Trees and garbage

How much more pusillanimous we humans can get? We buy a piece of land and make a concrete out of every square inch of it. If our neighbours have a tree and it crosses over into our home, we give reasons like "Oh, the leaves of your neem tree adds up to a lot of garbage inside our compound! In addition it may grow bigger and its roots may or may not destroy the flimsy compound wall. So why don't you cut down your neem tree and we can all live in peace?". And then in an unrelated instant we all wonder why summer temperature is consistently beating 30 or 40 year records for that month.

I say, nature has been bloody kind to us. I say just roast our butts off in one go and get it over with. After all we have been asking for it. It is good for the rest of the world. At least all humans will in one burning moment realize that trees add up more to our useless and selfish life than just "garbage"

Azlan Shah cup

IPL has put T20 cricket in my living room for way too long. The current T20 world cup seems really boring no matter who plays who and close the match goes. Win or loss, I now want to see an Indian Team doing something other than play cricket and the next best thing we are good at is Hockey! I really wish they relayed Azlan Shah Cup Hockey Tournament.

Its my wife!

Sriramya (my wife) is a package of mysterious talents. She has learnt vocal carnatic music and has classical dancing. This is in part passed down from her parents. But she apparently has an eye for photography too as the picture above shows.

This morning she took bath and was all set to start cooking, when she suddenly dashed out of the kitchen and grabbed my phone as I was playing with it (when I was supposed to work). I thought she was playing my mom and was expecting a glare from her that said "You are supposed to be working now!" But she went straight into the kitchen without meeting my eyes. Not knowing if I should catch a utensil or dodge a knife that flies from kitchen, I pretended to start working keeping one eye at the kitchen. But she came out, and showed me this picture.

At first, I thought it was one of those default pictures that came along with the phone when you purchase it and said "That's good, but why are you showing it to me now?". She tightened her jaws and uttered "I TOOK IT". She lead me down to the kitchen and took a picture of a portion of the newly cleaned kitchen sink! Sure is an awesome piece of work! After all, its my wife :)

Things I hate about IPL

• For a three-and-a-half hour match, there is a one hour of pre-match discussion, interviews of players, bollywood starlets and others who you can't recognize just makes for such a boring experience before the excitement starts
• When the ball hit through the air and crosses the boundary line ts not a sixer anymore. It is a bloody "DLF maximum". If it is caught, its not a great catch, its a dumb "Carbon Kamal catch". Come on. These are great moments of cricket. Don't spoil it with such stupid aliases!
• Mandira Bedi. I am all for glamor provided there is substance. But what is this lady doing in the studios pretending to be an expert? I mean, I am ok if she is the one who is asking questions. But sitting along Arun Lal, Sidhu and Anjum Chopra discussing cricket seems to me as an insult to the intellect of cricket lovers.
• A month full of cricket, no matter how short each match is, takes the excitement out of cricket. After all, the idea behind in coming up with T20 is to reduce the boredom of the traditional one-day or test cricket. Now it appears we have just moved from boredom to overdose.

Expats for India

I had a chance to meet a number of second generation US-resident Indians over the last year. I am very much amazed by their conviction to make a positive change in the Indian society. I have spent a few years in the US and my life there - which distinctively showed the difference in quality of life between the two worlds - is the primary reason for my interest in social causes in India. So, I could clearly relate to a first generation Indian working from his adopted home, or a returnee (like me) working for India's development.

During my days in the US, I have met a few second generation Indians who either didn't feel strongly for their country of origin or at times were even embarrassed about their Indian identity. A few were involved enough to follow cricket matches and felt strongly about an Indian win or a loss. But given that a majority of the resident Indians themselves don't bother about acting for a social change, and a few even embarrassed to be Indian, there is no fairness in judging the sentiments of NRIs.

But here, I am talking about second generation Indians, who are born in the luxury of a developed nation and really need not have sentimental attachment to a country in which their parents were born and probably spent their first 20 years of life there. One of those I have talked about, has changed career path to a less paying social enterprise from a better paying business enterprise (in the US). The other one went one step ahead and chose to move to India (where there are no immediate relatives) to work on educational development. This is just to mention a few.

Honestly, I don't know how the initiatives of these people will turn out to be on the ground. Some may hit the bulls eye, while some may be totally impractical. But I am really amazed to find how they are inspired so much by the idea of a well developed community, when development is something that they are already born into.

Hats off!

Met an old friend!

I invited TR Deepa, an old friend from school, her husband and her cute son Shashank home. She had been here in Hyderabad since 2003 and me since 2005, but haven't met up till last saturday. Had food at a nearby restaurant. It was a lot of fun meeting her with her family. Her son is an active young man and am sure is going to attract a lot of girls when he grows up (if he already doesn't! :D). Such a smart looking fellow. But for some reason, I found that he is fond of Mehendi! :)

Had a lot of fun trying to recall what we used to do during school and exchanged knowledge about what Xth-friends are doing currently. Special thanks to Girija, another school-time friend of mine, who sent X-std class pictures. We went over it once again. My wife especially laughed @ how I looked then.

