my niece aadya

Isn't she cute. When she was born, everyone told me that she had so much hair...now it makes sense to me :)

She looks like a model with all that spiked hair :)

H1N1

Yes, Swine flu is spreading, but there is no need to panic. Follow the guidelines given by WHO and for God's sake, if you have a doubt, get yourself test. After all "Prevention is better than Cure"

FAQ's by WHO on H1N1

Image Courtesy: Neville044 (photobucket)

and it rained again!!!

The past few weeks have been interesting times. Being from Mumbai, I should not complaint about the rains (or should I?), however the extended rains spell in Boston and surrounding areas had affected me too. (An important piece which I would like to mention is that it rains approx 1/20 of what it rains in Mumbai.)

In USA, weather is one of the most celebrated topic for small-talk. You can strike a conversation with anyone about the weather. During one of these extended rain spells in summer, I took a cab to work and spoke with the cab-driver o...yes you guessed it right - the weather. Rains are good, but in a place like New England where you see summer sun only for few months in a year, extended rains is a BIG concern. The cab driver mentioned about how people get suicidal due the uncertain weather. However, it wasn't a big surprise to me. Having stayed in US for a year and

experiencing the record breaking weather year long (be it winter, snowfall, or summer), I could relate to this feeling as even I longed for summer.

Then, a day came and Sun smiled like a baby in the bright

blue sky and people greeted it by paying visit to the beach. People were out there to get a sun-tan (I prefer calling

it sun-bath) When I was in India, I was surprised with the concept of sun-bathing. I would think why would someone want to take a sun-bath. I would often dodge the sun ball. But a year down, and I can now understand the perspective of the people. I must admit here that over the past few weeks I have felt like taking a sun-bath myself. Weird huh, not really. Few days passed and the temperature soared. People smiled but I didn't, I found the sun rays to be too strong. I couldn't stop but complain.

And then it rained again.....and now I long for the smiling sun again.

“Good” & “Evil” – Same Old Jugal Bandi

Lord of the Rings, an epic of our times, as they say. I recently saw Lord of the Rings Trilogy (yes, you guessed it right; I saw it for the first time. I never got a chance to read the book or watch the movie and I must admit, I have still not read the book), and I was really impressed. I think the series has secured its place in my list of what we call “The all time favourite movies.” There are many reasons why I liked the movie, but of all those reason, the cinematography and direction clearly stands out. The angles used by the director in some of the scenes are amazing. But outline of the story is the same old – “Good” defeats “Evil”. There are so many stories surround this concept and even epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata (epics from India) as based on the same concept. Today, when I come across these two epics and Lord of the Rings trilogy, I see the so many commonalities. Costumes are one of the things which are so unique to their time. The arms and weapons were also carefully crafted and interesting.

But the most interesting of them all is this one thing where many characters of the stories have supernatural powers and they can do some kind of magic. Now when I say magic, I do not mean magic by a magician, but powers like that of Gandalf the Grey in Lord of the Rings or by Krishna in Mahabharata. Also, when I was watching Lord of the Rings, I felt the feel of the movie and some of characters were much like Harry Potter series. I am a huge Harry Potter Fan, but it was interesting to see how the movies stood apart with their similarities.

All said and done, it is the “good”, the “right” which wins in the end, always? According to me, both the “Good” and the “Evil” are within oneself. It’s your decision whom you want to be, even in the most difficult moments in your life. Toby of Lord of the Rings showed signs of both “Good” & “Evil” and so did Michael Jackson. A legend, Michael Jackson, who is no longer with us, was also the one who prove my point right. He was one of the most amazing musicians, but at the same time was haunted with controversies. Do you think you also share the same feeling?

If you do, can you admit?

I think I won’t pass the litmus test for “Good”. There are many incidences when I would have thought or acted evil. Be it a mean thing like uprooting a complex plant to pot it at my room, or bat and ball first in the game of cricket when I was little or push a man so that I could get in the crowded Mumbai local train. All said and done, whatever you might think, I feel that it’s hard to be “Good”. Even if you claim to be 100% “Good”, ask your conscious, and you will know the truth.

Bollywood, T20, Sex, Sex!!!

Sex and related acts are all over the news in India throughout this week. It started of with Shiney Ahuja, a Bollywood actor who was arrested for alleged rape charges and today its V Chamundeswaranath, Women’s T20 team's manager and Andhra Cricket Association secretary for asking sexual favours from Indian women cricketer to get a place in the team. What's wrong with all these men? Suddenly they seem to be like sex starved prisoners who landed between bunch of women.

