90mph

Have you ever seen a road so straight and so long and so so barren that you don’t see anything along the horizon? Well I saw one such road and imagined driving here @ night would make me shit in my pants.
Anyway, US is supposed to have many such roads and hence these guys have a solution for driving on these roads. Cruise!!! You reach a certain speed and press a button and the speed is maintained at that automatically. When you see this in normal city traffic one would say what an absurd waste. But then when you read a sign board saying; “Next Gas after 150 Miles” these things become justified. Well now coming to the roads and the location. As many of you who would read this will know, I had been to the Sin City… can’t blog about that, I am getting married!!! So we get such a road when we go from Las Vegas to Area 51(We were almost there). Straight roads and deserts all around you. You feel, are we in Earth or in Mars?? Only the gravity makes you realize that yes you are still on Earth. Speed Limits on these roads are a whopping 75mph (~121mph). If you don’t use the cruise, you will not know and you reach 90mph (you guys can convert that). This should give a kick right? Driving so fast… Well No sir… It was one of the most boring drives of my life… Nothing to see, bad music (courtesy a fellow traveler) and I almost dozed off writing this… So now I can say negating the general cliché, “Driving @ 90mph is boring”…
So people who drive in India, guys you are best. We might not have the best roads or the best cars but definitely we have the best drivers and not to mention the truckwalas who always keep our drives interesting…

SMILE OK PLEASE

I am walking down the road to office for the first time. Street name some damn Ave. As I step on the office pathway, I get a big grin from a person walking past me. Now what am I supposed to do. This is my first day in US ain’t it? How does this big huge gentleman know me… But I smile back just out of courtesy. Maybe he must have seen my photo somewhere. But where????

uff.. I enter the building and finally reach my floor and my desk with a sigh of relief wondering what did I do? Why is everyone recognizing me and smiling at me? Is my photo being put up on some kind of notice board or something with my name saying this is the new bakra from India?… I was like… OMG!!! So I go to one of my colleagues and ask him about this. He can’t control his laughter… He laughs for 5 min, putting me through the same kind of pain again but more intensified… One person I actually know is laughing… Once the expression of LOL stopped, he explains to me that this is very common in the US of A that people just smile at you and you are supposed to smile back. I was like.. Gosh.. Why??? There was no real answer you know… Courtesy, Chivalry, Culture..(So many C’s) came up as reasons… I thought what the F let me add another C to it.. This is some Chugiri (I hope you guys know this.. else mail me will tell you) that I have to do..  So I start to smile back at all people… Its kinda fun you know… You can smile and say Hi to any one… I mean.. Think of the times when you wanted to catch the smile of a pretty girl in the lift, and she doesn’t give you any damn ghaas… Welcome to US of A. You can smile at all those beautiful girls in the lift and they will smile back and more wish you a good day!!! So much for the Cgiri… I started enjoying… Flip side, yes you have smile at everyone… You will find people saying Namaste…You have to greet them too.. and you know none of them! Come on…Do we go and say “Yo Man, Howz you?” and all… No right…We just say “Hi”… then whats all this Namaste stuff… But I have to admit even though it’s awkward, it’s kind of good to see people try to understand our way of saying hi…

This was just one of the many surprises I have had here… These guys walk on the right, drive on the right etc etc.. That’s all ok… But then you know what, there is no Ground Floor here!!!  That was a shocker you know… I come into the hotel to checkin late night at 12… The front desk guy gives me the key and all and says, your room is on the second floor.. Room 366… So I walk along with 2 huge bags and try to find a 2 storied building in vain… Finally the guy shows up and points at the direction of the room… Funny yeah but true…

I have learnt things quicker than I thought… I can drive in US, am practicing the floor system, trying to understand the maps here, also cultivating the habit of walking on the right(you walk on left and you will surely bump into someone!!!) and above all I am smiling at all the people I meet….

SMILE OK PLEASE!!!!

Life is a bloody ironic bitch…

Life is a bloody ironic bitch… Just as you think you have got on top of it… It gives you a riddle that screws your confidence, screws your grey cells and what not… The eternal truth of life is death and this is the biggest irony.

One believes in God, thanks him when something good happens and prays when he wants something good. Then just like that one day God listens to all the prayers and gives something that has always seemed like a dream… The person gets so happy…He is on cloud 9… Flying… He is still catching his breath when God says, enough and a thing very precious that he already had is taken away from him… Now what?? How does he get out of that pit… Was he guilty of not appreciating what he had, or did he wish more or was he just being alive…

No idea… I guess life is a step by step process… One Step at a time that’s the only way out of this pit I guess. As one takes these steps, the thoughts that come to his mind test his attitude and character. Ones belief system and all the principles that have shaped him till now are all shaken and stirred too… Practicality says that one must not think about a problem that is not in your control and that every person will have to suffer the share that is destined… So we have to suffer…

But then suffering is a feeling right.. Why not stop feeling? Why not? Then you realize we are alive because we feel. Sometimes words just flow like this, out of feeling I guess…

I am at the brink right now. Brink of becoming a non-believer in the concept of God and still I pray and say “Please God give me strength to fight this”…

As I said, Life is a bloody ironic Bitch….

Dead Phantom

Best of 2008

Year 2008 went by the fastest by all standards…My white board changed again this year… So the quantity of the cubicle art has noticeably reduced.. However what ever I could manage has been documented… Best of 2007 is still very fresh in my mind and already I am posting Best of 2008… This year really flew by in the blink of an eye…uff…. Check out some of my cartoons of 2008…

Nonsense Everywhere

As Usual, when I was streching a lot!! Such an expression has become a regular every year..

When things got of my hand

Anyone watched V for Vendetta!!

Some Random thought..

Ayn Rand is amazingly quotable..

After my resignation...

My last in SAP Labs!!!

My first in IBM.. Children's Day!!! hehehe...