atthespeedofmythoughts

Delhi by Khushwant Singh

2011-03-31T23:32:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, 2 states revived my interest in fiction, particularly Indian fiction. So as soon as I finished that book I needed to get more books to read. I couldn't take my 3 month old baby to a proper book store that would take a 30 mins drive to get to; so I went to a used book store in Kamla Nagar that I used to frequent as a kid. I didn't have any recommendations so picked up a few books randomly. One of them was Delhi by Khushwant Singh. When I got home I pulled up lists of best Indian fiction books and this book was one of them. Hence I decided to read it first.

It started out well and was quite a page turner. However I soon realized that it was part fiction and part history of Delhi. It took me some time to get used to the format of randomly switching back and forth between accounts of Delhi's history and the fictional story of the protagonist. By the end of 3/4th of the novel I started enjoying the stories. Perhaps because the more recent events were more familiar to me. The issue I had with the book was that it touched upon huge events very briefly and found myself constantly going to the internet to read about the people that were referred to in the book. It was hard to really learn about the events just from the book.

Nonetheless, I did learn quite a bit of history from the book that I wasn't familiar with. In fact the only history I knew before this was from history lessons in school and the odd non fiction book I read (the best one being Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre). It was eye opening to read the book and how violent our history has been. It made me realize how ancient the clash between Hindus & Muslims is and the number of times they have massacred each other was astounding. The author did focus primarily on sex and violence though so was a pretty biased view.

All in all, not really the lightweight fiction I was looking forward to at that time. Neither is it a proper non fiction that could provide good insight into Delhi's history. Would need some supplementary reading to understand the history. Maybe more enjoyable for someone who is already familiar with all the events accounted in the book as it gives a different twist to them.

2 states by Chetan Bhagat

2011-03-31T03:01:00.000-07:00

In the 4th month of my maternity I went to Delhi. One night was when I was bored I picked up this book. I must have been reading fiction after at least 3 years. I was completely hooked and didn't sleep all night -- just couldn't put the book down. Not sure if it was me being bored, unable to sleep or not having read fiction in a while, or maybe the book was just that good. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I have to admit that I do enjoy Chetan Bhagat's humour, I guess being married to an IITian has something to do with it. Just what I needed for this time, kept me completely entertained, easy to read even while feeding my baby.

I've had an interstate marriage as well but didn't relate much to the cultural differences described in the book. However, I think every married couple would relate to the histrionics of in laws described in the book. For example, not wanting your own son/daughter to do any work in lieu of the daughter or son in law.

I didn't learn much new from this book as I would from non fiction except a bit about South Indian culture (which perhaps was very stereotyped). However, this book revived my interest in fiction, especially Indian fiction and bought quite a few Indian fiction books to last me through my maternity leave.

Why love matters

2010-11-01T01:19:00.000-07:00

I picked up the book 'Why Love Matters' expecting more insights into parenting concepts. The book's cover says that it's essential reading for parents. However I was quite disappointed as the book doesn't really provide any learnings for normal parents.

The first few chapters about brain development and how it is affected by parenting is interesting. However, most of the book talks about the life long impact of ill parenting on children. As is written in the book -- any adult with reasonable sensitivity will be able to provide the right care for their child. Someone who is investing time to read this book is most likely a normal parent who will naturally provide the right emotional support.

I would recommend reading 'What every parent needs to know' which has the same concept explained more concisely and is more relevant or 'What's Going on in There' which has a lot more details about brain development.

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

2010-10-01T01:26:00.000-07:00

I didn't quite enjoy the first 100 pages of the book. I was really interested in reading RD's views on God and the first 100 pages were just refuting others' rationale for existence of God.

However, when he started his own arguments for why God doesn't exist and even more interestingly, why religion is so prevalent in all socieities, I couldn't put the book down. I didn't agree with all of logic 100%. For example, the argument that God doesn't exist because it's highly improbably statistically. Humans existence, as he mentions, is highly improbable but we still do exist.

My favourite parts were

1. Rationale for religion's existence as a by product of evolution,
2. The explanation for why religion is so wide spread
3. How we would be moral with or without religion

The dangers of religion was particularly eye opening for me.

Real World Economics

2006-09-10T13:12:00.000-07:00

It's the 3rd week of my MBA program at INSEAD. One thing I am enjoying a lot, besides the huge parties, is the optional reading material of the courses. These readings are mostly applications of what we are taught in class to real world situations. One such reading was an article The $100 Terrorist Insurance Plan for our Economics class. The reading was given in relation to our class on Supply, Demand and Markets. The article suggests a solution to the screening done during the security check by airlines. There is a demand for security checks and people are willing to pay for it. So the targeted passengers should be compensated for the trouble. Equipped with the knowledge worth 5 sessions of Economics, I find the solution pretty neat.

It's a shame that I hardly have time to read the optional cases which are the most fun part of the courses.

Street harassment

2006-03-06T22:07:00.000-08:00

When I went back to Delhi in the summer of 2005 a fleeting thought passed my mind while packing my clothes – maybe I shouldn’t pack my tank tops and skirts. I had been living alone for 6 years in San Francisco, wearing whatever I felt like, going wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted. And it was going to really hot in Delhi. I was confident that I could tackle anything that came my way.

In Delhi, I was warned against wearing shorts to the gym so I wore my track pants the first day. I almost passed out from the heat while working out and resolved to wear my shorts the next day onwards. I wasn’t about to let fear of being harassed interfere with something as mundane as a good workout. I came up with a theory that if I appeared confident and unafraid, no one would harass me. I glared at any men who came too close and sure enough nobody harassed me.

This gave me the confidence to venture out alone to Connaught Place. I wore a knee length skirt, hailed an auto rickshaw and made my way to meet my friends in CP. On my way there I noticed a man on a motorcycle driving beside me and staring. I didn’t give it much thought and just looked away. When I got off the man also got off his bike and accosted me. He asked me for my number. I was taken aback but thought he was on of those “I would like to be friends with you” guys. I walked in another direction but he wouldn’t go away. I was zigzagging through cars trying to get away. He shouted at me “What do you think you are? I know exactly what you do!” I was too confused to react. What did that guy mean? What give him any indication of “What I am?” I looked around at people thinking if they would protect me if he tried anything funny. Fortunately I spotted my friend and walked towards her. As I was telling her about the incident the man disappeared. She told me that while she was waiting for me in front of the Wimpy’s an uncle-ji tried to feel her up. She even pointed him out while we walked away.

On my way back I kept watching out for any motorcycle that stayed with us for more than a couple of miles. Nothing had changed since I was a fourteen year old girl afraid to walk home from my bus stop after school. Everyday in the bus, as we neared my bus stop, I would start dreading the walk home. A nearby school ended at the same time and a group of school boys would harass the girls passing by. They would shout obscenities and throw stones at my feet. I used to look forward to examination days when I got home earlier and didn’t have to pass by that group of boys. I was jealous of my cousins who had an elder brother who walked the same route with them. He once chased a boy who teased his sister and beat him up. I was jealous of my twin brother and sister who also walked together. I tried to get my mother to pick me up from my bus stop but didn’t know how to explain the mental turmoil I went through everyday. One day on my way back, after I had passed the group of school boys, I turned a corner, and a man turned towards me and flashed me. That day onwards I started taking a longer route home just so I wouldn’t have to pass that corner again.

When I turned eighteen I was ecstatic to start learning to drive. I could now drive and never have to walk or take auto rickshaws or the most feared – DTC Buses. The joy didn’t last long when my driving instructor surreptitiously started touching my breasts while changing gears or turning the wheel. I wasn’t sure how to tell my parents that I didn’t want to learn driving from that instructor. I asked my dad to teach me driving but got into a small accident. I had to continue my lessons with the driving instructor.

Now when I think of these incidents I can’t imagine why I didn’t take action against this kind of harassment. But as a girl in my early teens I lacked the confidence and maturity to deal with these incidents. I was too embarrassed to discuss any of this with my parents. I just learnt to go to any length to avoid a group of boys loitering on the streets or to make up excuses about why I need my grandmother or cousin to be in the car with me while I learnt to drive.

When male friends from Delhi narrate stories of eating paranthas at 1 am on the roadside or playing holi with friends on the streets, I am amazed. These are luxuries that I could never afford. They are amazed when I tell them that I only traveled in a bus once. They automatically attribute it to me being a rich spoiled brat and I prefer not to tell them the real reason. I would rather repress the thoughts of one of the worst experiences of my lives.

I can only begin to imagine how traumatized my sister could have been during her teen years in Delhi. After having lived in the US for two years when she had an opportunity to visit Delhi, she refused. She desperately wanted to meet our family but was too scared to go back. I convinced her to go but she fretted for days leading up to the trip.

I thought I would be able to deal with such harassment as a mature woman now. I was not a scared teenager anymore. However, in Bangalore on a trip with my parents, when a man started running his hand up and down my leg, I could do nothing. If I told my parents I knew my dad would get in a fight with him. I didn’t want him to get hurt. I just kept scooting closer and closer to my sister till she asked me what the matter was. She switched seats with me since she was wearing jeans and stomped on his hand. After all he couldn’t complain either.

I once started researching Sexual Harassment in India to write a paper for a class called “Women, Minorities and Law.” During that research I found out that “Eve teasing” is a termed coined and used only in India. I never wrote that paper, it was too painful. I sometimes day dream that incidents of street harassment would air on television and men would be forced to face the guilt. They would be made aware of the trauma they cause. I’m not sure when that day would come but Blank Noise is definitely a step in the right direction.

Changing Nationalities

2006-03-06T22:05:00.000-08:00

I was flipping through the latest issue of Newsweek at home today when an article caught my eye. It read "If you look at two recent events, you might well conclude that the Chinese are a lot smarter at handling the US than Indians are at handling them." Wait, that doesn't make any sense. I read the line again; it actually said "If you look at two recent events, you might well conclude that the Chinese are a lot smarter at handling the US than we are at handling them." I had read the "we" as "Indians." It is strange that I made that translation automatically since I was in the US, reading an American magazine and I recently became an American citizen.

I had mixed feelings the day I took the oath - I could now visit South American countries without getting a visa, but I would have to get a visa to go to India. It was disturbing to sign a document saying that I would be willing to bear arms for the US. When I reached my office that day, I tried to explain my confused feelings to a sympathetic co-worker. She simply remarked - "well you look the same and you talk the same, nothing has changed." And really what has changed?

To me Independence Day still means August 15th and "we" is still Indians. If anything, living amongst Americans has made me more aware of how I am different from them. How I nod my head from side to side in affirmative sometimes instead of up and down, how it makes me uncomfortable to see someone step on a book or how much I enjoy eating with my hands. Living outside of India has sensitized me to the behavior that so distinctly "Indian". For example, in Bombay when I bought an ice cone from an old man at the beach he felt it his duty to tell me where to sit so that I was as far as possible from a group of young men lurking near by. Had I never left India, I wouldn't have appreciated the sentiment behind his insistence on where I sit. In Bangalore when a man selling flowers naturally started arranging them in my sister's hair, the act seemed especially endearing when I compared it to the man in Berkeley who snapped at her for accidentally brushing her hair against his face.

Undeniably, having spent more than half of my life in America and Britain, I do have western influences. My work ethics are that of a professional in the Silicon Valley and my ambitions are inspired by American organizations. As I learn more about the American culture and compare it to my own, I wonder if my years in America are making me more American, less Indian or more American and even more Indian.

Discussion on NPR about Untouchables

2005-10-20T23:35:00.000-07:00

There was a good program on NPR about the Caste System in India. The guest was Narendra Jadhav, born in a sub class, who is the chief economist of the RBI. I learnt through this program that Dr. Ambedkar played a bigger role in the movement to eradicate the class system than Mahatma Gandhi did. The Q&A session was very interesting; the major controversy being about the reservation in colleges. Some people from the Brahmin class argued that the reservation was unfair.

One point raised against the reservation seems to be that privileged people from the lower castes exploit the system to gain admission. A question was brought up asking Jadhav if his daughter took advantage of the reservation. He said that she didn't and he himself didn't do so himself after his education. It is true that many people from SC/ST with equal opportunities as others from different classes do get through due to the reservation, but it cannot be removed just yet. As one caller suggested, the solution is to probably base the system on both social and economic class.

India's LadyBoys

2005-10-07T00:52:00.000-07:00

I recently wached a documentary called India’s LadyBoys about hijras in India. The documentary concentrated on the story of two people - one who was born androgynous and another who chose to become one by getting crastrated. One of the most surprising parts of the documentary was the description of a festival that celebrates hijras. It seemed akin to the LGBT pride celebration in San Francisco. It is held in Koovagam, Tamil Nadu and according to the documentary the people of the Koovagam embrace the celebration and very open minded to the hijras who go to participate.

Watching the documentary provided insightful views into the lives of hijras -- their lives, concerns, and interaction with others.

Poor animals

2005-08-13T01:06:00.000-07:00

My brother came over and got a crab along. It is in a box with water and food. I've been looking at it for about 15 mins and the poor thing hasn't moved an inch. It is saddening to see an animal trapped like that. I don't understand how anyone can enjoy keeping a living being caged in their house.

It's just one of those days when incidents keep piling up to invoke a much stronger response. First there was news about a teenager driving his car over ducks over and over. Then I read this article about animals' self destructive behavior due to stress induced by bombing. And now watching this poor crab trapped in a box is heart wrenching.

I think I will sneak the crab out and set it free, but where?

Being an NRI

2005-08-07T23:33:00.000-07:00

I've heard some discussion on the fact that NRI's are doing a disservice to their country by leaving the country to work in another county and how some people absolutely refuse to go to another country even if they are given a chance. I appreciate their choice but I feel that living in another country gives you a perspective that you wouldn't have gained otherwise. It makes you more aware of who you are. If you keep living with people who are basically the same, you would never be aware of how you differ from people with different cultures.

I feel that I am now very aware of myself, of my likes/dislikes. For example, I know that I like eating with my hands;I don't like when people step on books or paper; I get a bit uncomfortable when people make sexual jokes; I don't like talking about money or stocks much; I love spicy food; I love and respect my parents; i have an inherent respect for older people; i nod my head side to side when i agree which confuses people.

These are things I probably would never have thought of if I was living in India because these are the common basic qualities that most people around me would possess. Like I would have never even thought that I prefer dating Indian men if I had never gotten the opportunity to date American men.

Similarly, when i go back to India there are a lot of things I am more appreciative or critical of as a result of having lived in another country. For example, I realize that personal distance is shorter in India, people ask and tell salaries, and other trivial differences one wouldn't think about if one had always lived in the same culture.

I am always comforted to see people back in India who look like me and behave the same way, but I am also appreciative of the ways we are different from people in another country. So I think that everyone should try living in another country for sometime, just to gain the perspective, learn about a different culture and most importantly learn about oneself.

escribo acerca de español

2005-07-28T00:41:00.000-07:00

I started learning Spanish 2 months ago. I made decent progress I believe, but am still far from being able to speak it. Maybe some day I will be able to write my posts in Spanish. Studying Spanish somehow reminded me of the times when I used to take Sanskrit. My teacher is from Argentina so she pronounces "ll" as "j" instead of "y" as most Spanish speaking people in the US do. My pronounciation is funny to my sister and her friends who learnt Spanish from a teacher from Spain. I will have to make a conscious effort to change my pronounciation, if I ever get to the point where I can converse in Spanish.

Memorizing conjugations of verbs in Spanish reminds me of having to learn the seven vibhaktiya (I completely forget what those were for). Learning Spanish is not very hard though. A friend was telling me that is because Spanish does not have gender specific verbs, that is, to say "she/he is going shopping" is the same "ella/él va de comprass", but I'm not fully convinced by the argument. According to this website, it is a myth that Spanish is easier than French. I tried translated "she/he is going shopping" to French and came up with a similar result - "elle/il va commercial".

To me Spanish seems to be a sexist language. Take for example the following -

él hermano = brother
la hermana = sister
son hermanos = 1 or more brother(s) and 1 or more sisters

mi madre = my mother
mi padre = my father
mis padres = my parents

tío = uncle
tía = aunt
tíos = uncle(s) + aunt(s)

And the list goes on...I guess it's easy to be critical of a language that is new to you. It's much harder to think critically of Hindi or English for me.

I learned a new term in my Spanish class - false cognate. It means words that sound like they should mean something similar in English, but they actually don't. For example, parientes sounds like it should mean parents, but it actually means relatives (close, but not quite) and largo means long, not large

And there are some new things about Spanish, like there are different adjectives for a this, that, and that over there (far away) -- este/esta (male/female), ese/esa, aquel/aqulla. Also, there is another tense in addition to past, present and future -present progressive, which is to describe events happening right now like I am writing (I'm not sure how this is different than gerund in English, but my teacher taught it to us as another tense rather than gerund).

Another useful thing I learnt that I keep forgetting is how to write letters with the accent. Here's the useful guide (for Word; doesn't work for IE, but it works in yahoo messenger) -

Accent (á) -> Ctrl + ' (a, e, i, o, u)
Tilde (õ) -> Ctrl + Shift + ~ (o, n, s ..
Inverted question (¿) -> Ctrl + Shift + Alt + ?

Try it, it's fun!

Sex on TV

2005-07-27T22:13:00.000-07:00

My mom is visiting and I've been watching a lot of TV with her. Until now I didn't realize just how much sex or sexual references there are on TV. Any show we watch makes me a tad bit uncomfortable to be watching it with her. I switch the channel as soon as something like "Desperate Housewives" or "Sex and the City" comes on, but as soon as I start watching a seemingly harmless show like "Seinfeld" I regret the decision immediately. I mean I watched 3 episodes of "Seinfeld" - one was about cleavage, another about nakedness and the third about the rule of sexual advances while dating.

So I decide to start watching "Spin City" with her. The one episode we saw was about casual sex. It's the same story with "Friends". What is on in the evenings for adults that doesn't have sexual connotions? Till I find out the answer, I will have to stick with reading books and talking walks in Golden Gate Park while my mom is around.