Shiney was arrested for alleged "rape" charges filed by his maid. Shiney must be in a state of shock, because he would have not thought that a consensual make-out by between his maid and him, might turn as a weapon against him to find himself behind the bars. The whole story has turned into a gossip-wire which leaves so many unanswered questions:

• Is Shiney influenced by Malika Sherawat???? after all for Malika - no publicity is bad publicity
• Shiney accepted that there was consensual sex between his maid and him. Makes my opinion stronger about no publicity is bad publicity
• Shiney's wife is still supporting her him, adarsh Bhartiya naari (ideal Indian women). In her opinion it’s the other way round. Reminds me of Demi Moore in Disclosure….total filmi…isn’t it?
• How, in today’s world can a person not be sure about his / her age. Yes you heard me right, the maid is not sure about her age. Why this question – because she can be underage, in which case, in which case it will be considered as rape, come what may.
• Ok so the medical reports proved that the maid made out, but was it rape??? Was it Shiney??? Let’s wait and watch.

What exactly is it - consensual Sex, Rape, Publicity, blackmail or something else?

Another incident came to light today, when the cricketers from the women’s T20 team approached the Andhra Cricket Association (ACA), lodging a complaint against V Chamundeswaranath, manager of the team and also ACA secretary that he asked for sexual favours from the player’s in exchange for a spot in the team. Based on this serious charge, the association suspended the secretary. However, his side of the story is different; who says that he never interfered in selection matter which was handled by former Indian women’s cricket player Poomima Rau, dismissing the charges as baseless.

Hmmmmm……interesting!!! In Shiney’s case he has admitted that he had consensual sex with his maid, maybe because the maid did not give him time to cover up his back. If we consider that it was rape, then he might have thought that by declaring it as consensual sex he might save himself. Doesn’t seem so….huh. On the other hand, the players took their own sweet time to react to the situation, which gave Chamundeswaranth sufficient time to defend. However a point to be noticed is that in this incident, there was no sex involved. I fail to understand what is wrong with these men.

I would be interested to know what your point of view too. Go on post a comment.

Does it happen only in India?

Picking up from my yesterday’s post where I mentioned I have limited access to newspapers, I have found a new way to stay in touch with news – Metro, a weekday newspaper. I have made it a habit to pick up a copy every day to keep in touch with news. I picked up before I board the train and read it on my way to Aquarium Station.

Today, when I picked up the newspaper, one report from the Sport column struck my eyes. It’s interesting, because the article dealt with a topic which reminded me of the sports situation in India. USA is participating in the Confederations Cup which is currently being held in South Africa. They are to play 3 matches in Round 1, of which their first match was yesterday with Italy. USA lost the match 3-1 of which 2 goals for Italy were scored by Giluseppe Rossi, a New Jersey, USA born chap, but he opted to play for Italy as his parents are from Italy. It raised a controversy then and now he is back in news.

However, in my opinion, an important point of the story should not be lost - even people in the US share the same feeling as Indian, A feeling of national pride for sports players who have their roots with the country.

India is not a sports nation. If you take out cricket, which almost everyone plays, there is not much of sports in India. Hence, whenever, there is a sports player around the world, who has his roots in India, we immediately start following him. All of us share a sense of pride in his success. People often say – this chap is an Indian, as his parents are Indian.

The one thing which is comes out from the report in Metro this mentioned, is that this kind of feeling is felt only when you are not good at a particular task. Take the example of soccer and USA. USA is a nation of basketball, baseball, American football and ice hockey. Soccer, though popular, is not a preferred sport. Maybe that is one of the reasons; loss of one good player can become a controversy.

Interesting, isn’t it? However, I am not sure if it’s the same in other countries. I think I would need to live in multiple countries to answer this one. But I know for sure, that this “Does NOT happen only in India.”

What’s your opinion?

I was not very regular with reading news. I prefer a physical newspaper, but not subscribed to one in US. Well you can say, I have been lazy to log on to the internet and check the news daily. One of those days, I got to know about the attacks on Indian students in Australia. I was taken aback by the incident. I had heard about racists acts in Australia, but never imagined it to be a prolonged incident. These incidences have attracted attentions from various well known personalities as well as governments, appealing to stop these attacks and take necessary action.

Today, I remember two incidences of racism. A friend of mine was completing her graduate student in Australia, where she was a victim of a racist attack. The culprit forcefully grabbed her mobile, broke it into two pieces, and threw it back on her. She was badly hurt. She filed a complaint with the police who caught the culprit and was put behind the bars. She raised her voice, fought against it.

Another incident is my personal experience. My friends and I were waiting for the T (Train service in Boston, USA), when a man started abusing us, making racist comments. It was difficult to fight back, as it were our initial few days on a foreign land. We walked away, without protesting.

