Life Lesson#1

You can stand

• the peak summer
• freezing winters
• mails from your bosses questioning what you've done
• numerous complaints from your subordinates
• curses from your teammates
• insulting looks and words when you are walking the streets , but mate

what you can't withstand is words of deject from your loved ones !!!

FrEEdom @ 13000 Ft, jumping out of a perfectly good airplane

I think it was around a time when my stach started showing up on my face that I had watched this program on DoorDarshan on a Sunday afternoon - it was about skydivers ! I was awe stuck to watch them do maneuvers in the 14" portable B&W TV we had at that time...somehow this got etched in my mind as a lifetime to-do...
I had to wait about 11 years for this to-do to be checked off my list. Three of my friends and me got together and planned on the possibility of going for it. I was 100% for it and all of my adrenaline junkie friends voted for – no Veto the skydive-bill was passed !!

Couple of weeks went in googling (I just added it to my winword dictionary), watching youtube vids on skydiving and we circled into a place called Baldwin, in the neighboring state of WI. At that time none of us had a US DL, and had to book a cab shelling out some valuable $$$ for the trip. We arrived at the “ Skydiving Club” around 1000 . 3 of us wanted to do the Accelerated Free Fall and one of my friends opted for the Tandem(where you are buckled with another skydiver, you get the rush only from the freefall none from you being alone – waste of money).

You need no training for the Tandem jump and my friend went in right away with the jumpmasters and did her jump. We were so thrilled to watch her from the ground – kudos to your courage !! We were put into a training course for 3 hours , verbal instructions and video presentations took most part of it. We were told what are the 100+ things that can go wrong and how we can try to come out of it, the signaling etc etc.

A tornado warning played spoilsport on that day and we returned home dejected with nothing under our belts. We rescheduled the jumps to next week, this week we were lucky enough to rope in one of my great friends vivek to drive us in a rented cab to the place, saved a lot of $$.

The D-Day had arrived, we just revisited all the lessons and had to give a short written exam to do the AFF. My jumpmasters were ready and we were all suited up and got into the plane with 20 others most of them who were pros. We cruised to an altitude of 13000 ft , my heart started beating faster and I could sense some rush into me even before I leaped out of the plane..

Hovering at a height of 13000 ft, I was waiting for my turn to jump out of the plane. All the pros were jumping as we take the dip to the pool. My jumpmasters took me to the door of the plane, I could see the fields and houses down below as small boxes. One of the jumpmasters asked me , do you wanna jump? This was the only moment when a little bit of fear conquered me watching the space below , hearing the roar of the propellers and seeing the wing of the plane near you, but regaining my composure I replied in the affirmative .

In minute we exited the airplane along with my jumpmasters , wowwwwwww the feeling the adrenaline rush cannot be explained in words – however hard I try !! You feel like you are floating in the air but in reality you would be rushing down at speeds of around 150 Kmph. The vertical fall against gravity and piercing the clouds lasted only a minute, because you are advised to pull your chute at 5500 ft, by closely watching your big altimeter on your left hand !!

I waved my signal and pulled my chute at 5500 ft, the upward pull that you experience was never told to us, as all the momentum gained from falling at enormous speeds is absorbed by the opening chute you are pulled up to some height ;that is the dividing line between the adrenaline rush during free fall and the serenity of floating around in a fully opened chute. After the chute is completely open and you gain control over your senses , then you experience the real 360 deg of freedom on earth. Its no one around you, and you take some moments gliding about all silly thoughts on how small a speck we are on this earth ….The moments are worth their time in gold ,,

It takes about 4- 5 minutes to descent from 5500 to the ground, the final descend has to be carefully done in order to have your bones intact. You got to watch flow of wind and then get into the opposite direction so that the speed of your landing is reduced...

Once on the ground , I looked up and thought about the vertical-journey I completed from 4 Km above ..A laminated certificate and a DVD will allow me to cherish and share this memory for ever !!
Video @ http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6583827058668610913&ei=BL5WSa-RJZj8qwKPw_2qBA&q=first+free+fall+-+13000

Would love to experience the rush on a rocket or a space shuttle someday .. dreams do come true !!

