Peeping through the Rabbit hole

20 books which shaped my life

2009-06-05T12:00:00.001-05:00

Vikram tagged me for the first time. The deal is, I should list 15 books which shaped my life. I sat down to enumerate. List has reached 20 books but it is not seemed to be complete. Alas, let me put a period here and let me ask my fellow friends to complete theirs. Please tag me again when you tag your friends so that let your favorites suggest me to read them in future.

Along with these books, my study table usually have Kannada-Kannada and Hindi-Hindi dictionaries. I still haven't found the decent online version of them. Do you have any suggestions?

0. Short stories by O. Henry

1. 'Alice in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll

2. Entire work by Sir P. G. Wodehouse

3. Harry Potter Series by J K Rowling

4. 'Yayathi - A Classical tale of Lust' by V S Khandekar

5. 'Parva' and 'Aavarana' by S. L. Byrappa

6. 'To kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee

7. 'Mankuthimmana Kagga' by D. G. Gundappa

8. 'Mookajjiya Kanasugalu' by Dr. Shivarama Karantha

9. 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull' by Richard Bach

10. 'Maus: A Survivor's Tale' by Art Spiegelman

11. 'Matte Ramana Kathe' by Bannaje Govindacharya

12. 'Mysooru Mallige' by K. S. Narasimhaswamy

13. 'Madhwa Ramayana' and 'Madhwa Bharatha' by His Holyness Sri Madhwacharya

14. 'Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid' by Douglas Hofstadter

15. 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings' by J. R. R. Tolkien
16. 'Robinson Crusoe' by Daniel Defoe

17. 'Gulliver's Travels' by Jonathan Swift

18. 'Life of Pi' by Yann Martel

19. 'Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud' by Arun Shourie

ABCD + 45

2009-06-04T00:30:00.001-05:00

A - Age: 28

B - Bed size: I sleep on floor, I dont own any bed.

C - Chore you hate: Doing Laundry

D - Dog's name: I don't!

E - Essential start your day item: I would give it off to my iPhone!

F - Favorite color: A combination of sky-blue and light green.

G - Gold or Silver: Oh boy, neither, I need Saphire...

H - Height: 5'9''

I - Instruments you play: None; does laptop keyboard qualify here?

J - Job title: go-go boy??

K - Kids: Hell! I just a kid.. Hopefully my parents and in-laws are not reading this piece ;-)

L - Living arrangements: My wify feeds and takes care of me ;-)

M - Mom's name: Malathi

N - Nicknames: Vacha, Hospi

O - Overnight hospital stay other than birth: None, atleast

P - Pet Peeve: Ignore me!

Q - Quotes from a movie: Kitne aadmi the, Kaaliya?

R - Right or left handed: Right

S - Siblings: 1

T - Time you wake up: It usually changes, currently I get up around 7 - 7:30 am

U - Underwear: I own many, all of different shapes and multi-hued.

V - Vegetable you dislike: None actually

W - Ways you run late: Forgetting to pick up my car key and vallet

X - X-rays you've had: Teeth, teeth and teeth

Y - Yummy food you make: Banana Halwa??

Z- Zoo Favorite: I dont like to see animals in zoos.

45's
1. Do you like blue cheese?
Nope

2. Have you ever skinny dipped?
yeah, many times during my high school.

3. Do you own a gun?
which gun are you talking about ;-)

4. What flavor of Kool Aid was your favorite?
I never drank any!

5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments?
All the time. Not that I am afraid of injections but I am worried about diet restrictions.

6. What do you think of hot dogs?
Sounds gross to me!

7. Favorite Christmas movie?
Polar express? Not again 4-D movie though.

8. Favorite thing to drink in the morning?
Water, plain a litre of water.

9. Can you do push ups?
No. I am not athletic. The closest exercise I get is when my neighbor's dog tries to chase me

10.What's your favorite piece of jewelry?
My ear studs, although I don't sport them anymore

11. What is your favorite hobby?
I am still thinking it!

12. Do you have A.D.D.?
What does it mean?

13. What's one trait you hate about yourself?
I talk too much!

14. Middle name?
Say it names.. I got two!

15. Best Birthday so far?
I am still thinking!!!

16. Name 3 things you regularly drink:
Gatoraid, horlics and green tea.

17. How many siblings do you have?
My parents are not super-humans to change the number within couple of minutes.

18. Current "hate it right now"?
My project deadline!

19. Favorite place to be?
Manipal

20. How did you bring in the New Year last year?
Trying to fix my MacBook. I shad screwed it up while updating operating system.

21.Where would you like to go?
Hawaai, Carrabian islands and Mt. Kailash.

22. Name three people who might complete this?
Let me think, hmm, upto some extent Vinaya?

23.Do you own slippers?
Actually a couple of pairs, one is from aeropostale and other one is some old from IIT days.

24. What shirt are you wearing?
DOS Techies, a free tee shirt which i got last year this time at Austin Conference.

25. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets?
I wouldnt mind.

26. Can you whistle? Without spitting on someone?
I can do it very much.

27. Favorite color?
Do you think I will change my favourite after typing this never ending questionair!!!

28. Would you be a pirate?
I could, if you promise me to make Jack Sparrow my colleague.

29. What songs do you sing in the shower?
Idu elelu janumada luv?

30. Favorite girl names?
Sharmista, Krithika, Rohini and Madhulika

31. Favorite boy names?
Karthik, Rahul, Aniketh and so on!

32. What's in your pocket right now?
A rather soiled handkee and my reynolds pen.

33. Last thing to make you laugh?
You don't need any.. You need something to stop me laugh!

34. Cars- stickshift, auto or tiptronic?
Ofcourse stickshift baby!

35. Worst injury you've ever had?
I hurted my right arm very badly in 10th standard when I was riding my friend's cycle.

36. Do you love where you live?
I don't have any other option.

37. How many TVs do you have in your house?
None, But I own a projector and a couple of laptops!

38. Who is your loudest friend?
Vinay Agarwal, there is no doubt about it now!

39. Do you have any pets?
Nope

40. Does someone have a crush on you?
How does it matter now!

41. Your favorite book(s):
Actually many, Alice in Wonderland, Mankutimmana kagga etc!

42. Do you collect anything?
Memories in which some are sweet and some are not!

43. Favorite Fashion accessory?
Belt?

44. What song do you want played at your funeral?
It doesnt matter to me then!

45. What are you listening to right now?
Lattoo from Ghajini...

Whom shall I tag? Kislay do you got time?

A dozen things which make me roll my eyes

2009-06-03T00:05:00.001-05:00

I read a post on my Vikram's wall about his 15 things that makes him roll his eyes. Inspired from there, here goes a shorter list which annoys me the most.

0. People who take no pride in their culture or integrity. They totally turn enagmatic to me, when they have no single sentence to describe their heritage. This also extends to people who can't talk their mother-tongue/local language. You get thousands in number who can't understand/speak kannada even they were born and brought up in bengaluru.

1. Men may be from mars, women are from Venus. But the fact is men are good at macro-managing and women are at micro, of course with some exceptions. Now lets respect that. But just because you are a man and if you try to show your power on fairer sex, who are also known as MCPs, you turn-me off.

2. Hypocrites who talk nonsense just to prove that they are secular. You are not a racist if you say "Ajmal Kasab is a muslim". This is also applicable to Varun Gandhi. For the good or bad, you threatened to chop their hands if they hurt hindus. When the law-maker came in between, you try to escape with replacing hindus with the Indians. Sad part is people fall for it.

3. People who call their quixstar business as life-savior during this economy. Just an interesting observation that I haven't been approached by these salesmen for quite a some-time now. May be I should thank to my orkut self-description. "Please stay away from me if you have any 'quickstar' proposals. I have no interest for you guys.

4. Anyone who spend more time in front of the mirror than actual time of the jaunt. Hope my wife is not reading this piece ;-)

5. Any forward which tries to scare the shit out by warning if not forwarded within ten minutes to dozen scapegoats, that would invite a dozen more curses for next twenty years..

6. People who update their Facebook status messages every ten minutes. I am least concerned about you are feeling bored or took metacine after your last meal.

7. Pick-up lines. All forms of them which men use to impress women (or men in some cases ;-)) or vise-versa.

8. People who feel cartoons are only for kids. Go and have a life guys..

9. Anyone who sends me an email written in a short hand. "Hw r u doig my swthrt?" "O dear, tht mst B 4 me rite?"

10. People who wonder vegetarians do not have any options. On the extension it also mesmerizes when someone who think idli, dosa, chutney and the sambar are the only food items available in south india. Hello, the number of diferent varities available is more than you can actually count.

11. Just that you spent in USA for couple of weeks doesn't give you right to doctor your pronunciation which is difficult to follow.

--
Stay beautiful,
Venkatesh Acharya

'Do you know,' said a thoughtful Bean, 'I'll bet that if all the girls Freddie Widgeon has loved and lost were placed end to end—not that I suppose one could do it—they would reach half-way down Piccadilly.'
'Further than that,' said the Egg. 'Some of them were pretty tall.'
-Young Men in Spats; P.G.Wodehouse

Testing

2009-06-02T16:35:00.001-05:00

I heard a lot about someone able to post their blogs by simply sending an email. I am trying that feature now. Let me see whether that is really true.

!!!!

2009-05-11T19:05:00.002-05:00

It has been more than six months. Ajmal Kasab was shown on national television spreading terror with his shoot-out in public. There were more than 160 people died including 17 police personnel. After all these, even today someone needs to recognize the dress he wore that day, AK-47 rifle used by him. Does anything make any sense? That means the photograph all the leading newspapers published have no regard, all the footages telecasted by the national leading channels will have no value. A clear cut case is taking so long time, imagine how long it will take for cases like Aarushi murder or Rizwanpur Rahman murder cases which involved influenctial people in them.

Have we really lost it?

2008-11-27T19:54:00.003-06:00

Few days ago, I came across an article in timesofindia about bomb attacks in india in past ten years. Interestingly the author had completed the list with no reference on any attacks in jammu and kashmir. Well, it is shame but i am afraid that in due course of time, this bias will turn towards on every attacks in india. when people in mumbai turn up in their work place tomorrow pretending nothing has happened yesterday, the media will cover this as spirit of mumbai, they cant be defeated etc etc.. it is not spirit, it is the hunger of a middle-class man drags him back there.. His soul has been crushed real hard a long time ago.

Have we really lost it? Do we have no other choice other than acting like a cowards? Does our india really need a Prime minister like Narendra Modi ?

Firstly, the creators of the indian constitution ( or medial-cut-and-copy-paste-experts) didn’t do a right thing by calling India a secular state. If Pakistan was already declared an islamic nation, what was the problem in calling this country a hindu nation?

Who said, terrorism has no religion, month by month a load of islamic terrorists are attacking the fabric of india and shamelessly they are accepting the brutal felony. And even then no one muslim is openly condemning the attack. What a shame.

Now, the another major threat to indian fabric is a set of people from our own community, so called secularists.I would call them nothing but psuedo-secularists.. P-secs. I really dont understand who are they trying to appease. Terrorists are blowing the bombs everyday as if that day was a deepawali and these people start blaming the government or another, but assume a muslim criminal is beaten by a fellow criminal who happens to be a hindu, in a jail, next day an open letter will be in my inbox. there is a more danger to our society from these p-secs than those dick-head terrorists.

Lastly, My blood is boiling, my senses are going haywire. But at the same time I am worried and much more worried. If the government doesn’t do anything instead start blaming on each other states, then few extreme right wings of the society will take the law in their hands. In the words of “Francois Gautier “ “When the Mahatma's cowards erupt in fury, it hurts.” But the grey area between terror and retaliation is very narrow and it takes no time to cross the border. And then it hurts real bad to society or to the country.

All the views below are mine, if it hurts the sentiments of muslim community or so-called p-secs, I really don’t care. If you are a moderate Muslim, and you think islamic terrorism is a cancer in your community, then act on it.. do not start arguing back with me.

Obsessions Addictions and Quirks

2008-10-12T22:40:00.004-05:00

Kislay tagged me once. I tried to finish that blog but later my laziness overpowered everything.. that post is still halfway.. Hope to finish sometime soon! But I decided to complete this piece when I saw his blog today.. And I think I will finish today before hitting the sack.

1. Numbers : I am obsessed with prime numbers. May be because they are unique or may be because my lucky number is a prime number!! i have a friend whose hobby is to write prime numbers on a sheet.. at some point of time he had written upto 6 million.. we used to check randomly whether some number is a prime or not using a C-code... i havent found a fallacy in his list yet!!! I don't know where he has reached now!

2. Indian History: is my obsession from couple of years now... Now I can understand how people like Romila Thaper is screwing the generations of our country and thus our country. People if you haven't read "Eminent Historians - their technology, their line and fraud" please do it when you find time. Another person, I love is SL Bhairappa, for his Parva, Aavarana. (AvaraNa - I need to write about it sometime ) Too many things to do, so less time amidst my time-pass activities.

3.Order and Method : I basically can't keep things tidy. For this the partial credit goes to my mom, who took care everything till I turned 21. I take no times to spread stuff on my table. Vinaya wants now two extra rooms in our home and one will be filled with my books and another will be with my clothes.

4. Signature : Another interesting yet may-be-problematic my characteristic quirk that unknowingly I start signing everywhere if I am given a paper , pen and free-time.

5. Food : I love cooking foods, I love feeding others.. The cuisine hmm, I am not that specific as long as the food is vegetarian :) I don't really like 'junk' food that much but my loud take on anything have made wrong notions about me! when I took a piece of pizza on Shilpa's defence day, aravindh asked me whether I ate pizza.. It may be because I lecture everyone about my "healthy" preferences and ofcourse central market story.. I used to like sweets, in all forms, but being a new calori-freak, now I only like feeding others.. But I wont mind, tasting them a little ;-)

6.Bookstores : I spend considerable amount of money on Books, when I cross Half-Price Books, I feel like turning my face away. But every-time I end up spending minimum $10.00 there!!! Let us not talk about frequency of this "everytime" because I know my wife will read this blog and she has taken over my mom's responsibilities these days.. And chauvinistic enough "I am open to all suggestions as long as they are mine".

7. Traditions : I respect some traditions which I sense meaningful. In most parts of Southen India there is an interesting custom of giving vermilion (I should say Kumkum, because vermilion means red pigment made from mercury sulphide.. our kumkum made from termeric with calcium hydroxide.) Symbolically speaking it is meant to be saying "Wish you all the best". There is no wrong in finishing the good wishes verbally. But this custom makes us different from others. When we have a rich unique culture it is our responsibility to keep it alive. Some of my requests may annoy my wife, but sooner or later she realizes what I am trying to ask her, and she obliges with open heart..

7. Soda : Another my quirk! Can anybody believe if I say that I have never tasted a coke or coco-cola, carbonated beverages which contain cocoa.. When I was in india, pesticide breakdown in these beverages prevented me from tasting them, but in USA, somehow I preferred sprite or mountain dew over others..

8. Apple-philia : I own MacBook, iPhone, ipod, ishuffle and now fancy owning an iMac. Do I need to say more?

9. Naming my gadgets : I have another freak for naming my gadgets. My bike in india was Mooshaka. My macbook is named Krithika, namesake of my first and probably last hard-diary!! My Canon S2IS is christened DarpaNa, I call my pendrive Kalasa and external hard disk Kanaja. KoLalu is my iPod-nanno and last but not the least Raayasa is nothing but my new iPhone.

