The milestones you do not see coming

Along the path of life, there come milestones.

Well it is beaten-to-death sentences like the above that make me hate metaphors. Well but then for every million attempts of mankind at metaphor, there comes one that makes all the mediocre oft repeated crap worth it. Well I should not be complaining about metaphors, my name is one after all. Thanks to the ingenuity of the Sanskrith language at forming words.

The usual milestones are like your first job, your first suit, your first mobile phone etc. I make sure that all such materialistic milestones are as ignorable as possible, by say, not buying mom and dad a nice gift with the first salary, resigning your first job as soon as possible etc.

Then there are the 'turning big' milestones like, the first time you felt a women, the first time you touched her breasts, the first time you had sex etc. Well I am an Indian and I am ashamed of my non-existent record here. Hence I try best not to think of it.

Some where between or above or below the two kinds of milestones mentioned above are the ones that I care for.
The first stage performance. The first tournament participation. The first cheering a bunch of girls gave you (you should see me blush here) . The first class trip. The first flight. The first time you talk on stage out of popular demand etc. .

After coming to the US, I have been having a lot of milestones in quick succession, I guess its because of the average speed of traffic is higher here. There are the usual milestones that all foreigners count like, First time overseas. Getting the damn SSN. Getting a Credit card. Getting the Driver's License etc. .

But on the more beautiful road of American life and the more exciting ride of a global life , are stones that read
The first snowfall. The first ski trip. The first ice skate. The first road trip. The first time you dance ballroom. The first time you surf. The first time a girl gives you a quick teasing hug (you should have seen my face then).

These are all the things you see coming. Off late there have been milestones that I never saw coming. Some of them good some of them bad, but all of them memorable.

1) Spending an entire day without meeting anyone who knows your name!
Well, in this remote suburb of North Carolina, I had to spend a couple of weekends all by myself. It was a very weird feeling and I would not wish it up on even an enemy. And I swear by my life and my love of it that, I will be there for the sake of another man or ask another man to be there for mine.

2) A foreigner asking you 'Baagunnara?' (How are you doing?) and 'Dhanyavaadam' (Thanks)!
Well, I went to see a Telugu movie here in the USA. The lady at the counter with her heavy American accent asked me, in my own mother tongue 'How are you?' . Well that is the power of being a consumer I guess. But cynicism apart, it feels great to see a foreigner trying to speak your language. After all language is a very endearing thing. Alas the English miss this feeling.

3) Getting drenched completely on the way to office
4) Discussing racism at lunch table with three white guys.
This June the monsoon hit India pretty early, eager to see their most ardent lover. Alas! were they disappointed at not finding him after raining heavily North, South, East, West. Well then the little rains of the American east cost wired them about a guy here. The next thing you know it stops raining in India and there are thunderstorms here.

As I started walking to office in the slight drizzle, the excited clouds on spotting me, could not control their love and started being very generous. So there I was fifteen minutes in a down pour. When I reached office, I had to remove my shirt and shoes. Thankfully I was wearing a brown sleeved vest bordering on T shirt inside my shirt. In an office where you can wear punctured t shirts, I was dressed enough to go out to lunch.

At lunch, a world cup match started playing. A colleague of mine remarked how racism is more prevalent in European soccer according to a report by ESPN. We engaged in an interesting discussion about racism, the best part of it being; they were never like, "Oh ok this guy is an Asian so we should be careful in what we speak."

It is good when people are not worried about being politically correct and speak their mind. That is the least racist way to be!

I gave my own 'refreshing' insight into it; which premises on the fact that 'racism is as much in the white head as in a black or other minority head'; its only a natural tendency to group. Instead, we could be counting on how welcoming societies can be rather than trying to spot those black dots on the huge white wall.

Sorry for that banal metaphor again! Its hard to control an age old river of tasteless water in a single day! Ok... Not another word...

Quarter Life Bliss

About me: I used to grab life by the horns.

First things first, I am not in requited Love or on Marijuana, so I am not the best qualified person to speak about Bliss; but then when has 'not being qualified' started being a reason not to do things? George Bush for example.