@ my Best FriendS WedDing !!

Hola Amigos...
It has been a long break from blogging - i wouldnt ever say time was the constraint , time and the "mood" never came in together.
There is no better way to break the break with a note about my best friend's wedding which has been an adventure in every angle of it

A little look into history/...
Vivek a.k.a Kumbz was one of my best friends at work, a couple of years ago he moved out from our common place of work...
We(The smart Kart, Cricket fanatic Maddy, iyengar Kumbz and me) were a close knit group of four at our lovely apartment in snow clad minneapolis..Our fav pastime was to chat with our laptops at different corners of the house and also communicating abt dinner or outing plans thru Yahoo chat ;-)

Kart had a chatfriend from Texas and one day she wanted to talk to all of the roomies, we were all excited and the order was decided on descending order of age , that failed me or madhu getting the first chance... Vivek started to talk to Ana and the chat never ended .. the sambar he was cooking burnt out and even the smoke didn't deter the " cultural , political and geographical " discussion in progress.

Anyways to close it - madhu or myself didnt even get to say Hi to the invisible friend of Kart's. The initial discussion led to many late nite discussions mainly revolving on how can the Indo-US relation improve etc etc and ultimately leading to a gr8 decision from both of em to get married.... Out of the group of four I couldnt attend the marriage of Kart and Madhu as I was at onsite,, so this was the chance for me to attend the wedding of my friend...

Kart and myself love to travel and do crazy stuff including attending the machine gun firing festival at Kentucky , skydiving ,going to the range and stuff like that.We made our plans to be at the side of the groom.. I was also to be the best man at the wedding, i scrambled for my suit and packed my bags.I flew from minneapolis to Dallas and Kart joined me at the airport from Chicago. Kart is one of the finest guys when it comes to planning and execution - he has a flair of his own !! He had planned the trip to the hour..I was so hungry at dallas that before we started the Toyota Prius ,took some bites of the delicious stuffed chappathi rolls that Kavi had prepared for us (my mouth still waters thinking of it.. awesome). We had to play with the Key Fob of the prius as both of us were not used to it, it even had a camera to help when we were backing up..Kart took the wheels and we took turns with the prius all thru the 9 hour drive ,, stopping for some red bulls and chips.. we are great company together and the topics of discussion matches always...

We drove through to McAllen, the southern most tip of TX , seperated from mexico by just a river..we could see the Border Patrol guards patrolling the streets looking for illegal immigrants...It is always advisable to carry your passport with valid visa, as the state IDs are very much scrutinized and may take a lot of time to get validated.We reached McAllen and met my friend and his would be family !! The warmth was awesome and we could sense the vibes of love all around !! Vivek and ana were in great spirits and the groom was very happy to see our faces ...

That night we decided to hunt for some mexican food at a local taqueria , had some coronas and some mexican food dont remember the dishes now.. but they tasted lots different than the pancheros , the baja sols or the other american "customized" mexican restaurants !!

We had an invite for breakfast the next day, Ana's parents and relatives joined us for breakfast. As I wanted to taste some authentic Texan stuff , Ana had bought some barbacoa from the flea market. Barbacoa is a dish made of Cow's tongue, seems chewy but i believe me its very soft and with the right cooking time its delicious.We were served with barbacoa and nopalis (dish made out of cactus). I loved the barbacoa and kart voted for the nopalis. We had tamales prepared at home and had some soup made of cow's intestine(I didnt relish it much because it had a leafy flavor to it , and not the gamy one as on mutton soups) = the cows dont go a waste in TX. I have never felt or seen such closely knit family in the US heard the more we go South the more strength the family bond has .. may be true !!

We were all set for the W-Day, though Vivek seemed all cool, we could sense the pressure he was going through - i thanked myself for coming down here to be with him , the same I couldnt do for kart or madhu !The wedding had a very small gathering comparing to the Indian wedding galas. I doubled myself as the best man for the wedding and after the ring exchange it was all tears of happiness. We had the tradition of the $dance where we can dance with the groom or bride and pay them for that !! After all emotions settled , there was enough time to make new friends from his extended family and it was all fun.. the senoritas are better than the made up ones up north ...