10. Unexplainable attraction for Trash : PhD comics told me once, as a graduate student you research ( used here as verb ) when you don't have anything else to do. I realize how true it is :)

Recent thrash to which I was addicted to was MTV Roadies 5.0, the reason why it is a trash, is worth another blog.

11. Travel : I love traveling, Time more than money prevents me from often trips. But Alaska, colarado were the great trips of recent times :) Bolivia, cancoon, Europe are the destinations in pipeline for me :)

Whom Shall I tag along.. let me know if you need that help from me :)

Havent watched "Jaane tu ya jaane na" what are you doing here?

2008-07-12T18:19:00.006-05:00

When Jai ( Imran Khan) sings “Tera Mujse koi naata” to Aditi( Genilia ) in Airport in the climax scene, you wont start comparing his voice with Kishore Da who rendered that awesome song in late 70’s, instead you just cant stop bringing a smile on your face. First thing first, I loved the movie. Amir had done his homework right. Perfect casting, perfect editing and perfect product.

As name suggested the movie “Jaane tu ya jaane na” is a story of two best-of-the-best friends in their early twenties and made for each other couple and still unaware of their feelings to each other. Instead they try to find partners to each other. They take all three hours before admitting that they indeed made for each other. It is not story which attracts you instead the the gang of six crazy, lunatic people make it work like a magic.

First of all my favorite among the all is Jiggy patel. He is the ‘biggest’ clown in the gang. He invites himself for his “surprise birthday party” and of-course acts totally surprised when people wish him “Surprise, wish you happy bday”. If you happen to watch the movie again, please watch his acts exclusively in “Kabhi kabhi Aditi” song, then you will know why is he my favorite. When he says “Visa sabko aise thode hi milta hai” you should watch glow in his eyes. I am sure that his Su’sa’nth diction will catch onto youth out there in undergrad.

“Bombs ke plane ke take off ke liye do runways lagte hain” so says Aditi to sushanth, her fiancee in the movie. Couple of reels later when Jai crashes into airport security check-in area, she utters “Woh Jai hain na? woh bhi America jaa raha hai?” with her eversmiling face, you will wonder whether two runways were enough for her? LOL.. Somebody has said “Never frown, because you never know when someone will fall in love with your smile” now I know, I have already fallen in love with her smile. Smile works baby, it works.

Sharleen, intelligent girl in the group, who understands everyone in the group, has there for anybody in need is very well played by Sugandha. Rotlu, who annoys at the same time amuses by his rendition ‘Tu hi re’ to his newly found girl-friend ”bombs”.

Why do you think works of ‘Nasuruddin Shah- Shabana Azmi’, ‘Faruk Sheik-Deepti Naval’, ‘Shahruk-Kajol’ work magically on screen? Because most of the times, the it works ‘magically’ due to their on-screen chemistry. And of-course the Imran-Genilia did look like they knew each other for ages, and the magic happened. Imran may not able to bowl the ball as fast as his namesake, but his naive candid down-to-earth attitude, strikes you with couple of reels on screen. I always liked Genilia from “Boys” days.. She got stuff in her. She doesnt act, she just delivers naturally. The conversation between them, when Jai comes to wish her on her birthday after missing her surprise party, is worth a mention here.

One of the best elements in the movie is Ratna Pathak Shah. She is always best from her “Idhar Udhar” days. When she delivers with “hoot” worthy “Phone pe beta phone pe” nobody cant stop loving her. “Honto pe seeti, chaal pe uchaal, maanjla kyaa hai beta” gives an idea how her character has been developed over the movie. My favorite scene in the movie is when Jai informs her that he met Aditi with her fiancee in the party and cries. In the whole sequence, not even once camera focuses on Jai’s face instead tried to capture her view. At a moment you will wonder whether Imran was unable to bring required emotions on his face? but hell No, looking at his acting for more than two hours earlier, it is not that difficult for him. It was the classy touch given by debutant director Abbas Tyrewala; yet not complete stranger to us, we have heard his dialogues in Main Hoon Na, and adorable Munnabhai MBBS; He deserves all the kudos and bravos. If you bump him anywhere treat him on my behalf :)

There were couple of cameos in the movie, Now I am not sure which is my favorite. Was it Nasuruddin shah, who I am sure, had enjoyed playing the small and interesting role ( ofcourse if you are big time harry Potter fan then you will feel nostalgic ), or was it Prateik Babbar, son of late Smita Patil and Raj Babbar, who strikes you with his body language or terse dialogue delivery. He has got it in his genes right baby. Chemistry between him and Genilia is also worth a mention here. I hope to see his full-fledged action ‘on-screen’ soon. Paresh Rawal has given complete justice to his cameo as a police inspector Waghmare. Also as desi cowboys, brothers Arbaas Khan and Suhail Khan added enough spice to fun element in the movie. They can act better than their brother, one and only Sal’maan’ Khan.

A.R.Rehman has given a wonderful music to the film. Usually you wont be fan of his any music when you listen for the first time, It should grow onto you. When you watch the movie, you will total love the music. It wasn’t the case here. You will glue to this music on the first time itself.

The presentation of the movie was new to most of the audience, we have already seen it earlier in Nuvve Kavvali where a set of friends tell a story to a new person about their gang in an airport. Here that new person is Mala, an airhostess whom Jiggy was wooing. I felt Mala was hamming a bit but thats ok, sometimes with the flow some hamming can be tolerated :)

I always thought that movies with completely based on theme “Love” has been always under-rated ( Remember “Ishq Vishq” ). If you didn't like this movie, then definitely you don’t have the right to say “ I love Andaaz apna apna, I watched it more than hundred times” because it has everything that that ever-green classic offered us and we have it here plus some extra bonus. So stop watching it in bhejafry.net instead get it in the right milieu.

Just THINK about it

2008-05-15T15:53:00.001-05:00

Top 10 Reasons It’s Better to Become a Bartender Than an Engineer

10. You get to throw out annoying customers.
9. You can stare at Chi O’s all night compared to the back of your cube wall all day.
8. No review committees needed just to mix someone a drink.
7. Drunks are not nearly as long winded as the CEO.
6. It doesn't take 6 signatures to hire a new bartender.
5. Bartending will ALWAYS be a growth industry.
4. You can truly get drunk off your inventions and…
3. You don't need to file a patent when you create that killer new Mexican Martini.
2. You never look at one of your fellow bartenders and think "what the hell does that guy do all day?”
1. As an engineer, Scarlett Johannsen will NEVER walk into your cube and give you her phone number.

Courtesy : Jason Rhode, CEO of Cirrus Logic at Austin, in his keynote address during Austin Conference.

Pearl from the nature!

2008-05-04T23:16:00.002-05:00

Why Analog?

2008-04-05T11:10:00.001-05:00

When world is going digital everywhere, what am I doing here?
Read this:
http://www.ee.columbia.edu/~kinget/why_analog.html

New service

2008-03-07T15:45:00.003-06:00

Hurray,

I am please to announce that you can reach me quick using 1 - 800 - VACHABS ( Toll free number ) When you call this number you will have several options. Please listen to it carefully as my options have changed recently.

Press "1" for Walmart Trip
Press "2" for Tax Refund Procedures
Press "3" for Birthday cake pickup
Press "4" for Potluck party and related invitations
Press "5" for trip to Indian Store
Press "6" for Funasia
Press "7" for new campus arrivals
Press "8" for Jakas U-tube links
Press "9" for Dating 101 Lessons
For all other queries and time pass Press "0"

Please sign up by sending free email to venkatesh.acharya@gmail.com and for further details visit www.utdallas.edu/~acharya

Bengalooru Slanguage Dictionary

2008-02-17T23:38:00.004-06:00

The Bengalooru Slanguage Dictionary

A compilation of the latest slang words in the Kanglish language for daily use.

Aa? : Universal question tag. (is it? are they? was she? shall we? etc.)

Often mistaken by non - south indians as mispronunciation. When an auto driver asks you "Leftaa?" he means "Left, is it?" Variation: "na?" used when the last sound in the question is a vowel. "Koramangala na?"

Adjushtu: adjust. Most important word that originates from the accomodative nature of all Bangaloreans. "Solpa adjusht maadi shiva."

"Sir one more banana buying means it will adjusht within 10 rupees."

"Sir traffic signal jump fine kodi." "Urgent ithu saar, solpa adjusht maadi"

Adu bere : That also. (That was all I needed). "Adu bere kedu"

AJM: Short for Akkan Jusht Missu (Lit: Elder Sister just missed) 1.

Minor disappointment 2. Narrow escape. "Aye ticket siktheno?" "Illa lo, AJM agoythu." Do not use in polite company!

Bekitha : Was this required? A sort of "I told you so". "Boss, idu bekitha antha."

Bombat : Fantastic, excellent. "Aye hows your car doing?" "Oh bombattagide kanla."

Boss : Term of address. Used to call friends, auto drivers, waiters, conductors etc. Should not be used much aside from among friends. "Boss,

one gobi manchuri dry."

Budding: Short for Brigade road Up and Down. bangalore 's most popular pastime. (Also Mudding - MG road Up and Down)

Byawarsi : Lit: heirless. Useless, vagabond, ne'er do well. "Aye thoo byawarsi, sumne iro (keep quiet)"

Chindi : Lit : Torn piece of cloth. Fantastic, fabulous

Chitranna : Lit: flavoured rice. (1) Broken to bits (3) Badly botched job. "Sariyag madthini anth helbittu full chitranna maad

haakidaane nodri."

Da : Term of address for friends, inferiors or younger people (borrowed from tamil). Rude when used in a non affectionate sense or with

strangers. Fem: di. "What da, where y'all went yesterday?"

Deal : Nefarious activity. "Yeno deal maadthaane maga"

Escape : General departure. "Naan oota maadbit escape aagtheno, don't mind aitha?"

Free kotre phenoylu kudithaane : Lit: If its free, he'll even drink phenoyl. Curmudgeon, compulsively economical person.

Goobe : Lit: Owl. Stupid person. "Lei goobe, yaar ninge license kottiddu?"

Goodhlu : Scam. " India nalli education fullu goodhlu boss."

Gumpal Govinda : Lit: Govind in the group. To blend into the crowd. "gumpal govinda anta cinema nodkondu bande" (I have gone gumpal govinda to see movie)

Guru : Lit: teacher. Also used jokingly to call a friend. "Yen guru, aaraam aa?"

Gubbal : Dumbass "Loose nan maga gubbal thara aadbeda lei."

Hawa : Lit: Air. To scare someone. "Full hawa itbitte aa loafer ge innond sali illige barodilla"

Hengythe myge? : Lit: How does your body feel now? i.e, Im going to beat you black and blue. "Yendande? Dhuddilvaa? Yengythe myge?"

Hinde inda Urvashi, munde inda Bevarsi : Looks like the celestial nymph Urvashi from the back but a vagabond from the front.

Jai : With enthusiasm. "Naan jai antha hog koothkonde alli". "I went off to college jai antha"

Kachko : Get stuck. "Sorry maga naan traffic nal kachkondiddene"

Kanjipinji : Meretricious object/activity. "Why you're making so much fuss for one kanjipinji job boss"

Kui : To lie, to bore. "Kui beda maga."

Loafer : Vagabond, flibbertygibbet. "Thoo loafer, get out I say."

Macha(tam) : Lit: Brother in law. Used commonly among friends, though not in polite society. "What da machaaa, not coming uh?"

Maga : Lit: son. Dude. "yeno magaa, yellidde isht divsaa?"

Mane haaLu : Lit: Ruiner of a household. Use to describe expensive things, and people who don't act in your good interests. "Mane haaL

maadbeda", "Aiyo mane haaLa, ningen bantho roga"

Maneyalli hel bandya? : Used for reckless drivers Lit: Did you tell the people at home? (ie, have you informed your family that they have to

make arrangements for your funeral?)

Meetru : Lit: (autorickshaw) Meter. Gumption/cheek. "Yeno, eshto ning meetru?"

Mishtik : Lit: Mistake. Used for errors, leave, illnesses, sudden departures, misunderstandings, deletions, etc. "Yeno nenne officege

mishtik aa?" "Haudo, nenne mai mishtik aagithu. Yake, manager yenadru andra?" "Yenantharappa avaru. Full mishtik aagbittu solpa hothu

kirchaadidru. Aamele full scope itkond ondu dodda mail kalsidru. Adhara bagge yaak sumne thale mishtik maadskobeku antha odhdhe mishtik

maadbitte." "Thoo manager emails na yaako mishtik maadthya? Adhe neen maado dodda mishtikku. Eega avaru nin mele mishtik aagthaare. Matte neen mishtik maadkolthya. Full situationey mishtik aagoguththe."

Naayi Paadu : Lit: Dog's work. "Nanage yaake ee naayi paadu?"

Nan maga : Lit: My son (ie son of). Usually used in conjunction with some other word. "Thoo, waste nan maga he is". Not a polite phrase at

all. Has complicated undertones. Use only among close friends.

Nimmajji : Lit: Your grandmother. Another abusive phrase that has hidden meanings. Do not use in polite society.

Off : Transliteration from the kannada "bidu" : "I came off quickly" (Naan bega band bitte). "I sat off there only." (Naan alle koothkond

bitte)

Oh what a. : General exclamation. "You won lottery aa? Oh what a!"

Ooshtu : Prob from the english Oust. Exhausted. "4 ghante basket baal aadbit full ooshtaagbitte."

Osi jeevana Janma pavana : Pile on (Lit: Free life, happy existence).

Pigaru : Figure. (girl) "Machaa, aa piagar nodo!"

Pitilu : Lit: Fiddle (violin). Braggart. "Avan bidu. Bejaan pitil kuytaane."

Saavu : Lit: Death. Terrible or Awesome as per context. "Boss aa cinema saavuginta kammi illa".

Raiyya: From the English "Right" (used by bus conductors after passengers have got off or on at a bus stop). To leave/depart. "Boss

picture mugdid takshna naan mane tava raiyya." (I shall go home as soon as the movie gets over)

Scopu : Yap/boast "Lei, sum sumne scope thagobeda"

Simp-simply : Translated from the kannada sum-sumne. For no reason at all. "Aye don't simp-simply come and dishtrub me I say."

Sisyaa : Lit: Student. Patronizing term of address to a friend. "Sisya, ba illi, koothko."

Siwaa: Lit: Shiva. Another term for dude. "Alla siwaa, naan en helthene andre...."

Suryanige torchaa? : Lit: Are you shining a torch to the sun? "Boss are you teaching him kannada badwords? Suryange torchaa?"

Uh? : The anglicized version of "aa?" above. Usually blends into last syllable of the previous word unless it is a vowel. "What daa, didn't go

to college juh?" "Not well, luh?" "Wont come tomorrow also vuh?" "Watching movie yuh?"

Yaar nin chair na alladsidru? : Lit: Who shook your chair? Why are you so perturbed?

Updates of Last year…

2008-01-04T15:01:00.001-06:00

0)Anything big chnage in life?
A new BIG change, Marriage

1) Where did you begin 2007?
I was sleeping in sweet home 2012, alone (ofcourse)

2) What was your status by Valentine's Day?
Officially committed.

3) Were you in school (anytime this year)?
Most of time. Did an intern most of the time.

4) How did you earn your money?
Research associate and internship.

