And the World Tour has begun!

I have found adventure in flying, in world travel, in business, and even close at hand... Adventure is a state of mind - and spirit.

Jacqueline Cochran US aviator (1910 - 1980)

My World Tour is a famous joke on me (which I don't mind) that comes up ever so often in conversations with my friends and family. The root cause: for the longest period of time I kept citing my serious passion/ambition in life as travelling around the world and writing about my journeys in foreign lands. Of course no one believed me! Planning elaborate vacations to new countries is something one can do no more than once or twice a year; in fact if truth be told it would be great to 1. afford and 2. manage one such trip every year :) given our chaotic work and personal lives.

I tried to be sincere to my conscience the past few years but couldn't see a lot of new places. Time and money were both serious Darth Vaders for my travel genie. Even the sights I did visit (see previous post with my world map to see details on places I have left my footprints), I was unable to satiate my travel needs; there just was something missing but its irrational enough that I can't point my finger on it. Apart from Alaska I can't say with surety that I enjoyed myself.

2007 is finally shaping to be the year of my dreams. I am travelling every single month this year and yes I am aware that enjoyment is not in quantity but in quality. But in my unique schrizophenic style I know I have to do it now, it can't wait anymore; if I don't release my adventure spirit completely, very soon it will be inhibited and then life and I will never be the same again!

Its not like I planned anything, in fact till today the only plan was to go to Canada to see my family. But I should have seen my travel bug coming. Last weekend, I ended up spending 2 hours checking out travel guides in a book store followed by 5 more hours of frenzied travel based web surfing. Concurrently, I spent a lot of time on Flickr admiring photographs of places I would like to see, mentally making my own list of places to see before I die. This weekend I ended up having breakfast in a quaint town called Tiburon followed by a trip to a lighthouse from the 1800s (amazingly still functional) at Pt. Bonita. I saw the lighthouse on the news again today as it beaconed and ushered in the 2700 passenger cruiseliner Queen Mary in to the San Franciso bay.

God and ideas are all hidden in small things. This simple truth became obvious to me as the world tour I had always only dreamt of; slowly and finally unravelled in my brain today. It all started with a young girl's simple passion and now she is going to make it happen - a full blown emancipation of her adventurous side :)

To make it even more interesting, unless absolutely necessary to compromise (which is a word I hate to use and execute on) I am going to follow some basic rules for all my trips:

1. I will travel by myself and will absolutely not degrade the quality and element of my trip to accomodate disingenuous friends :), some of whom always find the need to pile on!
The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.
Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862), Walden (1854)

Travel only with thy equals or thy betters; if there are none, travel alone.

The Dhammapada

2. I will travel with an open heart and mind, and talk to all kinds of people I run into. Akin to Borat I will aim to find cultural learnings from the different places I visit so that I can apply them to myself! The solitude will definitely help me relax, practice my pilates/running and do some soul stirring to come up with exciting ideas for the next few chapters of personal and professional life.

Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.

Miriam Beard

3. I will not over plan any trip, will try to appreciate natural and human beauty that comes my way and wherever possible will let my outgoing nature hold my reins so that my alter ego does not throw me on one of those introvert mood swings. Finally, if an opportunity to do good shows me a palm along the way, I will shake my hand passionately and do whatever I can to help someone :)

You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin, and even vagueness - ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things.

Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)

More details on my exact Toyota/747 Diaries (if you will) still to come!

Note to self: Must read Che Guevara's epic journey captured in his book "The Motorcycle Diaries" and watch the movie starring Gael García Bernal again for inspiration!!!

My Countries Visited Map

create your own visited country map

A new spring every week!

To be amused by what you read--that is the great spring of happy quotations.

I am a great fan of quotes, in fact I read at least 5 new quotes every day. Here are some that reflect my mood today:

[Spring is] when life's alive in everything.

Christina Rossetti (1830 - 1894)

An optimist is the human personification of spring.

Susan J. Bissonette

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that's where you renew your springs that never dry up.

Pearl Buck (1892 - 1973)

So why was today a good day? I was down the last few days and nothing would get me out of it. The recurring flu was not helping my cause. This down syndrome has been hitting me again and again; it has been relapsing shall I say? But I am an optimist, every time it hits me I start building my web again akin to the undefeated spider. This week I hoped and looked out for small things to rock my boat. Another quote coming your way:

I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.

Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

On Monday, I found pleasure in working hard at the office and enjoying my favorite TV shows, thats a simple life.

Tuesday, I went down to the office cafe twice but both times I could not find anything appealing to eat so I decided to not give up on my desire for good food. I waited till I finished an assignment I was focused on till 3 pm, left work with no idea of what I wanted to eat. Randomly, I went to the Prolific Oven bakery and viola I tried something new - a Mexi-Chicken panini and boy was it good. It felt like Beethoven's symphony as I gorged on the mesquite chicken, the fresh avocado and the savory grilled peppers. The side salad was no less. I felt deja vu. Waiting for the right lunch and then finding supreme delight in it felt real.

