Princeton Junction, United and Murphy's Law

...'If something can go wrong...It always will'. This version of Murphy's law aptly applies to the sequence of events transpired during the past couple of days. It all started when I went to NYC (I was visiting my sis' family for a week) this saturday to meetup with few friends. It was snowing in the city (which I liked btw) and I wished I had a few more layers on me. Coming from California, we never expect how chilly the weather can be :) I was seeing BS after a gap of more than 2 yrs and so it was nice catching up and talking about old friends from school. Over the must-try-NYC-local- pizza I came to know that Sathish , another school friend, recently moved to NYC and so we called him up to meet us. But, he couldn't make it because the snow was too bad for him to drive from uptown to Times Square.

We met Rajesh and Sharad (both from UCSB...visiting NYC the same week!) at Tussads and bade good byes to BS and Sharad. After eating at an Ethiopian restaurant and checking out live music of a local band at a pub, we debated whether to go to a night club or head back home. And this is where Murphy springs into action.

First my iphone decided to die on me. The Jesus phone is amazing at a lot of things but battery life is not one of them. Since the last train from NYC to New Jersey is at 11:14 (isn't it ridiculous for a saturday night?) , I decided to crash at the hotel where Raj was staying for the night. Since I only remember munni's (sis) landline number by-heart and she was not at home, I took Raj's phone and left a voice mail on Vicky's (bro in Seattle) phone to pass on the message to munni that I won't be back home tonight. But at 10:40, since Raj wasn't in the mood we decided to skip club and head back home. I decided I would rather go home than crash at Raj's place and it was already 10:45! Anyway, we ran to the nearest sub and caught a train to Penn Station. By the time I reached the track, huffing and puffing, the train was already boarding! So, I asked Raj to email vicky (since he wasn't picking up his phone) and tell him that I am actually going home and that munni should pick me up at Princeton Junction. Now, all I wished was that vicky is going to check his email and call on munni's mobile and have me picked up.

But...when I reached Princeton, it was 12:30 and there was no one. The platform was dead empty except for a few ghostly souls and it was freezing. The waiting room was closed, so I didnt even have a warm place to hide. The only option was the pay-phone but I didn't have any change on me! Luckily one of the old ladies had quite some change and I exchanged it with a dollar note. Now, for some odd reason the damn phone wouldnt connect my calls to either Vicky or munni's landline (I thot they would have reached home by now) and so I called up the operator and gave my credit card number. I heaved a sigh of relief when I heard vicky's voice...I am not going to freeze to death here :)) Since I didnt have more change, I asked him to conference call munni's mobile and came to know that they were still at the party and would take 40 min to reach me!! No way,...so vicky looked up a NJ cab service online and put them through on the conference call. Fortunately, they had a cab somewhere near the station and hence I was on my way home.

During the ride, the curious cabbie wanted to know whether its true that if you take a girl to the Taj Mahal then she would fall in love with you. Not so easy bro. I said I never tried, so I didn't know. But we agreed its like the Eiffel Tower craze and just cheesy. After the cabbie dropped me off, the security code (munni gave me over the conf call) for entering the house didn't seem to work. I tried like 10 times and I thought I am going to freeze right here instead of the station. And there weren't any pay phones nearby either :) Just to make sure, I tried another door and as luck had it that door was open (it wasn't supposed to be..but earlier in the day I actually forgot locking it!). Wow..this was amazing...I entered the house and was glad I didnt trigger any security alarms.

Sunday evening. Time to leave to SB. As dumb as it sounds, I actually forgot to put my bag in the trunk of the car and realized it only after reaching the airport. Since there was no time to go back, we debated whether to intentionally miss the flight and weave a story to the United airline staff about traffic jam and how I missed the flight and get rescheduled to next day. But, I was wary of this option, because I already had an experience flying Standby (if you remember). So, I decided to go ahead and travel empty handed and have my luggage shipped next day. Reaching home, I realized my keybunch (along with my lappy and phone charger) was in my bag and so my house is locked! I slept at Ponnuru's place for the night and got a duplicate key from the apt office. Complying with the tradition, my car didn't want to start and needed a jumpstart . So now....I am using duplicate keys for my house and the lab...my phone is going to die soon...no laptop till my luggage is delivered on friday...car doesn't want to start...but hey it was a fun trip :)

The Dark Night

He swerved the car into the parking lot. The black shade of the car seemed to disappear into the shadows. It was dark outside. He stepped down from the car and looked around. It was deserted as he anticipated. He would have looked odd in this place, if there were people around. But there were none. Flickers of light in the nearby buildings told him all were still not asleep. May be its not time yet. He hesitated a moment.

Tiny droplets of sweat were beginning to break out on his forhead. He was slightly nervous. He held on to the cigarette, hoping it would calm him down. The ambers fell on his shoes like tiny snow flakes. Snow flakes...they brought back memories. It was a different time, a different place, a different life. How did he become the one he is today. He never thought capable of doing what he was going to do today. But, he had to do it. There was no other way. It was his calling. The phone call he got today gave him clear instructions. He was the chosen one!

He took a last puff and threw the cigarette away. He opened the boot and got the equipment out. It was not heavy. He wondered if it was really capable of doing what he was told it would do. He closed the boot, locked the car and began to haul the equipment to its destination. There was a military efficiency about how he did things. But, he was never in the military. His background and training were completely different. The training was excruciating. But he was glad, it was over and he could endure it. Not many did. He touched his back and a searing pain went through his spine, as if reminding him. The wound was fresh.

He setup the equipment in the abandoned ground. He looked at his watch. It was time, but he still didn't get the signal. Did something go wrong? He couldn't call back because he was never given a number. The sweat began to wet his side burns. He wished he could go back to his car and get another cigarette. But, he couldn't leave the equipment. He looked at the buildings...the flickers were gone, Everyone was asleep. He was relieved. May be it was better this way, when people were sleeping. He had principles. "Why do I still cling on to principles?After all...", his thoughts were cut off as his phone vibrated with an incoming text message. He got the code. He carefully punched it in the equipment. He let a deep sigh and pressed 'Enter'. It started transmitting...

Summer of '09

This is the low down on my summer this year. I know a few of you have been waiting for it and I am sorry its a little late than I anticipated. Anyhoo, where do I start. From my pre to previous post you might remember that I finally reached Mountain View (the bay!) on the 23rd June after going through a bunch of twists and turns.

So, this summer I was interning with Bosch Research Labs, Palo Alto on a vehicular networking project. I didn't realize it was aGerman company and moreover wasn't expecting more than a couple of Germans. But guess what, you should expect a lot of Germans (90%) if its a German company...not that its a bad thing :) Infact, I made quite a few good friends there and learnt a few things about them. They are hard workers...some to the brink of not having a life :) They are actually shy (and I thought Indians were the only kings of shyness). They are smooth talkers; don't get carried away by their less than mellifluous, throat wrenching baritone :)). Most of them are very friendly. I really enjoyed our backyard fountain lunches, bbqs and some dinners and kicking the ass of Volkswagen in our annual soccer match!. I even tried learning some German, as I did in Austria back in 2005. But, all I remember is "Arschloch", which is exactly what you think it is :).