How rude

2005-07-24T22:05:00.000-07:00

At the joint press conference with President Bush and PM Manmohan Singh, the questions the US reporters could come up with were about Karl Rove and the Supreme Court nominee. I suppose these are important questions for the nation at the moment, but with the Indian prime minister present, shouldn't the questions have been about international matters, particualry about India. I think it was extremely rude of the reporters, as if the India PM's presence was inconsequential.

I heard a concurring opinion on NPR. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the link to that program. It talked about how rude it was of the US reporters. A foreign correspondent from the Deccan Herald give his opinion about the press conference. He pretty much said that they were secretly laughing at the two questions asked.

Camping

2005-07-12T02:39:00.000-07:00

On the July 4th weekend, I went camping with a couple of friends. It was the first time I had gone camping. As usual we were scrambling to make reservations at the last moment and no park had any space left. Fortunately, after spending a whole day at work doing nothing but looking for a camping ground, I found a park that had a open spot, only because it was flooded earlier and was not taking reservations till 2 weeks ago. The camping ground was in Clear Lake State Park, whic is about 2 and a half hours north of San Francisco.

We had planned to leave around 10 am on Saturday, but didn't leave till 1 pm. We got stuck in traffic and only arrived at the camp around 5 pm. We chose a camp area and quickly started setting up our camps. We had no clue how to set up the camps, no one had ever done it. However it took us (4 engineers) all of 15 mins to figure out and set up the 2 camps. I wanted to check out the lake right away (I love water, my mom calls me a water baby), but the guys wanted to drink beer first. As soon as they finished their beer, I dragged everyone to the lake. It was really pretty and the water was warm. I had to jump in the water and soon everyone followed. We swam in the lake; it is so much more fun that swimming in a pool. It is a bit scary though since you can never tell how deep it is and what is lurking in the water.

We had to head back in an hour because we needed to figure out the food situation before it got dark. We quickly bathed at the paid showers (2 quarters for 4 mins). By the time we got back to camp it was dark and we were all famished. It was hard figuring out how to light the stove, the wind kept blowing it out. Finally we managed to heat up some food and ate. The food tasted really good, something to do with the fact that we were eating in open air. After cleaning up - the one part I hate - we all snuggled in a camp and played cards till midnight. The weather was quite warm so we took off the top part of the camp and fell asleep staring at the stars. I slept very well and didn't wake up till 10 am, which is very late by camping standards, and I was the first one to get up. The camp was surrounded by lizards and mosquitoes. I lay around, observing them for some time then woke every one up. One friend wanted to go hiking, but the rest of us were too lazy. We started cooking eggs for breakfast, while making sandwiches to take with us to the lake. We finally left the camp by 2 pm and drove to another beach. Two other friends joined us at the beach and we all went jet skiing. It was a lot of fun; I almost fell off twice because the antics I was trying. Jet skiing is very bad for the environment and I promised myself I won't do it again. I even saw a dead turtle, which I suspect was killed by a jet ski.

After jet skiing, we went back to the beach near our camp and went swimming with the two other friends who joined us on Sunday. After swimming and showering, we got back to the camp, hoping to cook during daylight since we had ambitious plans for dinner. We had planned to eat soup, bread sticks and pasta. Surprisingly, the pasta turned out really good. We immediately went to bed (sleeping bags) after eating. I didn't sleep well that night, the sleeping bag kept shifting and I missed having a pillow. I was cramping in the morning.

We had to check-out by noon on Monday so we quickly cooked rice for breakfast, cleaned, packed up and headed back. We decided to do some sight-seeing on the way back. I had heard from a friend that Russian River is on the way back. We took the River Road exit on 101. We went a couple of miles on the one-lane road and took a right at a side street. The river was absolutely beautiful; the water was clear and warm and there were mountains on one side. Again I was compelled to jump into the river. This was the first time I had swam in a river. I tried swimming against the current; it was all I could do to prevent myself for going downstream, let alone swim up. Well I'm no salmon. We finally reached San Francisco around 7 pm. We ate dinner and on our way home saw the July 4th fire works (a complete waste of tax dollars in my opinion).

It was an good experience. I enjoyed the camping and spending 3 days in water made it a successful trip for me. All facilities were available - clean restrooms, paid showers etc. A very relaxing and cheap vacation.

Here is the list of things we took with us -

1. Tents with Tarps
2. Sleeping bags and insulation Mat
3. Lamps, candles, matches/lighter.
4. Torch/HeadLamp
5. Propane Stove with 2 burners with fuel
6. Cooking Utensils - 2 flat pans (for eggs, toast, heating parathas), 1 pan for making tea/soup, 1 pan for making food like rice pilav, pasta etc. Something with lids, or something to cover these, as stove isn't very powerful and you need to utilize heat. a cutting board, 2 knifes, 2 serving spoons, 1 spatula.
7. Eating Utensils - 6 Mugs/Glasses for tea/soup. 3-4 plates for food, 3-4 bowls for cereal, any liquid stuff, 6 forks, few spoons.
8. Water cooler - need it to keep ice and some perishable items like milk, veggie, butter, cheese etc.
9. Beer/Wine opener
10. Soap/scrub to wash utensils
11. Garbage bags
12. Paper towels
13. Hand soap, liquid shower gel, shampoo, toilet papers.
14. Sun screen, mosquito repellent.
15. Water bottles
16. Knifes/scissors -It's always recommended to carry a Swiss knife
17. Slippers / Sport shoes / Swimwear / Sunglasses / Shorts
18. Backpack
19. Playing cards, poker chips, taboo, any other games

Food:
Saturday Lunch - ate on the way
Saturday Dinner - Tomato Soup, Tasty Bites (2-3 types), parathas.
Sunday Breakfast - Omelette, tea, fruits
Sunday Lunch - Sandwiches (cucumber/tomatoe sandwiches)
Sunday Dinner - Pasta, cheese & crackers, bread sticks
Monday Breakfast - Pilav

Ingredients:
1. Fruits
2. Milk
3. Cheese
4. Bread
5. Eggs
6. Tea ( Prefer Tea bags)
7. Sugar, salt, pepper (black and red)
8. Ketchup
9. Pickle (Achaar is must to make food tasty)
10. Cereal
11. Onion/Tomatoes/Cucumber
12. Cooking oil
13. Rice, peas, Cumin seeds, turmeric powder
14. Tasty Bite packets
15. Tomato Soup packet
16. Parathas
17. Pasta
18. Chips/cookies

Drinks:
1. Wine (2-3 bottles of red wine)
2. Beer
3. Coke/Sprite
5. Water
6. Ice (only for journey, rest park store can provide)

One thing we didn't take that we wished we had was folding chairs. Of course this was the kind of camping where we took a lot of stuff with us because we drove to the camp. I'm sure you can't take this much stuff if you're hiking to the camp. We were all camping novices and this kind of family camping fit the bill for us.

Madagascar and Parineeta

2005-06-20T00:05:00.000-07:00

I ended up watching two movies - Madagascar and Parineeta - on Saturday. I really liked Parineeta; Madagascar was just okay.

Madagascar was not as funny as I had expected. It was about animals in the zoo in Central Park. The zebra wanted to experience life in the wild, while its friends, the lion, hippo and giraffe, wanted to stay in the zoo. I didn't agree with the premise of the movie that life for animals is better in zoos. I didn't like the depiction of life in the wild as ruthless and violent. What about the open spaces, fresh air, interaction with species of the same kind? The jokes and characters were all clichéd and predictable. Even one joke was a repeat from a "Sex and The City" episode; something to the effect, "What do you get in Connecticut… Lyme disease.” Maybe it's a common joke in NY which I'm not privy to. The animation was lovely though. The penguins acting like spies and their quest to reach Antartica was funny. Although, for no apparent reason, they didn't like it once they reach their destination. I suppose I shouldn't be analyzing the movie in such depth. It just didn't compare to some of the recent animated movies I've seen like Ice Age, Finding Nemo and Incredibles.

On the other hand, Parineeta was totally worth the watch even if I had to drive 40 miles one way and stay up late for a 11 pm show. I forced a friend who is not into Bollywood movies to go watch it with me. It was either the movie or Saki Bombing and she chose the lesser evil. She got converted after watching the movie. We've both been listening to the music all day. I didn't like the beginning and the end of the movie as much, but pretty much loved the rest of it. My favorite parts included the scene in which Lolitha admits to Shekhar that she didn't go to Moulin Rouge to Shekhar, Rekha in Moulin Rouge, the way Lolitha teases Shekhar, and the scene in which he wakes up sweaty, dreaming about Lolitha with Girish. I was able to predict the end; the story was simple that way. Diya Mirza was kind of irritating to me. I didn't understand the point of her dialogue - "Once I get married to Shekhar, I will kill him." The miscommunication towards the end also annoyed me. Overall it was a good movie. I like movies in which the woman is shown strong and responsible, not just a feather head. I’m sure someone from Calcutta would enjoy the movie a lot more.

I also saw 2 good previews - Paheli and Matribhoomi. We'll see how these turn out.

Material friends

2005-06-19T13:23:00.000-07:00

It seems that everyone around me is either getting married or actively looking to get hitched. As my friends cross over to the dark side, I find myself spending more and more time by myself. Consequently, I’ve been going out and eating alone often.
Usually when I eat alone, I bring the food back to my home or office. One day I decided to sit in a restaurant and eat alone instead of bringing lunch back to my desk and eating while surfing the web. At first I felt awkward. I didn't know what to do with my hands or even where to look. I didn't want to be staring at others and was trying to avoid reading my book at the table. Another problem with eating alone is that you can only order one dish and I saw at least 2 things I liked on the menu. I was forced to make pick one and order. A woman on the next table was there with her family and struck up a conversation with me. She asked me about the book I was reading. This book – Global Women - has invoked many questions, like which bookstore I had bought it from and what it was about, from women at the gym too. It seems that when you are eating alone, you get serviced faster. Soon enough the food came and I got busy eating.
On another occasion, I went to see the play - Lennon at the Orpheum Theatre alone. I had been planning to watch the play for some time since I like the Beatles and I like musicals. Finally one day, pumped up after a kick boxing class, I decided to go to the play at the spur of the moment. Apparently I was the only person who had come to see the play alone. I was also the youngest person there. Once the play started, I didn't feel awkward being there alone. Sadly the play didn't turn out to be that good. I did miss having someone to discuss the play with. I also had a hard time finding a cab to go back home after the play and it was quite unpleasant standing on the streets alone in the seedy area of Market and 7th.
The next step is to go watch a movie alone. No one around me seems interested in watching the Star Wars, Episode 3. I've realized that going out alone is not that bad at all. It makes me more aware of what I want -- what I want to eat, what I want to watch, where I want to go. I don't have to make adjustments for others and can do what ever I feel like doing. I am in general more aware of the surroundings when walking alone. I find myself talking to strangers more often. I also spend more time thinking rather than yapping incessantly. It gives me time to introspect and realize things about myself.
As I spend time alone, I find myself becoming increasingly dependent on material things. They are substituting my human friends. Every day when I walk home from the bus stop, I see my car parked in front of my apartment. It feels like an old, reliable friend, parked there day after day, ready for me to take grocery shopping or the occasional ride to see my sister or brother. The day my car got broken into, I got more upset than I had thought I would be; I felt violated. My laptop is a good friend at home. I spend hours with it. It’s like holding hours of conversation with a friend. I get input by reading online and output by writing. My small room heater gives me warmth; I cuddle up with it whenever it’s chilly. My Ipod is my gym companion and keeps me occupied during the bus ride (though I’m a bit embarrassed to use it when I see 70% people in the gym and bus carrying one). And my best friends, my books, are my lunchtime and bedtime partners. These friends are pretty reliable and easily replaceable. Best is they won’t go off and get married.

Kickboxing

2005-06-06T21:19:00.000-07:00

I recently went to a kick boxing class at my gym. I had spent a long night with coworkers bar hopping and was feeling guilty about drinking as much. Hence I decided to do something good for my body and attend one of the classes offered at the gym. Incidently, it was a kick boxing lesson. I was reluctant because I thought kick boxing involved physical contact. However, it turned out that the kickboxing classes at the gym are aerobics exercises involving movements such as upper cuts, jab punches, crosses, back kick, right kick, knee strikes and roundhouse kicks.

As with any aerobics class, it required synchronization, which takes a while to get used to. When people went left, I went right. Somehow I survived without accidently kicking someone or worse getting kicked by someone.

I found kickboxing to be a much better option than working out in the gym by myself for an hour. Firstly, it is not boring. Running on a treadmill gets really boring sometimes. Usually my thoughts keep me occupied and that is when I think up most of the stuff to write here. It tends to get tedious though. Secondly, it is therapeutic. It gives a way to vent out a bad day's frustrations. Thirdly, it works out all muscles instead of just one part of the body like only legs. It is a good full body workout. Fourthly, it teaches you how to kick and box. Who knows, it might in handy. Fifthly, it keeps you motivated to work out for a full hour. The instructor keeps egging everyone on.

All in all, it is an excellent workout. It is an excellent damage control mechanism when you spend 7 hours drinking the previous night.

Puzzlers

2005-05-09T23:59:00.000-07:00

Here are some behaviors I have encountered that are counterintuitive to me. The fact that these peoples' behaviors surprise me is probably indicative of the stereotypes in my mind and reflects my distorted view of how things work.

1. A waiter writing water as H2O - I was lunching at Primo Patio with a friend and while ordering we asked for 2 glasses of water. The person taking our order wrote water's chemical symbol down next to our order. This surprised me because I think that using chemical symbols casually would only come naturally to people have studied/used such chemical symbols extensively. And someone who is as well versed with chemistry should be doing something more academic than waitering. Imagine a bartender writing down my order of Cosmopolitan as lime + CH2OH.

2. A bum reading in bookstore - One day during my lunch break I went to Stacey's near work to pick up some books as a friend's birthday gift. There I saw a homeless person sitting and reading. It just seemed odd to me. I guess to me anyone who is educated should be able to earn a job and a home.

3. A child beggar refusing food in CP - I acquired an excellent habit from a friend. He always offers to buy food to any homeless person who asks for money. I decided to implement the same on a recent trip to India. I thought it would take care of the debate about whether giving money to beggars is encouring begging or helping the poor. So in Connaught Place in Delhi, when a child asked me for money for food, I offered him food that I had just bought at Wengers. To my surprise, he refused saying that he actually wasn't that hungry. I told him that it was vegetarian, thinking maybe he wasn't sure what it was made of, and even offered to buy him something new from anywhere he liked; but he just refused. The only way I was able to reconcile his behavior in mind was by thinking that someone forced him to beg and was monitoring him somehow.

4. A graduate auto rickshaw driver in Bombay - One day in Bombay I took a rickshaw for a fairly long ride and ended up talking to the driver about his life. He told me about that he led a crappy life in the city. He remarked with a hint of jealousy that I must be leading a great life abroad with no dearth of material wealth or love of family/friends. I retorted that I studied/worked hard to be where I am. He agreed that he had played most of his life and never studied seriously, but also said that studying wouldn't have helped since he had a lot of friends who were graduates and led the same life as him. I couldn't justify this in my head. Again, according to my distored view, every one who has studied and has a degree should be able to live a decent life.

5. A young girl not giving up her seat for an older person on the bus - I took the bus to go to work today and it got crowded after a few stops. There weren't any seats left with mostly elders sitting and younger people standing. At one stop an elderly woman boarded the bus but there weren't any seats left. One young woman who was sitting looked at her, but did not give her the seat. I couldn't understand how she could just sit there while this elderly lady was forced to stand during the bumpy ride.

These are some examples of the every day encounters that go opposite to the view I have formed in my mind about people and society. These constantly force me to reevaluate how I think. They also remind how little I know about the world around me.

Three kinds of Indians

2005-05-09T23:00:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I took my sister to Whole Foods in Berkeley for dinner. I ordered a burrito and didn't quite like the way the guy was making it so I started complaining to my sister in Hindi. We always use Hindi for such things. It's great to have a secret language that no one understands; that's one thing I really miss when I'm in India. Anyhow, a middle aged Indian lady was standing nearby. On hearing us speak in Hindi she turned around and gave us a huge smile. It threw me off for a minute, but then I smiled back. She kept glancing at us the whole time we were in the store. I remember acting the same way when I first came to the US and didn't have any Indian friends here. I used to not be able to stop staring at any group of Indians I heard speaking in Hindi. Maybe because I missed speaking in Hindi so much.

It is rare to see another Indian woman in San Francisco/Berkeley smile at me. I was talking to some friends about how other Indian women I see walking on the road always give me a weird look and hardly smile at me. I'm not sure if I smile at other Indian men/women anymore. My friend mentioned that there were strange dynamics between Indians living here. She categorized the Indians living here in 3 buckets -

1. Indians who came from India couple of years ago like me
2. Indians who lived in another country then came here
3. Indians who were born here

According to many people who have gone to school in the States, including my brother and sister, these different "categories" of Indians don't like to interact with each other. In fact, the ones who were born here think they are somewhat superior than the ones who came here a couple of years ago, and those in this category consider themselves superior to the ones who just got here. I read about the same phenomena occuring with students from other Asian cultures such as Japanese and Chinese students.

According to my own observations, this behavior seems to disappear as these people age. In their late twenties, Indians from all categories seem to be more open to mingling with each other. I am friends with Indians who were born here, Indians from other countries, Indians who came here in late 90s, and Indians who have recently come here. However, my closest friends still remain the ones who came here when I did.

Normalcy

2005-04-20T22:31:00.000-07:00

At a friend's place the other day, I started browsing through some books she had. She gave me a book that she finds has relevant quotes for her everyday. I thought the following analysis of people's attitude towards problems (their own or others') made a lot of sense -

Possible the greatest crime we commit against each other is this daily show of normality. I have countless little conversations with a variety of people and the impression that most of them give is that they don't have problems. Even complainers present themselves as victims. They don't suggest that they may be participating. They are all right; it's the circumstances that are wrong.

The comment "Don't mind him, he's got a problem" illustrates this universal attitude toward personal difficulty. The implication his that having a problem is a strange and avoidable weakness. When I come in repeated contact with this daily facade of normality I begin to assume that I too deserve such a life, and I get annoyed with the present and look up my difficulties as unjust. And because I assume there is something unnatural about my having a problem, I too attempt to present a problem free appearance.