Today, a series of fortunate events made me a super happy person and it was a new spring in my life all over again :)
- The project at work that had made Friday and Monday busy and yesterday uncertain today was all of sudden in green. Hooray!
- An hour at my favorite Toastmasters club was super fun.
- The soup at the cafe was so good, I bought 2 cups of it :) I even recommended it to 5 different coworkers. It was called Garden Vegetable Minestrone but it was so spicy I am sure it had some Thai or Indian herbs.
- I have been planning for my marathon spree since weeks and the inaction was killing me. The plan is not to build stamina for a marthon and then throw it all away like 2006. For 2007, I am planning a 6 month series full of a 5k, 10k, half marathon and then marathon. Once I get to the full marathon, I get to blow some steam and then start the same cycle again. I get to achieve 3 cool things: maintain stamina, keep fit year round and see new places that I go to run at. This is a good plan, all it needs is good execution. I kickstarted the preparation today: 1 hour of pilates followed by 3 rounds of Moitozo park. 1.5 miles in 20-25 minutes is not good at all but today is day one, so anything goes!
- As I walked home tired, I checked the mailbox and there it was - my graded paper on "The private diaries of Agrippina". This was the final paper I wrote under excruciating personal circumstances for my literature class on Roman emperor Nero and the three women he loved and killed.

All these very silly events just made my day. God is indeed as Ms. Arundhati Roy has famously cited in small things!

What a day! One must wonder how down I must have been to really feel so happy!

Feminism brings benefits to all -- men included

What can I say, I agree completely!

Published By Neil Chethik at http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/16517033.htm

On Tuesday, for the first time in American history, a woman will take a seat behind the president of the United States as he delivers his State of the Union address. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who will be elbow-to-elbow with Vice President Cheney during the speech, described her rise to speaker earlier this month as a great victory ``for our daughters and granddaughters.''

It's a victory for our sons and grandsons as well. That's because when feminists succeed, men tend to benefit, too. Indeed, I've been one of those beneficiaries myself.

Born in the 1950s, I have my roots in the era of ``Father Knows Best.'' In those pre-feminist days, men dominated in the political arena, ran virtually all of the businesses, and controlled -- at least legally -- much of went on in the home. Indeed, in some states, a husband had the right to strike his wife if she got out of line.

But as I came of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I stepped into a fresh, feminist world. Women were marching for legal rights; they were competing with men in the education and work worlds. In 1972, my own mother entered the workforce (after raising four children) to begin what would become a 25-year professional career.

At that time, many of our national leaders warned that as women gained, men would lose. But the opposite actually occurred. As women's options grew, so did men's.

I noticed this first in college as I contemplated my future work life. Feminism freed me from the expectation that I would be the primary wage-earner in my family. Where I had once considered a career based largely on how much money I would earn, now I could ask myself: What do I really want to do?

Thus, my interest in going to law school vanished; my passion for writing took precedence. I entered a profession that I still enjoy today.

Feminism also benefited me in my relationships with women. The women I dated in college and afterward no longer looked at me as a ``success object'' -- someone who would provide for them. They were strong and motivated enough to take care of themselves. They sought careers and adventure, and a man who would be an equal partner. Thus, I had the luxury of dating, and eventually marrying, a woman whose full potential was not curtailed by society's limitations.

After I married, my options continued to expand. With my wife sharing the responsibility of earning our family income, I had the opportunity to share in raising our son. In his earliest years, I stayed home with my son every morning before handing him over to my wife in the afternoons.

Later, when he started school, I was the one who met him as he came off the bus at the end of the school day. My wife treated me as a parental equal. Our relationships allowed me the flexibility to coach my son's baseball teams, attend his band performances and visit his classrooms to meet his friends and teachers.

My own father has lamented to me that he didn't have as close a relationship with his children as he would have liked. Whatever regrets I have in raising my son, a lack of time with him will not be one of them.

Indeed, I'll be sitting next to my now 13-year-old son on Tuesday when the president stands to deliver his State of the Union address. I'll point to Pelosi and remind him that this is a historic day. Her rise to third-in-line to the presidency, I'll tell him, is an indication not only that girls and women can achieve their dreams, but that boys and men can do the same.

NEIL CHETHIK is writer-in-residence at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning in Lexington, Ky. He also is the author of VoiceMale (Simon & Schuster). He wrote this article for the Mercury News.

Inspiring Cancer Story on Dr Phil

This woman's story is absolutely heartwarming.

http://www.drphil.com/slideshows/slideshow/3465/?id=3465&null=null

Oh My God....Bollywood Maniacs Bury Me :)

I don't know whether I should be happy about this or sad or just outright mad!

I have this quaint silly blog that I write for fun..Its a funky old blog that no one reads! And I like it that way :) http://cynicalthinker.blogspot.com/

Well I just had 600 visitors because some idiot or a computerized crawler posted my silliest and most random rantings on a popular Hindi music site!
http://www.indiafm.com/features/2007/01/15/2091/index.html
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh :)

Outcome:
See View My Stats under My Links on the right menu bar...

I hope no more craziness comes out of this topic..I m off to work meetings!

No Bollywod for 2007

Just made a New Year resolution....I will not watch any run-of-the-mill Desi aka Hindi aka Bollywood movie till June 2007 at the least! Half a year is a good aim given the number of Indian friends I have, one of whom will surely keep trying to break my resolution.

Why?
- 90% of the new Hindi movies that hit the not-so-cool Naz8 theater in Fremont, CA every Friday night are outright (story/script) spineless, have too many mundane songs and are a 3 hour drag with too much melodrama.
- Emotions and love are an integral part of such highly predictable movies and if that is a subject you don't like you better stay away.

But before I completely right off this billion dollar industry, let me recap the few movies I did see in 2006 and what I thought of them:
Really Bad: Dhoom 2, Don, Phir Hera Pheri, Golmaal, Krrish
Could Have Been Good: Fanaa, Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna, Rang De Basanti, Pyar ke side effects
Awesome: Lage Raho Munnabhai, Omkara, Dor, Iqbal, Being Cyrus, 15 Park Avenue

On a side note, I had thus far a lot of faith in movie reviews/ratings at rottentomatoes but the fact that a movie like Dhoom 2 has a rating of 80% leads me to believe that something is really wrong with the tomatometer. The flip positive side is that Indian movies are also getting listed on this website.