Other than work, bay area was awesome for a lot of things. I would highly recommend it esp if you haven't been to the west coast before. The options for food, sight seeing, movies etc etc are endless. I haven't seen as many movies in the last 2 years as I have seen this summer, in theaters! And Its coming from me, who usually likes going to the movies. Food...yumm...I can't begin to describe it. I haven't eaten out this much, again. Part of the reason being, all my house mates were google interns where they get free food day in day out. So, I was the only one in the house cooking and I did any respectable guy would do. Stopped cooking and started eating out :) (j/k...I actually like coooking). The new cuisines I tried this time were Ethiopian, Mongolian and Japanese (I had sushi once before). Oh, and bay is the place if you like great Indian food!! Tons of great restaurants serving authentic biryani, kabab,mmmmm. Ok ok, lets stop salivating.

I made a ton of trips again. And, I usually travel a bit. I had quite a few of my ugrad friends here (LA, Vsky, MC, Archit) in the bay ,working and studying. It was great to catch up and hang out with them. Also, I had good roomates this summer (Anindya, Rajesh and Rip). Susmit and Kamal were in the bay too. KJ came for job hunting and stayed at our place for 10 days. All this meant, I always had company for trips. Lets see what I did...

I went to Seattle for attending SigComm, which was great. I really loved the ambience of the city, esp the downtown. Luckily summer is the only best time there...it rains 9 months! I stayed at Vicky's place (bro) and we did the usual touristy stuff and played tennis. Also, met KK and went for a beach, which was a joke. Sigcomm was also great, being a top conference and all, and it was good to finally see and meet the big shots in your field after reading their papers for so long. There was a cruise again...and all in all it felt like Vancouver all over again. Only this time, I didn't meet any cute girls :))

I did a good number of hikes too, which was awesome. I am begining to get addicted to outdoorsy thingies. Oh, we went to skydiving too which was an experience in itself. Its the most scariest thing I have done in my life so far, though it wasn't that scary (Anindya might disagree :P). We went to Napa Valley for wine tasting and scenic driving which was pretty interesting too. First time, I had 4 glasses of wine in my life (still a kid..I know). Mom and dad visited me for a few days (they were staying at Sis place in NJ) and I just had a weekend to show them the beauty of CA. Now, you have to understand that they were just coming after visiting Vicky in Seattle and getting impressed by the huge buildings of Microsoft and their huge parties. So, to impress them was a daunting task. So, I started them off with a good Indian restaurant which they really liked and felt at home (I know the right buttons :)). Then, I drove 300 odd miles over 2 days covering Monterey bay, Half moon bay, Santa Cruz and San Francisco. Needless to say they were pleased. Yay.

Oh this is getting longer than I expected. I will cut it here. I will do a part 2 if enough people are interested and/or I have the mood. And just to give you a preview, it includes my first ever camping experience, alcatraz trip, google as our rec-cen etc etc :))

Is it Just Me...

1. looking at people in nearby cars during red lights
2. prefer rolling down the windows to A/C
   
3. wondered why hot chicks always go out with jerks
4. stood in a corner in the club because you just can't dance with anyone
5. stared at the mirror in an empty restroom until someone walked in
6. you were lost so many times that there is no place left to be lost
7. wished you could turn the clock back
8. wished you could read her mind
9. hoped people were as interested in taking your pic as you are in theirs
10. thought life was unfair
11. wished things were more logical
12. wanted to grow up as fast as you can, when you were a kid...not sure now
13. missed childhood because the laughs were pure...people were nice...days under the sun and nights full of fun
14. never understood why your mom said you were a kid for some things and an adult for other
15. working all night gave you a high that nothing else ever did
    

...is it just me or any of these apply to you too? if yes, just write which numbers..so that I know I am not alone..or weird :)

Standby

None of my long trips are without twists. It all started during my trip to Tawang during the undergraduation where people thought we almost got killed. Then the Yosemite trip where we had to camp at the valley coz we couldnt hike back in the night. Tahoe trip, this spring break, wasn't so bad except for the fact that we got lost in an almost un-inhabited rural place, no street lights, no signs, gas needle touching the 'E' and no cellular signals. I never blogged about that trip but it was kinda scary. My current trip to New Jersey wasn't so adventorous but it had its own set of twists and turns.

It all started when I decided to visit my sis and bil (bro in law) and niece after my spring quarter and before I start my intern. 2 weeks before I was supposed to leave, my niece poured hot coffee on her which caused some pretty bad burns. Poor kid :(..but she is doing well now. This prompted my mom and dad to come from India to take care of her for a while (both bil and sis hav full time jobs). Coincidentally, they landed in NJ on the same day that I did and we pretty much had a family reunion (except vicky was debugging code at MS in Seattle). So, on the upside I was able to eat home made Indian food for 10 days...hehe!

Now, I planned to drive upto Niagara falls with a couple of friends on the weekend I arrived. But, my sis had arranged for a party at her house and invited a hell lot of frenz on the Saturday (Jun 14th). So, I couldn't escape the event and gave up on my hopes on niagara falls. Suddenly, next week, sis tells me that we (the family) has to visit niagara falls on Sat (21st) because she wanted mom and dad to see it. What a good daughter :)) The thing was, I had to fly that saturday from NJ to LAX and take a bus to reach SB the same night. And then, I had to drive from SB to Mountain View on sunday (6 hrs drive) and start my intern from monday. So, I was on a really tight schedule but the good daughter was not ready to take any of it. I finally gave in, canceled my ticket from NJ and bought a ticket from Buffalo (Niagara falls) to LAX for sat evening 4:30. The plan was to reach niagara by fri night and see the illumination and do whatever we can on sat till 3 ish and drop me at the airport. One thing led to another and by the time we reached niagara it was 2 am!! So we missed the illumination and the fireworks :(

Meanwhile, X (one of the 2 friends) informed me that he is visiting niagara falls with his gf the same weekend. So, we thought, great, we can meet and do something. Now, considering we reached at 2 I just had 11 hours with me including sleeping time. So, me and T planned that we can do some hike early in the morning like from 7 to 9 and then I can do the touristy things with my folks. Anyway, he never called me at 7 coz he was too tired to wake up, so we decided to fuck it and just meet somewhere near the park. Now, he didnt want my folks to catch him snogging his gf during the romantic boat tours so we decided to meet in private or in the off chance that we met in the company of my folks I promised that I would pretend that I didn't know him:)) But as always, nothing happened according to plan and we didn't even meet in the park, despite he calling me like 6 times and I calling him like 4 times. So, I did the (apparently world famous...in america everything is world famous ;)) Maid of the Mist and Cave of the Winds, which were awesome btw, and by the time we reached airport, my flight had taken off! I could take the next flight but my last connecting bus from LAX to SB would have been gone so I was little worried. Anyway, I took the next flight and reached Atlanta to catch the connecting flight to LAX.

Unfortunately, in Atlanta I was told that I was put on 'Standby' and my seat isn't confirmed till all the regular passengers are seated. I didnt know what the heck this standby was, never traveled this way, so I googled it up. Apparently, non-revenue passengers (airport employees ' families) and misconnected folks like me are put into this. Pain in the ass, basically. At 9 I was told that the flight was full and I had to "try" (again on standby) the next flight which was at 9:20 am the next morning. Great! I'm 12 hours late, will probably reach SB by 4pm sunday and then I have to drive immediately to bay area for another 6 hours. On the upside, I will have a connecting bus from LAX to SB now :))

Luckily, I had couple of good friends (Jaini and Anand) in Atlanta and I called up Jaini who just graduated from Gatech and was working at Yahoo. I stayed at his place for the night and caught the 9:20 plane to LAX. Yea, I was finally given a seat!

