It's only words...and words are all I have...err...I have photos as well...

I love the way you love me - 2

2011-05-02T01:34:00.000-07:00

I love the way you say you're not ready
and then call me close to kiss and flee
I love the way I understood
what you miss the most in your childhood
I love the way to make it granted
I get for you all that you ever wanted
I love the way you say I’m not your boyfriend
and then sit on my lap and touch me all over
I love the way I reply you are not my girlfriend
and then caress you in the night under the cover
I love the way you try to convince me
that I care about your heart
I love the way I ask
what makes you so sure sweetheart ;)

The Nth-Order April Fool

2011-04-01T23:59:00.000-07:00

Some pranks I really appreciate but most are really not that interesting. I think saying something that is not true and be exhilarated about that others believed it is lame and ordinary. For eg just saying to someone hey see there is a lizard behind you and she turns back to see it and you start shouting April Fool .. April Fool .. this is very kiddish. There is absolutely no originality and any tension related to the confusion whether it's true or untrue. I am not boasting but mostly out of laziness when I used to be inactive and somewhat fat and lazy kid, such a joke was too mundane and boring for me to fall for. I would not even care to turn to see a lizard in high school it was just too much physical effort with little trade-off if not done. At worst the lizard would jump at me .. it would still be okay and less effort for me than for me to turn my head and look at the lizard on the wall. I would call such April Fool pranks first order.

I like to make pranks myself but of a different order. A second order April Fool prank would be stating a truth that no one knows about and there is immense confusion about it among the people. A third order would be where it's actually a false statement but think of it as true and think of it as a second order April Fool which I am saying to fool the lesser people. For eg if you are not actually married and you say I got married guyz .. then people think that you are saying a true statement which no one would believe and hence making others April Fool and doing that they are actually getting fooled. In the same way you can define Nth order April Fool. It can be defined as where the value of N is itself a confusion. That is no one really knows about it (except for a few chosen ones to keep the game on) and everyone else is just guessing ..
Is the statement true? Is it false? Is it actually false but said in a way so that people get fooled thinking that a true statement is said to appear as a false statement? Is it actually true but said in a way so that people believe it is for April Fool? Confusion .. that is April Fool for me .. confusion is the very essence of a good prank and I try to make the most of it sometimes hurting others too but that's for some other day!!

Happy Valentine's Day!

2011-02-15T00:41:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day!

I typically throw away everything I write .. in chat transcripts or on random napkins .. or even in the catalog book of Continental Airlines :P I do that because I don't consider myself a good writer unless I am writing software code in which case I am reasonably good at.

My sisters and my girlfriends pestered me that the least I could do is to type it somewhere so that I have a copy and telling others might result in more people writing beautiful poetry. I replied back to this reasoning with an argument that there is a poet in all of us .. via this shaayari:

jo dil mein jab dard bhara ho .. toh khud hi chhalak jaata hai ..
(when my heart is filled with pain ... it spills by itself)
jo palkon mein boond atka ho .. toh tasavvur-e-moti ban jaata hai ..
(when tear is stuck in my eye, it becomes a pearl in my imagination)
jo mann mein jo khyaal ho aap ka .. bas aiwayeen hi kalam chal jaata hai
(when I have your memories in my mind .. my pen moves by itself)
shaayari sunaane ka gunaah kyon karo .. jo har dil mein shaayar basta hai
(why should I do the crime of telling my poems to others .. when in each heart there is a better poet)

One reasoning that blew me against the above was it might inspire someone else who is aspiring but hasn't worked at it. And inspiration would lead to motivation which would lead to more people to write more beautiful poetry. More so if I write in English a bigger audience would be able to read it .. Well .. only if the poem is good enough ..

Hence in the spirit of Valentine's Day I write a poem which I won't throw but just type out on my blog. Let me know if it is bad or good or okay.

I love the way you love me
-------------------------------
I love the way you lie to me only to make me feel good
I love the way you shout at me only to make me perfect

I love the way you hurt me only to make me feel strong
I love the way you slap me only to make me feel owned

I love the way you ignore me only to make me feel missed
I love the way you bite me only to make me feel LOVED

I love the way you push me only to make me earn it
I love the way you scold me only to make me learn it

I love the way you make me cry only to feel secure
I love the way you cry for me only to keep me yours

I love the way you fool me there is something in your eyes
I love the way you get me close only to be kissed I realize

I love the way you hit me only to make me grab you
I love the way you pull me only to make me kiss you

I love the way you dump me only to make me burn
I love the way you make love only to make me return

I love the way you ask me how do I like the most
I love the way I reply you: YOU answer that first

I love the way you say to me do I have it with me
I love the way I tell you I’m alwayz ready baby!

Call drop on AT&T

2011-02-12T13:16:00.001-08:00

An extremely emotional talk was about to reach its climax when it got dropped just around 3 AM. I found it so painful and was furious about it. I tried calling again, it didn’t work and I thought that maybe the person on the other side went out of reach. I decided to question my hypothesis and called my own number to reach my voicemail. To my surprise even that was not reachable! Why don't I change from AT&T to a better network? Restarted blackberry .. didn’t help. Took out battery and restarted again .. didn’t help either. I started thinking of alternate ways .. maybe GoogleTalk .. no she can’t install anything on her corporate laptop .. damn why didn’t I buy her a new one! Let me get online to see if I can use Skype to call on her cellphone. wtf .. I forgot my Skype password. Where to get it from? Clicked on Forgot password. Checked in my gmail account. No email! Where did it send the Forgot password email to? Checked to figure that it sent to my age-old yahoo email account. Tried to login there. Damn it! I don’t remember the password on that account either. Why the hell on earth do I change my password ever .. I for sure know that nobody has time to hack on my personal account. Anyways .. did a forgot password on Yahoo too .. it sent to my gmail this time fortunately .. thank God! opened up my yahoo account expecting to see Skype and wtf there is not even a single email there .. it seems yahoo removed all emails once it was unsued for some time. Sent the Skype forgot password again to get the password email to yahoo. Used that to open Skype. Ran Skype. No money in the account. Put money into it online. So happy to see it get started but wait a second it got stuck.. had to kill the application. Somehow just couldn’t make the call from it. The Skype app just hung! I am the kind who never gets angry .. however, I smashed the Bold on the wall .. then on the floor.. stomped on it .. threw it everywhere I could .. picked up .. and threw it again .. finally decided that I would go to office (@330 AM!) to give a call from there .. and voila .. I get a call on my phone .. it suddenly started working! :)

Remembering Waltz with Bashir

2010-10-13T01:23:00.000-07:00

Few movies ever have had an effect deep enough on me to wake me up at 1:30 AM after two years of watching it .. Waltz with Bashir is one such movie!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltz_with_Bashir

It quickly became clear to me if I don't write something about it.. I am not sleeping .. so here it goes ..

The worst and the best part of the movie for me was the parallel drawn between the Lebanon war and the Nazi holocaust. The crux is that to deliberately ignore a wrongdoing is as bad as doing the wrong yourself. Creating light so that someone else can take a good aim is similar to switching on the Nazi gas chamber and let the Jews in the chamber die. Both are an accomplice to kill.

The movie has its protagonist trying to figure out why he is unable to sleep. He is unable to figure out .. He tries to ask this question to several of his friends and acquaintances of past... to stumble finally on his guilt. It seems why he couldn't figure it out himself or figure out sooner .. now that he has found it .. it seems obvious and weird that he took so much time and involved so many people in different countries to let his guilt come out for him to discover.

However, I don't know why but of all the people I can somehow feel empathetic that it's not easy to figure out your own guilt that you have buried down deep inside in an attempt to forget it .. extending the concept of out of sight out of mind to too far in a wrong way in a hopeless hope to forget it. The guilt stays there .. lurking and itching inside .. such a guilt is like a bed bug.. which can't be found easily .. it doesn't let you sleep .. it can't be exterminated .. ever .. unless you confront it squarely .. and to do that first you ought to discover it .. discovery is necessary because you have long conditioned and tried to train your mind to forget the harder truths .. the guilt of your wrong-doings .. or accomplice in a wrong-doing .. or just a bystander to a wrong-doing. You were so good and so hard in concealing those guilt that you are amazingly afraid to dig deeper in the fear of actually discovering it .. even without knowing it exactly!!

Why am I awake thinking all this .. what is going on with me .. do I really have a guilt of mine lurking deep inside that I have not yet discovered or just refuse to face it within myself .. for the fear of being let down in my own eyes. Is that what people call conscience .. that when we know that no one would ever know or knows .. it still hurts to think of yourself in a bad way because you know that you know that about yourself ...

having written this now I can sleep now .. at least ack'ing that I need to work on my own for the rest of it gives some relief to my conscience ..

How my friends pose for me :)

2010-01-10T15:30:00.001-08:00

It's so hard to get them to pose normally that's why I never put any of their pictures!! :)

Chase Corporate Challenge Run

2009-06-10T21:35:00.000-07:00

Ran and partied and danced after .. returned at midnight .. great fun!!

