Shopping - The "baraTHnaTYam" way

I used to curse my parents every single breath while cycling from my home to the market as it bit into my play-time.Even the mundane shopping task has turned e.x.c.i.t.i.n.g in this small Latin american country named Uruguay...My competency level in Spanish is comparable to my ice skating skills (always fall backwards..) , but here this trait adds s{pice} to your shopping curry.
Usually start off the shopping dumb C with a 'Hola' and then its all over to the mudra or point-n-ask strategy. I love the mudra one because most of the times it is more expressive and is kinda fun. I love sea food and the 'Makara or Matsya' mudra came in handy to get me some laughs around, and my fish ..the hunt for crustaceans is still on and it was a hard time to act it out. I was successful after a couple of attempts of making my fingers walk sidewards and showing my own claw-clutch-mudra. Crabs are not in awe here near, so may be have to travel 100s of Kms to grab and taste one. Back in Trichy , Crabs travelled from chennai thru train and buses and then to the front of our defence quarters on bicycles ;-) how convenient...
The most surprising part of my research on crabs was that - there is one of the mudras for Crab - the Karkala Mudra, well done ancestors. I've had tortoise in India without having to use the Coormah mudra - but here the food is the sole source of entertainment ;-( , now I've started a liking towards the 'art of aquiring the food.'.
If I walk the aisles and shop quick enough to make my movements continous, I may even think of my arangetram in 'BharathnatyaM' - keeping it slow to save a cultural landslide in India..!!
Bored in Uruguay - ?? Grab a few 100 pesos and go to the nearby super mercado and play Dumb C with all of 'em

Sunrise @ Rambla

The bio-alarm overtook my usual mobile-alarm by a margin of more than 2 hours so ended up moving my butt off the bed earlier than usual.. I have a bad habit of being unable to sleep again easily if the continuity is broken - I hated those early mrng pages when I was handling some apps at onsite... What would be more perfect than to start your day with 'Surya Darshan' .. It was a treat for the eyes and mind alike - the black tarred road, tanned people jogging , the white beach and the lovely Red Sun rising above the horizon..the colors fading from pitch black to the brightest red .. nature's own palette of paints..Always surprised of the sun ever not getting bored of the monotonous task... should be asked for a management pep talk to keep the morale up ...I shall make this task a daily one to absorb all the positive vibes of the 33 orientales ... ;-)

The Tempest - Not the Shakespearean 1 ...

Was woken from my deep sleep, in da wee hours of Monday by the loud banging of my kitchen door... not knowing who the uninvited intruder was... Switched on my lights , but cudnt find even a single soul around..

Could hear the wind whistle sarcastically at me.. The wind was spitting fury along with rhythmic whistling as it rushed through my hard venetian blinds and the glass windows.. Though it meant a sleepless night , it was in a way enjoyable too ... it was some kinda music to the ears... if you know what i mean when i say "i love to hear the waves.."

This is like hearing the wind and feeling it against you...I let the wind caress and pamper me all night long and slept off in the morning in her arms ....

the windy nite , brought memories of Chic-ago , but the wind here seems to have an additional element of humane tenderness to it.. though it sounded rough n tough , it was soft enough to connect me with my dreamzz again... the " munchy" wind ... nature is never boring .. !!!

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 !!