First Impressions.

Intro : This blog is my first long mail from the USA. It is named after Jane Austen's book Pride and Prejudice, which was initially named First Impressions. Though I would expect and hope this story's ending to be anything far less melodramic. My apologies for doing injustice to that great novel.

From : RA
To : RD, SO, PS, SM, MS, SV, RP

Hi guys,

I was just wondering if I pestered you with an unsolicited and gloomy update from my side. Then I realised that I did not, what I still did not write to those people to whom without revealing the sender's identity, you show this mesg, they would guess, this is our own typical raka.

So here it flows.

I have arrived in the US on the 9th of Aug, it has been one week exactly, and here are my experiences. This place stinks, I am yet to find our why? Here everything is planned/processed from the trees to the food to the air ! Hence it either smells of the pesticides they use on their lawns, which we seem to miss so much in India or it smells of the air-fresheners that they use indoors. It deprives you of the natural fresh air and I start getting a slight headache, and in one week this smell has moved in to my throat making everything I eat taste like again a pesticide. 'But then none of those who went to the US were complaining like this?' . Now you know what makes my mails typical.

I stayed for the first three days in my uncle's house, in a suburb of Chicago. The house was huge and nice, now I moved to the city of Atlanta and am trying to find houses. The thing we used to do in Bangalore on weekends. Ofcourse, I am disappointed. Again the heart of the city, why does this happen to me? I got admission from Universities that are all in the heart of various cities and I chose the smallest city. Phew!

When I was coming to the US, to the omni-put question 'Are you returning, or staying back there?', ( a question people asked, inspite of the fact that they 'knew' that I am going to stay back ), I answered simply, I am not going to let my children grow up in the US. My opion on this front has only been consolidated by the images here. I will be staying here until I earn howmuch ever I put into my MS with interest ofcourse and also after I regain my loss of pay owing to an absence from my dear Bangalore. It should not take much owing to the exchange rate of the dollar. After the recovery and till the children part, I have to make my jump, that will be some six years period or so. I am trying not think about the Harvard MBA part.

Right now, I am on the lookout for a house, which as I mentioned earlier, in unparlimentary terms, sucks. In the worst case, I will stay in the campus hostel, which is a very good option, at least you need not fear returning home after working late in a lab and all. Back in India only women feel insecure, but in dreamland, the eqality of the genders is more pronounced at least in this regard. Returning to the campus option thing, no Indian opts for it because it is expensive, kind of fifty percent costlier, indian students without aid less so. I should be able to find a person willing to share it also.

I think I will be able to start enjoying life here, once I settle down and start going to the Gym , playing soccer and tennis. Tennis is quiet cheap here, can say cheaper that Bangalore! Gym is said to be very good esp. for the fee you pay for it. And they have an active soccer group here. Reminds me that I did not see any ground anywhere here. But then after all, I did not see even half of the campus. One can enjoy even more , once a professor starts paying your tution fee and once he starts giving you money for living. But then depends on how much time you will have to spend in the lab. Reminds me, I have to sell myself to some of the prof.s and try to get some coding job, after all that debugging in Bangalore better pay-off.

There are a couple of good things. For example, I did not spend a single cent in the last week. I would say the 'lull before the storm'. Just the thought of the tution fee I have to pay next week kind of scares me off. But some how dad always manges to give enough money and enough buffer. Only if everybody has been blessed with one such ATM which gives at least a fifth more than what you asked for, the world would have been a much better place. Seriously speaking, it has been a lot of load on him. It also leaves me with a feeling of guilt that I am consuming so much hard earned money. Hope this entire Gatech thing pays off in the end. I mean it better pay literally off in the end. This entire computer science jimmik, the sacrifice of an potensial ITPL (so finally here the inevitable four letters are) job and a nice Indiaranagar pent-house with a tree by its side, my bike, dance classes, a bottomless ATM card, a known face on every street, a lot of friends, a lot of movies, ... a lot of things things life has got to pay me back for.

Paro, you will not believe it, the TV here is apthetic! There is nothing like a combination of your SUN network channel, MTV India, Star World and HBO. There is nothing like that in the US. We get the best American sitcoms only as they are filtered for us, even though they arrive late. The ads here are so so pathetic, you will not believe it, they are like a desperate salesboy trying to sell you something. It goes on like, this thing has blah.. blah.., with out blah.. blah.. It will male you balh blah, Place your order now, or call now at balh blah. Creativity naam ka koi cheez hi nahi. In India advertising is supposed to be very creative and hence were attractive.