Escape from the Mumbai Terrorist Strike

2009-06-09T20:55:00.000-07:00

We were in Mumbai on the dreadful and sad Wednesday, Nov 26 2008. We never thought we would be in Mumbai in the midst of the most dangerous terrorist strike on India ever. Yes, we chose the wrong time. Nevertheless, with luck on our side we were fortunate to escape unhurt from every possible place of firing and bombing. We were lucky to visit each of them a day before and the age-old saying of ‘Jo sowat hai who khowat hai .. jo jaagat hai so paawat hai’ (the awaken one gains and the sleeping one loses) worked in my favor in opposite of ways .. Simply because I was sleeping I lost something that I would have never liked to be a part of … not even in my dreams!!

We left Goa in the night on an overnight train from Madgaon to Mumbai CST (Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus). Other than Darjeeling I don’t remember any Indian railways station so touristy as Madgaon and to top it above Darjeeling there was a dollar(Rupees 50) a thali (plate) of Fish Curry Rice! All we could manage in a dollar at the expensive restaurant at the Kristal Sands Beach Resort Hotel in Goa was a tiny tomato salad J

I learned that we are not going to stay in Chachi Nani's Vile Parle flat as a kid there had an exam. Mummy suggested getting a retiring room at the CST station itself as it would be close to the places we wanted to see. We couldn’t even imagine in our dreams that the same railway station would see the ATS chief die on the same night fighting the terrorists! I went in to the Deputy Station Master to enquire only to find out that although usually the retiring rooms are empty right now all are occupied because of an exam (I guess the same exam caused Naniji's flat to be occupied too ...). Of course we were sad that we didn’t get any room there. We never thought then that we would be grateful to God that we didn’t get a place there. That left us to find a hotel in South Mumbai, hopefully near Gateway of India.

However, after staying at the beach in Goa we were not in much mood to spend those couple of days in another beach-side resort of Mumbai. So, Juhu hotel went out of our discussion. We started calling at hotels to find out about mid-range hotels to stay in! 'Stay Inn' in Andheri (East) is what we got, which we liked after seeing a couple of others. It had a dining table with a couch in a suite like way along with not so exorbitantly priced room service breakfast, lunch as well as dinner! Wow … get that for me near my apartment in Manhattan please without getting me broke!! Stay Inn was a PGA i.e. Paying Guest Accommodation and it seemed better than star hotels … we were staying in Stay Inn now ... and eventually at a higher price than Goa even though we started with best of our intentions towards cost-cutting J (come on guys … we are in a economic recession after all)!!

I went up to put on clothes to dry under the sun. After so many years of electric drying in the dryers of my apartment I guess my clothes needed some Vitamin D and I needed some bouts of nostalgia! However, the appalling heat discouraged me inconsolably from venturing out. Convincing Papa-mummy not to go out was a no-brainer as I just kept sleeping ... :P

When I woke up it was too late to go to any place in South Mumbai: Gateway of India or anywhere.. we decided to go to the Juhu beach and Isckon temple in Andheri (E). Juhu beach Chowpatty is an eat-out heaven … bhutta, nariyal-pani, chai … and what not. The chirping of playful kids, the soft gushing sound of Arabian Sea waves and the soothing breeze at the sea-side I am sure it would have taken a real sadist to have imagined anything related to terror could happen at the chirpy yet serene and beautiful place like Juhu Chowpatty. Yet, just after we left on that same night we saw on TV that terrorists opened fire there! Yes, we went there … on the firing day … luckily before anything happened.

Even in the night my DSLR camera could capture the architecture of the temple. Thanks to the night view, tripod, larger aperture and all the cool techie things about my Sony DSLR, all pics were cool too. I bought souvenirs, drank thandai,(cold milk and nuts drink), gorged on gulab jamun and rasogulla.

I bought the Lord Krishna souvenirs from the Isckon temple. My mother reasons that it is because Lord Krishna was with us that saved us from any attack on us. What about the others who were martyred? Was God not with them? Is it God’s way of allowing a war like Mahabharatha … I strongly doubt that line of thought …

Whatever happens … happens for the good. God is there to save us though we must work towards peace and harmony in our lives as well that of others as much as we can.

We visited my cousin’s family who lived close to the temple. He warned us to stay indoors once we get to our hotel I guess he heard that news on firing at CST railway Station. The following day we stayed indoors all the time with our eyes fixated on the television screen following every detail. Early morning we left Mumbai on SpiceJet via Delhi for Samastipur my home. I wish the nation, the army and the Police force of India all the best in the combat operations against the terrorist.

Goa Trip

2009-06-09T20:15:00.000-07:00

We started to decide on where to go about two months ago planning our vacation in India: Nainital, Mussoorie, Darjeeling, Gangtok, Jaipur, Agra, KanyaKumari, Poorie … all went through our minds … no city seemed to exist in India where we have not been to! Suddenly somebody says Goa .. and whoa .. there is one place in India where none of us have been to. We decide on Goa … let’s take down that final unexplored fun place in our long list of places we have visited. Next year of course we have to go somewhere outside India for vacation … stepping up on the annual vacation that we have undertaken as far as I remember.

Airport, Taxi

Should we book all? Yes, no, maybe … We book flights and train reservations and leave the hotels for the on-spot price. We reach Goa from Delhi on Nov 20. Yes, there are different kinds of people in the plane … a nice mix of Western and Indian tourists. Goa is a tiny airport with a five star restaurant at a floor above. We start looking for hotel deals … from the Goa Govt tourist helper to even a cleaner who gave a phone number of a person to talk to!

The package tour

After about two hours of moving around and looking at the available deals we decide on a packaged tour including hotel, dinner, transportation, day tours and everything else.

Hotel at the best beach of Goa

Calangute Beach we hear is the best beach of Goa, I don't know in what respects though :). A hotel at the beachfront definitely sounded good. On top of it, it has a pool too … reminded me of my life in Cyprus near the beach and the pool at my apartment in Austin. Wow … nice getaway from Manhattan.

Next we visit Panaji, the city. I am in the pool most of the time whenever I return from time out in the city or the beach. Our Day out – temples, movie shooting spots, boat ride, Portuguese old house, Anjuna Beach, Calangute Beach, Church and Film Festival IFFI.

Ritz Classic Restaurant

Fish Platter – Zoo of sea animals: Squid, shell fish, prawn and two more kinds of fish like looking fishes.

Papa got stuck on the un-priced section Special Seafood on the menu! One ‘excuse me’ got the waiter who sounded more like a zoo instructor than a restaurant worker: “What sea-food (animal) would you like? … Do you want to look at them before eating in their uncut version? … arghh!!”

The horrible, grisly scene of lobster, tiger prawn, king fish, of course all animals dead … along with crab and whatever crap … definitely left my twin sis Aditi’s appetite shooting southwards and my lips simmering out ;) as she said “‘yuck’, I can’t eat this … I can just eat chicken”. My mother was probably considering to leave from the city itself J

For my vegetarian inside me this was a R.I.P. moment for him. I asked him to take a vacation until I am in Goa enjoying the plentiful choices of seafood.

Visiting Delhi

2008-12-28T20:59:00.000-08:00

(for Nov 16) Visited Deepesh in Gurgaon, went to Chachi Nani's home and then sight-seeing around at Lotus Temple and Akshardham temple and of course checked out the new Delhi Metro with mummy-papa!

Attending Marriage in Family

2008-10-19T20:18:00.000-07:00

Hari Mamaji's son Toshu Bhaiyaa married in Sage Chapel in Cornell with Rebekah. It has been long since I felt close emotionally and physically to so many family members at one place .. which is usually has been possible only in a marriage. The last one was my own sister's marriage eighteen months ago.
First an Indian style marriage at 1pm with vows recited by Pandit Jeffery D. Long which got Rebekah to almost cry with emotion. Later an American style wedding with walks of parents and bridesmaids and groomsmen followed by the ring ceremony and the throwing of some kind of seeds .. u can see I have not attended many weddings in my life ... honestly speaking never understood the whys of customs! Few of them are getting clearer as the priest Jeffery explained the reasons behind the vows and translated each Sanskrit shloka in English. Followed by reception with dinner and speeches from close ones, and finally champagne and dance!

I felt overwhelmed by the care bestowed upon me by those I have met only twice or thrice in my life and how they knew more about me than I had assumed. I was somewhat amused by a number of direct questions on my 'single-hood' and 'future plans' .. I replied to all such inquiries with my smile and the half-truth 'it's just laziness' answer :) Well, the even more intrusive question from ladies which I have been procrastinating for countless years to answer: "Tumhe kaisi ladki chahiye?" ('What kind of girl do you want?') :-O ... this got me thinking and later into shirking some laziness and a phone call from me ;) .. but I digress!!

Something weird happened ... a major faux-paus ... I usually know more family connections than my siblings .. this time I didn't even know that my cousin, the groom is Gandhiji's great-great grandson! Worse still I asked his grandfather his name, and not once but twice! Repeating it here so that you don't make the same mistake :) Toshu Bhaiyaa's grandfather's name is Arun Gandhi, grandson of Gandhiji and now working for non-violence. My father is pretty sure I was the only one in this marriage who asked him that as my father commented with a boisterous laugh when I told him this on phone today morning! :) Even he is surprised how I didn't know that .. maybe my parents had assumed that I tend to know anything anyways and always before everybody else .. wht's the need of telling me!! :) Ahh .. talk about rising expectations ... some other blog entry!

DC with Mama-Nanaji and Naniji

2008-10-19T20:15:00.000-07:00

(For Dec 12) Went to DC to visit Satish Mama and his family. His father is my mother's Mama :)
Went to all the museums and Govt buildings along with him throughout the day .. was fun .. pics later.