5) Did you have to go to the hospital?
yeah.. couple of times to fix my dentures… no kidding ;-)

6) Did you have any encounters with the police?
Once, I was driving my car with headlights turned off in the night J

7) Where did you go on vacation?
Couple of… first one was to colarado.. you can say pre-nuptual honeymoon ;-) A trip to India to loose my virginity. A trip to Phoenix, grand canyon to meet my sweet heart. A memorable trip to Huston with my wify at the end of the year.

8) What was your costliest purchase this year?
Actually none.. but bought hell lot of books and books.

9) Did you know anybody who got married?
Many.. including me.

10)Did anybody you know give birth?
Couple of friends, Jayashri, Sumakka to name a few.

11) Did you know anybody who passed away?
Actually many. My sister-in-law died in an accident. This can be attributed to one of the biggest tragedies in our family.

12) An evening you wish to repeat in your life again...
The evening I spent on April 21st in Kapu beech with my cousins and wife. That can never happen again because one of the persons in the gang is no more :( ...

13) Did you move anywhere?
Nope. Used to live in waterview apartments still live there.. but changed an apartment in between.

14) What concerts/shows did you go to?
Many… most of them were Indian cliasscial music/Dance. The most memorable one was dance performance by blind kids of Bangalore in dallas. The funniest was dance show by nursery desi kids in Dallas ganesha temple.

15) Are you registered to vote?
No. In fact they have dropped me out of the lsit since I couldn’t show up for photo-id session.

16) Who did you want to win Indian Idol?
I wouldn’t have cribbed if that was Amit, Meiyang or Emon.

17) Where do you live now?
Dallas.

18) Describe your birthday.
last birthday before my wedding. It was quite memorable.

19a) What's one thing you thought you'd never do but did in 2007?
keeping my closet neat and tidy.

19b) What's one thing you thought you'd do but you could not do in 2007?
My official HONEYMOON!

20) What has been your favorite moment?
there are couple of actually. The one which came to my mind immediately was walking in hand to hand with my babe on KREC beach ( I protest to call it NITK.. if I did, somewhere I feel shallowness) I was walking on the water and she was walking just outside. Finally I managed
to pull her in ;-)

21) What's something you learned?
We come to love, not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to find impect person perfect.

22.) Any new additions to your family?
again, my wife.

23.) What was your best month?
April ??

24.) Did you fight with anybody?
No... as usual

25) Who has been your best drinking buddy?
still trying to be tee-totaller. But do drink socially once in a while.

26) Made new friends?
Many.. of course many… Srividya, I should mention here.. but I would say most of them fit in acquaintances.

27) Best new friend?
Very difficult to answer. But if someone sits on my head with gun point, I would say swetha, the runner. She is deary, energetic, humbleness personified.

28) Favorite Night out?
My bachelor party. It is a different story that it took 3 weeks before my hair got original shine. A sneak view of my state is here.

29) The best at the same time weirdest wedding gift?

It is Philips electric bulb given by one of my friends... and Subhash is his name ;-)

A Blog must see..

2007-10-15T22:32:00.000-05:00

It is one of the best blogs I ever come across..
http://hitxp.wordpress.com/

Keep the good work ON gurudev!

Seeds of rain...

2007-09-30T13:16:00.000-05:00

He couldn't suffer that thirst any longer.. He couldn't see any barren land any longer... He couldn't bare the trouble any longer.. Suddenly he remembered of hills of varshaganga. he remembered of seeds one find there the foot of those mountains which sprout into rain forest and bring rain. He didn't wait for a second more and ran towards there..

He saw a frog looking sadly, walking slowly away from his village. He couldn't stop asking him "Why why, oh indicator of rain why are you going away from us.. Do you foresee ill fortune?" Mandooka, the frog didn't feel like answering him, but replied "I cant wait for more. Rain is a distant dream here". He answered swiftly, "Don't go away dear, i will fetch seeds of rain from the distant hills. Wait for more time".

"Fool, do you think your seeds will do alone? Do you think you can change the mind of people who think, Havan can drench the land with the blessings of Varuna. Dont you think, the collective effort is needed to grow the rain forest. Dont you think the sense of unity need to be cultivated in the minds of junta people who can make use of seeds you are going to fetch from long distant 'varshaganga'".

He didn't thought much about mandooka's question. Rather spent his energy to sprint faster towards the goal. His luck helped him to fetch enough seeds of rain which can make a change in his village. He is content now. Runs back with equal zeal and first meets a priest who was happy with the courteous reward for his pooja which is supposed to bring rain there. He explained Panditji "Oh guru, I need your help to plant this seeds, which can bring rain" But Panditji showed no interest in him.

He didnt loose heart. he knew his villagers are going to listen to him and help him. He ran towards the home and found some villagers running here and there, constructing a canopy which resembled the canopy people build for wedding. He asked them to assist him seeding. "Are you crazy? Do we have time? We have to get ready for Mandoka's marriage which will being us rain" the friend replied and turned back and yelled at another fellow Have you seen Mandooka, I haven't seen him since morning somebody go and search him"

Inspired from a story I heard somewhere.

On the lighter note.

2007-09-09T15:15:00.001-05:00

First it was KKSBKBT and now it is Indian idol. I was never so much involved with any serials in India but oh god, it is getting onto me. I was trying to come out of saas-bahu saga and Indian idol came on the way. Now its twomore week and hopefully I wont catch onto kekta ‘s longest running television show!

When I visited Mumbai last time, one of the unmemorable incidents I rememeber is fight between an eunuch and fisherwoman in a local bus. They fought like cats and dogs. It was the first thing came to my mind when I saw Alisha chinoy and Anu Malik fought with each other in this season of ‘Indian Idol’. The off-screen chemistry between is very well expressed their on-screen chemistry.

TRP chamaks

These days every channel is ready to do anything cheap to increase the TRP ratings of the show. No one can forget recent allegation on a teacher in Delhi and finally it turning out be faux pass. In that rat race, even Sony isn’t any behind. It may be during chang-deepali rose issue, Ankita’s untimely smile or Anu Malik’s comment on crush crushing the voice Sony used all its slimy tactics to boost the popularity of the show.

Javed Akhtar’s malign wishes about Emon:

He is the master of words. He can take you the zenith of Mount Everest or push you deeper into the abyss, just with the labyrinth of his words. All well said, his comments to Emon was not well acceptable. He can comment on somebody’s voice quality or singing or performance; that’s what he is there for. But he doesn’t have any right to declare that someone wouldn’t succeed in life. If singers like Himesh can make it big in film industry ( I actually like Himesh’s voice quality for not being tampered even he goes to highest note possible) anybody with luck and charm can. Rahul Vaidya of the first season has Sonu’s voice but he is successful. But Javed ji, I don’t have any problem with your all comments to Emon but I cant see people like making comments like “Tum kaamiyaab nahin hoge” “Hello who are you to make such a statement” everything is understandable when you are longing for your favourite to come a step further. But that doesn’t mean that you can blabber anything. I agree with you when you said once ‘I don’t believe in any of the superstitions’, but what if the god of amen was auspicial present there to make it happen?

Fool or Joker?

How can I leave this udit Narayan when I talked about all other honorable judges? The funniest part about this chap is when he hides below the table. He is the comedian among the judges or nah nah, he himself is a fool.

I am a married man now...

2007-06-02T01:42:00.000-05:00

I am here almost after ages.. and let me make this short and sweet... I am a married man and hitched for life.. and ofcourse I am feeling good about it...

Laws of Graduation

2007-03-22T14:43:00.000-05:00

Picture says it all :)

Five and Five

2007-03-01T00:26:00.000-06:00

I know, Baba will call me gay for writing this, But ample time to kill and strong urge to procrastinate my research work resulted in this piece of shit. Here goes the list of 5 movies I liked and 5 movies I hated last year! Order doesn't signify any damn thing. These are the names of the movies which came into my mind when I started penning (or should I say typing) the article down !!

Being or known as an optimist I would like to list of five movies which I loved watching them!!

1. Rama Shama Bhama : Sandalwood hardly produces anything which you want to keep it in your memory. But a beautiful movie ( remake of Satee leelavathi ) directed by Ramesh Aravind, will be among one of my favorite Kannada movies. In this movie, Kamal Hassan and Aravind share the celluloid space together for the first time in Kannada film.

2. Khosla ka Ghosla: Everyone at their best though I felt Boman Irani is wasted in the movie.

3. Rang de Basanti: Even though I don’t buy the second part of the movie, but this is one of the guanine movies of year 2006 other than lage raho Munnabhai. The best part of lage raho Munnabhai was; it is very difficult to sell Gandhism in India. However, the director has done his job without being preachy or demagogue.

4. Omkara: I agree its cliché but I say 'Shakespeare would have smiled'. When the movie starts with “Bevakoof aur chutiye mein daage bhar ka farak hai” which when roughly translated into English, Only a thin line separates between a moron and an asshole, I realized I have some feast coming up. Every single actor in the movie was very well refined and I felt everyone (closest to me is Kokana Sen) made this movie very memorable.

5. Don: I claim, “I am no Sharukh Khan fan”. Nevertheless, I can also claim that if there is anybody in our desi film fraternity who can step into Godfather Amitabh’s heavy shoes and yet no stumble then it has to be our Padmashri Sharukh khan. An actor who always has been accused for hamming had hazaar chances in the movie. It was a spoof. But the energy in which he acts or dances is really marvelous.

I hate good movies with bad ending and ofcourse bad movies with good ending. One best example for the first catogory is "Ekalavya" The story builds up intensity very smoothly and reaches zenith till the 'almost' end. However, in the war of "aestetism' and "commercialism" in which the later usually wins and here too; just to please a sect of people to grin, directorji has added an ending scene which supposed to make the ending funny. Everyone with my group was cribbing about that scene rather appreciating the powerful performance of Amitabh, Saif or Boman. The basic idea of, watching a movie is to entertain yourself. But sometimes you are seldom enjoy, get annoyed more. I don’t remember walking out of any movie sheer the fact that I didn’t like the movie, But these are the list 5 movies which left my mouth bitter.

1. Borat : The detail review on this movie can be found here.

2. Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna: "I am metrosexual. I am Gay. I dont believe in institution called marriage. I will create non-sense and you will buy it" so says Karan Johar and he did it. We were fooled again. My nalla will not buy my argument but still I didn’t understand what was Rani’s problem in life.

3. Dhoom 2: Anything which defies Physics or Biology annoys me more. When I saw hritik Roshan landing on a moving train by a parachute I couldn’t control myself. There was an impossible fight sequence in “Casino Royale” but nowhere it has threat to defy Physics. To add to the catastrophe, Filmfare best actor award has been awarded to Hrithik Roshan for his portrayal of 'Villon' A.

4. Vivah: Please show this movie to Kekta kapoor. She can make one more "Kalyan"which is never ending and of course never ending. Composer like Ravindra jain and director like Sooraj Bartajya have given us mediocre product. Someone well said, even Salman couldn’t have saved the movie. But for me, he would have screwed it more. He can’t act for nuts. He can only shed his clothes covering his upper body (hopefully) and a give a stupid expression which is definitely unable to decipher.

5. Baabul: Height of melodrama. A movie which could have been a short film is streched beyond imagination. It’s a story which is too outdated and leaves your taste buds bitter than generate any pity or zeal to reform.

Fight against piracy

2007-02-24T14:24:00.001-06:00

The step taken by one of the oldest and famous rajshri productions to stop or fight against piracy of indian music and cinema is commendable. To be frank stopping the piracy can never possible, as there is a saying in kannada, "neenu chaape keLage nooridre avanu rangoLi keLage noorthane" approximately translated in english as, if you can slip beneath the mattress, he can slip beneath rangoli. However smart you try to become, there will eb someone who can act smarter than you. Whatever be the situation, this step is really applausible and some of the major companies should also follow the path shown by these people.

What a thought!!

2007-01-19T00:02:00.000-06:00

Written by an African American,

When I born, I Black,
When I grow up, I Black,
When I go in Sun, I Black,
When I scared, I Black,
When I sick, I Black,
And when I die, I still black.......
And you White fella,
When you born, you Pink,
When you grow up, you White,
When you go in Sun, you Red,
When you cold, you Blue,
When you scared, you Yellow,
When you sick, you Green,
And when you die, you Gray........ .........
And you calling me Colored ???????????

It happens only in America :)

2007-01-13T19:25:00.000-06:00

I live in waterview Apartments. This apartment management have couple of rules and regulations which make life life quite unpleasant. If management sees more than two shirts shattered around the floor when they give random visit, there will be a fine of at least $25.oo on the next day in your account. Similarly if they see you mat on the balcony which you had kept it for drying in the sun, then fine is your fundamental right!!! I just tried to be over cautious and hilarious incident happened with me :)

Me at 5:01 pm trying to call Waterview office, I was a minute after the office shuts off.

Trin Trin
A lady answers the call.
I : Hello!
Lady : Hello!
I : This is Venkatesh. I live in Phase II Apt number so and so! I just wanted to know whether can I hang my curtain for drying in the balcony in my apartment.
Lady : I am so sorry, We are actually close at 5 pm. Please ca;; tomorrow at 9.00 am for our service.
I : I apologise for the trouble at this hour(?!!). But can you answer my previous question by just saying "Yes" or "No"?
Lady : I am really sorry for not able to help you after office hours. Please get back to us tomorrow morning. The line goes dead.

Proposal, one of its own kind!

2006-12-08T11:57:00.000-06:00

Thanks Maani for this pic!

Expression of thoughts!

2006-12-05T23:23:00.000-06:00

Statutory Warning : People with weak tolerance to strong ideas, strong words, strong passion for communism, please discourage yourself from reading the article. Any hurt to reader's ego, moral ideas will not be entertained by me. It is up to reader's discretion to agree or otherwise!

Some people think, some people put it mildly, some people express loudly! Baba belongs to third catogary. His recently published blog is epitome of the fact. Go and enjoy it.

Borat, one of the amazing movies I watched… NOT!

2006-11-24T06:56:00.000-06:00

Macky had asked me not to watch this movie, when I was raving about my friends’ strong recommendations to watch this movie. But recommendations were too strong to stop me from watching the movie.

Borat, is a story of a reporter or short-film maker from Khzakisthan who was sent to United States of America to make a film on American life by khazak government. The saga runs approximately for one hour and half hours.

The basic flaw in the movie is, the genre of comedy they are talking about. One of the reviewers had said in his review that, it’s a litmus test to all the people. If someone doesn’t like the movie then he/she doesn’t have sense of humor when someone cracks a joke on himself or herself! Yes dude, this is litmus test on every people, the every person who has liked the movie still hasn’t come out of his or her teenage. Ask Woodhouse what comedy is! When somebody cracks a joke on poor, women or on any race derogatorily or watching a person jerking off on the street looking at a poster and people enjoying the show, then there is definitely wrong with them. I know people back in India making jokes on Sardars, a religion in India as people do on blondes here in US. But none of them are of sexual interest or derogatory. If someone says a husband that people, back in Khazakisthan wont fancy his wife as they would do for other gorgeous women and whole theatre erupting with laughter then something is really crazy. What the fcuk was that? Moreover the worst part of it was, the movie isn’t filmed on Professional actors instead he was conning the people.

