solve problems in dreams, some of them even formulate a problem before sleeping so as to get a clearer picture of the problem in their sleep and have claimed that it works!!! I like to think in shower, its probably the early morning freshness, but some of the good papers that I have published so far, have emerged as outcomes of some classic ideas under shower :) I have heard people saying that enunciating helps while thinking, tried that, works pretty well for me. My manager at Intel thinks all the time if he finds a problem, the scariest, when he's driving !! I have often thought about problems while driving, and thanks to my sub-conscious mind have so far not been invloved in any accidents. But, at the end of it a vague feeling creeps in, when I think about how unattentive I was while driving. Considering the fact that I have a junky report to write for a customer tommorrow, I think I have given sufficient thought to my thinking, and better recede back to writing my report!! But do think about it and write what you really feel!!!

Undeserved Wealth

Abu was a nice hard working guy, who used to earn what he worked for. But one fine day he found this pot of gold which he thought was a a windfall from heaven and accepted that without much questioning. Abu planned to save up the money for his future and be rich, but, then the myth came true, Undeserved wealth never sticks with you for long . He partied a lot and treated all his friends, to share his happiness, and spent 1/4th the money on that. Abu, was ill, he had to pay nearly 1/4th of that muny to the doctors (being in America, a part of it was covered, but still was damn expensive), then his car broke down and he spent 1/4th of the muny on his car. Then abu was upto some serious travel, for which he needed 1/4th of that muny, there were still some coins remaining, which Abu was expected to pay back to some of his firneds. So, in all Abu could never really save up any of those coins he got. Moral of the story, only the hard earned money really stays with you for long, any money obtained without putting fight, goes away, no matter what :( As I look over www.psfcu.org, I turn in to one of the believers of that good old tail.

Phir bhi dil hai hindustani?

Ok! I am sure the only person who is really gonna be supportive of this post is Totti. But, still I am willing to take any stinkers from people. Probably the opportune moment to write this article, when I am going to pick up an ardent tam movie fan, Mr.Matter from the airport this evening. This comes to my mind every now and then, about the movie choice of desis. I as a great fan of almost all the desi movies feel really hurt when I see people cribbing about desi movies in front of non-desis. Actually as a non-daring person, who is scared to raise his thoughts in public, I thought this is really the place to express it all. But, probably its a wise decision on my part to really let it go on most occasions, especially when someone really important is on the other end. Actually, the fire was really kindled when "Mr.Important" started cribbing about Rajnikanth, on being asked about the superstar by a curious Chinese friend of mine. There was this press article in google about the upcoming movie, Shivaji, for which our superstar was getting paid a exorbittantly huge sum of muny. The curious Chinese questioned the quality of the Superstar, a forgivable crime due to ignorance. But, how can you forgive a pseudo tam who on the third occasion now, disgraced the ultimate, by cribbing about some of the classics from the Superstar.

Shouldn't people have atleast the sense of not letting down the country's image in front of foriegners. Well, anyways, it holds true with many other people who sit and watch SRK movies and make fuss about them after thoroughly enjoying the movie. Infact its happened on many occasions now that people talk crap about SRK movies like Main hoon na, even DDLJ, and I had to stand alone in defence of the movies. Well, on the contrary I do agree the Salman khan's laughs make me cry and his cries make me laugh, but I guess we need someone like that to make us really appreciate and distinguish between movies and to keep up the constant rate of movie production. Well, as a great admirer of desi movies, I sign off willing to fight any profound comments from my friends on this honest confession. I wish people could really come forward and take this as an opportunity to confess their true liking for desi movies, and join the coup.

Probably too much outrage on my part, but blame Mr.Important.

Thin Line Between Life and D#$th

Have you ever been scared about picking up a disease?
When the routine hair fall seems abnormal, a long old mole in your body looks fatal or a regular bleeding gum looks like the right symptom. Your regular decline in stamina causes worries, you are scared when take deep breathes after your regular scurries, the body aches after gymming play upon your mind all night, thinking all the time that your death is right behind. Your regular weak eyes start experiencing the dark, and your snores seems like contagious bark, all the omens seem to be right what you thought and the down your nails your skin seems to rot. Groping in the dark seems scary and you resign to fate waiting to be rescued by a fairy. With minimal hope you visit a doctor who performs some regular checks and asks you to come day after. What do you do before you get the doctor's report, how do you sleep well with all these thoughts? You see thats when the additional pillow helps:) Hope it answers querries of all my friends about my two pillow saga, try it!! it helps on those nightmarish situations. Sleep with one eye open, grippin' your pillow tight

