The Kite Runner

After 3 months of grueling office/home/doctor visits/weekend shoppings, I finally got some time to jolt something.

We had been to watch this kannada movie in a theatre. I really dont remember which was the last kannada movie I watched in a theatre! Am sure its more than 7 years as I remember we had bunked office and went to some kannada movie next to our office in yeshwantpur. Dont remember the name, but it was fun :)

Anyways, we went to this movie GaaLipaTa. I went to zero expectations and my wife, having watched Ganesh's MugaruMaLe went with great expectations. First, some positive points. The location, Mugilu-Pete is fantastic as was with MungaruMaLe. Couple of songs are good. Minchaagi Neenu Baralu has wonderful lyrics and Thadeem Dheem Thana has superb choreography. Rangayana Raghu's (Ganesh's Dad in the movie) acting is commendable. His dialog delivery and the way he carries himself as MLA from Mandya is too good. Last but not the least, Daisy Bopanna's debut performance is appreciable.

Now, the real stuff - The over-all story is a complete give-away. 3 guys meet 3 girls and the rest of the story is anybody's guess. Ganesh's dialogs were kind of funny in the beginning, but became so boring, monotonous and irritating in the later half. It was like someone in the next row, giving his 'expert comments' and 'PJs' while you are watching a movie. Even though, the movie is about 3 love stories, Ganesh is present is almost all the scenes with his PJs. The whole movie revolves around him and his dialogs. The 'big-pig' plot in the movie was just to fill up time and more-over to prove that our hero can do miracles. Ganesh's parents coming over to convince the girl was totally useless. I'm not sure what message did Mr. Bhat wanted to convey from that scene. Finally, the climax scene, both of them falling off the Theppa and then Ganesh saving the girl was really stupid. On a lighter note, how would they come back from that tip of the falls? :)

Mr. Bhat is damn lucky to pull this one off and make it a super-hit. Either because we had brunch before this evening show or because we sat through this complete movie, we both had severe headache coming out of this movie. All I can say is - Ee movie nOdidmEle TaLeNovu barDe irRuTenRee??

Gift from a Stranger!

Just after a week of travelling by public transport, I noticed a very strange thing here. I was able to see exactly the same faces with their typical routine behavior (having cofe, reading newspaper, on phone, chatting with another friend) at the exact same time and exact same car (thats what its called here for a train bogie) or bus.

Even while I was wondering why? within a couple of weeks, I was one among them - The TYPICAL ME came into being. Taking the exact same local train/bus, then cofe on train and then either msging or talking on phone :)

Almost 2 months on this routine, I obviously had lots of familiar faces on these trains and buses. I purposefully avoided talking to anyone due to obvious reasons. But, there was this early-40's gentleman who always used to smile at me when he was boarding the local train and used say "bye, have a nice day' when alighting. I couldn't avoid that and even I used to say Hi/Bye unwillingly. Finally, one day, he opened up and started talking and shared his name, work etc and so did I. Felt a bit odd, but it was alright. After that day, my greetings were genuine.

It was holiday mood everywhere, all shops/lightings have turned red and the last day of work before holidays, he boarded the train with a huge bag of gifts and then ta-da, he gives me a gift!! a Wine bottle, nicely wrapped and a small note too!! I was perplexed. Didnt know how to react... I was like..":D thanks" thats it! I didn't even start a conversation. Donno what held me back. After he got down, I was like.. I could have atleast wished him happy holidays or atleast Thank you, Sorry I didnt get you anything.. So, my next task was to return a gift to him. I had noticed that he used to have a novel in his hand every day. As soon as I reached office, clicked on amazon.com and ordered this book - Surely, you are joking Mr. Feynman. Well, that was my best choice of the 2 books I have read till now. The other one was Love Story by Eric Segal. I was desperately waiting for the book to arrive, coz i had to confront him everyday without a retun gift. I had to extend my days in the train just to gift this to him. At last the book arrived & I gifted him with a sigh of releif in my mind & a smile on my face :)

That was my last day in the Public Trasport :(

After this incident, I kind of felt good, but , kept pondering about
Number One......Why did he gift me???

Number two.......What do I do with the wine bottle??? :)

Life takes a full circle

Finally!, found time for myself to scribble down whatz happening at my end...

Last couple months have being quite an experience!! As soon as I landed here, I had a list of things I needed to settle down. Thanks to my wonderful friends, I didn't have to worry about anything - where to stay, what to eat, how to go here and there etc., all these basic stuff were taken care of. I'm so lucky!