Watch any Woody Allen movie, he uses a script, profession actors to make a satire or comedy on people. He doesn’t need to con people to make millions to laugh or precisely to embarrass watching in a theatre. I observe two group of people (males) in the theatre, one laughing jumping on their seats and other watching a movie with horrified silence. No awards to you for guessing which category I belonged to! In fact, Kishor, my friend with whom I had gone to watch the movie asked whether we can leave during midway.

I admit, there are some moments which are funny, like Borat trying to learn driving or understanding how to create jokes, but those momentary spurs are of laughter get lost amidst vulgur, inappropriate high school level jokes. Definitely, there is no need of watching this movie in theatre, wasting your time and helping producer to raise more funds to con next group of people. Instead, go and watch “Casino Royale”, the best bond movie I have ever watched. Eva green is gorgeous than ever. What! Did you say you are not interested in girls? Well then wait till Daniel Craig emerging from a blue ocean on Miami Beach on his blue trunks. Definitely an eye candy for you!

Oppurtunity

2006-11-22T16:38:00.000-06:00

"knock knock"
**silence**
"knock knock"
"who is that?" she asked from the inside.
"An oppurtunity" voice echoed from the outside.
"This is lie. I know, oppurtunity never knocks again"

From somewhere I read.

... in bed!

2006-10-09T11:11:00.000-05:00

Quite perplexed? Huh! But I am sure you must have already figured out what I am going to talk about. Well, if not, you will know soon. It is one more meaningless, unknown origin practice started in restaurants, which serve their customers with fortune cookies at the end of the serve.

The other day, I was dining with female friend at Asian grill. The ever smiling, courteous waitress of ours placed the fortune cookies with our bill. My friend was more eager to read her fortune than me! No words were exchanged between us while the complete process of breaking the plastic cover, then breaking the cookie and then reading the fortune. Involuntarily the smile passed through corner of my unseperated lips. I looked at her, she too was laughing at hers. Then I realized that the practice of adding ‘.. in bed’ after the fortune is not my personal trait. Every soul know about it ;) For the benefit of reader, the fortune read in my cookie “You don’t know that you are very good with your hands” and hers was “Be generous! You will get back”

You cant say that this concatenation of words for amusement will work always. But the probability of it quite high!! Like this “Ever notice that even the busiest people are never too busy to tell you just how busy they are.”

Strangers

2006-09-28T13:24:00.000-05:00

Strangers, they were. They crossed each other on a street. For few days, they crossed each other on the same street. Smiles were exchanged. Few days down the line, his dad shouted, “If you marry her, you will not get a penny out of my property”. “You will marry him over my dead body” declared her mother. She was married to someone else within couple of days without his notice. Few more years made him happy man with two kids. Few more years passed by, today after a long long time both crossed on the same street. Again, they were strangers.

should we or shouldn't we?

2006-09-24T00:08:00.000-05:00

Everybody have his or her own tenets. I have some, you have some, and it is our responsibility to respect others. But what if any of these, go beyond meaningful and put someone or some race, culture or ethnicity in an embarrassing moments? Read the following incident and know what I am trying to say!

It was one Monday evening. I, Anand and Anil decided to go out for dinner and headed towards saffron House, pretty expensive as well as famous place around the corner. As expected the house was pretty empty and only one table was occupied. We head towards our table, which happened to be next to theirs. It was an usual H1B desi gumble, it was very evident that all or most of them are just being imported. The party continued, and we were amused. Now it came to the time of check, one gentleman says, please get us two separate bills, one with vegetarian dishes another for non-vegetarian. The waitress (fyi : she was a young African American lady) obviously perplexed, which was quite obvious from her face expressions, nods her head goes back, few moments later, she comes back and asks innocently, what should she do with naan and rotis? (Rotis and naans are differential kinds of bread in India). The other gentleman from the group announces, include rotis with vegetarian and naans with non-vegetarian. I am sure he will definitely should be more than Archemedis’s Eureka moment, for his awesome solution to the problem.

We wanted to take our remaining dishes, asks same waitress for boxes. Three different dishes were ready to go. The lady comes to us and asks, you want different bags to carry them or one will do? and there was definitely some banter in her tone. Few moments earlier I had asked her specifically for vegetarian stuff. Knowingly or unknowingly she had associated us to that group because of our same ethnicity.

I am not saying here that I am totally unaware of what that guys head while suggesting about vegetarian or non-vegetarian checks. Even I used to take my friends to places where only vegetarian stuff is served as I personally never liked for paying non-lacto-vegan stuff. But through the course of time, I have realised that its me who doesnt want to some catogary of food and I shouldnt impose on anyone.

You can ask me what the guy can do in such situations if he feels the same way I used to think? Yeah, they can ask for seperate checks for each of them and pay off , the would look least ridiculous (Because people here undertsnd dutch system) when compared to what happened, to that waitress.

Five Movies I want to watch again with my sweetheart

2006-08-29T22:52:00.000-05:00

It is known to everyone that I am a big movie buff. I have watched thousands of movies. But still very very few of the lot really touch my heart... Here is the list of five movies which I would like to watch again with my sweetheart... hey vinni, will you watch with me?

1. Dil to Pagal hai : yes. "Heart is crazy!!" indeed. I watched this movie when I was in 11th standard. Believe me I was in hangover for atleast one week. “Someone… somewhere.. is made for you” was the cheesy tagline of the movie… believe me, if I had seen that movie today, I would have never liked the movie. It was my first days of adolescence. That made a big difference. I would like to watch it again and want to see whether my heart will beat again?

2. Shakespeare in Love : It was a beautiful movie. One of my favorites. It is a story about making of Romeo and Juliet. It is a story of Shakespeare and Viola, which we read as “Romeo and Juliet”.

3. Parineeta : Saif Ali Khan and Vidya Balan ( where are you baale? I didn’t see you after that!) starrer movie is definitely one of the milestones In Indian cinema. Compare devdas and parineeta both are great epics of the same era and both were made on silver screen during the same time. This adaptation is way superior Sanjay ji. I respect you Sir. But Devdas can never be as par with your other masterpieces. “Hum Dil De chuke Sanam” is one of my personal favourites and it just missed while making in, in this bouquet.
Sweetheart, I wanna tell you something here! My heart felt something for you while watching this movie :-)

4. Monsoon Wedding : man, this was the movie with substance. A beautiful story revolving around an arranged marriage in India made a presence of Indian cinema in international platform.

5. Hazaron Kwayishen Aisi : the story of the movie goes like this. “He loves her! She loves another. Another is not ready for commitment. He and she both married to some others. She can’t forget another. Divorces her husband and joins another in his socialite activities. Both trap in a trouble. Then “he” comes to save them and that costs him his life”. In short it is a story of politics, ambition and love. Anybody who hasn’t seen this movie ( some who have seen too) must be wondering “what the hell?” but believe every characters in the movie are sculptured. If you haven’t seen this movie then u must watch it :-) I am going to watch again with my dear again.

Well, “Five movies which I want to watch again with my kids" will appear here soon. Watch for it.

What am I??

2006-08-27T16:25:00.000-05:00

I accidentlly bumped into this link and the long questionair gave me what I am...

moderately expressed extrovert
slightly expressed sensing personality
moderately expressed feeling personality
moderately expressed judging personality

Pretty intresting huh! I have something to say here.. but let me procastinate that a little :)

Apologies

2006-08-23T22:37:00.000-05:00

Hey,
My post "Which BALL do you like?"; for unexplainable, unavoidable circuimstances I had to delete it down. My sincere apologies to all people whom my posting caused pain directly or indirectly!

For those who have no clue what I am talkign about, read the following conversation!

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

Man : Hey are you following the world cup??
Female : I am not!
Man : Which sport do you like then?
Female : I don't like football, volleyball, throwball or whatever.. I like no ball...
Man : Are you lesbian?

Too lazy to blog!

2006-08-02T17:24:00.000-05:00

Hmm. I havent written for quite sometime. I dont know whether I have been too busy or lazy bug has bitten me. Whatever is the reason, bottom line is I havent blogged for sometime.

Its not that I havent done anything special in last few months. I have too many stuff to write down here. But still something is wrong with me these days. I have started procrastinating every stuff. Typycal trait of a doctoral student. Definately it is not the good news.

I have put on weight, I have vacated my old apartment and moved to Anil's apartment at Addison, I have travelled to california to meet my sweetheart, I have conspired with Ragini for badinaging Mili, I bought new laptop and IPOD, I bought a camera and what not? But still i am not in a mood anything here.

well, I will resign now. Leaving this place with the promise of bringing new news, some good and some bad. But i will come back for sure :)

How to set myself free?

2006-06-06T14:19:00.000-05:00

I am in a big confusion now!
Do I have shoulder to cry upon?
But the main question is who real friends are?
Or is friendship only a myth or a legend?

I have heard before “A friend in need is a friend indeed” But now who decides what’s
need mean? Need is always relative. If two people ask for a favor which has be done at same time and for both of them it is life and death situation! Then you or me anybody try to decide which is more important and do that one. You didn’t want to hurt other friend whom you have helped out. But will that friend realize? You say, he should realize if he is your friend. But you know that he won’t realize since as a friend you know him. Now whom to blame?

For all these thought the source of inspiration is conversation with my friend (!) today!
She tells that she is going to Niagara for a vacation. She adds on “I had asked him (Our common friend who is supposed to come to US soon) Come soon we will go together” I was tempted to ask “you ask people who are in INDIA to join your trip and don’t ask a guy next door” Well I held back as, of lately I have stopped overreacting. Friendship should be never an act of force. It should flow naturally!

I always believe in, “I will always get what I deserve” But unable to count on, what I actually deserve?

Well I want to help myself to come out of all these? Can you help me?

Vybhav and his movie reviews

2006-05-05T19:17:00.000-05:00

I met Vybhav second time in Bangalore. We decided to watch some movie. Nobody, Sankalp was the third person in the herd; had any opinion and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” was the only option around. So we voted on that and next three hours passed.
We come out of the movie. Vybhav “I told you, not this movie. It sucked :( “

5 months later

Again our gang go to Funasia to watch “Rang de Basanti” We come out of the theatre finishing the movie.
Bopanna : Decent movie
Divya : very good movie
Sankalp : Silence ( He usually doesn’t have comments to make)
Me : It’s ok… overrated movie
Vybjav : Nanananaanana.. I haven’t seen any worse movie.

3 months later

I and Vybhav decided to watch some old movie. We both sitting on sofa and movie is playing on his laptop. He bends his head on my shoulder. Movie starts, second hand of the clock must have finished his three or fours round of infinite journey, I hear Vybhav is snoring.

While coming back from school, on the road

Me : Vyb, tell me one thing frankly.
Vyb : What?
Me : You have slept during “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” haven’t u?
Vyb : Only for sometime with his innocence smile :-*
Me : During Rang De Basanthi?
Vyb : Illa Maga ( No dude)
Me : Are you sure?
Vyb : Houdu mama (Yes Sir) (I was very sure that he had slept)

Three Days back

Vybhav and Bopanna spend some two hours on researching which movie to watch and finally decide “Being Cyrus” Movie has been downloaded and the movie starts. This time he gave around ten rounds to second hand of the clock before resign.

Today we are going to watch Mission Impossible III. So now you all know how much we are going to give respect to his review after the movie.

Being Cyrus

2006-03-29T19:03:00.000-06:00

You will enjoy some movies if they belong to your genre. You will enjoy some other if all the actors put life into each and every character in it. And some more are adorable simply because they brought new freshness away from the conventionality! If all three come into action then the movie turns out to be a feast. That’s what happened with “Being Cyrus” when I watched the movie.

The story revolves around Sethna family. Fardoonjee Sethna heads the family. Other members of the family are his elder son Dinshaw and his wife Katy, younger son Farokh and his wife Tina. The story starts with Cyrus enters into the family as an assistant to forgotten sculptor artist Dinshaw. Love-stuck Katy with Farokh tries to use Cyrus as a ‘mohra’ but she doesn’t know Cyrus also say something at the end.

Nasuruddin Shaw puts himself in the role of Dinshaw and he is has really given some wonderful scenes in the movie. Boman Irani, the only real Parsi in the movie also proves himself again. Role of Slutty wife has comfortablely given by Dimple and Simon Singh as Tina puts life in her character. Honey Chhaya as old man is also very fine. Saif Ali Khan proves again that acting is in his genes.

Very course editing annoys you sometime but I am still unsure whether it was intentional or amateurish. Anyways debutant director Homi Adajanija has given really a fresh idea with a fresh implementation. If anybody meets him, treat him on my behalf and send me the check.

Can you guess :D

2006-03-27T12:46:00.000-06:00

Can you guess whose words these are?

"These are my boys. If you try to mess with them,
I will bring you down
to the china town "

Well, no awards for guessing it... :D

How to take a leak

2006-03-25T02:18:00.000-06:00

*ring* *ring*
"Hello! Local ISP(Internet Service provider), how can I help you?"
"Well, I was sorta hoping someone could walk me through taking a leak."
"Okay... well, do you have to go now?"
"Yes, I do."
"Okay... well, are you on male or female equipment?"
"MALE-CLONE..."
"Okay, the first thing we want to do is find your fly.."
"My what?"
"Your fly... it opens your pants. It should be in the front of you. Look down."
"I see shoes."
"No, sir... look sorta in the front of you... like just below your stomach. You should see some metal on your pants. That's your fly.."
"The round thing?"
"Well, that's your button... let's open that, too, while we're down there. The fly looks like alot of little metal things sideways."
"Oh, okay.. got it. *pause* Okay, it's open.."
"Okay, sir... can you grab your willy?"
"No."
"Do you see your willy?"
"No."
"Okay... what do you see?"
"I see white... just white and some lines.."
"Do you have underwear installed?"
"No."
"Sir, if you can't see your willy, and you see only white... I think that you may have underwear installed. We are going to have to uninstall your underwear to take a leak...."
"Well, my friend was the last one to use my fly... he might have installed underwear..."
"Okay, sir... well grab the white part and pull down... keep pulling until you see your willy.."
"It's stuck... it won't go down..."
"The white part? Or your willy?"
"My willy..."
"DON"T pull down on your willy, sir... just the underwear... we only want to get to the point where we can see it...."
"Oh... okay, we're there...."
"Okay... now look around the room... do you see anything made of porcelain?"
"I see a little penguin on a shelf ..."
"Okay, sir...you're in the living room.... go to the bathroom. We can't take a leak until we are in the bathroom. The bathroom will have alot of tile, maybe some carpeting... yours might have mirrors or some soap in it. Some people have showers in their bathrooms..."
"Well, I'm downstairs... I think the bathroom is upstairs..."
"Okay, well... let's go upstairs..."
"I can't walk..."
"Okay, sir... temporarily reinstall your underwear... then go upstairs.. then uninstall your underwear again..."
"That was the white part, right?"
"Yes, sir... that's correct..."
*pause*
"Okay, I'm upstairs..."
"Okay... now do you see any porcelain bowl-type things?"
"Well, there's two..."
"How tall are you sir?"
"5'4" .."
"Okay... go to the one where it's lower than your willy...."
"Okay....I'm there"
"Okay... now make sure that you are pointing toward the porcelain bowl.. now just go.... "
"What do you mean?"
"Well, when it pops up... just hit "okay"....."

Ain't I??