Added: 1/16/2007 11:18 PM

This just in: As if to prove my point the Hollywood Foreign Press had some bad news for Bollywood. Water makes it to Oscar shortlist, Rang De... out

Food for thought or Thought for food?

Last night I spent hours reading my blog (for the lack of maintaining a personal journal) right from the beginning. It felt nice, berry nice (in the words of Borat) to read and remember all that I have been through in the last few years. Some posts were just plain boring, some were inspiring and yet the most fun ones were those that were personal memoirs and reminded me of how I had grown from a brash yuppie student to a grounded adult cum responsible professional.

As I spend my vacation with the family in cold-snowy Quebec, my best pastimes are sipping hot tea or coffee and devouring spicy and sizzling food.

On the same note, I have been a passionate connoisseur of coffees the last few months visiting new coffee houses, getting brewing lessons and volunteering as a barista to make the 4 o'clock cappuccino at work.

Barefoot Coffee Roasters

Coffee Society

My love for coffee was developed at a tender age of 11 and continues to grow....But I hope that the funny coffee bell curve will never apply to the coffee lover in me :)
Exclusively for Bell Curve & Coffee Lovers


Year 2007 is around the corner and as we all think about New Year resolutions, I find myself procrastinating about healthy food and exercise habits.

The Mercury News article "CHANGING FOOD HABITS: Kitchen resolutions" definitely has some interesting ideas to offer. I already followed one of the ideas by learning a favorite family recipe from my Mom today. I also looked at cool food making videos on How to make easy recipes on About.com

Herz saying Cheers to 2007! Hoping for less junk and more healthy food; more marathons and less lazy weekends; more happiness and less sorrow and finally more peace and less stress.

Why do women wear bras?

DO I need to say anything else?? My eyes have opened to some eye-popping news:

http://www.007b.com/why_wear_bras.php

'I Hope You Dance... '

This was written by an 83-year-old woman to her friend. The last line says it all.

Dear Bertha,

I'm reading more and dusting less. I'm sitting in the yard and admiring the view without fussing about the weeds in the garden. I'm spending more time with my family and friends and less time working.

Whenever possible, life should be a pattern of experiences to savor, not to endure. I'm trying to recognize these moments now and cherish them.

I'm not "saving" anything; we use our good china and crystal for every special event such as losing a pound, getting the sink unstopped, or the first Amaryllis blossom.

I wear my good blazer to the market. My theory is if I look prosperous, I can shell out $28.49 for one small bag of groceries. I'm not saving my good perfume for special parties, but wearing it for clerks in the hardware store and tellers at the bank.

"Someday" and "one of these days" are losing their grip on my vocabulary. If it's worth seeing or hearing or doing, I want to see and hear and do it now.

I'm not sure what others would've done had they known they wouldn't be here for the tomorrow that we all take for granted. I think they would have called family members and a few close friends. They might have called a few former friends to apologize and mend fences for past squabbles. I like to think they would have gone out for a Chinese dinner or for whatever their favorite food was.

I'm guessing; I'll never know.

It's those little things left undone that would make me angry if I knew my hours were limited. Angry because I hadn't written certain letters that I intended to write one of these days. Angry and sorry that I didn't tell my husband and parents often enough how much I truly love them. I'm trying very hard not to put off, hold back, or save anything that would add laughter and luster to our lives. And every morning when I open my eyes, tell myself that it is special.

Every day, every minute, every breath truly is a gift.

"People say true friends must always hold hands, but true friends don't need to hold hands because they know the other hand will always be there."

Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well dance

In a Mirza Ghalib moment all of a sudden

hazaaroN KHwahishaiN 'eisee ke har KHwahish pe dam nikle
bohot nikle mere armaaN lekin fir bhee kam nikle

Some interesting articles on IBNLIVE

Homemakers make a B-line at IIM-B

You go ladies! Its never too late to learn and get going on fulfilling your dreams :)

Rang de Bizarre

I think I agree with Sagarika Ghose! When will we stop over-dramatizing and glorifying life in Indian movies? Let me leave u with her closing lines:

"Rang De Basanti does a terrible disservice to the nationalism of India's young people. It wilfully paints modern day patriots as unthinking anti-establishment killers. It foolishly creates a myth known as Gen Next which does nothing but drink and dance. And it promotes a leviathan media as the ultimate interpreter of India. The fact that Rang de Basanti is a hit shows just how catastrophically distant we are getting from reality, where we're happy to live from media image to media image, from frame to frame, without realising the depth and profundity of "ordinary" human dramas."

Indian Ocean: The Band with a Big Bang

Sunday night I went to see an Indian band called the "Indian Ocean" perform. This was a bit funny since I tend to go see bands that I like and this one I had never heard of. But a lot of my friends had good things to say about them so I just went. And man was it a good decision or what! A couple of my friends who chickened out did certainly regret doing so once I called each of them to give them my spiel.

