This, That and Some More

My tryst with San Francisco started with a Southwest Airlines flight which deposited me to the Oakland airport. From there I was advised to take AirBART to the Coliseum station and then take the BART to SF. The ticket vending machines looked very complicated and left me quite at sea. I decided to be shameless and dumb and asked the person behind me to assist me with the ticket, she pressed a few buttons and the machine greedily sucked in a 10 dollar note as that is the only denomination I had. Since machines are not intelligent enough to understand my thoughts, it d didn’t give me back the change. I headed up to the platform and boarded BART, which was comfortable, spacious and very fast and it dipped under the bay and zipped across and then I was in SF in just 20 minutes. I emerged at Market Square and there were these tram lines right in front which reminded me of Calcutta. I had no idea how to get a taxi, I asked a person and she said “Oh just show your hand – they’ll stop” so I hai...

Last Saturday I went back to Rodeo Drive, the place which was kind of etched in my memory from a few years back during my last visit to LA and Beverly Hills. It reeks of exclusivity and its evident to one and all who pass through, the tree lined avenues, the perfectly manicured gardens, the beautiful houses, the opulent hotels and the world's most expensive shopping street, Rodeo Drive is quite something. Last time I came here on a Sunday so there weren't much people around but all of a sudden a gentleman dressed in a red coat stepped out of somewhere and started speaking to me in fluent Hindi, he greeted me, asked where I was from and hoped that I would enjoy my day in Beverly Hills. I was more than astonished and very much pleased to hear my language in a country far away from India. That memory has always remained with me and it is what that took me back to the place. On reaching, I find the very familiar, portlier and older "Mr Beverly Hills" in his element on a...

No this is not a book review, but a personal experience, that too in a call center in the USA rather than in India. I spent some time at the call center to understand the business process better and in the process got an insight into the much more than business processes. I was greeted by Yvonne, who was a very amiable and friendly lady, 62 years old, a hot shot COBOL programmer who worked in Bank of America in her hey days and could debug code by just looking at a dump. She was made redundant because technologies changed and jobs were outsourced, however to keep the home fires burning or may be just to occupy her time rather than just being forgotten, she chose this job of working nights as a supervisor at this call center. She showed me around, introduced me to people I should spend time with and offered me some soda and pretzels. Next I sat with Nicole, who was an Australian who had shifted to USA fifteen years back. Initially for years she worked both shifts probably to make ends m...

Here are some pictures of Santa Monica beach on Memorial Day. It seemed that all of California was out on those beautiful beaches and it almost came close to Juhu on a Sunday in Mumbai. Interestingly, I have always loved this song by Sheryl Crow called ‘All I want to do is have some fun’, that is precisely what I did this weekend, but the only difference from Sheryl’s song was that I had fun till the sun set on Santa Monica Boulevard! Memorial Day A tribute to all soldiers, army, navy, marines, coast guards and air force. There was another pillar on the side dedicated to all soldiers who dies in various military operations in the line of duty since 1999. A pretty picture indeed. The Pier Everybody is out to have a great time. Somewhat like a walk down to Haji Ali in Mumbai, musicians playing the guitar or flute, people standing up on benches and trying to entertain the passers by to make some money, the serpentine queues for all the restaurants on the pier, the ancient carousel (se...

I have a boss who works 20 hours so not much opportunity to blog. I plan to do a post on all my culinary experiences but in the meanwhile here is some food for thought. In the numerous meetings I am attending here, a point came up where some government policies had an implication on software design. This country happens to be Spain, it also came up that since Spain is a socialist country, they have such policies in place. The person went on to make a comment - "Socialists are just so stuck" That's USA for you - purely capitalist!

I had this very eventful journey from Mumbai to LA. It started on an incredibly funny note and I would have really laughed if I wasn't so stressed out about everything. I flew Air India and the first announcement I heard was that the flight has been delayed because the crew had not yet arrived. I wondered what if they don’t arrive at all. Is that a very diplomatic statement to make to agitated and stressed passengers who would miss all their connecting flights? What impression must have all the visitors to India formed about India's international carrier? I was shocked at the callousness and utter disregard for any passenger needs after being reasonable well looked after by Lufthansa, Air France, United etc. No water and soap in the toilets further added to discomfort and I found a human hair in my food. I know for sure I will never fly Air India again. On reaching LA a couple of hours late, I found that the apartment I was renting had messed up and I had no keys and generally ...

My boss told me that I have to go to Los Angeles for a month, my first reaction is pleasant, being right in the midst of beautiful beaches and Hollywood was interesting. Then the waves of worry replaced the initial thrill - one month is a long time and everything will be topsy turvy at home. Added to that, my maid's tantrums, my Mother in Law's various ailments, my husband's work related travel plans and my son's vacations, complete despair set in. All of it just because I will be away for a month and the family will be thrown out of gear. The wives manage just fine when the husbands go away for work, why can’t the husbands manage when the wives are away? They behave like helpless babies who need to be given instructions on a daily basis! To ease the pain of my not being around, I have to stock up on groceries which will cover the month, plan the menu with my maid, employ additional domestic help to fill in for the labor that I put in and give my son a few activities an...