First and foremost, I had to find a job. Its good to attend interviews after six years! But its totally different to attend interviews without a job in hand. The interviews here are very different than in Bangalore. First, it will be a phone screen, the hiring manager will call to check what you are doing and if you really suit the profile they are looking for. If you clear that, then, it will be an onsite interview. Usually, it will be 4 or 5 people talking to you 1-1 for 45/60 mins duration each! Its really drilling. Most of them ask you to write C programs on board and of course, none of the programs are straight forward. And some of the questions are like discussions, they just want to know how you approach the solution. Learnt a lot of new stuff while interacting with people here [including C and UNIX ;)] Finally, some of the interviews which I thought I did well, didn't go through and some of them which I thought I wasn't so impressive, did go through! :)

Even though I had a full-time offer, I had to work for contract for few months becoz of some visa logistics.. the contract job I landed up was in SFO! I remember the first day I had to go to SFO for the interview, I was so excited and nervous. Just becoz I wasnt used to seeing many people at a same place :) and of course the stories I have heard about the city and the main thing was about using public transport. This was the first time I was going to use the public transport, I was bit skeptical. Things went on well and I got used to public transport and travel to SFO daily. As days went by, I started liking to work in the City. 2 months and I was completely comfortable with traveling to City for work. One day, I had to return the rental car, so drove to SFO airport, dropped the car, took the bart to office, coming back, bus to caltrain station, then train to mountain view and then light rail from mountain view to santa clara and then finally walk from light rail station to home!! This was the day, I had to use ALL modes of transport available to go to work and come back home and I was thinking, I could easily be on any travel channel doing the 'Ways to travel in bay area!' :)

Overall, its been a roller-coaster ride starting from scratch all over again! Well, now comes the question of why all this roller-coaster ride itself? Is it really worth to come all the way out on unknown land, leaving all the friends and family out there? and Is it ever possible to come back home after say 2-3 years and settle down? There are many aspects as one could think of: career opprotunities, having time for self and ofcourse 'making hay when sun shines'. Even though, I had all these on my list too, but what I like about this place is the quality of life and the system. The best thing I like about this place is ROADS and everyone following rules (well, almost!) Ask any Bangalorean, how important is it to have nice roads and public transport and most important the time spent on travel for day-to-day activities. Here, Travel made simple is all I can say! I used to reach home (around 70 kms) in 1.5 hrs even while using public transport! You can just take your car out on any time of the day(or night) and drive to wherever you want. There are thousands of wonderful places here to see (I agree that there are equal or more number of places to see back at homeland, but how accesible and practical are those? Can you imagine going to Shimla/Kulu and coming back over a long weekend?)

The system teaches you so many things, you are on your own and HAVE to do every little thing yourself starting from making a coffee to assembling your cot. To have a easy and smooth run in this country, just follow the system, how-much-ever dumb it is. To sum it up, this place is a Beauty without Life or Body without soul!

Makes me feel good...

Just browsing thro' old mails and look what I found...

A list of what my team thinks of me, on the day I completed 5 years @ HP!!

• For he's a jolly good fellow, for he's a jolly good fellow For he's a jolly good fellow (pause), and so say all of us And so say all of us, and so say all of us
• Obsessed with Calvin & Hobbes. He used to love Susie too, but then he got married. :)
• The best person to team up with if you have a Prank in mind.
• He is very particular about the fashionable clothes and designer hair styles.
• Loves cars and a die hard foodie. Nobody gets more excited when you mention a new car or a new restaurant in town. :)
• The irony to the above is how much he loves to drive his family around.
• Life of the party, he is someone who is missed when not present on special occasions, be it a team lunch or a colleague's wedding.
• Techno-freak and Bhavani Bangle Store is where he shops - EVERY WEEKEND.
• Gregarious is the word, having captured the hearts of Bangaloreans, he is poised to capture the world.
• Team eagerly awaits the trivia every Tuesday rather than in his weekly report and promptly deletes his WSR reminder emails.
• Disappointment and jealousy was evident on the faces of SNIL women the day he announced his engagement with Lakshmi.
• Metro-sexual male even up to the point where women consult him for beauty tips.
• As the patent coordinator for the team he asks for new patents/idea every day, and in this front he leads by example.
• He is trendy, at the same time conservative. This makes him understand a wide variety of people and get into everyone's good books.

