Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Overwhelmed

.. Thats what I am right now..

I was in a dilemma about speaking out a thing.. which my brain knew wasnt the right thing to do but when I am in an emotional turbulence I always say the wrong things :-) ..and that was what I was going to do..
Suddenly Tiny who was playing around came to me and said "Apanna aunty tu bolu nakos" and I had my answer! I was snapped out of the mood, totally out of the turbulence and perfectly normal :-)

Just amazed how God gives us answers when we need them !

Thursday, April 09, 2009

Good Friday

My Offshore team in India has a holiday in India where approximately less than 5 percent of total population is Christian, and I will be working in US where over 75 percent of total population is Christian.

My Client leader was amused to know it was holiday in India :) and so am I now when I checked up the stats on Internet..

Saturday, April 04, 2009

Travelling in Air

I just travelled around thousand miles via air this weekend to some friends after around 6 months..

It was a one-stop flight.. and a pretty sunny day atleast in most parts. My first flight started off a little later than the scheduled time due to technical snag (I guess a common thing with US Airways, I have seen it on 5 out of 7 flights I have taken) . But as it started off, I began to admire how Dallas Area looks from above.. Just one patch of buildings..nah Skyscrapers .. and only in that little patch of land..rest all flattened out, some lines ,some squares in yellow or brick red, slightly green at some places , it was a beauty to be beheld.. The Football grounds in bright green stood out various places in the view.. I know this view can be seen in wikimapia.org but looking at a picture and a real one is different..
As the plane rose higher, the view started vanishing and after few minutes of turbulence, we were on a white sheet of clouds. .No. it wasnt a sheet.. it was as if cotton was stuffed down there.. or may be white buddhi ke baal (candy floss) just kept there with covers removed.. After I while I got engrossed with the book in my hand "Vapurjha" . Its a collection of excerpts from a Marathi writer Va Pu Kale. His writings are pretty straightforward and realistic .. and more about this book or writings some day later.. As Charlotte, NC was nearing , and the plane started its descent, a different part of the country started getting visible.. lot of green , more of red , black lines and dots - more dots than lines, different hues of water bodies and to top it off, little pieces of clouds floating out of nowhere.. It was like seeing the foam of washing powder spread by little child over a dark hued carpet.. As I was savoring that view, the plane soon landed and I realised that I was about to miss my next flight.. So as soon as I got down the plane, the quest to the next gate started.. I also realised that there was an elderly couple - should be in their 60-70s - were also rushing for the same flight.. by the time we reached there, the flight had already taken off. We then found ourselves talking out at the rebooking queue.. We got the next flight for after 2 hours and that flight was again another end of the airport.. Well the old lady then asked for assistance and preferred to go by the airport vehicle with her husband.
On the next flight, as it took off, I was again looking out of the window at the foam design for sometime then back to my book and i dozed off..
When I was up the sun was shining brightly and the clouds had risen up from the cotton candy level.. we were descending towards our destination airport.. I was again mesmerized with the passing clouds and was watching it under the shade of my book as the sun blinded my view.. Suddenly, the guy behind me pulled down the window and said "Here you are !" I was so angry at the point and thought "Mr Agavu, I was enjoying it the way I was looking at it !" Obviously he wouldnt have understood Agavu which is typical marathi word for Overenthusiastic.. and then i realised , the sun might be actually disturbing to him as well or atleast his intentions were to ease my efforts of holding the book against the window.. But then I lost my interest in the view .. Slowly we descended out of the clouds in the rain, and as the speed of the plane reduced .. the water stream on the window pane which started with a slant, reduced the angle with the window to zero and stream could be identified into successive droplets..
Out on the airport, picked my luggage and then the rental car, next in plan was to drive to my friend's place.. After a few wrong exits, finally got on to the right highway and then slowed down with the traffic :-) By the time I had reached, it was 12 hours since I had started from my place.. and I was one timezone away..

The journey was quite good, when I compared to my Roomie's .. We had started at the same time, and the first part of delay in first flight.. But unfortunately for her, her next flight ws flight to India and she missed that by hours .. and the next flight they put her on is 24 hours later.. Even as I am writing this, she is still in US when she was supposed to be in India.. I wish her a safe flight ahead and overall a great trip as she would be seeing her Husband and son after a span of 6 months..

Friday, April 03, 2009

Gurudev

Long long time back, There was a chawl in a small suburb of Mumbai It was a single level chawl.. tiled with Mangalore tiles, each house had a living room and a kitchen and set of toilet and bathroom.. There were little lines of such houses, paralllels and perpendiculars, 3-4 houses in one line.. it was a one big maze..
This story is about just one of the line of houses which had 4 houses. One of the house out of these four (as far as I remember) never had kids or had very quarrelsome kids who never came to play. Rest three had 2 to 3 kids per house. The families mingled with each other and gelled in quite nicely. All kids were around the same age. So all these kids would play together, watch TV at one of houses (Ramayan especially), study together , etc. etc. Once upon an exam time (I guess there was still some time for the exams to come) all kids sat together to study, rather all parents made them stop playing and got everyone to get their books to study. Since everyone had exams, they got their books out.. but what would the younger ones do ?
A little boy in 1st standard (1st Grade for the uninitiated) and a little girl in Senior KG ( Kindergarten is school grade right before 1st grade) did not have any studies to do as their exams werent that important (Remember its Long time back ) . So they kept going around their older brothers and sisters and continuously grabbed everyone's attention. How would the parents allow such a thing? So they set a task for the boy to teach the little girl how to write in Marathi as he was learning in a Marathi medium school and the girl in English..
अ आ इ ई ...
Don't quite remember what happend later.. but that evening and that teaching has been photographed in my mind. After long time, around 20 years, it took some coincidence and some internet for these two chracters to get in touch again to find none of us stay even near the same place, the chawl doesnt exist, its been demolished to become a Apartment complex, everyone's now have settled down in their lives happily.. But when I called this friend "Gurudev" he never remembered why ..
We are still in touch via Chat, Orkut, Email, Forwards.. and its always fun to talk to each other..
and when I got the company award, he came to know of it from his sister as she works in the same company.. I got an email
"शिष्योत्तमे, अभिनन्दन"
(meaning , "Congratulations to the Best among my students")

It made me smile in my pressure filled day when I was running in and out of meetings..
It brought me back my childhood memories , the little house which seemed soo Big then, the little joys of life which were so abundant.. and the little friends around who would enjoy everything with same innocence !!
I cant go back there in the same age and place, but I surely did spend the rest of my day happily