My desire for Head-banging :) .. fulfilled .. but in the least of expected ways!!

2008-10-05T17:23:00.000-07:00

Was running to go to the punk rock show to see Rochelle and do some head-banging .. guess what .. banged into the glass door and swelled my forehead .. it felt like it took me a few seconds to recover from the blank state of shock and then I took inventory of myself ... touched my forehead to check for bleeds .. paining that means no bleeding .. lucky :) .. felt numb though .. went to find a restroom in a half dizzy state ... looked around to find it good that nobody saw me doing that stupidity :P informed security ... the security helped me find ice-packs in first aid kit .. and kept asking me very politely if I need something else (not used to being cared that much from someone other than family!) ... sat down. Better now.

I hate the inherent fragility of my body, if struck from things that are around me it hurts .. why did God/whoever made us so fragile?? well I may be putting the blame somewhere else than on my two monsters inside me called Mr. Absent-minded Monster and Mr. Procrastinator Monster who actually deserve the blame!

'Snowball'

2008-10-05T17:07:00.000-07:00

(writing for Oct 4)
Bought Warren Buffet's biography written by UT Austin's alumnae Alice. Will gift it to Papa if he can handle the patience of not buying it until Nov 17 :) Or else we both will read it and discuss it over now 'not so expensive' ISD phone calls!

Now Amitji also says Rochelle is his biggest fan ... I already knew that ... before him :)

2008-09-29T20:14:00.001-07:00

I have already written about Amitabh's greatest fan: Rochelle Goldman. Now Times of India reports it and that too so grossly wrong ...

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Entertainment/Amitabh_finds_his_greatest_fan/rssarticleshow/3531077.cms

Firstly, Rochelle is not a little girl, on the contrary she is a lady living in Brooklyn.

Secondly, I think what Amitji meant by he reads her blog was that he reads her comments on his blog. I don't think Rochelle writes a blog of herself .. not yet .. well she writes well .. and I think she should write though!

The main story is totally correct .. I am yet to find anybody else who does something with this dedication the way she does!! I am impressed myself :)

Kats in NY

2008-09-29T20:05:00.000-07:00

Saw Katrina Kaif. She was tired .. me too .. who wouldn't be after a long day of work ending at 8. They have schedules of 18 hours :-O .. and somebody asked me why I work so hard :) .. I am nothing in front of them ...

Anyways, they are shooting for "New York" in New York! :) Yes, for now they have named the movie 'New York'. Well .. I am not complaining .. if a movie can be named London .. then for sure why not New York. It's time it gets some direct credits when shooting a zillion movies here ..

Tomorrow they will be shooting in Central Park. John Abraham, Neal Nitin Mukesh (lead actor of Johny Gaddar) are also in this movie directed by Kabul Express director Kabir Khan.

Paintings, history and Village!

2008-09-21T09:05:00.000-07:00

The pics are of the tram that I take every day for work and the bridge over which the tram flies.

I went to the Jewish museum with Rochelle, the museum has a free Saturday entry and yesterday was the last day of special collection of paintings and sculptures called Abstraction/Action critiqued by Grossenberg and Greenberg. It was fun predicting what the artwork was about and then read the description to find out if you were right! I got a decent diet of pushing my imagination to limits :)

I loved the Funeral Heart and another simple one but centrally symmetric and twice concentric one which was named something like reasoning or logic. Oil paintings, acrylic, metals, ... plays with hue, saturation and intensity ... myriad number of ways of painting and sculpting...

The questioning attitude that I found more common in Israelis when I visited there was subtly present in the correspondences related to paintings. To quote randomly, the question is not whether a painting is Jewish or not, the actual Jewish question would be "what is a Jewish painting?" :) And that is why I liked the punk girl who had her back tattooed in my earlier blog with :
Definition/Everything Creates/Destroys Everything/Definition

I learned that I have free entry always if I show Bloomberg business card ... sweet :) .... got to put it up for print on Monday. Dead Sea Scrolls is coming up next in the museum from today. In the permanenet collection, Ancient hebrew history was just wars and fights with intermissions of peace. Teams taking turns as enslaving each other. team A being enslaved by team B and later on team B being enslaved by team A! I liked the Jewish festivals better ... except the scary circucision one! But nothing like Holi anywhere dude ... it stands out! Somehow Indians and Hindus in my totally biased opinion have the best and the most festivals in the world!!

Checked on Dances of India to be held in Carnegie Hall .. was 70 bucks for classical Indian dances!! Decided to skip it :) We went to Astor Place in Village instead. Met with Judy, a friends of Rochelle, she has her mother and granddaughter both in her family, I will leave it for you to guess her age :) At dinner we talked about BigB, his blog, Bollywood, the concert, photographs, Delhi bombings, ethnic probelms, NYC over development, wall street meltdown, etc most things not very positive. I don's undesrtand reasons behind most problems nevertheless I would refuse to accept they are unsolvable if you work towards them. Went to 6th street in Village, I think called Little India or sth like that ... I didn't like the name of a restaurant as 'Gandhi'. Amitji saw a restaurant named 'Gandhiji' in Paris as well .. and I would agree with his take on this ... please ... please leave at least something from commercialization! It's just too respected a name for me to see on a restaurant board and people making money from it!

This pic is of fellow Punk Rockers in Village.

Rochelle decided to stalk on John and Bips, I joined in .. waited for couple or more hours ... no luck .. but no probs ... we passed time cracking up jokes mostly on homogenously yet scantily dressed young girls lined up outside a club in Manhattan. Never understood this club thing anyways ...

... got to plan out vacation, look for apartment for Amritanshu, catch up on slashdot, tech and financial stuff .. who is getting bankrupt next :) and do laundry and cleaning! Glad done with grocery!! Prepare for tomorrow work.

Bipasha and John walking around in NYC

2008-09-16T19:17:00.000-07:00

I met them just now .. coming back to home from office .. I don't know why Indian film industry workers love to holiday in NYC .. but I am happy that they do :)

Great action-packed weekend!

2008-09-14T16:35:00.000-07:00

Saturday: Was fully action-packed being with Rochelle. First, picked lunch at Bonobos, a vegan restaurant in Manhattan. Then movie 'Loins of Punjab' at ImaginAsian theater. The director Manish Acharya turned up at the theater for Q&A. Great movie .. superb comedy!! Went to Williamsburg, Brooklyn saw things and waterfront, after that ate more than a big half of a big half melon and then banged my head and ran in the pit at a punk rock concert featuring Raegan Youth, Endangered Feces, Apple (All Punks Please Leave Earth :), etc.

The body art on another fan in the pic says:

Definition Destroys Everything

Creates Creates

Everything Destroys Definition

I will leave it for you to figure out the meaning(s)! Punk Rock in general had so many depths of humor and meanings that it satisfied my sircastic spirit as well as my nerdy demon :)

Sunday: Wondered at a street fair in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Tasted pickles in International Pickle Day on Orchard St, Manhattan. Tired and have to do laundry now or else go to the nearest clothes shop to buy ... you know what!

Astroland closed, Serena wins US Open and makes me run for an hour!

2008-09-07T21:31:00.000-07:00

The amusement park of Astroland at Coney Island here in Brooklyn is closed FOREVER starting today Sep 7, 10 pm. I just came back from taking a ride in Cyclone, the best known historical roller coaster since 1927. Nobody seems to like the idea of losing the park ... it was the only park in NYC where we could go by subway ... and now that is also gone!! WTF!!!!!!!!

I wore a T-shirt of "Coney Island - Cyclone" which did result in few smiling nostalgic faces and conversations like "hey where did you buy it from?" :) Somebody gave me a paper to send Mayor Bloomberg and others letters not to close the park. I hope the cyclone stays where it is and I hope Bloomberg still worked for Bloomberg LP somehow along with being a Mayor so that I could call him internally with an 801 number ... :)

Coming back from a slew of activities: Indian-Chinese restaurat called Chinese Mirch restaurant which serves "Chinese food as they prepare in India", "Rock On" movie and Astroland and Coney Island beach and Nathan's famous Hot Dog stand ... ooph ... I still managed to gather enough energy to go to the gym and watch Serena beat Jelena while running ... I usually don't watch sports and prefer rather to play myself in that time .. but man this game was so amazing .. I could run and jog for a whole hour in the energy of the two never giving up athletes and so many deuces of the game!!

To get back to work tomorrow with paging/filtering/sorting data structure and to bed now ... I sign off!
Make yours a great day at work ... I will too!! Gooddnight.

US Open 2008

2008-09-04T22:34:00.000-07:00

Returning from office at 3 am I'm surprised to see the elevator at Roosevelt Island subway filled up ... a lady tells me she was coming from the US Open, Nadal and Serena have advanced.

Aha ... the US Open is close by in Queens ... a couple of subway stops I think.

Along is a pic I took of sky from balcony of my house ... mirror it around to read "US Open ON CBS TODAY". Aah ... they used an airplane-pen to write on sky-blueboard ... all for advertising!! Neat.

Niagara Falls Trip

2008-09-04T22:02:00.000-07:00

My long weekend was put to good use … we went to the Niagara Falls by Chinatown bus from New York. ‘We’ stands here for yours truly along with Love Goel and Aditya Kanitkar … and three others in another bus … all colleagues of Bloomberg. The sight of Niagara Falls is spectacular … huge amount of water flowing down at shooting speed that the view becomes unique and magnificent. Nature doesn’t seem to be in the habit of creating such visual masterpieces often … the only bigger falls in the world I think are Angel Falls in South America and Victoria Falls in Africa.

