Tea Shop...

I like travel , and what makes travel even better is the culinary experience while visiting some place new . Great food , awesome music , romantic ambiance and to spice it up hot waitresses would sum any favourite hangout place /restaurant .All these attractions fade away after numerous visits . I pondered as to what would be that one place that entices me for a visit on every possible opportunity , OR can there be such a place...??

The time I spent in my college teashop , growing out of teenage were most memorable.What fascinates me even more is with no variety in menu , seating of a wooden chair , a tea shop attracts so many people.

A tribute to all tea shops and memories associated.

Life that was...

Life that was ...

Start @ 15
Study Important 4 years of your life 9 10 11 XII
Maths Physics Chem
Entrance Exam , Engineering , Medicine
Tution Coaching Classes
Engineering percentage
Computer Classes
GRE /TOEFL /CAT
Aptitude /G.D /Campus Interviews
IT Job / MS abroad
Software Job /US for a Client project
H1b /Green Card
End @ 25

Wish it was

Start @ 15
Sports , Games
High School romance /Friends
A little bit of studies
School cultural /Dance /Songs
Some College /New city /New friends
Busy doing nothing /Beer and Smokes
Pretty Girl in your bustop /Slacking in the last bench
Travel
College Canteen /tea shop
Cultural/Sports /Love & Breakups
New job /First pay /Gifts for your family
Drink/Dance /party weekend POA
Hiking /Goa /Fenny
end @25

May be "Wish it was " elements were there in my life , I wish they formed the major chunk of it .I guess one always wishes that their past had more fun filled memories . I hope not to write a similar blog 10 years from now .

Have fun , while it lasts...

Beer to Wine...

Time is a healer , time is a killer . As you age , your decisions change .Things you once cherished the most ,doesnot exite you anymore .6 pack that used to be a permanent member of my grocery cart is slowly being replaced by cabs , merolt and blanc .

Is the transition from beer to wine an indication that my life is not exciting any more ?Are choices you make an indication of your present state of life .

Such men rarely exsist.

1. It does not matter how a girl looks , but what goes inside the the look matters.

2.I would have done this even if it was a guy .

3.Once I am committed , I seldom checkout other women .

4.I do not care about the past ,lets look into the future .

5.I would always respect your space.

6. You can still be friends with your ex , that's totally kool with me.


Such men rarely exist , if you are with one of them ...consider yourself lucky.

I am bored ....

"I am bored".There has never been a week that passed during these three years that I have been in the states ("Land of my dreams" the way I referred to it when I landed here )where I did not claim to be bored.

I have the urge to do something always , be it playing some sport , watching movie in a hall ,dining out or traveling .People around me easily guess, that I am really bored ,when I sit down in a place quietly and start reading a book . I have had friends who can sit in their house alone and entertain themselves pondering on something , may be watch some TV , drink beer or read some books.These group of people I just talked about come under the category of calm souls and those people who always want to do something , like me fall in the "restless soul " category .

While talking to a good friend of mine ,a calm soul , she said that people who are bored of themselves constantly seek so called activities of fun .Not able to stand a mockery on myself , I quickly snubbed back with an escape phrase "What ever looser !!"

Are we , the adventure seeking folks , looking to explore the unexplored , bored with ourselves ?

Not So personal

Hey All ,

The posts on my blog are mostly random thoughts and have no inspiration from my current state of life

Thanks
Shiv

Traits !!

Walk up to the counter to purchase a few usual things and when the clerk gives you the credit card receipt ,do not forget to say THANK YOU .Every day in the morning a fellow driver needs to give way , to merge into the crowded lane , always waive your hand to thank him .Donot forget to hold the door for some one who is following you , always smile when you pass somebody , know to you.This is called courtesy.

Never boast your achievement so that the other person might get intimidated . Trying to convince some one that the road to success is just a few steps ahead in the right direction . Motivating others to achieve their goals better. This is modesty.

Apologizing even if you know that its not your mistake just to reduce the tension , with a kin. Not passing rude remarks or comments which can induce laughter to a few but might hurt some one's sentiment .You are considerate and may be modest.

Do you have to be rude to sound confident. Is modesty a sign of weakness?

Heterodoxy!!

Born into a family , culture ,society forces you to accept certain conventions involuntarily .Growing up,you imbibe values which your parents choose for you .A doubter would question how much freedom do I have ? What choices in my life are mine ? Following established traditions ,customs might be easy , but accepting a way of life which is truly not yours may not be a easy choice .

Questioning the established belief , can raise a few eyebrows , but non believers I feel are the need of the day .With the society being plagued by malicious practices , people seeking a rationale for every established rule can help trigger a modern day movement to eradicate the problems which have been shackles to our development .