All ended well and we bid adieu to the new couple and we had to drive early AM to Dallas for our flights .. It was a truely a great experience and hats off to you Mr."Gaucho" Kumbz for being one in a million !! One thing still missing is - the CD of the pictures that my friend promised to send it to me -- vivek if u read this plz ship it to south america , you cudve saved some $$ if it was done to mpls...

Lastest flash news : " Kumbz weds again.. same girl , different place, with Indian customs.. " 2 weddings, 1 girl , different styles - one life, u rock senor !! Salutes to you mate !!
Chao chao guys !

Stalactites,Stalagmites, Catfishes & Spotted bass;-)

I know the title doesn't make any sense - like my previous weekends !! Most of my weekends were wasted either worrying abt some escalations of that week or worrying abt meeting preps for the coming week ... The worst scenario being @ the receiving end when you clearly know that you donot have direct control over the situation , but that is called team work ;backing up your team eventhough that means you being christened a "bad boy " ;-)

Lets get to the fun part - I wanted to enjoy the outdoors this long weekend , as most of the times I was dungeoning in my single bedroom apartment..So Sunday morning we (two married couples + myself an odd man out) drove to a place called crystal caves - its abt 1:30 hr drive from our place.. We had a tour of the cave and the story in short - a brother-pair accidentally discovered its existence in 1881 and then later it was commercialized by a OOB-thinking entrepreuner in 1941.. The cave has three levels and is well maintained (obviously its in private hands and a money-maker) and they provide a guided tour for 10 bucks.. The cave must have been real scary when the Vanasse Bros hit it first , its real scary without the lights even now.. There are three levels in the cave and an artificial water body adds glamor to the aesthetics.. We had the unique experience of experiencing 100% darkness , no light whatsoever and if you think you do see something thats just ur brain doing a mental mapping (coz for us to see we got to have light reflected). Then we had a unique experience of seeing the stalactites and stalagmites - used to be always confusing during my geography study days - the guide gave a hint : stalactites - they hang 'tight' from the roof & stalagmites - they 'might' reach the roof ;-) smart aint it !! If I had visited it before may be cud've added a couple more marks in my geo exams ...Then there were bats and it was a real batty experience .. not the vampire ones of course these were less than the size of ma thumb for height ...batliputs ;-)
Then we moved on to our best thing - eating , there was food - biriyani, chappathi , egg curry and my own prawn tandoor. We heated them on the stove we carried and to top it we had good wine and some beer . We still had around 6 hours and how can we waste sometime off our lovely life ? we made our move towards our second destination the St.Croix river - we rented out a boat that served as our home for the next 4 hours , bought some minnows as bait for some river fishing - believe me those minnows were big enuf to be fried and eaten ;-)
We had our luck in fishing like 8 catfishes and a spotted bass ..we also had a small thunderstorm pass us when we anchored midway in the river - the boat swayed at varied angles but it held good .. late at nite we had some thai dinner ..
The fishes had to wait till the next day to find their spots in our bellies - marinated & fried.My friends and me had a fun time in my balcony with music and some champagne along with the roasted fish...

One of my friends had rightly pointed out that my "blog is never complete without description of food ", the reason being all good things that are happening to me mostly revolve around food - whose fault is that ;-) I am a complete socialist when it comes to food , and believe me all the vegeterians owe me big time for keeping the food chain intact ...

Smile Manufacturers - "no artificial flavors"

I had a couple of tiresome weeks at work >> really long days tiring me up mentally , so planned to chill out the weekend .. so part of the plan i watched the movie 'motorcycle diaries'.. am a fan of Che , there was a part in the movie that touched me the most when Che swims across the river dividing the leper colony and the doctor's quarters to celebrate his birthday along with the lepers.. That was really a great thing to do as Che was asthmatic and the river water was very cold to venture, except for the True Smiles there was no other 'return on investment' ..

