The fall of US

I intended the title to be misleading. I am talking about the Fall season here in the US. I just happened to be here on company money again, which is really cool. One thing I am beginning to envy here is the splendid colours that turn up even in the most bland places during this beautiful season. Trees turn light green, then yellow, and then red! Ha. It almost half the number of colours in the spectrum. Then finally they fall off, which is not exactly pretty, but after all those colours, its OK.

Unfortunately, not many of the americans appreciate the beauty of it, looks like. Especially in a small town like Champaign, folks seem to be more bothered about the television than the colours of nature. Typically American, I should say.

This is incidentally my third business class trip to the US. We are lucky enough to fly business class even without reaching senior management! Motorola does treat us pretty well.

More international flights into bangalore is definitely good news. I hear BA, NW and KLM and beginning their service. Besides, now there is a direct flight of American Airlines to begin from chicago all the way to New Delhi, non stop.

This is just an update because I have nothing else to do right now.

Run for Life

I missed the Bangalore marathon!

I am still gathering myself up to believe that this fantastic event went out of my scheme of things. I am not to be blamed entirely. The more I look at this state (karnataka) and how it does things, the more I appreciate Bihar. I mean, the announcement for an event that requires massive and intense preperation came in just a month before. How on earth do they think they could make the numbers?

As with anything in Bangalore, much hype was around... they were expecting 30000 to turn up. Had it not been for the celebration run, no one would have given the thing a second look. I know the jargon spewing, brand conscious morons of this city - for them sun rises at 10 am and running at 6 am will be unimaginable. I was suprised that only about 200 people ran the full marathon! No wonder, I never find the actual figure of the folks who ran the full marathon anywhere - it is such a dismal figure. The organisers are to be blamed for it partly. A marathon in the midst of summer!

I think Bangalore is definitely not the place for a marathon or any high energy events. The people are fundamentally lazy - in fact, lazy will be a major euphemism. They are slothful, pig like. A marathon in such a city? haha.

All said and done, I intend to run the full marathon next year. No joke. The whole idea attracts me because I think it is fundamentally stupid. I mean, running 42.195 km for no reason at all! No sane man would do it - but then, no sane man enjoys life either. Sane people have only contributed to bureaucracy (if you call it sane) - the (half) insane ones brought the revolutions...

Sanity comes in between life and oneself.

Cycles of life

I intended the title to be misleading... :) Wanted to sound very philosophical about something very earthy. This is about the cycle trip I had on Sunday, 10th of April. Me, Shreekumar (yes, the same guy who drove from Chennai to Calcutta!) and Harsha decided that we were not having enough adventures in life. So armed with headlights, tail lights, GPS, digital cams, sunscreens, soaps, our helmets and of course, a lot of enthusiasm, we set out from near Silk Board at about 4:30 AM in the morning.

I found it unpleasant driving in the dark, that too early in the morning when I should have been sleeping. After about 20 km or so, the mood caught up. We drove into hosur just after sun rise and had a few cups of tea at a tea stall by the side of the highway. We set the motto for the drive - "sunrise at hosur, sunset at salem". Hosur is a town in Tamilnadu, at about the same altitude as bangalore. I could see long distance buses aiming towards Bangalore, coming from all over tamilnadu and kerala. There were early cars, most of them with tamilnadu and kerala number plates shooting out of bangalore, to escape the day time heat. Looking at them I realised they will reach cochin earlier than I would reach salem... :) But then, I was a stud who was cycling and thereby helping to the cause of a green earth, not wasting precious fossil fuels.

After the morning tea, the journey from hosur to krishnagiri looked promising, for we had tailwind and the route was a major descend of about 1500 feet in about 50 km, to Krishnagiri. I had earlier suffered this route, trying to catch it on the wrong direction. :) This time the stars were in my favour. I started storming on the pedals at 6:45, and was there at Krishnagiri at 8:28. In between, my speedo actually showed 58km per hour... It should have been slightly over 60, since my speedo reads a bit less. The GPS was with Sree and Harsha, hence I had no way of checking since I was pedalling ahead of them.


After Krishnagiri and locating Harsha, we went ahead and took a break at Kaveripatnam, about 10 km away. From there, the drive to Dharmapuri was bad.. heat was catching up. At Dharmapuri I found I had a lead of 13 km over my folks - something uncomfortable because I had to wait there in the blistering heat. Thats when Harsha decided he is going back. Shreekumar caught up with me in about an hour, after taking the GPS from harsha. The tamilnadu heat was indeed intense. We cycled less than a km and took a good lunch break.

The thought of going ahead in that kind of heat was a bit formidable. But Shreekumar's spirit was awesome. He said if he reaches Salem, it will be on his bike, irrrespective of what time it is. It was very clear to us that at that pace, we wont reach Salem by sunset. Those of you who have not been to Tamilnadu in that kind of weather will have no idea what that heat can be... The fact that Shreekumar was riding a mountain bike added to his woes bigtime. He could not speed up the way I could. I was driving the sleek road bike - the Hero Hawk, commonly available in India.