Right from the day my birth was complete five years ago, I wanted to excel. My birth started about eight years ago, when I was transfered to a class with a lake-side view in junior college (some places refered to as high school) and ended as I said five years ago. The start of this process was marked by my making some of the best friends for life and the end of the process was marked by my psychologically manipulating some of the best friends for life.

Now into my sixth year, I am undergoing quarter life bliss. People who have been following my life closely may choose to call it among aother things, 'crisis', 'mess' or even 'chalupas'. But I would rather stick to bliss. It all started when I friggin gave up!

I and the guy I replaced five to eight years ago were always perfectionists, glory addicts.
I did what ever it took to be 'successful'. I did or tried to do all the things people write in their 'about me's. Like 'living life to the fullest', 'living life king size', 'having life all figured out' etc. and some things that they do not write in the 'about me's like 'failing in basic subjects', 'loving one sided.. again and again and again', 'learning slang in various languages' etc. etc.

It all payed off I guess. By the end of college I won the oscar equivalent of the sex-ratiotically-challenged college; that is a bunch of girls form my junior class came and talked to me. Here stress is on 'came' and 'talk'; because girls in junior classes are generally like you 'go' and they 'do not talk' to you.

Well all this continued, I was party hopping from job to job, being a 'star'; was kind of enjoying it. In those days I chose money over love, destination over journey, GDP over Olympic medals, Bangalore over Mysore and milk shake over beer. Yeah I can hear you say to yourself 'Oh all wrong choices! hmmm'

When I reached what is the Mt. Everest equivalent of 'Aadarsha Telugu abbayi's' life, ie. the highest GPA at the best MS schools, I gave up. Right now I do not have any major aspirations in life. When somebody asks me "what are your plans?", I say "Well, good question". Which transltes from Well-lish to "I do not know". I am more concerned about "where is the next dance party?" or "Where is the nearest skating rink?", "Where do I buy a cheap car so that I can go around?"

About Me: I am forced to live life in the moment.

Techie Found Dead in Code

Client machines Sita and Gita are suspected of killing their patron Raka.

Raka, a 6 year exp programmer from C-Land has been found dead in code at the return of function dbgLog(). Raka uses this function frequently in his code while working on computers Sita and Gita. "But in that Run of the unfortunate program, it was not mandatory for Raka to be single stepping trough dbgLog", friends lament. "We used to envy that he had two machines, both 64 bit Athlon, with flat screen LCD monitors and a combined 150GB! But we never thought they would do this to him" they added.

Raka's baap Munna says that Sita aur Gita were never happy with Raka and his patronage and were schemeing to kill him for a long time. They run him down with a huge stack, as he was about to leave dbgLog for the entry ramp to the freeflow of main . Investigators how ever think Munna's comments have no basis in virtuality; but the agents Nagraj and Mukundam were lost for explanations themselves.

Meanwhile, Techie groups domain-wide have stepped up protests against the glim lines of code they are made to dwell in and fix when necessary. They also demand a full fledged investigation in to the incident and bringing the culprits to law. "It is time the aristocratic machines, with pull, and hard-coding techies are treated equal", a techie protester appealed.

The Chic Life : Episode II - Me Loves This Game

Well not very much, but I do like the game (it should be sport actually) a lot. For those people still in the dark, "I love this game" is the tag line of NBA. They also use this ultra cool quote of Ralph Waldo Emerson in their ads: "Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail".

For the 100th time, I miss life in India a lot; but there are some compensations America has to offer. Like, for the 101th time, ballroom and ice skating. A close third, fourth, fifth and sixth are NFL, NHL, MLB and NBA celebrating American football, ice hockey, baseball and basketball respectively.

Well even if you are not much of a sports fan, once the playoffs begin, the temptation becomes too hard to resist. I tuned into ESPN to watch the first few minutes of the Suns vs Lakers' sixth playoff game. It was a must win for the Suns or else they are out of the league. Well there were six seconds and needed three points to tie or go home. You guessed it Tim Thomas shot a three pointer.

