The greatest sportsman ever...

To start the blog, I was looking for a lead and found Big B's blog on bigadda.

The exact sentiment which has been coming to me from the day Sachin scored the double ton is shared by Big B. That same day, Sachin has proved that he has attained a place where no one has ever been and probably will never be. What follows now is just raising his own bar higher and higher. I have read a couple of self-motivation books and found mention of players like Tiger Woods being greatest players and how they manage to be great. They all are great including Sir Bradman, but the greatest is Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar.....the son of the country once ruled by another country which has never won the world cup of the game invented by themselves till now and neither do they have as great players in the history of their game. He has no extra marital affairs nor has he been involved in betting scams or flirted with any woman married or unmarried or such filth. He is the greatest sportsman on earth and an even greater human being.

During the football world cup, I was hearing accolades of how some players were so popular and were highest paid and thought if they had actually achieved anything. Sachin has achieved all these records in such a game which depends mostly on the team performance, generally. Had he been playing in a one person game like tennis, he would have made the world feel that their 10 fingers are less in number to put on their mouths or their two hands are less to bow down to him.

I sincerely feel the time is ripe and has come to award the degree of "Sir" to Sachin. But wait a minute....am I doing exactly what Big B has said we have been doing??? Yes....Sachin doesn't need a "Sir" but rather a "Mahatma" to be added to his name or something of that greater sort. And I have little doubts that if other countries manage to get good batsmen in the future they will be called "Sachin Tendulkar" of their resp. country. And every parent will feel there should be Sachin Tendulkar and in their own home (Marathi people will prolly know what I am talking about) and kids in developed countries will want their parents to call them "Sachin" like we have been calling our Sameers as "Sam". I am proud and obliged to share the same first name as the master and already thank my parents for that.

Salute to you Sachin....asach khelat raha ani jagaala namavat raha....amhi kaayam tujhya paathishi aahot.

Jai Hind....

Finally, an app for Mumbaikars

During my stay in Reading, UK last year, I came across an interesting iphone app. It could tell the user the exact door to get in a particular London Underground tube rail to get out right in-front of the exit, to avoid tourist rush and exit quickly. I am sure lot of research and programming must have gone into it, considering the number of tube lines running in London. But the programmer earned some 3000 bucks on the first day itself, paying a handsome return for the efforts.

And I immediately thought, how useful it would be to have an app which tells about the local train in Mumbai, the time it would leave from a particular station I am at, if it is fast or slow, and if it would stop at a station I wish to go if it is a fast train. Sorry for the confusing lingo, but Mumbaikars will get all of this, am sure. And to be frank, I myself downloaded a coupla ebooks on flash programming to see if I could be the one. Come on, I too have good programming skills.

Anyways, I did manage to get employed with a IT company, but for my structural stuff. But a few days back, my collegue from Mumbai showed me an app called mIndicator which does exactly the same stuff I just talked about. But that's not all, it also has BEST routes and taxi and rick tariff cards. Ya...it is too good to be true. Best part is, you don't need an iphone to use it, because it is a java app, meaning it can be used on any phone with java. And it doesn't need a GPRS connection either, except to check your PNR status or mega-block details. The time table of trains also shows the trains only from the current time onwards and not from the first train in the morning. This is more than a humble little Mumbaikar can ask for. The app is created by Mobond. More details about the app can be found here.

Mobile age is very much here. Looking forward to mobile season tickets and card tickets now....like mobile boarding passes.

The third dimension...

Some days back, I was surfing google maps and found a small window on the right saying "Maps" and I hovered my mouse on it and it slid to expand into "Earth" and "Satellite". To see what the new thing was, I clicked "Earth" and it asked me to download a plugin, which I did. After clicking again, it started loading, but thanks to my home internet, I couldn't achieve the end. So some time I checked back and to my amaze, Google Maps can now be seen in 3D. This is different from the street view feature and I saw Ahmedabad, but was not much excited. So I thot I will see Mumbai (thinking it won't be much different either, knowing the innovations to be implemented in the "major cities of developed countries" first) and I was surprised to see the 3D of the icon of Mumbai's spirit, The Taj Hotel. And then I also checked out my favorite structure of my city, the Bandra Worli Sealink and it was a literal virtual drive.

More easy access to the wrong social elements, I know, but its so amazing to see it. Do check out...

Being here, did it...

Hella fellas...how was your festive season?? I hope you all had lot of fun having sweets and bursting crackers. So did I, though I didn't buy much crackers. But I had lots of fun for sure, starting right after Ganpati festival.