The verdict is out: they were great, the crowd loved it. The music was mostly metallic rock mixed with classical Indian table notes and melodic guitar tunes. The lyrics were minimalitsic to say the least but where they did exist, they were great and had deep meaning. After the show, I was quite excited and even went on to meet and greet the band members. Psyched as I was, later in the night I checked out their web presence and history. They are quite well travelled and have had the honor of playing at several prestigious occasions.

indianoceanmusic.com

Some sparkling fusion, it's Bollywood in the big tent

Gr8 fan site

A Band Apart - Lalitha Suhasini meets Indian Ocean, four men who chose to quit their careers to make music full-time

Random research on "Cynicism"

I was all of sudden curious to know the roots of the word "Cynic" and this is what Google search has to offer:

Definitions of cynical on the Web:

• believing the worst of human nature and motives; having a sneering disbelief in e.g. selflessness of others
  wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
  
• Cynicism was originally the philosophy of a group of ancient Greeks called the Cynics (main article), founded by Antisthenes.
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynical
  
• 1. Believing or showing the belief that people are motivated chiefly by base or selfish concerns; skeptical of the motives of others. 2. Selfishly or callously calculating . 3. Negative or pessimistic, as from world-weariness . 4. Expressing jaded or scornful skepticism or negativity. .
  missbunbun.tripod.com/id7.html
  
• extremely pleasing or agreeable, esp. to the sense of taste or smell.
  www.teach-nology.com/worksheets/language_arts/vocab/seven/quiz/1/

Most interesting of these is en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynical with even quotes and Greek history on the topic.

---

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Reading the News Paper: An old habit comes back to life!

As I kid, reading the newspaper was an activity that I thoroughly enjoyed every Sunday afternoon. During the weekdays, I had school but some how I would manage to skim through the paper in the evening. Just reading the headlines, cartoons, a little bit of jumble and crossword, some sports and the horoscope meant I had done my reading for the day. Sunday afternoon was albeit a whole another experience. I have always been a late night person so early morning (for me) at 6:30 I would hear my dad and mom as they headed out the back door to the verandah/patio to start reading the papers while sipping mugs full of glorious Darjeeling tea. An hour later, my sister would join them and reading, chatting and tea sessions would continue till about 8:30 or 9, which is when I would finally get out of bed. This is also when mom would strategically get up to start cooking breakfast, the maid would arrive and start doing the dishes, the milk man would deliver milk packets to our doorstep and dad would head to the bathroom.

Cool! Now I was free to harass and fight with my sister over the newspaper section or the remote control for the TV. Yohoo! Sunday morning had amazing cartoon and kids shows. Now while I wanted to watch He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, she wanted to watch some fluffy show about mischieveous teenagers living in a boarding school. At the same time, dad after finishing his daily prayer would now seat himself at the dining table and pitch for NEWS (Why do Dads always want to see News of some sort, is it to prove they are older and serious people?). Mom would walk in with the breakfast tray and she would have her own draw but somehow we would all compromise and watch one great show while enjoying Mom's great food! When I was a teenager, I thought all Moms are great cooks and did not appreciate my Mom's culinary skills enough. Today I am humbled by her consistent performance as our chief chef of the house. Her quality and persistence easily match Rahul Dravid, the epitome of consistency in the Indian subcontinent. To get back on track, the only TV shows that we would always agree on as a family without arguing were a live cricket match or the Bournvita Quiz contest.

Further along the day, after throwing 10 tantrums regarding taking a shower, I would enjoy a hearty lunch with my family. This was followed by a Sunday late afternoon siesta for all except me. 2 to 5 in the afternoon were my hours of relaxing while devouring the weekend addition of the Times of India or the Indian Express. This was just awesome. The entire paper to myself, I would read it page by page not leaving a single word or image.

This very personal regimen of spending a Sunday ravising the newspaper was completely stiffled and killed at college where the newspaper freely accessible at my dorm was really bad. Some Sundays I would borrow a friend's personally subscribed Times of India and read it just like old times. Effectively, I have been unable to resume my old habit since 1997. A cool 9 years later, I am backing to reading my old friend - the newspaper every day all thanks to my new roommate who subscribed us to the San Jose Mercury News. I was a teenager then, now an adult; the country and papers are different but its still as much fun as a decade ago. Reading is one of the best habits I have and for that I have to thank my awesome parents! Another set of kudos goes to the newspaper companies for finding innovative business models to keep their papers running despite the ubiquitious presence of free news services online.

Here some very interesting columns from today's San Jose Mercury News:


I loved it. Kinsley is as cynical as it gets! If you don't know the history of US and its politics in the Islamic world this piece gives you an excellent summary of the history as well.
Hey, gang! Now let's go help the Iranians! - By Michael Kinsley

A total contrast to Kinsley's crticisms, this one is full of ideas and optimism and has some great lines on the middle class and its importance in a society.
Saving the middle class requires long-overdue investments - By Don Perata

This is a contemporary article. Makes interesting reading for most of my friends and peers from Generation MTV. Long distance relationships (LDRs) are a reality and we might as well acclimitize ourselves.
Six ways to help make a long-distance relationship work

And finally to top it all of, the frontpage for Life & Style section of the paper talks about Sikhism, one of the youngest religions in the world which originated in Punjab, India and how Sikhs in the Bay Area celebrated their Spring festival "Baisakhi" at the Gurudwara (temple) in Fremont this weekend as Christians celebrated Easter.
Sikhs celebrate renewal of faith - By Kimra McPherson

Happy Baisakhi to All!

Information Overload: I need a Google NextGen

Have you ever felt that you have too much information floating in your head that you need to somehow store before you lose it all....I have had that sinking feeling one too many times in the last few years...Books and television give us ample amount of time to view and digest information. Its not the same with the web though. Google news, other news sites, emails, forwards, blogs, feeds, text messages, email lists, newspapers, magazines and their online versions have made this a world of information overload for some of us. Sometimes I am amazed that my brain does not fall in to an endless loop or a data overrun error and crash much like a computer.