From Dharmapuri we started again, applying oddles of sunscreen on our hands, face and neck. After a few km Shree took an "exhausted" break.. at a small roadside shop. We had some water from there and waited for 10-15 minutes. Slowly but surely, the heat was showing signs of subsiding. That looked good. It was only 3:10 PM though.

From there, we ambled along to Thoppur ghat. A scenic and pleasant stretch, wonderful to drive, with four lane roads. It was all the more wonderful because it was downhill drive for us. We again took a break there, had coffeee at a roadside tea stall. Tea never cost anything more than 2 rs per cup. In Bangalore, it would be nothing short of 3-5 rs per cup.

When you cycle, you tend to understand the land and terrain pretty well. You will know for sure which direction the wind blows, the slightest increase or decrease in altitude et al... after all you are the engine!

After thoppur ghat, with the milestone showing 42 km to salem, life looked good. Temperature must have come to about 28 C and it was really pleasant with some decent tailwind. After a slight uphill I kept pedalling on... Shreekumar, exhausted that he was, fell back by a few good kms. I halted at the small town of Omalur, waiting for Shreekumar. After about 40 minutes of wait, he arrived and we had some cool drinks.

Now the last stretch was ahead of us... tired, but not defeated, we continued. The sun had already gone down. Obviously our slogan, framed 12 hours ago did not hold good. After about 45 minutes of pedalling and a halt to ask for the way to the salem bus stand, at 7:15 we inched into the Salem bus stand. The 200 km journey was over, the GPS proudly displaying the total distance as exactly 200 km.

We tried to travel back in volvo buses, but the time was over... hence had to rely on local private buses plying on bangalore salem route. I was sure another nightmare was in the making... we had dinner, preparing us mentally for the tougher ride back home in the bus. Shreekumar happily took the responsibility of taking the cycles onto the top of the bus. :) At 9 the bus left Salem.

The rest is history. I had broken my distance record...

Fire in blogs

I just heard of a couple of shocking and not so shocking news about blogs. I heard of a guy from Google getting fired because of some remarks made on the company, after just two weeks of joining. Kiruba in his blog says, aptly enough, that one should not bite the hands that feed! A point well mentioned sir.

The silver-lining on this cloud is blogs are getting noticed. Work place, like love life, should be something that is very much private, I suppose. I mean, what is the point in exposing all the gory details to the world. It really makes not much of a point, though for the sake of democracy and stuff one may insist on it. But democracy again is rare these days - one finds more of hypocrisy!

I think people have taken the blogs too much to heart. If one starts criticising his bread provider, for reasons that may be eminently valid for him, it would still make a lot of horse sense to keep it out of such public forums. Besides, if you write well, your employers would know too!

Also writing too much is not a good idea anyways, whatever be the subject. Unless of course, you belong to the elite lobby of the press. If I were to write candidly about my friends here, I am sure the only one that would remain on my list at the end of the day will be my dog. So, I would love to be a bit discreet in here. :)

I am sure there will be people who dont agree much to my line of thinking. Lets make a compromise with the world - I wont throw a stone at you, and you wont bark at me either.

Musings... on Springtime

This word Springtime would definitely invoke a sense of Nostalgia to my friends of REC Rourkela... it was the name of our cultural festival that happened in Spring. But I am not writing about those good old college days here.

The idea to write about Bangalore and its bloom in spring is irresistible, now that I see trees all around in fresh light green leaves, dressed to kill. It is so beautiful to see trees in "mood" - and that kinda elevates our otherwise dull spirits, particularly so if you are a software engineer like me. Profession induced depression (also called competitiveness, commitment to company and other such jokes, euphemistically) is a disease that has spread across my tribe like cancer - and it has stood between us and life in general.

I was cycling through Sanki tank area in Bangalore, near the Indian INstitute of Science and I just could not withhold my temptation to write about this beautiful season of seasons. Bangalore is generally claimed to be the green city by ignoramuses who have not visited my home state of Kerala (there for a change, the entire state is so lush green). Though I will not make the sin of comparing Kerala with Bangalore, Bangalore is still beautiful. Not sure if it would remain that way in future, but I prefer to be optimistic.

I could see trees with all yellow flowers.. and loads of them. I dont know the name of those trees because I make it a point not to. Because once you know the name, you dont see the tree - your knowledge comes in between. What additional thing do you gain by knowing a tree is Gulmohar or Sequoia? There are those trees that have red flowers on them - they look as if they all just had a great bloodshed. Some trees even have violet flowers. All these psychedelic colors should obviously have an immense effect on lovers, who are on the sprawl in the garden city.

I have to admit the variety of trees here is much more than in God's Own Country, where if you happen to see any other tree than coconut, you are lucky. But when it comes to just being green, kerala wins hands down any day. But you know these Bangalore folks, they just hype up everything... it seems the city is garden city! I should be calling my state the garden state then.