Yes, right after Ganpati, people here in Amdavad were busy with preps for Navratri. Shops and females started getting ready for the long awaited Navratri festival (the festival of 9 nights to put it literally). Traditional gujarati dresses showed up in shops and as per each year, each female had to spend approximately 1000 bucks on clothes and accessories. Ya, accessories are important as much in quantity and price as the actual dresses. And the variety one gets to see here in both is mind boggling (and mind perverting, at times). Party plots all around the city started getting dressed up with stages and food-stalls.

And the festival began and got exciting with each passing day. I went on the first weekend, courtesy our office, but just watched and came back. Basically, I used to go for the disco dandia when in Mumbai during the college days. But here in Amdavad, they only play garba, their traditional dance which is very complicated. Or so I thought at first sight. So we went, saw and came back in an hour. However, on the second (and last) weekend, my colleague offered me passes to a club hosting the garba and they were a group of 10 or so. But I told him I would just watch as I didn't know how to play the garba.

But after going there and seeing the crowd and the atmosphere, I couldn't hold myself. I went into the crowd right away and joined the group. And it was pure fun. I played for an hour or so and could pretty much pick up the steps with the group. Then after a break of about 10-15 mins, a very interesting variety of folk was played. Its called Sanedo. Its a hot favorite among the young crowd and children here and it is sure fun. Have a look...

After this the second round started, but it lasted only for less than an hour. But it was already 1.30 in the night. So then we started leaving for home and to my surprise, my colleague asked me if I wanted to go with them to have fafda and jalebi. Ya, I had the same reaction, but he said that it is a custom here. On the last nite of navratri, people dance till the morning and then go to the sweet shops and eat fafda and jalebi. I, however, didn't feel like eating it at that hour of night, so we left. But while on our way back, the crowd at every road crossing made us change our minds. And we finally bought some of it, went home, ate and slept off.

I had never thought I would be in Gujarat, that too in Amdavad, during navratri, during my college days. But I enjoyed it fully and appreciate the people here for their enthusiasm and appetite. Diwali was more of crackers and rituals comparatively, but still enjoyable. All in all, festival season was great this year and I am waiting for the winter to set in now. And ofcourse, for the Uttarayan in January.

Coooool, isn't it?

Ganpati Bappa Moraya !!

Ten days of His stay in millions of homes and crores of hearts is sadly over. And so we rightfully say "pudhchya varshi laukar yaa" so that He returns quickly next year. Because these ten days are the most waited for. He brings a lot of joy, mental strength, confidence and hope with Him. And this year he has also brought Goddess Lakshmi with him (Sensex touched 20,000 and Nifty touched 6,000 on Tuesday, His day).

But for me, apart from all this, He Himself came to my home this year. Yess, we had Ganpati in our house starting this year, which used to be at my uncle's house till last year. And my happiness had no bounds. I was not part of the preparations at home since I was in Ahmedabad and so could not join our gang to bring Him home the previous night. But when I reached home on the 11th morning and saw Him virajmaan in the makhar, khushi ke aasu started gathering in my eyes. It was like a reward to my intense devotion towards Lord Ganesh and a strong belief in His powers. I pray that He stays with me all along and bless me with such opportunities to serve Him.

So there was the much awaited modak lunch and again my hunger knew no bounds. The next day we had the avartanas as per every year and then bid Him farewell in the evening. It was a very sad moment, but the 1 1/2 days were like bliss. I hope you all too had a good festive season and may want to share with me here; so do add to the comments.

Ganpati Bappa.....Moraya!!!

Life time experience...

It is true that Silence speaks more than words, but not in blogs. And my silent blog has been longing for a post for quite some time now. I have been deciding to write since the day I landed here, about the revisit to memory lane, back to good ol' Cincinnati and the US on the whole. But didn't quite get down to actually doing it till now....when I am just 4 days away from going back to mera India. Laziness is the foremost reason for it, but then what can I do if my apartment doesn't have an internet connection. So, that is the main reason for the silence.

Having decided that, I will keep posting about my trip here when I return, the same way I did when I returned from UK (ya, I know I never completed that too...but there are more reasons for that, anyways). The reason I for my post today is the one amazing experience I had yesterday evening, which most of the people I know have'nt had till now in their life. Wait...don't start imagining things....I am talking about flying. Well, wait again...I know most of you have had that experience more than once, and me too. But did you fly sitting in the cockpit...alongside a pilot....and did you actually try your hands on the control stick??

Yessss... I had the privilege to do all this, all thanks to my colleague here in Alexandria, AKH. He has a license to fly and takes flying hours every year at the Alexandria airport. When he mentioned this to me and my colleague, we were both excited and expressed interest in accompanying him during his flying hours. But he was not able to find time till yesterday to do it. The weather too was good and so he planned to fly and I was to accompany him.