I started thinking about this and it is true. I am sensitive to other people and a good listener. Usually while talking to someone, I can sense her/his major concerns. Somehow people try to dismiss their problems, preferring to talk about good restaurants or bars rather than issues that are really bothering them. I probably could not give any good advice or help, but as my mom says - a problem gets lessened by sharing it. I guess people try to stick to the norm mentioned above.

Another concept that is prevalent in the US is the concept of independence. No one is independent; we all depend on others for companionship, love and care. This concept just undermines the importance of care people give each other. Individuality is given so much importance. I wonder why it is so in the US. The book "Global Women" (the same one that I've been reading for the past 2 months) gives a reason for it-

We are all dependent on others to varying degrees. A language that denies this fact fuels a system that obscures the ways in which other people care for us. Words such as independence, self-reliance, and self-made help create, and are created by, a dynamic within which people are ignored and devalued...

Independence is perhaps the most fundamental of our cultural myths; it supports the organization of our society and justifies the distribution of goods, real and idea. The labels independent and dependent, rather than reflecting empirial reality, are myths used to justify inequality."

Coming from India where the social support is tremendous and interdependence is valued, I find this particularly strange. Nothing could have highlighted the contrast more -- I did a search on google for social interdependence and the first link that came up was about India.

Happier Endings

2005-03-26T04:56:00.000-08:00

Every single person I meet has been or still is in a relationship that isn't working. At a recent girls' night out bad relationships seemed to THE topic. One woman was raving about the book "He's just not that into you." Incidentally, on the train ride to meet these friends, I had read criticism of the same book in Time magazine. The author had suggested a much better title for a book - "I'm just not that into him." Whichever way it is; why do most relationships end in blowups?

My women friends were putting all the blame on men. Surprisingly, I was defending the opposite sex, arguing that in a relationship it could be either one who mistreats the other. I have men and women friends in equal numbers who have been hurt in relationships so I can’t blame just men. A lot of men do seem to have the primary aim of getting laid for which they will lie through their teeth, but some women can be quite selfish too.

There are a lot of reasons for relationships to go bad. Here are some of the frequent ones I've heard:
1. one person wants to get married, while the other doesn't
2. one person wants to live in US, the other wants to go back to India
3. one likes to go out, other likes to stay in.
4. most commonly, one wants to explore other options thinking maybe there is something better out there

I don't know if it's a good idea to give up a good relationship in hopes of finding something better. There will always be an imbalance. One will be better looking/more desirable than the other and one will love the other more. It is usually the "better" or more loved one who ends the relationship or treats the other badly. Probably because this person thinks that he/she can do better. I wish it weren't that way. I wish before thinking that his girlfriend is overweight, a guy would think about how she lovingly gives him a back rub in the morning. Or before thinking that her boyfriend isn't a sharp dresser, a girl would think about how the guy rushes to assist her in every small task. And instead of spending too much time obsessing about the way he talks while eating, she thinks about the precious 5 minutes he spends kissing her on the cheek and stroking her hair before going to work while she is still half asleep in bed.

I wish I heard more success stories than failures. So there wouldn't be a need to write books like "He's just not that into you" and series like "Sex and the City" would not be as popular. I want to see people getting married to their boyfriend/girlfriend of years, instead of finally giving up and resorting to arranged marriage. I wish for more 'happily ever after's. They don't just exist in fairy tales, do they?

Import of love

2005-03-20T23:37:00.000-08:00

Everyone seems to be concerned with the recent trend of technology jobs moving to other countries. A recent article in Business Week titled "Outsourcing Innovation" discusses how companies are moving their R&D centers to other countries too. It is not only labor intensive back office jobs or jobs that require cranking code after all requirements have been set here, but also the innovative jobs of research and design that the US is losing.

The concern might be well founded, but why isn't anyone talking about the other job that we are handing over to strangers from other countries. The job of rearing children. This is one of the subjects tackled by the book "Global women: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy." According the book, as more women are taking up jobs outside they are spending less time taking care of the home and rearing children, while men have not started contributing more at home. So a void is created. To fill that void nannies are hired. These nannies come from poor countries where families can't earn enough locally to feed their children. Hence, they are forced to look for jobs elsewhere. The skewed exchange rate tipped in favor of the US dollar, makes jobs here financially appealing. So they leave their respective countries to work here.

When these women take up jobs as nannies here, their own children back home are left motherless. Again a void is created. This void is, in most cases, inadequately filled by relatives. Women in poor countries are forced to make the difficult decision to move so that they can at least provide materialistic support for their children. These women see their children in the ones they are taking care of and love them as if their own. Essentially the children here have 2 moms, while the children in the poorer countries have none. My own niece has one such nanny from South America. She always offers to cook for me when I visit, and patiently teaches my Spanish. Of course I never let her cook for me (I cooked breakfast for her once; no one has ever been as thankful for my cooking), and I am a complete failure when it comes to learning Spanish (I haven't given up yet; am thinking of taking a formal class this summer). But most importantly, she is very good with my niece and loves her dearly. As aptly written in the book- who says money can't buy love?

Happily Single

2005-03-13T13:32:00.000-08:00

I am very excited with the decision I made 2 days ago to go to Delhi for 2 weeks. The only aspect I'm not looking forward to is the nagging question every one I meet will inevitably ask me - "Shaadi ka kya plan hai?" I jokingly ask my married friends when they ask me the same, "Are you having so much fun after marriage that you want to share the joy with me or are you jealous of the fun I'm having as a single person?" The usual response is that after a certain age it will be harder to find someone or you will have to make more compromises. I confirmed at lunch yesterday with a single woman friend, who is a couple of years older than me and is now looking for a serious relationship, that this claim is absolutely wrong. She made an interesting point. She said that it's not that we make more compromises, but we are more aware of the compromises we are making because of the experience we have gained.

I'm not against the concept of marriage. A human baby benefits from having 2 parents; it needs all the caring it can get. Since men have an inherent tendency to run away from the responsibility of rearing an offspring, it is good to put them in a legally binding contract, which they can break but not without consequences. Due to the social expectations, they are under pressure to take care of the baby and contribute their fair share, at least materialistically. The society does not expect men to rear children and even considers it effeminate if they do. In his book The Selfish Gene (I've been quoting that book a lot recently, that's how much I liked that book) Richard Dawkins writes that by nature all animals are selfish. Parents try to minimize their investment in one child so they can maximize the number of offspring, hence increasing the chances of their genes making it into the subsequent generations. When a baby is born the female already has more invested in the baby in the form of eggs, which are rarer and bigger than sperms. Hence, the man can afford to let his investment in one baby go waste, while the woman cannot. Besides, the woman is the one left "holding the baby." In the case of fish the female lays its eggs and leaves the male to spray its sperm on them. Therefore, it can be seen that in some fish species it is actually the male partner that takes care of the offspring. Whatever the reason - the gender based division of labor, men's relatively small investment leading to their tendency to defect, or the women’s inability to leave first - in humans, women somehow got the short end of the stick. So if one wants to reproduce, marriage is very good.

And almost all of us want to reproduce; we are genetically we are programmed to do so. However as humans we are capable of perceptive thought and knowing that we are hurtling towards disaster. Jared Diamond's new book Collapse describes over population as one of the main reasons why some societies failed in the past while other succeeded. It is sad to see our current societies, despite their prescience of the impending disaster and its causes, not taking the appropriate steps to correct the situation. I have some nerdy friends who believe that technology would save us somehow... talk about blind faith. Dawkins presents an easy solution according to which even delaying the process of procreation till we are in our thirties, hence spacing out the generations, would be equally effective in controlling the population explosion.

Now if we should delay having kids and the only reason to get married is to have children, there is doesn't seem to be any incentive to get married now. Personally it would force me to change my current priorities which are school and work. On the flip side, I would share the day-to-day responsibilities like paying bills, filing taxes, which should free up my time. As for never again feeling the excitement of meeting someone new, and the thrill of a first kiss -- these are things I feel I can easily give up. I won't mind getting out of the whole dating scene, not that I was ever an active participant in it; I do it in fits, dating a lot of guys in a month, then no one for a year (actually I do a lot of things that way - blogging, working, reading, exercising). I do have an overwhelming fear of committment; not only betrothal, but also signing a one year apartment lease, buying a concert ticket 2 months in advance, making specific weekend plans, registering to take the GMAT -- these all make me uncomfortable. But given time I can overcome that fear.

So marriage is good, but in good time. Now that I've straightened out my thoughts in my mind, I just have to explain all of this to everyone I meet in India.

MBA Paradox

2005-03-10T22:08:00.000-08:00

I am thinking about going to business school. My main reason being that I don't want to be a software engineer all my life. In fact, I don't even want to be in the technology industry for too long. There is so much out there and so many ways in which one can make a difference. I feel very restricted in my current role. However, the problem is that if I do an MBA, I would be taking a huge loan. So after doing an MBA my sole aim for a couple of years would be to earn money. I am earning a good salary right now. My aim is not to earn more money. I can easily earn more without doing an MBA. The goal is to learn more about the business world so I can achieve or at least get close to achieving my lofty goals. I'm not going to say what that goal is exactly, but it's not a money making proposition.

The second problem is that if I do an MBA in the US, I cannot even think about moving back to India, and I love thinking about that. It might not be feasible for me because of different practical reasons, but I at least have that option now.

Last and the least of my problems is my marriage. I am already behind according to Indian standards. But that's something I let my parents worry about.

I want to learn what's taught in business school, I want the title of MBA from one of the top 5 schools in the US or top 3 internationally, but I also want the freedom to be able to do with the MBA what I want. I don't want to become a money minded professional, one of those horrific characters described in that book Amercian Psycho I read recently.

The problem is defining an order of preference. Is it making money or doing something I enjoy and achieve self actualization? I'm hoping that money and self actualization won't be at odds to each other. Is moving back to India a preference or staying here and helping support my brother and sister more important? Is starting a family important or does my professional life take precedence?

Oh well, I've registered to take the GMAT on April 23rd after which I go to India for 2 weeks. I'll get more time for introspection there. I'll also get to talk to a lot more people and get good advice. Though I'm sure the priorities there would be defined on a completely different scale.

After school program

2005-03-09T22:33:00.000-08:00

Our company participates in after school program in which under privileged children come to our work in the evening and employees tutor them. My coworker who participates in the program went on vacation and had asked me to step in for her while she was gone. I readily agreed; I had wanted to participate earlier but it was already full. I like my company that way. Our company has a lot of such programs for charity, and volunteering. It had set aside $50,000 for Tsunami to match employees’ contributions. The employees actually exceeded that amount in donations so they increased it to $100k.

At the after school program we first eat dinner with the kids and then we get assigned a child to tutor. I got a girl, Patricia, in the 6th grade. She had homework for Language Arts. I didn’t quite understand what that meant; I was hoping for algebra. She said it was it was a class where they taught them about words like Onomatopoeia (I had to look up the spelling here). We made a quick stop at my desk where I had lots of balloons from a party we had last week. Patricia took a couple and we went to study in a conference room.

She seemed very curious about me. She kept firing questions – “Where are you from? Do you live with your parents? Don’t you miss your parents? Are you any good at reading? I like your hair, did you color them?” I warded off her questions and got her to pay attention to the task at hand.

She pulled out a book titled Con-fidence. I asked her to read to me. She read surprisingly well, just asked me the meanings of words like sheen and radiate. She asked me to explain "nor" to her. I explained it mathematically, x nor y = not x and not y. (Now that I think about it, my grandfather had explained it to me this way when I was little. It is weird how I remember that after so many years.) After reading one page she asked me to read to her. I thought I might be doing her a disservice by reading to her, but decided to read anyway. I hardly ever read out loud, at least not English. (I am trying to read a Hindi book these days which I find hard, just because I haven't read Hindi in so long. So to grasp it better I read out loud to myself.) I actually didn't like her assigned book, at least not the 3 chapters that we finished.

Here are the things I found wrong with it -
1. It was about how "pretty" girls got to sit in the middle of the cafeteria and not so pretty ones were socially outcast and sat near the exit. One line in the chapter was "looks were everything in Middlefield High." I asked Patricia if that was true and she said no, attitude was everything.
2. The book was in second person. So it had sentences like "You are not a part of the "A-list", "you sit in the corner with your drab cheese sandwich," "you had tears spilling from your eyes." I didn't finish the book so obviously have no clue what the message was, but this was definitely not boosting my "confidence."

Patricia told me that there is segregation in the lunch room, like the Filipinos sit separately. I was still reading to her when she suddenly stood up and starting packing her things, including a half eaten slice of pizza. When I enquired as to where she was going, she pointed to the clock saying it was 6:30, time to go back. I made her stay and finish the chapter. She didn't have a bookmark so I gave her mine. She looked at it and asked me what was written on it. Turns out it was one from Crossword in Bombay. It had all the neighborhoods listed - Kemps Corner, Chembur, Andheri, Bandra, Kandivali, Powai. I didn't pay much attention to it till she asked me about them. I explained to her, a bit nostalgically, remembering how much fun I had there last year.

We went back up to the kitchen where all the children got together and went home. All the kids started asking Patricia where she got the balloons from. She gave them all away keeping one for herself; not everyone got a balloon though. I realized that it was a mistake to have given her balloons. I should have either had one for everyone or not give anyone any balloon. I hadn't dealt with children in so long that I had completely forgotten how to behave around them. The coordinator comforted other kids saying that next time we'll have one for everyone. I felt terrible.

Despite having acted like such a klutz, I asked the coordinator if I could do this more regularly. Another woman offered to alternate weeks with me. I hope to do better next time: live it, learn it.

Sin City

2005-03-09T22:23:00.000-08:00

Two weekends ago, at President’s Day, we went to Vegas to celebrate a friend’s bachelor party. I’m never invited to bachelor parties, which is unfair since all my friends are men. I miss out on the most fun celebration of someone getting married. The worst was when all guys went to Amsterdam for a friend’s bachelor party who was supposed to get married in December, but never did. I’ve never really been to Europe except England where I lived when I was a kid and really wanted to go. Anyhow, I made a lot of fuss about going to this one because it was a close friend’s party and I wanted to celebrate with him like the guys. We made a deal that I will hang out with the guys except for Saturday evening when they go to the strip club.

I convinced one of the guys’ wives, Preeti, to go along. Surprisingly, when I made plans with her to watch a comedy show on Saturday, she instead suggested that we go to a strip club. I asked a friend in San Francisco to look up strip clubs for women. He came up with two – Olympic Garden and Paloleum. Olympic Garden wasn’t full nude and had alcohol so we decided to go there. I had been to a strip club once before in San Francisco, but remembered not liking it much. I had gone with a guy friend a couple of years ago. It was a bit uncomfortable for both of us; probably a place to go to with a boyfriend or a woman friend. Besides I kept feeling sorry for the strippers and couldn’t imagine any worse objectification of women.

In comparison this experience wasn’t bad at all. I have probably “matured” since. The only hitch in the plan was that our guy friends ended up at the same strip club. The moment we entered we saw one of our friends. We all a bit embarrassed, but Preeti and I quickly went up to the “ladies” floor. We were totally scandalized the first half hour and decided we had to get drunk soon to be able to enjoy any of it. After a couple of drinks we went downstairs to check out what men did in these places. We couldn’t help staring at a man sitting at a booth next to our getting a lap dance. Unfortunately we had taken a seat near the men’s bathroom so our friend’s kept passing us by. One even sat with us and started chatting with us. Sensing our discomfort he left, but an Indian guy came and started hitting on Preeti. I couldn’t believe his audacity, it wasn’t like we were in a singles bar; it was a strip club for crying out loud.

We decided it wasn’t such a good idea to sit at the men’s floor and went upstairs again. By this time we were both tipsy and had gotten used to the place. We decided to rid ourselves of our hang ups and have fun. We got our dollar bills ready and took seats near the stage. Men were dressed as cowboys, firemen etc and were dancing on the stage while stripping. It was more playful than sexual. We stuck many dollar bills down the thongs of the men. I didn’t have the courage to invite any guy to touch me, not till Preeti decided to buy me a lap dance. I didn’t know what to do exactly so tentatively ran my hands over his thighs. He had the smoothest skin I have ever felt. I was mortified when he started touching me; my skin was so rough in comparison to his.

After the novelty wore off, we called our friends to see if they were still there. Oddly we had outlasted them. On our way out we decided to have some fun with the women downstairs. Armed with our one dollar bills we sat at one stage (there were many stages for men as opposed to just one for women). The woman smiled at us and came towards us. I reached out to tuck the money in her G-string, but she placed the money at her feet, took my hand and rubbed it all over her body. I still haven’t decided how I felt about that except her skin was very smooth too.

We finally met our friends at the casino in Paris where we played blackjack for a while. Around 5am we went back to Harrah’s where we were staying. The policy was supposed to be “don’t ask, don’t tell” but that was all we talked about the next day. The guys were really curious about our experience, especially Preeti’s husband. At the end of it all I was happy to be back. Vegas is fun for a day or two, but I can’t handle more than that. It is so artificial: the lights, hotels, casinos. And money loses all it’s worth there.

So I guess I’ve broken the rule: what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

y Tit(s) for x Tat(s)

2005-02-28T18:54:00.000-08:00

How do you decide whether you should be nice or rude in any given situation? Till what point should you tolerate someone’s bad behavior. You can’t keep being nice to someone who is rude. On the other hand, you can’t be too mean or you would end up feeling badly yourself. So what are the ideal values of x and y?

There are some instances when insolence is necessary. For instance, the other day at Trader Joe's we were standing in an aisle picking up tomatoes when a lady snapped, "you have to move; can't block the aisle." I wasn't sure how to respond when my sister angrily replied, "We have to stop, you know. This is a grocery store." The lady came around with "oh I'm sorry, having a bad day." I looked approvingly at my sister. She thought I would get mad at her for it. But I was totally proud of her standing up for us like that, especially since my mom was there. I can't stand anyone being rude to my friends or family. I somehow feel that the lady would have behaved differently if it hadn’t been three mild mannered Indian women standing there. I’m sure she’ll be nicer with Indian women next time.