A good time pass these days has been reading 'The Davinci Code', a mosntrous good book. Every aspect of it is good, the drama, the backdrop, the appeal, the plea, the research etc. Dan Brown should have visited India it would have given a lot of food for symbology thought and a great pleasure in knowing that there is a lot of worship of the Female Godesses, the Sacred Feminine as he calls it. I will soon have to get back to PGW, a good sip of good idyllic comedy is always good.

Thats is for now, I am tired of writing, so you guys if at all you read it till here would have been exhauseted .

Bye,
RakA

Interesting Things this Summer

Part I - Summer, Storms, Medals and Night Rides

When I started blogging (if you noticed, this is how my last blog started too :-) I swore that I will not bother my readers with my personal musings, but only write some of my 'quality' perspectives on aspects (mostly beautiful) of life. Like this predecessor, this blog also breaks one of my blog resolutions. After all, it is better to state facts out of which the blogzens, who more often than not fall in the higher end of the intellectual spectrum, can make their own interpretations, instead of forcing on them my own opinions not to mention branding them 'quality' rather immodestly.

Summer, it is never exactly summer in Bangalore. It is summer by Bangalorean standards, but from where I come, this is how it is in the coolest of seasons. Staying in Bangalore for twenty one months has made me a Bangalorean of sorts. There are so many things about Bangalore that I love in spite of it being a confused city. We will come to that in some other post. I would call the 38 deg centigrade a summer in spite of the rain that comes every other day (even as I am writing this) and the hailstorms that recently visited us.

Bangaloreans have various interpretations of the hailstorms. I thought interpreting natural phenomena is out of style in the information age. Pardoning the fact that humans will be humans, more so Indians will be Indians; people say that the hailstorm was called by the trees that want to protest the ill-treatment they have been receiving from the citizens. Nice na, that a storm, that too a hailstorm comes in when you call, even though it comes only to beat you up! In this hailstorm, trees got uprooted, falling on cars and bikes, thus injuring people in protest to cutting them down. Now some extremist groups have trained trees into martyrdom ! Though a nature lover and a champion of planting trees, I do not endorse these extreme acts by my immobile friends. Bangaloreans have to cut down some of the old trees that lie right on the middle of roads like MG road to widen them, thus reduce pollution. Of course they must also care enough to plant saplings again.

Moving on to things I did this summer. Here the summer begins right in the middle of April. Right after the right in the middle of April is my company's annual day, on which I got a medal. It is the first medal of my life. The medal was for winning a humble basket ball tournament that we won sometime in November! Nonetheless first medals in life are first medals in life. I won the second medal in my life by running the Bangalore Marathon's half. It was a full twenty one kilometer run, that deserves a complete post. This medal is a finger to all those people who laughed when I said I was running the half-marathon and a salute to all those people who cheered along the way. Let me tell you given the slightest chance, these two classes of people will exchange positions before you say 'oh'. I mean, the same people who say you can't do it, will clap when you attempt. After all, people are in general good.

I went on a night ride in Bangalore, two weeks back. This also deserves another post, but due to various constraints, let me put a compressed version here as a part of this series. It was after a fun filled get-together of some friends. I travelled sixty kilometers to cover a displacement of four kilometers! The course was (before I forget, let me note it down).

Kasturinagar - KRpuram - Marathalli - Agara - Madiwala (along outer ring road till now) - Forum - Dairy circle - Lal Bagh east gate - north gate - JC road - Hudson circle - Kasturba road - Queen's road - Raj Bhavan road - Golf Course - Sankey Road - Cauvery theatre - Mekhri circle - Jaya mahal - Cantonment - Queen's Road (not the part already visited) - Shivajinagar bus stand - Cubbon road - Brigade road - Residency road - Mayo hall - MG road - Trinity road - Airport road - Airport - BEML - Old Madras road - Ulsoor - CMH road - Home.

Total distance - 60 km

Total time - 70 min

Duration - 12:30 pm to 1:40 am

Maximum speed - 70 kmph

Total breaks - 20 sec

The route never intersected and covered the entire east and Bangalore right from the north to south. Now did I mention in my profile that random drives are my hobby ?

There are many advantages to random drives. The most noticeable of which is the one that Robert M. Pirsig had when he drove from Chicago to San Francisco. He wrote down his thoughts along the ride into the book 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Management' that went on to become a best seller making him a millionaire. Neither my random drives nor my blog are my steps in the footsteps of Mr. Pirsig. I would attribute my random drives, mostly night drives, to the feeling these drives give you, you can muse on random topics and get in touch with yourself. I guess that is what drove Mr. Pirsig on his drive from the great lake to the great ocean; and let me assure the ride was just what the doctor would have prescribed to him. My machine, as I call it with love, is a Bajaj Pulsar, an awesome machine. When you drive it, you get a feeling that you are still and the world is moving under you. There have been many an occasion on which I took circuitous routes just to feel the rev of the machine. Hats off Mr. Rajiv Bajaj. My drives are mostly night drives because that is the only time excepting the early mornings when Bangalore roads are a fun to drive on. Travelling along the roads from Bangalore to Mysore or Kodagu (Coorg) in the buses or Tempos also classify as random drives. This is when I miss a blogging mechanism the most.