They are the true smile manufacturers - the others in the list who come to my mind and little knowledge are Baba Amte, Mother Teresa etc. I am a stern believer that if you can extract the real smiles out of people around you - you have done something great and it always brings a genuine 70mm on ur face too ....

One more instance when i've seen that real smile was when myself and my close friend made a trip to pondy. We had reserved a hut styled room alongside the seashore for a a couple of nights .We enquired what the taxi fare must be and it was around 1500 - 2K bucks for up and down - we thot we can put that use at some good place in pondy. The mrng we packd our bags and just hopped into an mtc bus to pondy - 22 bucks each with a movie for free ;-) and lots of passengers for free-looking and commenting .. We reached pondy in abt 3 hours - around 830ish.. checked into our hut alongside the shore..it had a mini fridge - we didnt dare take anything out of it coz the small water bottle (ironically named himalaya) had a sticker on it "saying loud - I would cost u 70 bucks" (now i got the naming convention being followed).We then wanted to walk by the beach ,but my friend and we being nature lovers didnt want the resort's barrier to stop our morning walk - so we planned to jump the wall and have a free stroll>>>
Call it destiny or balancing the food chain - while enjoying da waves and walking we came across a group of local fishermen , huddled together and picking out fishes from their net - their overnight catch !! My eyes popped out and my friend could sense that all - we sat there and as i am a lover of crab , asked them to pack some crabs for me. I paid 100 bucks and they had about half a bucket of fresh caught crab for me - and trust me they pickd the best ones. You end up paying more than double of it for about 1/20 of the quantity - now i know what supply chain means .. ;-) Then i started a convo abt how i wanted to taste them right now but handicapped for a kitchen etc etc., they were so happy to help us out - come back in an hour we shall have it ready - golden words of the moment !! We left the beach - took an auto - bought a bottle of bacardi white - at chennai we cud've ended up with green label or bagpiper >> and returned back after an hour. I still remember the smiles and gleam on their faces when we returned and positioned ourselves in their sheds by the shore - far more comfy and lovable than our 1500 per nite cabin. We had a great meal - fresh crabs cooked in local ground spices . hmm i donno how much i ate - but again its for balancing the food chain as many guys dont take crab - think of a situation if crabs were not eaten find crabs walking sideways all over our roads - not good right ;-) thank me !!! Got new friends in pandian , bhoomi etc etc. We spent a gr8 amount of time talking - their worries were mainly abt their children growing up and their education. So the next time we went we had taken some books along for them ... the smiles on their faces were instantaneous - the 100% genuine smiles .... We took back three things 'lotsaa satisfaction' , 'tons of genuine smile memories' & a promise of spending a night in the catamaran with open skies and sea below with lots of crabs and us between
One thing for sure - a genuine smile doesnt just involve ur lips - it needs support from ur eyes too; same thing holds good for a genuine kiss tooooooooooooooooooooo .. the meaning of the word genuine is left out for ur judgement !!!

Those grapes are Sour ++++++

I was having my weekend bubble bath, with a glass of zinfandel by my side to give company - then the red wine stirred up some thoughts on da grapes front and this led to the fox and da grapes story .... great thoughts on a weekend in warm water !!
I had created my own version of "those grapes are sour" story to ease the agony and going on smiling thru my life.Here we go ..I donno when my love towards the uniformed corps started - I remember how excited I felt when my grandfather gifted me an army uniform for my 10th or 11Th b'day; one of my great friends' whom I shared the bed during our summer vacation to hear his INA stories -Subhas chandra bose and Captain Lakshmi became my heroes.. hats off to you grandfather. He had mastery over many languages and his thoughts were crisp, rational and clear - he mastered the languages all by himself through books...
Will cut the story short : I did my engineering and then landed up a job in a software company in technopark,then I got the call for my SSB interview in Allahabad - was so excited to get it as I had given my CDS exams way back and forgot totally about that - cursing my fate of entering the s/w industry like millions when I wanted something else for sure..
I immediately reserved my tickets and attended the SSB interview - spans for 5 days the best I've had - they cover you from all angles and stress interviews are the best in their league. 3 got selected out of a batch of 78 and my grandfather's grandson was one among them.. I resigned my job and landed up at OTA , then I had to resign due to some circumstances ...
One of my friends took me down the memorylane for a couple of mins yesterday during our phone call - so here am making a conscious postmortem effort to ensure that i am free of "regrets" ..
why those army-grapes are sour:
1) No lucrative pay check
2) Element of risk in work environment
3) Minimal Civilian population to mingle with
4) Starred-power politics
5) No chance to Visit different continents as part of work