To top of all the previously cited information sources, we also have the MOTHER of all Google. My plea and request to the millionaires @ Google is to stop enhancing the search methods, yes we all love information, who doesn't? But what we need now is Google NextGen, the information search engine that also synthesizes and summarizes it so that our brain and eyes have to deal with only the most important details not the Holy Grail on any given topic.

Now that I have that one out of my stomach, I am amazed at how much has happenned this week in my boring and dull life. I have learned and experienced a lot in a few days and it would be simply stupid not to write and retain it.

Started this week with the never ending saga of my life: To be or not to be? Background: I can't live with or without you! However, thats not the interesting part. Instead of indulging in self analysis I found energy and insights from outsiders.

1. Jerry Lo, a senior at Evergreen High School @ San Jose wrote in the Mercury News:
"
Fellow members of the ``MySpace generation,'' please listen to me. It may be a few years away, but before you pop the question or say ``I do,'' think about what you are getting yourself into.
When you get married you'll vow to be with that person ``through sickness and health,'' and, ``till death do us part.'' Let's try to understand our vows before we say them.
Do we want our children to have to live through the trauma of divorce? Do we really want our children to grow up with single parents?
"
These are some intelligent words from a young adult that we all can learn from.
Read Jerry's views @
When marriages crumble, children suffer


2. Next, by a chance skipping of channels I landed upon Discovery Travel at primetime 9 pm and found an amazing show Jeremy Piven's Journey of a Lifetime. Jeremy Piven is this real cute and funny guy you must have noticed for sure in John Cusack movie Serendipity, HBO series Entourage and a bunch of theatre plays. His journey is to India and no its not amazing because he went to India. The show is not your routine sight-seeing travel guide. Its a very personal journey that Jeremey lives out in his own style. He walks the streets of Delhi and Bombay, does yoga in Kerala, Himalayas and Hrishikesh; drives a Kinetic Honda moped in Southern India, rides a cycle rickshaw in Paharganj, Delhi and glides on a smooth water boat on the backwaters in Kerala. He enjoys his time at an orphanage in Mumbai, is consummed with appreciation for the Kathakali dancers who put peppers in their eyes to maintain red eyes matching their face colors during the dance performance and is agog with anxiety as he watches the wild monkeys at Lakshman Jhula in northern India. He found his personal connection in the form of an old Jewish lady who enjoys her small Jewish community in Kerala, the Kathakali dancer who had shared the same teacher as Jeremy at some NY acting school and a Sadhvi (holy woman/priest) of American origin who came to India 12 years back as a visitor and found her calling as a priest in India. The real deal were the pearls of wisdom Jeremy gleaned from a swamiji in Hrishikesh:
- Look at people around you, every one is trying to get their life back together, its all scattered in pieces......Look for peace inside you...you want peace in your life, not pieces!
- I as its written in English is a vertical bar, a a symbol of ego and the idea of self and selfishness. If you think as I you will always be unhappy...Try to bend your I from a vertical bar to a horizontal bar. Its akin to bending forwards and giving in to people and life. Thats where lies happinness: in bending, not in holding yourself straight up.

More learning about real life continues in the next blogging streak...

Fear Factor

Fear Factor is a tremendously famour show on NBC where teams compete to win a large sum of money. The competitive task can be just about anthing from running up a hill to eating the guts or shit of an animal. Thats just disgusting. Yeah it is! Recently, I saw Fear Factor host and standup comedian Joe Rogan perform at the San Jose Improv in downtown San Jose. Boy was he good or what! His first joke was: " The only reason I agreed to host Fear Factor was that I thought it would never run more than a few weeks...Who would've thought we would find so many stupid people who were willing to eat God knows what for some money...And here I am hosting the Nth season of Fear Factor and encouraging dumb contestants"

Personally, I have a lot of appreciation for courageous people who fight their fears! Just as well people in general are God or Nature fearing and get shit scared especially of lawyers, police officers and doctors. For instance, any time a doctor recommends a biopsy for someone we know whistles start blowing in our heads. People are scared to their wit's end for no apparent reason. Yes there is reason to be worried if you get a warning call from a cop or if the doctor recommends an MRI but the worry should be focused on grasping what has the triggered those actions and on how to best tackle all future scenarios. This is what I call positive or useful stress that leads you to take some action and intiative. Then there is the other worry which is purely negative and has no value or purpose. It is just an amalgamation of ambigious statements, half-baked theories and ignorance. I for one have known one too many people in my life who self-inflict themselves with this negatiev form of mental stress at every juncture in their lives. To me its annoying, to some its a way of life....

The World is Flat

The World is Flat - my belief that the world is flat is growing by the day. An exicting array of events have lead me to this understanding.

For the longest period of time, I had no idea why public service broadcast TV or radio existed. Recently, while surfing my TV, I found interesting programs on KQED a public funded TV channel for the Bay Area. The most remarkable shows that I enjoy are:

Charlie Rose Show a hard core interview show with the best of CEOs, politicians, sportsmen, artists, writers

Josh Korbluth Show which is hosted by Josh, the very funny protagonist of the movie Haiku Tunnel

CEO Exchange which is an awesome platform for idea exchange between CEOs, students and professors at a prestigious host business school

In terms of how these items relate to a flat world, well all these shows enlighten a person to the nuances and concepts of countries all over the world. The coverage and knowledge being shared is truly global in nature and expands the horizon of one's understanding.