They won the next game to come back from a 3-2 lag, to beat the lakers to the Western conference semi finals. Now they have the honor of being the first NBA team that I am a fan of. Not a mean achievement considering, when it comes to me, I am all! And Steve Nash, the two time MVP of NBA, becomes the first God representing basketball. He joins the likes of Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry, Roger Fedrer etc. in my personal and customized religion, which is an off-shoot of Hinduism.

That inspired me and the rest of the Chicago holiday was shooting baskets. My uncle has this mini basketball hoop installed in his garage. Thats good, but there are no ppl around; now how do I play? An idea struck. Me vs. me! I keep shooting, if I get three-in in a row, the good-me get a point, if I get three-out in a row, the bad-me gets a point. Like I said when it comes to me, its all about me! So me and me played some six games. Good-me won all of them, though two of them were pretty close 10-9, the rest were no contest.

It is a mile stone in my mini basket ball career. Phew! That's the silliest thing you have ever heard? Yeah me too. The moment when my in-probability goes higher than 50%. Hoping to repeat this tremendous success with the regular basketball also. Now that we are speaking in probabilese, the chances of my reaching that milestone are a modest 10%! Lets see if the game loves Me. :-)

The Chic Life: Episode I - In Love, It's ok to Fall

Well it is one of those childish titles. All I mean to do is blog about my four to five days in Chicago. There are only a couple of things I will write about . This is the first one; the second will be about basketball.

I went Ice skating. Well I came to Chicago promising myself that I will go to ice skating every other day. It was not a promise well kept. I had my limitations, transportation, transportation and transportation being the three major ones. It was over come, I just had to cycle myself across eight kms of suburban Chicago to reach the skating center. It was a good warm up exercise. I went in what are called public skating hours. I had to cycle back too, obviously.

This was my second time in the rink. The first time I went to a rink was in Atlanta, a much warmer (less icier) city on a Friday night, where as now it is in Chicago, where there are rinks every five miles. In that rink there were more than a hundred people here I was all alone. It was a wonderful feeling, standing alone on a big hockey field on flimsy skates, it was a white unspoiled world out there for me to leave my footprints on err.. skate marks on :-) Yeah, nothing comparable to leaving my finger prints on the Stanley cup.

I soon started to miss inspiration, I mean people. In Atlanta that is on my first date with skating, it was very inspiring to see all the people out there and it was very easy for me to step right into to the middle of the field and skate on for the next 10 feet after which I would fall.
By then I was in love, and in love, it is ok to fall. I saw her in the winter Olympics, it was love at first site. After a while, my inspiration was back, there was this small three year old girl who joined me on the rink, it was so nice to have someone smile to you, we were like two kids on a secret adventure. That made the rest a smooth sailing err.. skating.

Here are my tips for twenty three year olds comparing themselves to girls twenty years younger to themselves on skating rinks. The two things in ice skating (as you do not have much time to play it safe) are don't be afraid of a fall and don't be ashamed when you fall. After all what counts is after three hours on ice, now I can skate Mr. 'It-is-so-embarrassing-little-kids-can-and-we-can-not' can not. Apart from learning to skate, you will also develop a very good learner's attitude which I was taught gives you a lot of money in the long run. I made quite some money myself that way.

After sometime, I thought I saw a thin figure move smoothly across in a glass window, the size of a TV. 'Don't tell me there is another rink beyond that door there'. Another figure moves. I go over to the door (walking on blades is worse than walking in the proverbial 'tight shoes' trust me). Yup there it was another rink! Boy these Americans have a lot of money and a lot of infrastructure. Two rinks side by side ?

In the other rink were two couples moving at the speed of light (that is relative to mine, as einstine said everything is relative you know). They were moving so fast that their dresses were waving in the air. It is the next level. It is grad school for a freshman like me. Before you start envying them and all, they fall! Trust me they do. As I mentioned in a previous blog of mine, everybody falls, winners are who can rise faster. But they fall attempting things much more difficult, pushing the limits of what they can do, given two blades and ice.

If you are not falling, it only means you are not trying hard enough.