Everything said - even now when i see an OG / Camos uniform - my heart wanders off to the past with a little adrenaline rush, so i think my mind is not accepting the fact of those grapes being sour ;-) Takes time !!!

Old Wine - in a new Bottle !!

I love saturdays as you got a lot of time with your cozy bed .. I was prejudiced that nature doenst lie but it declares spring time and here comes snow ... not good snow means no fishing , no cricket ...

I was thinking of making use of this home-time to write something up but was not getting the spark - may be after a couple of shots of tequila i would .... I was searching for one silly article that I wrote like 5 years ago just for some fun ... couldnt find it then i had sent mails to all my colleagues to search it for me .. the magic mail landed in gmail as an attachment !! So am reproducing the original copy - with no changes in its original immature format !! It has all to do with the work in ma project - may not make sense to all and the characters can easily be mapped if u know what i mean ;-) Ignore the flow and the mistakes as this was me writing like 5 years ago , I love Burkha Dutt the way she reports and the way she takes convo - may be the kargil war reporting impressed me lots !! There is contest for guessing the General's original identity - he is posted at a different location overseeing a vast & critical operation !!
Here we go :


THIS IS BURKHA DUTT REPORTING FROM CAMP F0

DAY/TIME : Saturday , 1515 Hrs IST

Hi this is Burkha Dutt reporting live from CAMP F0 – the most happening place @ TCS SHOL.
Even on a Saturday afternoon , the camp is alive ..The atmosphere here is always pumped up and I’ll be reporting one of the many battles LIVE ,that are taken up here !!!!Hope we don’t have to wait more …

Ring Ringgggggggg ;;;;;;;;;;

Just now a call from Boulder ,USA has landed up at the CAMP COMMANDER’S desk (code named: Service Coordinator) .General Stern Looks picks up the call , he remains cool and calm even though he knows that the starting shot of a new battle has been fired.

The General patiently takes down all the initial details of the battle like the location of the battle (code named : Host Name/Company name) , the gravity of the situation (code named : Severity of the ticket) and jots these down in his log book.

Gen.Stern is a decorated soldier with lots of medals glistening on his chest and a lot of battle experience behind him.The Platoon Commanders under him are newly recruited ,inexperienced , young Lieutenants.

General is on his duty .He checks out on the type of the strategy employed by the opposition and assigns (code named : warm xfer) the role of temporary commander to one of his Lieutenants(code named: oncall #1).

The Lieutenant is a bit worried as this one is his maiden battle .So he tries to find from old war docs(code named : previous occurrence) whether such a scenario has happened earlier , but he couldn’t find any.In the mean time Gen.Stern orders that this battle should be taken care of immediately.

The General is now looking a bit concerned because its his responsibility to see to it that the battle (code named : low sev .. sev 2, sev 3) doesn’t magnify itself into a full scale war (code named : high sev .. sev 1, GC) .

Just then the hotline rings again and it’s the call from the Top Brass confirming that the battle has become of high gravity now as civilians are also being targeted by the enemy (code named : guest impact) .

The General wants immediate action, so the young Lieutenant decides to get help from his senior officers.The Lieutenant summons up enough courage to wake up his senior ,Major Atonsite (code named : Oncall #2) who is at an undisclosed location..

Major Atonsite is a veteran of many such battles and he has enough valour to deal with these kinda situations.He just gathers required info and in a short while he sends in superior strategy (code named : $jobs) and reqd ammunition (code named: good n backup datasets) to counter the attack.