To be continued...

Coming in the next blogs as a part of the 'Interesting things this summer' areIndic Fonts, Smilies, Marathons, Performances, Destinies, Dispersals etc.

Passion Lost, Passion Found

Right from my childhood...

I swore when I started blogging, that I would never begin a blog with those four words. The main intention behind blogging was to have a healthier look at life. To do that we all know, one should live in the present and enjoy every moment. And for that one should not live in the past nor should one live for the future. The latter I never do, but sometimes I experience moments when past jumps before me as I walk along, say CMH road, and says 'gotcha'. One of the biggest achievements in the last two years, that is the years I spent in the real world is that I am able to dodge very well when I get the vague sight of the past at a distance in the lane of thought. Not that I had a bad past, but then I have so much passion for my life that I get disappointed when ever I feel I am not living it to the full, and most of my childhood was spent staring into the idle space, hence there was some regret; but then the last two years have shown me so many good things that my school days had, that I started feeling good about it. If you are wondering why I started my blog with those four words, I am obviously digressing.

Take two,

Right from my childhood, I was always interested in maths and science. One reason was that I was always one of the best in my class in Maths and physics (chemistry and biology were never really my cup of tea, neither were the Indian languages, I was somehow very good at English). The second reason was that I did not have many other interesting things in life. (Looks like the first paragraph, which I termed digression, is turning out to be very relevant.) I guess my liking for math does not deserve to be called Passion but I really liked it. There was this subject computers for one year in school, which I was the uncrowned prince of. Used to get nearly 76 when the class average was 30 or so. Along the side lines, I was always a nature lover, but in those days I did not realize that, and took my closeness to nature for granted, its only after coming to nammooru bengalooru that I knew how much it matters to me.

Moving on,

like every good boy from Andhra, I too studied for Engineering and got to a Regional Engineering College (now National Institute of Technology). It is here were I had unlimited access to computers. I was running at the double the speed of my class mates in learning C++. I really really used to like writing programs. Yes, that was a passion. All problems in live solved; I am going to be a highly paid computer engineer and have that ideal life where you both earn a lot and enjoy your work.

The twist in the story.

I got a back paper in Basic Electronics Laboratory exam. I had to choose, if I wanted to be a software guy neglecting my major or put my primary duty, electronics, first. I opted for the later (one of those better decisions in life). In my third year, I virtually did all of my B.Tech. I liked digital signal processing very much. It was also a passion, and like a sensible guy who changes his aim in life when ever he finds a new passion, I too did. I am going to be a dsp engineer, my ideal future got 'idealer'.

Scene change. After two years. Enter reality.

I became a software engineer in a DSP company, though not exactly a dsp engineer; I did not mind this because as you can observe, it was a weighted average of my first and second loves. After that, in a nut shell, I got bored with coding and the indispensable debugging. I should have been warned when I first heard these lines of the greatest inventor of all time, Thomas Alwa Edison. "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninetynine percent perspiration". I do not know about genius, but the entire industry is like that.

One fine weekday night.

In a bus on a Bangalore road, I discovered what was bothering me. The discovery being a modest one, there was not the necessity for the apple to fall on my head. But I was as happy as Newton probably was. The discovery was that I had no passion in life. Yes, my passions for dsp and coding both were dead by then. No one would want a passion to die, so let us say, they became dormant. Then I came across dance. In another nut shell ( I hope all these nut shells do not cause indigestion to you, dear reader), it is the best thing that has happened to me in my life. I started feeling happy. Just before joining dance classes, I was in one of my lows in life, when nothing goes the way you plan, not career, not your future plans, not your job, not your house hunt, oh not even your bike.

Climax, back to the present.

After being happy for a long time, you get used to it. By now I am used to being happy, I feel really glad when I sit and recollect how much dancing has enhanced my life. I have started counting numbers in counts of eight, like it is done in Music. Now as I walk, I suddenly do a step or two. I also find better about my work. Somethings change, somethings do not. My hatred for Bangalore's traffic remained the same. Fate also helped in all this. I have different plans now. My future is giving my love for coding and dsp a second chance, will they take that is to be seen. I hope they do, because no one likes to loose a passion.

