Oom-pithe-tal

Oom-pithe-tal (OPT) is a French phrase which can be loosely translated to mean ‘the state where life is ordered and tranquil’. I have been experiencing OPT ever since I landed here in Chicago…

1. When I landed, I was supposed to be here for a week (for the initial kickoff) and then move to Troy for my onsite assignment. But then the plans got changed and I was asked to continue here. My house lease plans went for a toss and I had to intrude into one of my friend’s apartment. I didn’t know that was just the beginning of things to come.

2. The apartment complex where I decided to stay had strict rules about its tenants and guests. They didn’t encourage guests using the tenant's swipe card for admittance (yea, we had to swipe a card each time we entered the building), so my friend had to see me off and pick me back each time I went out and returned.

3. I couldn’t receive my parcels as I didn’t have my name on the apartment mailbox.

4. My project work sucks.

5. I applied for an SSN, and when they sent the card, it was bounced because I didn’t have my name on the mailbox.

6. I applied for a bank card. The first card which the bank sent had the same fate as that of my SSN card. I applied again, and asked them to send it to the local branch. I went there and collected it, started using it. On the third day, when I swiped my card after buying a cold coffee, the cute lady at the counter smiled at me “This card is no good”. Transactions were declined on that card. I checked with the bank, they said there was a ‘lost or stolen’ reported against the card. The lost or stolen was in fact on my first card. Somehow they messed it up. I had to wait for another week to get my third card.

7. I still havnt applied for my driving license.

8. I applied for a credit card. It was declined. I know you are not surprised, so here is the rest of the story. I had citibank calling me three times, conducting a session for me and my friends before I left for US, educating me about the benefits of the card they are going to give me. They even followed up with a mail after me reaching here. I finally applied and they promptly rejected.

9. I used to stay at the 46th floor and the reception for my cellphone was pathetic to say the least. I used to get connected once in a while; I tried drawing a pattern between the connection availability and the strength of wind, but cant say I was successful.

10. My friend fell ill.

Finally to take care of 2, 3 and 9, I shifted to a new apartment.

11. After moving in, I realized that my new place has absolutely no connectivity for cellphones. Before this, I used to get calls, only problem was occasionally my calls were dropped. But here, I don’t even get connected, so don’t have to worry about dropped calls any more.

Now I am eagerly waiting for the next bazooka my way :_)

Pee at your will

What do you call someone who is extremely proud of his religion? One who cannot tolerate any other religion… or one who has prejudices about other religions?? We live in a progressive society which advises us to look down upon religious fanatics. Most people do so at least for the sake of being politically correct.

Now, what about someone who is extremely proud of his country? One who despises people from other countries? Sadly, we call him a patriot. Xenophobes are often passed off as stalwarts of nationalism and patriotism.

In this age of information super highways and globalization, isn’t it time we do away with those imaginary boundaries which separate your nation from mine, or ours from theirs?

We see groups of people fighting against each other. Americans against (terrorists from) the rest of the world. Indians against Pakistanis. Palestinians against Israelites. Chinese against Indians. X against Y.

It took centuries for civilizations to realize the folly in dividing people based on religion. (On second thoughts, have we really done that yet? Am I wrong in saying the religious tolerance we see around us these days is only skin-deep?)

Will I be crucified for stating the fact that dividing people based on nationality is as good or as bad as dividing people based on religion?

Looking forward to an immediate tomorrow where the national boundaries will give way to four or five continents and then a not so distant future when we all will be citizens of One World.

Personal Update: Sometimes silly things like being able to pee at ur will seems like a war won on its own, when you go thru ‘terrific’ conditions :_). Reference: So far, we didn’t have access to the development area doors allotted for us. Each time we wanted to even pee, we had to wait for someone else to open the doors for us. So finally after umpteen mails to and fro, when we were granted access, we celebrated by peeing away to our hearts content whenever (and no…not wherever) we wanted. :_)

Proverb: A cleavage should be treated like a sunset sight. You just take a peek, and shdnt keep staring at it!!! :_))

What goes around, comes around

‘Tag and get tagged’ has become the in thing these days… here comes another one from the one and only Quills the Bachelorette, darling of the blog world and Bachelorette union chair-person…

5 people who top your shit list..... and why:

Ok… I am no saint… I maintain my (s)hit list.

1. An old friend of mine who turned against me at a crucial juncture…
2. An old classmate who plotted a major show-off, which triggered the above mentioned incident.
3. Another old classmate who acted smart and made the best out of the above situation, thus spoiling my reputation.
4. Cant think of any other individuals … so here comes two groups…people who think they are always right and people who think only they are right.
5. People who misuse whatever little power or authority they have thereby making life difficult for others.

Close brushes with death/danger:

This I had plenty :_)….

A project party sometime back…a resort…a river… fast current, deep waters….some stupid challenge….me plunged head first…when I was half way through, I had a cramp in my right thigh, I couldn’t swim any more… I drowned and the water was twice as high as me… I still don’t know how I came back up and managed to paddle thru the rest of it… one hell of an exp… the pain when your lungs are deprived of air is indescribable.