Pics: http://saurabhaditya.dotphoto.com/CPViewAlbum.asp?AID=5499402
Vids: (Will upload soon!)

Niagara Falls has child falls. We visited American Falls and Horseshoe Falls on the American side and took a boat ride called the Maid of The Mist.
We started from Chinatown where everything is written in Chinese as well, even over the McDonald’s :) and stopped at Corning Glass Museum on our way to the Falls. When we reached Chinatown at 89 Bowery it was hard finding the right bus. Firstly we were late because of F train not servicing on Sat from Roosevelt Island and then 5 threw us out! Only when Eric (to be our tour guide in the bus) called me when I learned which bus is ours. I am actually glad that they were somewhat late. Because there are no extra seats left they fill the whole bus. If you miss your bus I don’t think they can put you in the next one going there! Lex and Eric were our guides, both Chinese. Lex did the commentary.

Along the journey don’t forget to take out your camera when the bus crosses a couple of bridges to catch a beautiful sunset scene! It is a long journey of eight hours each way, though watching movies (once again with Chinese subtitles :), napping and creating puns on Love’s name ;) passed time. And don’t worry the bus stops every two hours for you to rest or eat or just take a break.

In Corning Glass Museum they will create glass in front of you from hot and molten something and magically and very artistically and yet manually render beautiful shape to it. That was a brilliant show I hadn’t seen that before. One interesting thing to note was there was a repeater in Chinese for the show who got a clap at his first translation from the Chinese audience … that was sweet … I could only guess he must have done a good job! Rest of the stuff in the museum was to feed your lurking learner spirit with information on how glass stuffs are created and how they work and several glass stories like TripleX used in windshield glass of cars, or scientific story of fiber optics of how just the exact amount of titanium proved lucky for the world to get the information loss less than 10 decibels per km so I could type and upload this blog within no time!!

Lex spoke everything twice, the second time in Chinese! However, Lex never said any word that sounded like Niagara in his Chinese commentary, I listened again attentively, I guess there may be a Chinese translation for Niagara which doesn’t sound like Niagara … can they do that with proper nouns?

The first view of Niagara was night view. Most night view pictures are useless from my camera, click there if you have a great lens to shoot. After the dinner at Food Court we were escorted to IMAX Movie named Niagara Legend of Adventure. The movie show had a big screen and covered several adventures including Lelawala’s story: Legend of the Maid of the Mist http://www.infoniagara.com/attractions/legend.html
The daring adventures of people like the schoolteacher Annie Taylor falling down the Falls and barely surviving and about every one in three jumpers dying was sufficient enough reason to understand why going into the water is banned now. We were taken by another about half hour long bus ride to hotel Ramada after that.

Next day’s first view was from the top. Best place to take good bright pictures with rainbow even without rain! The mist was so widespread that it created a rainbow about a semicircle length. After this we left for Maid of The Mist which had the kind of queues I like to call Fractal Queues which are self-revealing. That is, the moment you think “aah .. the wait is over .. I am finally on the boat”; the queue reveals itself and tells you “there is always more to me than you think darling ;) ”. Another such queue was at Empire State building for sunset view.

Maid of the Mist is a ride in a big boat very close to the Falls. The mist was so strong near the falls that we had to wear raincoats, it was initially drizzle but as we got closer it was like heavy rain … of course at the very end it would have been … well … end of all of us! So the boat returned from the mist though I did try to get glimpses of probable maids of the mist ;)

I enjoyed chatting with myriad kinds of people from kids to grandpas, to travelers from Nepal and London and of course Indians and Chinese. Gomteng Singh and Bandana from Nepal shared their stories of Lahurabir and Gaudolia and Ghats of Varanasi (place I went for high school) with me … and compared Pokhra and Kathmandu to tourist places in US. Gwen from London and her friend were doing NY now and were to do SF and Vegas next. Kapil & his cute toddler kid Devarsh, consultant Bo Feng and the self-appointed traffic commentator a ten year old kid sitting behind me: Jennifer and of course Eric and Lex: the guides. I hope after the trip Jennifer got to see Two and A Half Men as she missed Simpsons at 9 anyways. And of course Gomteng, Pokhra stands out ... there is nothing like the mighty Himalayas!

Now that is where I think where a bus ride scores over taking your car and drive to Niagara. Another thing not possible in a car is getting to watch National Treasure, It Happens Only in Vegas and Mr. Bean’s Holiday all during the total 16 odd hour long trip!!

All in all the trip was wonderful and I would recommend a lot. Except for the cold that I got for taking off raincoat hood to enjoy the shower from the Niagara. And just get used to long queues … which you will if you stay in NYC long enough :)

2008-08-29T17:36:00.000-07:00

After a long time I did an "Analyze an argument" exercise :)

Amitji got (I must admit) a well written article published in The Statesman by Derek Bose on him. Yet, IMHO the arguments made by Mr. Bose is flawed on the very fundamentals. And yet Amitji refuses to comment on it. I guess Amitji is bored of commenting on such articles for several decades now ... :) So ... I, very humbly, choose to do the honors this time ... Njoy!

Here is my comment on it:
http://blogs.bigadda.com/ab/2008/08/30/day-129i/#comment-103636
And here is the actual article:
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=19&theme=&usrsess=1&id=220229

------------------------------------
Aah .. u r not commenting .. Let me do the honors on this one:
The author says:
(1) “Letting their ‘work’ speak for themselves, obviously, does not fit into this scheme of things.”

The author has a very narrow view of ‘work’. The promotions, tours, meet and greet, etc are part of the work of an artise and the author has forgotten that a work of art has to be ‘made known’ for people to go to it.Author confuses ‘work’ to be only doing it and sit back and relax. This is never true, even a work of science never speaks of itself unless published and advertised. Yes, even the nerdiest scientific work has to be submitted for conferences and journals of the field and accepted to be published. Yes, I had to get up, travel and talk about my work for the community to take a note of me. Publishing and talking about your work has always been part of any serious endeavour. The same is true for software that I have been part of: we had to advertise every feature that we add to be ‘made known’ to the consumers. Advertising and making your work known IS and WILL BE part of the work. For work of science by publication in major conferences and for software to be released for consumers, or for a piece of art … it ought to be made known!!

(2) “Blog wars: The ultimate free-for-all space for every self-obsessed star to brag and abuse, rave and rant, crib and curse”

Firstly, it seems the author reads a blog only if it is abusive or is filled of curses. I am not sure why would anyone NOT read any other kind of blog. The author forgot to read the best blog ever: you blog on your mother, or even the blogs about the concert or innumerable blogs that are mostly positive .. or even my little insignificant blog http://saurabhaditya.blogspot.comAah .. there are so many good blogs and I pity the author of having missed so much … catch up dear!
Secondly, a blog is by definition personal. Thus, I think “self-obsessed” has to do with the definition of a blog, while the author is accusing blog writers of beeing narcissistic to write their own blog! Of course a blog is an expression of the blog writer’s thoughts, it is about his/her self, experiences .. and everything personal.

(3) “Bachchan has taught them that there is no age for retirement in films”

I remember Dilip Kumar, Ashok Kumar, RajKumar, A.K. Hangal … and innumerable others working until they could … there has never been any age for retirement in films. It is the love of work that keeps you going and not that you are ‘taught by’ anybody. At least in the country I live in, there is no age for retirement in any profession. I can choose to keep working as I wish. The same is true as I see in the Hindi movie industry. I don’t think any artist is naive to have learnt this only by Mr Bachan’s example.

By the way Amitji, what happened to the concert in Germany? On the website it doesn’t say anything after London, Wasn’t there something in Germany and/or Netherlands and then in India too!!
--------------------------------

Somebody did click after all :)

2008-08-24T18:03:00.000-07:00

Thanks to another fan who clicked this photograph and sent to me.

I have uploaded all the Unforgettable related photographs that friends emailed to me or I clicked at the following url: http://saurabhaditya.dotphoto.com/CPViewAlbum.asp?AID=5457658
Few other photographs are at: http://saurabhaditya.dotphoto.com/CPViewAlbum.asp?AID=5464585

Happy viewing!

By the way, I saw Andy Garcia (Casino owner in Ocean's 11,12; Godfather III, Untouchables) shooting for "City Island", a drama comedy to be released next year in spring. They shot in the tram that I take every day to Roosevelt Island. He shot till ... phew ... 1 am, aah .. I am not the only hard working guy :) ... and then the next night too for late in the night for the waterfront scene. Didn't take any of his pics, he just said: "Hey, How are you doing?" while smoking a big cigar!! Just after that, his colleagues called him in for shoot. I guess he was taking a tiny smoking break between shots when he saw us.