Definitely makes me feel good!! any time, any day :)

Moaning meme

I got tagged... by Anu

5 people who will be annoyed you tagged them

- Ashwin
- Deepti
- Chetan
- Pavan
- Rohini

4 things that should go into room 101 and be removed from the face of the earth

- people who lack driving/road sense
- people who break the Queues
- people who stare unnecessarily
- corrupt politicians/officials

3 Things people do that make you want to shake them violently

- who jump traffic signals and who dont give way to ambulances
- slow autoricksaw drivers
- who duck their neck out of a car window to spit!

2 things you find yourself moaning about

- I have to be pushed everytime to do anything other than the normal routine
- I am neglecting my yoga and not doing anything about it

1 thing the above answers tell you about yourself

I got be more self-disciplined and take up more responsibility to change things within me and outside.

RULES OF THE MOANING MEME
- Link to the original meme at freelancecynic.com so people know what it’s all about!
- Be as honest as possible. This is about letting people get to know the real you!
- Try not to insult anyone - unless they really deserve it or are very, very ugly!
- Post these rules at the end of every meme!

newwwwwwwww campussssssssss

Finally! after 8 months of waiting.. we have shifted to the brand new campus!!!

The most dreaded bus journey was awaiting me this monday morning.... Alarm was at 5:30.. but woke up at 6.. couldnt afford to sleep for another 10 mins too :( Got ready and started the walk.. One good thing about the shift to new campus is that the nearest pickup point is 1km away from my home.. and either I need to walk or ask wifey to drop me or take a rik.. I picked the first option.. to WALK! that too the steep road and with a heavy laptop!

The bus came exactly on time and thanks the driver didnt know the route... We reached Old madras road in a quick 50 mins.. then the most welcoming traffic jam near krpuram railway bridge and all upto the flyover which takes to marathalli ring road.. we were literally moving at snail's pace and it took 40 mins to cover that 1/2 km stretch! Imagine, first day to the new campus and the traffice welcomes you like this...I thot this might be the one-off case, lets see tomorrow... And rightfully the next day was smooth without any jams anywhere and reached office at 8:10 AM!! I was wondering what will i do so early in the morning in office! I just remembered the good old days i slept till 8:30 and quickly get ready and zooom in my Baleno to office and reach by 10 or so... Gone are those days :(

Now, the campus.. Its HUGE! its some 12 acres of land.. an old factory lended way to HP! the building is huge, lawn is huge, cafetaria is huge with large lcd Tvs at each corner, parking lot is huge (of course u dont need it now), a full-fledged cofe day with sofas and chairs, large pantry with chairs in each floor, glittering toilets, amphi-theatre and a food world and yet to come are the gym, yoga room, lawn tennis etc... and ofcourse.. people.. loads of them.. i have never worked in a building more than 200 people in my entire professional career.. now there are almsot 2000 people! and 9 out of 10 people you see are strangers! never seen them before! damn! Where am I? I'm lost!

I do not know how long I can take this... I guess its time for change! OR get used to these red fancy carpets on the floor in the new building and this horrible smell of new furniture... and of course waking up at 5:30 and bangalore darshan everday :)

Whattae Race!!!

Last weekend was one of the best races of this season. Yes! , its just because Ferrari won the race and the strategy and drivers working really hard to get on top! :)

For me, this was the only race which reminded me of Schumi... Both kimi and Massa showed a stint of what Schumi would've done if he was in that position...

Kimi, starting from 2nd kept on pushing and he did so well that he could easily overtake Hami in the first pit stops.. and for the second time around.. he pushed so hard before he pitted that he almost ran till the last drop of the fuel. This is exactly what Schumi would've done.. or rather Ferrari/Schumi teaming would've done. I'm so glad that Ferrari strategy and kimi driving is all coming into place to take on the competition.

For Massa , with the bad luck of the ferrari getting stalled at the beginning of the race and had to start from back of the grid.. Again, what Ferrari/Schumi would've done? Switch to one pit stop startegy and keep pushing.. the way he overtook the slow and compartively fast cars was really good... he could make up 8 positions within 10 laps of the race... May be if Schumi was in place of Massa.. we would've seen him on the podium inspite of starting from the back! ;)

Nevertheless, its not going to be a cakewalk for McLaren, 8 more races to go and I'm sure 25 points is not a unbeatable gap!