2006-03-24T21:06:00.000-06:00

I'm the dawn in the darkness
I'm the sanity in the madness
I'm the aptness in the wrong
I'm the smile in the misery
I'm the kindness in the horrific
I’m the hope in the dire
I'm the splendor in the wind
I’m the novel in the clichéd

I'm the gravity in the levity
I'm the whirlpool in the serenity
I'm the beauty in the beast
I'm the sunrise in the west
I'm the faith in the mistrust
I'm the passion in the detest

I'm the dove's pregnant nest
I'm the peace's Armageddon fest
I'm the corner of the circle
I'm the inversion of the reciprocal
I'm the stranger in mirror!

I’m the Amon of the Mona Lisa
I’m the Capricorn of the skies
I’m the Uttaraashada of the Moon
I’m the Saturn of the Sun
I'm the Sapphire in the Saturn

I'm the world you'll never see
I'm the bond you'll never free
I'm the truth you'll never know
I'm the place you'll never visit
I'm the sound you'll never hear
I’m the chirping you’ll never realize
I'm the course you'll never steer
I'm the spirit you'll not raze

I'm the half-truth in the repose
I'm the why not in the why
I'm the spirit in the sky
I'm the catcher in the rye
I'm the twinkle in her eye
I’m the dimple on the cheek

I’m the electron in the nucleus
I’m the mitochondrion in the cell
I’m the dew on the grass
I’m the fragrance of the rose
I’m the haven in the desert
I’m the moon in the night
I’m the tie of the kite
I’m the breeze in the meadow
I’m the spark in the shadow
I’m the arrow of the cupid
I'm the firefly in the shadow!!

Beware YOU WILL BE ADDICTED.

Wordless

2006-03-22T02:26:00.000-06:00

It was my freshman year of grad school. My brother was in 9th grade. This incident happened in the grocery store, we own. One of the fellow customers, who happened to be one of my best friends since 1st standard, buys sanitary pad. Harish, my brother who was busy with his some random work, asks “Hey Naina, You still haven’t stopped using ink pen. Start using ball-point pen. They aren’t lousy at all!”

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

This incident happened couple of months later.

I live in semi-urban area with rural backdrop. You can call my home is in peninsula of paddy fields. March comes, paddy field turns into play ground for every game; starting from lagori to cricket.

Yes it was some day in April and final exams were over. All the kids were jumping around and I am reading a novel in the middle of field. I suddenly sense someone is standing behind me panting. I turned back. It was Swathi , who is studying in Seventh grade, lives quite far from our home. I saw, fresh blood running on her foot and could trace the blood stains on her yellow pajama. Panic had completely attacked her.

“Hey Swathi, How did you hurt yourself? Again fought with those kids?” she was playing lagori with my brother and his friends.

“Bro! I think I am having my first period”

I was unsure for a moment about what to say! I was literally dumbstruck, stood for a while gaping my mouth. A moment later, I yelled turning myself towards my home-

“Amma, are you at home? I think Swathi needs you now more than anyone here”

He changed his name after wedding!

2006-03-12T13:42:00.000-06:00

My cousin’s name didn’t have acharya associated with it. His parents share partial credit for that. But even when he got a chance to rectify it, when he was in 10th grade he preferred to be aloof with our family name.

Now he is a doctor working with KMC Mangalore, recently got married. My sister-in-law the first thing she did after wedding was to change her name to Asha Acharya.

When I was talking to my cousin yesterday,
“Bro, guess where I ma going now?”
“I don’t know”
“I am going to Passport office now; I am going to change my name to Aswin Acharya as I have married to Asha Acharya!”

Our family name will be proud of that Lady, who was reason of it’s presence with this young, multi-talented doctor.

*******

I asked my girl, "Will you change your surname after wedding?"
She replies "If you are too bothered about it, Please do yourself all the procedures to change the same, I am out of there"

Malicious cult in USA...

2006-03-05T13:27:00.000-06:00

I, Vasanth and Shri decided to watch a Hindi movie. So accordingly we reached Funasia. In the parking lot we see this gentleman with a exquisite look on his face. He is a perfect gentleman wearing full-suite and was looking for something. As soon as he looked at us gave a big smile on his face.

GM (Gentleman) : Hi guys are you acquainted to this place?
Me : Sort of, how can I help u?
SHri: I know pretty well. Tell me whats the matter?
GM: I had come here to attend a function… I forgot to get the bouquet. Do you know any Walmart/Target near-by?
Me: aaannnn. There is one near….
GM: (Before I could complete my statement..) So you guys what are you guys doing here in Dallas?
Vasanth: I work with Infosys and this is Shri too working with Infosys too.. This is Venkatesh… he is still in school doing his PhD.
GM: good. Very good. Where r u guys from in India?
Vasanth: I am Mangalorian and Venkatesh is also from Mangalore.
Shri: I am from Pune..
GM: Poona?? I am also from Poona. Which college you are from?
Shri: Blah.. Blah
GM: Oh (He had a bewildered look on his face.. I don’t know what that meant)
Vasanth : (Tries to reach directly to the point) Where do you work?
GM: I am a software engineer currently working with Dell, I am actually from Austin. I also own a business consultancy where a lot of opportunities are there for young, smart engineers like you.
Me: (already knew where it is leading to) I think you were looking for Wal-Mart. Take West Beltline and Walmart is around the right corner where it intersects US75. Moreover today its Saturday, you can expect fresh flowers. (I know I sounded very blatant but I didn’t had much option)
GM: So guys, how do you spend your free time.
Me: You know how IT industry is, they hardly get free time. In school there is as such called free time. Yes, Vasanth I think we should move on now we are getting late.
GM: yes guys it really nice to know you. Takes his card and hands one each to everybody. Yes guys, can I take your number??
Me : Oh sure, its 972…
Shri was smart.. He realized that I gave my landline number. He gave too his landline number, Vasanth gave his mobile number. We part from this Gentleman and watch the movie and come back home.
Next evening when I come back home, Sankalp cribs, hey just now somebody by name amit had called you.. you met him in Poona it seems. He had had already grin on his face. I baffles, Poona?? Sankalp replied back “I thinks that was something to do with Quickstar” Oh! I realized where this from was. Within no minutes, my mobile spring into action humming nokia tune, displaying Shri’s name on it! “Vacha, that f***er has already called me and vasanth was telling about a voice mail, you may receive the call soon”.
“I already did!”
We both laughed for a while before hanging up!

If you are a desi in USA especially in Dallas, then definitely this is not a uncommon incident. My two of roomies were taken to this cult meeting on the day they arrived here. In fact I was the last person to visit “the” meeting. And that was after one month.

If you are shopping in Wal-Mart and some arbitrary desi comes and talked to you, there is a high probability of him/her being the member of he cult. And most of the times their shopping carts also confirm the fact.

Come on guys, I do appreciate your interest. But don’t pull others if they are not interested. Probability of loosing your friends is more than gaining profit in the business.

Business is an art, mark my words, it is in my blood, so deal it elegantly.

Insti Lingo goes International

2006-02-23T13:34:00.000-06:00

It was my 3rd day at IITM. I came back to my room and, “I am going to crash now, otherwise I have to pack my class tomorrow.” My roomie bulbed literally on this.

I always enjoyed learning and experimenting, new words from plethora of IITM lingo lexicon! Thanks to my fellow undergrad friends.

When I received a copy of MA thesis on IITM Slangs I simply couldn’t believe it. Just have a look on that.

Funny Answers

2006-02-09T23:37:00.000-06:00

I used help my mom in her grading assignments. Some answers used to be really funny!! Some samples...

How can one avoid rusting of iron?
Answer : By using them...

Why does temperature drops when you go higher in altitude?
Answer: Because temperature increase when one comes down in altitude.

Who is the watchdog of ruling party??
Answer: Blackdog of Syndicate Bank :D

There were some more such of them... will post here when I remember :)

I finally watched the Overrated movie

2006-02-04T23:50:00.000-06:00

Statutory Warning: Some surprises and Climax of Rang De Basanti are disclosed here. Knowledge of these can spoil the pleasure of the movie. So if you havent watched the movie, stop reading now and come back here after you finished watching the movie.

Initially I was supposed to watch this movie with my gang, that was cancelled as there was no dart service on Sunday. Then when Mili’s gang was going Funasia, there was no room in the car for me. Vinod didn’t want to pay 8 bucks for a Hindi movie and Dig gang was too short of space for me. Dheera ditched me for her boyfriend and after all these, finally I did watch “Rang de Basanti” with my gang as original plan. Divya joined us after too much of hues and crys but I couldn’t convince Jaisree.

The movie was good at the same time it was overrated. Though it was an unconvential movie, I won’t call it an extraordinary movie. Well my idea is not to condemn the movie; it is my thought about the movie.

Mr.Aamir, dude, you look really old; please start considering the characters of your age. But at the same time I should accept that you are extremely talented. Some scenes, especially emotional scene your with sue after coming back from hospital was terrific. On screen chemistry you shared with Alice Patten is really magnificent.

Alice Patten as Sue has done really a commendable job. But Aamir, I am really worried that day is not far where you will be branded a guy, who acts in movies with patriotism is the theme and never misses to go around the trees with white madam.

Madhavan, I give you the credit of main character in the movie but you should really start considering joining a gym and shedding some extra pounds.

Kunal Kapoor, a handsome lad from muslim community had lot to say in this movie. Jumbled between orthodox views of his family, he takes a shelter with his friends to come out of his claustrophobic surroundings. It was a neat job dude, well done.

Atul, I always liked your characters whether in Dum or in Page 3. Your diction is impeccable. You have a long way in this industry Sir.

Siddharth, you have done an excellent in this movie, especially the way in which you handled the last few scenes. They were really very good. Though one can say it is highly unrealistic, but it was a fitting ending. I wouldn’t have accepted any other ending to this movie. At one juncture I was apprehensive that it is going to be one more “Phir Bhi Dil hai Hindusthani”. Sharman Joshi has also done a god job. All the characters were really handled well with you guys.

Now here comes Soha Ali Khan, madam you really gave me a warm surprise. It was a giant step from 'Dil Mangey More' to 'Rang De Basanti'. I was always wondered whether you really shared genes of Lady Sharmila Tagore. Today my doubt was cleared. You know how and when to use which bone of the body. Her reaction to Madhavan’s proposal was really mind-blowing. Keep it up. You are my new crush!!!

ARR has given a staealng score this movie. Directorji, the way in which the story of these kids are taken in parallel with Revolutionaries of Indian freedom fight was really memorable.

Well, lets the leave the story aside.

The decision the youth took to take the revenge of their friend’s death was it really sensible? What did they finally really prove? Everything will be forgotten in few days and they will be remembered only as Jackasses. If one really wants to change the world one should get into the world and uproot the corruption. Killing a villain out of zillions of them or killing your own father to take revenge really doesn’t make any sense. “Dil se nahin dimaag se kaam lo”

Dilbert says here

2006-02-02T00:30:00.000-06:00

Picture tells it all...

Work at root level

2006-01-31T19:24:00.000-06:00

One of my friends sent me a link.. Have a look..
It is an article trying to say same thing 'n+1’th time. “India with more than one billion population is unable to find a ruler of its own origin. Why no one is opposing is the president ship of Soniya Gandhi? And so on….” Interesting fact is that this time its penned by some French journalist.

I am still unable to understand why everybody is so frantically against this poor lady. How is scene going to change if some Indian by birth replaces her position. How much freedom now Dr. Manmohan singh has power today? Isnt he puppet of Soniya Gandhi. Recently everybody has witnessed every AIDMK party MLAs was saluting their party commander Ms(??).Jayalalitha by falling (literally) on her feet. None has, not even mummed on it. But everyone is fingering at Soniya.
Politicions are fighting like stray dogs in Bangalore but not even one word to say her. But again they have problem with some widow of Italian origin takes the post. Some people have even walked out of Congress to show their opposition for her leadership. But are they really bothered about ‘her’ or aren’t they simply power hungry? History has already answered the question.

I really don’t care whether she becomes party president or Prime misister of India. When I couldn’t stop the minute corruption my own place how can I hange at national level.

I needed International Driving license before coming to US. So I go to Public Safety office in Udupi to get the same. First of all I was asked to go to six different counters before someone could answer the question. My question was how to get the IDL? Everybody was asking to go to next counter, indirectly trying to say me “Bastard.. get hold of some broker give him extra money and get work done” My queries were answered by Divisional officer when I rushed his room after getting pained by everybody.

Now that gentleman says me I need to fill up application and pay Rs.500 and buy worth Rs.1000 National Saving certificate and give at counter X. Now I go to that counter, believe me I had queried the gentleman sitting next to this guy a few minutes earlier. Now this guy says they ran out of all forms, the Xerox shop next to the office has one copy. Please take Xerox of the same” I go to that office and that guy takes the application from the pad, demands Rs. 4. That pad was supposed to be inside the office and supposed to be for free. Now what I can do in this situation?? Should I call Police or shout at everybody?? When I cant do anything at the place how can change anything else?

We have to work on root level. One should try to stop the corruption at least at smaller level wherever it is possible then only can anything can be possible.

I read another article today about a new party launch “Paritrana”. Some IITians have come up with a new party to change the world. How much these people can change the shit?? Definitely at one point of time they have to proliferate if they have to survive. How can they check the quality of people joining them? We Indians suck, yes big time, when it comes to Quality control. We have to be "IN" the system before try to change the system.

On my Birthday….

2006-01-12T02:36:00.000-06:00

I am a megalomaniac when it comes to my birthday. I still remember those days when I used to tell junta about it a few days earlier so that they won’t forget and wish me on my b’day. I can dare to do that even now but I am afraid as people may get paranoid.

This Jan 7th I celebrated my 25th birthday. As a matter a fact that was my first birthday in USA too. Till my undergraduate days I never celebrated my birthday formally. My parents never believed in celebrating birthdays as per Roman calendar. We follow lunar calendar in any circumstances. My ammamma (Mom’s mom) may forget Jan 7th but she will never forget to wish me on the next day of the new-moon day in Sagittarius month of Indian calendar; I was born on that day. My birth-star UttarashaDa comes on the way of moon every year on first day in shukla pakshya of Sagittarius month.

The main reason for my papa getting phone at home was my birthday. My friends use to call me at my neighbor’s home. On my birthday in freshman year at least I had received 15 calls. My papa felt really sorry for troubling our neighbor and booked telephone very next day.

I had no clues or plans for this birthday. But it turned out to be one of my favorite birthdays so far. My adviser heard me speaking to my friend on 6th Jan evening and I told him that I still don’t know what my plans were on my birthday. My adviser wished me in advance and left for the day. Around 9 o’clock in the night I received call from him. He asked me (and Ajay; Ajay is my roommate who is also student working with him) to get ready by 11 am next morning and he is planning to take me to temple. How nice of him :)

I had a surprise party at home at 12 midnight. I blew off the candle and I shared my happiness and cake with them on my DAY. I personally don’t like this custom of blowing off the candle… One should start THE day with lighting a lamp not blowing off it. But at those circumstances I should respect their emotions than my tenets. After that surprise party we watched movie “Jaws” which was technically brilliant as Puppy’s words go. I haven’t talked about Puppy and about his stories. They will come soon :)

After attending my buddy Guru’s call from UK I headed towards temple with my adviser. Then we drove back to Madras Pavilion for lunch. The food was yummy and I devoured till my stomach pleaded me to stop.

TR, I thank you very much for everything.