Two different situations handled in different ways, but one commonality – Racism.

When I look back to current incidences in Australia, I am puzzled, weather these incidences are really racist attacks or a mere co-incidence? Australian police did mention that some of these incidences were not racist attacks, which makes it clear that some incidences were racist. So the big question is the purpose behind the racist attack. Definitely these students are brings good business to the Australian government. And along with that it also gets access to qualified human resource and revenues from tourism.

Let’s look at the racist incidences in a different setting. If international students or for that matter anyone from other country, especially African countries come to India, would we, as Indians, say that we are not racist? In this regards, I would like to mention two reports. Firstly, a post by Jug Suriya on Times of India blog, impressed me. His topic “We’re even more racist than Aussies” is so honest, and I must say I agree one hundred percent with him. Another report which I remember was aired on one of the Indian new channels few years back, which dealt with people with darker complexion, especially citizens of the African countries who were victims of racism in India. With the light of these reports can we say India a racism free country? In my opinion we are racist. So what can we say about the attitude of Indians?

What’s your opinion?

Strike A Conversation

As usual I left office at my regular time to catch the 5.22 pm train from Norwood Central. It was overcast and looked as if it will rain heavily. If I was in India, with similar weather, it would pour cats and dogs. But this is Massachusetts and you should expect the unexpected. This region is called as The New England, and I will hesitate but agree that this region has been rightly named, and one of the reasons is that it can rain anytime.

As I have already mentioned in one of my past post, that it has been 3 weeks since I am going to Norwood. Over the last two weeks I have noticed a man, boarding the same train from Norwood Central Station as me. Later I would see him in the same eastbound blue line T train as me. The first time I saw him, I was like – hey, that’s the same man. On my way back home, I meet my roommate. One of those days I have also mentioned to him about this man who travels with all the way to my final destination, but we never spoke to each other. It was real bad on my part, especially since I am an MBA student, and networking should have become a part of me. But I didn’t take the initiative. For the sake of argument, I would convince myself that since I am an ambivert, it is not an easy task for me to strike a conversation with a stranger. But am I being fare? Is it the be all and end all of it? Should there not be any growth in me?.................There was.

One of these days I spoke to him. It was a very short conversation where we discussed about our train schedules. However, today “How are you doing?” was what I required to STRIKE A CONVERSATION. To my advantage was the train, who is almost on time each day, but today was delayed giving us more time to speak. I got to know him better. He was a American born Porto Rico guy. Isn’t it strange? I have come across these kinds of people many a times, but I guess this is what it takes to be in America and not have an American origin. He asked me if I was an Indian, only to tell me later that he works for a guy who is an Indian. I like the small and crisp conversation where we spoke about other thing including each others lives, his contributions to prepare Indian puja (offering prayers to God) and marriage preparation. I got to know today that there is an Indian Temple close to Norwood Station, and a huge Indian community who stay at Windsor Garden, which was quite provoking. The best part of the conversation was, I got to know from him that there is an Indian store, very close to our house. I am all excited, and look out for that place over the weekend. I was so excited that I had to ask him thrice for directions, to understand it correctly.

For you, it might be like any other conversation, but for me it’s otherwise. I am xenophobic. If a stranger tries to strike a conversation with me, he would have a hard time. In situations like this I have a weird feeling in my heart. I get nervous, my heart starts beating faster, and my hands start sweating. But that’s me. This also proves that after traveling for so many years in Mumbai’s local trains, I had no train friends.

What did I learn today? I realized its ok to talk to strangers; you don’t need to be nervous, because it’s just a conversation. You have the conversation and you move over once it’s over. That person is not going to stalk you after later, so be calm and relax. This is learning for every individual who is like me.

Paranoid!!!

As always, we did room shifting few weeks back. It can be a big task, but for me, I got to keep the same room :) ...which was such a relief.

But a day later, one of my friend started complaining about bed bugs in his room. All of us were surprised, because we had no problems of bed bugs in the whole house before. Then how come all of a sudden there bugs??? Few days passed and he still complained. But the real shock was one day when his back was full of rashes. It was red and he could not stop scratching. I asked him to stop scratching. It was real bad. That day, he changed his bed, and visited the doctor the next day, only to be detected with a skin infection.

A few days later another friend was bit by bed bugs. He was really mad. The twist was I had started growing paranoid. My room has been free of bed bugs, but I was still paranoid. I had opted to use whites for my bedsheet, quilt, and pillows covers so that if such a situation arises, I could be better off. But it was still bad. I felt like scratching my back, my leg......it was crazy.

It's a strange feeling, but you tell me, if such a thing happen to you, will you not be PARANOID?