Knowing about and exploring different cultures and places has always been a hobby. These days one can do a lot of armchair traveling thanks to the many travel oriented shows on TV and write-ups in magazines but when I was growing up there weren't too many options available except for reading and traveling to the location and exploring for real. Thanks to the uncountable Mills and Boons I consumed in my teen years, I know quite a lot of UK, Australia, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Greece. I wonder why Frenchmen were not preferred as heroes in Mills and Boons - perhaps it is because of the age old rivalry between the English and the French? My other obsession was listening to shortwave radio. During a trip to Amsterdam, my Mother brought me a Sony world receiver where one could do a digital scan of all shortwave frequencies. It is till date the most wonderful gift that anyone has ever given me. Shortwave radio added an entirely new dimension to my learning and also gave me a chance to p...

My Mother recently made this comment under emotional duress - distances and cold climates kill warmth in our hearts. Our personal agendas and our immediate world consume us so totally that we have little care for what else happens around the world or to our extended families. Most Indian families will have at least one relation staying outside the country, sometimes they are very close relations who choose to move away in search of better prospects and incomes. Longer distances from home may mean lesser frequencies of visits back home, at times they come back after years and years and all distances melt away and it seems like as if they had never left. At times it seems that some stranger has come in place of the person we originally knew and it is so hard to make the connection that we were used to. I have watched both these situations up close. In one situation a daughter came to visit her Mother after a period of 20 years, the first time since her Father passed away. This was also t...

Chandalika is a dance drama written by Rabindranath Tagore back in 1933. I was watching it on TV last night and found that it is perhaps as relevant now as it was in 1933. It's a story of a girl named Prakriti, who is ostracized by the society and lives on its edges. She does not understand the consequences of her birth into a family which is regarded as ' untouchable '. She watches wistfully from the shadows as the world passes her by as even her shadow was inauspicious, the sweet meat vendor, the bangle seller and the flower girls all shunned her existence. One day a Buddhist monk appeared and asked her for some water to quench his thirst, he brushed aside her hesitance and said God made all men equal and her origins were inconsequential and proceeded to drink water offered by her. The ' caste system ' sometimes rears its ugly head during matrimonial alliances but otherwise it’s quite forgotten - at least in urban India. Now with the fresh wave of proposed reserv...

One may wonder what a 'bench' is, so for people who are not aware, it means being without work in an IT company. It is also the most dreaded situation to be in, no place to sit, no computer to pass your time and since you are not doing much there are no credit points to add to your annual appraisal. Most people on bench are seen loitering about in the canteen or in the library. The people blessed with more respectable designations do not have to suffer similar indignities but it still feels miserable to be out of the mainstream delivery drama and generally forgotten. The other day I bumped into the CEO at lunch, we exchanged greetings and he asked which project I was associated with and I said that I was on bench, to which he responded "Oh! Finally you found a place to sit!" Well, that’s a lighter way to look at things I suppose! It’s been two loooooooong months since I have been sitting and wondering how to kill all of 8 hours. Talking to others was definitely out as...

I discovered chatting back in 1999 when I started working for a R&D unit of a US based product development company. Like most startups, the work took its own sweet time to flow down, till then we were asked to update our skills and so some self study and send daily reports of what we learnt. The team comprised of three women and each of us was equally innovative, creative and naughty when it came to sending daily timesheets. Needless to say that with the luxury of an ISDN high speed internet connection, all we did was chat. It was like a drug, an addiction which always left us wanting more. I discovered the true meaning of the word 'disconnection' back then. MSN Chat rooms were my favorite haunt (not sure if they exist now); it seemed like my gateway to the world, so many different people from so many different places who were quite eager to exchange views. I met a fireman from New York who had lost his girl friend in a fire, an engineer who specialized in lift doors, I hav...

This incident dates back to my school days, I used to study in a very up market school full of snotty rich kids belonging to the most famous political and industrialist families of India. There were a few kids from middle income groups to stabilize things; otherwise the school would have been rather empty. Now I come across my school mates smiling out of the page 3 sections in the newspapers or making their mark in politics or media and I wonder that if I were to meet them today, would they recognize or talk to me? Back in school everything was simple; the rich - poor divide was not very evident in the lower grades. A good friend, daughter of one of the most eminent Indian business families often called us over. Being her friends, we were given the royal treatment, the red carpet was rolled out and our every whim was catered to. We demanded a rice dish called 'papad chawal', tri colored puris, hot ginger or cardamom tea every now and then, movies, go swimming courtesy her prem...

