How do you recognize a desi abroad? There are no answers, you just do. There are ones who look same as you and those that would have looked firang in India are also and easy pick. For us all chinki's look the same, all americans might be indistinguishable but even the most blending of the Indians stand out.
My first experience with this kind of ability was not with any international exposure. It was during my days in Mysore when I had just moved in there. All southies spoke the same cryptic language which I could not understand. But I landed up with mallus as my room mates. Mallus have a peculiar detection mechanism which works without hearing the other person speak a word. I mean just by looks, most of my roomies would be able to locate another mallu. So in our house there were mallu hounds who at every bakery would find out that the bakery waalah was mallu, every taxi driver they meet they would be able to chaff out the mallus out of them. Even from a name they could classify a mallu.
But it took me no time to get into their squad. There were following simple rules (without offending any mallu who might have started folding his tund) :
If someone is wearing a white dhoti with a shirt, he has to be a mallu
If the name is a combination of Hindu and Christian. For e.g. Amit George.
If your name is any combination of George, Koshy, Urvin, Justin, Bobby. Nothing out of this syllabus.
If the person has curly hairs
If the person is totally nuts about girls in gym, or girls in white sarees. Wonder how many people will love to see women in whites, but mallus sure would die for it.
If he searches for a mallu mess in 50 km vicinity of his house and says its convinient to have the putt and egg curry and biriyani on weekend than to cook at home
Its been great fun with all my mallu friends who might themselves be currently puzzled how they smell a mallu coz they never came up with a formal approach.
And there are incentives for getting a mallu. Each one has such dearness towards each other that he can even give you your account number. I don't know how their practical experience is but for an outsider it sure seems that. So I think its all the more important to know whether the other person is mallu and ready to chat in his own language.
Am I right? Enda para?
5/30/2006
5/22/2006
Devil's Advocate
A lot has been said about reservation by all, but what even I as an un-informed common man was just hoping that the person behind that had some valid reasons. I mean I have no doubt that I am for the upliftment of the suppressed but I am seriously against any kind of reservation given on the basis of cast alone. In fact as many have cited out(1, 2) that reservation per se is a flawed policy, easily exploitable and hardly useful except to feed the vote banks of politicians. I wont elaborate on that but I want you people to read the following link on IBN Live about the Devil's Advocate-Arjun Singh ,which I wish I could have seen.
Does it convince you?
PS: Dabbu thanks for the mail.
Does it convince you?
PS: Dabbu thanks for the mail.
5/21/2006
The Da Vinci Watched
Just got to see the Da Vinci Code. Well there's been quite a hype around it in India. I think its quite a nice movie (Don't ask me if its better than the novel or not, as I don't think movies can come to close to the detail of the novel). The movie is good and a must watch according to me for those who have not read the novel and also for those who have.Good acting by Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautau. A lot of French speaking English reminded me of the way those people speak English ( I have somehow developed a liking for that accent. Long to hear English that way. Its not the correct way to speak but sure it sounds good. Especially when you're not a pundit in English yourself.). The movie touches on every important part of the novel. Has nice graphic description of the history (perhaps they lifted this concept from RDB) where they go back to history in b/w and scenes of before Christ are shown in that b/w sketchy manner. All the turning points of the novel are kept that way intact and shown (Pardon me if I missed some intricacies as its been long since I read the novel and I am surely not known for my memory). Characters match the imagination.
One thing where the movie lacks is the details of the symbology which Dan Brown has done more justice in the novel. I need to hear one review from the person who sees it without reading the novel. Does it incite the same amount of interest in the subject of Symbology as the novel does?
And btw on the controversy, I guess one thing where the movie has tried to set its record right is the part of belief in Jesus as God. Robert Langdon does keep getting to the point back that this is all what people believe, the grail followers believe and this is a hoax which people believe in deeply. The message is little less forced as compared to the novel. So my guess is that there is no need for such debate about it hurting the Christian belief. It should be released peacefully in India.
Its different
This is exactly the feeling I am getting on entering into US. Its surely different to go out of India into any country which is developed and advanced in terms of social status but coming to US is even more different than that. Having seen Europe, I can't help but noticing differences between the two and my own homeland of course.
US is big for sure. I haven't had a chance to see anything beyond where I landed and within 30 miles (yes miles is what I have to adjust to) of it but one thing that's most obvious is that they're grand on everything they have.