Some bike stunts ;_)) don’t want to bore my friends with another narration…

5 Preferable modes of suicide, in descending order:

Honestly, I have never thought of that door… I am damn self confident and egoistic to admit defeat or give up…in fact over confidence is one of my weaknesses ;_))

5 Guilty pleasures:

I subscribe to the viewpoint ‘anything pleasurable is not guilty’….I have a natural tendency to go grab/do all those things which are considered taboo/guilty, that too without the slightest sense of guilt…

5 things you never want to forget:

1. The good times I had/have with my family and friends.
2. cant think of anything else… so drilling down on the above item… each and every family gettogether was special…
3. my engineering life… four years of carefree life… all the trips our gang had…
4. my Mumbai life… 12 crazy guys/gals… fun filled days… enjoyable trips…
5. then the Bangalore episode… script remains the same…more movies… more trips…more fun…

5 things you wish to forget:

I usually don’t forget and I don’t want to forget also :_)
scores should be settled…debts should be paid back…

5 really exotic dishes you have tried:

I thot of googling to come up with stuff like Reindeer’s right thigh roasted with Emu heart or something similar…. But then I thot I cud write about some out of the world delicacies I have had…

1. Frog-leg fry :- you will appreciate this more when you are involved in the process of ‘procuring’ the frog from the nearby paddy fields and small streams, post midnight, armed with just a torch and a sack to collect frogs.
2. River fish :- again when you yourself do the ‘catching’ process. Easy way of doing this is by tying a long net across the river and then coming back after an hour or so to collect the tangled fish. Another way is to use a ‘Veeshu Vala’ (the typical round conical shaped net) which you ‘throw’ open, which lands in water in a perfect circle and drowns because of the weight of the lead beads tied to the rim, and comes back with priced ‘catch’.
3. Crow, parrot :- prey to the bullet which was released when you pulled the trigger.
4. Vedi Irachi (Shikaar meat) – Just awesome!!
5. Forrest rabbit:- again, taste is augmented by the fact that the rabbit was caught by your group which chased it all along the rubber estate… or by (accidentally) running your vehicle over it in a high-range forest trip…

I know some of the entries above are a bit sadistic…but then facts are facts… I am a pure-non-vegetarian.

I thank my dad’s bro for allowing me to be with him for the above mentioned endeavors… He used to take me out for a new adventure, each time I visited my homestead… I miss those days :_(

5 crushes/loves in your life... in chronological order (even initials or nicknames wud do. Oh, no ID attempts or requests pleez):

Here again I can write ‘that girl who smiled at me when I fell down in LKG, or the girl who drank from my water bottle in std 2’ and so on … … but… let me be frank… apart from a handful of movie stars like Ms A Rai, Ms B Basu, Ms M Bellucci or Ms C Anne Moss, I don’t remember having real life crushes… the grown up me (as far as I can remember) was always level headed in this one aspect… i was always looking out for friendships and not for affairs… so naturally….well…u know…u got what I meant…rite? ;_))

Strangest dream you ever had:

I had this dream a couple of times… in this... I am sleeping on a bed… the problem is I am in a gigantic room… walls are tall and wide…I am lying on my bed in one corner of the room and the room is so vast, I cant see the other corners of the room or the roof…only me and my bed are small…then there is a zoom out effect, and I feel my bed and me going up slowly and endlessly…. towards the end, I invariably fall off the bed, and I wake up from my sleep…havnt yet got a chance to see what happens on my way down…:_))

5 most valued personal possessions:

1. bike
2. cell.
3. some cards and letters.
4. some gifts.
5. and c cards… :_)

5 favorite superheroes..... and why:

I am not a cartoon lover… in fact all throughout my life (even when I was a child), I have treated cartoons to be too childish an affair to pay attention to… (Exceptions: I do watch T&J and read C&H). So I really don’t care a damn about all those undy-over-pants super heroes. Now if I tweak the question to five of my fav fictional characters, then here I go…

1. Tarzan: I like the concept of being the king… even if ur subjects are all apes and gorillas… who cares as long as you are treated royally… besides the added advantage of having a Jane to literally hang around trees is really tempting to say the least…
2. Sherlock Holmes: He IS intelligent like me.
3. Bheem of Mahabharata. Please read ‘Randamoozham’ to understand why.
4. Phileas Fogg: Isnt it cool to kick start a trip around the world just for the heck of a bet and finish it in 79 days?
5. Santiago: Courage is what it takes to pursue your dream after sacrificing all you have.

5 people who should pass the parcel…

1. Hope and Love
2. Venus
3. jithU
4. Thanu
5. AF Space

An in(s)ane Tag!!

Here is another tag...thanks to an iNsAnE mInD..thanks man, send all the tags my way...will ya ;_))

1.Grab the book nearest to you, turn on page 18 and find line 4.
MDF & Triggers (…from Input Accel development with VBA course book ;_))

2.Stretch your left arm out as far as you can.
Yes…I did… :_) anything else :-? you sure u asked the entire question ??