Now, currently I'm at LAX waiting for the airbus to SB and writing this crap to while away time :P. Hopefully, I will be in the bay area by tonight if there are no more twists and turns except on the US101 :). I have a love-hate relationship with these long trips. Buttttt, for better or worse, these are the things that add spice to the life...what say?

Update: Looks like fate hasn't done with me yet. I reached SB at 4 pm and started the engine of my car and it didn't start! I opened the hood and found a squirrel inside! I hoped it didnt eat any wires...tried jump starting with Ankur's car and it didnt work. Finally called AAA...they charged the battery and it worked like a charm. I finally started my drive at 7:30 and reached bay by 12 ish! Whew....

Conversation with the Bike Shop Guy

Today I went to the bike shop at our university to get the brakes tightened up. This, after I realized that those "Action Shoe" commercials, aired back in those days in India aren't very practical :) (The blokes in those ads stop their car with their shoe fitted feet scraping the road..and I used to do it on my bike:))).

Anyway, after telling him what to fix, we got into a conversation to while away the time. It went like this...

BSG: So what do you study...engineering?
Me: [aah..the sterotype] Well..Computer Science

B: I have heard they are having trouble finding more space on the ships?
M: Excuse me...ships..who?
B: Chips...The Intel guys
M: [Wow] Haha...I dont think so...Im sure they will find a way to increase the capacity.
B: But I think there wouldnt be space anymore..
M: They have been telling this for last 10 yrs..and they always found a way..they will
B: You mean by nanotechnology?
M: [Who is this guy] yea and quantum computing...blah


M: Did you study engineering?
B: No, I studied humanities. But I read stuff..I like learning every day
M: [Impressive]

B: So, do you want to start your own company?
M: Yea..I would love to. Its too early...I have to complete my Ph.D
B: You are in Ph.D? You look so young
M: [Thank you :)]
B: ...I am just kidding!
M: [WTF :)]

B: So what do you work on? software or hardware?
M: Umm..well..networks. I'm working on getting people connected while traveling in vehicles
B: Great...But don't distract the driver!
M: Haha..but it can be used by passengers too
B: But who wants network access while driving anyway?
M: Well..if there is an accident..you can get the info
B: Cool...But it has to be voice activated...shouldnt be touch based
M: [Man...this guy knows stuff] Haha...Yea it will be completely audio-visual..no touch..blah

B: Have a female voice on the device..and some soothing 'raagas' in the background
M: Haha
B: Guys will love it..they wont leave their car...their wives would say "Honey why are you always in the garage..."
M: Haha..but what about females?
B: You never know [with a wide grin]
M: [I could interpret this in thousand ways :)] Haha

Its always interesting to see how non-techie guys think about stuff...though this guy was no ordinary!

Are all friends created equal?

My cousin has been pestering me for quite some time to write something more intellectual (in her own words) than those I have been doling out on my blog lately. So, I am going to take a stab at something I have been pondering for a while now. I would probably be opening up the Pandora’s box but I am open to discussion/debate, as always. Ok…enough introductions already.

So, the question is “What is the mantra for a friendship to flourish”? If you go by the book, its when all the individuals involved have equal say in decisions and there is probably a common interest(s) that binds them together. It’s essentially a democratic process. While I agree with the common interest thingy, I differ about the former. In contrast, I think a friendship between two (or a group of) individuals flourish when, loosely speaking, there is a leader and a follower! From what I have observed in my life so far, when two individuals have strong opinions about something and are usually the type that would like to lead rather than to listen then the ego clashes would eventually arise. A close bonding friendship is seldom possible in this case. On the other hand, if one of the guys usually takes the lead in decisions and the other is willing to follow then a very close friendship will be formed. The decision making role can change from event to event and person to person but there always have to be, for any given decision, one that leads and others that follow. This last sentence might seem to be a convenient fit for our friendship model (to pamper our egos), but the problem is, a person who likes to take decisions usually wants to take a decision of his own in every event, irrespective of his expertise in deciding over an event. He wouldn’t be willing to follow someone. So, it’s not as convenient as you think. All, I am saying is leaders can’t be good friends.

This might seem outrageous at first but if you really look closely at friendships near you, I’m sure you will find this. I did. Now, it needn’t be as obvious a decision maker – follower model as I make it out to be; in fact often times than not this relationship is very subtle. The societal upbringing and our own egos probably wouldn’t allow us to see this because we were always told that a good friendship thrives when everyone involved has equal share in decision making. Not true. Why does a company need a CEO, why does a country need a President…can’t everyone involved make a decision? No. Because when everyone is (equally) involved in making a decision it’s hard to reach a consensus. This is actually known as "distributed consensus problem" in computer science. Allow me to be a little geekier, when I refer to the interesting Arrow’s theorem from one of the classes I took recently: In a voting based election, the only procedure that guarantees 3 crucial properties (transitivity, unanimity and independence of irrelevant alternatives) that any fair election should satisfy is Dictatorship! Not a majority, not pair-wise contests or anything…only dictatorship. If we keep aside the atrocities, oppression etc, and look from a pure decision making perspective I think dictatorship wins hand down compared to democracy in efficiency.

Now, I know that friendship is not only about decision making but involves lot of complex yet beautiful mixture of love, comfort, kindness, happiness etc etc, but trying to see from one view point is always interesting and gives us a perspective. To me, atleast.

Indian Food

As always, the gap between my posts keep increasing. One of the main reasons for this, I figured, is that I try to think too much about what I have to post. I try to think about the topic, whether it has to be intellectual, entertaining or plain non-sense. The other reasons being, I'm lazy and am busy... blah blah. Anyway, to cut it short, I decided to just post random short stuff more frequently than long spaced out stuff. Makes sense?

The reason for the title is, today Pon and Jalan invited over for dinner just before I decided to go out for dinner. And when I have to choose between home-made delicious indian food and any other food, the decision isn't difficult. So, I stayed back. And man, was the food delicious. Thanx guys!. I was remarking that, of all the varied cuisines that I tried so far in my life, none of them can beat Indian food. I know it sounds cool if I say I like some foreign cuisine like Italian, Thai or whatever, but if I said so, I would be lying. Maybe I am biased because I was born and brought up and was fed Indian, but seriously, how can you not like :)

I especially like the innumerable dishes that Indian cuisine has to offer...there are literally thousands of them. Every state/region of India has its own freaking dishes and styles. The intricate complicated recipes add to the allure. The aroma of the spices is enough to make one hungry. Its not your, "put noodles in hot water and add the sachet of spices". The convenience food that we get here is, lets say..just convenient. Nothing more. (Ok Ok..I do like different cuisines and enjoy the different tastes...but thats not the point) Cooking Indian food, on the other hand, is an art thats been perfected over centuries. You have to eat the authentic food to believe it. Enough said..this is going too long...

