Flights

I've been listening to a lot of Pearl Jam the last few days-so that's why this post just has one word to describe it.Traveling in the states can be fun, but the domestic flights totally suck. I have to say I was quite disappointed when the air hostess once said that the rest room on board wasn't working-not that its a very exciting prospect to use a rest room onboard a plane,but when you gotta go, you gotta go! Firstly, how can that shack be called a "rest-room"? There's no way one can rest when you're taking a dump in something that certainly can't be called a room,unless of course you're a midget like Gary Coleman. I wonder what went through the head of the guy who designed these so called "rooms". He must've been looking at a picasso version of the painting "whistler's mother" when thinking about the idea, coz that's who I feel like when I sit all contorted in that shoe box. And the worst part is when you've to answer natures call when the plane is about to land!! People look at you ever so strangely when I do that because firstly I'm brown and secondly I'm using the loo minutes before the flight actually lands. That could cause some concern on board-especially because of 9/11 and also the fact that you're not buckled in-not that it should make a difference when you're sitting like a lego piece in that sorry excuse for a receptacle. I can imagine the flight attendant knocking vehemently on the door asking me to get out asap and my brown appearance would certainly throw them off into a fit of paranoia created by Ata.I can see all sorts of accusations being fired in all directions and in that case my only defense will be "Whatchu talkin bout".

The Desi Stare

Note:(These are thoughts that are to be taken in jest, so I'm sorry if anyone gets offended reading this)

India has a population of more than a billion people. Some of them venture across to the United States (ah the land of opportunity and the home of the "immigrant") in search of a better life and to make it big. Somehow ever since I landed here, I've come across "The Desi stare". If I see a desi walking past me there's always this confused look on his/her face. It's something in between a "hey, I know you " look and a "looks could kill" stare. It's as though they're thinking to themselves, "what the heck are you doing here?You should be back in India. I came all the way from Juhu, wrote the gre, got my relatives to accumulate all that money so that I could convince the consulate chaps to give me a visa, got my visa, came here,somehow got hold of decent accomodation.. ". And the population of Gujuratis at USC is quite astonishing. I once met someone whose first word to me was "chem cho". And then there are desis who walk in these huge groups like some roman army file from Asterix n Obelix.When you walk past them they all give one the same desi stare. They could sure start a band called "Collective Stare" and do quite well for themselves. I don't know if I'm the only one who has come across this, but I'm guessing it's a common desi phenomena.


I'm proud to be Indian, it's just that we should try and inculcate a better attitude amongst our own kind. Too much of groupism and insular thinking is making us retrograde. You look at the Chinese or other people from asia pacific and they always stick together, give each other support. In our race, it's totally opposite. I wish this mentality could change amongst us Indians . We should try harboring more camaraderie amongst our own race. Even during interviews, a person's chances are anyways quite tough in EE and then you come across either a chinese dude or an indian. Chinese love their kind and Indians hate their own. So your chances are reduced that much more. Only a spectacular performance can truly save your skin in that case. :).

the art of bad cooking

Well as the title of this post suggests, I'm gonna describe a very weird incident that happened when my room-mate one day rolled out of bed and decided to make a traditional south indian dish called upma. For the uninitiated, it's a dish that's made using semolina, a few spices and cooked in hot water . It's a pretty simple dish to make and I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to make it. But it does require a little bit of uncertainty to mess it all up.

So my room mate rolled out of bed one day thinking he could make some Upma (aka Upit in some parts of India). He couldn't find any clean vessels in the debris that we apparently call a kitchen. So he took out his pressure cooker, thinking he could cook his way to a nice,delicious dish of upma. He filled half the cooker with nearly a tonne of rava aka semolina. Little did he know that you actually have to roast the rava till it's golden brown before plunking in a few mugs of water. He started cooking the beast in this pressure cooker, and before the water even heated evenly , he plunked in another bunch of vegetables - a couple of onions, a couple of tomatoes here n there, a few leaves which he presumed were basil and a generous sprinkling of mustard seeds. It flashed back memories of me watching Tom n Jerry as a kid,where Tom chops his vegetables as haphazardly as possible while cooking jerry in a huge cauldron in an episode where they get lost on an island inhabited by cannibals.

I went outside for sometime waiting for the upma beast to be unleashed. As I entered the kitchen on my way back , I was greeted with this layer of sandy stuff strewn all over the floor. I asked my room mates if anyone of them went to the beach.Turned out they didn't, so i guess it could clearly suggest that I was walking over a layer of mashed rava. I then saw this rice cooker bellowing away like there's no tomorrow. I opened it up and to my amazement, I saw this throbbing cylindrical mass of slimy rava just waiting to explode. My room mate entered the kitchen thinking it was ready to be eaten. He then tried to serve himself only to find out that he couldn't remove anything off the spoon. So he just dumped the serving spoon in that bellowing mass and after the entire thing cooled down, nobody could remove it. It was as though the worst ever meal was just set in stone. I felt it could become part of history and be seen as a desi grad version of King Arthur's sword...stuck in a big mass of upshit aka apparent upit!