Goodbye and farewell to the Unforgettable concert cast

2008-08-21T20:17:00.000-07:00

(writing for Wed Aug 20 2008) I changed my route from office to home so that I can visit them everyday the last whole week. Today they are gone ... limousine service managers Samad (he gave me the Preity Zinta signed King's XI Punjab T-shirt that I am wearing!), Imran and Arjun; Ishq-Vishq actress Shenaz Treasurywala, lots of dancers, composers Vishal (mostly with a guitar) and Shekhar (he has a little daughter named Bipasha), .. and of course the Bachchans: Amitji, Jayaji, Aish and Abhishek; Ritesh Deshmukh, their bodyguards, event managers I didn't talk to but they said as some Jotwani ... and so many more artists and most of fans: Rochelle Goldman, Abdul Baksh, Seema, Sarraf, and so many more and ever increasing :). Felt like home outside their hotel ... just being there .. talking to fans, waiting for artists, sometimes even getting to talk to them when they are rushing around ... congratulating them ... wishing them luck for London ... getting pics with them ... comparing and discussing dresses worn by them with the other fans ... wasting my time around :) it was great!! And yet all good things come to an end. How do I know?

Amitji writes on his blog we are leaving tonight!!! I am shattered ... Nooooooooo ... what should I do? I have already had "Unforgettable, the best concert!" poster hand-written in my child-like handwriting shown to many of them. I talked with Shenaz, Abhishek wrote me an autograph, but wait, I didn't meet BigB!! Worse, I couldn't even say that his blog on his mother was the best ever. Here I get a reason and a zeal to do something more: I create another poster: this time on a bigger paper: "Best Blog Ever: "My Mother Teji Bachan". Yes, I wrote it in my weird child-like handwriting, WRITING with non-virtual pen and paper after a long time! I didn't want to print it; I remember Hema Di telling me when I was a kid that she liked hand-written letters because they look more human and personal; and I just wanted to convey my personal feelings to the 66 year old man who wrote this beautiful piece for me to read and get lost in the nostalgic thoughts of my own childhood and mamma-papa. I didn't want to recruit somebody else to write that for me, as it would be difficult for anyone to understand my child-like enthusiasm in an office where they are used to my arguments on asymptotic complexity and most recently why my template specialization should not be deleted from code :) But I digress.

I went in the lunch break to do a takeout from a Chinese restaurant that is connected to the hotel. They have a $8 lunch takeout deal which given good enough quantity, I consider a great deal in Manhattan! On door of the hotel I see Rochelle Goldman. I show her my poster, she likes it .. oh my .. I misspelt Bachchan as Bachan, ... and now u know how I scored in high school English (my bad English of my blog says it too.. doesn't it :) !! She tells me she has been waiting for Amitabh since 6 am ... yes she is the craziest fan of Amitabh I have ever known, well .. she is THE craziest fan EVER of anybody I have ever known! Even Amitji has acknowledged this. She has already hugged Amitabh, the Bachchan family knows her by her name, she went to all the Unforgettable shows in US, she is on the top nine exclusive fan list of Amitabh (he invited her!), still she wants to say Goodbye to Amitabh before he leaves NY!! And of course ... she has "I Love Amitabh" written on her hoodie ...

Impressed, I am stuck with her looking at her photographs. She wore an Indian dress when she went to see Amitabh on fan meet. And yes, there was this 'legal hug' photograph of her hugging Amitabh :) sweet!! Another fan joins us, I help Rochelle to show photographs to her (and yeah Rochelle recently bought laptop and Verizon internet, etc all just to read Amitabh's blog and like Amitabh not very comfortable with "technical things"!! Guess what, you've got me dear!!).

I: "Jayaji, Can I have a picture with you?"Jayaji: "Let me pack these things and then I will come." In the meanwhile I order my take out lunch at Chinese restaurant at hotel. I get into Chinese restaurant, nice decor (Shengchao said good decor = unauthentic Chinese food :), I order shredded chicken with Garlic Sauce, she tells me 10 min wait. There I meet Hoshdaar for third time, he works at the hotel and I saw him waiting for his takeout once more in the exact same manner. First time I asked him if the sushi bar at the hotel is open for lunch ... lol ...

I ask for restroom key from the Chinese looking lady and walk past to the hotel for restroom. Coming out, I see that down in the lobby I see familiar faces: Jayaji, Aish, Abhishek, etc all obliging family and friends for pictures. I rush down the stairs in the lobby and join for pictures. ...I show Jayaji my poster: "Best blog ever: My mother Teji Bachchan" I wrote by my hand. Jayaji is pleasantly surprised and visibly agreeing. She has a sweet rythmic motherly voice with an upward inflexion at the end of her sentences, which sound like authentic Indian English! The bodyguard also sees it and starts smiling, so rare to see such an occurrence for once I thought that I wanted to capture him rather than Amitji or anybody else smiling ... hahaha ...

I: "I want to give it to Amitji".

Jayaji: "Give it to him, (whisper)he is outside in the car." I walk around, outside the lobby looking at the cars ... can't find him ... go further outside .. see a bunch of people ... I am sad ... after a while Jayaji comes out..

Jayaji: Did you show this to him?

I: "I couldn't even find him."

"Come with me ... (in hushed voice)" ... "but don't bother him much"
And there he is .. Amitabh, he is happy seeing it, seeing him happy I am happy. He doesn't seem to me on top of his health. He says thanks and seeing people materializing around me gets uneasy, closes the mirror.I get back and after a bit of time his bodyguard comes to me ... He wants me there in front of him. Really!! I go there, looking around that there is nobody else, he again pulls down his mirror and asks more like grandfatherly voice: what do you want? (his voice is not in its best and deep rich baritone)

I: I just want a picture with you.

He: okay come, stand on the side of the mirror quickly. (opens the mirror)

The crowd bangs in, some people put their hand inside the mirror and even touch him. I am not happy with all this and a bit guilty of being a cause of this for Amitji. And now I know why they are afraid of fans. Among the fans I see middle-aged women they are the worst behaved, though Rochelle Goldman, being a middle-aged woman is the best behaved and yet the biggest fan!

I try to give my camera to Rochelle but eventually I know I have never been good at such kind of me-first, me-first street-level bodily competition. I budge and give way to others. Before that I ask a lady to click on me too .. she nods. I know that smiling nod of women, it says yes, but it means I don't care. Amitji rolls up his window and it is their flight time ... the fleet of cars leave one by one. I ask the lady if she got my picture. And she says: "I was clicking on Amitji, not you. If you want any of their pictures I can email it to you, I have lots of them but they don't have you!" And she has that look and a wicked smile that I thought and wished I will never get since I left high-school. The look says "You emotional intelligent fool, I am street smart and can get anything I want. It makes me so happy in being mean to you." I am afraid of this look because I have learnt from experience the oxymoron of emotional intelligent fool is actually true in my case, but hey c'mon I am glad the world is big enough and her kind is a minority while my kind is not!! I smile with deja vu of old memories and afraid of myself recalling the last time I got angry the guy was in hospital with stitches and me house arrested ... when angry just leave!

I have to go to collect my lunch and rush back to office to work on templatized, generic data structure that can sort, update, insert, remove, filter, prefix match, page, random advance page ... and God knows what more .. all in most efficient, scalable and compile time polymorphic way!! ... And this time I am not digressing ...

Thanks Rochelle Goldman, Abdul Baksh, Abdul Samad Khan, Vijay Bhatia (http://www.trinityjewelsusa.com/), Darshan Kapadia (http://www.theshaadistory.com/), Ashutosh Pandey and several many for clicking pictures and just being around and being a big happy family!

Thank you everybody for everything!!

Aditya

http://saurabhaditya.dotphoto.com/CPViewAlbum.asp?AID=5464585
http://saurabhaditya.dotphoto.com/CPViewAlbum.asp?AID=5457658(will post more pics as and when friends will mail to me)

Independence Day Parade in NY

2008-08-21T20:01:00.000-07:00

It was all over colorful India in New York. So many Indians, from sexy models/air hostesses of Kingfisher to the saffron-clad Veda and Yoga guys, to An hour long parade from 41st and Madison to 26th and Madison. At the end of the parade Deepika Padukone, who played Shanti in the movie 'Om Shanti Om' turned up on stage. I have put up that day's pictures at the following url:

http://saurabhaditya.dotphoto.com/CPViewAlbum.asp?AID=5464585

The biggest superstar: Rochelle Goldman

2008-08-14T21:31:00.000-07:00

I just work in R&D for Bloomberg in Manhattan .. a typical job for a nerdy Indian! I don't do much of anything else.

Amitabh Bachchan does his work ... he is an actor. Something else he does is blogging .. and he writes really well and direct from heart ... he really doesn't do much else!

However, this person Rochelle Goldman stands out ... she flies to Toronto, LA, Houston .. commutes to NJ, NY .. wherever she could go .. waits for hours to see and meet Amitabh! .. has all her t-shirts and parapgernalia filled with "I Love Amitabh", even bags written all over with phrases from his movies .. "My name is Anthony Gonzalez", ... all as a fan .. and yet keeps up with her job in NY by sleeping for couple of hours!!!! Amitabh, Abhishek and Aishwarya all know her by face and name .. Aish only smiled once and that too to her .. aah .. Wow!! ... it's hard to impress me and Rochelle Goldman does that bang on :)

Btw, she also loves and watches almost every Hindi movie ... is a punker vegan and animal activist, travelled all over the world (including Egypt and Israel as yours truly could too!), she has a great personality and is single ... just don't ask her age :P

BigB

2008-08-14T21:24:00.000-07:00

He had to leave for movie .. so I couldn't ask for a photo with him ... and there was somebody prettier than him for me: Shenaz!! :)

Nevertheless, this guy has just written the best piece ever .. do check this one out: http://blogs.bigadda.com/ab/2008/08/14/maajis-photograph/?cp=17

BigB

2008-08-14T21:19:00.000-07:00

He is actually big! No .. I mean it .. he looks tall and giant and he is not lean and thin .. so he looks overall big. He just gave out the best blog ever .. he wrote on his mother today on her birthday ...

