This....And....That

Okay folks. Excuse me for the longish hiatus. I've been busy and also lazy. Honestly I dont know what had come over me for the last 3-4 weeks. Of course there was work and I worked (or rather slogged) like crazy for a week. Then came thanksgiving when I went to visit my dear friends AGAIN!!!! And then a bout of laziness, just a feeling to NOT do anything. No emails, no phone calls, no watching movies, just office, work, home, lunch, dinner and sleep in an unending möbius strip.

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The thanksgiving trip was awesome. Honestly all my trips to visit friends have always turned out awesome. The feeling that overwhelms me when I'm with my friends is nearly indescribable. I feel completely relaxed and at ease. We talk about the old times and discuss about the state of our lives, take advice and even argue on silly topics. Most of the time I'm at the receiving end of their puns and comments and I do get upset but then its just at the spur of that moment. A few minutes later everything's gone and everyone's back again pulling my leg. :-)

I flew in from San Diego to Charlotte...reached there Thursday morning, we drove from Charlotte to Baltimore, spent the night at TK's appartment. From there we drove to New Jersey, spent Friday night at Chabru's house. On Saturday took a train to Manhattan and kept walking and walking and walking in and around Times Square, 5th, 6th and 7th streets, shopping, searching for Indian restaurants. I brought a brown jeans jacket and slip-on semi-formal shoes for myself. Saturday night we drove back to Baltimore and after spending just about an hour or so in Baltimore, started to drive back to Charlotte. It was great fun. And I'll be re-living it, because I'm gonna be meeting them again for the long weekend during christmas. Yipeee!!

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For the last month and half or so, mom and dad have redoubled and intensified their search for a daughter-in-law. Why?? Firstly because I'll soon be 30 (WOW, I cant believe it myself) and secondly, I'm one of those guys who fall into the - Oh My God, you STILL havent found someone for yourself. You're such a loser!! - category. To be very honest, I am petrified at the whole scenario.

Sometimes, I feel it would be a great challenge to be single and to live life at your own terms and maybe even adopt a child and raise it as your own. The thought is very rebellious and just thinking about it, gives me a great high. Maybe such a thought has crept into me because I've lost hope of finding someone for myself. Some other times I feel living such a life would be so lonely - something which my mom told me when I told her of my idea of being single. In fact couple of weeks back, she brought up the topic of my marriage and told her - "I'm gay" and she just burst out laughing and said you're saying this just because you dont want to get married.

Mom and dad forwarded the picture of a prospective alliance some weeks back and I deleted the email as soon as I got it. Each time I called up home, mom & dad would ask just one thing - "What do you think about the alliance?". Tired of them asking, I stopped calling. I didnt talk to anyone at home for a week. To break the deadlock, they started calling me from India. They somehow convinced me to atleast look at the picture. With great resentment, I saw the picture. Mom & dad kept pestering me for my opinion and I told them that without meeting her personally, I cannot take any decision. For me the most difficult thing to do is to reject her (or for that matter any alliance). I feel it would be prejudiced and judgemental on my part to reject her. Who am I to reject anyone?

Anyways, a temporary status quo has been attained now. But this wont last long. It will be broken the moment I reach Mumbai, because then I will have to meet the lady.

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On a not-so-personal note, I'm going strength to strength with respect to my cooking. My repertoire now includes, Dal (Tur, masoor, moong, chowli) , Sambar, Rasam, Pulav, Biryani, Dahi kadi, rajma, choley, different combinations of dry and wet subzi involving aalu, mutter, paneer, flower, gobi, bhendi, capsicum and recently gobi-manchurian in corn gravy. I can also make green chutney, tamarind-date chutney, batata-wada, potato/onion/cabbage/bread bhajji. WOW!!! Thats quite a lot of variety eh?? :-)))) No wonder I've been gaining weight instead of losing it. hahahahaha.

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Throughout my stay here, I've brought a lot of gifts for my sister and brother. I brought a 14" DELL laptop for my sister. Got a pretty good deal for it. It has 1.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 160GB hard drive, 2GB RAM, integrated webcam, CD-DVD writer, extended battery and it cost me just about 700 USD. I also bought a jumbo 650 GB hard drive for my desktop at home. Brought a WWE-JohnCena T-shirt and a LAGalaxy-DavidBeckham T-shirt for my brother. Also brought a couple of T-shirts for my sister and a Chanel No 5 perfume too for her.

My wishlist is still NOT completely done. I still need to buy a wireless keyboard-mouse combo, an unlocked iPhone whenever its available (if not then maybe an iPodTouch), a hooded T-shirt for my sister and brother, a DVD pack of "I Love Lucy" for mom & dad and need to buy some stuff for my sister's husband as well. I wonder whether I'll be able to save any money after all this. :-)))

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Off late, I've been promoted to a car-owner from a pedestrian. Thanks to this great colleague of mine. He's perhaps the only colleague whom I can call my friend. Somehow, I am just not comfortable in making friends with my work-mates. I always tend to maintain a professional relationship with them. With this guy too it started off the same way but progressively we became very good friends. He's also on a project here in San Diego, but right now he's gone back to India for a month long vacation. Before he left, he told me to pick up his car from outside his apartment. So I got the keys from another colleague who stays in the vicinity of my friend and took the car. Thanks to this, I go home everyday for lunch. :-))) Thats the only thing which I'll miss once my friend comes back here to "reclaim" his car. I intend to get a car-wash done before I give it to him.

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And Finally, its amazing to find a lot of internet sites providing live streaming feed of the cricket matches going on between India and Pakistan. Recently, a colleague of mine just gave away his TV to me because he was getting one from his friend. The immediate next thing I did is to rush to Fry's Electronics and buy a S-Video cable and an AUX audio cable. So now, I connect my laptop to the TV through S-Video, connect the audio to the TV's audio jack and put on the streaming TV channel. Hey Presto! I can watch cricket matches on TV. Yippeee!!!! Today's the 5th day of the final test and I hope it does not turn out to be a damp squib.

Been as Busy as a Bee

Since the last post, I have been

1. Regularly doing a lot of laundry, folding the washed clothes properly and also ironing and all of these take up atleast 3 to 3.5 hours of my weekend time.

2. Talking very very very regularly (almost every other day) to my mom, dad, brother, sister. Wishing them for Diwali and digesting all the latest family gossip. hehehehe.

3. Travelling between San Diego and Dallas in lousy flights and spending 2 (sometimes as much as 3) hours between connecting flights in Denver, doing nothing but ogle at pretty women and observe playful kids at the aircraft boarding gates. (Almost forgot to mention 5 of shots of Cognac on the rocks to get a little tipsy high)

4. Going around in Dallas from one lab in the west to another in the east for the purpose of testing the new Motorola phones to see if they work properly with other equipment manufacturers. The result - astounding as it seems is true - Motorola phones do work. :-))))

5. Driving on the accident prone and notoriously infamous highway I-635 and trying to drive safe amongst the whacky drivers with no driving sense and no lane discipline and at the same time trying to avoid debris strewn in the middle of the highway from a recently happened accident.

6. Trying to avoid tail-gating drivers and in the process missing the Freeway exit which resulted in me having to take a 35 mile detour and drive at a lousy 20 mile per hour speed through downtown Dallas on the crazy I-35 E going North when I was already running late for the lab appointment.

7. Doing a lot of perfume shopping for my friends and also for myself. Its unbelivable the price you pay for authentic (or atleast seemingly authentic) perfumes in the Mexican market at Harry Hines Blvd. More astonishing than that is to find an Indian owning the perfume shop and employing Mexicans in his shop to sell perfumes in a Mexican market. WOW!! BTW...FYI...I got a Carolina Herrera and it smells fantastic.

8. Finishing off my work in Dallas one day earlier and taking a one day break, meeting up with friends, but the folks at work thinking that I'm working. Wow! that was fun.