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?
I don’t watch TV that often… so don’t really remember…

4.Without looking, guess what time it is?
12:33 AM?

5. Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?
1:19 AM…(btw, what was the point?)

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
its past midnight… mostly silent…except for the occasional traffic sounds from down the streets and the sound of wind gushing thru the windy city…

7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
A couple of hours back… went for a movie

8. Before you started this survey, what did you look at?
my gmail inbox and ofcourse Poison’s blog to copy this tag…

9. What are you wearing?
Shorts and an unbuttoned T-Shirt...

10. Did you dream last night?
Don’t remember anything now…

11. When did you last laugh?
was when Thally and me called Chacks and Neuro on phone :_)) whenever we guys chat, we make a hell lot of noise, which includes a hell lot of laughter… :_))

12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?
Nothing but some electrical fixtures and some temperature control vents

13 Seen anything weird lately?
Nope

14. What do you think of this quiz?
No comments :_) Poison is one of my good friends ;_)

15. What is the last film you saw?
Lucky number Sleven

16. If you became a multimillionaire overnight, what would you buy?
Good question… a red Ferrari, a black Ducati, a Harley… ok..add a silver Mazda 6 to that ;_))

17. Tell me something about you that I dunno.
I too used to be a topper… =))… long long back…but still… I am sure, most of u r surprised :_))

18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
Remove the barriers (political, official, and physical) between countries… one world…no passports, no visas, free trade… will smbdy pls nominate me for the next Nobel Peace prize?

19. Do you like to dance?
Of course… but the sad fact is I am a very poor dancer…

20. George Bush.
Technically, the most ‘powerful’ man alive…

21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?
Jr (left to her mother's choice)

22. Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?
Jr (left to his mother's choice)

23. Would you ever consider living abroad?
I am not too sure… I guess I am a bit skeptical abt that… will have to think abt it.. ;_))

24.What do you want GOD to say to you when you reach the pearly gates?
An atheist’s dictionary doesn’t contain the word ‘GOD’… pheww!!! How was that one for an answer :_D

25. 5 people who must also do this meme in their journal.
Venus, Anita, Mind Curry, Shruti, Quills

Settling down

Today was our home-setup-day… rented out a SUV, Saturn VUE from Nationals…went to Wal-Mart. What followed were the normal (expected) shopping scenes when 3 guys shop for cooking utensils and grocery… “Should we buy 3 frying pans and a round bottomed flask like cooking vessel or is it the other way?” “What should be the height of the frying pan? Suppose we cook some long wide vegetables, will the height of the pan be a problem?” “When we cook, should we be using plastic spoons or metal spoons?” “What kind of mat we put outside the toilet door? Is it kitchen mat or toilet mat?”

We could finish the stuff in around 2 hours at Wal-Mart. One thing which helped us to finish it so fast was the fact that I had prepared a detailed checklist of things to buy (which included just 2 items by the way, 1. utensils 2. grocery) which I forgot to take with me when I started in the morning. Once done with our utensils, bed and general shopping at Wal-Mart, we headed straight to Devon Street, which is kind of a mini India out here, for our grocery shopping. Thanks to google maps, we didn’t have any issues in finding our way.

Any Indian will feel right at home when he/she reaches Devon Street. Mughal-E-Sheriff restaurant, Naina sari shop, Bombay electricals, Shah’s jewelers… the place is full of Indian shops. You find people crisscrossing roads everywhere… We even found a Patel brothers eatery and an Udupi Restaurant there. More of typical guys-shopping-grocery scenes – “What daal do we use?” my roomie asked me holding three different varieties in his hand. Personally I am not a big fan of cooking my own food. The fact is I don’t know the art of cooking :_). {How many of you have met someone who has landed in the US of A without a single cooking utensil, a pack of curry masala or even a single bottle of pickle in his baggage? ;_) } I was just accompanying these guys in their shopping trip as a cart pusher… and in the middle of that, if he asks me what daal to use, what am I supposed to answer? Then they had this confusion as to how much onion/ginger to buy, how many tomatoes to pick… :_) one of em came back with 2 tomatoes and a bag full of ginger which was enuf to feed a battalion for a couple of months… we told him it would be better if we get it the other way arnd… then there was a confusion as to how many rice bags to pick.. my friend checked the weight of a single bag…unfortunately it was in pounds… we three engineers had a tough time converting pounds to KGs…then one of my friends attempted calculating the amount of rice needed for three people for a single serving and then multiplying it by the number of days in a week or some such number…seeing that all three of us were equally good/bad in maths, I suggested to pick 3 bags as a starting point, which was accepted happily by all…

When we went to pick up the car in the morning, the temperature outside was 2 degree Celsius… It was my foolishness to bank on the weather prediction (which said 10+ degrees) and venture out without even grabbing my jacket… anyways, the Saturn was comfortable and we had a nice day… :_)