The whole Process of wooing!

here's something a good friend sent to me ...its a nice article writing by Dave Barry about this whole wooing process...this is for those guys who've always been smitten by most women ...i guess that's the way it is...that's the way the fabric of life has been woven...

Survival of mankind rides on the successful pickup line

~ BY DAVE BARRY

This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on Sept.
26,1999.

So I was at this party, and I wound up at a table where three
Attractive single women were complaining about - Surprise! - men.
Specifically,they were complaining about the pickup lines that had been used on them
in a bar a few nights earlier.

One woman said: ''This guy comes up to me and says, 'Are you a
teacher?' I mean, is that supposed to be romantic?''All three women rolled all six of their eyes.

Another one of them said: ''This guy says to me, 'I've been looking at
you all night!' So I go, 'Hel-LO, we just GOT here.'''

At this point all three women - and I want to stress that these are
intelligent, nice women - were laughing. Not me. I was feeling bad for
the guys.I realize that there are certain hardships that only females must
endure, such as childbirth, waiting in lines for public-restroom
stalls, and a crippling, psychotic obsession with shoe color. Also,
females tend to reach emotional maturity very quickly, so that by age 7 they
are no longer capable of seeing the humor in loud inadvertent public blasts of
flatulence, whereas males can continue to derive vast enjoyment from
this well into their 80s.

So I grant that it is not easy being a female. But I contend that
Nature has given males the heaviest burden of all: the burden of always
having to Make the First Move, and thereby risk getting Shot Down. I don't
Know WHY males get stuck with this burden, but it's true throughout the
animal kingdom. If you watch the nature shows on the Discovery Channel,
you'll note that whatever species they are talking about - birds,
crabs, spiders, clams - it is ALWAYS the male who has to take the
initiative.It's always the male bird who does the courting dance, making a total
moron of himself, while the female bird just stands there, looking
aloof, thinking about what she's going to tell her girlfriends. (''And
then he hopped around on one foot! Like I'm supposed to be impressed by
THAT!'').

Male insects have it the worst. The Discovery Channel announcer is
always saying things like: ''After the mating, the female mantis bites
off the male mantis' head, and then she and her girlfriend mantises use
it to play a game that looks a lot like Skee Ball.''

Because I live in Florida, my patio is basically a giant singles bar
For lizards. On any given day during mating season, I'll see dozens of
male lizards out there making their most suave lizard move, which consists
Of inflating and deflating a red pouch under their chins. They seem to
think that female lizards really go for a guy with a big chin pouch,
But I have never once, in 14 years of close observation, seen a female
respond. They just squat there looking bored, while all around them
males are blinking on and off like defective warning lights.

Every now and then you'll see an offbeat TV news story about some
animal, usually a moose, that has for some reason fallen in love with,
and decided to relentlessly court, something totally inappropriate,
such as a lawn tractor. This animal is ALWAYS a male. On the TV, they
show It hanging around the lawn tractor with a big, sad, moony look, totally
smitten, while the lawn tractor cruelly ignores it.

My point here is that, in matters of the heart, males have the brains
Of a walnut. No, wait! That is not my point. My point is that perhaps
you women could cut us males a little bit of slack in the move-making
process, because we are under a lot of stress. I vividly remember when
I was in 10th grade, and I wanted to call a girl named Patty and ask
her to a dance, and before I picked up the phone, I spent maybe 28 hours
rehearsing exactly what I was going to say. So when I actually made the
call, I was pretty smooth.

''Hello, Dance?'' I said. ''This is Patty. Do you want to go to the
Dave with me?''

Fortunately Patty grasped the basic thrust of my gist and agreed to go
to the dance. This was a good thing, because if she had shot me down, I
would have been so humiliated that I would have never have been able to
go back to school. I would have dropped out of 10th grade and lied
About my age and joined the U.S. armed forces, and as a direct result
the Russians would have won the Cold War.

That is the awesome power that you women have over us men. I hope you
understand this, and the next time a guy walks up and uses some
incredibly lame, boneheaded line on you, I hope that, instead of
laughing at him, you will remember that he is under the intense
pressure of wanting to impress you enough so that you might want to get
to know him better and maybe eventually, perhaps within the next 15 minutes,
mate with him, thereby enabling the survival of the human race, which
believe me is the only thing that we males are truly concerned about.