Switched on the light

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to watch a live event by Leadership Development Channel section of Books24x7 by Keith Ferrazzi called "Who's Got Your Back? " on web cast, and I must say I was delighted and awaken. His new book, by the same name, is on a theme of building a culture of trust in professional / business environment, where each person is successful. During the session he touched on various topics, but there was one things that impressed me the most. It was about how relationship in today's business environment are superficial, something in line with his book, and how that needs to be changes to ensure success. This discussion opened new avenues of thoughts and improvements within me.

Today, when one goes to work, he might not even speak to the person in our next cubicle. Many prefer to work from home, in their own comfort, with their family around. But this is affecting the basis of business networking. Rather, one might not be networking at all. It affects your learning. In earlier days people came to work and learned much more things from their co-workers. It was just not learning, but people built long term relationships which ensured success of each one. So true. Then why is it not practiced today?.....I dont know. If I lift this concept and fit it into the Indian context, its all about long term relationships.

But how do we build relationship? I started my third week of internship and I was still confined to my cubicle. People who know me think I am an extrovert, but I strongly feel I am an ambivert. But I have shocked myself, as even today, I am still confined to my cubicle. My work profile does not include MUCH interaction with people, especially when I am doing research, but this should not be an excuse for not networking. I would come each morning, start my work, almost no "Hi, how are you?" to anyone. I was growing to become a loner at work, until I heard Keith, and I feel awakened. I like the people, they are nice, kind, and helpful. No one else but I am responsible for my current situation. I was new to the place, I should have make efforts, at which I have failed. But today was just not ANY OTHER DAY at work, it was A NEW day at work. I am pumped up and excited. I wanted to make a different, whated to network, what if I have to start with "Hi, how are you to?"

As it is said, "Better be late, than never".

I think networking is important, but not easy to come by; can be learnt, but requires lots of patience.

To buy or not to buy

Apple announced a new version of iPhone - iPhone 3G S yesterday and the thought - To buy or not to buy crossed my mind . The deal - the older one (Apple 3g) is now below 100 bucks, not as heavy on wallet as it was 2 days back .

I have had my own thoughts about not buying an iPhone - I have a mobile which is good and sleek (which I don't use as often as I used mobiles in India); easy access to connectivity; I owe an iPod (2nd Generation iPod nano); and one more reason which I opt not to mention, which held me from buying a touch screen phone. However, yesterday earphones started behaving weirdly and the thought of buying a new iPod crossed my mind - double benefit (new iPod and new earphones) and then the press release by Apple yesterday....I thought it made sense to buy one. I must admit that I went online and check how much it will cost me every month

Does it make sense to buy a new phone? Well apart from a hi-tech gizmo, which has always fasinated me (I am an avid apple fan), it did not make any sense to buy one, especially since I will be bound by a 2 years contract.

So finally I have come up with a conclusion - Not to Buy

But with the Apple press release came the price cuts on its products too. I think price cuts on older version of iPhone are justified, but what about MacBooks? But I must say I am not surprised with price cuts on many products. With the current conditions in the market, it would be difficult to churn out those volumes without price cuts.

All those Apple fans, who were waiting to get their new Apple devices, here is your chance. Buy it.

Should you offer help???

The other day, I waited long for the bus after an amazing game of tennis with my friend. I waited for long and finally after 15 minutes, there it was....zoom comes the bus and stops just ahead of us. I had really enjoyed my game that day and was excited. I went in and sat down at the back of the bus, and an "old" man came and stood in front of me. As an act of courtesy, I offered him my seat, but to my surprise, the man got offended. I was shocked. He said, "He looks old, but is not old enough, but thanks anyways" and then went on grumbling our generation. I wanted to give it back to him, but I kept quiet.

Later the seat next to me got empty and he sat down. I thought why does he want to sit now? He is not that old, rite? After few awkward moments, I spoke to him. I told him that I did not mean to offend him. He said he knew it but it was just his ego, due to which he reacted that way he did. He was a manager at the wine store, lifting big wine boxes each day, and got offended when I offered him a seat, because he was still fit and fine. He was 58 years old, but young. He later said, that it was good on my part, it showed my upbringing, and said that today's youth who would never offer a seat like that. Now I am not sure about this, but this is what he said.

We ended up speaking about tennis, as he saw me speaking to my friend who had our racquets. He was a good baseball player, a man who watches BBC news (rare to find here, but true) and who wants to learn how to play cricket, as he got to know about it from BBC. He said he was good with at baseball, and could be a good batsman in Cricket, which I think he might be too.

So what was it, that offended him to that extent? He was a kind man, good to strike a conversation with, but what offended him so much? I have no clue, but I know one thing for sure, never make assumptions looking at a person. Maybe you might do something like what I did.