Another incident was when I lost my keys and my rental office manager was mean to me. She emailed me saying that I will have to get a locksmith to get it fixed, she won't let me in with their spare keys, and perhaps it was a lesson learnt for me. I was unsure about how to respond. I wrote back that I didn’t mind paying the extra $50. However, I had hoped for a more helpful attitude. The last statement was uncalled for. There was no lesson to be learnt; surely she must have found herself stuck in such situations before. I wasn’t outright rude, but the tone of message was harsh. Since then she has been extra nice to me, taking care of my apartment issues right away.

These episodes involved other women, but men can be obnoxious too. I have a harder time dealing with men’s indecency. For example, at Miami airport last month, when I approached a man to buy frozen yogurt, he smiled and extended his hand to shake mine. It seemed a bit weird for a shopkeeper to shake a customer’s hand, but I was on the other end of the continent and didn’t think much of it. He asked me where I was from, to which I responded with my standard “I’m from India; where are you from?” line. He told me he was from Egypt and suddenly asked me if I was single. After my affirmative response, he exclaimed “Really! Wow, I’m looking for a woman to marry. Think about it. Are all Indian women as beautiful as you are? ” I was totally taken aback. I wanted to say, “Are all Egyptian men jerks like you are?” Instead I smiled, took my frozen yogurt and walked back to my mom.

It is harder to decide how to react in a multi-cultural environment. You can never be sure what is acceptable in another culture. I was once complaining to a friend about Hispanic men cat-calling on the street near my work. He told me that it is actually considered flattering in Mexico. It’s more of a compliment than harassment. It’s like some people consider it rude if someone stands too close to you or asks your salary, both of which are acceptable in India.

However, there are times when a man’s intentions are obvious. Another instance was on the same Miami trip, in Key West actually. I was shopping for a wrap-around the sales guy (don’t know what’s up with the salesmen in Florida) took me in the back, looked around to check that no one was around, and lewdly said “you are a very sexy Indian lady.” I was walked out in disgust. My friends were amused and joked that I should have asked for free stuff. Back in San Francisco, another guy’s intentions were clearly pure when he man came up to me while I was working out. I was sweating it out on a stair master, with my headphones on, reading a book – what more indication does one want that I don’t want to be disturbed? Anyhow, he stood around so I took off my headphones and asked with a hint of irritation, “What’s wrong?” He asked me where I was from. To my standard response, he said, “I’m from Jamaica and I think you are very pretty. Your complexion is beautiful. I just wanted to say that.” And he walked away. I was flattered and a bit humbled.

There have been times when I’ve regretted overreacting and others when I’ve regretted under reacting. At work the other day a coworker made a bad Tsunami joke; something about how cool it would be to name a drink called Tsunami. I just looked at him in disbelief, but didn't say anything. I wish I had.

I recently read “The Selfish gene” in which Richard Dawkins asserts that evolution prefers niceness as a general rule, but only as an attribute displayed towards others who are nice. He explains with an experiment in which participants were asked to submit different strategies to win the game of Prisoner's Dilemma. The successful strategies were determined by playing them against each others in a seemingly infinite loop. The tit-for-tat strategy was deemed the most successful. Even the nicer tit-for-2-tats was a losing strategy, as were other meaner ones. Two traits selected were niceness (always cooperate unless opponent defects), and forgiveness (don’t remember who defected.) This is the general rule I will now try to apply in real life situations. Though it’s not that easy to forgive and forget.

My grandmother used to tell us a story. It won't be half as effective without her theatricals, but here goes. There was a snake that didn't have any friends. Other animals were afraid of it because it would bite them. The snake was very sad so it asked God, "Why don't I have any friends?" God replied, "If you bite others, how can they be friends with you? Be nice and you'll make tonns of friends." The snake followed God's advice and stopped biting other animals. Soon everyone lost their fear of the snake. Now they started stepping on it and hurting it. The snake went to God again and said, "Look what happened when I followed your advice. I still don't have any friends, in addition now everyone hurts me." God said matter-of-factly, "well of course. I told you stop biting. I never said you shouldn't hiss."

Teary Eyed Day

2005-02-27T11:22:00.000-08:00

My day yesterday started with the news that due to an avalanche a lot of people had died in J&K. The article was titled "Snownami" or something to that effect. I thought that was just mean. If the writer meant to play on the emotions of the Tsunami tragedy, he/she succeeded. My mom had told me about it the night while asking me to be careful if I was going to Tahoe for skiing and I hadn't paid much attention at that time.

In the evening we went to see "Black" which was a tear jerker. I tried very hard not to cry, but had tears in my eyes by the time the movie finished. I can't remember crying in a movie for the longest time. My two favorite parts of the movie are when Amitabh Bacchan is taking the little girl's first lesson and the power goes out. She is unfazed and he hurts himself. The second one was when Rani Mukherjee asks her teacher to kiss her. I was really surprised to see the sexual aspect even touched on. After the movie even a friend who I least expected said he was on the verge of tears.

On the way home I started falling deeper into the gloom and developed a mild headache. I didn't even have the energy to listen to a program on NPR in which James McBride was reading 2 short stories. My mind wandered to my upcoming citizenship interview. I was suppressing the thought since the appointment letter had come. I talked to my friends about it at dinner, but didn't get much sympathy. They dismissed me saying that don’t do it if you feel that way. But I do for different practical reasons. I just consoled myself thinking that it doesn't really matter. It's just a document and not having it won't make me any less Indian.

When we were done with dinner, in an effort to lighten the mood, we decided to rent "Page 3." It turned out to be another heavy movie. At one point I anticipated a child molestation scene. I hoped it wouldn’t be so, but in vain. It was absolutely horrifying despite the pre-sentience. It didn't make me cry though, just added to the heaviness.

Finally after the movie and the discussion ended, I decided to sleep it off. It was too late to drive back to the city so me and my other friend Anupam, who also lives in the city, decided to stay over at a friend’s place in South Bay. We spread our sleeping bags and comforters in the living room and I lied down while he checked his email. He opened a link which was A.R. Rahman's video of "Jan Gan Man." I can't explain why but it makes me very uncomfortable to listen to the National Anthem like this. I hate it when it’s played in a movie. I have to stand up, and if I’m stuck in the middle of a row, I have to disturb everyone and run to the back. I had a bitter argument with Anupam in the morning about it. When he challenged my standing up saying it was just a superficial gesture, the best I couldn’t come up with in my defense was that this is what I’ve been taught.

Anyhow, I stood up at 3 am in the morning and watched the video with him. It exaggerated the feeling of loss I had about giving up my Indian citizenship. When we finally went to bed I couldn't sleep. I told Anupam that I had to cry. He said sleepily, “sure go ahead.” Then after a while he added, a bit reluctantly, "Do you want a shoulder to cry on?" I said I did. (Reminded me of the Seinfeld episode about the girl who cried at everything and Jerry wasn't able to decide if he should make the effort to go over to her couch and pat her back.) I cried for a bit and went back to my side of the sleeping bag and slept soundly. In the end the real culprit turned out to be my hormones. PMS was the physical instigator, causing my emotional sensitivity, ultimately leading to a day of tears, that too a precious weekend day.

Religion = opium for masses?

2005-02-15T22:24:00.000-08:00

Up until recently one of my favorite quotes used to be "Religion is the opium for masses". I read this quote by Karl Marx in Ayn Rand's FountainHead a couple of years ago. Now I somehow feel that it’s not that simple. Here are some theories that I have read about human’s prevalent belief in God.

My favorite theory so far is by Desmond Morris. Monkeys live in groups and each group has an alpha male who protects them. We evolved from the foraging lifestyle so didn’t need to stay in groups. Hence the alpha male disappeared. But in our minds we retained the concept of an alpha male that ultimately translated into God.

Another theory I like is by Richard Dawkins. He defines "memes," analogous to genes, as a replicating unit of ideas/concepts; the primordial soup being our brains. He postulates that the meme of God was started by a few who wanted to control the minds of young people. The idea replicated in our minds and became highly successful because it gave us reassurance that someone is out there protecting us. And like some genes do well in conjunction with others, the God meme did well with the meme that suggests that you will suffer if you don't have faith.

Despite these ideas that the belief in God is a vestige from evolution or an idea propagated to control the masses, there seems to be a lot more to religion. Take for example, the havanas we do in India or the recitation of “Om.” It is said that the havanas purify the air and the vibration produced by reciting “Om” have a therapeutic effect. Coming from an Aryasamaji family the only prayer I know is the Gayatri mantra. I pray once a year on Diwali. This year I was going to celebrate at a friend's place in the evening and since none of my friends are religious, I decided to pray in the morning before leaving for work. I felt very calm and happy all day, I'm not sure if I can attribute it to prayer or the festive mood.

I'm not sure about Christianity, which seems a bit extreme to me, but Hinduism is a very philosophical religion. There is a so much to be learnt from the ancient scriptures. My first exposure was due to the TV showing of Ramayana and Mahabharta. I've heard the arguments that those TV shows deteriorated the condition of women in India. Anand Patwardhan's documentary "In the name of God" postulated that showing Sita burning promoted Satis. I did not agree with him when he said that the series shouldn't have been shown. In the discussion after the movie, I argued with him saying that just the other day in his lecture on censorship he had said that if an intellectual person sees a movie and doesn't get influenced to the point of causing unrest, it should not be censored. So the same should apply here. His response was that if that's all that's showing on TV it has a much greater influence and causes problems.

Science and Religion can coexist; they have different functions. As the physicist Brian Greene aptly put in his interview on NPR, science answers “how?” and religion answers “why?”.

Lesson learnt

2005-02-15T19:34:00.000-08:00

A week ago, I started reading a book, Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. It's about our subconscious awareness. The idea is fascinating and I was intrigued. I read good reviews in NYTimes and New Scientist so decided to read it. The book however turned out to be a disappointment.

It was like when I have to write a 7 page paper and I don't have enough to write. I start writing interesting stuff and try to connect the disjointed ideas with the main idea to fill up space. The book has interesting stories, but they don't seem to giving any extra information. They are just there and then the author tries to connect them with the main idea, even if it doesn't make as much sense.

The book has less information than one lesson in the Introduction to Psychology class I took at San Jose State University. I'm not sure why everyone is raving about this book. It's another example of me not liking a popular book.

I ended up reading more than half of it. I kept reading in the hope that maybe there would be some information soon. Maybe he's just telling these stories to get the reader's interest, but doesn't seem like it anymore. I flipped through the rest of the book and it seems to be the same all the way through. I gave up in the middle of a bus ride, choosing to look outside at the dreary weather instead of suffering through the book.

I kind of believed that there is always something new to learn from a book, no matter how much one knows about the subject. Even on reading the same book again, one discovers new ideas overlooked the first time. I guess I was wrong after all. Now that is something new I did learn (rather unlearn) on reading this book.

On Thanksgiving

2004-12-04T16:02:00.000-08:00

I am skeptical about Thanksgiving. Children are taught that the Pilgrims and the Indians happily feasted together at Plymouth and that was the first Thanksgiving dinner. No one mentions the genocide of Native Americans that followed it. In fact, I've read that after every raid of a village, the Pilgrims celebrated with a Thanksgiving feast. Eventually, one day was decided and recognized as a National Holiday.

It is hard for me to separate Thanksgiving from the extermination of Native Americans so I did not participate in the celebration. I guess Americans who have been celebrating this holiday since they were kids feel differently -- it's more about turkey, family, and football. But even my Indian friends did not share my point of view. Some argued that though the genocide followed it, Thanksgiving is still a victory of the Pilgrims against the harsh conditions they met when they first came here. Others just listened to me, smiled, neither agreeing nor diagreeing and went on to their feasts of stuffed turkeys.

Thanksgiving is one day when I do feel like an alien in this country. My siblings were visiting me for the long weekend since I am their only family here. When we went out for lunch all restaurants were closed and the streets were deserted. We ended up at an Indian restaurant that was open. The restaurant was packed with fellow desis. We didn't feel so lonely after all.

Despite all my objections to this holiday, it was nice to see all the families in San Francisco. On my way to work the day after Thanksgiving the bus was full of families, not the usual single crowd. I had to force myself to read my book and not stare. The interesting part was the role reversal. City people on the bus were taking care their visiting parents, guiding and teaching them about city life. I had never seen Union Square so crowded, there was hardly any room to walk on the pavements and people were spilling on to the roads.

Seeing all the families together made me miss my own and I was glad my siblings were visiting. My only consolation was that I will be with my family for Christmas. We had our own fun, we got high (not very elder-sisterly) and cracked up watching dumb vi deos. I didn't cook Turkey but when my brother complained about me feeding them frozen food all weekend, I made rajma. The only "thanks" I got was "it doesn't taste like mom's rajma."

Practice sex responsibly

2004-11-29T11:44:00.000-08:00

I was at work when my sister called me and said that she did something really bad yesterday. I started imagining what she could have done and remedies for them - cut class (not bad at all), did drugs (I can handle that), sex without a condom (if no infections involved, could be dealt with), what else? For the longest time she wouldn't tell me and my anxiety kept increasing. Finally she told me that she had kissed a guy. I let out a sigh of relief and replied nothing bad about that. She responded it was bad because the guy liked her and she didn't like him. Now that is terrible.

One has to take responsibility for one's actions, especially when it involves someone else's feelings. I don't have anything against casual sex as long as both participants are on the same page. I've heard different terms to describe various degrees of intimacy.

1. Hook-up buddies - When you just call a person to "hook up" with when you're drunk and horny one night.
2. F- buddies - When you are together for like an entire weekend. So you spend more time together than just "hooking-up." (I heard this term in "Vanilla Sky" and was disgusted at that time. Now I am more open to it.)
3. Friendship with "benefits" - When you are friends and have sex, but you're not in a relationship.

These work as long as neither develops feelings for the other. I learnt this the hard way when a guy I hardly knew "fell in love" with me. I completely freaked out when he sent me this email with the subject "Romancing the stone":

To my Anshu,

It's 3 O' clock in the morning - Wednesday - Can't sleep and I am so
Drunk (Well, this is how I am trying to find peace with myself for the last few days,but it never worked).

This is probably the last letter I am going to write to you, so I
need to say What I have to say;

You know I have been all around the world and I have seen all kid of
people, Places, cultures, wealth , Civil wars and Poverty, etc... And I reckon,the most painful thing anybody can experience in their life time is, loving somebody so much and being ignored by that person like nothing.

I feel the same pain and it hurts like hell, yet, the only thing I
wish for`right now is,That you never have to feel the same pain or be in that situation. ( I am relieved that You are well accomplished but life is so unpredictable). Whilst, You may wonder,that I only know this person for a short time, how can he be truly infatuated with me ?
Let me tell you something, it is neither the divine eyes nor the
Lightning smile, ( I made a wrong decision almost six years ago out of pity and ever since I never touched my painting brush or written a sonnet or even listened to the music.) but every time I see you I remember all those beautiful things. ( So this is not not some teen-age boy's calf-love ).

Don't worry I am not trying to ask you out ( in fact I am never going
To ask you out again, Because I have done my best - so when you like me, you ask me out!)

But I know how stressful your job could become - so I don't want to
Distract you From your work unnecessarily - so I want you to do me a favour , either cut and paste This: " I don't like you and don't bother me again " ( and you will never ever hear from me again)

Or come and cuddle me say " I love you too". ( I know what you have
to put at stake if You ever choose to do this but I will top that for you and I will make sure that you will never ever regret making such decision )

So your turn - ??? ( Please answer - I didn't do anything wrong
except falling in love with you, therefore I deserve an answer )

With all my heart

cain

I tried to be as nice as I could in turning him down. I never believed anything he said and did wonder what his motivation was. In fact I don't remember even kissing him. I was just lonely so hung out with him a couple of times. But I still felt guilty as hell. I guess once he starting asking me out even hanging out with him was wrong. So please be responsible, think about the other person, even a kiss can hurt.

Bright Lights, Busy streets

2004-11-28T21:49:00.000-08:00

When I first moved to the city I was overwhelmed. One of my first memories is of going to the gym and looking for parking for half an hour. I had no luck so decided to shell out money to park in a garage. The garage was cash only and I had no cash with me. I returned home with tears of frustration in my eyes. My roommate offered to drop me off at the gym and pick me up, but wasn't in a mood to go anymore. I swore that I will only live in the city for 6 months just for the experience, that was 2 years ago and I am still living in the city. I moved back to South Bay for a couple of months, but hated it and had to move back.

I am still outside my comfort zone living here. I had gotten in the habit of paying for everything with plastic money. A couple of times I have ordered lunch only to realize I had no cash and they didn't take card. One time I didn't go back; it was too far from an ATM. Now I always walk past that store with my head down.

Yesterday I got locked out of my apartment. I called the management to let me in and they said they have spare keys but can't let me in because it's against their policy. I argued with them, but they were just rude to me. I had to pay fifty dollars to a locksmith to get back in. In the suburbs the apartment management has emergency service for lockouts and goes out of their way to help out.

In the city, apartment complexes are old and with the hardwood floors the noises travel through the walls. I get scared many times living alone, but when I get woken up in the middle of the night by funny noises coming from the apartment upstairs ( I don't want to guess what they were up to), it's hard for me to get back to sleep.

Still the benefits of living in the city far outweigh the minor hitches. One of my favorite places in the city is the Golden Gate Park where they have free concerts, comedy shows, Opera in the Park. They have free Shakespeare in the Park, which I have yet to go to. I recently went to a free concert during the Stern Grove Festival. The artist was from Bombay and the place was jam-packed. We ate hotdogs and sat up in the trees where people were smoking pot.

Another favorite place is the Union Square. It is always busy and lit up, especially during holiday season. I got really excited when I saw India's flag there once, even if it was above a Victoria's Secret store (couldn't figure that out). Other places I like hanging out are Castro Street which is the hub of the gay community with the rainbow colored flag proudly displayed on the street; Clement Street with its myriad of restaurants; Haight Street where hippie culture originated; and here I am so close to Berkeley.