Unforgettable

2008-08-14T20:53:00.000-07:00

I stepped out of my office for home and found the biggest fan of Amitabh Bachchan on street: Rochelle Goldman. As expected she was waiting for Amitabh :) One by one lots of Bollywood stars turned up there ... she wasn't waiting in vain ... in Manhattan something keeps happening!! Here in this photograph is Ishq-Vishq actress Shenaz who played the bubbly Alisha ... she is actually very tiny, nevertheless sparklingly beautiful ... now you know why I couldn't get a pic with Amitabh .. just kidding!

Ask Me Where I Am Going

2008-07-29T07:31:00.000-07:00

Bill Gates talk at The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin)

2008-03-02T21:25:00.000-08:00

Bill Gates came to meet Computer Science and Computer Engineering students. Here is the video http://cns.utexas.edu/communications/2008/02/gates_talk.asp

The talk was mostly technical about the next problems facing the world and software solutions to it. He showed a functionality of Microsoft Research software HDView http://research.microsoft.com/ivm/HDView/HDabout.htm to move through the parts of a rat's brain visualization. The most funny and general part of his talk was his cool spoofy video of retiring and trying different things. The video featured who's who of everybody in all trades: Hillary, Obama from politics, Matthew Mcconno*, George Clooney, etc from showbiz, and singers and rock stars as well. He did emphasize that he is going to move from full-time of microsoft to part-time and devote more time on his foundation from summer.

He noted a few important research directions. In 2008 there are now a billion computers and a billion cellphones. Even though Moore's law is not as effective now, we got a workaround with multi-cores while disk storage has been increasing and will continue to increase. He noted the research in content based video search where you listen only to the part you are interested. In UI, he stressed towards natural interface with speech recognition being used more than now. He also said (which I didn't know) that speech recognition was considered an easy problem in the sixties and still people are working on it and the problem is still open. The point being nobody knows how much time it will take to solve each problem, nevertheless we know we are progressing. In ubiquitous computing, Gates mentioned cloud, around computing, TV on internet and the need for all applications to work even when moving between devices.

I appreciate that Gates acknowledged Microsoft using AT&T and Xerox research (for GUI and mouse) initially, however, Microsoft started its own research (MSR) in 1993 when it had money for it. While talking about research Gates said collaboration with Universities is an important aspect (well, he was inside a top-ten University for CS!) and talked about collaboration with Lipman of Center for Brain Science at Harvard. While a rat brain is only a thousand petabytes human brain is a million petabytes. Thus, modeling a rat brain first he showed HDView software module doing visualization. Gates was fortunate to get access to have access to program a machine at young age (at 100 baud link :-), utilizing which he could start Microsoft at young age of 17. Dream Spark allows sharing MS software with students and Imagine Cup now has 150k students. Gates was ignorant of world's biggest problems when he was at Harvard (well he dropped out, but he was there :-) Even now half a million die every year of avoidable diseases like malaria. These are people with no money and thus no voice in the market. The amount of money spent on finding solution to malaria is one-tenth of that is spent on baldness and baldness is not known to killed anybody as of yet. Therefore, market is not working good for everybody. This is a place where capitalism fundamentals fail and thus philanthropy comes in. Of course, there are Govt policies that need to be worked with too. A bunch of farmers shown a dvd of best farming practices picked up very fast and quickly implemented it. So, sometimes even a small step is good enough. Gates said: "Don't be naive as I was!" The bottom 2 billion is what Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is targeting at with half on diseases, a quarter on education and last quarter on microfinance and communities.

Moore opened the talk for students to ask direct questions to Gates, students asked really interesting questions and got interesting replies.

I used to get x error on Windows XP, now I am going to upgrade to Vista. What will happen to the applications.
Gates: "I guarantee you will get a different error message"

Do u actually code?
"The last thing I wrote all of code from end to end was RadioShack Model 100 which had 32k bytes memory at that time. I used to code in Machine Language, but now I write prototype code in F#, functional language and C#. Given current state, I would write most code now in C#."

Israel Trip

2007-01-11T23:26:00.000-08:00

Pic1: Because of Compulsory military service Armed teenagers on Israeli streets are common.

Israelis and India

An Israeli: “Where are you from?”

Me: “I am from India”

Israeli: “Wonderful, the best country in the world!”

And then he begins from Taj, Kamasutra, Pushkar mela, Rajasthan, and several things even I didn’t know about India!! And, ‘by Indian standards’ I know … that I know a lot about India!

I went to visit Israel on a long weekend (June 2006) and I just fell in love with Israel and Israelis! One thing that surprised me the most was their knowledge about India. Why do Israelis know a lot about India? Well, because after compulsory military service they all go to visit India or South America … most of them of course to India. Israelis are down-to-earth, mingle with strangers very easily … although I don’t know if they got along with me so easily was because of me being Indian or if they hang around with any stranger :-)

Compare this with my interactions with Cypriots:

Cypriot: “Where are you from?”
Me: “I am from India”
Cypriot: “Is it IN Sri Lanka?”
Me: “Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat??? :-O ”

Check-in at Larnaca airport

Although I work in Amdocs, which is an Israeli company and Doxians travel regularly to Israel and vice-versa, I was grilled with lots and lots of questions, all asked by poker faced security people. Never before have I been asked so many questions in my life except written examinations. Well, the security guy did state a disclaimer: “the questions which I am going to ask may seem absurd to you, but are vital to our security.” He kept asking about why I want to go, is this luggage yours, is that x yours, is that y yours :P, whom will I meet in Israel, can he check their contacts, do I have email print-outs of interactions with friends in Israel :-O and blah blah.

Thank God I work in Amdocs.

Jerusalem, Wailing Wall, Al-Aqsa Mosque

The walled city, the oldest city, the most disputed city in history … lots of superlatives attached to this Holy Land. I saw the wailing wall, on one side of which Jews pray and on other side Muslims. The ‘Dome of Rock’ is the most important holy place for Jews and they collect in large numbers here on Friday night to read their holy book: The ‘Torah’. It’s said that if they shake their head frequently up and down then they can read more consciously. I could hear Namaz as well, loud and clear from other side of the wall.

Massada

Our guide told us this inspiring story of Jewish sacrifice. When Romans attacked Jerusalem, all Jews ran to a hill near the Dead Sea called Massada. They formed their own community similar to Kibbutz (cooperative group home, typical of Jewish way of living) and started living there. When Romans attacked them with huge stone slingshots, except for few, all committed suicide! A Jew never commits suicide; a Jew considers life as sacred by religion. And they had food still left on the hill. They did it to prove that they chose to die than to live a slave’s life. Today, Massada serves as a scenic tourist spot giving an awesome view of Dead Sea.

Dead Sea

The lowest land on earth, 400 meters below sea-level; the Dead Sea is receding by a meter every year! I am not sure if my grandchildren will be able to see it or not J The Dead Sea is a sea in which nobody can drown! It is so saline that my body floated in it. High with salt and mineral content, especially sulphur and natural minerals, that the dead sea mud is used to manufacture medicines and cosmetics by several laboratories around Dead Sea, notably the Ahava Laboratories.

Ahava

I bought a lot of Ahava products: the Dead Sea Mud, Moisturizer, shampoo, combo packs, many of the girly cosmetics I didn’t understand :P I gifted all to my sisters and mother …! Loreal markets these products worldwide, so they are very costly outside Israel. And of course, anything bought ‘at the source’ is always cheap. The world’s oldest wine: Commandaria is cheap in Cyprus, because it belongs to Cyprus. I found Dead Sea products 50% cheaper in Ahava Labs near Dead Sea than if I had bought them in Tel Aviv.

Falafel

The quintessential Mediterranean delicacy: Falafel, is claimed by all Mediterranean countries as theirs J Basically, a boat-shaped wheat pita bread filled with fried pakorahs, spices, chutney, or if u like meat, salad or anything of your choice … to be eaten without any fork and knife! I had a whale of a time with lots and lots of falafel every day

Tel Aviv City

Considered a sin-city by people living in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv is like any other metropolitan city in the world; with great nightlife, beautiful beaches with lovely sunset view, big shopping malls and bigger skyscrapers. Tel Aviv caters to the fun-tourists, not so history or religion oriented.

Tel Aviv Beach
I spent a day on the beach strolling and taking pics of sunset. Although I walked several miles from Allenby Street to the seaport, I found several bikers on the parallel street to the beach. One thing to note was the separated male and female beache catering to the orthodox Jews, I guess.

Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv University, The Jewish Diaspora Museum: Bet Hatefutsoth

At age of twenty-four I have lived in India, Cyprus and United States. I have visited Israel, Egypt and Bahrain. If somebody asks me which is the country with the largest number of intellectuals in the world? I will reply India; however, the largest per capita brain power is in Israel. They are so learned!! In Judaism, they have emphasis on education by religion. Tel Aviv University houses several Nobel laureates. Einstein was a Jew! Several notable scientists and thinkers in the world are Jews. The Jewish Diaspora Museum chronicles the Jewish history of more than 2 millenniums, the emphasis is more on the Jewish way of life and the several places where Jews came back to Israel from, including Jews from Cochin, India and Morocco.