9. Waking up at 01:00 pm in the noon on a working day and meeting friends, doing shopping for friend's wife on her birthday, celebrating the birthday at night and eating lumps of chocolate cake.

10. Meeting up with loooooooooooong lost friends. Friends with whom I haven't been in touch with nearly 6-8 years, whom I last saw on the last day of engineering, who were dating each other during those years and who've now married and settled here in the US.

11. Sleeping flat on the two adjacent seats on the flight from Denver to Colorado when all the other seats in the plane were occupied. The only two that were not occupied were the ones next to me. Gosh! Even I can be lucky at times. :-)))

12. Cooking the most awesome, mind-blowing fantastic Dal, made completely in ghee, with just the perfect amount of spices, the closest I've gotten to Mom's out of this world Dal experience.

13. Keeping track of all deals available, in the lead upto and during thanksgiving and literally browsing sites like deals2buy.com, dealnews.com, techbargains.com and gottadeal.com once every 2 hours to check out the available offers. Wow, this is Internet Window Shopping. :-)))))

14. Talking to my dear friends in Charlotte and Baltimore and making an impromptu plan to go and see them for the Thanksgiving weekend. The one whom you know as TK, is in Baltimore and he's gonna do some shopping before his marriage in April. Who knows maybe he might throw us friends a bachelor's party. :-))

AND FINALLY....

15. Very very very very lazy in updating this blog. This post contrived over a very very long span of nearly 14 days and each point written on a different day. (Hey I should try it this out once.) Naah...I'm just kidding, I wrote this post in two days albeit the gap between the two days was more close to 10.

Rants About Roomies

A couple of weeks back, I shifted apartments. I had to. Because the lease in my earlier apartment was getting over. I had 3 other roomies in that apartment. Lets call them Lazy-Good-For-Nothing-Gult (LGFNG), Confused-Secretive-Faithless-Mind (CSFM) and Style-Guy-Chicken-Cook (SGCK).

It all started back in April when I shifted from Hot-and-Humid Florida to Sunny-and-Pleasant California. I hunted and found a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment and which was also within 15 minute walking distance from my workplace. I knew CSFM and SGCK from much before - they had come to Florida at different times during my year and a half stay there. Of course CSFM was not so confused, not so secretive and not so faithless at that time. He seemed a decent enough guy. SGCK used to work in my project and I came to know him during his stay in Florida and we became good friends. The 3rd guy LGFNG, I had never known before.

So when our assignment here started, I knew that CSFM and SGCK would be staying with me and SGCK suggested that LGFNG stay with us. I agreed to it since the apartment would be rather expensive for just 3 people. As soon as I got the "possession" of the apartment, I bought all the necessary stuff. The basic necessities in the kitchen namely - toaster, microwave, blender, plates, glasses, bowls, spoons, a kitchen utensil set. Lights for each room, iron-board and iron, hangers to hang clothes, waste bin for kitchen and both washrooms, internet connection, rental washer and dryer. Just about everything was setup even before the other guys moved in. (On a completely different note - now I got a first hand experience of how to setup a new home and its gonna prove extremely helpful in setting up my new house in Mumbai).

During the first week it was just SGCK and I and between the two of us, we did cooking, cleaning, preparing lunch boxes, etc very smoothly. Soon CSFM and LGFNG joined us. And it turned out that I was the only vegetarian in the house. Fortunately or unfortunately, I've always got non-vegetarians as my roomies and I've had no problems in adjusting with them. But I always make one thing clear, I wouldn't be cleaning any dishes in which any non-veg stuff was cooked. And I think its a reasonable expectation from my side since I'm a complete veggie.

I love cooking and so does SGCK and we used to literally do everything between us, chopping, cooking and cleaning. We used to never expect that anyone would help us. So when we started to stay together, I had made it clear that SGCK and I would be doing the cooking and LGFNG himself said that he would voluntarily do the dishes, but he never ever lived up to his word. Sometimes CSFM would help in cutting and cleaning without us having to tell him, but LGFNG would NEVER EVER come to help us in our cooking or cleaning on his own. Each time we come home from work late, the dishes would lie in the kitchen sink and although LGFNG would have come home much earlier than us, he wouldn't have cleaned the dishes at all. Many-a-times SGCK would just clean the dishes and still do the cooking but I CANNOT STAND irresponsible people. So I always used to make it a point to MAKE LGFNG DO the dishes.

I had also mentioned very clearly - right at the beginning - that the cost of ALL food stuff would be divided equally between all the roomies and everyone agreed to it at that time. Nobody objected to my suggestion. Now, a month or so had passed from that day and I sat down to do the monthly expenses. Apart from the rent, water, electricity, gas and trash bills, I also included the cost for setting up the house in my calculations and thus initially, the per head liability came out to be slightly high. Suddenly, LGFNG had problem with the high liability. He started saying that we should now be careful in spending and should not buy any non-essential stuff because its a huge waste of money...etc.

I freaking HATE this attitude. As if whatever I did to setup the house was a WASTE. As if I would go on buying a new microwave each month until the lease of our apartment expires. Bloody ignorant asshole!! People like LGFNG DONOT APPRECIATE the value of things because they get everything in front of them served readymade on a Silver platter and then they go mud-slinging other people who've taken efforts to set-up everything properly. Anyways, I clarified that such expenses are just one-time expenses and the next month's liability would not be so much. I thought the differences would end at that, but I was SO VERY wrong.

Soon the complaints spread on to the grocery being brought for the house. LGFNG and CSFM started to argue that they do not eat a lot of stuff that we get for groceries and hence wanted to opt out of some of the grocery items. When in Florida I'd been living in an environment where the cost of ALL the house grocery items was shared between the roomies, irrespective of who ate what and who liked what.

So coming from that kind of an environment, this was nothing short of SHOCKING. The two niggardly roomies started to complain about food stuff being brought but not eaten by them. In fact one asshole (read - LGFNG) even went to the extent of saying that although he ate chips and cornflakes, the quantity consumed by him was far less than the quantity consumed by two of us (SGCK and I). This had me fuming. I completely lost it. The prick does not help even one bit when it comes to cleaning and cooking and washing the dishes and freaking complains about quantity of food being eaten by us. Dickhead!

Regular readers of this blog might know that I had been to Kansas City some months back. So, just before I left for Kansas City, I did some shopping for the house and since during that time, the pressure at work was quite high, I hadnt done the calculation. Now, 2 and a half months later when I came back, I did the calculation and when I asked the roomies to share, there was a HUGE uproar from LGFNG and CSFM. As if I've fabricated the bills and I'm out to steal their money. Freaking cheapos smellier than cow shit had no bloody faith in their roomie who pays off the rent, electricity, water and trash bills without even flinching an eyebrow and doesnt even ask them to pay until the end of the month.

Sometime last year I had bought an external DVD writer and since I had never even tested it, I opened it one day and burnt a DVD just to check if everything was alright. CSFM saw this and asked me whether he can use it for a day to copy some stuff. I willingly gave it to him and he returned it to me once his work was done. Then when I was in Kansas City, CSFM, without informing me took the DVD writer and was using it all the time. Even when I came back from Kansas City, CSFM didnt ever inform me that he was using the DVD writer. 3-4 weeks back a friend of mine was supposed to go back to Mumbai and I decided to give the DVD writer to her so that my brother (who has been pestering me for it for quite a while) can use the DVD writer.

I searched for it at the usual place where it was supposed to have been there, but it wasnt there. I was completely flummoxed. I asked SGCK and he didnt know where it was. Then suddenly I saw this writer in CSFM's room and instantly realized that it was mine. I called up CSFM and asked him about it and he grinned sheepishly and said that he was using it all the time. I cannot understand how people can do such childish crazy things. Where is the Maturity???