Stepped out BRB

Hi All ,

I have had major changes in my life and all have been for the good .It will take a while for me to adapt to the new changes and get back to blogging .Till then stay put , I will be back shortly.


Cheers
Shiv

Mind Your words

Just 5 posts away from my 50th I write one , which is loosely based on my blog URL .MIND YOUR WORDS a constant battle that I have fought, with very little success . I have had a history of LOOSE TALK , atleast that's what I consider .I have had many instances where immediately after saying something I wish I hadn't.

I have always believed that LOOSE TALK is associated with extreme emotions , by which I mean we talk a lot when we are angry or in a happy state of mind . WE here belongs to those people who find it difficult to control their emotions , people who speak their heart out . I have had friends , mentors and family members(read it as BRO) whom I have seldom noticed utter something which was more than required , I admire their self composure , but how do they pull it off so well ?? My best pals Ashok and Bala exhibit the same composure , I envy those people because they have to deal with lot less troubles. Words that we speak are the root cause of most trouble.Take note that these composed people are by no means introvert ,they are full of energy , fun loving and great people to be with .

Many a times I have observed that good deeds are overcast by bad words , people who are in the good books of their friends and family members are those who maintain control over the words they speak . As the battle of my mind over the words continue I leave here with a question in my mind "Will I be know for what I said or by what I did ??"

Cell Phone Mani

Cell phone has been an integral part of my social life .My relationship with my Cell went sour when I touched her with with wet hands . For the past few days , volume functionality of my cell phone was repaired, by which I mean the display and other tasks work fine, but I cannot hear anything from the phone nor can I talk into it .

This morning I rushed to the Verizon wireless stores hoping to find a remedy for the illness , my cell phone had contracted .The store keeper checked a few things and said , that the cell phone has liquid damage and that I need to buy a new one for $150 .

This is the famous "Car Kit" Error of LG phones where in the phone assumes that a hands free ear phone has been plugged in and all external volumes are muted .I read user groups for the past two days , stripped the cell phone apart , cleaned the PCB , used a high power duster to remove all dusts , Used a microscope in my lab to see if any lines are shorted , broke into the firmware setting and cleared all firmware errors , channeled all my embedded knowledge , but sadly Nothing worked .


A disappointed me , sitting on my bed at 11 pm not able to talk to my friends unable to pick up calls.Is there any hope or Is this the end of my relationship with my cell phone . The final tip was to fold a aluminum foil and insert it into the slot for the battery charger. I had little faith in this trick , but I wanted to try this as it was my last resort . I ran down to my kitchen picked a strip of aluminum foil made a small piece , big enough to fit the battery charger slot and scrubbed it .To my Great Surprise the volume was enabled again and my Cell phone came alive from 3 days of coma .Tonight I am a happy man , my Life support System is back up .

Moral of the story is , if you in a bad situation in life and feel there is no solution for your problem don't loose heart , type the key words of your problem in GOOGLE and you are sure to find a solution .

A Phase in the Life of an Indian ...Guy - Part 1

There is a phase in life of many ( Not so Hep ) Indian guy's life where

1. Bryan Adams songs makes him romantic .

One would Lip Sync his song and when he screams "In Heaven " the romantic-o-meter's mercury will be at its peak.

2. Chicks flicks are very funny

About Chick Flicks my buddy kartik once said "Only way I could watch a Chick flick is to drop my b&%*ls in a ziplock leave it out side the movie hall and watch the movie peacefully ".

3. You would say nice things to your Guy friends Like

"Man I missed you when you were at home"
"Hey I have been waiting for you so long ?? Where have you been "

4. In a family function's you would find yourself discussing family politics with your aunts and girl cousins.

5. A phase when you would wear a "Capri" aka 3/4th pant and consider yourself kool

6. Where you would go to Gym few days and buy one of those tight sleeve less tshirts to display your muscle.

7. Where the center page of regional magazines was your source of inspiration .

8. Where he would buy Greeting Cards and give it to his Guy Friends on birthdays.


There are many interesting things that an Indian Guy does during his early teen .If you have read the above bullets and if you think you cannot relate to it , be happy for yourself that you were one of those confused wanna be dudes.For those who can relate , you have nothing to be proud of either.

Are you financially Smart ??

I landed my first job last year . I led a cost conscious life in Grad School with a $600 income to pay for rent ,utilities and groceries . A full time job encouraged me to spend more .Few months into my job I was unable to track my expenditure and had huge credit card debts.

When my finance went messy, I had to come up with a strategy to combat my impulsive shopping nature .First of the few things I needed to do was

Track my expenses
Budget
Reduce expenditure one category at a time.