In the city I can bike from my home up to Ocean Beach. The water is freezing but it's nice to sit at the beach. During summer last year, I biked up to the beach with a friend and on an impulse we jumped into the freezing ocean with our biking clothes on. We didn't have a change of clothes and by the time we were done it became cool. We froze on our way back and incidentally that was another one of those days I had locked myself out and was forced to stand outside till my roommates got back an hour later.

I also like the fact that people actually walk on streets. Union Square, Financial district and other neighborhoods are always teeming with people walking. When I get done from work early, I just sit on the street with my book and watch people walking about.

Driving up to the city is intimidating for people living in the suburbs. Recently while trying to arrange lunch plans with a friend I hadn't talked to in a long time, I was warned him about the parking situation. When I told him I would have to meet him at an inner street because he can't stop on Market Street, he gave up saying:

arre kis musibat mein jaakar tumne job liya hai....park nahi kar sakte, ruk nahi sakte.....you sure, wahan sans le sakte hain.

Building a plane in mid-air

2004-11-22T22:49:00.000-08:00

At a recent meeting with business users I was complaining about how they kept changing requirements. Constantly changing requirements make my code messy and I miss deadlines when I have to keep rewriting functionality. The group lead felt that I was getting frustrated and after the meeting sent a link to a funny video showing people building a plane in mid-air. It was supposed to make me feel better, but I felt worst. At a one-on-one with the group lead from London, I told him that I don't like the fact that we don't have fixed dates and requirements. He said that having timelines is good, but hard and fast deadlines lead to buggy code. I agreed; this project is my baby and I want it to be a high quality product.

This the first big project which I am building from scratch. I have designed the framework within which other developers add their modules. Since other developers on the project are not familiar with the Object Oriented Paradigm and the language we are using, I am the default decision maker. I decided the naming convention, which can be the source of contention amongst coders. At my previous company we were forced to use Hungarian and I hated it.

Another exciting aspect of this project is that users are actually going to use it. I've worked with 2 startups before where the code I wrote never saw the light of day. Since the project is user facing, it is important that I design the UI right. My manager is sending me to usability class by some UI guru my coworkers are crazy about. One realizes the importance of good design on reading books like "The Design of Everday Things." My favorite example is the discussion on the design of doors and how counterintuitive some poorly designed doors can be.

One of the reasons I joined this company was that I wanted to move away from developing User Interfacing projects. My manager hesistantly asked me if I wanted to work on the project. He said he remembered that I said in my interview that I wanted to work on the server, but I was the only one who had already worked with the technology. I readily agreed on hearing the name of the project -- Dilbert. It sounded fun and it turned out to be so. I am mostly working with Londoners and their sense of humor cracks me up. Unfortunately we had to change the name because "Dilbert" is trademarked. However, it led to a hilarious email exchange which again demonstrated the British sense of humor. Someone suggested that we should name it after Jazz, the guy who first started the project and whom I took over from, because then questions could be asked and comments made like:

"Jazz isn't working today!"
"What's up with Jazz?"
"Jazz is taking things in but not giving them out?"
"Who's been messing about with Jazz?"
"Jazz crashed overnight."
"I'm so p*ssed off with Jazz."
"Jazz says your performance is crap."
"Jaz is always wrong!"
"Jazz just isn't giving us what we need."
"Jazz is running so slowly today."
"Jazz needs an upgrade."
"Isn't it time we replaced Jazz?"
"Have you seen the new stuff we put in Jazz?"
"We keep putting digits into Jazz but nothing comes out!"
"the things we are getting from Jazz are just fantasy"

Jazz himself -

"What would we do without Jazz!"
"Sorry, but I need to play with Jazz!"

Starving students

2004-11-21T02:08:00.000-08:00

UC fees has been hiked up again. My brother and sister go to UC Davis and Berkeley respectively. The fees hike does not affect them as much because my parents still believe in paying for their children through college. It is kids like my sister's ex-boyfriend I feel bad for. He works 2 jobs along with school to pay bills. He is a really nice guy who calls me didi, plays songs on his guitar for us, suggests punk rock groups for me to listen to, makes a decent effort to learn Hindi and appreciates my cooking. I do cook when my siblings are visiting. They somehow invoke a maternal instinct in me. I also feel responsible for feeding them healthy home cooked food.

It seems wrong that the top earners of society get a tax cut while poor students face an increase in school fees. Not that I like paying taxes. I remember getting a shock on seeing my first pay check. My uncle laughed at my claim that the HR miscalculated and sent me a check of half of my pay. However I really did not need the $80 Governor Schwarzenegger refunded me for my car registration fee. With our six-figure salaries we can easily afford to pay more taxes. In fact my friends who drive SUVs should be penalized for driving their expensive gas guzzlers and made to pay the $500 wrongly refunded to them. Heck, they spend $800 on one gambling trip to Las Vegas, they can easily afford it.

It is said that rich and smart kids go to Stanford and poor and smart kids go to Berkeley. It is probably one reason for the bitter rivalry between the two schools. The students, who cannot afford to go to Stanford, end up in UC Berkeley. The game between Cal and Stanford this weekend was a huge deal for the alumni. My company had a tailgate party on Friday afternoon. At this rate, in a few years, poor students won't even be able to afford Cal. My sister's out of state classmates are already dropping out. Would UC also become a school only the rich can afford? I wonder what affect this will have on Berkeley's culture that I admire so much.

Make me proud

2004-11-21T01:52:00.000-08:00

I just got off a customer service call to SBC. I've been hearing about people getting someone in India on calling the customer service, but this was the first time I got connected to India. The support person I got was courteous and eager to help. Initially I couldn't place the accent, however there were tell-tale signs like excessive us of words like "ma'am", and "wonderful"; his asking me if he could use my first name; and then pronouncing it correctly. I've heard people say that men in India talk to women who call for support slightingly. I didn't find any trace of derision.

He solved my problem that just involved rebooting the router and modem. Before hanging up I had to ask where he was from. He said something complicated to the affect, "This is the international support for SBC and it is located in India." I wanted to ask him more about his personal experience, but refrained because I didn't want to get him in trouble. My knowledge of the atmosphere in call centers is limited to what I saw in the movie "Hyderabad Blues 2." He asked me if I would care to review the call. I said I was really happy from the support he provided and gave him 5 out of 5.

I think outsourcing is good for the Indian economy. And I don’t think it is as bad for the US. We buy American brand names in India so it only makes sense that they buy what we are better at. It works both ways. This is obviously a simplistic view since I don’t understand the economics of it all. Some Indians I talked to were happy that Bush won because Kerry alleged to pass laws to penalize companies for outsourcing.

At my previous job I really liked my company's CEO. He would come to my cubicle every other day and ask me about how I was doing. The way the way he cared about every employee was highly commendable. However, he lost my respect the day I heard him say that Indians were rude on support calls. I also lost interest in the job and soon got laid off.

I tend to get defensive when anyone says something bad about India. I try not to take offense at some comments that are a result of plain ignorance. I find it funny when people ask me how to make Indian curry and they always get confused when say there is no such thing as Indian curry. I get irritiated when people (Indian or American) use phrases like - "so how's you parking karma ?" My understanding of karma is that it is your dharma to do good deeds or karma to achieve moksha . I wonder how it applies to something as mundane as parking. If you yield to pedestrians and other cars, you accrue good parking karma and are blessed with parking spots?

I wish I was cool about it like my dad. When faced with questions such as whether we traveled on elephants in India, he nonchalantly responds "of course, and when I want to talk to someone we both climb on poles and shout to each other."

I felt sorry for the people working in call centers on reading an article about how they have to work during Diwali. I, myself, was stuck at work in the evening on Diwali. I kept getting production issues to solve. It was really frustrating and I just walked out at 7 pm. I was still late for the Diwali potluck we had arranged. My contribution was raita (main course was delegated to the married ones) which I quickly made while everyone was drinking. We started with games like Taboo, and as people got drunk we switched to gambling, in keeping with tradition. We played blackjack and poker in which I broke even. I must have earned good gambling karma last year.

Touchdown, homerun, or goal -- I couldn't care less

2004-11-06T16:58:00.000-08:00

My theory is that men watch sports so that they can participate in sports discussions at work, and social gatherings. Usually I am the only woman at lunch with coworkers and dinner with friends. Most of the times men are discussing sports; not only popular sports like American football and baseball, but Sumo wrestling, and car racing too. I have nothing to contribute to these conversations. That’s when I think of stuff I want to write here, and then I get accused of spacing out.

When I was living with male roommates, they had stupid rules like live sports are higher priority than anything else on TV. Personally I don't enjoy watching sports, especially American football. It's too violent for me. I do watch the occasional cricket game. I tend to become nationalistic while watching India-Pakistan cricket games. During the India’s tour of Pakistan cricket series, I stayed up many nights and watched almost all games. I made the dumbest comment of my life while watching those games. When the camera focused on the audience, I blurted - "Oh, they look just like us." That got me thinking about my anti-Pakistani feelings and made me realize how wrong they were.

I was chatting with a friend recently. I said I remember how disappointed he was last time Bush won and asked how he felt this time. He replied, “Well, I voted for the first time in my life yesterday for Kerry, but I would still get more upset if Oakland A’s lose.”

It was amazing to me how sports were so important during the days leading up to Election Day. The Red Sox’s winning was a good omen for Kerry's campaign. The big headline on Nov 6th was that the Redskins lost so Kerry would win. Supposedly whenever Redskins lose, the incumbent party loses. On Election Day, a channel showed Kerry's supporters in Boston who were hopeful even though the numbers were against them. Their belief was that Kerry is like their Red Sox team, in the end he will win against all odds. How I wish that were true!

Under The Weather

2004-11-01T21:28:00.000-08:00

I somehow feel the need to be with someone the most when I am sick. So when I got sick I spent my entire weekend hanging out with my friends in South bay. No matter how much I complain about suburbs being an unexciting place to live, it is more comforting (especially when one is sick) with easier access to food, medicine, doctors, parking and other conveniences.

Fortunately my friends were not paranoid about catching the infection from me, unlike my coworkers who stayed a mile away. I'm not sure if the reason was their Indian-ness or friendship. A year back when sister got the chickenpox, everybody at her sorority shunned her; she came to me in tears because of the treatment meted out to her at school including the hospital. I couldn't keep her at my place because my roommates weren't sure whether they had had chickenpox as children. At that time the same friend offered to let her stay at his place.

The illness ruined my weekend. My friends cooked for me, fed me, put me to sleep and took off to the Halloween parties we had planned. I felt terrible being stuck at home, but was forbidden by my parents and friends to leave home. I was too weak to study so I ended up watching movies and reading books. I went through 2 movies - "Super size me," "21 Grams" and two books - "To Kill a Mockingbird," and "The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency," all of which were agreeable pastimes.

"21 Grams" was a movie about a woman whose family dies in an accident and a man who gets her husband's heart transplanted in his body. According to the movie, when one dies the body loses exactly 21 grams in weight. I wish I had read "To Kill a Mockingbird" when I was a bit younger. The movie "Super size me" left a lasting impression. I've recommended it to a bunch of friends and everybody has liked it so far.

"Super size me" is a documentary in which a man experiments on himself. He decides to eat only Mc. Donald’s for 30 days. The documentary follows the deterioration in his health. When he starts he is in excellent condition, his doctors fear that he might gain weight and have problems associated with weight gain, but were shocked to see the damage the diet actually caused. He became lethargic, lost interest in sex, his cholesterol shot up, and his liver got damaged. The movie focused on how the sizes of meals are unnecessarily huge at the fast food chains, especially the "super size" option. It explains how children get hooked due to the toys, targeted advertising, and playgrounds accessible at Mc. Donald’s, and how as adults the fast food chain becomes a "feel good" place to eat. The filmmaker goes to high schools and shows the unhealthy food sold at lunch. In the end, they say that Mc. Donald’s did stop selling the “super size” meal, but claim that it had nothing to do with this movie.

Despite the excellent sources of entertainment, I was raring to go out by Sunday evening. I did not heed the friendly warnings. I took 2 tablets of Advil, and topped it off with 2 glasses of wine at a pre-Halloween drinks party. One of the two or the combination made me feel all better. I got so hyper, I was practically jumping. I had put a costume together, something to the effect of a hippie, but it wasn't visible through all the layers I wore on top. Hence pumped with chemicals and dressed warmly, I went out to celebrate Halloween at Castro. Some interesting costumes were the sentinels from Matrix, some political ones against Bush, and two almost naked hot men. The funniest costume was a guy with blood on his face and t-shirt with a one liner written on the back - "I went down on her, but she was on her period." Last year was more fun since we had dressed with good costumes too. One friend was a lightening victim with a burnt t-shirt and hair sticking up. Another one was a brain donor with a bloody bandage wrapped around his head and a cabbage for brain that he carried in a jar with him. Incidentally that night we met a guy who had a signboard saying - "Got Brain?" My friend donated him "the brain." I still have the picture of them together. My picture taking experience wasn't as great this time around. I went to get a picture with one of the almost naked hot guys and got molested in the process. When I stood next to him, he started running his hands all over me mockingly. My friends cracked up on seeing the look on my face when I ran back to them.

I obviously got too sick to go to work the next day. I finally paid a visit to the doctor who just told me it's a viral infection so there's nothing he can prescribe. Oddly enough, he seemed very interested in my sex life and made me promise to make an OBGYN appointment. I asked him to take my blood test so that I can keep track of my cholesterol (I got paranoid after watching "Super size me"). Now I am all recovered and don't care for any tests or doctor visits anymore. It is funny how one does not pay attention while things are in good working conditions.

Pardon my (lack of / innocent use of) French

2004-10-31T01:38:00.000-08:00

I can proudly say that I have never uttered the "F" word. No matter how angry I am, I cannot bring myself to use obscene words. I don't understand the humor in using abusive language that cracks people up, especially men. I used to flinch whenever someone used the "F" word in front of me. I don't do that anymore, but it still makes me uncomfortable. This word has become so prevalent that I sometimes think that I am prudish in my inability to use it myself. I have even started hearing the word at work now.

It's not just the "F" word, but any offensive words in either Hindi or English disturb me. To my recollection, the only two bad words I have ever used are "asshole" and "shit". I recently learnt quite a few bad Hindi words. It was surprising to my friends that after having lived in Delhi for so long I was unfamiliar with most of them. When I meet someone who speaks a language other than the two I know, I try to learn how to say "hello" or "thank you" in the new language. Men will generally exchange the bad words in their respective languages. Does gender play a role in use of abusive language?

My answer is a huge, resounding YES. As I learn more about the bad words in use nowadays, I find one aspect common in most of the vilifying words. Almost all of them are derogatory towards women. The simplest example would be the word "bitch." It means female dog, probably in heat, used to denote a sexually promiscuous woman. This word is used in a friendly manner amongst men like "dude" or "yaar". Standard greetings between my male friends are "what's up, bitch" and "hey, bong bitch?" (for a friend from Calcutta).

In the essay "Four Letter Words Can Hurt You" the writer refutes arguments made by her students that certain words are taboo “because of ‘sexual hang-ups’ (middle-class, middle-age feminist), or even as a result of class oppression (the contempt of the Norman conquerors for the language of their Anglo-Saxon serfs).” She does so by describing the origins and functions of some of these words –

The best known of the tabooed sexual verbs, for example, comes from the German ficken, meaning "to strike"; combined, according to Partridge's etymological dictionary Origins, with the Latin sexual verb futuere; associated in turn with the Latin fustis, “a staff or cudgel”; the Celtic buc, “a point, hence to pierce”; the Irish bot, “the male member”; the Latin battuere, “to beat”; the Gaelic batair, “a cudgeller”; the Early Irish bualaim, “I strike”; and so forth. It is one of what etymologists sometimes call “the sadistic group of words for the man’s part in copulation.”

The brutality of this word, then, and its equivalents (“screw,” “bang,” etc.), is not an illusion of the middle class or a crotchet of Women’s Liberation. In their origins and imagery these words carry undeniably painful, if not sadistic implications, the object of which is almost always female. Consider, for example, what a “screw” actually does to the wood it penetrates; what a painful, even mutilating, activity this kind of analogy suggests…

Tabooed male descriptives, when they are not openly denigrating to women, often serve to divorce a male organ or function from any significant interaction with the female. Take the word “testes,” for example, suggesting “witnesses” (from the Latin testis) to the sexual and procreative strengths of the male organ; and the obscene counterpart of this word, which suggests little more than a mechanical shape…

… [the female partner] is only a “skirt,” a “broad,” a “chick,” a “pussycat” or a “piece.” If she is, in other words, no more than her skirt, or what her skirt conceals; no more than a breeder, or the broadest part of her; no more than a piece of a human being or a “piece of tail.”

The most severely tabooed of all the female descriptives, incidentally, are those like a “piece of tail,” which suggest (either explicitly or through antecedents) that there is no significant difference between the female channel through which we are all conceived and born and the anal outlet common to both sexes- a distinction that pornographers have always enjoyed obscuring.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say something like “Dirty mouth, Dirty mind.” Most of the people who use these words probably don’t think of these words as described above. Sometimes it is a matter of personal taste. I find the term “coconut” used to describe people who are “brown outside, white inside” highly distasteful. However, some Indian friends used the term almost fondly to describe their American born daughter. Some words like “ABCD – American born confused desi,” “FOB – fresh of the boat” are in the middle; they offend some, but are harmless for the most part. Another word in general use that riles me up is “third world countries.”

On the flip side is the pervasive need to be "politically correct". Now it is politically incorrect to call people of African descent "black"; the new term to use is "African American." The logic being that color should not be used to describe a race, e.g. "yellow" is considered rude. Using the same reasoning, people of European descent should take offense at being referred to as "white". It is not the words, but the prejudiced notions associated with them that need to be refreshed. Eventually the stereotypes get affiliated with the terms, which attain negative connotations, resulting in the need for them to be replaced.