I have never ever used other people's stuff, be it their laptops, portable hard drives, DVD writers, books, pens, or any trivial or non-trivial thing. I might have used it just once or so and still I make it a point to ask their permission and I also make it a point to use it for the shortest possible time and return it in the exact same condition it was, when I'd borrowed it. If I ever think that I would be needing something more often than not, I'd immediately go and buy it instead of borrowing it. I cant understand why other people cannot behave in the same manner. Am I asking too much??? I honestly dont think so. Finally, I was able to send the DVD writer along with my friend to Mumbai and thank god nothing went wrong when it was being used by CSFM.

Of all the time that I have stayed with roomies, this time was the toughest. Honestly, I've never seen a more CHURLISH attitude from anyone. Both LGFNG and CSFM were very cheap and rude and had absolutely no regard for other two of us. Thank god a zillion times that the ordeal is now over and I have resolved now to NEVER EVER stay together with LGFNG and CSFM even if it means that I've to stay alone and spend a fortune. Atleast I'll have my peace of mind and wouldnt be tearing my hair off in trying to resolve silly petty issues and giving explanations for each of my actions.

The Week Gone By

The week's over. It took a while but its finally over. The first part of the week was a harrowing experience. Its over for some, but for some others, the ordeal continues. Mother nature went on a rampage all throughout Southern California (SoCal) and showered special consideration on San Diego.

In what way you ask? Well obviously, you haven't been tuning into international news lately. Wildfires have been feasting heavily on the parched, arid, dry, drought affected lands of SoCal - some of them still going strong even as I type this post.

Last Sunday was an exceptionally busy day for me. I accompanied my roomies for some grocery shopping and then went to a retail electronic store to get a pair of headphones. (I got a supra-aural Sony headphones for a pretty good deal and I'm loving it. Its amazing how good earphones makes even mediocre music sound awesome :D) Sorry for the digression, anyways, so on our way back, I just happened to look up at the sky and noticed that it was smoggy. Now that might be normal in Bombay (courtesy Mr.Pollution), but its unheard-of here. The sky is normally impeccable blue and I thought its strange for it to be having a grayish tinge.

Anyways, it was pretty soon forgotten and as soon as we got home we started cooking. We were done in a couple of hours and since it started to get a bit smoky in the house with all the frying and stuff, we opened the windows. Suddenly in a matter of minutes, the air started to smell strange. We quickly checked our hot-plates and oven to see if we had left something ON by mistake, but found that everything was switched off. We were trying to figure out the source of the "burning" smell in the air and then we get a call from one of our friends saying that there's a wild fire burning out of control about 50 miles north-east of our place and slowly moving westward.

We all quickly scourged the net and found out that indeed there was a wild fire. In fact there wasn't just one or two or three. There were 7 of them in and around San Diego. WOW UNBELIEVABLE!!! Also, we found some 3-4 fires in and around LA too. In fact there was one in Malibu county which forced many celebrities to evacuate their million-dollar houses.

By midnight on Sunday, (in a couple of hours) the fire was deemed to be about 40 miles away i.e. 10 miles closer to us. The fire department had begun mandatory evacuation of the communities which were about 10 miles away from the fire. We all were under the impression that everything would become normal by Monday morning and we all slept soundly. On Monday, my roomie went to work at around 08:00 (much earlier than usual). I woke up at my usual time of around 09:00 and started to get ready to go to work. Suddenly, I get a call from my roomie (who's at work) saying that the security is planning to shut down office because the fire situation is getting worse by the minute.

I quickly tuned into an internet radio station for San Diego and there they announced that there are two fires, one to the north-east and other south-east of San Diego, both moving westward towards San Diego. Holy Cow!!! What in God's name is happening here?? I was thinking. The fire closest to our location was the one in the north-west. It was now just 25 miles away from our location and all residents who were living in a 10-mile distance from the perimeter of the fire were asked to evacuate. In fact it so happened that one particular school was designated as the evacuation center but when the fire started coming close to that, the location was shifted to a much safer place. This new place was a high school located in our area. When that happened, it was a bit of a relief to us because it gave us the confidence that when there's a evacuation center in our area, then our area must definitely be safe.

The whole of Monday went in closely monitoring the progress of the two fires. In fact the news in the internet radio reported that the 7 different fires had merged and become 2 large fires, one to the north-east and other to the south-east. They also said that the fires were caused because of the strange weather condition, which (considering the terrain around SoCal) is very conducive for wild-fires. In fact although San Diego is on the Pacific Coast, the relative humidity for Sun-Mon-Tue was an avg or about 4-5%. Which makes the air abnormally dry. This coupled with high temperatures (around 30-35 deg centigrade), unusual westerly Santa-Ana winds and the dry vegetation (which is abundant in SoCal) gave rise to the fires. It was declared on Monday that the office would remain shut on Tuesday, because of the fires.

By Tuesday, the situation had worsened. The fire in the N-W - named witch-creek fire (because it originated in the witch-creek canyon) which was about 8000 acres on Sunday evening had affected 15000 acres by Sunday night, 20000 acres by Monday and a humongous 145000 acres come Tuesday (because of merging of different fires). Similarly the fire in the S-W - named the Harris fire had grown from 6000 acres to 14000 acres to 25000 to some 40000 acres during the same timespan. By Tuesday afternoon, mandatory evacuation was in effect for communities which were just about 10 miles away from our locality and rumors were going around that our area too would soon be receiving an evacuation order.

It was Tuesday evening and no such order came. Still we all were tense and monitoring the "progress" of the fire very closely. Also we came to know that our office is closed indefinitely until further notice. The Harris fire was still just about 5% contained and the Witch fire was only about 1% contained. Situation was still dangerous. One look at the sky and the dangerousness was vindicated. The atmosphere was strewn with dust and debris and suspended particulate matter. There was so much soot in the air that the swimming pool in front of our house got very dirty with black dust falling from the sky. Although the fire was raging, thankfully it wasn't spreading towards our area and having come to know about that, our confidence - of not being evacuated - improved.

By Wednesday morning, the evacuation orders for the neighboring area got lifted and we started feeling much safer. In fact evacuation orders were also removed for areas which had been damaged by fire and people started to come back to see the state of their houses. The California fire department and the emergency services did a fantastic job of intimating people much before the fire broke out and by issuing mandatory evacuation orders. It is evident from the fact that - although a total of about 300000 acres were burning as a result of the various fires - there was only 1 casualty, but the damage to houses and property and land was huge. In fact my boss's house sustained substantial damage and the most common question on such people's mind was - "WHY ME??"

Thursday seemed like just another day. The office was open again, most of the shops were functioning like there was never anything wrong. Although office was open, attendance was low. The fires were still raging but far away from any nearby areas. By now the winds had changed direction, they were again flowing from west to east. The temperatures had dipped and the humidity increased. Buoyed by the weather, the firemen started to make fantastic progress in containing and in some places even extinguishing the fire.

By Friday everything was near normal. The air was clear - one could see the blue skies, it had become cooler again, the winds had died. In short a perfect California day.

Its amazing how - even after having made fantastic progress in science and technology and weather forecasting, etc - we are still at the mercy of mother nature's fury. Be it Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Volcanoes or even Wild Forest Fires.

Obituaries

This post is dedicated all those with whom, I've interacted at some point or other but are now no more. I have been very close to some, I have been lucky to have seen and interacted with some, I have spent my formative years with some and I've played and/or studied with some.