In conclusion, let me just say to all females everywhere, on behalf of
all males everywhere, that you are very beautiful and your eyes are
like two shining stars, unless you're a female fly, in which case your
eyes are more like 2,038 shining stars. So please give us a chance. And if
you're not interested, could you introduce us to your lawn tractor?

Grad School stories...

Note:I was supposed to publish it during grad school,but I had more important things to do...and now that I do have some time I thought I should post. This post is quite repulsive, so all you weak hearted folks who don't like to hear the bitter truth,kindly egress or brace yourselves if you wish to...

-----------------------

It's been about 15 months and counting since I embarked on my pursuit of an MS from USC. There have been a lot of different experiences that I've had. Some good, some bad, some ugly,but all of them were learning experiences.

My day usually starts off with a trip to the loo...and sometimes I wonder what happened during the course of the night,especially after I took so much time and effort to clean the loo last night... I'm greeted by a yellow hoopla like streak that encompasses the entire toilet seat. And as I tip toe through the pervasive fuzziness that can sometimes be mistaken to be gunpowder, I wonder, yes, finally this will ignite a sense of cleanliness in everyone. I sometimes feel like the cobbler in the grimm brothers tale, the only difference being that the helpful lil elves are replaced by slimy crotchety leprechauns .

What's it with most guys and cleanliness? Why are we so unkempt? I don't consider myself a particularly filthy person, but i've met some people who would just walk around a chewing gum stuck on a carpet instead of picking it up...creating their own lil puggdandi . Is it something to do with the male brain? I've read somewhere that the ridge in the male brain is thinner than that in females, thereby separating logic from emotions to a far greater degree. I guess in the dirty males their emotions are not affected by the logically dirty situation that encumbers cleaner people (like me :)) .

Are females as dirty as guys?I wouldn't know, I guess i'd have to live with one to find out...hopefully it won't be my girlfriend or my wife...Why's there this tacit understanding that guys are generally dirty and girls are absolute angels and would make perfect room mates?

I guess amongst desi guys, there's always this chalta hai attitude that makes us believe that the other guy will do something about the shabby situation, that hidden motive that everyone has.. "oh dude...i couldn't clean the bathroom today because I had an exam OR I had a submission OR it was too dirty".

We're cheap too...Russell Peters was right when he said Indians are cheap...hell yeah we're cheap...we're the first to demand people for treats and the last to give one...Our cheapness is pretty much unleashed in grad school...I remember this one story about a guy who went from settling groceries by coughing up one cent since he had ONE slice of bread from the entire loaf to treating people at taco bell. I guess he used the remaining 99 cents to buy a bean burrito for himself and made the others flick some ketchup sachets to put on their bread on their way back home.This guy should've been in finance and not engineering!( Again, these are just hear say USC fundes.)

USC's engineering school is filled with all its desi cliques...from the tams to the gults to kandus to the "i'm not from the gulf " mallus to the gujjus to the gujjus from bbay to the gujjus from the united states of gujurat...to the punjabi mundyas who can't spell the C in code to the harpreet "the hirsute" singhs to the mumbaikars "amchi mumbai is the greatest" types to the puneites "oh I hate mumbai" types to the "osh kosh bigosh" babumoshais to the rest..the list is literally endless.. but in a way its fun because you meet all these folks and learn how to deal with various cultures across India...and more importantly live with them...its a real challenge...and the worse your experience is , the tougher you get ...

The rat in the rat race

The last few months have been quite revealing. I've just realized that sometimes people make choices more out of the lack of it rather than making it consciously.

Everywhere I see people around me vying for the same thing. A good life, a good home and a good wife!It's sad to see so many people who have other hobbies just chucking them all away and taking the beaten track towards engineering or medicine.

After coming to the US ,I've realized that people have a lot more freedom in doing what they want to do and nobody really gives a dam about what you're doing frankly.

In India, there is this silly mentality that's pervasive throughout all cadres of society- a good education means becoming either a businessman or an engineer. Getting good grades means you're a good person and you'll have a bright future. It's sad to see so many people getting stressed out with competitiveness and vying for that coveted position in some IT company.

Personally I think Engineering is over rated...making techie stuff is cool and all...but sometimes people just get shoved into the field because it's mainstream ...The funny thing is that the same indian mentality of 'engineering is the one and only thing that will get you good money" trickles through to Indians living in the states too...There are quite a few undergrad students that i've met and most of them are in engineering as well....I don't get it...what the hell is so freaking great about engineering?if you like it..fine..go ahead and get into the field..
what about people who don't have the prediliction towards using more of their left side of their brains...the side that's supposed to deal with logic
?

I know there are many indians out there saying to themselves "What the .... am i doing in this field?can i get anywhere with so many people doing the same thing?How's he/she different from me?where will i be?what will i do?is this the path i am supposed to be taking in my life?"