I cancelled all additional credit cards and stuck to one major card for all my expenses bought Microsoft Money and linked my credit card and checking account to it and tracked my monthly expenses . I budgeted all categories of my expenditure and decided to monitor my expenses Vs Budget every month.

This leads us to the first step towards investment.

Rule 1 :Save as much as you spend ( If you earn $3000 a month say $1000 goes towards your Rent + Car loan + Insurance , the remaining 2000$ needs to be split for expenditure and savings $1000 a piece).

2. Aggressively transferring money to a savings account (ING Direct 3.4% APR ) helps you save money.

The next few basic steps for investing are
3. Contribute the amount that your company matches into 401K every year .

4.If your company offers ESPP (Employee Stock Purchase plan ) use the full limit of this plan.

5.Every Investment plan should have a long term goal and a short term goal .Typical Short term goals are Investing money in the order of 5k -10k in mutual funds . Long term goal is to buy a house in 2-3 years with around 15% down payment.

Stocks , Mutual funds are good investments but one needs to collect a lot of data on those before attempting to buy .Investing Bible is a good book to get a heads start.Create a portfolio online and monitor it constantly , try to understand the factors that affect a stock price.

My friend Ashok has a website PROCUE which has lot of information in the finance section.He happens to be the source of all information that I provided in this post.

Lok Paritran (Alas Serious Indeed)...

Lok Paritran party know to all as "Former IITians forming a political party".The party is contesting elections this May .It is looking for candidates to contest.

Any social cause needs finance and support and I hope the Indian diaspora that has been talking , complaining about the state of affairs back home will take steps to donate generously.I have emailed requesting the folks at the helm of affairs to create a Web Based method of sending money, facilitating the IT savy crowd to donate .

Till then spread the word about the party and encourage your folks to VOTE for them .


Jay Hindh

Lok Paritran

Trust , influence ,positive energy , inspiration and belief

Ashok , a good friend of mine handed me a copy of "Wings of Fire "which is Dr APJ Abdul Kalam's autobiography .A man who is admired in the Global Community .One Chapter of the book has inspired me to write this post and I am sure remaining portions of this book will motivate me more .

Every person born into a family acquires its Socio Economical Values , he is taught a few good things by his parents. Teachers mould his thought , make him ready to accept challenges ,and to deal with uncertainties that life has in store .Friends , mentors , elders influence your thinking. After obtaining inspiration from many sources we draft a plan on our own and set to achieve it .Religious feeling aka spirituality which ever way we choose, tends to have an influence to on our thinking too .

I have always performed better when my parents encouraged me , my teachers motivated me and my friends trusted me .I take responsibilities for my actions and thank god for the great things he has done to me in my life , the good friends and mentors who he has sent to guide me .

I believe every one can be a positive influence in some ones life , creating positive energy in others is reciprocative .Let us be the source of inspiration for a few people whom we cross as we travel the journey of life.

Charity Post ( Re Released )

Gandhi rightly said"Be the Change you want the world to be".


The world has been divided into two hemispheres one are the have and the other being
have not .The Indian Crowd settled in America definitely falls under the "have"category. We are a set of people who have crossed oceans leaving the loved ones behind seeking green pastures .We face problems in an alien land.People arrive here with lot of dreams and go through lot of travails to achieve them .

But when each one of you get up in the morning , feed yourself to a bowl of Kellogg and start the ignition of your Toyota corolla parked in a nice apartment or a private home pause , stop and think for a minute .Forget about your problems in life like the Gas prices being high , ever rising real estate market,and your never ending Credit Card dues , you are definitely better than those people in India whose every day meal depend on their daily wage , young children who work in mechanic shops , grocery stores these children who haven't seen the Funskool toys that your kids play with , these children who have never stepped inside a school nor did they have new clothes for diwali when you happily bought clothes for your entire family on a Halloween Sale in Macy's.

Many of us including me have talked hours about the corruption in India , and how Indian Society cannot improve unless we educate the masses, did we do anything about it?? NO!!!.

Every time we travel to India we need do some charity , rather than donating money to an organization , one should identify a cause in his town or his native Village and should spend one week end of his vacation visiting a place and helping the Kids ,family, old people get what they need the most with the money he has assimilated before his journey .Lot of people living in US are short of time , trust me it is very difficult even to think of issues like this with such a busy schedule .

Charity starts at home ,the house maid that works in your parents house could be your stepping stone to charity .You can graciously offer to take the expense of her kids education expenses until the time you can afford , you can visit a Local school where a small amount of slum dwellers manage to send their kids and agree to sponsor one kid from high school to obtain a College Degree .

