Guilt

22 August is Baba's b'day. After wishing him I started venturing in my memories for the days we had spent sharing a room in hostel for 3 years.

Though we have a lot of good times to remember, the one I remember is the last year. We had decided to be Roomies for 4 yrs and also had decided to be project partner in the last year. It wasn't a hard coded rule but was expected from both of us out of each other. However things did not work out well with us for third year and I moved out of the final year project.

From that time till today I always felt my decision was right. I would not have taken it if I felt I was wrong. With my moving out of last year project at last moment, everyone was upset. Though we did not had argument our interaction was very minimal.
However there is this strange feeling which has stayed over the years with me. The strange feeling I could identify as Guilt. I do not know why but I still feel it. Whenever I call up him I feel awkward because I feel guilty of breaching the code of conduct between the 2 close friends. The decision to do the project together was of 2 people but when it was reverted only one person's opinion had conducted. Is it why I feel guilt about it even now, I don't know.

Thanks baba for tolerating me over the years. :-)

Watermelon Pucker - Part II

The Lost Identity - Part II

I had been always a North Indian. I have almost been to all parts of North India. "You look like a Punjabi", "Are you a rajastani?", All of that. I know it sound funny how can one call me punjabi. But I have been referred as being one. I had never been a maharastrian? I wonder why?

That's why I like USA. Here I am a Indian and they can recognize me. No longer a case of Lost identity. :-)

The lost Identity

I had a small talk with a Punjabi in subway. I did not ask him whether he was from Punjab but the way he spoke and his gestures were loud enough to tell me that he is.

Walking down to my house from subway, I was thinking abt the way he spoke. I realized that you can guess the native state of an Indian within 10-15 minutes of talk with the person. That of course if you are a Indian. One of colleague was very good at this, without even knowing the name he could differentiate between people in 2-3 minutes.

By the way, how do you identify someone from Maharashatra? I thought for a while, the reply came "He will start talking in Marathi in no time.". Well, but then people from other state start talking in their mothertounge very soon. The other answer that I thought of was the way they spoke Hindi knows as "Bambaiya Hindi".

This one also didn't quite fit in. We have lost our identity. I don't think there in peculiar thing by which you can identify us. But then I think, this is a insider view.

Someone wants to add?

Gatari Amavasya

I was about to sleep when I received a mail from one of my colleague in offshore team. The mail was titled HAPPY GATARI. It had nothing but this picture. I asked my roomies ( 2 are from Maharashtra) if they knew about gatari amavasya, only one of them had a clue what it meant. I decided I am gonna educate everybody about this very nice day.

Different Indian states have different festivals which are celebrated in a particular state. Maharashtra also has such festivals. One of them is gatari Amavasya ( undoubtedly my favorite). For all angrej, Gatar is drain/sewage and amavasya is new moon. Most of the Indian festivals are either on the day of new moon or full moon.

I don't know why they celebrate gatari but I like the concept. The funda is its official day declared by religion to eat non-veg, to drink alcohol. Isn't that cool? We got a auspicious day for doing such things. Now there will be intellects, who will question that this is not written somewhere in any religious book or so. I really do not care. There is such a concept and I prefer to follow it blindly since I like it. Afterall, we do follow many things in the name of God without questioning. It is a mere one more addition. Common folks, follow it!

I trust in God and follow some of rituals, traditions observed in name of him. Well, I follow some of them because they make sense to me. I follow some in front of my parents because it makes them happy. Even they know that I do not follow those in their absence. And then there are some like gatari which I just follow without any sense coz I like the outcome.

Frustrated by attitudes of Desi females in states who show no interest in Desi males to go out and firangs whom he is does not have courage to ask out, a friend of mine asked if we have a day for love, romance and blah! blah!.

"Why not? We have a full month for it. The month of bhadrapada." I quipped.

The poor soul did not knew bhadrapada is actually observed in dogs. Now don't ask me how can a dog differentiate between months. Any questions please ask gunti.

Update of six sigma

Our last Electricity Bill in 38 lyme st was $68. ha! ha! We had controlled it to perfection.

Arranged Dating

Most of Indian youth is worried about arranged marriages. But I beg to differ as always. I am worried about arranged dating. Sounds crazy!! It is.

My manager is in early thirties and is interested in knowing different culture. When he took me to a welcome lunch back in Feb, all his questions were around my college life. Questions like do you date someone? Do your friends date girls? ( I had to tell him that in India we date only girls. ) It has yet to become law like MA in India and may take hundreds of years.