Here are some examples of neologism --

Negro -> black -> African-American
Spanish-American -> Hispanic -> Latino
Secretary -> Administrative assistant
Steward/Air hostess -> flight attendant
Toilet -> Bathroom -> Restroom -> lavatory
Garbage collection -> sanitation -> environmental services

A couple of months ago my sister got mad at her ex-boyfriend’s mother’s reference to her as “Oriental.” I pacified her reasoning that his mom was probably just unaware that the term is now considered offensive. Again the word got colored because it reflected the colonialist attitudes of West towards East and the idea that the East is exotic and effeminate in comparison to the West. I remember reading an excellent play dealing with this issue called “Madam Butterfly.” The correct term is Asian, which I learned doesn’t include people from India. This had me confused for the longest time. When I referred to myself as Asian, people would point out that according to American terminology I’m not Asian. I would say Indian then, but they would get it confused with the American Indians. Of course, now it is politically incorrect to use the words “American Indian”. The P.C. term is “Native American” to remind us “who was here first and to eschew the inaccurate European label.” So I refer to myself as South Asian or Indian from India. It works, for now.

Weekend realization

2004-10-17T18:22:00.000-07:00

The nature of my weekend endeavors made me realize that at 25 I am getting old. On Friday night, I went for a 80's concert by a band named Tainted Love with an ex-coworker and her friends. I didn't have high expectations from it. It sounded a bit cheesy actually -- a group that plays 80's songs at a club called "Bimbo's". I had refused the last time she asked, but that night my friends were going to watch the cricket game so I went ahead. I was pleasantly surprised to see quite a crowd gather for the concert and it turned out to be a lot of fun.

I knew a lot of the songs the band played, mostly from listening to my parents' albums back home. We lived in England in the early 80's so my parents are huge fans of the popular bands of that time. I had taken my mom to see "Mama Mia" and she was the only one there singing along with the performers. People looked back at us and commented that it was remarkable that she remembered the lyrics of all songs. The 80's concert was like listening to a mixed cd; all good songs from different artists. It was more entertaining than a Bon Jovi concert I had gone to a while back, much cheaper too. We sat through the first couple of songs then spent the entire time on the dance floor, that too with almost no alcohol. I only had one drink (I was introduced to a new drink -- a shot of whisky with ginger ale). The music played included songs like "Video killed the radio star", "Take on Me", "Holiday", "Sweet Dreams" and of course "Tainted Love". I was disappointed that they didn't play Cindi Lauper or Bangles - two of my favorite 80's bands.

The people at the concert were a bit older than the usual clubbing crowd. At the last desi party I had gone to about 80% of the people were underage; I felt so old dancing among those youngsters. Although it is refreshing to hang out with new people, there were times during the concert when I wished that my own friends were there. All of us came to the US at about the same time and discovered the ways of the foreign country together. I am used to sharing new experiences with them. My friends are such cricket fanatics that they wouldn't miss the game for anything. My own knowledge of cricket is increasing due to the same.

Earlier at lunch the conversation somehow turned to cricket. Since I am Indian I felt it my duty to defend the sport. My manager said that he found it too complex. I argued that it's much simpler than American football, which I still don't understand. But that could because of my bias against it since I don't like watching contact sports. I was explaining that in a five day game they play continuously for five days and many times there is no outcome. An Indian guy at the table, who had been quiet so far, interrupted me saying that they do take a break after 3 days. I deferred to him just because he was male and I figured he must know more about cricket. I found out later that I was actually right -- I'm learning fast.

The 2 hour lunch conversation spanned other interesting subjects like Bollywood movies, cooking (or the lack thereof), spouses/kids (I had nothing to say there), and other coworkers. I was sitting next to someone who was visiting from our Tokyo office so I was questioning him about life in Tokyo. He was really surprised by the serving size in America. I used to feel the same when I first came here as an adult. Now my diet has increased to compensate for the huge meals and I feel that the portions are too small elsewhere. Later an American coworker asked me if I was happy that my mom was coming to visit me for 2 months. I gave her a surprised look and said that I was really excited about it. It seemed like a strange question to me and my coworker from Tokyo. I usually don't like to generalize, but Asians are closer to their families than North Americans. Some of my friends' parents live in India for half of the year and in the US with their children for the rest of the year. Unfortunately (for me) my parents have a life of their own in India that they cannot get away from for more than a couple of weeks. My father gets restless only after 2 weeks of being here and not working.

I made up for my relatively dry Friday night on Saturday. We went to the Oktoberfest. Earlier in the day I went to Berkeley to pick up my laptop from my sister. There was a Cal game so it was really crowded. The place was charged with energy with all the post teens partying on the streets. My sister asked me if I wanted to go to a tailgate party with her. She said that there won’t be any liquor because it was parents day but we could smoke pot. The parking (with bbq included) was really expensive at $60 (even the opportunity to smoke wasn't worth that much) so I refused to stay and chose to go to the Oktoberfest instead. I chose drinking German beer and eating hot dogs whose names I couldn't pronounce at the festival over smoking pot with college kids. It turned out to be a good decision; I was initially reluctant to drink beer, not being a huge beer fan. Eventually after sipping beers from friends, I found a beer called “Oktoberfest” that I liked and got drunk on soon. A friend pulled me on the dance floor and we danced for hours. We danced all kinds of dances including Swing and Ballroom, however, the most fun was Chicken dance, which was not very adult like; I feel the pain in my quadriceps today. Again being the kind of event it was, most people were in their late twenties/thirties. On our way back a friend remarked that I was the reason he enjoyed so much. Nothing could have made me happier, especially coming from someone I was always at odds with. We had gone to New York together and could never agree on what to see or visit.

Today I went to volunteer at the SF Film Festival. Most of the people there were British Indian; I just love that British accent. An organizer suggested that I should watch “Main hoon na.” I told him that that was the one movie I wasn’t planning on watching. He persisted that I should watch one Bollywood movie at Castro theatre just for the experience. He explained that everyone enjoys these movies at the Castro because they don't watch them seriously, everyone claps and laughs at the most ridiculous scenes. After the meeting, they screened a preview of “Holly-Bolly” which was hilarious. I’m looking forward to watching the whole movie.

Looking back at the weekend, I concluded that I have started gravitating towards activities for older people. Soon I will be going to those bars where you sit, drink and listen to jazz. Who knows, I might even learn to appreciate jazz soon.

Animal rights for non-vegetarians

2004-10-09T01:29:00.000-07:00

I am non-vegetarian, but am sympathetic towards animals. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. I care about how animals are treated -- breeding hens in 1 by 1 pens, skinning cows while they're still conscious, testing on animals in laboratories and other atrocities against animals disgust me. My sister wanted to join an animal rights group in Berkeley, but was refused because she isn't vegetarian. This infuriated her and she decided to start her own group and call it "Animal Rights for Non-Vegetarians". Right now she's concentrating on her "Plants Rights" group, and yells at me whenever I accidently step on grass. I used to be an idealist like her, but somehow once you start earning, all the idealism seems to disappear. She recently commented when I picked up a plastic spoon at a restaurant instead of the regular cutlery -- "Didi, what happened to all the principles you taught me?" I guess I've sold out to "the man" and get paid well for it.

But then my sister goes to UC Berkeley, with all the leftist and liberal people who live there, she was bound to get bit by the activism bug. Which reminds me I am supposed to go to a Free Speech Movement Celebration this weekend in Berkeley with my sister. She was upset when I told her that I won't take off from work to attend the lectures.

However, I am particularly sympathetic towards animal rights causes, more than humans' sometimes. The reason could be that my parents used to take me to zoos and aquariums regularly. The interest has persisted in me and when I go to Southern California, I would prefer going to Sea World and San Diego Zoo, rather than Universal Studios and DisneyLand. I'm not sure where I stand in the whole debate about zoos. I firmly believe that going to zoos and interacting with animals makes children compassionate about animals and act in favor of animals when they grow up. In "Life of Pi" it was postulated that zoos are good for the animals, they don't mind being caged. It was argued that in their natural environment, animals confine themselves to a limited area and don't wander out of their territory. Hence, if they have restricted space, it does not bother them. They also get free food and water without any effort so zoos are the best thing on earth for animals. I couldn't disagree more. Animals in zoos display unnatural behavior like "escape reactions, self-mutilation, feeding disorders, overgrooming, abnormal sexual behavior, and repetitive behavior". I once saw a baby giraffe whose ear had been eaten by her mother who couldn't compulsively kept licking it. In the book, "The Human Zoo" Desmond Morris writes that the behavior exhibited by humans in cities is similar to what is displayed by animals in zoos. He went on to compare cities with zoos by indicating how the space is limited and humans are crowded together, almost caged in small spaces.

Living in cities, our animal encounters are not limited to zoos though. While I was cleaning up my previous apartment before moving out, a squirell came in through the balcony window. I chased it out and closed the window. The squirell did not leave and kept staring from the window. Then it started jumping and banging against the window. It freaked me out. If she was getting so desperate to get in, I thought she might have babies in my apartment. My apartment is empty most of the times, so it was quite possible. After this realization I opened the window, but she had left by then. I searched the whole apartment, but didn't find any babies. I did see some food hidden under my bed. I felt bad locking my apartment up before handing the keys back to the manager, but I had no choice.

Another species we coexist with in the city is pigeons. Once a friend of mine accidently ran over a pigeon while driving in the city. I was sitting in the passenger seat and we were both stunned for a moment. We had expected the pigeon to fly away as usual. It reminded me of the "Seinfeld" episode where George runs into a flock of pigeons expecting them to fly away, but one doesn't and dies. He rants to Seinfeld that we are supposed to have a pact with pigeons. We turn a blind eye when they dirty the statues and our cars; in return they fly out of our way. By not flying away, the pigeon broke the pact. The episode was funny, but our incident was not. My friend was feeling very bad for a long time, which was surprising for me. He is not the sensitive, caring kind and does not get serious easily.

It's not only animal rights causes I care about. For the past couple of days I had been noticing people on strike in front of some major hotels in downtown SF. I was on the bus all times so I couldn't tell what the signs said. The other day I had to attend a conference in one of these hotels. When I was entering I noticed the signs said something about health care. On that occassion, I wasn't able to connect health care problems with hotels. Yesterday, we had an IT party in another one of these hotels. I heard that some coworkers were not going to support the strike. I did go. I went to the party, hung out mostly with my lunch group, and had to leave early because a friend had asked me to go to his company's holiday party with him. While I was waiting for him to pick me up, I started talking to one of the people at strike, asking them what it was all about. He told me that the hotels had locked out the employees when they asked for health insurance coverage, which the hotels had discontinued when their contracts expired. I saw my friend arrive out of the corner of my eye, but chose to ignore him (I was tipsy enough because of the two glasses of wine I had drunk at the party) I asked the person on strike how I could help with the cause. He asked me to wait while he got someone who could give me more information, but my friend started calling me. I got yelled at for making him wait on the busy street, my fault. The party was nice; it was at BumBuddha, where I had been a couple of weeks ago. I had a good time and didn't give a second thought to the people on strike till I saw them again in the morning. And then all I did was read more about what has happening on the web.

All can't be lost though, my sister recently bought a button for me. She said that she instantly thought of me when she saw it. The button read - "No matter how hard I try, I just can't save the world."

The selfish parents

2004-10-06T21:27:00.000-07:00

Parents are the most selfish people in the world. When it comes to their children's welfare, nothing else matters. Here are some examples that support my claim. A couple of months ago when I was looking for a job, my father asked me if I needed help financially, and I declined professing that it shouldn't take me more than a month to find a job I like. He seemed a bit apprehensive about me rejecting some offers. He claimed that due to outsourcing there are fewer jobs in the US and that I should not nitpick. I said that it doesn't seem to be making a big difference (I was getting tonns of interview calls), and even if there are fewer jobs, they are probably going to India, so it's for the larger good. I was taken aback when he replied that he doesn't care about jobs in India; his children are living in the US so he only cares about jobs here. I wanted to say that it's our country and we should care about its benefit, no matter where we live, but I kept quiet.

It's not just my parents, but parents everywhere seem to be extremely selfish when it comes to their children. One day at lunch a coworker, just for the sake of conversation, asked a hypothetical question - "If there was one last slice of pizza left and you wanted it, what would each of you do?" Almost all stuck to the standard, that is, ask if anyone else wanted the last piece. If not then take it, otherwise share it. However, one woman who was the only parent in the group said that if her daughter wanted it, she would just grab the slice for her without asking. I thought her response was quite interesting.

My mom is the same when it comes to her children. She is like a grizzly bear protecting her cubs. If anyone is not so nice to me, my mom hates that person's guts. And she doesn't forget if someone wrongs me. On the other hand, when people are nice to me, she takes very good care of them. Parents make huge sacrifices for their kids. My mom put her career on the backseat to raise her kids. My parents lived apart for almost 2 years for my brother and sister. I was recently opposing the idea of my brother buying a car, but my mom said that I should buy him a car and she won't get the new car she had been thinking about for the longest time. So that makes parents the most selfless people.

I don't think I could be as good a parent as my own parents. The main reason being that I would never be home for my kids. I am also not completely sold on the idea of having children at all. They seem to be a huge liability and entail a humungous change in lifestyle. Besides my maternal instincts could easily be satisfied by getting a dog. But this is another discussion.

The question that arises is - "Is parents' self-sacrifical behavior actually selfish?" I think the answer is yes. Their behavior is motivated by protection of their own kin. Now if they were making these sacrifices for somebody else's kids then it would probably be truly selfless. Or would it? According to biogical and psychological theories on altruism, altruistic behavior evenutally leads to natural selection of the group if not the individual, and hence it is eventually propagating their own gene pool. If that's true, does altruism exist at all?

Girls' night out

2004-10-02T01:22:00.000-07:00

I have only two girl friends and I met both today. One for lunch and the other for dinner/drinks. It was refreshing to hang out with women instead of men. When I am out with the guys, the conversation invariably revolves around sports or video games. Neither interest me much, so I'm usually quiet. Today, however, I talked incessantly with my women friends. We have the same profile - single, female, Indian, in our mid to late twenties, and the topics of discussion were pertinent to these conditions.

I am living alone now and really enjoyed it the first couple of weeks. Lately though, I've started feeling lonely. I was sitting at work the other day in the evening and did not feel like going home. There was nothing to go home to. I was curious to know how my other single friends felt about it. So I brought it up at dinner. One friend, who doesn't live alone anymore, said that she hated it. I argued that there are some advantages to it. I get more time for myself, I think more (which could go either way), I read/write more, in general I pursue my own hobbies in my time alone. My friend wasn't convinced though. I think I wasn't totally convinced myself.

The worst part about living alone is having to eat dinner alone. I have yet to go to a restaurant, and sit and eat dinner alone. I always end up calling a friend or get take-out and eat at home. My friend had done it many times, but always with a book, which she called an essential prop. I agreed with my friend when she said that the first step is to probably accept the fact that I'll be living alone for sometime now and make lifestyle changes accordingly. To this effect she recounted an episode of "Sex And The City" in which Carrie realized that she might never get married and decides to embrace singlehood. So she goes to a restaurant without any props (book or newspaper) and eats alone. Personally I am not particularly keen about solitary dining yet. Fortunately, my friends who live in the city told me that I should call them up whenever I feel lonely or don't feel like eating alone. So I kind of get best of both worlds.

As a consequence of living alone , I have started feeling the need for companionship, which is the reason why I've started searching for a "suitable boy." The first question that popped out of this was "what are you looking for in a guy?" I didn't have an answer to that so my friend answered it for me. She said I seem to find really smart guys attractive. The other woman at dinner thought that was the norm with Indian women. Somehow that doesn't narrow it down enough. Most of the people I meet, professionally and socially, are very brainy. A majority of my male friends are from IIT, which is a sufficient (not necessary) condition for being intelligent. I was faced with the same question a couple of years back. An acquaintance was trying to hook me up with one of the many guys who worked with her. She insisted on some specifics so she could somehow narrow it down. I just blurted that I don't like moustaches on guys. Incidentally, the guy she was thinking of did have a moustache and he wasn't about to shave. I did end up being friends with him, and he is one of the nicest, and smartest person I know.

Judging that I probably needed some help in figuring out the right guy, my evening companions started listing out qualities to look for in men. Then we somehow moved to relationships in general. Not surprisingly, the one advise that I've heard most, came up - you would be happiest with the person who loves you more than you love him. We all seemed to be in consensus that somehow we are always attracted to guys who do not love us as much and end up getting hurt. We women are such perverts.

Another thing common amongst all three of us at dinner was that we all felt quite patriotic towards India. We started talking about movies like Yuva and Lakshya that invoked such feelings in us. I mentioned that I generally don't like Pakistan bashing movies and that we've just been brought up to hate Pakistan. We don't give enough thought to the reasons why we hate Pakistan. I faced strong opposition as soon as I said that. The others were really passionate in their dislike for Pakistan. I have to admit that they did give good reasons for feeling the way they did. One made a good point that because I don't live in India and am not directly threatened by the terrorism, I have mellowed down. That could be true, but I have only started feeling this way after watching the India-Pakistan cricket match. I read so many places how they were hospitable to Indians who went to watch the game. They cannot be that bad. I also questioned their bias in not being against America since it has always supported Pakistan. They countered that they did not like American foreign policy; to which I replied that they should then hate Pakistan's foreign policy, not Pakistan.

Inevitably the conversation then drifted to religion. I feel that Hinduism is a very tolerant religion, though there are a lot of Hindu fanatics too. I still don't understand completely what happened in Gujurat. To me Christianity seems very extreme. I remember a coworker telling me that I will go to hell because I'm not Christian.

At this point we were interrupted by a drunk guy who came up to us and started blabbering about some conference he had come to attend in California. From what I could make out, he was talking about some non-profit organization that did some work in "third-world countries" like India. I get put-off by the term and was a bit rude to him. I don't know what the deal was with him. He seemed to have come with a group that was snickering at a distance, looking at him talk to us. He also kept saying something about beads. After he left I explained to the other women (they were a bit naive that way) the whole concept of beads and Mardi gras. I told them about my experience of Mardi Gras in New Orleans in which I asked guys to flash for beads instead. I totally scandalized them.

One of them reminded me of the way I used to be a couple of years ago. She didn't drink, had no clue what Mardi Gras meant, constantly worried about which neighborhoods were bad in Bay Area. I told her that Sunnyvale is one of the safest cities in the US. I attribute the fact to all the desis who live in Sunnyvale. My friend later scoffed me for telling her about our smoking/drinking experiences. My excuse was that she seemed like a non-judgemental person to me and I was a bit tipsy.