I will leave you guys with an interesting article about how a call at a McDonald's drive thru will be outsourced to a person at a different location than the McD's.
The Long-Distance Journey of a Fast-Food Order

Business news

Its such a pain to keep up on current affairs these days - be it politics or business or any topic. There is just so much happenning each day, that by the time you play catch up on all those news articles you had flagged for reading, its already stale news, new developments have already changed everyting that existed before. But in keeping with old and new employer loyalty I did follow these news stories:

Naina Kidwai - First Indian female to graduate from Harvard Business School and now the first woman CEO of a foreign bank in India http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1461955.cms

Key Move: Artful Outsourcing from StartupNation.com - http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneursmanagement/2006/03/07/wholefoods-wildoats-babyfood-cx_bn_0308startupnation.html

More to come

Writer's block!

Its been a while since I wrote anything...even 2 lines of prose were difficult to pen down. And here I am, finally breaking this overwhelming writer's block with a big sigh of relief! Why has it been so impossible to write? It couldn't have just been the time (or no time) factor....

Possibly, a lot of what we do is a reflection of our state of mind and body. Lets just say several issues were/are on mind and one thing led to another and at the end of it all, I managed a long period of online silence with numb fingers and untyped thoughts.

But finally I am out of the closet, more excited than ever to write and enjoy the world of blogs.....Some interesting blogs I recently checked out:

Inspiring story of a liberal politik blogger out of Berkeley - http://www.dailykos.com/
Another inspiring and jaw dropping writer, see her new book - http://lastsinglegirl.blogs.com/bornsingle/
What can I say, storytelling at its blog best - http://randomexpressions.rediffblogs.com/

Very cool, I'm reaching out to other bloggers and getting in on the whole scene again....I am back baby...

The Young Executive Age

Ever since I became part of a young, vibrant Silicon Valley company I can't help but notice the average age of an executive....In most cases, its between 32 and 37....Wow thats young!

Going the traditional route in a bank, consumer products company or a Dell/Microsoft of the world you would be lucky if you have paid your dues by your lates 20s and by 30 you are a manager of some sort. By 40 you could go 2-3 layers higher in the pyramid and eventually you could possibly be an executive anytime between 42 and 52. In the our super speed technology backed global economy this picture is changing drastically. The fastest way to name, fame and the $$$ is to get into the right startup at the right time. So you are 27 and a founding member in a startup that skyrockets..You are set for life..If you do well you will pimp a ride on the startup's success wave and there you will be the gung-ho, ever so energetic, flippant, non-experienced, jeans-clad, yippie executive of a generation next company! No-no its not a done deal and there is no single shot to success!! And yes when your startup blows out of proportion and you realize you don't have the much needed experience or process setup to handle a very large organization you will indeed go out there and hire some 50 year old ready to become hippie-yippie experienced execs to help you do your job.....That's just in the interim till you can learn from them how to do your job better...:)

Some very young, highly respected execs I try to look up to:

Forget about Sergey and Larry. We all know their success story...Lets read about the young whiz-kids who got lucky: Salar, Susan and Marissa from the early founding gang; not to mention the newcomers: Omid, Miriam, Sukhinder and Nikesh!
http://www.google.com/corporate/execs.html


In essence, with time people and kids grow smarter and acquire the knowledge much faster than their predecessors did...This is plain Darwinism at work! Did you hear of the record breaking 3 year old who created his own website yeah using html....:)..Blows my mind...At 3 I think all I could do was eat, poop and sleep :)

The Joys of the Simple Life

This week has been awfully great for some reason. I have been happy, like really happy for the most part and for no obvious reason. And this is abnormal, thats what my roomie told me just today: "Its strange to see you so happy". So what does that mean ? Am I generally an unhappy person or is it just that I set high expectations for myself or may be I get easily frustrated with the meaningless arbitrary arguments that every day life demands, especially off me!

The week also flew by much faster:

Monday: Went to see the eye doctor at Sharp Memorial, who tried to rip me off despite having quoted a free consultation when I made the appointment. I argued myself out of his charges but all along I kept thinking how businessy the 45 year old eye doctor was. He sounded more like a cheezy car salesman and less like a respectful M.D. eye surgeon. Worked late at the office on the damn forecast. Learnt about Danny's cool romantic escapades over the weekend. His story is kinda funny like the Ben Stiller-Jennifer Aniston movie "Along Came Polly". Saw "Crossing Jordan" on the TV and fell asleep. Tired, quiet and at peace with myself.

Tuesday: Again worked late at the office, this time I was preparing collages for the Diversity Event to be held this week at the office. Have to find some thing to keep me enthused, don't I? Surprisingly still not frustrated or mad at my job despite coming late from work. Watched the new family style "Amazing Race" on TV. Enjoyable series for yet another year. Saw a new legal show "Close to Home" that touched my heart. The plot rotates around an aggressive and passionate female lawyer who pursues cases that occur close to her home, in her neighborhood. The show last night was about a crazy guy who kept his wife and 2 kids locked in their house for 2 continuous years. The house being located in a nice and posh locality made it all the more difficult for the ADA to make her case against him. The fervor with which I watch these legal shows always maked me wonder whethet I should consider a career in law! Later in the night provided free girl advice to roomie#1. Thereafter, roomie#2 arrived with another problem. Her purse had either been stolen or was lost at some hep bar. We had to go through her motions of procrastination, card and phone cancellations et al; nothing it was any trouble. It just made the night long and tiresome.