He visited in first half of this year and took many snaps of our team at offshore. When I asked him for those so that I can pass on to my colleagues in India, he said he will cut a CD and give it to me. When I went to collect it, I had a session of half an hour waiting for him. Knowing him, I went when it was just 5 minutes before he takes his lunch daily. But then he is a smart fellow. He knew I would do that and he has postponed his lunch for half an hour. So for half an hour, he showed me photographs and kept asking "Isn't she cute? Did you dated her? Why not?" Man! She is cute that does not mean I need to date her. I am sure the day I tell him I have never dated anyone till now, he gonna jump from his seat.

Then he would say" C'mon, you are 24 and you want me to digest stuff like you have not dated someone till now, no way!"

I do not really know what to do. The other day we were traveling with one of my colleague. Once again he started the same topic. How people in India can go for a arranged marriage? It is hard to convince him that it is not actually that bad as he thinks.

Suddenly he changed gears and started asking me, will you date someone out here? Then the questions started like" Will you date a Italian, French girl and so on... Till he ran out with all countries he knew" . To change the topic I asked him what he is going to do for long weekend. He said he gonna wait for his daughter who was -8 days old right now. The other fellow described him what a wonderful felling being a father is. "Wow! It actually works", I was saying to myself. Well, it did not. He asked the other fellow how old his kids are. He said grown ups. When he said they are in their early twenties we were about to fell off from our seats. Thanks to the seat belts. He does not look like even 40. Then the question pendulum swung back to me again. "How old your kids, Bhushan?. -10, -8", He asked. I said it is upto me but it will take another 5-6 yrs for me to marry and so on. He was surprised to hear that my parents are actually ready for that and I had a choice to marry a girl of my choice. I had really started hating the conversation till now. Then he asked me a question. I was like Saurav Ganguly being stuck by bloody blow from Shoaib Akthar. He asked me will you date the other fellow's daughter. I gathered shattered pieces of my guard and answered that " I hate doctors, so it would be hard." "My girl is nice doc." The other fellow quipped. I was like man I cannot score and you want to come down and hit a six. What? I told him still I would be reluctant since my interest was killed by the fact they always advice on your diet. ( My sis is doc and she does it always.). Then they laughed it out saying I was late and his girl is already married. I thought myself being a hero who has saved himself from most deadliest attack. But I was down with a bomber which my manger dropped. He asked me

"Will you date a married woman?"

I am sure by the time I fly back to India, he will ensure that he will throw me in a surprise date.
Why me? Why arranged dating? Am I worried or am I shy of it?
Please! Give me a break.

Watermelon Pucker

Chaitanya is a good cook. I have stated this many times to him. But he constantly denies with the fear that with that praise comes a compulsion of making dinner thrice a week. Well, we have move out of 38 Lyme st so he can accept it now. During our last days in lyme St he made a watermelon pucker for us. It was too Good! Let me write down its recipe for interested ones to try.

Prerequisites: Watermelon. Watermelon pucker, Vodka ( preferably watermelon twist). A good cook. :-)

Procedure: Cut a square piece from watermelon. Now carve the watermelon. Pour Vodka and watermelon pucker in the proportion of 1:2. For light drinkers, 125 ml of Vodka should be enough.

Keep the watermelon in freeze for an hour or so. You have fantastic desert after dinner or any time. If you keep for a day or so ( I mean if you can wait that longer) it tastes awesome!

Njoy!

Legal hurdles in States

I always hated shifting from one hostel block to other. Sometimes I even felt that I would rather take a apartment in Pune somewhere rather than shifting each year. But that feeling lasted only till I shifted. Once I got over it, I developed my own comfort in the new room. So it was natural for me to be concerned when I had to shift during 30-31 July weekend.

This time around what I hated was the legal hurdles. IT was so easy to get a flat in India. Man! Why they need all my info. C'mon I am just want a apartment to live. I always thought that babugiri is at its peak in India. After my experience here, I think it is worse here. My SSN came after 3 months and noone has a clue why it took that longer. My Credit card took another 2 months. Why, no reason? I mean, in India atleast I knew since I am not paying any bribe they are doing it slowly. You could always press them with media threat and get your work done without any bribe that too fast.

To sign a lease for my apartment I had to sign equal number of papers I signed when I joined in PATNI.

Only if we could make things on internet in India as we have here, we will be too good for these guys to beat. That is the only think I like here. You can do all your stuff online or on call. I wish we have that out there! Yamen!