The first dedication has to go to this wonderful lady. She's right in the middle of the picture, holding my little baby sister, while I'm grinning away to glory, sitting just next to her. My Great Grand Mother. Not many can boast about having seen and lived with their great grand mother. Apparently, my dad made a promise to my grand-dad (on his death bed) that he will take care of his (grand-dad's mother) - a last wish which my dad fulfilled completely. All throughout my great-grand-mom lived with us. When I was young, she used to narrate stories from "Ambuli-mama". It was the Tamil equivalent of Chandamama. My mom tells me that...This one day she (my great-grand-mom) was tired and didnt narrate me a story and I got so pissed at her that I hit her on her head with a stick. Poor great-grand-mom nursed a swelling for a couple of days. My dad used to tell me, she loved watching TV. Those days we had a B/W TV by a brand named Standard. She loved watching Shammi Kapoor movies and named him "naakku-poochi" (earthworm in Tamil) for he used to wriggle a lot when dancing. Hahaha...cute sense of humor! We took her to Juhu beach and she walked with us along the beach clinging onto my dad's hand. She died in 1986 at the grand old age of 92. May she rest in peace.

My next dedication goes to this lady with whom I was extremely-extremely close. My grand-mother. When I was young (about 2 years old), I used to accompany my granny for grocery shopping. Thats the earliest memory I have and I can still remember waiting outside our house in Matunga, playing under a Jamul tree, waiting for granny to come out. During my 1st-2nd-3rd standard, we used to get copy-writing books and were asked to write atleast 5 pages daily to improve our handwriting. I was too lazy and my granny (a convent educated lady) used to complete the homework, by holding my hand and writing. My granny used to adore me like anything. I accompanied her on many of her "tirth yatras". I went along with her to visit Pandharpur. After my 10th, I accompanied her on a month long trip to all the famous temples of TamilNadu. She is the first lady (the second being my sister) in our family to have gone out of the country. Sometime during the late 80s or early 90s, my youngest uncle (her youngest son) took her to visit Bahrain and Singapore. When I was young, I used to fight and argue with my cousins to take her from their house to bring her to our house and also vice-versa. The last time I met her, she was tremendously ill, bed-ridden and seeing my long hair, she commented - "Yenna ponnu maadri thalamudi valathundirukkai" (What, you've grown hair like a girl). Although I laughed out loud at that, I was crying from the inside seeing her in such a terrible state. She had undergone a hip replacement surgery and developed some post operational complications which resulted in short term memory loss. Slowly her health started fading and finally she left us on April 17th 2007. It is my greatest regret that I could not be with her at the time of her demise. May god give her soul peace.

I'll start of my next remembrance with the following sanskrit verse.

Nana Dharma Nigooda Tatva Nichita
Yat Sankskriti Rajate
Seyam Bharatabhoornitanta Ruchira
Mataiva Naha Sarvada
Tasya Unnati Hetavehi bhavataam
Gyanam tatha may balam
Sampanna balashalini Vijayatam
Me Matrubhuhu sarvada.

This was one of the most complicated sanskrit verses that I had ever learnt and known during my 3 years of learning Sanskrit in school. This was the 10th standard and it was the sanskrit oral exams. We had to byheart all the poems from the whole textbook and the teacher would ask us to recite any verse and explain the meaning. I distinctly remember I was asked to recite the above verses by our sanskrit teacher. She was one of the senior-most and most respected of all the teachers. She had an excellent command of sanskrit and spoke impeccable english too. Her knack of explaining the complex sanskrit grammar and simplifying the english translation was very unique. She used to encourage me a lot and I owe a lot to her. In 2003, I was in Germany and this one-day I read in the online version of the Times of India about a series of shocking deaths involving Indians in the US. I was a bit saddened. Some days later when I was talking to mom, she suddenly mentioned that teacher Pushpa Ramanathan and her family met with an accident in CA and she's no more. I was dumbfounded. I immediately looked up the article in Times Of India and re-read it. The article had mis-spellt her name. The demise of the family was a huge shock to my dad too. Thats because, Pushpa-teacher's husband and my dad used to work for the same company and they were very good friends. The only survivor in the car crash was Pushpa teacher's grand daughter. Mom told me that Pushpa teacher's daughter who is also in the States is now taking care of her. With a great deal of effort and thanks to Google, I was able to search the news snippets and I found two. One from The Union Democrat and the other, exact same article I had read some 4 years back from the online edition of The Times of India. Aum Shanti...Shanti...Shanti.

Sometimes I do think what it would feel to be dead! I mean would I still feel my body, feel pain, feel happiness, feel sorrow, feel drunk, feel vibrant, feel ecstatic?? Will it be a dark, cold, chasm where time stands still or will it feel like a free fall into a pit thats bottomless or will it be like entering into a star so bright that the light can be "seen" with eyes shut. I fear what would be the experience of death. I fear death. Yes I do. May god give peace to all dead people. AMEN!

P.S: I also wanted to post about my childhood friend Sameer Rane and my College mate Shrikant Pawar who died rather young (before they even reached 25), but I dont have much to say about them since they weren't very close to me. Nonetheless, I still pray for them and their families. God bless them. God bless all.

Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest...next what-Dumbestest??

The excitement of meeting my friends always arouses a certain nervous energy within me. The moment my friends here in the US decide to meet or plan to have an outing, I'm always enthusiastic and there's this sudden flow of activity within me to look for the cheapest flight deals. When I was a relative newcomer to the US, I used to rely upon my friends to get my bookings done, but soon I came to know of the different web-sites where one could search for cheap travel deals. There's so many of them here - Orbitz, Travelocity, Priceline, Sidestep, Cheap-tickets - to name just a few.

Well, I dont want to talk about which among the above mentioned is the best or my preferred one or whatever, what I want to talk about is my stupidity in booking the tickets.

DUMB

Some 4 months back, my friend TK (the cute guy from the testimonial post) was going to India for his engagement. He had relocated from Dallas to Baltimore and was going back to Dallas to meet his other friends and his roomie (our common friend - guy no: 2 in the testimonial post) before his India trip. He informed me about his trip and decided - impromptu - that I'll go to Dallas as well. So I looked up one of the above sites to search for flight deals to go from San Diego to Dallas.

TK was going to Dallas on a weekend and so I tried to search for all travel combinations for that weekend so as to get the best price. I searched for Fri-eve departure and Sun-night return; Fri-eve departure and Mon-morn return; Sat-morn departure and Sun-night return; Sat-morn departure and Mon-morn return. Suddenly I found a deal for some 350 or so USD (significantly cheaper than the price I was shown earlier) and just jumped at it and booked it.

I was pretty excited about it and immediately told my friends that I would also be coming to Dallas to meet them. I took a print-out of the confirmation and just looked at my itinerary. My jaw dropped on looking at the printout. I was cursing myself on being such an imbecile - a dumb idiotic fool. In trying out all combinations, I had forgotten to change one of the options for the return flight and my currently scheduled return flight was somehow for Saturday evening instead of Sunday evening.

"OH..F***! How can I be so careless??" - that was the first thought to cross my mind. I immediately called up US-Airways and explained them about the goof-up. They said that they can change the return flight to one-day later, but that would cost me. I told them that I'm willing to pay whatever. The cust-service rep. told me to hold while she searched for availability and computed the new fare. I had no choice. I waited...anxious and eager to know "Kitne Phatke Lagenge" (how many DOs I'd have to shell out). She came back probably after having a mini-meal or so it seemed because of the long time I had to hold the call. She said the ticket can be changed and that it would cost me 150 USD. I agreed to it and got the return ticket rescheduled.

DUMBER

A couple of months back, I was in Kansas City. It was a lousy place and I didnt have very many friends there. I was feeling lonely and homesick and during that time Guy-2 (from the testimonial post) was moving out of Dallas. So I thought I'll go and visit him one last time in Dallas. At first I thought I could probably drive down to Dallas. The distance between Kansas City and Dallas is around 580 miles and it would have taken me about 8 hours. I looked out for rental cars and having found a good deal with HERTZ, I tried to work out the economics. I arrived at a certain figure, but out of sheer curiousity I just started to search for some good flight deals and luckily for me I found a pretty cheap one. About 250 bucks to-and-fro. I just jumped at it.