Wednesday: Got up late and smoothly jazzed through work. Remarkable story of the day: The boss is throwing a birthday party with his new wife for her 17 year old dog! Doesn't that just crack you up? Ended up working late giving final touches to my great posters/collages on Indian culture and festivals. Dropped roomie#2 at the airport in time (Key Accomplishment!) but got lost on the way back home (Wrong Exit!). Had dinner with roomie#1 over mild banter and some cheezy karoake girlie tunes courtesy him. Watched my favorite TV show Over * There. I realized I like it so much because the plot is realistic which makes the show very credible. Looked aimlessly for jobs while blogging. Still happy and content with life....This is awesome....

Cons of the week so far:
- Carried gym bag for 3 straight days. Workouts: Zero. Jogs: Zero.
- Job Search and Enquiries: Zero
- Misc things to do: Infinite. Accomplished: None

Life is Good. Simple and Subtle. This week has been bright despite all else!

The World is Changing

From fathers feeding crack to their babies to changing social perceptions about successful careers a lot seems to be changing these days....The world is our "karma bhoomi" (meaning battlefield or land of actions in Hindi, the Indian national language) - the one chance to make a difference in peoples' lives by means of our actions.......

While Americans today regard firefighters, doctors, nurses, military and police officers and teachers as successful professionals with prestigious careers much of the world is still worshipping high paying occupations like stock and real estate brokers, lawyers, bankers, executives and journalists. This change of heart in the American economy by far the most consumerist and materialistic is a clear signal that people don’t necessarily equate high incomes with success.

In terms of perceived prestige, important but lower-paying jobs like teachers ($43,000 median salary per year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics) and police officers ($45,000) solidly trumped business executives ($140,000), lawyers ($95,000) and stockbrokers ($69,000) -- jobs typically associated with wealth.

This study is interesting to me because a well educated friend of mine who was also a marine chuckled at my respect for military professionals. According to him, most civilians deem it stupid for an intelligent and smart young graduate to drop successful business career tracks in order to serve one's country. Per me military professionals worldwide should always be praised and applauded for the pain and sacrifices they endure in order to maintain peace and harmony across national boundaries. Working for meager salaries with a contingent clause of losing their lives or limbs at any time during active war fare is definitely not an easy life; not one that should be mocked in any case. Except of course the black sheep who bring disgrace to the armed forces and should be aptly criticized and punished for violating human rights by committing heinous war crimes.

Two excellent eye-opening new shows around the military are on TV this season:

My personal favorite is OVER * THERE which is on FX every Wednesday at 10 pm PST and is a very realistic kind of military drama about the lives of young soldiers stationed in IRAQ. This series is gripping, can be sad and touching at times but definitely brings out in the open various issues that civilians like me hardly take a moment to think about.

Equally powerful but more macho-dramatized and political in nature is the series E-Ring, which is on NBC Wednesday at 9 pm PST. From rescue missions in Afghanistan to spy projects in Algiers the series delves around the information E-Ring involving decision-making politics with the Pentagon, CIA and the Chief of Staff being the key stakeholders.

On a totally different note, Al Qaeda has struck again this time the hit was Bali, Indonesia. Senseless terrorism and the resulting human loss always drives me nuts. Apparently, the 3 simultaneous bombs that went off in busy beach restaurants were suicide bombings that have lent 25 people dead and close to 100 wounded. If only we had a Minority Report kind of situation going on in reality; then we could apprehend the terrorists before they hit and save people from dying!

While modern society is forced to face growing competition, aggressive stress and the pains of global terrorism some sections of the society are easily taking the path of least resistance, an escapist strategy so to speak that is in essence degrading the humane factors of society.....I have 2 examples:

A few months back San Diego news reported a woman who had locked her 7 year old son in the trunk of her car to attend a New Years party with her boyfriend was sentenced to 500 hours of community service, no jail time and no restrictions on her parent rights. This apalled me an extent I can't explain...The judge's remarks were that since the mother was repentant and had admitted that she locked her son only because she could not find a babysitter and really wanted to party on New Years it was in the best interests of the child not to revoke her sole parenting rights. Isn't that amazing ? Most decent people would not even leave any stranger or child locked in a car's trunk for 4 hours leave alone leaving your own kid to die only so you can fulfill your addiction of drinking anf dancing in a party!!!

I just read last night about this even more bizarre incident:
A 13-month-old girl in London swallowed some crack cocaine that her father, a junkie, left lying around. The child was saved from death since the drug was wrapped in clingfilm.

This makes me ponder real hard:
Where is the world heading towards ?
How are social and moral values degrading at the speed of light ?
Whatever happenned to humanity, sympathy and kindness ?

Society Against Suicide

Something shook me to the deepest core of my blood cells today. It was the tragic news of a loved one passing away in the prime of her life. Later I found out that it was a suicidal death. Nothing had prepared me for this. A beautiful, young and bright student; my brain was going numb pondering as to what might have compelled her to take this drastic step. In hindsight, it doesn't really matter what made her take the final plunge, what matters is that a momentary lapse of self-confidence and a surge of depression has created a collossal loss in the lives of her family members and friends. I have made the decision to devote my time towards the research and prevention of suicide.

Initial Research:

Suicide (from Latin sui caedere, to kill oneself) is the act of willfully ending one's own life; it is sometimes a noun for one who has committed or attempted the act.