Egypt Experience By Cruise

2006-05-18T05:37:00.000-07:00

I went to Egypt on a cruise ship and visited The Great Pyramid of Giza, Sphinx, River Nile, Papyrus factory and Bazaar. I am back now from the most ancient civilization in the world and I am feeling on top of this world!!! Simply Awesome…the magnificence of Pyramids, mysteries of mummies, Pharaoh King Tutankhamun and his child-wife... Ankhesenamun. Everything King Tut used: chariots, throne, bed, shrine and even his slippers were solid gold…sometimes even hundreds of kgs. We visited Egyptian museum, had lunch and enjoyed belly-dance on beautiful Nile Cruise, went inside the magnanimous pyramids and Sphinx, and shopped in the Bazaar and Papyrus factory full with heckling vendors…and clicked everywhere legally…err sometimes illegally :P. Wherever you shop, whatever you buy…you just can’t live without a bargain in Egypt :-)

I am one out of 450 Indian software Engineers working in Cyprus, Europe for Amdocs. I with around five hundred people, mostly Europeans, boarded Salamis Cruise for Egypt on 24th Apr 2006 from Cyprus. We stayed in Egypt for 12 hours 7 AM to 7 PM. The luxurious Salamis cruise sailed from Limassol in the afternoon and the next morning we were anchored on Port Said (‘a’ pronounced as in balm and ‘i’ as in seed) [say it again and please pronounce it correctly this time J], the entry port to Egypt, named after one of their presidents: Said Pasha. They have another city named after his successor Ismail Pasha: Ismailia City. I guess my next generation would be hearing Bushy City in Texas…and Port Kalam and Port Vajpayee in India!! Anyways, without digressing into a never-returning maze of BDAP, I would like to tell you guys that the sense of achievement from Egypt Trip is stupendous. The most ancient civilization, creators of the only standing wonder of the world: the pyramids, the inventors of paper, the most mysterious necropolis revealing the mystifying mummies, the longest river in the world: Nile…the richest treasures ever discovered, the legends of the curse of Tutankhamun’s mummy, the resultant mysterious deaths of Howard Carter’s crew who discovered it…each and every single entity of my visit was grand!!

Cairo had triple bomb blasts in Dahab (Sinai Peninsula, Eastern Egypt) killing at least fifty people two days before our visit (23rd Apr) because of which there was heavy security. Moreover, we were frightened because our tour manager’s name was Osama :-). One policeman was in each of the six YouGoEgypt buses, an Egyptian company in partnership with Salamis. The caravan of six buses was covered by police vehicles and finally covered by police mobikes. Our policeman, named Samy Farhaad was a Mubarak Police Academy (named after President Hosni Mubarak) alumnus and secretly told me with a smirk about his two wives ;-). After every (Photograph: Port Said where our cruise anchored) ten kilometers there was a police checkpoint and I could see Samy talking on his walkie-talkie before each checkpoint came and smiling to the policemen on the checkpoint. Tourism is the second biggest source of income to Egypt after Industry and Foreign Trade. Revenue from Suez Canal and Oil exports come third and fourth. The Government of Egypt took it upon themselves for the security of tourists.

This lady was superb. Our guide Marwah Hussein did her Masters from Cairo University in Tourism and wrote a thesis on something fundoo like relevance of archaeological artifacts on tourism and economy. An impressive lady, superb speaker, thinks on her feet, answered candidly most of my questions and automatically shakes your prejudices on condition of women in Muslim countries! I loved her ‘Raja-Rani’ stories about King Tut and his beloved wife, the evil priest, Tut’s father Akhenaten’s romance with founding a new monotheistic religion, his wife’s quest to build now-famous shrine to ensure that they are united in after-life.
There exist three messages sent by her outside Egypt to find help: “I will marry any soldier but not this priest”, “I will marry any servant but not the priest”, “I will die but not marry this priest”; which point towards how she resisted marrying evil priest after the mysterious death of Tut at age of 18. Priests were against the royal family mainly because of Tut’s father’s attempts to found a religion with one God, against the then convention of several Gods and Goddesses. Tut was made the king at age of 9 and died mysteriously at 18, after which the priest proposed his wife. She hated the priest, however still married him…so that she could build her beloved husband’s shrine which would ensure their unity in after-life! (Left:
<-- King Tut's Mask)

The Great Sphinx -->

At first view a pyramid from distance looks not much different from a mountain! Once near to them I felt so small and insignificant in front of their magnanimity. Egypt in total has 101 pyramids, the first run after the century was scored a few years back when archaeologists discovered 101st pyramid in Western Desert. Older pyramids were built around Cairo and not very far from civilization. However, when faced with attacks by tomb raiders, treasure-hunters and plunderers, later they started building them deep inside inhospitable western desert. Few of them were discovered totally covered with sand sometimes. The Great Pyramid of Giza (aka Pyramid of Khufu or Pyramid of Cheops) is the biggest and is the only existing one of the Seven Wonders of the World. There is no official ranking between these seven. There are two major pyramids on Giza plateau: Khufu, and Khafre. Khafre is smaller than Khufu. Mekaure is third and smaller one. Sphinx is also located in Giza, which is body of lion representing strength and face of human representing intelligence; thus serving as guardian of the pyramids. Cairo, the biggest city of Middle East, I think, has grown to include Sphinx and these Pyramids now.

(Photograph: Port Said at night)
Marwah recommended us to buy ‘Kartoosh’ as the best souvenir from Egypt. Kartoosh is a gold amulet worn for luck, health, peace, etc.; reasons similar to Indians wearing several stones and metal combinations. She told us that gold is cheap in Egypt because Egypt is a land of gold with 300 gold mines. King Tut’s mask only had 25 kgs of gold! I purchased a gold ring made up of Kartoosh with my name written in Hieroglyphics and I am wearing it. From the government guaranteed papyrus factory I purchased two papyrus paintings depicting The Final Judgment. (photograph: Marwah showing Final Judgement Papyrus painting -->) The original Final Judgment papyrus painting is in Louvre Museum in Paris. Paper made from papyrus plant never decays. This was the core idea behind the Egyptian invention of paper. Papyrus plant looks like a thin bamboo stick with pulp inside the bark. If you look closer you will notice with serendipity that the stick’s base is pyramidal and tapers towards the upper end. Final Judgment depicts what happens to a person when he dies and his fate in his after-life is decided: heaven or hell! Several gods vote on his innocence. If there is a tie, his heart is taken out and weighed against a feather. If his heart is lighter he is judged innocent and gets paradise, else his heart is eaten by a jackal-god and he is deemed hell.
(Photograph: Coffin inside The Great Pyramid which contained Mummy)
Symbology is strong in Egyptian culture. Lotus represents acceptance and peace, beetle being unisexual (can reproduce for itself… yes… without sex!!) for rebirth and continuity, cobra to punish, vulture for protection. Cobra and vulture are made out of gold on Tut’s tomb and the an interesting fact pointing towards truth of King Tut’s curse is that after Howard Carter took out and in effect disturbed Tut’s mummy, his canary was swollen by a cobra!

(Photograph: Obelisk representing Sun God 'Ra' is strong in Egyptian Culture)

One thing that stood in complete contrast to European shops is the heavy-duty bargaining. All items, from souvenirs like small pyramids made of glass or wood, Tut’s fake artifacts, wooden statue of arguably the most beautiful ancient Egyptian ever: Queen Nefritis, stuffed camels, even the gold ‘Kartoosh’ sold in the so-called fixed-price-shops…all demand you to quote a price much lesser to the vendor, sometimes even 10 to 1!! My mother always bargained in all the places we visited in and around India: Kathmandu, Pokhra, Darjeeling, Jaipur, Palika Bazaar of Delhi, etc.etc.…she just loves to quote one-tenth of printed price and then bask in the glory of buying at a lesser price than everyone else ;) On the contrary, constant pestering from local sellers in Giza and Khafren, around pyramids and sphinx; and that too in the dry heat and blowing on the face sand-dust was grueling for me. Even the acclaimed sticky Indian haggling vendors are no match for them :D

(Photograph: Welcome Dinner on Cruise)

Everything comes at a price! Well, we did pay in terms of hours (48) and pounds (135 CYP), however what matters to me the most is the hardship I endure. Like all journeys, this one was tiring too. Add to it the constant see-saw motion of the ship about both vertical and horizontal axes. The travel agent who gave me my cruise tickets although did advise me to take Stemetil: sea-sickness pills before boarding. However, I had never been out on a ship and definitely wanted to experience naturally all positives and negatives of it :P although it does not feel nice when you are sea-sick, and everybody else except you is enjoying in Casino Royale, Othellos Bar, Salaminia Lounge, Lido Cafe, Galaxias Disco, Library, Duty Free shop, Lido Verantah, Byzantium Dining Hall, cabarets, live music and dances…blah blah…all night! So, I gave in my arms and surrendered before the might of sea-sickness: took double pills, slept for a couple of hours and was back recharged with energy! The dry heat of Egyptian desert is excruciating…hotter and more scorching than Indian summer, I am sure. Egypt is in complete contrast to Europe, au contraire with loads of similarities with India! India was founded as a republic in 1950 after freedom from Britain which is arguably credited to Gandhi. Nasser freed Egypt from Britain and in 1952 made it a republic. Nehru and Nasser started the Non-Aligned Movement together later on. Demographically also I could smell the same Indianness. Rural people live in thatched huts in sparsely populated area dependent on cattle and government, urban people live in flats in tall buildings working in private companies. Education is almost free, Cairo University is one of the best in (Photograph: Our Group on Deck)
Arab World and funded by the Egyptian government. Urban Egyptians speak English, although not as well as we Indians do! Nevertheless, Egypt is richer in monuments. India has Tajmahal: eighth wonder; Egypt has Pyramid of Giza: the only wonder! India is hot, Egypt is hotter. :P India has problem with population, Egypt has problems with overpopulation and considers overpopulation as the single most important enemy! In general, Egyptians farmers, called ‘falaaheen’ in local Arabic, usually depicted wearing traditional robe: ‘Galaabiyaah’; which constitute 55% of population still have that negative mentality that more children will result in more help in farming and will support them in old age and procreate six to twelve children each. In contrast, Urban Egyptians are usually financially well-to-do and (Photograph: Cairo, the biggest city of Middle East and Africa) negligent of their rural compatriots, and there exists a divide, which sounded to me so familiar to the Indian scenario. Egyptians have lots of Gods with interesting legends…so do Indians, both have a superbly rich history, not-so-rich present and people in both countries are working hard towards a richer future. I wish both countries a wonderful future. Amen!!