So the topics at dinner ranged from makeup to living alone, from dieting to anti-Pakistani feelings prevalent among Indians and of course the Presidential debate. The only thing I had to say about the debate was, these are the times I wish I could vote.

There's no place like home

2004-09-28T22:05:00.000-07:00

As a kid "Wizard of Oz" used to be one of my favorite movies. I remember watching the movie over and over again. Or at least that's what my parents tell me. The funny thing about memory is that you might remember things that never happened. In an experiment people swore that they remember shaking hands with Bugs Bunny in Disneyland, which is not possible because Bugs Bunny is a Warner Bros. character. They had been told so by their parents and they then formed false memories around it. Nevertheless, I think I used to love this movie.

So sitting in an American History class, only paying half attention to the Populist movement being discussed, I was suddenly jolted out of my reverie when the professor said that "Wizard Of Oz" is a political statement. She claimed that the yellow brick road symbolized gold, the strawman represented the farmers, the monkeys were the black people, and the Wizard was none other than the President. It really shocked me to find out that one my favorite childhood movie was so political. But then I realized that probably many of the cartoons that kids watch have political statements in them because the people creating them are adults.

Today I probably wouldn't enjoy the movie as much as anyways. I've become too cynical to enjoy the make believes. At dinner my friend was making fun of a Star Trek episode I remember seeing as a kid. I used to watch Star Trek all the time when I was kid. This memory is actually true since I have tapes my dad recorded for me. I don't watch Star Trek anymore. The whole premise seems so implausible and I tend to over analyze .

Not that I didn't think when I was small. But in my simplistic mind, I thought "Wizard Of Oz" had a straightforward message that home is the best place to be. I have realized that since I moved out. Obviously I didn't think so when I was living at home, and remember telling my mom that I wanted to go to college anywhere but in Delhi, so I won't have to stay at home. Now I can only wish that I had those ruby shoes which I could click three times and get home by uttering the magic words - "there's no place like home."

My first time

2004-09-22T21:55:00.000-07:00

Today in the morning I had my first international meeting. I called a coworker in the London office, which usually means coming in really early, but this guy was cool and agreed for 9 am (PST). As it turned out he was British Indian-- gosh we’re everywhere-- and was extremely inquisitive about me personally.

He shared his desktop and started explaining the project I was going to take over from him. Throughout the call, we would be going along working, and suddenly he would pop an irrelevant question. This is how the conversation began--

Him: "You should ask the company to send you to London, especially since you'll be working a lot with people here."
Me: "I don't know. I've just started working here."
Him: "Oh, when did you start?"
Me: "It's just about a month now."
Him: "I've heard it's become really hard to enter the company. They have a lot of rounds of interviewing"
Me: "Tell me about it. I interviewed for 8 hours here. It was worth it though I guess"
Him: "Well, welcome to the company"

After completing the new employee talk I do with every coworker I meet, we start working.

Him (in the middle of explaining how the project is structured): "how's the Indian community in San Francisco."

Me (after a few minutes; it takes me sometime to switch gears): "there aren't that many Indians in the city, but a lot in the Bay Area."

Him: "okay"

Again we start working...

Him: "do you guys there dance Bhangra?"
Me (doesn't take me long this time): "I go to desi parties where later in the night they play Bhangra."
Him: "I don't dance it well."
Him: "Do you watch Hindi movies?"
Me: "I love Hindi movies and watch almost all of them."
Him: "What are some good movies?"

I'm going through the database in my mind of all the good Hindi movies I've seen, but before I reply ...

Him: "I've only seen one Indian movie - Sholay. I've seen it so many times"
Me (halting the search): "Oh okay."

So we get back to work and then out of the blue -

Him: "What do you eat?"
I start laughing.
Him: "Is that a silly question?"
Me: "Oh no, I was just caught off guard. I don't cook so I usually eat out."
Him: "Like American meals -- pizza and sandwiches."
Me: "Umm, yeah that too. Also chinese, thai, pasta, indian."
Him: "I like Chinese, Thai too. We have a lot of good Indian restaurants here. Mostly North Indian."
Me: "We have both North and South Indian. I like South Indian too."
Him: "I don't like South Indian; can't handle the coconut curry."
Me: "Well how do you like Thai then?"
Him: "Hmm... never thought about that."

And we get back to work. We have to wait for something to load so we continue our parallel conversation.

Him: "So do you live near work?"
Me: "Yeah, it's a 20 min commute by bus."
Him: "Do you have family around?"
Me: "Not my parents, but my siblings and uncles/aunts."
Him: "You're all scattered then."
Me: "Yeah."
Him: "I see my mom every morning. I live 5 mins from her."
Me: "You're so lucky!"
Me: "You know I have lived in England 6 years. It was the first 6 years of my life though, so I don't remember much. The last time I was in London was in 2001; I was visiting my dad. He took me around places I loved when I was a kid, like the London zoo"
Him: "That's nice. So you're dad lives here?"
Me: "No, he lives in Delhi, but goes to England once a year. He's a neurosurgeon so they invite him for consultation for a couple of weeks."
Him: "Wow, you must be really brainy then."
Me: "Umm... so have you been to San Francisco?"
Him: "No, I went to New York and we just did the week of shopping."
Me (with a smile): "Yeah, I went to New York for just a few days last year. I loved it. Didn't do any of the touristy stuff though."
Him: "That's probably the best way."

We get done with our work.

Me: "It was nice talking to you."
Him: "Yes, cheers, cheers, cheers, bye."

Naturally I was curious about the person I spent the past 2 hours talking to. He was very modest and asked me to make whatever changes I felt necessary to his code (developers can be very touchy about these things). I pictured him as single, in his late twenties, maybe a fairly recent hire too. I couldn't have been more wrong. Another coworker who had made a recent business trip to London told me that he was in his 40s, married with kids. But she agreed that he was extremely modest and people make fun of him for saying "cheers" ten times before hanging up.

Khichdi (=Jambalaya)

2004-09-22T21:46:00.000-07:00

Last night I saw a Hindi movie Dhoom. I had woken up really early in the morning so was not too keen on going for a movie I hadn’t even heard of, but my friends convinced me to go. They just said the magic words, "Abhishek Bacchan" and "not another love story"– and I was sold. I am a huge fan of Abhishek Bacchan, not because of his acting skills, but his looks and demeanor. I saw him a couple of years back when I had gone to see his first movie. He had come to promote his movie I guess. He was a bit tired, I think because he had come directly from the airport or something. But he looked so endearing, and he had such a soft disposition while talking. I even remember what he was wearing – jeans and a brown corduroy jacket.

Besides it was like rooting for the underdog because Hrithik Roshan was becoming so popular and poor Abhishek Bacchan wasn’t faring well at all. The only thing against him (besides his acting skills, but those matter when one has such good looks) is that he’s related to movie person and isn’t self made. Actually if you start searching, those are far and between. Even Aamir Khan, who is another favorite and who actually is a good actor, is related to someone in the industry. The only self-made "star" as a Bollywood movie buff told me is Shah Rukh Khan (who is from my school, btw), but I don’t really like his movies. Watching a movie with SRK as the actor is like going to a chain restaurant. It gives you consistency and guarantees a certain level of quality, but it is extremely predictable and boring.

I was not disappointed after watching Dhoom. Abhishek Bacchan looked great, as usual, and the movie was a good medley of scenes lifted off other movies. The movie reminded me of Fast and Furious, Ocean’s Eleven, and Matrix Reloaded (in particular of Morpheus’ fight sequence on top of the truck) I love all of these movies so I had to like Dhoom except that after 2 hours, I was hoping it would end and not drag on. Isha Deol looked really uncomfortable in her role; she did not come out as the “item” as they were trying to portray. I had liked her in Yuva though. There was a lot of skin showing in the movie, which all of us (both men and women) enjoyed.

Particularly amusing were the subtitles of the movie. I tend to get distracted by subtitles irrespective of my knowledge of the language being spoken. I always have fun reading the subtitles for Hindi songs, but in this movie even the regular dialogues were translated quite badly. I think the guy got over zealous. It had the regular bad interpretation like the translation for “chashma mat utaro” was “don’t peel your glasses off”, and “kya” was “how” (pardon my skills of writing Hindi in English, I suck at it; I can do a better job of writing Hindi in Hindi). But “gajar ka halwa” was converted to carrot soufflé; I spent a long time trying to fathom how halwa can be translated to soufflé, but failed, which inspired the title.

I was wondering that it must be an altogether different experience for people there who didn’t understand Hindi. At work I was asking my Indian American coworker if he was interested in Bollywood movies, but he said that he didn’t understand Hindi. I was going to tell him that all movies have subtitles so it doesn’t matter, but I’m glad I refrained. The subtitles are too bad to be relied on. And I couldn’t counter any of the reasons he gave me of not watching Bollywood movies. I don’t care for any the regular reasons people give for not watching Bollywood movies. They are all valid, but I just love watching them; more so since I moved to the US. I watch almost every Hindi movie; I recently saw Girlfriend, Julie, Rakht, Fida, and Mujhse Shaadi Karogi – all of which were quite bad, amongst which Girlfriend was the worst. Some good movies I have seen are Dev, which reminded me of the book Riots by Shashi Tharoor; Yuva, which made me feel all patriotic; and Lakhshya. I wanted to watch the movie dealing with AIDS, which is supposed to be like Philadelphia (another movie I like), but couldn’t convince any friend to go with me. Actually I’m not sure if I should be using the term “Bollywood” to refer to our mainstream Hindi movies. I was listening to a program on NPR which said that the term “Bollywood” has a negative connotation; or at least it used to.

In fact, I also wonder how people living in Bombay must enjoy these movies more, just because they would recognize the names of the places being mentioned. I remember me and my coworkers/friends(I watched the movie with both) getting really excited when we noticed that Trinity in Matrix Reloaded was riding her bike against traffic on 101, a freeway we commute on everyday.

All in all, I enjoyed the movie-going experience, except that I somehow pulled a muscle while going to the theatre. I took the BART and it was really crowded so I had to stand. While standing I started reading, which in hindsight was not such a good idea because my body ended up in a really awkward position with one hand holding the book and the other trying to prevent me from falling. When I got to the theatre complex I bought 3 books – War and Peace (about time I tackled it), Best American Essays and Writing imaginatively. I have been refraining from working out and pleasure reading because I need to concentrate on work and studies. Consequently, I have stopped going to the gym, bookstores and libraries. I decided to indulge myself yesterday, the book store was right there and I had time to kill. Promise to self - I will save the reading for trains and buses only, ignoring the fact that I can both work and study on the train too.

I'm famous

2004-09-18T01:05:00.000-07:00

Well, not really, but my name was in the paper today. I went in the kitchen to get some ice in the morning when a coworker, who sits near my desk, said - "hey, is it you in the paper today?" My first reaction was "huh? what is he talking about? maybe the company website where they introduce new employees" But he goes and shows me a copy of SF chronicle. By then my heart is in my mouth and I'm cursing myself, remembering that I had given an interview to someone on tuesday. After I had talked to her, she asked my full name and the company I worked for. I was initially relectant to divulge this information. I prefer anonymity, as you can tell from this blog (some of the American paranoia has caught on to me I guess). But it was a direct question so I was unable to refuse.

After this flashback, my next reaction was "Oh s***, what exactly did I say at that interview?" I did not expect it to appear in the paper; there were hundreds of people at that event, so I figured that the chances were quite slim. I told myself that it can't be that bad and browsed the article to find my name and quote, and was pleased to see that it was only one line and nothing that would jeapordize my job. In fact, a couple of coworkers I hadn't met, came and introduced themselves to me today. Suddenly I got all excited and told everyone in my group that I was in the SF chronicle, and emailed my friends and family. It was quite exciting. Later in the afternoon I got another email from a coworker, who I had only talked to on the phone, asking me if I knew that I was in the paper and complimenting me on my quote (I'm still not sure if he meant it or was being sarcastic).

In the evening, I met my friends for dinner at Bumbuddha lounge -- a nice place which turned into a club later. Surprisingly they were playing old Hindi songs at dinner, remixed ofcourse. My friends, as expected, made fun of my comment in the paper. Something feels wrong when my coworkers seem happier that I am in the paper than my friends do. I have been quite disappointed with my friends lately. Firstly, they don't seem to be happy enough that I'm in the paper. Secondly, some of them refuse to help me move. Okay, I agree that I move too many times. I get bored with one place, job, boyfriend too easily. And my friends know this and dont miss a chance to make a wisecrack about it. A week after I started my new job, a friend asked me - "so are you bored at work already or it'll be a couple more weeks?" Something is wrong with me, but I digress from the topic of my wayward friends. Thirdly, after hearing/reading a lot of fuss about gmail I asked my friends what they thought and found out that almost all of them have gmail accounts already and they never invited me. When I asked them why, they all said they thought I wouldn't want one and they never use theirs. So I got my gmail through a coworker too instead of a friend. Now that I'm famous, I'll get myself some new friends, ha.

[Edited after somewhat sobering up in the morning. Still pissed at friends so badmouthed them some more (in person and in the blog)]

Is comfort boring?

2004-09-15T22:43:00.000-07:00

One day, not long after returning to the US after a long vacation in India, I was chatting with a friend in India. She asked me how it felt being back. In response I told her that I want to move to another city. I've been in SF/BayArea for 5 years and it has become too comfortable, which for me equates to boredom. She said that it was scary that I found comfort boring. It got me thinking about the changes I had made in my life because I felt bored, or too comfortable.

I used to rent an awesome three bedroom house in SF with 2 friends as roommates. I had the best time living with them. On weekdays after work we would go out for dinner and try out new places in the city. Or on days we got home early, we would cook and clean together. I had some complaints living with them, like they played video games all the time and that frustrated me sometimes. They also had stupid rules like when there are conflicting views on what to watch on TV, the first priority would always be given to live sports. But those were the only 2 gripes I had and they were dwarfed by the positive things I got by having male roommates. They never nit picked about small things, took great care of my parents when they were visiting, took my siblings out and fed them when I was too lazy (or busy) to do so myself. They were basically like family and made me want to get to home after work, besides the house was great. We had a lot of space, a basement with a Jacuzzi in it and we held many parties at that place. Despite all the luxuries I enjoyed, I decided to move out after about a year. At that time I felt like I had to change something. Now all three of us live in our own small apartments with 3 different leases, and we are all within a couple of blocks of our old place. What a waste!

Another drastic change I made had to do with my last job. I worked 50-60 hrs a week and thoroughly enjoyed it. I had the best coworkers ever. I was highly valued at work and worked on important projects. I made some good friends at work. The best part- that I didn't value then, but miss now - was the flexible hours. I got to work late (around 11 am) and worked late and nobody cared as long as I met my deadlines. I also got to do classes along with work during working hours and finish my work later or on weekends. So it was all perfect. But as soon as I passed the one year mark, I started complaining to people that I'm bored and need something different. Obviously my VP could not move me to another group immediately, but he gave me some challenging projects in addition to what I was doing. However, the feeling remained that I need to change. So now I have a new job with new kind of work that I wanted before. I also get to work in the city. It's all good, but I find myself missing my previous job sometimes. The people are nice at this company too, but it just isn't the same. I'm so lost at work and totally out of my comfort zone. I guess one should be careful what one wishes for.
Lastly, I had a great boyfriend. He took great care of me, listened to my problems and took care of them as his own. I could go on and on about how great he was, but again as you can guess now, after a year I decided to break up with him for no good reason. I spent last weekend with him and we had a great time. We went apartment hunting for me and found a great one bedroom place. We went out for a couple of drinks and talked for hours, mainly reminiscing about our times together. I had a good time with him and wondered why I broke up with him in the first place.

Well, it is now too late for me to reverse any of these changes I decided to make because I was too comfortable. I have to wonder if there is something seriously wrong with me. Comfort is good, not boring. It is what people seek and I should learn to cherish it, not chuck it.

Back to the grind

2004-09-05T19:45:00.000-07:00

I accepted an offer and started work for a big financial company a week ago. I wanted this kind of work for the longest time and I finally got an offer to work on the server/database. I am really happy about it; I was bored with doing the same kind of work on the client. There is a lot to learn though; I am unfamiliar with most of the financial instruments. My manager seems to be the kind of person who enjoys teaching. He explains things in great detail, assuming the other person does not know anything, which is the best way. Reasons I accepted this offer as opposed to others were work (server-side), location in the city (I always wanted to live and work in the city), big company (stability), different industry (nice change from working for software companies) and pay (can't believe they are paying me this much).

I enjoyed my vacation, but it feels good to be working again. However, waking up early in the morning is no fun. I am definitely not a morning person and used to get to work around 11 am at my previous job. At this new job everyone reaches work by 9 am. I hated it the first week, but I've grown used to it now. I get to work early so I leave work around 6 pm and have so much time left in the evening for myself. I workout, cook (yeah me cook; I'm so proud of myself), study, watch some TV. All this is good, especially the cooking. I have cooked 2 times in 2 weeks. The food was no good the first time and my friend told me honestly that the food was bad (why do I have to have honest friends?) So second time I invited the same friend and got complimented (truthfully I can safely assume).

A problem with working in the city is parking. Parking is outrageously expensive so I take local transport. This is the first time I ever traveled by means other than my car and it feels good. I get to observe people, really see what's going on around me. When you are traveling by car, you miss everything that you would otherwise notice on foot. Although walking can be hazardous if you are not wearing the proper shoes. I fell flat on my face walking today. I was wearing recently bought shoes that looked good, but apparently weren't very practical. All in all, I feel a sense of achievement about waking up early, getting something other than work done on weekdays, and taking local transport (conserving gas). I get so much more done when I'm working rather than when I'm unemployed. I guess inertia tends to do that to you.