- I see the Lieutenant is a bit relaxed now and the battle half won.

The Major yells orders and the Lieutenant takes ‘em down clearly in his mind( as far as he can understand).

He passes marching orders as given by his Major and after all the plans executed , voila
the job is done – yet another battle wonnnnnnn !!!!!!!!!!1

The Lieutenant wiped off the remaining sweat from his forehead..The General congratulates the team and before they can party the hotline rings again..

Ringggggggg ringgggggggggg …………………

Hello this is General .Stern from CAMP F0…..

The cycle repeats all over again ….

Before bidding good bye to all the officers out here lemme sum up some of the popular war cries I heard here of different Platoons ;

Guest Platoon :

Oh ! SPAMuji zara jaldi chalo baba jaldhi chalo …
(babuji zara jaldhi chalo tune..)

HR Pay Platoon :

Roz roz hum sochtha yehi ki aaj humko ek abend
Mil jaayae kahiiiii..

(rangeela roz roz hum tune…)

Credit Platoon :

It’s the time to new accounts . aaj milega kya LOS ??

(it’s the time to disco frm kal ho na ho tune )

n maroon-beret.
n CAS-MVS GUEST

Murphy's Law - is it only me ???

The day started off with great news - the 0815 daily recurring meeting has been cancelled with immediate effect - what a relief , the last minute scramble for the telecon number and the passcode can take rest , no more sprinting of the last lap of my morning jog- so that I am by all means ready (shaved and dressed with a tie & smile ..) before the telecon and for the 0830 carpooling with my friend ..

A day's menu is always sprinkled with all recipes - its not always sweet or sour !! By noon we had an all important 'effort planning for all resources' to be updated into our database. I made all preliminary calculations and had the resource and effort estimate and was ready to get it done ..

We being great S/W engineers had much faith on the stress testing done on the tool - but once our updates were ready after 2 hours of mix & matches and when the magic button 'SAVE' was clicked - there was a software silence (when one of ur tasks gulps down 99% of ur CPU) and we waited for that miracle to happen but to our dismay murphy's law prevailed - giving it almost a 100% success rate ... the updates didnt happen and when it was almost needed very importantly..

During da drive back home - all through the freeway - my thoughts raced on who is this Murphy guy and how come his law is 100% successful whereas even Newton's had exceptions ..So I hit upon my shoot-me-ur-Q secretary Ms.Wiki and got the below answer :

"Murphy's law is an adage in Western culture that broadly states that if anything can go wrong, it will. "If there's more than one possible outcome of a job or task, and one of those outcomes will result in disaster or an undesirable consequence, then somebody will do it that way." It is most often cited as "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong" (or, alternately, "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way" or, "Anything that can go wrong, will," or "If anything can go wrong, it will, and usually at the most inopportune moment"). The saying is sometimes referred to as Sod's law or Finagle's law which can also be rendered as "Anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment".

Murphy has made me cut sorry faces many times - I can remember a couple of times in recent past - There was an all important monthly meet which I was to report at 0800 so had made all arrangements and when I was about to get into my car the fuel gauge was down below abnormal so made up my mind and went into the nearest gas station but it was locked down for renovation (Murphyyyyyyyyyyyyy plans perfect...) and then my car died in the nearby lane and had to wait for my lazy - 0930 - office - going - frnd to give me a lift and miss my meeting @@@@@@@

Next super event was when I wanted to do a status check on my DL, required my passport . I made the discovery that I had misplaced (or rather put it out somewhere so safe that noone including me could find it) my passport and after thoroughly searching all over the places I had been and in the new apt i moved to - had to look for options of getting it renewed and visa stamped.. I checked the official website of the consulate in chicago and they had around 10 numbers listed , tried each of those and I got the same audio message . Then I tried calling my home to send me the copies , the phone rang a countless times but no one picked it up(Mr.M had cut the bsnl lines in India too .., what thorough planning)..
Murphy - u the man !!!

Savouring meat : da AadhimanaV $tylE !