The Weekend

It was the weekend. The corridors and the hallways were all deserted. The HFH building didn't show any signs of the buzzing activity that goes on during the week days. It was a complete contrast. No one comes to the campus, much less the HFH, during the weekends. Well, may be some graduate students who are lured by the coffee machines in their labs or the prospect of watching movies on the big screen monitors in the lab. Some come to appease their conscience by working hard on weekends. Professors have mastered the art of making their labs conducive for the unsuspecting grad students to work 24/7. Grad students, on the other hand, mastered the art of sitting infront of the computer and yet not being productive. Talk about evolution.

It was a bright sunny day after a string of gloomy rainy days. I couldn't understand why would any one come to campus during this time of the day instead of basking out in the sun in the nearby beach. The beach was just a few meters away, so there's no excuse. Me, I came to drop off my homework in the homework box located on the second floor. As I dropped it, I could hear the faint clicks of keyboard strokes...grad students at work. Or infront of the computer. On an impulse, I wanted to go to the top floor and catch a view of the ocean from there. I took the stairs to avoid the boring elevator. As I peered from the glass window of the top floor..the beach never looked more beautiful. Filled with families having barbecues, kids playing un-meaningful yet funny games, surfers showing off their skills and pretty gals sun-bathing. Tiny specks of fishing boats were at a distance. The green mountains were soaking in the sun, keeping a fatherly eye on everything thats going on in the ocean. Its always peaceful and inspiring to watch the beach...especially when your day is not going right.

Reeling back to the reality...I headed towards the stairs. Then it happened. I heard the foot steps which were amplified by the empty corridor. I looked back and saw K coming towards me. K was a very good friend of mine. We did our undergrad at the same college. He was always jovial and fun to be around with. But, there was something wrong in the way he was approaching. There was no hurry, just cold determination. When he was close enough I could see his blood-shot eyes. There was no mistake. Something was definitely wrong. His quick steps suddenly changed into a brisk run towards me, as if to attack me. Without thinking I started running away from him. I had no idea whether he meant to harm me or whether I was just imagining it, but I didn't want to take any chances. As I ran through the convoluted corridor, I realized that there was no line of sight between us during brief moments when I turned into the next wings. The corridor was long and the wings were many. The elevator was at the back and the staircases were way ahead. He was running faster than me and my panic didnt allow me to focus my energy. My mind was searching for questions...wondering at the bizare turn of events...why was this happening to me?

As I turned into the next wing, I briefly lost sight of him behind me. In my hurry, I forgot to take a staircase that would have led me out of the building. There was another one, few meters ahead. But...it suddenly struck me as a flash...my heart skipped a beat. The hallway was eerily silent. It only meant one thing..K was not following me anymore. Where did he go? He might have taken the stairs I passed and might be waiting for me at the next staircase ahead. I could neither go back nor front. I was just stranded there unable to think what to do. I had to make a decision fast before time ran out. Then I saw a room to my left with its door partially ajar. Without thinking, I just ducked behind the door.Unfortunately, this door couldn't be locked from inside. Before, I could even move the door...I heard the foot steps again. I was trapped...I didn't make a move...I couldn't. He was close now...I could feel it...may be just infront of this room. Probably wondering where I vanished..or he already knew! Sweat trickled down my face onto my shoes. I prayed the drops wouldn't make a puddle near the door and draw his attention. I stopped breathing, so that the sound wouldn't give me away.

Why is K trying to harm me. Why is he so angry. Did he just snap after I made fun of him last night? It was made in good humor but it was not the first time people took offence at my friendly jabs. Of course, no one was offended enough to harm me. Not until now. These thoughts raced through my mind, as I held my breath hoping against hope that he would go away. After a few secs, I didn't hear any foot steps...it was completely silent again. I knew he was not near the room anymore. Has he gone? Or is he lurking at a corner just waiting for me to show up. I couldn't stay like this forever. I had to come out. Without making a sound I slowly came out from behind the door. I looked down the hallway to my right. No sign of life. Then I looked to my left. A silver light flashed on my eyes momentarily blinding me. I closed my eyes with my hand for a second. There he was, waiting for me patiently like a lion waits for its prey. The light was a reflection from the metal he was holding in his hand. It was a knife!!! He lunged at me and I knew I can't escape this time. As I tried to run, the metal scraped my back...but it was not deep. I wondered why he didn't kill me yet. I looked back and saw that N was holding K back. N came from no where. N was another friend of mine. He now pinned K to the wall and I could see K was wriggling to get free. But his stare was fixed at me. Then A came. I remembered A worked a floor below and he probably heard the struggle from his lab. Now A and N were holding K down. No one said a word. Everyone understood what they had to do...or may be everyone was clueless. There was no rope to tie K down and I motioned A to get one from his lab. A left us and went down to get the rope.

Only 3 of us were left. Me, N and K. N was holding K down on the floor. He was still struggling. I saw the backpack K had dropped just a few feet away and proceeded to see what it contained. I didn't dare to be near K, even though he was not free now. I hoped the backpack contained some clue about the way K was acting.I wanted to make some sense out of all this madness. While I was rummaging through the bag, I caught a glance of the knife that was lying on the floor next to N and A. Its tip was slightly red from the scraping of my back. I didn't find anything in the first two compartments of the bag. There was only one more compartment left to check. I looked back to see how N and K were doing. For a fleeting moment, it seemed to me that N and K were staring at each other. As if, there was some unspoken agreement between them. May be I was just hallucinating after all that I went through. N was a friend of mine. He could never harm me. I started searching through the last compartment and suddenly I heard the sound of metal scraping the floor. I was paralyzed for a moment. I took a sideward glance. The knife was no longer there...

Looking back....An Adieu to 2007

The year started with an inspiring experience of New years at the Times Square, with a friend of mine, Tushar. The 10 hour of standing out there in the cold that night was well worth it. Mom was still recuperating from her foot fracture that she had in DC, which eventually delayed mom and dad's return journey by a month and I bet munni (sis) wasn't complaining for the additional time she got to spend with them!

The winter and spring quarters were filled with the usual academic stuff with me trying to find my niche in research and an advisor to work with. On the extracurricular front, I took up guitar classes which turned out to be a dud and I had to drop out. I followed this up with beginners tennis classes the next quarter which was relatively ok but still useless as it was too basic. Spring break saw me going to a trip with ISA to Las Vegas and Grand Canyon which was fun. I met a lot of international students and it was a good socializing.

Spent the summer interning at Citrix Online, a local company, working on peer to peer connections and the stint was both fun and interesting. Fun included an overnight camping trip at nearby woods and building a functioning boat to row in the ocean! Also, met some cool people working at Citrix and was able to practice my ping pong there. God, I'm not sure how many hours I wasted playing ping pong during that whole 3 months ;)

Summer was great not only because of the weather but I got to meet a lot of my undergrad friends (Jaini,MC,Gopi,Tushar,Nikhil,Nune) and bro doing their interns in CA. We went around bay area and then came down to LA to Universal Studios. Gopi came down to stay with me for a week and me and Vicky went to Sandiego for sightseeing. Middle of summer took me to a beautiful city, Vancouver in Canada for my 1st conference talk after coming to US. Had a great time there (no not the conference...sight seeing) esp. with a new found friend, Anya (thanx for the sushi...but u still have to pay my bills and i didn't forget about the jacket..lol).