Maybe some or all things that happen in our lives are predetermined. There are some incidents in my life which make me believe in it as the days go by. My Grandmother wanted me to marry into a certain family, perhaps because that was the only family with an eligible Brahmo bachelor! She could not find a suitable Brahmo groom for her daughters (they were married off into Hindu families), so it was her most cherished dream that her grand daughter should marry a Brahmo . Several discreet and not so discreet attempts were made to initiate the alliance, in one such attempt I was pushed in front of my prospective Mother in Law with necessary introductions. She looked vague and I was promptly dismissed. How did I even agree to such a situation I am not sure but when one is young one gets pushed into situations. My Grandmother passed away after a few months leaving my mother to shoulder the enormous responsibility of marrying me off. I didn't help things by producing a boy friend who wa...

This is a song by Enigma which looks as good as it sounds as the entire video is a rewind and it has been one of my favorite songs for a very long time. Everytime I come across an article which advises us to eat complex carbohydrates (whole whear bread, brown rice etc), do yoga and meditation and studies about alternate fuel and electricity sources, I am reminded of this song. The industrial revolution has depleted the Earth of its natural resources and the 'good life' along with the pollution generated by industrialization has depleted our health. The oil they say will last us only for 20 more years, the levels of oceans all around have risen by a few inches in the last 20 years, the ozone layer has depleted considerably, ground water contamination due to toxic land fills and use of fertilizers leads to chemical filled fruits and vegetables and unsafe drinking water. The use and throw culture leads to tonnes of garbase, paper is shredded, torn and wasted without a thought for ...

It resembles a battlefield at times, full of adrenalin charged youngsters running around everywhere trying their best to put the ball in a net or a basket or trying to snatch it away from the person who has it. Aggression reigns supreme, battle cries of 'pass the ball' echo everywhere, deliberate nudges and pushing is the norm and so is the good natured camaderie after the game is over. This is the usual scene I witness everyday when I drop my son for his basketball lessons, last two days I was feeling lazy and didn't go for my walk / gym, so I just sat and observed the various games in progress, counted the planes that flew over my head, watched the dust rise up and settle down and observed big ants on the ground who very smartly avoided human footfalls and hid in cracks. During all these aimless observations, a few kids caught my attention. Three girls were playing with a ball, passing it to each other standing quite close to each other. A very simple sort of a game for g...

I am so busy doing nothing that my mind refuses to think up of something to write. I can hear several idea bees buzzing around my brain, hopefully I will be able to give them some shape very soon. Till then just let me sleep on them!

My Father passed away when I was eleven years old; I remember foggily that in the morning he complained about chest pain when I was leaving for school. When I came back my mother told me that he was no more, I predictably broke down but at that age the comprehension levels are rather low. I felt that he had just gone away on one of his office tours and would be back after a very long time, perhaps I was more upset about not being able to celebrate my birthday which was just next week because we had made grand plans for it. I feel awful putting this down on paper as I am admitting to being selfish, insensitive and a low life by admitting that it was my lost birthday I was crying over rather than my Father's death. I was the adored daughter, special and pampered, my every wish was fulfilled and I was given the best of everything by my Father. Before the childish affection could grow into a relationship, my Father passed away so I never really knew him as a person. After his death I n...

I find a lot of similarities in them, they could be twins if they were not separated by this vast expanse of time. I am not a political observer, I cannot keep track of politics most times, I have no interest whatsoever in politics. But even a layman can see the impending doom that our local Nero (Vilasrao Deshmukh) is bringing upon this city. My catty side observes that his son, is doing a better job than his Dad, atleast he is trying to act and his performance is tolerable. Vilasrao, however is a different story altogether. If body language is an indicator then he appears to be lazy, uninterested, loves the perks of the job and has conveniently forgotten the duties that go along with it. On occasions he has appeared to be downright silly when he went with a begging bowl to Delhi but could not state reasons as to why he needed the money. Forget Shanghai, we are not even close to Bangalore and Chennai. Even the cities like Hyderabad and Kolkatta are better managed now. The stink of ga...

Recently I helped my son with some project work where my son had to list down 20 adjectives (all good) describing himself. Of course I had to help with the list of those words and after I crossed 12 it was kind of difficult! Now if I were to do the same exercise for myself I would probably take days over it. The words are easy to come up with but are they really about "me"? DO I really know myself well enough to come up with words that describe me? I learn a little about myself each day and I unlearn a bit about myself too everyday. Perhaps I am like a snake that sheds skin periodically, discarding what I don’t need and cultivating what is required. At times I surprise myself by doing something totally unexpected on an impulse and at times I have gone against some of the core values that I have been brought up with and managed to shock myself (without repentance!). Why do the negative adjectives pop into my mind ahead of the positive adjectives? Are we as a race programmed to...