This time around I ensured that I booked the proper flights, I checked for date and timings and everything seemed okay. I was set to fly out on Friday in the evening from Kansas City and reach Dallas the same night. My return was scheduled for Sunday in the evening at 5:00 or so and I was supposed to reach Kansas City back at around 7'ish. My onward journey went without any incident and the flight landed at Dallas-FW airport on time. My friend came and picked me up and we had a gala time.

Soon it was Sunday and it was time for me to go. My friend dropped me off at Dallas-FW airport at around 04:00 pm and I went to the ticket-desk to get the boarding pass. The lady at the counter checked my ticket and she said - "Mr. GanapathiKrishnan, you are at the wrong airport." I was surprised and I asked her whether this airport is Dallas-FW airport. She said - "Yes its Dallas Ft.Worth, but your return flight is from Dallas-Lovefield." - and showed me the airport code. I saw that and I realized that Dallas Ft.Worth is DFW and Dallas-Lovefield is DAL and my return flight is from DAL.

I called up my friend, who by now had nearly reached his house and told him about this problem. He just doubled his way back to DFW airport and picked me up from the American Airlines terminal. I jumped into the car and we set off to DAL. The distance from DFW to DAL is about 15 miles and since its closer to downtown and further away from the freeway, it takes about 30 minutes or so to reach there. I had reached DFW 1 hour before my flight departure and now I had to reach DAL rather fast.

That evening, my friend broke all traffic rules possible except for jumping a red and we reached DAL at 04:35. I was quite sure that I'll miss my flight and my worst fears were confirmed. The lady at the checkin counter refused to give me a boarding pass saying that I was too late for the flight. Thankfully there was a second flight about 2 hours later from the same airport for Kansas City and I paid 25 bucks to get a boarding pass for that flight.


DUMBEST

Last weekend, my friends planned for a get-together to meet at my friend KCHJ's house. (To know more about KCHJ, read my testimonial post). As usual this was decided just a week before and I - being excited to meet up with my friends again - booked my flight tickets. This time too - after having tried out a number of combinations - I settled for a ticket that would leave from San Diego on Friday in the evening, reach Milwaukee at night on Friday. My return flight would leave on Sunday at around 05:30 pm and would reach San Diego at around 11:00 pm.

I got a deal (if I could call it that) for 400 USD and although it was a bit pricey, I was elated that I would be meeting my friends again. The whole of previous week, I was very much looking forward to my trip. I reached there on Friday and was treated to amazing food cooked by KCHJ's wife and talked a lot about old times. The whole of Saturday was spent just lazing around in his house, watching "path-breaking" movies and playing with his 7 month old baby.

Come Sunday it was time for all of us to leave and KCHJ dropped us off at the airport at around 04:40 pm. I went to the Delta Airlines boarding pass kiosk and entered the ticket number mentioned in my printout, but the kiosk was not able to find my ticket booking. I then went to the ticket-desk and asked the attendant to help me out. He too tried to get the boarding pass at the kiosk, but in vain. He then proceeded to the ticket counter and search for my ticket confirmation in his computer, but he was still not able to find my reservation.

Time was running out for me and out of frustration, I asked the attendant to give me the printout, I had given to him. I looked at it closely and realized the folly. I had done it again! Instead of 7th October, I had booked the return ticket for the 4th of November (also a Sunday). At the time of booking, I had forgotten to verify the return date and had just checked the day. OH...NO...NOT AGAIN!!

The attendant told me to talk to the Delta Airlines helpdesk to get my ticket reissued and he would hold the flight so that I could board it. I rushed to the helpline. I waited for nearly 15 minutes for someone to come and help me reissue my ticket. Finally, somebody came-on and I explained the problem to her. She told me the worst possible news. I had a 1-stop flight and my stopover was at Atlanta. She told me that there was availability from Milwaukee to Atlanta, but there was no availability from Atlanta to San Diego.

I was so angry and frustrated at myself that I could beat myself to death. It was the 3rd time, it happened. Finally after having given all the possible options, I took the most convenient of all - to fly out on the 8th of October, i.e. Monday. I would be reaching San Diego at 12:15 pm, but then there was no other choice. There was no availability whatsoever for the 7th in any of the flights. There was a ticket available with United Airlines for the 8th but that would've cost me 800 USD. There was another ticket available with Midwest for LA (about 1 hour drive from San Diego) also for the 8th and that would've cost me 450 USD.

Finally I settled for the Monday ticket with Delta and I was setback by a cool 250 USD.

Even as I'm writing this post, I am reliving those tense moments in each of the above incidents and at the same time wondering whether I'll ever learn from these happenings, considering that i've undergone 3 similar ones.

Musings of the idle mind

He sits alone in a conference room. The door locked from inside. Feeling slightly cold, a tad lonely. Waiting...apparently for something to happen. Staring into the blank wall. Blinking his eyes every few seconds. His ears intent on listening to even the smallest little peck of a sound. Its quiet...very quiet, but the quietness is intermittently broken by the wind hitting against the door. The lock on the door shudders each time the wind swishes through the corridor outside. Duh-da-da-da. Its sudden and unexpected - the shudders. Sometimes startling him. What's happening outside on the corridor - he wonders. Many people leaving work - thats whats happening. He thinks. He swears. He curses. Curses the fact that he has to work late. Off late work seems to be piling up more and more. So much that he had to work on Saturday and Sunday last weekend.

His conscience pricks him. WORK?? - it asks. Oh yes! Updating blog settings is work alright - it shouts. He hears it so loud, it seems like a scream. Duh-da-da-da. But I did work too - He says. But to no avail. He shakes his head vigorously - as if to shrug it off. But the echoes keep ringing. He diverts his thoughts, tries to concentrate on work. He's determined to finish it by tomorrow. If it gets done I can enjoy the weekend a lot more - He thinks - Ah the weekend! Here it is at last. Duh-da-da-da. A faint smile breaks through his stern jaws. This weekend he wont be working. Wow - he thinks - A break atlast.

He kicks himself..."Stop thinking about all this - you fool. You have work to do. Now get back to it".

A while later....

He feels his neck. Its is a bit strained from the constant upright position. He leans his neck back, feels it stretch, feels it make a few creaks and then back upright. His butt is weary from having sat on the same lousy chair for almost 3 hours now. He wants to get up but he cant. Duh-da-da-da. It is almost as if he is glued. Glued to his chair, glued to the room, glued to the building, glued to the city, glued to the country. He tries to shrug off this thought and does so with great difficulty. He stretches his legs, they feel old. They are getting old - he thinks. Yes nearly 30 long hard years. He lets out a big yawn and stretches his hands as wide as they can be parted. Duh-da-da-da. What has he achieved? - he thinks. He's travelled a lot of places; seen wonderfully beautiful cities; has a good designation at work; has a not-too-bad salary. There's something in the near future he's definitely looking forward to - his new house. But all of this seems so senseless. He feels an emptiness and also an almost inexplicable sense of non-achievement. Duh-da-da-da.

Has he missed the fun part of life in running after good job, good money, good travel, good house - he thinks - He didnt run after these, it just came to him. If not this then what is it?? He sees his friends getting hitchced, he secretly envies them. In some cases almost to the point of not talking to them. He's jealous. Afterall he's human. He has never been hitched, never had a girlfriend, never walked with anyone holding hands on the beach enjoying the waves kissing the feet under a full moon night. NEVER EVER! Is he selfish? Is he mean? Is he not handsome? No. No. Maybe not. Then why hasnt he found his match? The questions haunt him, posing more questions for which he has no answers. Absolutely NONE WHATSOEVER. If it were somebody else, he would have said "No Comment" but he cant ignore his conscience. His inner self. His being. His soul.