We reached the airport at 3.50 pm, but were in queue due to some delayed flying by previous people. So we had to wait for half an hour and we spent it talking about general flying in US. The line-up of aircrafts infront of us was quite varied from a Cessna 172 to a helicopter. There was one with floats too. And then the aircraft and the moment arrived. We headed for it and AKH started doing initial checks of fuel, oil etc. I got my camera out only to find the batteries fully drained out, which I had anticipated. So I put it back and pulled out my LG KU990 viewty to do the work (I mean my cellphone which has a good 5 mp camera). After filling the oil he asked me to "hop in".

That was an ammmazing feeling to sit infront of the huge instrument panel and wear the headphones. I remembered all the movie scenes I had seen till then, and was so glad to enact one of it. AKH then warned me not to panic if the latch of the window opens...gulp. I made sure its firmly in place a couple of times. He then started explaining me all the different instruments, controls and their use...lot of stuff. He then announced his take-off on the radio and we entered on the runway. He pulled the throttle full and we started speeding. What a feeling that was. And then he gently took-off and that was when I notice there was a huge lake at the end of the runway....gulp again. (Here's the video).



We then started gaining altitude and saw all the nearby lakes, went over our workplace and then started heading towards the tornado hit area near our county. He wanted to see the damage it had done. After looking around for a while, we could see the path of the touchdowns. The oak trees were badly hit and could be seen uprooted and twisted in all directions... here's a picture.




We went as far as Wadena county and then turned around. And AKH told me to take the control stick. I was a bit scared initially but then could fly pretty nicely, since there was not much to it, as he had said. That was one experience of a life time. After about 5 mins, he asked if he could do a landing-take off cycle, and I agreed almost instantly. He showed me the location of his new house and then we landed....pretty neat work he did there and immediately took off for another quick round and came back. It was the most happening hour of my stay in US so far and to remember for my life, all thanks to AKH.

He has promised to go again on Monday, if the weather permits...so hope for the best!!!

Gender Equality

I was catching up on J's blogs and came across this blog about Lords of the ring and thought of bringing up a strong discussion I was having with M on this past hot Sunday morning. It was all about what is expected from a guy and his family after the girl comes to his house. And also that the guy is expected to work whole day and then again help or accompany his wife in the kitchen, even though she is not working full time. If he works whole day and then says "My part is done, I am gonna stretch infront of the TV and relax while the wife will make dinner", its considered the biggest sin done by him. Then I asked M, if the girl is working then can the guy say "You work whole day, I will quit my job and make food for you and enjoy the rest of my time, you be the bread earner of the house?" she said, "no that's not socially correct". Again the same social norms which J talks about.

If gender equality is expected, which btw is only seen prominently in India, then it should really be "Equal"ity. The thing that a girl is allowed to expect whatever she wants and the vice versa is not correct is a wrong thing. But this thing is so much into our minds that when M said that she wished to contribute for the expenses of our first anniversary getaway, I was initially perplexed, since it would not sound "socially" correct. But then she explained that if by her contributing we can enjoy a much better hotel stay and gifts for each other, why not. And after some calm thought, even I felt that was the right way. It was her hard-earned money which she wished to spend for both of us, the same way I wanted to and it was totally correct. And we did have a blast.

So guys, don't give in to each n every demand. Keep in mind, girls want equality and thats what we need to give them ;).

The Interstate travel

Hello all, long time no see. My bad, been busy with job, studies, family and so on. And now, the change in job is keeping me busy in adjusting to the new workplace, city, people and state. Yes, I have taken my new job in Ahmedabad which is making me travel interstate to go back home every weekend for now. But, I am able to find some time now to catch up with my blog which has been in hibernation for the past 4 months.

About the new place, the heat is tremendous and the whole place feels like a giant oven. And baking in this oven are sweet cookie-like people here. Whoever I have met here has been very sweet in every way to make me feel at home, from my colleague to the lady in the BSNL (government) office. And so is the food here. Lots of variety.

But still, home is home, and you do feel like going back every weekend (ofcourse also coz the gharwaali is there). So I might travel by the long distance railway so much in this one month that will almost be equal to what I have done till now. And it is also giving me a flavor of a long distance relationship which had not yet happened in my case, esp. after marriage. So I am getting to experience it all; inter-continental before marriage and inter-state after marriage. And so I really feel sad for the people who have to do this because they have no choice, I mean its ok for a month or so, but more than that...no scope.

Anyways, I atleast found some time to write this one, and will write as long as I am doing inter-state travel. Keep coming back.