"And I was born!". This time I was looking forward to a much more exciting life, unlike last time, when I was living in a deserted place, had barely any friends.
But, this time it looked like I got everyting that I had ever dreamt about. Call it racial, but I was proud to be black, and always moved around in the company of people of my race. Life was great and I was completely enjoying my routine life. I really enjoyed the refreshing shower early in the morning and standing in queues with my friends. I had friends in all age groups, some young some really old, some on the verge of leaving us real soon. I hated to be out in the sun, but felt claustrophpobic under a cap. Wish I always lived in an air-conditioned room, but then talking of air, I hated storms. The place we lived was quite often hit by storms, and those used bring nothing else but extremely agonizing misery, and infact were fatal on numerous occasions. Most of my friends were close neighbors of mine. All my friends were really cool and we used to have an amazing time. We used to be glued together in parties, there was always some kind of bond between all of us. Some of my friends used to get their faces painted to look cooler in parties and I used to enjoy it a real lot. Occasional orgees used to become quite wild and infact I remember being seperated from my friends forcefully on many such occasions. But, no regrets, life could never have been better, untill that day, when, early in the morning I woke up to see a white guy moving into my neighborhood. I thought we were getting along well but then, probably not. As the days passed bye I saw more and more white people encroaching our neighborhood and all my black frineds were slowly fading away. I was feeling quite isolated and at this point awkwad to be one amongst the last blacks to be in town. I was not really taking this change well and was getting paler as days went bye. And then I just made up my mind to commit the biggest sin, SUICIDE. I jumped off from the height, but unfortunately got stuck in some weird place. Someone picked me up and shouted, "Votta Myier", and people around him started laughing, thinking that it was a PJ. But, no one really realized how true that guy was.

A tribute to the locks :) --- A Hairy tale

Did you know ?

You can not type http://blog-name.blogspot.com on yahoo messenger and send it to your friends!!

Also try this... on a unix terminal type Ctrl-S, and lemme know if something weird happened!!

Thought I will not get tecchie here!! but why the heck!!!

Turning Point

The game ended and the captain of the opposing team walks up to me and says, "Hard luck boy, your wicket was the turning point. Well, by the way, do you play for any league ?" Made me think, "Am I good or good ? (modesty.. what's that??)", and got me thinking over my sleep.

Have you ever been involved in a turning point of any sport, like Gibbs dropping the cup, Khan letting off a regular shot on goal through in the champions league match? Could not think of the last time I was in such a position, but yeah today it was one such day.

Out in the scorching sun, battling on some alien grounds, playing a sport which not only I quit playing but infact used to desist for quite a while. I was holding one end strongly wile maintaining a consistent scoring rate, chasing a resonably moderate total. The occasion was Intel India cricket tournament's final and stakes were quite high. After a spectacular bowling performance by our team on the field I was kind of under the feeling that may be this is one of the days of glory. With our opener falling off the first ball, terror struck the nerves of most people in our team. This is when I entered the crease and with some real cool cricketing shots, I stayed there, batting consistently, must say that I got lucky today. While on the other end we were consistently losing wickets at one point we were in a position where I felt that I was going to comfortably win the match for my team today. I got into a good partnership with Abhishek (fellow employee), who played some amazingly sensible cricket, and the game seemed to proceeding in the right direction we wanted to, UNTIL!! A stupid call from either me or the bench, abhishek wanted an impossible second run, and continuing on his run-out spree he was caught in no man's land for the seventh time in a row. With this I was into one of the situations where my friend Rajaraman has been into couple of times. Me and my boss trying to get our team home. One more ball to go in the 7th over, the bowler was ready to ball and to my surprise my boss on the non-strikers end walked up to me saying, "Doode you are playing well, just stay there and we will win!!". But then was the statement which was one of the best prophecies I would have ever seen in my lives, when boss said, "Dont't get run out!! ". Then, there was the ball, which I played to fine-leg, I think it went straight to the feilder and there was a slight isfileding by him. I had been running for such shots all this while, but this time I think there was no run there.. and in no time I found myself watching the other team celebrating my wicket. With that, more than anything, the moral of the team was in abysmal dark. Quite a sorry sight actually to see pressure getting on to nerves of people who tackle much more complex problems during tape-outs :). Anyways, we went down fighting till the last ball, that was probably one good thing about it. Amit tried his best to get us back into the game, but I guess it was slightly too late. Its been quite a while since I played some competitive game, so after a really long time I felt really sad losing a game. The last time was probably when me and subbu clinched defeat from the hands of victory playing the finals of the badddy tournament in PSU. But, anyways to commiserate I thought of having some good indian food and with such noble thoughts, me and Chappati headed towards a cool south indian restraunt and feasted on a huge masala dosa and a plate unlimited meals, following which I crashed, thinking about the dreadful RUNOUT and the insightful words of thalaiva, "Never run of a misfield!!"