Fall quarter was nothing unusual...except for the dance performance for diwali celebrations. The 2 weeks practice paid off in the end, I think. Went to NJ to celebrate Ragni's (my niece) 1st birthday. Also research wise, I found my advisor and I kinda know what/where my research is going. Vicky (bro) graduated recently and I came home to spend the winter break with my folks, visiting Singapore on the way with Lee.

All in all, this year seemed similar yet it was so different. There were many firsts but I guess its bound to be. Personally, I think my perspectives have changed a lot regarding how I want my life to be. On a materialistic note, I visited lot of places, met some really cool folks and had some wonderful memories. There were neither major setbacks nor impressive successes. 2007 didn't suck but I hope 2008 would be better, as always..the optimist.

Trip to Yosemite

After an admittedly crappy post last time...I decided to write about more familiar territory...our long weekend trip to yosemite. For those of you that have no idea, Yosemite is one of the amazing national parks on the California-Nevada border and houses the Sierra-Nevada ranges. For hiking lovers, it has about 800 miles worth of hiking trails in it (ok i got to tell that this info was given by our shuttle driver/guide). Anyway, for any trip to be enjoyable there has to be a group of people and you know how hard it is to get people move their asses esp. the graduate kind! After countless emails and phone calls, I could finally convince 4 of my friends on thursday (we had to leave on saturday!). Now you have to know that it was a long weekend on a summer and yosemite gets crowded like hell and there was no way we could get accommodation for cheap, if at all we get. One of my main ideas was to set up a camping tent or two and really enjoy the experience (never camped before in my life:(). But since the group was finalized just 2 days before I could only get a hotel room 15 miles from the south entrance of the park.

Day 1:

Our (Me, Sandeep, Anindya, Naveen and Sarath) journey began on saturday morning because Naveen and Sharath had to come from sandiego by friday night. We rented a car from enterprise for 3 days and had two designated drivers (me and anindya). It was a 315 mile journey from SB to Yosemite and Andindya decided started driving. After almost 130 miles, his reserves were out and when it was decided he was going to kill us if he drove any longer, I took the steering wheel. This was my first time driving long distance, so was a little skeptical. Except the CA-41 highway which was too narrow and scary as shit, I guess I was ok. We reached our hotel by 3pm and to our surprise the hotel was different. It was an old rustic looking place managed by some old people and had this quaint laid back country feeling which immediately got us into the holiday mood. We dumped our stuff in the room and set out for the park in our car after taking some directions from the hotel. The manager was kind enough to give us the admission pass for the park free of cost (it was $20 per day). Yosemite park is a behemoth of a place and even in car it takes anywhere from 2-4 hours to reach places that you want to see. Our first stop was the "Glacier Point" at about 7000ft high which has an awesome view of the entire park (the valley, a couple of waterfalls and the half-dome). After taking our fair share of crazy pictures it was almost getting dark and we set out to return. But there were telescopes set up by some astronomy enthusiasts who were more than happy to show people jupiter and its 4 moons on their telescopes. This was my first time to watch jupiter from a telescope and believe me it was freaking awesome. Then we sat down for a presentation about astronomy by some ex-NASA guy who dressed up like a witch. But after 1 hour of wearing the 3d goggles and darkness we had enough and decided to go back to hotel. Since it was totally dark and we had to drive down the hill with sharp u-turns, we asked Naveen to drive (he had more experience and we didnt have balls!). After eating pizza at a nearby restaurant and some power bar/gatorade shopping for the next day hiking we crashed into our beds and promised to get out of the hotel by 7, the next day!

Day 2

I did get up at 6:30 and got ready by 7 :) but by the time all the others got ready (bad thing, everyone decided to take a bath) it was past 9! After having an american style breakfast at the hotel we headed to the park to start our hike. I called up my friend Tushar who had been here before and asked him about the best and doable (he did a 18+18 mile half-dome hike!!)hikes. We decided to do the Panorama + Mist trail hike (8.2 miles -- 6-7 hours) from the glacier point down to the valley. Trouble was, since we started so late we couldn't even get tickets to the shuttle that took us from the valley to the glacier point. We had to take a shuttle because there was no way we could hike 8.2 miles down from glacier point to valley and 8.2 mile back up !! So, we had two choices, either do a small 4 mile hike which starts and ends at glacier point or do the 8.2 mile hike and go down to the valley. But since the last shuttle from valley back to glacier point is 1:30 pm we had to stay in the valley for the night and take the shuttle next day morning, if we decided to do the big one. Luckily (because it was so crowded) we were able to reserve a tent cabin in the valley for the night and decided to go for the big hike. We couldnt even cancel our original hotel reservation because all our stuff was there and we didnt have time to go back to the hotel and vacate. So we had two rooms that night!

By the time we started at the trail head at the glacier point it was 1:20 pm and we were all excited and raring to go. After 2 miles of downhill hiking and clicking innumerable pics we reached a water hole. We got enthralled by it and kinda gone overboard and spent almost an hour playing in the water and taking pics (this costed us later as you will soon see). Then started the 2 mile uphill and undoubtedly the difficult part of the trek. Huffing and puffing and taking pit stops for water breaks we finally managed to the uphill. The main reason we took this trail was because it passes through 3 waterfalls (Nevada, Vernal and Illilouette) and the views are unbelievable. When we reached Nevada falls we were more than half-way through our journey and totally exhausted, so couldnt resist the temptation of taking a dip in the pond there!! After 20-30 min of swim in the cold water, we got revitalized and resumed our journey. Mist trail starts from here and god was that steep. Almost a mile of this trail was just steep rocks with no proper trail and it was little creepy. Then we got to Vernal Fall and it was so close that it was breathtaking. It was 7 already and there was an hour's journey left with sun already going down. We were literally racing against the twilight and it was little scary to hike in dark but we managed to reach the valley by 8pm in darkness. The rest of the night included catching sight of a bear (another wish come true!!) , me accidentally entering a womens' restroom (in my defense i was too tired to look at the sign :)) and finally crashing in our tent-cabins (closest we came to camping).

Next day, we had an american breakfast (loved it) and took a shuttle from valley to the glacier point. The driver/guide kept blabbering about the facts of yosemite valley as they usually do and i almost dozed off after listening to his endless drone. Then...drove back to hotel..vacated...returned to SB by evening. A great trip and when I come to think about it was actually more fun and exciting because we didnt (couldnt) plan a lot of it ahead. My friend says its more fun when its unplanned...maybe its right!!!

More pics at: http://picasaweb.google.com/vinodkone/yosemite

Some misgivings with English

Don't get me wrong...I like English. Those beautiful expressions with a play of words always get me. Infact, that's the main reason I read novels... I love the way authors express certain things which completely takes the reading experience to a new level. But having said that, English is one of the most ridiculously difficult languages to learn, esp. to speak. I am never sure how a newly encountered word should be pronounced. The problem lies in the fact that, many a time, there is no correlation between how you write a word and how you pronounce it. For example, how am I supposed to know that 'Calle' is supposed to be pronounced with a 'y', when a 'pillar' or a 'collar' have their double l's intact. If you want 'll' to be pronounced as a 'y', why can't we just have the word as 'Caye' and get done with it already. One of the reasons for this inconsistency is the fact that lot of words in English have been incorporated from other languages like Spanish, Arabic etc. Ok, I can agree with that to an extent but that excuse is not entirely true. For one, instead of blindly incorporating words from a foreign language into the English vocabulary, we can adapt them to suit the nativity. Second, this ludicrousness is not limited to imported words...what about those silent k's in 'knight', 'know' etc. I don't think these are foreign words...so I don't understand whats the need for a letter to be present in writing but silent when speaking. How simple would life be, if we had words like 'nite' and 'no' (ok, this second guy has a different meaning already..but I guess you got my point). And don't even get me started on the various styles of English out there, like U.S, U.K etc.