There are some things I don't like about working. It is a pain in the butt, literally. My butt really hurt from sitting all day; especially the first few days. It makes working out all the more necessary since I sit all day in front of the computer. There are some differences in the culture when you're working for a big company versus a small company. Apparently I can't use yahoo messenger, which is a bummer. All my friends contact me through messenger. I tend to eat more when I'm working and consequently gain weight easily. I seem to be the only single person around and probably the youngest. This had always been the case at my previous companies except the very last one. There was a younger girl, but she was married. So I have no lunch partner and end up eating alone most times - which I don't mind as much since I like exploring the area on foot. It is quite happening around lunch time with the awesome weather we're seeing in SF lately, the hustle-bustle of people walking back/to lunch and the music playing on the street. A new guy is joining in our group soon; I hope he's single or a young married guy who doesn't get his lunch from home so I can go to lunch with him.

Another con is that I have to dress up for work. I can't wear my jeans, shorts, tank tops to work. I dress up in pants and skirts. I was looking out the window while running in the gym and noticed that everyone wears only 4 colors - black, gray, blue and tan. And I realized I was doing the same so the next day I wore a sweater with pink, purple, orange and brown in it. It looked good.

I am proud to travel by bus but there is one disadvantage to that too. I do not get to listen to NPR in my car anymore. It was my favorite thing about driving. I hardly listen to the radio at work or home unless it's science Friday when I would tune in at work. Today when taking a ride from a friend's place I heard a program about Tihar jail on NPR. It was nice listening to hindi being spoken and hindi songs on NPR. I tend to get excited about such things and call all my friends asking them to tune in; especially if it's something about cricket. Most of my guy friends and some women too are cricket fanatics.

I pride myself on being a quick learner and have started contributing in the team already. However the ramp up is harder here because I don't have the domain knowledge. Sometimes after a hard day I wonder if I should have just accepted the offer at my previous job. It would have been comfortable. But then the only way to progress is to put oneself in a slightly uncomfortable, yet challenging position. So my professional life seems to be in good shape; time to start working on my non-existent love life.

Never say never

2004-08-19T01:47:00.000-07:00

There are certain movies that I will never watch again, not because they are bad, just the opposite, they are too powerful. These movies invoke really strong emotions in me. I just saw American History X and no matter how hard I try, I cannot get the movie out of my mind. I've become a huge fan of Edward Norton. I had liked him in Fight Club, but it didn't affect me the way this one did. Another movie that had a huge impact on me was Requiem for a Dream. I remember getting mad at my brother for showing me that movie. I had to watch cartoons for sometime before going to bed. I was depressed for days thinking about what happened and how it might be true for some. To this day I get chills whenever I listen to the movie's soundtrack by Paul Oakenfold. Then there is Life is Beautiful, amazing movie, but could not bear to watch it again. I could not sleep after watching it. In the middle of the night I woke up my roommate and asked her to talk the movie through with me so I could get it out of my head. She made fun of me the next day for being a wuss.

Some other movies that I thought about for a long time after watching were Donny Darko, and Memento. I am a fan of Shymalam's movies just because I can never guess the endings. I loved Matrix and was blown away by the concept the first time I watched it. It's probably the movie I've seen the most times, but after watching the second and third sequel the effect kind of wore off.

When every second counts

2004-08-18T03:49:00.000-07:00

Working out does wonders for my body and mind. As my mom always says - "working out releases postivie hormones (forget the scientific term), which keep you feeling happy all day." Despite knowing the benefits of working out, the initial inertia prevents me from going to the gym on most days. I am always looking for excuses not to go. On days that I do manage to drag myself to the gym, I feel great after working out -- it gives me a high and I feel more energetic and happy. I used to enjoy running, but a skiing injury prevented me from running for past 2 years. Alternatively, I took to doing the stepper, which is so much harder. I've been going to doctors in the US for the same problem for almost 2 years and all they say is stop running. One even suggested that maybe some people aren't meant for running so I shouldn't even try. I got really discouraged after that. However, all it took was one visit to a doctor in India and the ailment got properly diagnosed. Somehow doctors in India seem so much smarter. Maybe they get to see more patients and have better experience in dealing with all sorts of symptoms. My problem was that I was suffering from osteomalacia - sever deficiency of calcium in the bones. It had been caused by my yo-yo dieting and lack of sun. I got a well-deserved scolding from the doctor, and my parents. My mom started force-feeding me calcium and my dad injected tonns of Vitamin D into my hip. One problem with having doctors as parents is over treatment. They got my brain scan done because my periods were a bit late (thankfully, everything turned out to be fine in that department).

The only problem with doing aerobic exercises in the gym is that you tend to get bored. On the plus side though, it is while working out that I mostly think of this stuff to write. One thought always occurs to me while working out in the gym. All people combined together in the gym seem to be generating so much energy, for example, weight lifters are converting so much potential energy into kinetic energy (if I remember my physics correctly). There must be a way to tap into all that energy. At the very least the gym should be made self-sustainable with it using no electrical energy. But then I see people driving around in circles, burning gas, trying to find the closest parking spot and it all seems useless.

On exercise that is never boring is swimming, which to me is the dessert of workout. Swimming does not seem like exercise to me. Perhaps I've gotten too used to constantly checking out the display of how many calories I have burnt so far; which I do check every minute, no second, actually I never take my eyes off the display. Or maybe I don't feel like I'm really burning calories because I don't sweat. Some of that Indian mentality seems to have caught on. In India I used to get really frustrated when people would not let me turn the A/C or fan on while working out because they thought that if they don't sweat the exercises are futile. It used to be so hot to begin with and with no fan, I used to suffocate. Those were not the proper conditions for working out. I wanted to knock on people's head and say, “hello, it's a simple matter of calorie burn versus intake; sweating has nothing to do with it, you dumb wits.” And here I am unconsciously working out on the same presumption.

They say weight loss is 10% exercise and 90% diet. My sister and I ate a makeshift dinner comprising of naan, butter and frozen sabjis. It tasted awful; the only thing that made it edible was my mom's homemade achaar. And to think I was cribbing when she was packing all the bottles of pickles for me. I “forgot” to declare my bottles of pickles when the immigration officer asked me if I was carrying any food. But that dinner was definitely not good for my body. My sister declared at the beginning of her summer vacation that she would be cooking regularly. She made paneer one day and delicious crepes on the second day. On the third day she weighed herself and found she had gained a couple of pounds since she moved in with me. So she decided to not eat anymore and starve us both. I rebelled and got myself Chinese takeout, and we both ended up eating the greasy Chinese food. On the days she's in a benevolent mood, she cooks up eggs, which is quite healthy. It's kind of pathetic the way I am dependent on my sister for feeding me. When she goes back to school, I'll be back to eating salad or fast food. With this diet it's a constant struggle to keep the weight off.

I read in a Desmond Morris book that it's natural to gain 3 pounds a year. And after finding a life partner the body's shape changes naturally. It was a very interesting concept. I don't remember exactly, but it was something to the effect that after you find someone, the body changes. Instead of having broad shoulders and a nice chest, men start gaining weight around the belly. In another book I read that the body keeps trying to achieve an optimal weight and will always bounce back no matter how hard we try. I'm not sure if these theories are true, regardless I choose to believe in them. It gives me a reason not to feel guilty about gaining a couple of extra pounds. Why fight nature?

Business world

2004-08-16T01:50:00.000-07:00

I am interviewing for jobs these days and there seem to be 3 kinds of interviewers. The first is the Google type companies that only hire people with Masters, Ph.D. degrees. The second type is Microsoft like companies that ask mostly logic and analytical reasoning questions during interviews. And the third type, which is mostly small startup companies, only ask how much one knows about the particular technology they are using; the reason probably being that they want the new hires to hit the ground running. I have interviewed at companies of the second and third type (I don’t qualify for the first). I had fun solving the logic problems, however I tended to solve them more mathematically than logically. The companies of the third kind irked me. I feel that anyone can learn a particular technology after a week of reading. They should be testing to see how smart a person is and whether they have in-depth knowledge of programming concepts instead of drilling on one technology or language.

Software engineering is a male dominated profession and most of the people I interviewed with were male. I was surprised to see no Indian interviewers since the Bay Area has a lot of India technologists. The reverse flow of people moving back to India seems to be more apparent now than ever. In most companies I went to there weren't any Indians or women for that matter. Another company was exclusively white American. My previous company had people from all over the world - Russian, Israeli, Indian, American, Canadian, and Asian; moreover the engineering team had equal number of men and women. It was an exclusive combination of people; it was the best team of people I had ever worked with.

While interviewing at one company, the interviewer mentioned that they were outsourcing to New Zealand. I had to ask why not India and he said that he had tried that before but had problems. In India people would say they understood things when they really did not. I guess I could see his point, there does seem to be a more “yes, boss” attitude in India.

Besides the interviewing process, the process of negotiating a compensation package is excruciating. Whenever I'm faced with the question of my salary expectation, I always end up specifying lower than I want to. My friends always tell me that I should not sell myself short because in today's market there are little chances of getting a salary raise while at the same company. So changing jobs is the only time one can get a salary raise. One company actually had the audacity to offer me less than my last salary, especially after I had mentioned in my first interview with them that my salary expectations were between a certain range and I would not accept anything less. When I refused the offer, they tried telling me that what they had offered me was what I deserved. So according to them I was being overpaid for the last 2 years; this got me hopping mad. I read in a woman's magazine that one of the reasons women are paid less than men is that they are not aggressive while negotiating. My men friends always tell me to ask salaries that seem outrageously high to me and I never do ask for that much. My whole weekend was ruined thinking about the coming Monday when I would have to talk to all the companies and negotiate a salary.

The art of negotiating seems to be important in other aspects of life too, like friends, family and other self-imposed relationships. There is a constant struggle to get one's way in relationships. Each person feels that what he or she is saying is more reasonable. I have spent many sleepless nights thinking how my boyfriend at that time can be so callous and not understand how reasonable my demands were. Life seems to be constant arbitration- I'm getting a headache just thinking about the day ahead. The only time haggling is fun is in the Janpath market in CP (Delhi).

Home away from home

2004-08-15T03:08:00.000-07:00

Recently on my way back from India, I had a strange experience. In India any white person would draw a lot of attention. But when I changed flights at Munich to come to the US, I realized that I was the only Indian left on the flight. Suddenly I was in the minority and the one being stared at. I felt as if my every action was being observed; it was quite discomfiting. The fact that I had just left home became all too apparent.

I have lived in the US for quite a few years now, but I do not remember having felt that way before, and on landing in SFO I realized why. At the airport there were as many Asians/Indians as white and nobody gave me a second glance. I felt as if I was at home at again. San Francisco/Bay Area has now become a second home for me. In fact maybe more than Delhi is now, this is where my job, my friends, my life is. I am completely independent and am familiar with how things work here. It would be hard to move back and start over. But this debate goes on in my mind continuously. Back in Bay Area everything seemed mundane and all too familiar. The excitement level had gone down a couple of notches, so I went out seeking excitement – I went partying the very night I landed. I met almost all my friends, who welcomed me back warmly with hugs and I regaled them with exciting tales of my trip to India. I decided that I wanted to move to New York just because living in Bay Area seemed too comfortable. A friend of mine thinks it is scary that I find comfort boring.

The first time I saw TV after coming back, Aishwarya Rai came on TV in a commercial for Godrej Hair Color; for a minute I was completely disoriented as to where I was – India or US? My apartment complex is full of all desi couples, which makes me feel safe, but I seem to be the only single girl around. But that is something I’ve learnt to live with. In Bay Area the ratio of men to women is seriously skewed. One of the reasons could be the IT industry, which is largely dominated by men. Another reason could have something to do with SF being the gay capital of world (I seem to picking up on the American terminology according to which anything that’s the best in US automatically becomes the best the world. For example, such and such team is the best football team in the world; hmm… but no one else in the world plays American football???) .

Last night I went to a party where Turkish girls were belly-dancing to Indian bhangra, which I thought was quite amazing. I never heard any bhangra at the clubs I went out to in India. At the club there were Turkish, Indian, American, and Asian people amongst others, dancing together to world music. I was definitely not a minority; in fact no single ethnicity was in majority. At my previous work I was one of the only two Indians working in the company, but I had Asian, Canadian, Israeli, and Russian coworkers. Here I am completely comfortable and it feels like home away from home. But then maybe I don’t want to be “at home” at this stage in my life.

Pretty please!

2004-08-15T02:13:00.000-07:00

Today, my sister refused to go swimming with me in the afternoon reasoning that it’s not good for her complexion. I taunted her – “how shallow can you be?” and she retorted, “I’m twenty and go to college so I need to look good.” But then I got thinking -- how important are looks?

On most days I just wear jeans and a sweatshirt with no make-up; then there are days when I feel like wearing a skirt or tank top and putting some make up on. It’s a whole different experience on the days when I do dress up – people smile at me more (not only men, but women too), open the door for me more often, everyone is politer than usual and I generally find it easier to get things done. It makes me wonder about the significance of looks in our society today.

When it comes to interviewing for jobs, looks make a huge difference. The other day I was talking to a friend whose company I had applied at and he said I had a good chance of getting the job as long as I looked good to them. The reason was that it was more of a customer-facing job than pure development. He told me that they were discussing a prospective employee they had interviewed and thought he was a good candidate because he had dressed well with a shirt/tie, and had the latest hairstyle. Another friend of mine was lamenting the other day that her sister is unable to find a job because she is fat. I didn’t believe her and said that it makes no difference, but she insisted that people equate obesity with laziness.

At a party- which consisted of mainly single girls in their mid to late twenties - the topic, invariably, shifted to men. We started discussing our dating experiences and how hard it was to find the “right” guy. And one girl commented – beautiful women don’t have any dearth of men to date.

The importance of looking good does not only pertain to the U. S. but I felt the same applied in India too, if not more so. Not that I’m complaining – I got my way easily when I got stuck at the airport in Delhi. My travel agent had messed up and somehow my booking for the flight got cancelled. The person attending to the issue wouldn’t give me a seat reasoning the flight was almost fully booked; so, I asked for the manager. The manager took one look at me and said, “Yeah, give her a seat on the flight”.

My male friends have no compunctions about taking advantage of this phenomenon and always send me off to interact with people whenever we’re stuck in a dicey situation. Not that I’m gorgeous or anything, but I have an inherent advantage being an Indian girl with a dark complexion in California. In India however, I lose the edge and am just an average looking woman. I need to make more effort towards looking good. I find myself applying make-up almost everyday and wearing the clothes I would only wear when going out here in U.S.

I ran out of contact lenses and cannot order new ones because I'm uninsured. I don't have a job right now and am too lazy to get my own health insurance so I'll be wearing glasses for a while now. It is going to be a different experience; hopefully it won't ruin my chances of getting a new job.

Backed up

2004-08-13T23:07:00.000-07:00

It feels like I spent the whole day in my car today. I was going to pick up my brother from his school and got stuck in traffic. Since I am jobless nowadays, the traffic did not bother me as much as it used to. Time loses its importance when there are no deadlines to meet, office hours to complete or meetings to attend. Hence, the stress associated with being stuck in traffic is reduced. However one does tend to get bored after a while and the sun starts bothering the eyes. The saviors during those hours stuck in my car were cell phone conversations, NPR, and car stickers. Yeah, I know talking on the phone while driving is dangerous and is justly illegal in India. But it is still legal in US to talk on the phone while driving, maybe because it hurts Corporate America (the cell phone companies) if the law making it illegal gets passed. After exhausting the list of people I could call during working hours to have a meaningless conversation, I turned on the radio. NPR was playing a hilarious comedy show from New York (I tried searching for a link to the program on their website, but had no luck). Here’s one of the jokes – “Why doesn’t Iraq have any Wal-Mart’s? Because they are all Targets.” What I most enjoyed during my two hours in backed up traffic were the car stickers. Two of the funniest stickers I read were “More trees, less Bush” and “Good wine needs no Bush.” Recently I was shopping for tattoos on Haight Street with some friends when one of my friends noticed a t-shirt in the window of a shop saying, “America needs to shave its Bush.” This was embossed on a picture of Bush looking really dumb. My friend bought one and said she would wear it to work; I still need to ask her what reaction she got from her coworkers. It’s good to see people displaying such anti-Bush sentiment on their cars and clothes. I asked a friend if we could do the same in India and he responded gravely – “ you would be dead the next day if you tried to pull of anything of the sort.”

Indian in America = smart, smelly, sentimental suck-up?

2004-08-07T01:02:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I ended up watching two movies about Indian stereotypes in America - Flavors and Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle. I liked both movies, but thought Harold and Kumar was funnier. I enjoyed Kumar's role as the cool and carefree guy who leads his friend Harold to seek juicy burgers, marijuana, girls and other forms of pleasure. In the movie, Kumar is portrayed as a smart guy who is being pressured by his dad to get into medical school, but he intentionally keeps messing up his interviews. This led to one of the funniest moments in the movie where he gets a call on his cell phone during an interview and he quips - "No, I'm not doing anything important. I can talk...” By the end of the movie Kumar realizes that he should not mess up his interviews just so he does not confirm to the Indian stereotype. If he has the brains and talent to become a doctor, he would become one. I appreciated this transformation of views, probably because I conform to the stereotype of being an Indian software developer. In fact this is one of the few things I did not like about Flavors. It depicted Software Engineering as a thankless job in which Indians suck up to the boss.

The movie Flavors also shows a housewife who gets married and comes to US. My heart went out for the housewife stuck at home bored all day. A lot of my Indian friends went to India to get married. I feel bad for the girls who come here and sit at home all day with no life or friends of their own. All my friends are nice guys though, and spend the entire weekend making up for the weekdays by taking their wives out to nice restaurants and local tourist spots.

My sister is listening to a program on NPR about Michael Moore's movie - Fahrenheit 9/11. She asks me if one of my Indian friends is pro-Bush. This friend of mine is Republican. The fact that she's Indian and politically Republican challenges the stereotype that all Indians are Democrats, hence prompting my sister's question about my friend’s stance on the Bush administration. And I muse, "how can any aware person be pro-Bush, especially one of my friends?"

Readme

2004-07-06T21:00:00.000-07:00

I have added links to books I read and movies I watched. I have 3 symbols for movies and books -- up for I really liked it, down for I didn't like it and left-right for it was okay. As any reader would be able to tell, I have a natural bias for anything Indian or related to India.