Higher studies has become quite trite and every other indian passing out with a bachelors degree either wants to do an MS or an MBA...the question is never asked as to whether the person is really interested in doing so...." hey...i am doing it for the money" is the answer that usually comes out frequently in the minds of the uncertain.

The situation,when looked at more objectively is because of the situation that our country is currently in. India is a third world country. People struggle to get a square meal in a third world country. Engineering will be the one good thing one could do to get a decent living. So the answer is not one of choice, but one more of a need. You want a good living , become an engineer and get hired by any IT company and become a code monkey.

Your standard of living will be pretty good quantitatively,but qualitatively who gives a dam. This concept of hard work is over rated too. I mean have you heard of bosses saying" Oh, that guy is so a hard working, he's the first to come into the office and the last to leave the workplace" . I mean we're freaking humans...not some slaves...who are supposed to do donkey work for the rest of our lives. There has to be some sort of creativity and enjoyment brought into a work place.

The whole conclusion of this thought process is that it's a serious problem that's plauging most young minds. The "be an engineer or be a nobody" thinking just has to stop. It's difficult to make it stop though what with India's gdp rising by the moment thanks to the IT companies. But a deeper question that arises is the standard of living of the average individual might increase in monetary aspects, but what about the quality of life?In the long run will people really be happy doing what they do?

Rip Van Winkle

I've named this post as Rip Van Winkle since this is officially my second post on my blog, after a break of one and a half years.Rip Van Winkle,for those of you who might not know,was a character in a book written by Washington Irving about a guy who slept for almost 20 years after drinking with a bunch of dwarves in the mountains.It's a nice story about how people become lazy and oblivious to social changes.My situation ...well atleast my blog situation is in the same state...I've not been able to record anything for the last 18 months and I've had some incredible experiences to say the least.

My first post was way back in september 2004.A lot has happened since then-missing out on my dream of becoming a sports commentator with ESPN a.k.a making a fool of myself on national television,being projected as a whiner and not a winner by those morons at ESPN,resigning from a crappy firm,meeting some really nice people at an awesome airshow,a broken shoulder,a painful recovery(am still not a 100 %),counting my calories as I recovered,jumping through plenty of hoops to get to a prestigious university in the states (hopefully dishing out some calories as I did that),arriving in LA which I think people should think of renaming HelLA(i mean if they can rename Bangalore as Bengaluru,then they can sure as hell rename LA as HelLA),a daily dose of eyecandy albeit superficial,looking at pretty girls with straight hair and twisted egos,enduring plenty of nasal talk,a baptism by fire of sorts(not because of the eyecandy!),meeting some really cool and some really trashy people,some incredibly enlightening moments,an awesome trip to Europe and here I am ,one and a half years later.Now that's one HUGE episode of my version of "The Wonder Years!"

I guess I've done well enough to summarise most of the events in that neat little nutshell.Man,one and a half years,gone,just like that...It sometimes really makes me wonder about the nature of time and why it mysteriously seems to be going at different rates all the time?During an Exam,three hours go within no time and when you're getting reprimanded for the results of that very exam,you really feel as though one minute is like ten... The human brain is quite amazing...i sometimes screw up so badly in my exams and I keep blaming my bad memory ...its funny though that the event doesn't seem to magically vanish from my head.I could not remember something that I needed to for three hours and yet I tend to remember each and every minute moment of screwing up badly in an exam even years after the exam.I really wonder how this all works?

As I write this,I can actually hear the wind hustling in between two parallel buildings.It's called as a tunnelling effect and I guess bernoulli's principle of aerodynamics applies in this case since the air passes through a channel created by two tall structures ,quite similar to a person squeezing a garden hose to make water burst out at a faster rate.It's atleast a good break from my silly on campus job.I work in my univ as a computer lab assistant.My immediate boss is a very nice and friendly chap,but there are some people who are in the admin that really need to learn some manners.There is one nasty person who can't even greet a people...One day in the morning I just came in for the day and said "Good Morning" and then she just stands there,with one really cold look,she just stared at me for two minutes,without uttering a word,and then went back to her office duties of God knows what...It was actually as though saying good morning to her was like a "London statue" kind of phrase that triggered her to suddenly act like a beef eater (a.k.a those stiff upper lip chaps with the fuzzy hats that could pass as condoms for circumsized elephants) at the gates of the buckingham palace.

After living in Los Angeles for seven months,I can safely say that there is no dearth of weirdos in this town.They could call it weirdo central if they wanted to and no one would give a dam.

Okay,I guess I've digressed enough to realize that I am writing absolute drivel and I guess there will be more for tomorrow.Hopefully my definition of tomorrow doesn't remain the same as that of Rip Van Winkle.