That evening was rather similar to any other day. Apart from couple of calls there weren’t any special. I arranged Pizza party at home. Divya, Jaisree, Mili, Manasa and Saranya are the guests who came to my den to celebrate my happiness. A couple of badinages and snaps ( Strictly non-matrimonial ) were the main attractions of that informal party. Wait wait, hey how can I forget Sankalp’s dance??
My day was ended with Vinutha’s call at 1 am. She reckoned she was the first person to wish me on my birthday. It is the 3rd time in a row that she is considering my birthday is on Jan 8th.

I haven’t written anything about Vinni’s call on that day. How can I write? She didn’t call me that day :(

However that was an eventful and memorable day. Isn’t it?

Death, come to me Painlessly!

2006-01-03T16:45:00.000-06:00

When my uncle passed away three years ago, a chit of paper was found in his pocket.. he had scribbed this poem on that paper... He had died due to severe heart arrest. Everybody could identify the handwriting but not the lyrisist. Everybdy expect that him..

"Ee payaNada rahadariyali
Yaavudo TiLiyada tiruvinali
Adava roopadali nee baruve
nanagagi elli nee kaadiruve
Siguve nee nanage Ide enage nambike
ninnaasarayali Illa yaava anjike
Mugidaaga Ella illiya sante
Ninnane seruvudu marethella chinte
Saddillade baa SuLivillade baa
Endadaru sari Novillade baa"

(In this journey of life
at the unknown corner
In which form yu are waiting for me
I am very sure that u will meet me someday
I wont be having any fear in your support
When all these mundane world is tiresome
I will join you without any second thought
Come to me without any noise... come to me without hint
Whenever you come, come without pain)

Memoirs of 2005...

2006-01-01T19:37:00.000-06:00

Three sixty five days between booze party at Sujay’s home on Dec 31 2004 and New year party at Pamona on Dec 31 2005, Life has changed a lot in between..

What were new year's resolutions and did I keep them?
Made none. Kept none. Making none. Perfection can’t be improved.

Did anyone close to me get married?
LOTS of people.
My first crush at KREC..
Another friend from KREC…
My 2 cousins and another cousin which created a Tsunami in the family.
My best friend from childhood.
My best friend’s bf which left my friend shattered…
And a lot of acquaintances

What did you do on my birthday and how old am I?
Cut my first bday cake in my life at the age of 24. Courtesy Amit.

Best thing to happen in this year!
Vinaya and Anita. Second one is my cousin whom I never knew personally.
and TR... He is my adviser... I am here in USA because of him.

Any new friends?
A lot.. Arvind Sharaff, Prakash, aadi, Vybhav to name few of them.

Who was the best new person I met this year?
Difficult to answer… But I give title to Vybhav.

Any visit to Alien counties?
Got Japanese visa on passport. But couldn’t visit.
Got USA visa and I could visit too.

What did I do in 2005 that I'd never done before?
Su Doku..
Air travel..
Bowling at Ameoba
Visited True Gentleman’s abode..
Most importnatly I visited saloon only twice this year. First one was for my mom and second time was for my sister, It looks like my dream of long hair will never come true.

What do I miss the most which I had last year!
My Pulsar.... what else ??

What dates from 2005 will remain etched in my memory and why?
Thankfully it's mostly a blur. But a date that will stay in there isDec 13th. The day I committed my first (hopefully last too) peccadillo in USA and all hell broke loose.

What was my biggest achievement of the year?
Received a lifetime best cooking award at my apartment.

What was my biggest failure this year?
I believe failures are essential to feel the success. I faced my biggest ‘failure’ in life at the ‘beginning’ of the year and I will reframe the sentence with ‘success’ and ‘end’ at their antonyms.

What was the best thing I bought?
My mobile or refrigerator I gifted to my mom.

Whose behavior made me appalled and depressed?
Vinutha’s…

What song will always remind me of 2005?
Abhi na jaavo choDkar.. Mansi are you listening…

Thinner or fatter?
Fatter… I am horizontally challenged now.

Richer or poorer?
Richer... I earn in Dollars now!

What do I wish I'd have done more?
Read.

What do I wish I'd have done less?
Sleep and bakar

How many crushes I had this year?
Numerous… If I go in this speed I will reply ‘365’ next year.

and the longest crush....
Emma Watson

How many one-night-stands?
What does it mean?

What was the last book I read?
Half of Rainmaker. Come back next year for the same answer by the looks of it..
Other books I read are “To kill a mocking bird”, “Angels and Demons”, “Saakshi”,"Rule of Four"

What did I want and get?
Not telling :P

What did i want and not get?
Same thing.

What was my favorite film this year?
Parineeta.. I wanna watch it again with my girl.

What one thing would've made my year immeasurably more satisfying?
Good sense. And some good luck... My dream of "PhD" is coming true...

The most annoying incident..
A friend of mine was supposed to meet me one day. He cancels the appointment one hour before the meeting and changes his number same night and never replied back.

What political issue has stirred me the most?
Most of this shit amuses me and some really annoys me too. No stirring and all.

Who do I miss?
My mom and a lot of close friends at Bangalore. Amit, Rosy, Baba to name the few.

Current Wishlist..
Rosy's number.... Where are you my dear Rosy??

A valuable life lesson I learned in 2005.
I do have scope :D (Dont try to think too much here.. this is only for my sweetheart :) )

The last vignette..
I am in Love again.. but this time it is bidirectional.

'D' the Navigator

2005-12-16T22:44:00.000-06:00

I reached back home from office and Divya shouts….

Divya : Hey vacha, we are going downtown tomorrow. We are going to SSN office. We shall have nice time :)
Me : err.. I have spent doing some stupid thing today.. Again, I am afraid that I may not make it tomorrow.
Divya: What you have time to do stupid things but not no time when I call.
Me: hmmmmm lets see... (no point in arguing with her)

It was Divya's emotional blackmail which prompted me to give her company when she was going to Social security office to get her SSN on 14th Dec 2005. I am hoping for a nice day out.

We started our outing at 7:43 am. After 2 buses and rail journey we reached the destination, SSN office… Now comes our Jaisree wondering, "I think we have reached the wrong place.. I have come here few days back there was an Indian restaurant next to the office." Mind you, "Social Security Administation" is written on the top of the building with bold letters. Restaurant reminds hungriness to Vybhav. WeIl, it is a different story that there is only SSN office in Dallas and we were standing in front of it and yes yes indeed without any Indian restaurant next to it. I really don’t know where Jaisree has visited few days earlier.

We finished our work at office and come out.

Me: Yes Divya, now tell me whats next plan?
Divya: You tell me vacha, We will roam around in down-town..
Me (ejaculating immediately) : WHAT? You don’t have plan yet?
Divya: No.. whats there to decide. We never use to make any plans in Bangalore!.

Again its Divya! No point in arguing.

Me (surrendering myself) : Ok. What next (Definitely with a sarcastic tone)
Divya (Already pained) : No Vacha, we are not going anywhere.. we are going back home…

Before I could answer anything...

Sankalp : Vacha.. hasive

Vybhav and Sankalp are busy searching around to fill their stomach. Here comes the McDonald and there was nothing to eat for me and Ajay. As per Ajay’s friend’s suggestion we go to Fairpark and we did nothing there other than clicking some family pictures and matrimonial pictures. From there we go to watch a movie. We watched “Pride and prejudice” and yeah movie was good.

We are back our way to campus. In train:

Divya : What vacha, You came here to do PhD or just roam around? You wasted your entire day. I didn’t expect this from you.
Me(Almost shouting back): I came here to navigate the navigator… Be thankful to me…

Graduation is a celebration here!

2005-12-10T19:26:00.000-06:00

I graduated. A simple sentence has big celebrations for all. I had been graduated twice before. First one was after graduation and second time is after my masters. (In India we don’t have any graduation after our high school unlike here in USA). My first graduation day didn’t witness my presence. All thaI graduated. A simple sentence has big celebrations for all. I had been graduated twice before. First one was after graduation and second time is after my masters. (In India we don’t have any graduation after our high school unlike here in USA). My first graduation day didn’t witness my presence. All thanks to all my slogging days of IITM when I was trying to survive. The second one was bit more fun with long maroon cloak cladding my attire with yellow hood covering my neck. But that was no way comparable what I witness celebration at Student Activity Center where Fall 05 graduation day was commencing. I was here to cheer Mithilesh’s graduation day.

In KREC, we have ring ceremony. We all graduating students are presented silver rings with college emblem on them. This ceremony doesn’t signify that we are graduated because final exams are still ahead of us but there is no dearth of celebration mood on that day. It witnesses more celebration than sober graduation day of Mangalore University. I have been put ring on my fourth finger by Prof.Shaashtri. The message Prof. Subbanna Bhat gave that day still echoes in my ears. “Don’t cut the corners. Don’t let anything happen which will make yourself shame in your eyes. May god with you always” what an apt advice on the day of our “the” day!!

One more feast for Potter maniacs

2005-11-29T21:31:00.000-06:00

I was very apprehensive from day one whether I will be able to watch Goblet of Fire on Nov 18, which was its first day.... but thanks to Divya Hariharan. Her friend gave us a trip to the theatre to watch 'the' movie...

My favorite novel so far, in the Potter series is Prisoner of Azkaban. But I always knew this is the novel, which can be made opulently on screen. Yo baby!! This is the best adaptation keeping in mind time restriction. Though many many details have been chopped off, it was a good justice to the story.

The best part of the movie was to watch Harry’s nemesis coming up from the ashes like a phoenix. Ralph Fiennes as Lord Vodermort is simply awesome. Brutal portrayal of voldermort is very well within the limit when the movie is supposed to be for children. Though it is a different story that this movie has PG-13 rating.

Daniel Radclafe as Harry Potter has given justice to the movie. Emma Watson as Hermione is simply breathtaking. Isnt Emma Watson too beautiful for simple next door girl Hermione. Rupert Grint looks naturally dumb. His stupid look makes him perfect for Ron’s character.

Katie Leung as Cho Chang is nothing but disappointment. After all she is Harry’s first crush!! Well you could have made better choice Mr. Newell. Apart from that dress designer of the movie should had little more sense while selecting the attire for Padma and Parvati Patil. They are Indian kids where the dresses are given higher priority in special parties.. Simple ghagra cholis, not even a little embroidery on them for such a big event; Yule ball, its is really sad. And why the hell that orange-pink colour combo is existing :

Hogwarts is filled with so many black kids all of the sudden. None of the last three movies showed any hint about it. Angelina, the chaser is black. I never thought so!! Snape has very little to do with in this movie….

I really missed Rita Skeeter’s part. She was such a nuisance in the book. She had provided enough amusing to readers when Hermione catches her while eavesdropping the conversation transforming herself as a beetle. House elves are completely missing
this the movie. The story has been easyly doctored such that the hero of the second task is Nevil which was supposed to be house elf which gets harry the sea weed from Snape’s storehouse.

Whatever I say, this is really a worth watching movie. But people who haven’t read or seen the this and previous books as well as movies please u better brush up potter trivia before start watching the movie otherwise it is very easy to get lost… there is no concessions at all to those haven’t read the book :)

Conversion mania!!

2005-11-24T01:05:00.000-06:00

In america water freezes at 32F and boils at 212F. huh! these units are crazy. It is almost three months are over since I landed here. I am still confused with the conversion. If I try to use celsius scale here I get an annoyed look, even from desis, "which alien is this??"

My american days started with converting every dollar into indian rupess. I used to realy go insane when "Lays" used cost me more than Rs.80 here. But soon realised that there is no point in converting everything into everything!! So chill!! But when days started to unfold I came across many many different units.

Indians are smart. We have 10 fingers so aptly we have simple decimal system. In decimal system every probem is triffle. But I am still unsure why these people come up with inch, foot, yard, miles etc etc.. moreover 12 inches make a foot and three feet make a yard.. isnt it totally crazy... Must be the person who coined the this yard, foot system must be having 12 fingers so which was easy for him to convert.. so mean chap! never bothered about the remaining mankind which would suffer later...

SI system which we, rest of the world follow is so easy to learn and to use. There is one and only one name for each unit to measure different quantities; lengths are in meters and not in inches, feet, yards, fathoms, furlongs, and miles. Moreover no unit is duplicated for different quantity measurement. In metric system, the worst of all is "ton" which is unit to describe five different quantities- "mass,volume,weight,energy and Power" gosh!! its sickening me...

I am still confused why these american universities follow CGPA, out of 4. This is simply making system complex. Moreover in most of the universities only 3 grades exist; A (4/4), B (3/4) and C(2/4) Believe me its too decrete.. Here people think they live in cutting edge technologies so lets make it 4 rather 10... everything is compressed here including emotions....

Some Physist, James Watt who also happened to be inventer of steam engine coined the unit for power known as horsepower. He carefully did measurements and came to a conclusion that a horse is typically capable of power rate of 550 foot-pounds per second. But god only knows whether all horses have same power or not.. but nobody thought about it but happily started using that unit.. These americans still want to get the feel of Watts stupidness....

one more thing is weight... the whole world talks about kilogram and we here have to tell that in grains, ounces, pounds, stones and tons .. the idea of ounce is so amazing... apparently the weight of 437.5 grains (England's barleycorn Huh!) make it one ounce... I really dont know who actualy halved the grain perfectly ;) so many confusions... everywhere america follows UK Imperial sytem of measurements but here one gallon is not 4.546 lts, instead 4.465 lts. Even google couldnt help me to find out whats that magic figure come from.

thank god.. for these people unit of time is same as ours 1 second, otherwise we should have bothered about turning sandclocks to get the correct time or following the sun's shadow fall to know the time :)

Amrithadhare

2005-11-15T01:40:00.000-06:00

I have never been a big fan ( forget even small) of kannada movies. But stil I have already seen two kannada movies in last three months of stay in USA. First one was Jogi, which was majorly hit in blr and second one was amrithadhare. I am still trying to figure what was in Jogi for making it such a big hit.

Well in this blog I am gonna talk about Amrithadhare. This is my third kannada movie of Dr.nagathahaLLi chandrashekhar. I really admired his work "America America" But i was disspponited with his "nanna preethiya hudugi". I had mixed emotions when i was going to theatre and came out with same feelings. Let me pen down those mixed feelings one by one in "mixed fashion"

Good one first...

Pro #1. There was an amazing chemistry between lead pairs (Dhyan and Ramya) They really have screen sense of mind.
Con #1. As per the director, credit of the story to a some storywriter who won best story award in 2004 conducted by Prajavani or Vijayakarnataka. No, If that so then that cahp has plaguered Erich Segal's "Love story". This story has been re-told million number of times.

Puru and Amritha are pretty young couples madly in love each other. They have different notions towards life. Puru is conservative, frugal and thinks about future than present, while amritha is bubbly, spendthrift and lives in today rather tommorow's. They fight over silly reasons. Puru works hard and builds a home and calls "Amrithadhare" and presents that to her her birthday. But fate has something else for this happy couple in her surreptious closet. Amritha is diagnsed to brain cancer and our ideal husband sells of his castle for his lady love and takes her on a long vacation.

Pro #2. Comio by Amitabh Bachchan was really one of the best moments in that movie. His message "Living three days of beautiful, meaningful life is much better than having three hundred years of life which is insignificant, triffle" Hats off to you Sr.Bachchanji.
Con #2. Some of the simple things dont convince the audience. In one scene hero uses his Nokia 6600 cell phone to call his ife and in the very next scene, when he goes out of the house pained by his wife and friends nobody is bothered to call at his cell phone. rather everybody is searching like mad on streets. Come on director'ji use a little common sense.