Testimonials to 12 year Friendships

This post is dedicated to my most wonderful friends whom I've known for 12 years and the bond just gets stronger and stronger with each passing day...with each passing week...with each passing month...with each passing year.

We all started off together in 1995 at a not-so-well-known college in Mumbai. At that time little did we know that our association will go on for such a long time. Together we have shared a lot, many of which have become the most memorable moments of my life.



Let me start off with this guy who I'll call King of Chal Ho Jaye (KCHJ). KCHJ embodies undying enthusiasm. He's got enthu to do everything. During 3rd year of engineering, he was hosting a game show during the college annual function and my friend and I, we were the participants. Naturally, we wanted to win and so did he. So he leaked all the game show questions to us. Inspite of this, we goofed up on the stage and this guy still wanted us to win so badly that he was prompting us on the stage, with the mic on in front of everyone. WOW!! He has a can-do-anything-for-friends attitude. His house in Sion - being almost equidistant from from far flung western and central suburbs of Mumbai - was almost always the meeting point and a beginning of all our outings and then when he shifted to Ghansoli, it still continued to be the meeting point. Whenever you're with him DONOT mention the words - "Mujhe laga ki..." (which can be translated to - "I thought.."). His prompt and instant answer would be "Tere lagne se duniya nahi chalti" (which can be translated to - "The world doesnt work the way you think"). So true my friend..so very true.



"A fast bowler prepares to bowl. He's reputedly the fastest bowler in college. A senior. At the other end, a diminutive batsman, a fresher getting ready to face. Bowler runs in and bowls. The batsman swings his bat through the line of the ball. Its a six. What a shot!!" Thats the first time I saw this guy - someone who would go on and bag the top honours in nearly all the semesters. All throughout college time he was always seen in formal shirts and trousers. We decided to change that and this one birthday we bought him a pair of jeans, but to avail. He still continued to be seen in formals. :-)) Now-a-days its a different story. He's nearly always seen in Jeans. Nobody knows how this transformation happened. During college days, I used to have a crush on girl and I went out of my way to help her. So this guy, even today, pulls my leg for that and enjoys a hearty laugh.



Only one thing comes to my mind whenever I see this guy. We used to call him the ultimate TK. TK expands to Tommy Kutta (Tommy the Dog). What does that mean?? Well, it means he's goes behind girls just like a dog would follow his master. :-)) Wherever he goes, he begets attention. We went to a picnic to Alibaug beach and in a game of truth or dare he was dared to propose all the girls. Flirty as he is, this was a no-big-deal for him and he did it with ease. During the 1996 cricket world cup I had 3 free tickets to watch the IND-AUS match in Mumbai and by virtue of asking me first, he came along with me to watch the game. I can never forget that evening. The other thing I cannot forget is the TAPLI (hit) I gave him on his head from the moving train. I thought it was just a playful hit, but apparently just at the moment of the hit, the train picked up speed and he experienced such a hard hit that he plonked to the ground absolutely dazed. The incident ranks quite high on my regret list, but sporting as he is, TK just forgot about the seriousness of it. Even today whenever he introduces me to his friends, he makes it a point to pull my leg by exaggeratingly narrating that incident. :-)))



In my opinion, the most underrated guy of all in our wonderful group. He and the two above form the TULLU TRIO. They're all from Mangalore, a part of Karnataka and they all speak the tullu dialect. Honestly, I didnt get to know him much during my early college years but by the time we passed out of college we were pretty good friends. Midway through engineering his parents bought a house close to our college and that became our "adda" (hangout) for nearly 2 years. All our DPs (Daru Parties) happened in his house. All our DP sessions were such that everyone used to get drunk and pour out their hearts. He was a part of my final year project team and one of the components of the project - a wooden box was made in a workshop owned by his cousin. Once, we had a celebration at Geoffrey's pub and we'd taken two cars - my Tata Indica and his Maruti Esteem. On the way back his Esteem ran out of gas bang on Marine Drive. It was late at night the nearest gas station was closed. So I drove around for about 10-15 minutes found a gas station, begged the attendant to give us gas in 2 one-liter cans, took it and then emptied the cans in his car. I can never ever forget that night.



One of the first persons in our group to join an IT company. The story of how it happened is also quite interesting. There was this guy who was working with XXXXX in the HR dept and he "leaked" the aptitude test questions and answers. We memorized the answers and appeared for the test. We even ensured that some of the answers were purposely marked wrong so that no-one suspects the "leak". So in 45 minutes the results came out and as expected all of us who "knew" the answers had passed and we all got interview calls. At the interview, I goofed up and this guy was the only guy that was selected. As they say, rest is history. This guy is the first one from our group to step outside India. In 2001 he got a chance to go out of India to Ireland and since then there's no looking back, he's been to Sweden, Italy, Canada and many more places. There's one incident which I am always reminded of whenever I think of this guy. He shouting - "Do you know who I work for? Do you know what T-Shirt I'm wearing? Its from is NORTEL you asshole." What happened is we all (8 guys) went to this club called Abyss in Mumbai. Most of the clubs in Mumbai dont allow entry to single guys and if they do, they charge exorbitant. This guy offered to pay for all of us and we went in. Once Inside, a couple of us were dancing and some others were loitering around the bar. After a few drinks, this guy was a bit high and some altercation happened with somebody else of our group and tempers flared and abuses were exchanged ultimately it resulted in we getting kicked out of the club by the bouncer. Thats the time he shouted. Somehow we were able to calm him down put him in a taxi and drive to KCHJ's (the first person in this post) house in Sion. I'll never forget that night. Another thing which I'll never forget is watching 'Dil Chahta Hai' with this guy in a Bangalore cinema hall.



Yaaaaaaaaaaah hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Eeeeeeeeee eeeeaaaaaaaaahhh hhhhhhhhhhh ooooo ooooooohhhhhhhhhh. We affectionately call him JK-Boy. Why?? Sometime during the first year of engineering he started shouting loudly and somebody said shut-up jungle king. And the name stuck like Fevicol. I used Fevicol purposely because at one point he was working for Pidilite Industries makers of Fevicol. hehehe. Of all the guys in our group that graduated in Instrumentation engineering, he IS THE ONLY ONE WHO STILL WORKS IN A FIELD RELATED TO INSTRUMENTATION. Everybody else has moved to software. That says something. Kudos to you my friend. His amazing Gaaliyon-se-bhari (abusive) comments in his emails are a joy to read and shows his creativity. hehehehe. During the first semester, we used to go to his house and study during night. One night JK was rather tired and went off to sleep at 03:00 am or so asking this other friend to wake him up at 04:00 am. This other guy, smart-ass as he is, wakes up JK at around 03:45 am and tells him that there are 15 more minutes left for 04:00 and he can sleep for 15 more minutes. Seeing JK's expression and reaction when he woke up was so so funny.



Lazy, Intelligent, Baldy. He's no longer a baldy now I guess. Need I say anything about him at all. I had a whole post dedicated to this amazing person. If you're interested read this. One correction from the earlier post. He got 98 percentile in CAT and not 94 as I mentioned in that post. :-) And now, its just unbelievable that this guy is in love. I am so happy for him. I just wish him all the very best. Honestly, this whole testimonial post should be attributed to him, because it is his nostalgia email which he sent to our group mailing list that triggered this post. Thanks buddy, without your email, this post wouldnt exist.