Suicide is viewed in varying ways among the cultures, religions, legal and social systems of the world. It is considered a sin or immoral act in many religions, and a crime in some jurisdictions. On the other hand, some cultures have viewed it as an honorable way to exit certain shameful or hopeless situations. Persons attempting or dying by suicide sometimes leave a suicide note.

Many suicidal people attempt suicide which does not end in death, this is called an "Attempted Suicide" or "Parasuicide". Generally, those with a history of such attempts are almost 23 times more likely to eventually end their own lives than those without. Sometimes, a person will make it look like he tried to commit suicide, without actually succeeding (as a cry for help from those he hopes care). This is called a "suicidal gesture". It can be done either by a non-lethal, non-damaging method that still leaves clear signs of the attempt, or by counting on somebody to be back in time to rescue the apparently suicidal person. On the other hand, a person who genuinely wishes to die may fail, due to lack of knowledge about what he is doing, unwillingness to try methods that may end in permanent damage if he fails, or an unexpected rescue, among other reasons. This is called a "suicidal attempt".

Statistics:

Over the last 60 years the suicide rate worldwide has tripled. Suicide is the 2nd largest cause of death among college students and the 3rd largest cause of death between the age of 15 and 24. More persons die by suicide than by homicide. Data from a survey conducted by the American College Health Association revealed that 9.5% of all students surveyed (16,000) had contemplated suicide while 1.5% had actually attempted suicide.

Psychologists have identified the teenage years as one of the most difficult phases of human life. Teenagers must make key decisions about their future, develop their identities, change schools and meet a new sets of friends, find out about their family's past, et cetera. Many young people have difficulty coping with these stresses with the onset of mood altering hormones. Growing competition and peer pressure are only rising by the day. This onslaught in rapidly developing countries is even more severe where personal depression and professional success go hand in hand and are a stark reality for the youth.

For instance, out of every three cases of suicide reported every 15 minutes in India, one is committed by a youth in the age group of 15 to 29. A study conducted by the Vellore-based Christian Medical College on teenagers in the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, especially in the Vellore region, found that the average suicide rate for women is as high as 148 per 100,000, and 58 per 100,000 for men. Worldwide, this rate is 14.5 per 100,000. Of the 154,000 total number of suicide cases recorded in the whole of India in 2002 some 50,000 came from the four south Indian states of Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh and the Union Territory of Pondicherry. This statistic is even more alarming than the rising population.

If by chance you are not visiting my website to ponder or think about suicide prevention but are actually thinking about ending your life.........Please Please Please do me a favor and read this first.....It only takes 5 minutes

If you are thinking about suicide......Read this first

My aim in putting all this information together is two fold:

1. To increase awareness:

Each year thousands of people commit suicide, and 70% of those people tell someone or give warning signs before taking their own life. Stop A Suicide, Today!

Knowledge about something gives us the power to fight it. Please read below some articles about how to identify signs of suicidal tendencies. Even if you never feel depressed this information might help you identify the signs of manic depression in someone you love and give you the tools to save them. If you are a student please learn more about the 2nd largest death cause and use the power of knowledge to build awareness and help groups in your school, college, dorm, etc. Please please do not make fun or dishearten someone who is already emotinally pained. Remember that kindness, humility and sympathy are good virtues to possess.

2. To create proactive societies and organizations in all parts of the world for the prevention of suicide

As I suspected my first research efforts have presented minimal resources for suicide prevention and suicide rehabilitation in India and Indian colleges. I hope to garner some interest from fellow Indians to create more awareness and support groups across Indian colleges.

Also on the local front, I would like to volunteer with local bodies in California to use my time and skills for suicide prevention.

It is my belief that society and society alone; consisting of you, me and all global citizens can do something to prevent the rise of this unwieldy death cause that wipes away thousands of young lives each year. Instead of blooming in their prime, a few lovely buds wither away in the wintery night...

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide
http://www.nmha.org/suicide/report.pdf
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/suicide/
http://www.nmha.org/suicide/youngPeople.cfm
http://www.educationupdate.com/archives/2002/july02/htmls/cov_hope.html
http://www.yellowribbon.org/
http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/apr/15spec.htm
http://www.stopasuicide.org/
http://www.spanusa.org/
http://www.preventsuicidenow.com/
http://www.save.org/
http://www.hereforlife.org.au/
http://www.whitewreath.com/
http://www.elca.org/dcs/suicide_prevention.html

Busy Bee

Time is Money; isn't it ?

WOW time just flew by these last few days! And what was I up to:

- Pondering a lot about career choices
Every few years we are faced with critical decisions that can make or break our professional lives. First there is the question of choosing a good High School, then which college to pick, what major and finally what career track. And if you go back for graduate school, there is even more pressure to make all those decisions all over again and this time hopefully bang on the bull's eye. There is some rome for error but not much to recover. Life is not that long :)

- Planning out the Great Alaska Trip
More about that in a few days. I will be posting everyday from Alaska so that I have a record of all the fun memories!

- Doing a whole bunch of crap
Cleaning a single girls apartment was never an easy chore and to make it ready for the parents to drop by; thats as scary as Fear Factor!

- Reading a lot
Online journals about Alaska and high activity in the North American Auto Sales industry has kept me hooked to the computer. By the way anyone planning to buy a car, now is the best time in 2005 to buy one. Employee discounts from the BIG 3 have also forced Toyota, Honda, Nissan and other dealerships to reduce vehicle prices.

And then there is also the fact that I have not been sleeping well. I ordered a ton of great books to read from eBay and Amazon and some of them just came in today so now I have even more distractions to keep me away from blogging.

More later...