Pro #3. The title song of the movie really catchy and corny as well. Moreover on screen chemistry between the lead pairs is amazing.
Con #3. Though on the rate of 10, i would give it 6; I expected more from the director of 'America America'.

Mansi, My Fair Lady, Are you listening to me??

2005-11-01T11:09:00.000-06:00

Love, a hazaar articles would have been written on this topic for ages.. and will be written in future. Love has always been eternal. The concept of someone “special” is always “special”. I don’t believe anybody who proclaims, they never had fallen in love in their life. Love is always something which buds without anyone’s consent.

Yes, it’s a different story that some people fall in love on every next minute ;) I would rather call it a “crush”. God only knows why it is called “crush”. It neither crushes the transmitter nor the receiver. But at times it does crush the thickness of the guy’s ( Note I have written guy, not transmitter) wallet.

I have had hazaar crushes, have it everyday. This blog is dedicated to all my crushes starting from Renuka ShahaNe to Vidya Balan..

Among my crushes ‘Mansi’ takes a special place because my heart really pounded when i saw her for the first time. All I read about "Love at first sight" seems like happening with me :) My feet were sinking and I was blushing and couldn’t stop passing a smile to her; for which she promptly responded back. I have never spoken to her till date, I hardly have a hope that we will bump again in future.

But that shouldn't stop me, writing about my feeling towards her. Right? What else is the best way one can express his feelings other than humming a song to his dear heart?

I have been known as classic flirt! "Am I?" One of my favourite songs was “Mere Sapno ki
Raani kab aayegi tu”.. In that song, the anthara which exactly represent my state, hitherto, I saw her. Once I saw her, well it was too long time before I stabilized down.

kyaa he bharosa aashique dil ka
aur kisi pe yeh aajaye
aa gaya tho bahut pachtaayegi tu
mere sapno ki raani kab aayegi tu
aayi ruth masthani kab aayegi tu

Mansi, after meeting you, I had forgotten that anthara, and I had to literally open up my dossiers to get back this lyrics.

Oh gosh; god must have created you when he was very free. Your eyes, nose, mouth, cheek everything are the most beautiful. I can’t remember any face which is as sweet as yours. Your austere look is taking me away from me, somebody please help me before I loose myself.

Yeh chaand sa roshan chehra
Julfonka rang sunehara
Yeh jeel si neeli aanke
Koi raaz he inme gehra…
Taariff karoon ya uski jisne tumhe banaya

If I say, you have the most beautiful eyes then u will laugh at me. Because I bet, every person who met you would have told you this. But still I will tell you again. Those days I used to go despair if I didn’t see you at least once in a day. You don’t know how I eagerly used to wait for Monday on Friday.

Teri aankhon ke sivaa duniyaa mein rakkhaa kyaa hai
Ye uthen subah chale, ye jhuken shaam dhale
meraa jeenaa meraa maranaa inhin palakon ke tale
Teri aankhon ke sivaa

Mansi.. do u remember that day when it was raining cats and dogs!! Wind was blowing. It didn’t want to miss any opportunity to touch your hair. Wind was caressing your hair, I was feeling jealous and I just wanted to hide myself in your hair and fight against the wind stop playing with your hair and let it get lost in your hair!

Yeh hawaein zulfo mein teri gum ho jaaye
Yeh hawaein zulfo mein teri gum ho jaaye
Ho chume nigahose chehra tera
Hoto se chule daman teraa
Apni panaho mein tujhko bhare
Meri aarzoo ko pareshaan kare

kambaqt dil.. it will never be pleased.. I have been seeing you continuously from my bus stop till your stop, more than an hour it can be but still everytime when your stop comes, my heart goes moribund and starts humming “abhi na jaavo chhodkar” I feel why there was no traffic jam, why there wasn’t any tire puncture..

abhi na jaavo chhodkar, ke dil abhi bara nahin
abhi abhi to aayi.. bahaar banke chaahi ho
havaa zaraa mahak to le, nazar zara bahak to do
ye shaam Dhal to le zaraa, ye dil sambhal to le zaraamain thodii der jii to loon
nashe ke ghoont pii to loon
abhii to kuchh kahaa nahin, abhii to kuchh sunaa nahin
abhii na jaao chhodakar ke dil abhii bharaa nahin

Yes Mansi, you will always be my special crush. My fair Lady, are you reading this dear?

I would like to add some more lines in this blog. These are to My love Vinni… who always think I am stupid and good for nothing other than having crush on everyone. I don’t want to fight with her explaining things which she will never understand, instead just ask her to listen to this song, in the meanwhile, I will try to fall in Love…

Hoshwaalo.n ko khabar kya bekhudii kya chiiz hai
Ishq kiiji'e phir samjhi'e zi.ndagii kya chiiz hai
Unse nazaren kya milii roshan fizayen ho ga'ii.n.
Aaj jaana pyaar kii jaaduugarii kya cheez hai
Khultii zulfon ne sikhaa'ii mausamo.n ko shaayarii
Jhuktii aa.nkho.n ne bataaya maikashii kya cheezz hai
Ham labo.n se kah na paa'e unse haal-e-dil kabhii
Aur voh samjhe nahii.n yeh khaamoshii kya cheez hai

EE Mythologies

2005-09-14T18:19:00.000-05:00

My PhD adviser Prof. TRViswananthan is the writer of this article. Pretty long one but it realy makes sense.

My lectures on mythologies and rituals in electrical engineering are controversial. Lectures entitled “Mythology of Models” or “Holes in Semiconductors: a myth” etc. were meant to incite students to think in fundamental terms and critically evaluate what is taught in the class-room. For unknown reasons, this turns out to be as much of a blasphemy to EE professors as the theory of evolution is to fundamentalist Christians who believe in creation or intelligent design

I had always wondered why I switched from the study of science (Physics) to technology. I now realize that this happened because I grew up in a religious environment full of Hindu rituals and myths. It did not seem strange when I saw ritualistic behavior in realms other than religious settings. I was able to relate to rituals based on mythologies. They were simply good things to do simply because my forefathers did so. Thus I grew up with the courage of conviction that somewhere along the line, I must believe in things practiced by my predecessors. All of us who had a traditional upbringing had no problem with beliefs. Everything did not have to be proven

Belief or faith, even if it is not blind and has some sound basis, is not a fashionable thing amongst students of science. Many turn to science as a rebellion against religion. In my own life, I went through a phase like that after witnessing the miseries of wars based on religious intolerance, otherwise referred to as fundamentalism. An event like what happened on September 11, 2000, has made young people think along similar lines.

Those who deal with electricity and magnetism develop the ability for abstraction early in their student days. This is because we deal with things like charge, field etc. that cannot be seen. They are simply concepts in terms of which we develop some understanding of the real world of visible phenomena whether they be thunder, lightning or aurora. In fact, most of us live think and work only in a mythical world. After a while we get used to it to such an extent that we believe that it is indeed reality. I know of students of mine who really believe in simulation results obtained from running the Spice-program on a circuit! In fact, most engineers live in a mythical world. Did you know that in the semiconductor industry engineers sacrifice sophisticated IC chips in a superstitious ritual called ESD, by zapping these fragile things with 5000V of static electricity? It is like subjecting a human to get hit by lightning during the monsoon season. Assuming that we were created, our creator did not provide us with any ESD protection.

We are all familiar with models used by EE’s to represent passive devices like resistors, capacitors or diodes as well as active devices such as transistors. These are useful abstractions. They are in fact akin to the mythical entities encountered in the epic- stories such as the Bible in the following sense. Any abstract idea that is useful or meaningful in interpreting phenomena or behavior is a myth because we know that it is only a representation of reality. This is so whether we are dealing with physical, biological or psychological phenomena. Myths according to Joseph Campbell, are the basis of culture, civilization, dance, music, religion or life itself. Similarly, myths form the basis of science and technology as well. I am sure that most of us realize this but many professors are uncomfortable with the idea that we have been teaching mythologies very much like historians or priests.

Students enter the engineering school after learning the basics of electricity and magnetism in their physics classes taught in high schools. My physics teachers never used the word model, let alone myth. Mostly they dealt with laws such as Newton’s laws, Ohm’s law, Kirchoff’s laws etc. They sounded like absolute truths. Remember, our tradition did not encourage questioning the teacher. Even if the teacher recognized the constraints of their usefulness, the fact that they were only valid in certain situations, was never emphasized. In as much as they were indeed useful in many situations, they could be believed in. From a strictly utilitarian point of view, for those who couldn’t care less to investigate further, it was easier to believe in them. This made sense especially since many generations of thinkers could only refine some of these to a minor extent. Some wasted their whole life trying to do the impossible namely to prove or disprove a law. Recently I read an article in the New York Times, about someone trying to experimentally verify the uncertainty principle which had been taken for granted for almost a century!

For example, consider the first thing that EE’s learn namely Ohm’s law and the notion of resistance. Until I went to graduate school I did not quite realize that it was a myth. I simply believed that it was true because we performed laborious experiments, took readings and plotted graphs. Often we cheated and drew a straight line through the points. Any anomaly was simply attributed to experimental error. Generally speaking about experimental techniques, there were errors in reading the scales of analog meters. Fluid-levels in burettes, pipettes etc. were a pain to read. Nevertheless, Boyles law, Charles law, Avagadro’s principle etc. etc. were all ‘verified ‘through elaborate rituals of taking readings from some apparatus and by plotting graphs ceremoniously. Then there were the statisticians, the soothsayers, who stressed the fact that there were random errors that can be averaged out if we took many readings. If time permitted, we took many readings. Since they could not all be exactly the same, to convince the teacher of our sincerity, we changed some readings here and there. I knew of my friends who ran out of time in the practical examinations and so they simply created some extra readings because such an act was often rewarded! It was never emphasized that models were in fact created to fit observed data and not the other way around. There were many models: some simple ones, others, more accurate and, a few, highly sophisticated that they were almost useless because they were too cumbersome to use: each forming a refinement of its predecessor attempting to represent reality in its ultimate detail.

My friends in America often wondered why most Indian EE’s turn out to be excellent network theorists. I had to point out to them that we never lived in the real world of things. Switches, resistors, transistors, capacitors, inductors or transformers etc. were simply not available easily in the market place. Even if they were, we could not afford to purchase and fool around with them. However, we were familiar with the wiggly symbol of a resistance. It satisfied the simple, beautiful, linear, algebraic relationship between voltage and current. In other words, it obeyed Ohm’s law perfectly! Similarly, the inductance generated a voltage proportional to the derivative of the current and, the capacitance had a voltage proportional to the integral of the current. These were perfect and hence fun things to deal with. Furthermore, we learned enough mathematics such as the theory of complex variables etc. without ever asking the question why we were learning these things. We were told that they were good for the soul. In any event, we had to learn them for passing the examinations and getting the degree. We had a great deal of blind faith in our teachers. We took it for granted that they would not teach us useless things. The sum and substance is that we lived in a world of models and we did not bother to distinguish between reality and myth. But then, what is reality? One of my professwors used to declare “no one knows”.

It was soon apparent to me that I did not want to be a scientist. My physicist friends were eternally trying to split the most recently discovered smallest particle into two new particles? It is plausible if we had an accelerator ten times more powerful than the one in CERN and may be, one can even receive the Nobel - prize for doing it. In a way, we, in India, are fortunate that we cannot afford such expensive machines and so we will do more useful things. Would I rather invent a new IC chip with which I could make a better cellular telephone? To do the latter, one needs to believe in things and not be eternally unhappy that we do not know the ultimate reality. This is a matter of attitude.

Let us talk more about religious myths. They are fascinating. My folks who worship SIVA believe in this hippie-like God. According to mythology, he wore snakes for ornaments and danced in the burial ground with ashes rubbed all over his body. I have a sneaking suspicion that he even indulged in drinking some potent stuff before he performed the cosmic dance. Furthermore, according to Hindu mythology this God is the destroyer. On the other hand, some people in India worship a clean-shaven, handsome god called Vishnu. His role is to protect and preserve things. These people wonder how a very large number of people ardently worship the hippie-like God of Banares. Brahma, the creator is seldom worshipped. This mythology is intriguing but those of us who study semiconductor physics readily recognize the trinity. We do believe in the generation of electron-hole pairs, their destruction by the process of recombination as well as the steady state namely, thermal equilibrium, maintained between these two processes. The latter is science whereas the former we grew up with, is mythology! To me all these are myths are useful so long as we have the attitude to believe in them. Much like the culture of audio and video in the Silicon Valley are based on the mythology of electrons and holes, the culture, music and dance of India are based on Krishna, the model of an ultimate playboy and Shiva, the supreme God with a hippie-like appearance. I am perfectly at ease both in India and the Silicon Valley because the world has been fundamentally the same since I was born.

Consider this example. We have the myth that God is infinite and so are sine waves. They have no beginning or end. What is more interesting is that according to the concept of Fourier transform, we need an infinite number of infinitely long sine waves to create a pulse that is finite in amplitude and duration. It never occurred to me that this was a strange notion. It would have been better to learn wavelet transforms. At least the building blocks, namely wavelets are finite in time! Does this mean that we can live with the myth of a finite God? Yes: this is what it is when we assert “I am Siva”. Here is a finite human comprehending an infinite entity.

What happens if there are no non- believers at all? We will then not make any progress whatsoever in science. This is certainly not a good thing.

Suppose someone give you life

2005-09-08T17:15:00.000-05:00

Today I received a mail from Parul. I usully avoid reading long mails. But when I read first sentence, bingo, I knew its going to be intresting and I decided to continue from where it ended.

Suppose someone gave u a pen -- a sealed, solid, coloured pen.

You couldn't see how much ink it had. it might run dry after the firstfew tentative words or last just long enough to create a masterpiecethat would last forever and make a difference in the scheme of things.You don't know before you begin.

Under the rules of the game, you really never know. You have to take a chance!Actually, no rule of the game states you must do anything. Instead of picking up and using the pen, you could leave it on a shelf or in adrawer where it will dry up, unused. But if you decide to use it, what would you do with it? How would you play the game?

Would you plan and plan before you ever wrote a word? Would your plans be so extensive that you never even got to writing? Or would you take the pen in hand, plunge right in and just do it, struggling to keep upwith the twists and turns of the torrents of words that take you wherethey take you?

Would you write cautiously and carefully, as if the pen might run dry next moment, or you would pretend or believe that the pen will write forever and proceed?

And what would you write: Of love? Hate? Fun? Misery? Life? Death?Nothing? Everything?

Would you write just to please yourself? Or others? Or yourself by writing for others?

Would your strokes be tremblingly timid or brilliantly bold? Fancywith a flourish or plain?

Would you even write? Once you have the pen, no rule says you HAVE towrite.

Would you sketch? Scribble? Doodle or draw? Would you stay inor on the lines, or see no lines at all, even if they were there? Orare they?There's a lot to think bout here, isn't it?

Now, suppose someone gave you a life..

what if somebody Gave you life?