In that regard, I love the other two languages that I know, Hindi and Telugu. The beauty lies in the fact that What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG). If you tell me any new word in these languages, I can exactly tell what it looks like in writing (with a high probability...i am copping out here). I think its easy to learn a language if its like this. If I come to think about it, the reason why these Indian languages are not as ridiculous as English is probably because of the existence of a large number of 'vowels' (if they can be called so). English has just 5 (a,e,i,o,u) but Telugu and Hindi have loads of them. What this means for us, is there are lot of combinations of vowels and consonants that one can play with and coin new words...no need for those strange rules and silent/differently pronounced letters. On the flip side though, it might take a bit longer to learn the alphabet but its worth it as long as its not too extreme. I was once told by my Chinese lab mate that their alphabet has 100s of letters if not 1000s and they take like 3 years to master it!!! Needless to say I didn't sleep for next two days :) I wonder how those guys chat in IMs. God bless those 'em.

For English, though the alphabet is shorter the import is very high. But, thats one of the side effects of trying to make a language universal,.....it has to cater to all the sensibilities. Since, I cannot influence the 'whoever' defines the English language and its rules... I guess I have to deal with my love-hate relationship with it.

Thanks...But No Thanks

Living on the western side of the globe has its share of eccentricities involved. The first thing that amazed me , and later pissed me off, is the so called "courtesy" of this culture. They find it imperative to inject "thank yous" and "sorrys" in almost every damn thing. I mean, saying it when its due is one thing but using it for just the heck of it is........well..... useless. It was so ridiculously (mis)used that sometimes I used to get confused whether the mistake was mine or the other person offering me his "sorry". When I accidentally hit you and you say sorry then you got to be kidding me.

Anway whats the deal with all this superficial bull shit. I don't get it. Back home in India, things were simple. If I made a mistake I would apologize...if someone did something good to me that they were not obligated to do then I would offer my gratefulness. For example, I never remember thanking my bus driver for driving me to school...coz it was his duty..he was obligated to do that..he's being paid for that. Same goes with waiters in restaurants, shopkeepers etc. This might seem uncultured to some of you...but I dont think there's anything wrong with this culture. Atleast in our place...if someone said Thankyou or Sorry it meant a lot...it would really have an impact. Now, in USA, if someone says the same, I seriously dont give a fuck...because I know they dont mean it and they say it just for the heck of it. So whats the point of saying it..when there is no impact of it on the other person...just for the sake of courtesy. It seems so superficial. If these everyday thanqs and sorrys make your day...by all means have fun. I hope it doesnt become another "boy who cried wolf" story..where people don't care even when you mean it from the bottom of your heart (pardon the cliche).

Strange thing is, I'm so battered with all these courtesies for the past one year that I am gradually, and unfortunately, getting used to it. I have almost reached a point now, wherein I would feel indignant if some one isn't courteous (read TY and S) and on the other hand dishing out courtesies to other people has become involuntary. Grooving in is always a difficult thing to do....being adaptive and holding on to one's identity is always an eternal struggle and one has to be cautious when treading the thin line between them.

po(u)wnce

Today someone in our office sent a mail to the mailing list that he is giving out invites to a "pownce" and asked people not to bother about it if they don't know about it! For a second I thought..rather guiltily...What the heck is this pownce? Is it something basic every geek is supposed to know and I don't? Now, I admit that I am not neck deep into the latest happenings of the websphere but I do tend to pick up things here and there during my daily dose of net surfing. Anyway, turns out this is some new web-application, ( pownce ), whose lead developer is a chic named Leah Culver (looks good btw)! Yeah I know ... female .. developer .... good looking...thats an epic combination..thats one of the main reasons I decided to check it out. Also, since the digg guy (Kevin Rose) is behind this..the expectations are kinda high ...after seeing the overwhelming response (err..requests) to my invites. my colleagues were pouncing for the pownce, hence the title.

Having said that, I dont really understand the USP of it. I mean the site says we can transfer files, send links, notes and events to friends. But I can already do all of this with my gtalk or ym..so why bother? for the free account the file size is limited to 10mb....atleast gtalk doesnt have any limit afaik. I dont understand whats the big deal about sending links..aren't they messages (or notes in their lingo) anyway? Sending events to friends is probably new (I don't think ym or gtalk have this option) and cool...but I am used to facebook events.

Probably it is too early to comment on the site...or rule it out...or I just don't get it. If any of you have any comments let me know...my ears are open. Oh yeah, if you want an invite lemme know..I can probably get one for you from some of my frenz. In the meanwhile...I wish the pownce team all the best.

so far so good

I was waiting for a profound topic to blog about but I decided to write something anyway coz its been already 3 months since my last post. And yeah, I didn't want you guys to keep checking my site and turning off dejectedly every day ?! :P

So my summer break has begun a coupla weeks back and as such given me yet another excuse to relax my tendons. The first week was busy with moving outs...first from my apt to Rajdeep's place (temporary) and then to my summer abode near the place of my internship. We caught up on Oceans13 on the weekend, just for the heck of it...though we were pretty sure it sucked despite the all star cast....our only reason being there was no better alternative. I am actually wondering whether there are any good flicks at all this summer...infact I haven't seen a good one after Departed.

This weekend was more catching up...this time old frenz from not so distant iitg and dear ol' bro. I travelled up north to bay area for the first time, after coming here! Though the journey was a long 8 hours I managed it with chit chat with a fellow passenger, a book (When will Jesus bring pork chops -- George Carlin) and yea some sleep. Met our (me and vicky's) high school friend Shwetha, after 7 yrs! Somehow I didn't get to meet her back in India for some reason or other, so it was good to finally meet up. We all had dinner together before she zoomed off to LA. Come next day, met Jaini, Nune, MC, Nikhil and Tushar (iitg buddies) in SFO. We did Union Square (didnt understand what to see here), Fisherman's Wharf, Golden Gate and China Town. We all headed back to Berkeley for the night as most of our folks were living there. We had dinner at an Indian place called 'Pasand'....ate idli and dosa after almost 6 months...so was happy about it though it wasn't that great. We (except nune, who skilfully skipped and dozed off in Jaini's room ) then played cards (bluff and some new game, coined on the spur by Tugga, as 'wrist') on the terrace of Jaini's apartment complex. We called it a day at about 12 pm and me and bro crashed at MC's place for the night.