While I'm staring at the bottle of Wal-flu handed over to me by my friend , thinking whether to gulp down the chemical concoction dissolved in 'OL or to spend yet another sleepless nite with congestion and may be disturbance for my neighbour ;-) , got an idea of pushing my blog numbers to the limit for the day (err it just occurred that the day has passed and its 0117 hours , hmm may be will try to create records some other flu-day..)

But anyway i have made up my mind to save a 911 call for my old neighbour, so before gulping lemme finish this short xp off :

We as a team were looking for a restaurant to lunch as a celebration of clearing some certification of some sort (the doublesome tells how good i was at the certification, though i cleared).. While we were looking up our manager came down with the idea of a Brazilian restaurant named ' Fogo De Chao' , I was game for anything but most of the other team members straight away refused.. I thought might be coz of the $$$ , but when its on the house why worry.. stupid me it was because it was a meat lovers paradise , for me meat = all other living beings except humans but for most of our folks meat is synonymous with chicken(as if chicken doesnt have life ;-)..so we scratched the plan and ended a day after up at applebees having "northern walleye with rice and veggies" . I had no complaints except for missing out on trying an unique dining experience. Then my thoughts boiled and steamed and ended up as a calendar request to my manager for lunch.We were on our way thru - this is 3 mins from our office and inside the building opposite to the earlier TGI fridays - hmm there were veggie salads like 50+ varieties to choose from but guess what I didnt hit much of those just went for the smoked salmon on the salad bar. Smoked salmon was fresh and it has a different taste , unlike our aachi or sakthi masala's which spoil the real taste of meat .. i was savouring salmons that way with a tinge of pepper and lemon on it..The best part was yet to come , this restaurant serves like 15 types of cut meat including sirloins, steaks , tendorloins, ribs etc., just to name some that i could catch of ..we are given a double colored disc , RED on one and GREEN on another , we just have to have the green side on - to indicate fire-roasted traffic to flow to our plates - pork, beef , chicken , lamb they got everything and the best part was all the meat was cooked on direct fire - aadhi maanav style : back to the basics !! the service was so electric and quick that you could find ur plate dumped with what not if u forgot to turn ur disc ..I think we were chatting and it must have been around 20 servings that we felt filled .. and atop that they had a sweet topped roasted banana for dessert and i loved it !! I wouldnt say that i would go in everyday but i would love to be part of this experience once a month may be .... Though it drills a bit of a small hole in ur wallet , it fills ur stomach and ur apetit .worth a try !!

Catch a glimpse @ http://www.fogodechao.com

Congestion - traffic ones are better !!

I always considered myself to be a life-time member of the high-energy group , can find me among all activities which have atleast a .01% of RoI in form of fun !! For the past 72 hours one of the tiniest beings in the universe has been hacking havoc in my body - it has a name for itself , if i spell it here it can rest itself on the word in a count of millions - yeah u got it right the flu virus ..
Always my only and worst enemy - i was unable to do many things amongst all not even talk to my friends over phone.. it is causing congestion to my nasal (good that its not attacking my oesophagus as i just cant stop eating - am a foodie) and chest .. having hard times just to pull in enough O2 for my lungs .. Its been boring as I cudnt put my 100% in the usual activites - I had friends over friday nite and had a potluck going on saturday - the best i cud do was to don my fatigue driven smile ;-) Hopefully the virus is happily reading thru and sending out notes to its gang to say - the damage has been done and also to find a new apt to stay - hope they had rental histories too - I wud've screwed it to the extent that they won't find a new abode -- really traffic congestions dont last 72 hours and they are lot better on u !! I am against intake of any chemicals in form of tablets but tonite have decided to take in some decongestant just to ease and make me think for the upcoming week - am on an all out war against the flu gang - watch out >>

Tantalizing Templebay !!

One of the best memories of a worry free (coz it was on the house - house as in 'company') , quality filled & ambience draped dining experience was @ temple bay near mahabalipuram... I had an opportunity to play host to one of our clients . Unlike other bossy and rusty ones he was a happy-go-lucky guy with a lot of knowledge on cultures and places.. he had backpacked to middle east during his college days , we were never short of great conversations ..