India is a country with a lot of problems and these problems needs
modern solution .Educating poor Children is the definitely a noble deed .Every Child who is educated illuminates the lives of their family , inspires his friends to strive for success like him .A small deed of charity towards a poor child's education could change many lives.

Madrasi ...!!

"Are Yaar Madrasi log will know English and Hindi but when a north Indian visits chennai they say Hindi Nahi Maloom "."Man no hard feelings but chennai sucks , the auto walahs are real horrible , my GF lives in a flat in Chennai and the house owner says no cooking Non Veg in the entire Complex ..Common dude you must be Kidding imposing rules on what one should do in their own house ".Every place I go with my GF every one gazes me , from an young guy to elderly people ,Whats their problem in life ??".Theese are the some of the stuff my north Indian friends had to say.

I hear a lot of statements like above .But every chennaite is proud of his city his culture and doesn't find a problem Living there .

Is Chennai a city that can sustain cosmopolitan crowd , people from different countries , for the matter non - Tamil speaking Indians .Thinking about it rationally I have my doubts .We are so rich in Culture and heritage ,but is it easy for tourists to travel and visit Tamil Nadu ? may be not.

Being a pivot of Industrial development in the sectors of Automobile and IT , Chennai , the corridor to Tamil Nadu needs a make over .We are proud of what we are, our tradition ,our culture but that should not stop us from being open to changes and development .Starting from the Airport , transport , Roads , Police we need to improve and make life conducive for visitors .We need to remodel the society in such a way that by only speaking English a person can lead a normal life in Tamil Nadu.
We need not change our roots , but we can accept constructive improvements .

Lets Hope that as we step into a new millenium we grow as a society which is corruption free and visitor friendly .

How secular are you ??

Ashoka the great once said "For He who does reverance to his own sect while disparaging the sects of other wholy from attachement to his own sect in reality inflicts, by such conduct , the severest injury on his own sect "

While driving to a Chinese restaurant on a week day I casually asked my colleague "Hey Aleck Whats up for Summer ?".He replied "Oh..I forgot to tell you I would be traveling to India with my Missionary ".It was just these words that triggered the argumentative skills as rightly pointed by Amartya Sen in the book Argumentative Indian.

I don't like the Missionaries coming to India in the pretext of helping the poor but end up influencing them for religious conversion .I had to express this feeling to my good friend Aleck and had to provide suffice reasons for that .Here is what my argument was.

My best buddy for about seven years is Ashok a Christian , my other friend Rimzath is a Muslim .India is a secular country in which we go beyond religious tolerance and follow acceptance.I used to go ashok's house for Christmas and visit Rimzath on ramzaan to wish him "ID Mubarak".We celebrate each others faith .

India has poor people , people who are affected by physical and mental conditions .Helping people in need is "Karma".Associating religion with deeds of kindness is not a good representation of any faith .Providing destitute food , education and care will help India grow , but reasoning that, following a paticular faith has given him prosperity brings the paticular faith no good.I feel that the tribal and poor people do not have the wisdom to make a judgment.Educating them is a positive step in their life but influencing them to make a religious decision is morally incorrect.

We need to like a person for what he is , him being a better person is more important to me than the faith which is making him better .The effect is more important than the cause .India which has to focus on development in various fields doesnot need any hindrance in the form of communal violence.

Youngsters of my age grow up with people of different religion caste and belief .They accept their friends for what they are and try to forget their differences and work towards the betterment of the society .

Religious influence of foreign missionaries disturb the balance of India and affects its peaceful exsistence

Ego

When it comes to relationships many people know and have talked about how to make it work .What I am pondering on a cloudy Sunday afternoon is how to to avoid a bad relationship .What a looser !! He He ..

Many impersonate to impress the newly found love of their life , this might kindle romance and events that follow aftermath , but when the patner discovers your true self things tend to fall apart.After every broken relationship we hear people saying "I did so much for her , I bought her this , I was there for her when she needed me ,without me she could not have become the person she is " ."I was used and abused" is the sad tale of many people who once thought "life is beautiful when your are in love".."Love ke liye Salah Kuch bhi karega ".

Keeping it real , and conveying your true feelings at the right time clears a lot of misunderstandings .Many a times we refuse to break the news out and save it for the the future , though the pill might be hard to chew it is better chewed sooner than later .

Dave Chappel has a funny skit in his episodes about how "Keeping it real can go wrong ". But my call is "Keeping it real is the best way to handle relationships ".Like Russell says "Be a man , do the right thing ".

Patti Sollai Thattade ...(Listen to Your Grandmom )

I saw this video at lunch time today ..burst out laughing
Patti Video
Let me know what you think .