I; Texan has his first country drive

2005-09-06T21:12:00.000-05:00

It was about 11:45 am when I started from UTD to Austin with my cousin Shridhar on 27th Aug. We were actually going to Austin to attend the Housewarming ceremony of Shiva and Ranjini; Shridhar’s friends. it was fun ride from Richardson to Austin. The whole journey took almost 4 hours. I and my cousin first reached my friends home in Austin. Sukumar is my old buddy. From there we went to Austin Longhorn club for lunch and then headed to Barsana Dham, where Shri Krishna Janmastami was being celebrated.

Austin when compared to Dallas is a greener city. Yes I mean it. The milieu of Barsana Dham was really awesome. The most of the volunteers there were Americans. It was really a surprising fact. All setting was like Hare Rama hare Krishna style minus the “G” element. Both me and my brother helped my friends, who were the part of “external publicity” wing of Vibha. Shridhar has really good marketing skills. Out of the total 7 t-shirts sold that day, 6 were sold by him.

Shridhar’s coupe took us next to Austin downtown, 6th street ;) It was Saturday evening and ball was on zenith. The next hours flew like fraction of second. I was unable to concentrate on anything!! Live orchestra, Dance floors took us to different world. We were supposed to go to shiva’s place so we started off from the downtown early at 11 pm ;). We reached his place at 11:45 pm. man believe me, it was an awesome mansion. The pooja was at 8:30 in the morning and we slept. I woke up pretty late and at that time the pandijitji was almost at the end of his procedures. We had grand brunch at 11.00 am. After brunch, we (me, cousin, shiva and his better “half”) just went around the city(!) Roundrock and saw “roundrock” too. Shiva can be a good guide of that city.

After that small jaunt, we were supposed to collect food for that evening’s get-together. Taking vada, BisiBele Baath, Pulav from Madras Pavilion; Pooris from Swaad to their home was not at all easy task. We reached almost without any brakes. The party started at 6:30 pm and was over almost at 10.00 pm. I met bunch of people there. I met Sanjay, who happened to be the cousin of my best buddy since school days. The centre of attraction of that party was a young dynamic newly-wed couple. Prithesh, the groom was my another friend’s cousin. Look here http://home.austin.rr.com/pprabhu World is too small. yes! Indeed!!

I will be really ungrateful if I don’t talk about my host. They are made for each other. Amen! I cant forget not even single badinages happening there. “Meet Latita before you leave” “Frame the question : the answer should be ICE CREAM” are hit of all. Ice cream was actually prepared by Ranjini and shiva was giving the maximum publicity to that. He was asking every guest a question to which answer would be ice cream and next sentence to be “My wife prepared it”. Lalitha story was stil funnier. Ranjini had asked shiva to ask all the guest to meet her before they leave. When he asked how can he ask someone to meet her, she quietly replied “why not? My papa used to say “meet lalitha before u leave””. Huh! At the threshold point Ranjini yelled at him” Shut up! I will pay you 10 bucks per hour for keeping your mouth shut” when it didn’t worked he yelled again “ I am increasing the bet 20 bucks per hour”.

Monday morning we left back from Austin and reached UTD at 10:45 am and again I got into my usual routine.

How America is one of its own kinds?

2005-08-26T19:04:00.000-05:00

Just I was pondering over, how America is unique of its own kind. This blog is the culmination of those meanderings. My list here, is not at all a complete one.

0. No honking. During my trip to Austin, I decided to count the number of honks and the count was zuk. Here honking at someone means insult to that person.

1. No need of wetting your hand. Tissues make your job clean and compact. One will feel clumsy for the first time or in fact for couple of times. But practice makes a man perfect. It won’t take one, long time before someone to get adjusted to perform a reasonably good job. Hope my papa reads this blog which will avoid me facing similar situation of my US returned cousin; the first thing my uncle told him was “go and wash your ass”.

2.You cook anything spicy, in Indian way, fire alarm will start blowing getting you out of nerves.

3.You hardly see soil. The land is either covered with grass (Indian golf-course types) or concrete.

4.Responsibility as well as awareness of the information about bureaucrates, are too discrete. If you contact a person with your problems, they wont be knowing head and tail of that even if that is the job of person sitting next to them. But they wont forget to tell with smiling face, “Sorry, I can’t help you more than this” I always wondered at those moments what do “this” they really mean. Moreover here work means 9 to 5. You can’t, simply can’t see anyone after office hours. On the eve of weekend, all cubicles will go vacant by 4.45.

5.Advertisements, they are too sober, I would rather call them tasteless, as well as nobody even looks at them. The only people looking at them are, people like us who are very new to the milieu.

6.Everybody lives in cardboard houses. “You wouldn’t have dared to stay in your apartment if you had seen the way it was built” this was my senior’s statement.

7.General knowledge towards word news, geography as well as political news is almost zero here. “Tell me Prasad, whether Afghanistan is in India?” this is what my cousin’s American boss asked him when he was on onsite. A bomb blasting at heart of India and leaving millons of people kiled and people here are unaware of it, is not at all a wonder. Today is my 17th day in USA. I havent seen a single newspaper with world news either in library or in my department. My only shelter is internet. I really dont think anybody else does that too.

8.People live here on tomorrow’s money. For every business or marketing, venders are ready with credit schemes and nothing is doe without credit history.

9.American culture has too open culture. We were given a book on the first day about the general tips about how to survive in this country. It can be considered as a mild porn book as per Indian orthodox settings.

10.Here I don’t have my amma looking at my needs; my pappa yelling at my negligence for anything…

Well, thats it for now...

My voyage to United States of America

2005-08-25T21:57:00.000-05:00

I expected it to be an odyssey but was only a journey, in fact a long journey. It lasted for 32 hours and 4 minutes starting from Bangalore to Dallas Fort worth Airport. yes! indeed I am taking about my first time over seas journey.

I always wonderd why do people cry when near and dear ones part. But I couldn’t control my tears when my mom kissed on my cheek few moments before I started from Bangalore. "Yaava Mohana muraLi kareyithu doora teerake ninnanu... Yaava vrindavanavu seLeyithu ninna maNNina kaNNanu" thats what I was asking myself at that moment...

Sahara Airlines started at 20:40 IST towards Mumbai. The total duration of the journey was about2 hours, instead 1 hour 30 min. Thanks to technical glitches at Mumbai airport. Food was awesome. Hold on! Great is a relative word and this reference was consided after the quality of food served to me during my succeeding journey. Later I ate, only to alleviate hungriness. Among 4 cabin crews in Sahara Airlines, 2 were men :( And surprisingly one of them was my classmate during my school days. I really took some time before I recognized him. Alap Kulkarni recognized me when I was boarding down. But he was too busy to speak. I collected my bags and joined the queue to reach the International Airport. There was a free service by Jet Airways to reach the international airport.

British Airways was my carrier. After finishing my security check at Mumbai Shivaji Chatrpathi terminal I completed immigration formalities by 1.10 IST. The flight was supposed to start at 2:10 IST. The seating arrangement was 3 - 4 - 3 and I was sitting in the middle column. Another girl who was also sitting in my row and the middle two seats between us were vacant. A lady was sitting in my adjacent column with her one year old baby. The baby was crying during the whole journey. Pity.. that lady had really a tough time.There was nothing much happened in that phase of the journey. The food provided was ok. (Observe the adjective) Me and my flight reached Heathrow Airport at 07:00 am which is equivalent to 11:30 IST. The airport was awesome. I didnt had much time before next connecting flight. I met bunch of guys from Mumbai heading to NJ in my next flight. The next flight to Newark from London was at 8:50 am. In this plane the seating arrangement was 3-3-3 and again I was in the middle column. The guy next to me was an American and he was sleeping whole journey. No comments on the food served. Hey here I ordered for a red wine and indeed I had to finish whole bottle. Surprisingly most of the cabin crews were male and I watched two movies; Hitch and Monster-in-law. The aircraft took us to Newark airport at 11:30 am local time. Finally I landed on United States ofAmerica. I completed immigration formalities and went towards the baggage claim. There I was told that my one bag, out of three, hasn't come from London and remaining two will be passed to the next connecting flight.

I really got bored till 4:10 pm my next flight to DFW. I waited in front of my gate from 1:00 pm. The flight started on time and reached Dallas 06:50 pm. The two airhostesses were too casual with their behavior.They were chewing bubble-gum while serving. It was too weird too see. Well about the snack served in the flight, I didn't dare to eat because it was looking horrible. I managed with orange juice. When I reached airportI found out that none of my bags have reached. I lodged a complaint.My cousin came to pick me up and I reached home. My bags reached hishome next morning safely.

America is a land of hopes, dreams and magic. (Really?) Its wand has attracted millions of people, making them to part from their motherland. I am really curious to know whether its the same america always we are publicized. Whether the famous adage "The grass is always greener on the other side" is true in case of america too? I will come up with my opinions soon :)

A promising sequel to the Legend

2005-05-31T00:16:00.000-05:00

I feel creating a sequel, especially for Legends is always a bold attempt. Audiences tend to compare the product with the prequel. This masterpiece has completely kept its high expectations. It is equally beautiful when compared to its legendary previous part “Tumhari Amrita” starring Mr. Farooque Shaik and Ms. Shabhana Azmi.

In the twilight of his career, Zulfiqar Haider is shaken out of his wits by letters of a woman Soniya from France. With her malicious accusations and meticulous quest, she creates an upheaval, shaking his languorous life of content. She holds him responsible for her mother’s exodus from her life.

She is a virago, brought up by a drunken French man, Andy, who also responsible for her prejudices towards her mother and Zulfi. She raves, rants over him in her letters, though his replies are always humble and cajoling her. When he comes to know that she is the daughter of Amritha, with whom he had a beautiful relationship, initially he finds too difficult to accept, as he is unaware of even her existence. For Soniya it turns out too late before she realizes, he is not the malefactor.

This is the second time I am coming across Siddique’s work. His brilliant work has driven me to happen his fan. He had created magic through Love in “Tumhari Amritha”. Here again he created a wonderland through “Hatred”. I would call it one of the best modern classics.

She is a bubbly, poise, sweethrobe on Indian celluloid. Can anybody forget “Patiyala ki maharani” telling “Don’t mind” in Sarfarosh? Obviously not! As a matter of fact “Aapki Soniya” is her debut on stage, but she proves that she can make a big here too. Well done adorable sonaliji!. Sonali Bendre has worked hard on her diction and the results are obvious; she does not fumble over Ghalib’s couplets or Siddiqi’s metaphors. Her expressions, intonations of the last letter was mind-blowing. As she admits, she has learned Urdu for this drama.

Shaikh’s talent, meanwhile, is an inevitable conclusion. Siddiqi claims, he is the reason for this sequel to happen. He stands firm behind the script holding it up with his perfect intonations and his rich voice. It’s more than a buffet watching him modulating his voice. See him addressing Soniya as “Bibi” with reverence, “Beti” with love and “Ladki” in annoyance.

After “Tumhari Amrita” it proves, Urdu can spread out to larger audience, yet I feel Urdu can be ‘con’ of the drama. We younger generations are simply novice to Urdu. And again, very different from conventional drama, this may not appeal to the mass. It was evident when I overheard two guys cribbing while coming out of the theatre, “This is the most boring play ever I have watched” Siddique’s bold attempt is a huge success. Even this has a long way to go like its prequel “Tumhari Amrita”. Come and enjoy the show, with its unique style, rich script and excellent presentation.

Tumhari amritha has a long way to go...

2005-04-05T02:59:00.000-05:00

Music and dramatics are my love as well as passion. I usually never miss any opportunity of watching the concert or theater.. I recently watched "Tumhari Amritha" directed by Feroz Khan. It was one of the plays i watched and here goes the review of the same.

It was a long day!! i was eagerly waiting for the clock to strike five o'clock in the evening . I was leaving for the drama "Tumhari Amrita" which was going to be staged at the Choudayya hall. I reached the venue half an hour before the play started, but still all the tickets had been sold out. I always believe in miracles and it did happen. A lady came at the last minute with an extra ticket, and I could enjoy the wonderful play. It is the longest running play in India. Surely it has a long way to go.

The play was originally staged in English, inspired by AR Guernsey’s love letters. The play was first staged fifteen years ago in Mumbai. The play was a huge success and later it was adapted into a Hindi Play named "Tumhari Amrita". Javed Siddique has a written a touching script. It is a story of two people who hail from different backgrounds; neither could live together nor stay apart. The play starts with an invitation by Amritha's father to Zulfi Hyder Ali's father to a party to celebrate the eight birthday of his daughter amrita. The bud of friendship, which starts in the party blossoms into a beautiful relationship, which is more than friendship. The first part of the drama revolves around their adolescence and the second part presents both the characters more matured.

It is really a feast, to watch two very polished actors working on stage together. Both Shabana and Farook are simply the best. I have seen almost all movies of Shabana , from 'Masoom' to 'The Morning Raaga'. Her expressions, body language, and delivery of dialogues; everything is impeccable. In this drama she plays the role of a girl who is always ahead of her time. It is the she who first proposes to Zulfi. She doesn’t care for anyone in the world, she does what her will says; but still she struggles to realise her true self. She realizes the value of sacrifice when she finds herself in the same shoes of her stepmother. Unlike her, Zulfi is a practical man. He cares too much for society and prestige than for values and relationships. He doesn’t accept her proposal because of the only reason that their religion is different. But it’s the same man, who is ready to marry her when his prestige is at stake when a journalist finds some of the letters which she had written to him. In the second half of the play political satire is well presented. After Farook read the last letter, resounding applause echoed through the whole auditorium.

The director Feroz Khan has, in moving away from conventional drama, made a bold attempt. The drama is entirely just recital of letters by the two characters to each other. The focus light was on the both actors almost throughout the play. There are no acoustic and light effects. Though the style of the drama was unusual I enjoyed it and am sure others will too.

In simple words I can say that if you are an art lover and couldn’t make it to the show then you have really missed something. Don’t leave the opportunity if you get a chance again. Again I would say, it has a long way to go.

It's me "Vacha" speaking

2005-04-01T02:56:00.000-06:00

I remember that day very well. It was at 7:30 pm, I was dining, badinages were going on, my mobile which was quite and undisturbed in my pants pocket till then , suddenly started to vibrate and yell Mi2 tune giving evidence of its existence. I looked at the display. It was an STD call from Bangalore. I received and said ”Hello this is Venkatesh speaking, may I know who is on the other end?” An elderly lady (I could make out by her voice) was replying to my query, asked me with bewildered tone ”Can I speak to Mr. Vacha?” I go numb, realizing that my identity “vacha” has taken over my christened name! She was my friend's mother.

It was first week of my freshman year when one day we asked to write down login name for an email id which was going to be provided by the institution. We had to give it on the spot. I simply juggled with first few letters of my first name and surname and came up with a login id “vachabs” I used to say my email id as “v” “acha” “b” “s” splitting it as I had came up. It didn’t take more days before my friends started calling me “vacha” I never thought this name will give me the above experience.

I, Venkatesh Acharya B S, hail from a beautiful town, udupi on the shores of sun-kissed Arabian sea. I am eldest to my parents, who believed in “We two, ours two” motto. I completed my schoolings from udupi, graduated from KREC, Surathkal, currently known as NITK, Surathkal in Electrical and Electronics Engineering. I did my masters from IITM, Chennai with specialization “Microelectronics and VLSI Design “ Currently I am working in Bangalore. I will come up with more, later

This is my first blog entry, Wait wait i am not making you an april fool. U will read my series of articles some published and some yet, hope they will keep you amused as well as informed. Just for change I would like to keep this blog short.

Meet you soon...