A supermarket will be twice the size it requires to be. Parking lots are like open fields. This is one thing you wont find so much in Europe. People are obsessed with cars etc but somehow I have never seen such big parking lots there. At most restaurants, the size of the restaurant would be one twentieth of the parking lot around it. Give one parking lot to 100 farmers in India and they would convert each one of them to lush green paddy fields, have 200 children and be happy.
Vastness gives to me a great feeling of wastage. You can blame me as back in India you wont waste a single piece of land except of course where it matters for the business, clients. Beautification is one thing which is secondary to utility.
When you come to roads, it beats the sense out of your brain. If one of the expressway is evacuated and given to people of Modinagar then they can have the whole city settled without even any 'choplas' (that in modinagria terms is a crossing) in between. I mean you wont have to go to other crossing on the freeway before the whole city shall be happily finished. Also when someone tells you this 6 lane freeway crawls at 15 mph speed you feel like laughing. But wastness is what you have to get your mind.
No difference in currency notes. 1 $ goes as big as a 100$ bill. Its also grown. They did not even spare numbers, our humble little centigrade scale is now bigger in Fahrenheits, so 30 degrees Celsius become 85 Fahrenheits (don't remember the formulae, just guessing from the feel factor). One thing is miles which is shorter but believe me its psychologically bigger. You would be ready to walk 2 kms but never 2 miles.
Your country itself has 3 time zones. I never faced that when calling anyone in Europe/India. Atleast the country people are in the same time zones. You have a lot of Indian friends but its like one is in Kanyakumari and another in Kashmir.
So this grandoise is giving me the initial jerk of entering into the US of A. So till I settle properly things will keep on amazing me. Not in the sense of awe which you might get into any developed country as that has gone after my first travel but more in the sense of differences between the cultures of the East, Europe and the West. There's a lot that does meet the eye in terms of people and places which I'll sure pen down at a later time, coz people is what I am still figuring out myself. Till then its just the tomato ketchup feeling which I cannot explain... It's Different
US is big for sure. I haven't had a chance to see anything beyond where I landed and within 30 miles (yes miles is what I have to adjust to) of it but one thing that's most obvious is that they're grand on everything they have.
A supermarket will be twice the size it requires to be. Parking lots are like open fields. This is one thing you wont find so much in Europe. People are obsessed with cars etc but somehow I have never seen such big parking lots there. At most restaurants, the size of the restaurant would be one twentieth of the parking lot around it. Give one parking lot to 100 farmers in India and they would convert each one of them to lush green paddy fields, have 200 children and be happy.
Vastness gives to me a great feeling of wastage. You can blame me as back in India you wont waste a single piece of land except of course where it matters for the business, clients. Beautification is one thing which is secondary to utility.
When you come to roads, it beats the sense out of your brain. If one of the expressway is evacuated and given to people of Modinagar then they can have the whole city settled without even any 'choplas' (that in modinagria terms is a crossing) in between. I mean you wont have to go to other crossing on the freeway before the whole city shall be happily finished. Also when someone tells you this 6 lane freeway crawls at 15 mph speed you feel like laughing. But wastness is what you have to get your mind.
No difference in currency notes. 1 $ goes as big as a 100$ bill. Its also grown. They did not even spare numbers, our humble little centigrade scale is now bigger in Fahrenheits, so 30 degrees Celsius become 85 Fahrenheits (don't remember the formulae, just guessing from the feel factor). One thing is miles which is shorter but believe me its psychologically bigger. You would be ready to walk 2 kms but never 2 miles.
Your country itself has 3 time zones. I never faced that when calling anyone in Europe/India. Atleast the country people are in the same time zones. You have a lot of Indian friends but its like one is in Kanyakumari and another in Kashmir.
So this grandoise is giving me the initial jerk of entering into the US of A. So till I settle properly things will keep on amazing me. Not in the sense of awe which you might get into any developed country as that has gone after my first travel but more in the sense of differences between the cultures of the East, Europe and the West. There's a lot that does meet the eye in terms of people and places which I'll sure pen down at a later time, coz people is what I am still figuring out myself. Till then its just the tomato ketchup feeling which I cannot explain... It's Different
5/15/2006
Desh ki khushbu
Every movie that talked about NRI must be having this dialogue : "Apne desh ki mitti ki khusboo kuch aur hi hai". I cannot agree more with that and that too speaking non emotionally. There's a different smell which I can categorise as cold-western smell. You get this distinct foreign smell as soon as you land and the worse part from my prev experience is that this does not go. I mean you get used to it but still its distinctness that keeps reminding you of desh ki mitti.