We planned to do some china town again the next day morning, but I couldn't coz I had to hurry back to San Jose for my Grey Hound back home. Unfortunately, also missed the famouse GLBT parade in SFO...though could snatch a glimpse of it while changing stations. Next week Gopi is flying down from canada and am planning a trip to LA with bro and his friends. All in all, a good start to a hopefully great summer.....as i said...so far so good. For those interested...some pics are at Vicky's

People love to show sympathy

hey am bak! am almost done with my winter quarter...just a project paper submission left and some TA work. am waiting for the spring break and the trip to vegas and grand canyon..yay

anyway...this time i wanted to talk/write about people's love to show sympathy. yeah..you heard it right...people actually love to show sympathy. though many of us wouldn't agree or probably may not realize it there is an inherent inclination towards it. if you have a friend or relative in some trouble, you would actually like to give him advice, fundaes , make him feel better etc. In all probability you would become more close to him than before when he/she was not in any trouble. So subconsciously you want people to need you and hence perhaps actually want them to be in a little trouble! this may sound over-stated but i believe its true...whether you agree or not. The reason for this is probably the self-high one gets by helping others. The mere thought of helping others makes people feel good about themselves. when you come to think of it, its actually selfish! its more about you than the person you are helping. i actually read somewhere that parents are in general more attached to the kid who needs them. that is to say..if you don't actually depend on them for a lotta things they probably wouldn't be that close to you. i don't know how much of is it true...am too young for that.

thinking about this the other day, i was actually wondering what kinda people are more attractive. if you think people who are almost perfect, too-good-to-be-true, fully independent etc are the types who attract others then you are terribly wrong. on the contrary , i think people who have some flaws actually get more attention. thats because being not perfect actually is more "humane" (though i dont agree with that, but we wont go there for now) and appealing. if you are lacking in something, you will need someone to fill that gap. now don't get me wrong here..am not saying that you need someone only if you have some drawbacks. rather am asserting the point that, you having some drawbacks is actually attractive to others. if you are too-good then the other person cannot help you and hence cannot feel good about himself. For example, lets take the case of drinking. if you are a tee-totaler and have been complete sober all your life then you don't attract anyone. on the other hand, if you drink and lose control of yourself you probably would have lot of friends. your friends actually like to take care of you when you are completely wasted. they might admonish you the next morning but they still like it. thats because you need their help, they get their high and the balance is perfect!

i often wonder why some jerks who obviously have lot of non-desirable qualities have good (number of) friends. perhaps this is the reason. i don't know. the bottom line is people don't want you to be perfect. they want you to be flawed, infact everyone to be flawed...so that there is a reason for you to depend on others. thats how this system works. now before, you say the killer "Nobody is perfect"...let me say that's not the point of this topic. i know that nobody is perfect. So why am i saying all this? beats me...

my heart goes on....

for all those of you for whom this matters...happy valentine's day. and for all the others, like me, whatever. every year...feb 14th comes and goes by...but (un) fortunately its not a different day in my life. there is nothing out of ordinary that i do. i admit,though, that its nice to see the love birds scrambling in gift shops and flower boutiques trying to give a present to their special some one and express their love.

i wanted to raise this question today which has been bugging me for quite some time now. forgive me for being totally un-romantic on this day for bringing this up. but i thought this is the right time...anyway the question is "Why is love associated with heart?" I thought love was a feeling like any other emotion....and every feeling originates and culminates in brain. So, whether you love someone or not, its a thought process and seems logical to be associated with brain. Where does heart come into picture? I don't think it can think! Can it? Someone told me that brain has some nerve endings which go into heart and these emotions are carried on those nerves. So when the brain generates any emotions the signals are carried to the heart and it might be biologically affected. probably thats the reason of increased heart beat / pulse rate when you see someone you love. why is the dear brain neglected and not given any importance in this phenomenon then? why does heart get all the credit? i always believed brain is one of the most complex structures in the human anatomy and should be given its deserved respect. if you had to choose between heart and brain...what would you choose (assuming you would be alive with only one of those)? i would go with brain ...whats life when you are not able to think?

so when people say "you dont have a heart" or "he thinks with his mind rather than heart" what it essentially means is that part of brain which deals with emotions is responsible. thats how i see it . now dont get me wrong, i love the heart shaped balloons and all those beautiful songs written on heart and love...but it just gets me thinking you know. why did our ancestors romanticize the heart and not the brain. i dont have a clear answer...i hope you would give it a thought next time someone says something about the romantic-heart. if u have something to comment i would be glad to discuss.

anyway...i wish you all a happy valentines day once again. hope u get to celebrate it with your loved ones. ... luv V

about me....

though every time i blog, i promise myself and my paltry viewers that i would put up stuff more frequently from now , i never get around doing it. so this time i wont make any promises...but i would try (again a promise?). lately i have been reading this interesting blog by an anonymous blogger who calls herself "Violent Acres" (u can find the link in my link's section). apparently this blog has raked up lot of interest and web traffic due to its "devil may care" nature of the writing. i wud recommend this to people who have some time to spare...anyway without further ado i will delve into the topic i want to write about.

i have often described the "about me" sections of various social networking and other such websites with corny statements like "its tough to describe oneself", "simple man with complex tastes" and off late "currently retrospecting". i think it was my defense mechanism to avoid trying to answer the question directly. infact i never gave much thought about it. am sure most of the people out there fall into this category. at last i have decided to describe myself , more for the benefit of myself than others.

when people write "about me" sections...what they write is what they think about themselves probably not what they actually are. i hope u agree that there is a difference. so what i am writing now is what i think about myself. to start with...i am a very conventional person i.e., a normal person, i don't want to be a rebel - don't want to be different just for the heck of it. am what a person is supposed to be, atleast according to myself. i hate it when people say but i am only a human being or am not a saint when they do any mistake. i simply fucking hate it. am not saying that one is not allowed to do mistakes...but one has to take the full responsibility of one's actions but not blame the human nature. when u say "i can't stop drinking coz am only human" or "i cheated on my girl because its only human to get attracted to other woman" etc etc...i would simply say "Fk U". perhaps am influenced by the notion of a true man by Ayn Rand ...but thats me. coming back...am not a very emotional person...i don't believe in cheesy talks or mushy-gushy things. if you are truly attached to a person it should be in your heart whether or not you express it cheesily. i agree that expression is important but am sure if a person truly understands you, he will know how attached you are even though u won't express it in words. as a side note...am not a very expressive person either as u might have guessed by now. also....i think more with my mind than my heart, (i want to write a blog about how a heart can think... in future)for better or worse. what i mean is, if a person very close to me makes a mistake and a complete stranger is doing right i would most probably support the stranger. unconditional love is not something i can fathom. and...i cannot hate a person no matter what.in my 22 yrs of life so far, there is no single person i hate ...being mean and hating a person in this short life...i think is a waste of time. adaptive is an adjective i would like to describe myself with...i can adapt to almost any situation and become part of a group easily even if the groups are on extreme ends of the spectrum.

my well wishers want me to be smart but i want to be good. smart is the one who achieves what he wants, no matter what affect that has on others...good is the one who might not achieve his goal because it hurts others. strangely this world admires smart people... they don't care whether u r good or not. god bless people. one thing i would like to change about myself is not being assertive... i want to be but somehow can't. instead of arguing i just shut the fuck up and hope the other person will understand in due time. being cool is a phrase i don't approve of either....atleast in the form its currently being perceived. wtf is being cool anyway? if acting as if you don't care what happens...or trying to look carefree in the eyes of your peers is cool..then i don't want to be cool. if you like what you are doing ...thats cool for me. and finally i would end this with what my friend Sai aptly described about me "i am the kind of a person who would like to play the game within the rules...and don't care for the result".