Our day started off when our driver Krishna picked up John from his hotel and later on picked me up from my home around 0900 on a weekend.. We had one of our conversations going and we always tried to involve krishna too so that he doesnt feel that he was alone with his corolla !

First we visited 'dakshin chitra' - located on the East coast Road or the ECR road (the kaaka kaaka jeep song fame.., would love to ride a open gypsy alongside this road with my gf) , and honestly i was not so eager to visit that place. Usually these kinda places according to me were to woo foreigners and to get their oohs & aahs! along with their $$ & pounds( there is no pound symbol on my kb, need to get a 'made in UK' one i suppose) >>

But once i got in and had the chance to see the intricate handiworks of local artisans(when i say local its India , most of them were from the NW part of India) , was totally overwhelmed. They had great talent that was passed on from generations to generations - am not sure if these kinda values are on those X-Y chromosomal combinations ?? .They were drawing on an inch square of dried palm leaves and we couldnt beat them for symmetry with our engineering drawings. The other thing that i noticed was the speed and concentration they had - speed of an F1 and concentration of a snake about to hit its prey ..

J was very happy and yeah to make the artisans happy - he bought a couple of the palm leaf drawings - its still happily resting on his fridge door back home in minneapolis - a long journey for a palm leaf to make. He also bought a painting of the wealth goddess for his boss - to make her happy !! The puppet show was one another thing that amazed all of us - it was put up in a mix of english and tamil and it was so nicely edited and directed by the one man that the mixed crowd almost erupted to laughter many times during the show - and importantly simultaneously !! side kick : ' sometimes we laugh coz we have to '

After a couple of hours being intellectual and appreciating art - we wanted some food for all the thoughts we put in.. K suggested temple bay as I hadnt been to mahabalipuram for dining I also was not sure - I called a couple of places and all had the same opinion - GO FOR IT.

We parked and then moved to the restaurant area - it has a thatched roof with coconut palm leaves and the best part was it was overlooking the pool and then the ' bay of bengal' - wow i would've just stayed there sipping some beer all day long ... We got a great table too .. along the frontlines .. J was enjoying it and it was the company of the true-blu (thats ma fav color) waves that was making us intoxicated ..
I am a good listener and am inquisitive (not on the technical front) , i love to hear real life stories than reel life - it started off with my grandfather telling me about his days in the INA under Netaji : ok lemme reserve a different place for this..

We ordered a couple of beers( J wanted authentic Indian beer, as corona is from mexico kingfisher is from India, we added a couple of $$ as profit to Vijay Mallya). To go along with it direct from the tandoor we had tiger prawns - grilled and cooked to perfection it was awesome...i loved it . I love good food and drinks topped with great company - J was talking about all the fun times he had backpacking ..and hours flew by. For the touche Indian we had some roti and dal...

The waves were crashing and it was too nice to just sit there and enjoy with blank minds and wondering when wud the next wave crash ... we talked and watched ...it was around 1800 when we thought of leaving - around 3 hours of wave counting and being with nature (some alive and some dead and tasty of course) .. temple bay is one place where my lucky(??) gf and me would dine when the time comes !!!

Starting blocks ....

Its been ages since I also wanted to have my own blog - the neo version of the old diary that was always presented to me by my dear father by the start of every year ... from standard 6 till my college days.. Then it came from friends and relatives and sweethearts ;-)

Even now I love the old version of writing with a reynolds fine carbure pen over my diary (may be am from the older generation.. truly so.. the 80's are no more new), but as the situation of lack of diary gifting friends/sweethearts and no place to vent or throw my emotions has pushed me to find a little spot for me over the i-connected-world ..

I started my diary writing by cursing my classmates who didnt return my eraser back in time, who came to school late etc . Then I grew to venting out my anger towards my own parents when they asked me to go to get grocery when i had my all important cricket match to watch ,, may be on the i-blog i may have such silly things with a mature touche to it

So here am I jotting down my first post to see how it looks and take it up from there >>>