"Bhaiyya" (Brother)is what he's known as in our group. He's LIB's (the guy just above) side-kick. Or maybe LIB is his sidekick. Either ways, they both are partners in crime. Always!! The whole idea of teasing and troubling me - when I had this crush in my first year - was their brain-child. Like LIB he pulls my leg almost at will. Take this incident. It was KCHJ's marriage that day and the same day happened to be LIB's B-School interview in Pune. So Bhaiyya and I, slept at LIB's house the previous night and drove early in the morning to Pune. All of LIB's formalities were finished by around 01:00 pm in the afternoon and we left. During the drive back to Mumbai, both Bhaiyya and LIB dozed off. When they came-to, I yelled at them "Chutiye tum-log so rahe the aur main yahan pe gaand marwake akele gaadi chala raha hoon". (Assholes, you guys were sleeping and I'm getting fucked driving all by myself). No sooner did I say this, pat came the reply from Bhaiyya - "Achha iss liye hum log itni der se pahunche". (Oh thats the reason why we reached so late). I was spell bound, absolutely lost for words. Bhaiyya and LIB were laughing their nuts off at this comment. I started to laugh too. I didnt feel that good but still you gotto to hand it to the guy - that was freaking witty!!! Inspite of all this, I still know that if I ask him for help, he'll go out of his way to help me out. Its great to have him as a dear friend.



Last and definitely not the least - Chabru. The name is concocted from his last name. He's an Iyer, a tamilian to the core. Has imbibed the Iyer-values so much that sometimes I think his blood is sambhar (a traditional south-indian lentil soup). He's the taangu (someone who fails to keep his promise) of our group. No matter what plans we make he has some "excuse" or the other for not making it. But I always pray he comes so that the focus of Bhaiyya and LIB turns to him and I dont have to bear the brunt of their puns. :-)) So once we decided to give him the mother of all taangs. The new year of 2004 (or was it '05) we decided to lure him into a trap of a group new year celebration. We discussed in group mailing list about a celebration on the outskirts of Mumbai. Chabru agreed to meet us at CBD Belapur. We just didnt turn-up. On reaching Belapur, Chabru calls KCHJ who tells him to go back home because it was a taang on the taangu. hahahahaha. Yeah I know it was mean but honestly all those years of giving taang to us, all of us thought he deserved it.

And finally, I should mention someone who I christen SOMIG. It expands to Silently Observing Member of Instrufriends Gang. Unfortunately, I dont have any picture of him. This guy does truly what his christened name means. Most of the time he's a silent observer. His participation in the group is rather less, but he does contribute every once in a while. He was the first in the group to get married and have a kid too.

LIB once said - "It is very difficult to express in words what somebody means to you". Thats so very true. I mention it here again at the risk of being repetitive. It is indeed very difficult to express in words what somebody means to you. I have tried my very best to describe at length some of the time that I have been privileged enough to spend with you beautiful people. There are many many many more wonderful moments that I think of every time I read any email from any of you guys. Unfortunately I cannot do justice to all.

I just cant be thankful enough to all of you for being such fantastic friends for 12 long years. I'm sure this friendship will go on for many more years to come.

Cheers to InstruGang !! Cheers to all !!

Updated based on requests in the mail. Love you guys for all the comments through mail.

Kansas City By Night

This post is intended to be just a picture log. It contains some of the pictures of Kansas City I took at night with my Canon Digital SLR on a tripod. Hope you like the pictures.

The building in the following picture is the Kansas City Union Station.

This one too is the Union Station but from a different angle.

This is the Liberty Memorial park and tower. This memorial is dedicated to all those who died in the First World War. This is the official WW-I memorial in the US. You can read more details about it here.

The memorial tower is build on the top of a hill and nearly the whole of Kansas City downtown can be seen from this hill.


The base of the memorial contains fantastic sculpture and a series of small fountains. Kansas City is also referred to as city of fountains and has a large number of fountains strewn all across the city.

The tower is built on a very high pedestal with stairs on either side leading to the base of the tower.

Please feel free to download and use these pictures for your personal use.

Key West Travelogue - 5

(Continued from here)

It was Sunday and soon it would be time to leave this island paradise and go back to the din and the daily chores. The day started pretty late for me as is the case always. (I'm never an early riser). After about an hour's time, I was all packed and ready to check out of my hostel. I returned the pillow and blanket at the front desk and dumped all my stuff in the back-seat except for my camera. I still had quite a bit of time at my disposal and I decided to explore a little bit before I left.

So, I walked along this narrow road which was just outside the hostel and saw some amazing houses on both sides of the road.



Then I walked past this amazing pink coloured building. A sign outside the building said that it was the Southermost Motel in the US and there's no other motel which is further south than that one.



Finally, when I reached the end of the street, I came to this monument. It is supposed to be the southernmost point in the continental United States. The country of Cuba is just about 90 miles which means its closer than Miami which is about 120-odd miles to the north. :-))



This picture (below) shows the view from the back of the southernmost point looking towards Cuba.



The best part about visiting Key West is the drive. It is so amazing. Its an out of this world kind of experience. String of islands connected by a single road with lots of bridges over the blue ocean and one bridge as long as 7 miles. Its just one of a kind drive.

The best part is that just before each bridge there is a small picnic area and a beach where you can just chill out and take the sun. Something like this place below.



The first bridges to connect these island keys were railroad bridges build by a person called Flagler. Most of these bridges were destroyed in a major hurricane that struck this area in 1930s. You can still see remnants of the old bridges alongside the new bridges, like the picture below.



Here are some of the pictures that I took while I was driving on the Seven Mile Bridge. Hope you like them.








The Key West trip has been so far one of the highlights of my long and extended US stay. Its been nearly 2 years since I first came here and its absolutely unbelievable how time has literally flown.

I always wonder what would it be like to visit the same place again sometime in the future say 3-4 years down the line. Would I still have my memories from my earlier visit? Would I still remember the activities I indulged in during my last visit? Would I still feel the same level of excitement that I felt earlier?

I dont know the answers to these questions but I sure would like to find out by visiting them again.

Key West Travelogue - 4

(Continued from here)

The break at Starbucks gave me an opportunity to call up my friends and talk to them. I called up my roommates and when I was talking to them I could hear a lot of background noise. Then suddenly it dawned on me, today was India's first cricket match of the world cup against Bangladesh. My friends were explaining to me about the sorry state of the game and how minnows like Bangladesh were showing us how to play cricket. In many ways it was good that I'd decided to come to Key West during that weekend, because it got me away from the pathetic cricket match which we ended up loosing miserably.

Anyways, the hour at Starbucks went off really quickly thanks to the many phone calls made to many different friends and hearing from almost every person about the sorry state of affairs of the India - Bangladesh game. I paid for the coffee, took my battery and charger and left.

Parasailing is a big adventure activity that almost everyone indulges in, when they visit Key West. I had seen pictures and videos of it and I realized that it would not be prudent to take my expensive digital SLR camera along with me when I was parasailing. So, I quickly rushed back to my car, dropped off my camera, went to the pier and waited for the parasailing boat to come.

Since, it was quite windy that day, many parasailing operators were closed. Only a few handful were operational. After a 15 minute wait, I saw a boat come-in and dock at the place where I was waiting. I could sense the nervous energy flowing through me. Its a very interesting feeling - a feeling which I havent felt since 2001 when I indulged in Bungee Jumping in Vienna.

The boat operators said that I'd have to wait longer. Apparently a few more people had registered for parasailing. So we waited. Although the wait was only 10 minutes or so, it seemed like an hour. Thats what the nervous energy does to you. Finally, two more people arrived and we all climbed aboard the boat and ventured out. I made a deal with the boat operators to take a video and some pictures of me doing parasailing since I hadnt brought my camera along. Of course I had to pay 20 bucks extra for it.

I was nominated first to go and one of the boat operator gave me a life-jacket and a harness to put on. Although the wind had died down a wee bit, it was still so strong that I found it difficult to stand upright. So donned on the life-jacket and the harness while being seated and just waited. My heart was pounding away like a high speed bullet train and the wait seemed endless.

