Love My Solo Numero !!

In Love with my Single NumbeR that...

• ain't shared by my siblings or friends
• is reachable anytime
• is an active member in ma emotional voyage
  
• smiles off my stupidity
• opens up my corridors of imagination
• delights me with never ending freshness
  
• is unconditional

Your LOVE makes me say " eh !! dil mangae M.O.R.E - u make ma heart meltttttt !!

Revenge was his(Mr.Murphy's) Reply

I knew Mr.M would come back hard at me for exposing him in my blog.. He was just waiting for the right opportunity and what better time to strike than when I am at my weakest moving from the nOrthern hEmisphere to the south !!
Started the month of Dec'08 with a request for travelling to Uruguay for work - I gleefully accepted the offer as I wanted something new in my work, love travelling ,meeting new people & trying out new cuisines !! Never expected that the journey would be a good adventure on its own ...

Started with the visa as the consul general was OOC(for us its out of office, for consul gen its out of country) for a couple of weeks, then I had to arrange through a different consulate. Visa appointment was fixed, ticketing completed from MSP to Miami to Montevideo.

Waved goodbye to the ones I shared my life @ Minneapolis ! Murphy started poking his nose into my affairs a bit rough from here, I came to know that I cannot check in my baggages through to Montevideo as I had no Uruguayan Visa , although I scrambled through my bag and took out numerous papers to show that I am not planning on an illegal entry the representative was adamant on the stand and rightly so...could have written some complimentary messages for her to her boss ..

This concern flew away as I was flying first class, first in ma lifetime ;-) , relaxxed and enjoyed the caste system in the airlines !! I landed in Miami , In'l ;the land of the lords. Now I had to think on how to get my visa done and take care of my baggage. I decided to leave the baggage at the carousal, anyways it would be at the counter as unclaimed baggage and I could always come back to the orphaned ones later.

Sprawled my way through the miami crowd and hired a cab.she took me to the consulate, I asked her to wait till I am out... Went inside the consulate and waited for an hour to get my chance, the citizens of Uy were given preference over any Visa processing , appreciated that spirit of theirs and I sat there in the small room with Gen Artigas staring at me from a corner ;-) No much fanfare as in the US consulate as Uy is no World of Opportunities ..

Got my Visa stamped and the scan through the streets brought me my next surprise , my very friendly cab-driver had deserted me..Made up my mind on the fronts that she might have got a better ride and on my luck of getting a free ride from the airport to the consulate.

I waited to wave yet another taxi and half way through I asked him if he would accept cards, Murphy strikes again to say that out of the 1000s of cabs in Miami this one doesn't accept cards.

I didn't carry cash, the lucky b!#@! I am , had a cheque book , wrote a 20$ for the cab driver - checked my account online after I reached here and could find it debited .. Atleast was not so lucky to get a free round trip from the airport to the consulate.

Found the way to the baggage claim area and the friendly clerk helped me regain my 'unclaimed' baggages. I found the cart vending machine and slided my cards - Visa & Amex decided to play along with Murphy. Helpful humans can always be found, one lady offered me her cart as she had another free one..

Lots of hours to pass, how long could I play watchman ;-) , though the crowd was colorful and pleasant.The airport internet came to rescue, paid up for a 24 hr connection but the authentication wouldnt go through.. i was cursing my luck but sensed the opportunity of talking to the cute girl at the reception of the hotel that provides the inet service.. off i went in a flash and talked to the blondie after a couple of calls the connection sprang up on my HP pavilion

Felt a sense of relief after checking emails work and personal. Chatted with ma amigos and sent mails regarding the lovely travel.As I handled the above scenarios with little bit of help from lady luck, Mr.M decided to test with some other avenues - the time had come to board and I couldn't go to my gate as the Trams at Miami called up a strike ..There was total chaos in the airport with ppl who could miss the flight and no connection coz miami is one of the connecting hubs from NA to SA.

After a while, the authorities arranged for buses to ply us to the gates.There was a lot of crowd and it was not regulated, - the survival of the fittest game ensured for sometime in boarding the buses. I reached my gate 15 mins in advance and the relief turned to desperation again as the PA announcement came in - There has been a gate change for the Miami Montvideo flight..

I was sure of missing the flight as the buses were crowded and I had to run to get through to the bus facility.The bus took me to the gate and somehow I had to thank Murphy as the flight was delayed for 30 mins. We all boarded the flight, after a couple of mins of taxiing , the captain announced that there was some malfunctioning computer on board and it needed replacement... Great news, coz this announcement in mid air would have had me read thru the safety instructions manual ASAP.

Miami airport can boast of a great engineering crew as they rectified the malfunction in less than an hour, whereas sometimes during crucial meetings we need to have around 5 software engineers work for more than half an hour to fix a projector issue ;-)

Having said that , the slightest shudders, which I may have earlier attributed to turbulence took a new dimension in my thoughts - did they fix it right ?? or they had got into engineering with fake degrees ;-) ? Anyways I landed at Montevideo in one-piece and was greeted with a SmilE ,by Mohan - the sweetest I have experienced !! Will report further from Latinoland !

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 !!!