An eventful winter break....

This winter 06 break had been very wonderful for me. Apart from finally being to get a break from the grind of grad school routine, I got to meet my new born niece, Ragni (meaning: Cosmic goddess J). After a long time and not probably sooner again, we had a family reunion! Though this is kinda strange, the point is, me studying in west coast, my bro in raleigh, sis’s family in nj and mom and dad in India, it some times becomes difficult…believe me. We were all very happy to get back together and share some laughs like good ol’ times.

I would like to put down the events as chronologically as my notorious memory would remember them. Me, vicky (bro), BIL (brother in law, coined by my bro) and a friend of his kicked off the weekend with some street cricket. We were joined by a coupla awestruck kids who perhaps thought it was some kinda of weird baseball variation. God bless America ;). Anyway we let them join us and tried to teach some impromptu nitty gritty basics and all went well. At the cost of sounding pompous, I would say I rocked at the game that day :D. Then came nune , kj (my undergrad mates) and kiran (nune’s roomie) and we planned NYC trip. On the first day we covered Times Square and Madam Tussads (the NY branch) which was really good. The horror room was really scary and we were glad to come out alive (just kidding). After posing with all the wax chics we could lay our hands on (literally!), me and kj moved to empire state building. It was nothing like I imagined (which mostly happens with these hyped structures) but we got a good bird’s eye view of NY at nite. On the next day we could only cover statue of liberty, due to some stupid mix up of ours (me and kj) in the subway trains. Then in the evening, our BIL rented a SUV and we drove off to DC. DC and VA were more beautiful than I thot (a paradox!?). We did the Air n Space and Natural History museums, the capitol hill and white house (from very far). When we were returning back to NJ, mom slipped from steps infront of the house and fractured coupla toes in her left foot. We had to scramble to reach the ER of a nearby hospital and relieve her of the by-now unbearable pain. She had a casting done for her foot coupla days later and now my parents had to postpone their journey back home from jan 18^th to feb 15^th, for better or worse. I bet my sis is happy that they can stay more time with her. Then all the males of our family went to Atlantic City to do some gambling! The unlucky person I am, I was quite shocked to won $225 profit in the roulette (if you know that game) within an hour at Trump’s plaza! Whoaa! We followed some weird strategy of our dad…and it worked…it was not logical...but who cares!

Then came the new years and NY in NY was gr8. Tushar (another undergrad mate) and myself spent the 31^st nite at the Times Square and the crowds were unbelievable. We were lucky to get a place right infront of the concert stage (where Christina Augerilla and others performed) and near the place where the ball drops. We also met some interesting folks and had nice fun, if you don’t count standing for 10 hrs on a windy day without having access to rest rooms J. All went well, my only complaint being that the sound system of the concert absolutely sucked. It was as if the concert was meant for the TV viewers…crap. Anyway…that’s how my winter break was...and currently am on my flight back to SB via Salt Lake City. Back to the grind of grad school. Btw…am now sitting between two not-so-good-looking chics…the pervert I am!

Hey Ram...

Finally, am able to write this piece after a long hiatus....mainly delayed due to my persistence to wait till I get my new notebook. My ThinkPad has arrived and theres no more excuses to prolong this further,so here it goes....

Foreword:
The full credit to the (short) story goes to my wonderful grandfather, who penned this story during the times of freedom struggle of India and got it published in a national newspaper! Am just rephrasing this story in my own words with some modifications to the original story. Am dedicating this to my lovely grandpa and grandma.


Disclaimer:
All characters in this story are fictional and any resemblance is a mere coincidence :)

The Village:
It was the night of august 1947 when India was being given, or rather has been fought for, the much deserved freedom after almost 350 years. Gandhiji , armed with the weapons of non-violence and non-cooperation was able to convince Indians to finally unite against the colonial rule. Miraculously the system worked and Britons were forced to quit. It was the time for celebration, the home coming of many great heroes who fought for the country, lived and died for it. A young but ambitious secular India was born.

Though India was able to successfully vanquish their external foes it wasn't able to stay united, the only force which was the sole reason of its freedom. There was a growing unrest among two major religions of the society, the hindus and the muslims. The slogan of "Hindu Muslim Bhai Bhai" (hindus and muslims are brothers), the driving force behind the freedom movement, was no longer seen as valid. Disruptive forces within the country demanded for a separate country for the Indian Muslims. Unfortunately, the top brass of the Indian leaders decided to partition India into India and Pakistan and the worst nightmare began.

A village on the eastern border of India was witnessing the pain of the partition. The villagers were an equal mix of hindus and muslims living together peacfully. They never dreamt that they would be separated by fate and miss their dearest friends. For them, religion didn't hold any water....atleast till the partition movement. Rumours were spreading in the village that a train carrying hindus from pakistan was burnt by the muslims. Hearing this, the hindus of the village seethed with anger and were seeking revenge. Rumours were again spreading in the village that, some muslims were attacked by un-identified youth while they were returning from mosques after their daily prayers. No one knew the truth, all were rumours, but no one cared! The situation was going out of control.

On this particular night, the atmosphere was particularly tensed. The dead bodies of Amir and Ravi were found floating on the lake in the night. The bodies were sent to the respective families for the final ceremonies. Both the bodies were terribly bruised as if beaten to death by someone. There were no visible marks of any weapons but the bodies were mangled. The muslims of Amir's community blamed the hindus of brutally killing their son. Nobody saw a hindu attacking Amir but again no one wanted a reason (the truth being, both Amir and Ravi were secret friends playing near the lake when both of them accidentally drowned in the water. The bruises on their body were the courtesy of the fish and reptiles in the lake). It was decided that they would kill any hindu spotted on the streets tonight. They wielded the butcher's knives and ran amuck in the streets like mad men. Soon, the hindus came to know that their people were being attacked in streets by muslims and they weilded their own weapons. A riot ensured in the peace loving village and blood flowed like water in the streets. The red of the blood defied the black of the night.

A young girl was coming back from her friend's place on this fateful night oblivious of the blood shed going on. On her way home, she saw dead bodies on the side of the roads and was scared to death. She could see a few people with daggers running towards her shouting "Maaro Maaro" (Kill her, Kill her). She didn't know if the people were hindus or muslims, she didn't care. She just wanted to stay alive for the night and started running towards a dilapidated house with no lights. The house was empty and start dark, so she went inside and hid behind a cupboard. The people saw her movements, and came running towards the house. They called her to come out of the house or they would burn the house. The girl didnt budge, she knew she would be killed if she came out. She stayed put. These people were the relatives of Ravi and were in no mood to let any muslims stay alive tonight. They didn't know how many people were inside the dark house and hence didn't dare to go inside. They poured kerosene all over the house and summoned the gal one last time, "Bahaar aajao warna ghar jalaa denge" (Come out or we will burn the house). The gal was frigthened to death to move. She stayed behind the cupboard. With no response, Ravi's relatives lit the house and started to run away. As they began to turn round the corner they froze on hearing the dying girl's final scream reverberated in the air, her final prayer to her god,"Hey Ram......." .