Doston ki yaad, onsite snobbishness of people who were once Indians make you long for your own country emotionally on the other hand. Will write more about this when I have more time.
Doston ki yaad, onsite snobbishness of people who were once Indians make you long for your own country emotionally on the other hand. Will write more about this when I have more time.
5/11/2006
Mukhtasar=short/consise
A song that I had been searching for long. Deep meanings and good vocals.
Use dhoondoon kahan, use paoon kahan
Kahani mohabbat ki hai mukhtsar
Gaya dil se phir woh na aaya idhar
Kabhi koyi tha meri raahon ka ek humsafar
Kar gaya dil ka woh soona nagar
Koyi rasta na koyi dagar
Use dhoondoon kahan, use paoon kahan
Aaj main hoon yahan woh kahan
Kahani mohabbat ki hai mukhtsar
Gaya dil se phir woh na aaya idhar
Kabhi koyi tha meri raahon ka ek humsafar
Use dhoondoon kahan, use paoon kahan
Aaj main hoon yahan woh kahan
Neele aasmaan pe badal chhaa rahein hain
Panchi apne ghar ko wapas jaa rahein hain
Use dhoondoon kahan, use paoon kahan
Aaj main hoon yahan woh kahan
Kahani mohabbat ki hai mukhtsar
Door parbaton pe phool khil rahein hain
Pyaar karne wale saath chal rahein hain
Use dhoondoon kahan, use paoon kahan
Aaj main hoon yahan woh kahan
Kahani mohabbat ki hai mukhtsar
Gaya dil se phir woh na aaya idher
Kabhi koyi tha meri raahon ka ek humsafar
Kar gaya dil ka woh soona nagar
Koyi rasta na koyi dagar
Use dhoondoon kahan, use paoon kahan
Aaj main hoon yahan woh kahan
Kahani mohabbat ki hai mukhtsar
Gaya dil se phir woh na aaya idhar
Kabhi koyi tha meri raahon ka ek humsafar
Use dhoondoon kahan, use paoon kahan
Aaj main hoon yahan woh kahan
Listen here.
Sunne layak kahaniyan aakhir mukhtasar si hi hoti hain.
Technorati Tags: Songs, music
5/10/2006
Confused and can't name the spark
Maya, or the unreal world is what makes our lives beautiful in its whole journey. Does the real actually matter? What's it about getting to know the reality? The real world!! Its about getting older and understanding the truth than be in illusions of doing the right thing. But what I am writing as the gospel truth might be my illusion. All part of maturing.
One end is the material world with all its beauties, statuses, power etc. On the other end is pure realisation that what you earn in life is respect, love and friendship. One of the things I recall is what I read in the 7 habits book was that to imagine urself at your own funeral and imagine what everyone speaks for you. What would you like to hear from others about yourself that inspires you to live the life that you are living. So what should value most?
I think for most part of our lives Maya guides us into doing things that lead us good into the material world. It is this element of Maya that makes life what it is. Its present in small/big share in everyone's life. I think its part of the universe without which the world would have been a very boring place to be in.
But at the end of it what should be called maturity? Does it matter that you get more respect or more money? Does it matter that you wear more costly or that you are more comfortable? Does it matter that you care for the other person's feeling or that you are doing a bookish right? Feeling is more important or saying? Persevering is more important or accomplishing?
I think I am just a novice, will take some time for me to figure out.
One end is the material world with all its beauties, statuses, power etc. On the other end is pure realisation that what you earn in life is respect, love and friendship. One of the things I recall is what I read in the 7 habits book was that to imagine urself at your own funeral and imagine what everyone speaks for you. What would you like to hear from others about yourself that inspires you to live the life that you are living. So what should value most?
I think for most part of our lives Maya guides us into doing things that lead us good into the material world. It is this element of Maya that makes life what it is. Its present in small/big share in everyone's life. I think its part of the universe without which the world would have been a very boring place to be in.
But at the end of it what should be called maturity? Does it matter that you get more respect or more money? Does it matter that you wear more costly or that you are more comfortable? Does it matter that you care for the other person's feeling or that you are doing a bookish right? Feeling is more important or saying? Persevering is more important or accomplishing?