Way Up In The Air

2006-05-18T05:29:00.000-07:00

2006-05-18T05:19:00.000-07:00

Up in the air

2006-05-16T00:28:00.000-07:00

We went to Protaras for project event. On Capo Bay I got my diploma in parasailing!!

Parasailing

2006-05-16T00:12:00.000-07:00

Holi: the Festival of Colors...Inside Office!

2006-03-21T01:18:00.000-08:00

Outside office

2006-03-21T01:17:00.000-08:00

Holi @ Amdocs!

2006-03-21T00:14:00.000-08:00

Holi at Home

2006-03-21T00:13:00.000-08:00

Holi at home

2006-03-20T09:08:00.000-08:00

Happy Holi!

2006-03-16T12:37:00.000-08:00

Devdas on Cruise: the ultimate antithesis?? Watch out...may become true!

2006-03-16T12:25:00.000-08:00

Winner of fancy dress competition and may be the runner...errrr...me!

2006-03-16T12:15:00.000-08:00

Rrrrat...ready to be eaten by Ccccats

2006-03-16T12:13:00.000-08:00

Limassol Carnival

2006-03-16T12:11:00.000-08:00

Devil and Devil's Advocates!

2006-03-16T12:10:00.000-08:00

Carnival Party

2006-03-16T12:09:00.000-08:00

Cyprus Carnival

2006-03-16T12:07:00.000-08:00

What do you say when thousands turn up on streets in fancy dresses and start dancing with lots of music..."Hey we gotta CARNIVAL!"

Skiing for the first time!

2006-03-16T11:15:00.000-08:00

I Went for skiing on Sunday. Was great fun. Out of the two types of skiing: Downhill and cross-country, downhill was more fun. A ropeway/lift takes you to the snowhill and you come down skiing up from there as if there is no gravity! Cross-coutnry style is to be done with a stick and you've got to apply force to move ahead with stick. I went up by myself and fell several times :-) however then I got a trainer called Michalis. He taught me and Kesu all the basics of standing still even on a slope, how to give direction by NOT tilting your skis but lifting it and always keeping the two skis parallel to each other. I did that what they usually do in skiing tests: Come down from a slope without a stick and duck to get through 3 feet high markers made out of sticks! That was a test I passed easily, although there were a lot of flying beauties around me to distract ;) However, applying brakes was no kid's play for me...I erred several times and fell too just after applying brake :D The simple funda of brakes while skiing called Snow-Plow is that when u're coming down from a slope merge your fronts of ski to make an A or Capital Lambda! If you are going up the hill make a V by merging your backsides of skis. Remember that skis should NEVER touch each other...and the A and V are to be made with open corners. Michalis, our trainer and his girlfriend kept saying 'Bravo' meaning 'well-done' in Greek and Italian (I had watched an Italian movie 'Life is Beautiful' where they keep saying Bravo as encouragement!) The skiing apparatus cosists of hard and long boots of my size of 10, a pair of skis on which shoes fit in and a pair of sticks to accelerate. Although I thought initially that sticks are to be used for deceleration..but they aren't. It's recommended to go there wearing waterproof lower, waterproof upper and puffy jackets; although I did all my skiing in Jeans :P and jacket. From the initial ways of 'topple over and bury your head in snow' to practising 'snow-plow' to stop, I guess I learnt something while skiing! At least how to stop...and now I have lost the reason to fall over and embrace a good-looking gal and say "Sorry, first time!" ;)

On Mount Olympus

2006-03-16T11:06:00.000-08:00

Skiing in Cyprus

2006-03-16T11:04:00.000-08:00

deux barbes françaises

2006-02-15T06:34:00.000-08:00

Un...err...Deux Français...I was once fed up with french in SFR/Cegetel project :-) ...passing on something for you to chew...'bon apetit' :D

B Party

2006-02-15T06:15:00.000-08:00

Vivek Talli at B Party

2006-02-15T06:14:00.000-08:00

Janmesh, Me and Costa Marina

2006-02-15T06:08:00.000-08:00

Office

2006-02-15T06:07:00.000-08:00

2006-02-15T06:03:00.000-08:00

2006-02-15T06:01:00.000-08:00

Titanic and Us!

2006-02-15T05:20:00.000-08:00

Neeraj, Me and Vineet with the giant ship Costa Fortuna at Limassol port...
Weighing 0.1 million tonnes, this Italian cruise liner weighs more than two TITANICs (46k ton each) put together!

A Diwali Party Group photograph

2006-02-06T07:33:00.000-08:00

BDAP Gang of Cyprus...a nostalgic group photo

2006-02-06T07:30:00.000-08:00

Snow, Aditya and Rays of Aditya

2006-02-06T07:16:00.000-08:00

'Aditya' in Hindi means Sun

Belly Dancers at New Year's Party

2006-02-06T05:07:00.000-08:00

Relaxing at beach in lunch-break from office

2006-02-06T04:59:00.000-08:00

Janmesh and Me at Limassol seaport

2006-02-06T04:49:00.000-08:00

'a' for Amdocs

2006-02-02T09:05:00.000-08:00

One fine morning All Doxians (Amdocs guys)in Cyprus came out from their cubicles to form an 'a' for a group photo and we got this great visual piece!

Dear intelligent viewer! Find me in this photograph and I will also give you an 'a+'...a with bonus :-)

Enjoying in snow and chilling weather at Troodos

2006-02-02T08:56:00.000-08:00

Me, Snowbaby (the one with a cap), Anand, Sapan and Sapan's Mom

2006-02-02T08:32:00.000-08:00

Troodos: snowy hills of Cyprus

2006-02-02T08:30:00.000-08:00

Anand and Sumit...err...Tandon and Rangi

2006-02-02T08:23:00.000-08:00

We made such a cute snowbaby...I kissed him!

2006-02-02T08:21:00.000-08:00

Anand, Me, Vivek and Bhuwan in Troodos

2006-02-02T08:07:00.000-08:00

Anand Tandon's misery at New Year's Party...:D

2006-02-02T08:02:00.000-08:00

The League of Extra-ordinary Gentlemen

2006-02-02T07:59:00.000-08:00

Sameer's 'Happy' B'Day

2005-12-17T15:25:00.000-08:00

The BDAP Gang of Cyprus

2005-12-17T14:28:00.000-08:00

Left to Right: Bhupesh, Sridhar, Bhuwan, Vivek, Aditya (me with red tie), Vibhav, Sławek [well...that good-looking 'l' is a Polish alphabet] and Sapan Nalin Khandwaala Mumbhai Chowpatiwaala (it's true...that's his full name...pls...pls...pls believe me :D)

Neeraj's Party

2005-12-17T14:21:00.000-08:00

and where is Neeraj???

What do you expect the BEST COOK IN THE WORLD to do...?? Neeraj cooked yummy Chicken Masala for more than 20 Carnivores on his b'day! (not for tigers or dogs man...for us! well...Although we have a self-proclaimed lion amongst us: Bhuwan, however interestingly he is herbivorous...LOL :D)

B'day party

2005-12-17T14:19:00.000-08:00

home...sweet home

2005-12-17T14:13:00.000-08:00

As my friend Diana puts it:
"You feel the pinch of big and beautiful house is ... when you clean it!!"

bar at home

2005-12-17T14:10:00.000-08:00

Working!!

2005-12-17T13:53:00.000-08:00

Me with my cute little Toyota Corona

2005-12-17T13:49:00.000-08:00

Me in Cyprus

2005-12-17T13:42:00.000-08:00

Me with Bhuwan at Diwali Party

2005-12-17T13:28:00.000-08:00

Me with Bhuwan and Vivek at Kourion beach

2005-11-09T10:40:00.000-08:00

Summer Party

2005-09-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

First blog

2005-09-27T08:29:00.000-07:00

In a moment of truth I had a feeling that my thoughts are precious enough to be logged if I don't want mankind to repent not recording the fleeting thoughts of mine which which will change the way people think and communicate in centuries and milleniums to come.........fed up with mailing photos and experiences to everybody...gonna put them at one place...