Me Myself an "Iyer"

Day to ascertain my "Iyer"ship finally arrived after one year. This day is called called "Avani Avittam" in tamil (the ceremony of upkarma); might sound some fundoo "Iyer" jargons, but all it stands for is "the thread changing ceremony".

On a retrospective note, last year this day was quite an experience, when I was accompanied by three dear friends of mine for the ceremony, to the Pittsburgh SV temple. It was quite an interesting trip, where one of the guys was quite an orthodox one and the other two were there, for the sake of getting some "Iyer" shots and "patel" shots respectively. Before anyone abuses me for using too many "Iyer" jargons, let me tell you what "Iyer" shots means. Its a term coined right now by yours truly, which typically comprises of a tam Iyer topless and posing to show his sacred thread. Well, "Iyer"onically I myself am not the best judge of such things since I go for such ceromonies just because my mom asks me.

Having said that, I have often thought about issues on religion and stuff. Things like "Why does totti read Ramayan every morning?", is it just the inspiration that he finds in monogamy or is it Ravana or is it just because muthu asked him to? Why do I wear namam on my forehead or go to religious ceremonies and all? I really am not a believer kind of person, but still there is something that has always kindled me to get into these things. Will think over it sometime.. now that I am kind of jobless in life...

Anyways, getting back on track, this year I was out at this fantastic place called Komala Vilas, a typical south Indian restraunt prepared for this occasion. You should really visit the website of this restraunt, might arouse a couple of taste buds out there just by reading the stuff on the website. So this year, I was accompanied by chakka who came purely for checking out the food and I am sure he did come out satisfied. About the ceremony; this was probably the longest ceremony I had since I actually had the upakarma for the first ever time. Along with the ceremony were the "Iyer" special PJs by the priest, actually he did crack some cool ones. However, I was more amused watching an ABCD kid forced to do the ceremonies by his dad !! wonder why such people care to live here at all.

Well with that me sign off as a rejuvenated "Iyer" today and look forward to my plans to get "higher" tonite for the sole reason that... "Chappatti is here :)"
On second thoughts, just remebered chappati has been a teetotaler for a while now, since the time he left the US, so we might just have some cool desi grub and get high on that (like our dear friend charan always says.. "Ob!! Junta can get high on food..")

Why Shall I BLOG??

Always wondered why people blog? Thinking logically all this while I could just conclude that, "Abbe saale jobless log killing their time"... but thinking again I realized that may be its not just that!! Well here is why I thought about entering the phenomenol world of blogging.

Its that time of the year when the bosses are out for vacation.. me almost alone in the office browsing through random ramblings of couple of my friends on their blogs... and I start thinking.. may be its time to start one of my own. Sounded completely in synch with my impression about bloggers, "Jobless people".. which repelld the idea right away from my mind.

But then two days back I dropped off sachin (my roomie for last couple of months) at the airport. That night back at home all alone watching some of the episodes of friends which sachin and me used to watch all the time I kinda felt that I am missing him, which made me think, "Why not write about such moments, so that we look back at them as we look at our old pictures ?" Well I thought may be that was the right time.. but it was too late and I kind alost enthu and CRASHED (somthing I learnt from Sachin:) )

Following day I again was kind of jobless at work with my long simulations running in the back ground I got back to thinking about blogging and started browsing again, through a couple of blogs.. pointy's in particular which talked about our trip to SFO, LA... which made me rethink and this time with a completely new perspective, "Why not write about all my travel experiences ?" Thought that was good enough, but then something was still missing or probably it was due to Rohan (fellow Intern) who called me for lunch!!

The final nail in the coffin was struck by harsha's blog on sports and my telephonic converstaion with my dear friend PP, when we relived some of the moments of gunners' classic moments. This was it!!! and here it is... I want to start a blog... and name it... either the gunners or something about my trans america trip.. or why not just something that I have been doing over all my dinners over last couple of months .. watching friends (yeah I kinda thought that I had grown outa it.. but then thanks to my new roommates... ).. and here it is.. Days of Our Lives...

If you are wondering about the "Serus" thing... well keep guessing.. I am sure the crossie pundits are gonna get that real easy....

signing off my first of the many more posts to come....

Sus