I think I am just a novice, will take some time for me to figure out.
5/08/2006
What I wont do
Recently I happened to read an interview by Rahsmi Bansal in which she answered that one should make his or her mind clear about his/her career and atleast decide "What I will not do". To me this is such a big and dangerous question that I actually stopped thinking about it.
There are so many things that I can list down that I had happily told that "ye to nahin hi karoonga" and after a few whips from luck I find myself doing it. I started noticing this after a person I can call wise told me once, "never say, I would not do x thing" because then the whole world conspires to make you do it (plagiarism :)). I'm sure this should be happening with others too, but I'm also sure that with lesser surety than mine.
Rather I have had better luck with "I can try to do it". I mean when I am quite unsure of my success, I guess the effort is more than required and it has got me some excellent results. Well excellent is not that great but atleast say 3 out of 10 times it works and that too is excellent considering if I say "I wont do it" and forget about it, I have had to do it with almost cent percent surety.
The entropy of the world ensures that your plans shake and you slip into the same pit that you wanted to avoid, in short you get that "dreamers bad luck". So I shall try not to say "I wont do this thing" but who knows I might :)
There are so many things that I can list down that I had happily told that "ye to nahin hi karoonga" and after a few whips from luck I find myself doing it. I started noticing this after a person I can call wise told me once, "never say, I would not do x thing" because then the whole world conspires to make you do it (plagiarism :)). I'm sure this should be happening with others too, but I'm also sure that with lesser surety than mine.
Rather I have had better luck with "I can try to do it". I mean when I am quite unsure of my success, I guess the effort is more than required and it has got me some excellent results. Well excellent is not that great but atleast say 3 out of 10 times it works and that too is excellent considering if I say "I wont do it" and forget about it, I have had to do it with almost cent percent surety.
The entropy of the world ensures that your plans shake and you slip into the same pit that you wanted to avoid, in short you get that "dreamers bad luck". So I shall try not to say "I wont do this thing" but who knows I might :)
Alternate levels of Manager and Techie: Spark 2
Just thinking of the reply to this topic earlier. I figured out one more benefit.
A techie always gets promoted to be a manager. He has to get back to his toes, start listing down all that he hated in his manager and get to working what a techie under him would need to work efficiently. He can be good at nurturing a person who's going to do a techie work. What he will have to struggle is to get a manager's hat. This is one part he shall have to learn, schedule, assign, manage are some things a first timer into a management position would get to know and have to adjust with. And many would agree who better than the developer himself to estimate and assign.
Similarly a manager gets promoted to a technical role. His strings are pulled and he has to now get back to the basics. Learn the overall technique of the things being produced and yes from a higher level than he used to do it two levels below. Get to understand similar technologies, spark some innovation and collect data to explore to improve efficiencies of the techies working a two level below him. And overall be responsible for a sound product that all managers under him are going to manage.
Nothing serious yet that I can pen down a new theory of management but still jotting down my thoughts.
A techie always gets promoted to be a manager. He has to get back to his toes, start listing down all that he hated in his manager and get to working what a techie under him would need to work efficiently. He can be good at nurturing a person who's going to do a techie work. What he will have to struggle is to get a manager's hat. This is one part he shall have to learn, schedule, assign, manage are some things a first timer into a management position would get to know and have to adjust with. And many would agree who better than the developer himself to estimate and assign.
Similarly a manager gets promoted to a technical role. His strings are pulled and he has to now get back to the basics. Learn the overall technique of the things being produced and yes from a higher level than he used to do it two levels below. Get to understand similar technologies, spark some innovation and collect data to explore to improve efficiencies of the techies working a two level below him. And overall be responsible for a sound product that all managers under him are going to manage.
Nothing serious yet that I can pen down a new theory of management but still jotting down my thoughts.
5/03/2006
Sad as it is
Its tragic that Pramod Mahajan had an untimely death. Its a loss. His good long career had lot of laurels and brickbats but what made him popular was his simplicity and eloquence in the matters he believed. Somehow people recognised him as a person who keeps things on a lighter note and carries his heart on his sleeve. I have no more to say than a lot of other media sites/blogs(1, 2) would be saying about the goods that he did.
May he rest in peace.
May he rest in peace.
Parents visit
Parents are here and its a nice break from bachelorhood :). Its a good break from our raju chacha too. Ghar ka khana, nothing can beat it.
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