Apart from politico-natural comparisons, I guess bangalore has an appeal of its own. Especially so in spring. The streets are air conditioned, trees in bloom... what else will someone have in heaven? This biological carnival will extend into april after which summer begins. I guess thats when girls decide to show what they are made off. Its hot, so how can one dress much? :) Hot girls of bangalore have their bunch of reasons.

Then there is the air show where humanity displays how stupid they have been showing all kinds of machines made to kill humans (read fighter planes). But these things catch a huge audience...

All said and done, I am chilling out here in Bangalore and its Springtime!


So here I am, writing down these words from heaven. Those of you who are unlucky to be in this city, come over soon!

Musings on Tsunami!

I thought I would write down a few words about Tsunamis. This Japanese word has become a tad too trite these days due to mass usage. There is something about the sacredness of a word that gets eroded when it is used by everyone. That’s one of the reasons why I think Sanskrit is a cool language – it was never spoken by the masses. But there are Sanskrit scholars who stupidly try to prove it was a spoken language in early days. Buddha himself gave his sermons in Pali becos Sanskrit was too elite a stuff.

But then, I came in to write about Tsunamis. I was at my friend’s place in Libertyville, a northern suburb of Chicago, when he told me of this news. I thought of it as a routine natural disaster that most of us are used to. But the media attention this event mustered did surprise me. When entire towns vanished in earthquake in Armenia and Mexico city, there was not this much hype and concern from the world press. This is unprecedented.

Probably due to the fact that this disaster happened close to Christmas time, compassion was pouring down from around the world. Countries were competing in showing their compassion for the “unfortunate”. I can never stop wondering at the callousness of these “kind” people.

From my own point of view, which is within India, I don’t see a cause for major concern due to tsunami. Its force was significantly reduced by the time it touched Indian shores. Of course, things have been bad in Indonesia et al, I am not denying that. But in India if everyone shouts Tsunami! then something is seriously wrong - seems to be a case of mass propaganda from our holy press. Govt and private companies collected one day’s salary from everyone. This alone will amount to a very huge sum that should set right any damage caused by the great wave. Besides huge donations were given by other people with tones of blackmoney – in an apparent bid to reserve a place in heaven.

My point is that media hype has aggravated the calamity. I think the media to be a bigger calamity than the tsunami, seeing the way they glorified the entire episode. I hope many of you have heard of the story of the king who could turn anything he touches into gold. Our media is similar – but whatever they touch turns into crap. When I say our media, I am being truly international – no national or class distinctions.

People from the civilized world rushed to the aid of the third world brothers. There were instances when people in the affected areas refused the vegetarian food that was offered to them by aid workers. I am not sure if it is entirely true, but will not be surprised even if it is. If these people can be so choosy about food, then you can imagine if there has been any real disaster at all. Can you think of people (whoever was left) in Hiroshima and Nagasaki showing preference for food after the attack?

The word tsunami has come to indicate trouble. One of my friends said she calls her son tsunami – he makes too much trouble!

Tsunami or not, life will continue. Not just here in India, but everywhere in the world.

Welcome to 2005

This is not much of a posting really... but then I cannot just sit here idle without welcoming 2005. I found many fools doing that, as if by not welcoming 2005 it would not come in. For once I decided to play along with popular mediocracy and decide to write a welcome note to 2005. And now, having done that, I am feeling tall and proud that I have done my part in welcoming another important year in this century.

Among other things, Meera had taken my blogs a bit too seriously (please refer to her comments for my previous blog). I am sorry not to have included a disclaimer earlier on saying no one should take my blogs to the heart. Meera asked me what I meant in my previous see off article for 2004 where I wrote we had "Tsunamis and all for entertainment". Sombre question - but I dont answer such questions. I cannot feel sorry for a thing unless I experience it first hand. Journalists and the media are not enough to convince me of the disastrous impact of any situation. I found a lot of photographs here in the US saying US aid finally reached Sri Lanka and the picture shows destitute people begging for water. If this is what Tsunamis mean for the rest of the world, thanks for CNN and BBC, I would very much like to disassociate from having to do anything at all with it.

So Meera, dont feel bad about such words. If possible, you could contribute directly to the relief. Probably you are doiing that already. And if you are, there is no real need for a big concern for my words. I have done my part of the contribution too - which is mostly with money; I cannot give my time for these causes.
As I write these, the democratic media is showing the pathetic state of affairs in Sri Lanka and what the US is doing to "take the lead" in helping Asia out of the hell! God, give me a break. One thing I have seen about this country's media is even if they have nothing to say, they can move the people to display pseudo feelings and talk eloquently about the concern for the world, when majority of the people here think US is the world.

So another year in the making for us - let us see what we make of it. I dont see any difference from my personal standpoint - it is going to be another year, one third of which is spent sleeping. Perhaps most of us dont realise that one third of a day is spent sleeping. Then of course, there is work, work place and the associated crap. And friends, and family and pets and cattle on the streets. This year does not augur entirely well for me since I would be required to be back in the US for work related reasons for 4-5 months. I am game, but not with the usual gusto and enthu though. Thanks for my warning in the earlier article, Libra does seem to be good for 2005. For a while I am not thinking of changing my sign.