Finally the boat was stopped and the boat operators started opening the para-sail. I climbed on to the elevated section at the rear of the boat and my harness was hooked onto the para-sail. Then in a few moments before I could realize what was happening I was airborne. I shouted screamed not in excitement but in fear but I wasn't coming down, I was just going up and up and up...



This is the video taken just after I was airborne. The most amazing thing is that the boat is moving at nearly 90 degrees to the rope which made the parasail wobble really bad. You can make it out 6-7 seconds into the video by the direction of water after-flow relative to the rope direction. Honestly, It was scary.

All the more so because I had kept my glasses on and was worried. My eyesight is so poor that, if I remove my glasses I can see clearly only upto a distance of 1 feet and anything beyond that is a blur. Unfortunately I wasnt carrying a second spare pair and if my glasses were to fall off, I wouldnt have been able to drive back 180 miles. So I was kinda extra cautious.

As I gained more and more height, the wobble kinda reduced and I could feel the wind gushing past my ears. Of course because I had kept my glasses on I was able to enjoy the magnificient arial view of the blue atlantic ocean, the small islands, distant ships and my small white boat. At the behest of the boat operator, I mustered courage to free both my hands and wave out to him so that he could take some good pictures and video footage.



After having been on the top for about 10 minutes or so, I felt the rope being pulled down slowly and I was half-sad and half-relieved that I'll be back down again. Actually, its a very sinking feeling when you see that you're suspended from something and you look at your feet and see them dangling in mid-air.

The journey down was uneventful and surprisingly wobble free and I was absolutely overjoyed and relieved when after about 20 minutes or so, my feet touched the boat deck again. Now it was my turn to watch as the couple did their parasailing stint.

I couldnt wait to get back to the shore, because the time was nearing 06:30 and I had to go to mallory square and see the sunset and the sunset celebrations. The couple finished parasailing and we all headed back towards the dock again. As soon as we reached the dock, I literally thanked the boat crew in a hurry, paid them 10 bucks tip and rushed towards my parked car. By the time I picked up my camera and headed towards Mallory Square, it was about 07:00 pm and crowd had just begun to gather there for the view of the sunset and the sunset celebrations. I picked out a spot overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, readied my camera and started cliking.

Here are some of the sunset pictures and a picture of a juggling act performed as a part of the sunset celebrations. Please feel free to download and use the pictures in any way you guys want.






The one below is my absolute favourite. When I saw the preview for the first time after clicking the picture, i absolutely couldnt believe my eyes. This is my current desktop background picture.



This one below is a jugglery act performed on Mallory Square as a part of the sunset celebrations.



And finally, the last rays of the sun.



Watching a sunset spectacle always leaves me in a melancholy and a ponderous mood. Subconciously I've come to associate sunset with the ultimate end - death. Somehow, I forced myself to walk back to the car and I just sat inside feeling kinda lost and empty - feeling as if there's nothing more to see, nothing more to do.

I drove quietly back to the hostel and just crashed into bed without eating anything.

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Key West Travelogue - 3

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I continued along the same road and came across this magnicient cottage. I am a great fan of wonderful poetry. Usage of fanciful words, artistic vocabulary and articulate writing have always fascinated me ever since I heard my father narrate wonderful poems of John Milton and Alfred Tennyson.

The moment I saw this I was instantly reminded of one of Robert Frost's most amazing poem snippets. Most of you might be knowing what I'm referring to. For those who don't here it is.

"The woods are lovely dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep..."

I kept moving on along the same road and I saw this small house which was the birth-place (if I could call that) of Pan-American Airlines. It was founded in 1930s in Key West. Read more about it here.



Walking further along the street, I came to a dead end and I decided to turn left and walk along that route. It was then that I saw this white coloured building called Little White House. The plaque outside the historic building said that it was used by president Harry Truman as his winter residence.



Continuing further along the Little White House road I came to a place called Fort Zachary Taylor.



It was a state park and I decided to go and explore. I paid the 5 dollar entrance fee and I was told that it housed a fort which was used to store ammunition during the American Civil war and it also had a beach.



Walking on the beach - at the edge where the ocean water caresses the beach sand and pulls away the sand below your feet - was a wonderful feeling. It made me nostalgic and melancholy. Why? Because I wasn't able to share this wonderful experience with my near and dear ones. And suddenly I was missing them really bad.

Half-way through taking pictures at the beach, my camera just died on me and suddenly I realized my folly of not having charged the camera battery over-night. I literally felt like kicking myself. So I glanced at my watch and saw that it was close to 03:00 pm. I had not eaten anything at all and my stomach won over against the urge to explore further.

I quickly retraced back to where I'd parked my car and rushed inside the nearest restaurant and ordered a sandwich. Unfortunately my choice of restaurant was bad and service still poor. I had to literally fight with the waiter to tell him to make a vegetarian sandwich. He was so pissed at me that he said I cant help you and sent another waiter to tend to my request.

The bad experience at the restaurant didnt bother me for long since I was excited about doing the parasailing. I quickly finished off my sandwich and went into the nearest Starbucks to get my favourite Cappuccino. There I got a brain-wave. I still had nearly an hour before my para-sailing and I decided to just sit at Starbucks, enjoy my coffee and also charge my camera battery. :-)))

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Key West Travelogue - 2

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So at around noon I stepped out of my dingy little hostel, took my car and parked at the other end of Duvall street. This is what Duvall street in Key West looks like.

If you've read my earlier post, you would be knowing about the club Rick's. I took a picture of it and here it is. Just where the Bud Light truck is standing if you proceed to go inside there's another club adjoining Rick's called Dirty Harry's. Thats where the wet T-shirt contest took place.

Also, note in the picture below the sign outside Rick's. It says "The most beautiful ladies in Key West come through these doors". And trust me, its most definitely true.

Walking around Duvall street I was contemplating what to do and I saw this tour operator offering boat tours and adventure activities like para-sailing, jet-skiing etc. I decided to get a boat tour and also indulge in para-sailing.

After some amount of bargaining, I got a pretty decent deal to get a speed boat tour and para-sailing both for around 60 bucks. I was quite happy. The boat tour was supposed to start at 01:00 and the para-sailing at 05:30. That gave me little time to explore on my own.

I walked around and saw this oldish looking Harbour house designed by Key West architect Peter Pike.

Just to the back of the Harbour house is the Mallory square where everyday a number of performers showcase their acts and acrobatics during sunset. Just to the right of the Mallory square there's this restaurant which offers a wonderful view of this island. It houses the homes of a number of celebrities including Madonna, Tom Cruise and Oprah Winfrey. The houses cost upwards of 5 million USD. (WOW!!)

Walking around the hotel, I came across a small dock where a number of speed boats were docked. I really liked one of those speed boats and took a picture of it. The name of the boat is Sea Rocket. You can get more pictures of it here. Later I realized this was the same boat in which I was supposed to get a tour. [:-))]

The sea rocket is an amazing speed boat. We toured a number of islands that were inaccessible by road, including the celebrity homes' island, Fleming Key - an island owned by US Navy, Wisteria Island and a few more. The maximum speed we reached during our tour was 60 miles per hour. The tour guide who was also the pilot informed us that although the sea rocket was capable of speeds over 60 miles per hour, it was the maximum they can go because its a limitation imposed by the US coast guard.

The tour got over in about 45 minutes but it felt more like 25. Now I had around 3 hours at my disposal to do some more exploration on my own and also have food before my para-sailing started. So I walked along Duvall st and took a turn somewhere.

I've always believed that the best way to know a new place is to get lost in it and find your way out. So, thats what I did. The turn I took led me to some wonderful historic sites. The first of which is shown in the picture below.

Thats called the Pirates' well. It was the first source of fresh water found in the island of Key West in the 1780s. I thought - wow its amazing how they've preserved the location and made it as a tourist attraction.

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