Everybody wants to have the 'idealest' future, don't they?

P.S : This blog served its purpose, I thought my love for my work is dead, but now I am hopeful.

To Love or Not to Love

Apologies! for the title is none of what I promised in my last blog. I was going through some blog and stumbled up on this thought I want to blog now. Things that make great blogging stuff are things of the moment, rather than a list of those less fortunate thoughts that cross the brain in the absence of a computer; but then most thoughts come to you on travel when you do not have a blogger at hand.

Moving on to this oh-so-fortunate thought that occurred to me before this computer, it is something to do with the computer and all those brain waves of human beings over the decades that culminated in this device. If there seemed to be a glitch in the previous sentence, it must be the absence of an adjective qualifying the device, which definitely merits the presence of one. The missing adjective has metamorphosed itself into the following paragraphs.

Going my the title, you would be expecting a very romantic blog, hoping I am capable of one. Sorry that is not to be the case, as we are going to deal with loving something that does not qualify as aesthetic to the majority of human race. No offense intended at all those great people who comprise the high IQ club and are so fascinated by the 'Maya' of technology and the way the 'Maya unfolds'. Though the object is not the conventional object of love, the dilemma is the usual stuff people suffer from.

Getting into the details, any body who saw my profile would know that I am an Engineer. Of course, our entire profession, (its my profession, in spite of the fact that I her prodigal son mentally and soon to be totally), lives on technology, its our mother, without which we would be starving. For most of my brethren, who are proud of their skills at wielding the magic box, the variety of applications, games, multimedia that this box has to offer is the best thing that happened to them in their whole lives. It could beyond doubt be the single biggest thing that can make them feel contented forever, for being born in this age in this profession where evening is a rare event in those timeless offices. The ownership of a PC by you or by one of your more "cool" roommates is a direct measure of your quality of life. The enormous amount of pirated movies you get to watch, the amount of pirated games you can play, gives you much more than a vicarious thrill of being a pirate in the Atlantic.

"So what's the whole point?". The whole point is that I hate computers; speaking without all those filters that one has to apply after the natural filter, the human vocal chord, to make your speech politically correct. But then you do not have a choice in this not so politically correct world, where the only known form of correctness is 'being politically correct'. The choice has already been made, I have to love computers, technology etc. etc. After all, I do not want all my friends to think that I am a cynic. Everyone wants to be happy-go-lucky and I am a part of everybody. Hence I have time and again decided to love technology.

But then, there are a few obstacles between this cubicle-boy-lover and the Princess Technology; the amount of restlessness and pollution that always accompany her, to mention a few. Ok, I am an old fashioned guy, who wants to walk in that small avenue by the canal side, listening to the songs of the birds and the giggle of the running water as the breeze flirts with my face. "What non sense, when compared the pirated version of the latest Bollywood movie smuggled over the border or the latest video game that we bought from that guy at National market who is compensating his dumbness in buying an authentic game CD by selling it off unauthentically to the smarter public?" Or say, "What fun is it when compared to zipping on a highway, at 100mpl in a super bike or car that your life gifted you with, for all those evenings of your youth (a term irrelevant in the world of technology, where there is only that successful future) you placed on the altar of the demanding Goddess of Success.

The stable err cubicle boy loves all those antics of the Princess that exist in the zoom she has to offer in his digi-cam, in the vroom she has to offer in his bike, in the favourite TV show she has to offer in his plano TV. The question remains where this deeply seduced young man can meet his love beyond the obstacles? Does he want to? If he were finally able to love her, after vanquishing his loathing for all the by-products of the princes, is the price worth paying?

Long time no blog

It has been really really long since I blogged. Yes two and a half months is a long peroid for any blog. Especially when those two and a half months are very happening. Ironically, the very fact that the last two months were very happening is the reason for the absence of any blogs.

In a nut shell, I had two dance peformances on stage, (taking the total number of stage performances I gave in my life to three), changed three houses (about to change for a fourht!), took concrete steps for the future, celebrated a birthday, heard a shocking news on my Birthday, went to Hyderabad and home and realised that my childhood is over, completed one year in my job, heard of another friend's marriage, and lot more.

In the meanwhile, there were so many thoughts that crisscrossed my brain that could have been amazing blogs. But sorry reader (that is most of the times myself), the days were too packed for me to blog. Here are some of the titles, of the blogs that could have been and that could be expected in the days to come.

The ooru that shrunk.
Memories that stink.
Passion lost, passion Found.
Language and the art of making people happy.
The world is our living room.
Number "line" becomes a "circle".
The heart that bleeds.
Blessed by the Trinity till Eternity.