Meeting with old friends sure is a lot of fun. Especially when they have toddlers! Not every thing is so happy though.There is one that I still can't digest. Deepa is still taller than me! :(

The lame Australian advice

I hear from The Hindu that Australia has advised India not to fuel "hysteria" after India reacted angrily over the murder of a student of Indian origin. They have also thrown some light about how big cities work. Precisely this is what was said (as quoted from The Hindu)

“In big cities around the world we do see acts of violence from time to time; that happens in Melbourne, it happens in Mumbai, it happens in New York, it happens in London,”

I don't want to bore anybody going over the details of how many Indians are dead and for how many days this has been happening. The last thing I expect from a government that has fallen flat in protecting citizens of a foreign soil is advice and that too one as lame as "It happens". I would rather be happy with an official apology and a promise to act quickly and decisively to stop such violence.

The Indian side need to take some lessons too. I remember the time when a British teenager was killed in Goa and our self-loathing mentality was so well exploited by the famously careless Indian private media by putting her mother in the spotlight for such a long time. I would say that the one off death of a foreign national in India can be a better case to be dropped in the "It happens" category and move on for more nationally important stories.

Five point 2009

A friend of mine had summed up story in 2009 in just five lines! I liked that. So I thought I will draw inspiration (a better word than copying!) out of his work

1. Awesome wedding at Srirangam
2. Relaxing malaysian Honeymoon
3. Boring return to bachelorhood (for practical purposes)
4. Sustained work on education!
5. Bad job with blogging!

Obituary: YSR

It has been sometime since I have blogged in this site. But now is a good time to restart the discussion OverTea. After about a day's mystery finally we know that CM of Andhra Pradesh YSR has died in the chopper crash.

After he had taken over from Chandrababu Naidu as CM, a visionary credited to have ushered in an IT revolution in Hyderabad, YSR had done well not to root out the best of reforms the former CM brought in.

For example, the Velugu project to eliminate poverty renamed a Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) in YSR regime did very well to imrprove the rural poor's quality of life. The same example also points that he seems to have learnt from ostensible mistakes of Naidu too. Often Naidu election debacle after 9 years of rule was attributed to his "one-sided focus on the cities" and ignoring the poor. While the claim is arguable, YSR seems to have maintained the urban-rural development balance well. His own initiatives like Arogyashree (health care) and Indiramma housing programme seems to have been received well by the public.

In my own personal experience during my last 5 years of residence in Hyderabad, I find the municipality of Hyderabad as less corrupt and more proactive than any other municipalities I have found. So, all said and done, as a CM YSR did well, and Andhra Pradesh and the country at large is at a minor loss at his untimely death. May his soul rest in peace and hope his replacement is at least as good as he was.

Before the mottai

Now this one is before the tonsure!

Her first, my second

Shradda, my neice her first tonsure today on account nd her first birthday here at Kumbakonam. About two years ago, we came to the same place to do the same thing for shashank! I held the child during the tonsure on both the occasions. So its the second time for me! :)

HOUSE!

Its a house. At least tree to be. Now this is where my nephew's first birthday is going to be celebrated! Now its a function hall!

Kumbakonam!

Back to the place it all began! Kumbakonam! Its my native!

Life of late...

I have been blogging for ThinkChange-India for a while now and my role in NGOpost has changed from that of contributing to more of monitoring and quality maintainance. I don't know if I blame only this, but for some reason or the other, I have been forced to betray my own personal blogs.

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One of the most worrying developments after wedding is developments in my stomach! No am not pregrent! :0) But I have put on about 5Kg, thanks to all the relatives who invited home the new couple for a feast. Now, I feel like a model - constantly uncomfortable and worried about body shape that is. I have started biking, doing surya namaskaram and finding opportunities to walk! Lets see if they make any difference at all!

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The last week of July was harrwing to say the least. My passport was up for renewal and I had an official visit to the US scheduled during the last week. I caught the potential problem early enough and applied for the renewal through the "expedited" scheme (locally called "tatkal"). But the passport despatch was lethargic. There was a small clarification required for which the intimation was typed 3 days after the supposed despatch date, posted 2 days later and reached my about a week within my travel date. By then I had paid a visit to the passport office twice and sorted out the issue. But that didn't help. There was unexplained delay, with no tell-tale signs of a need to for bribe. Finally I got the passport - the unknown reason for delay resovled for unknown reason - exactly a day after my scheduled date of travel. - Jai hind!

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Six-months after wedding, life is slowly settling down with Sriramya (my wife) finally getting an internal transfer to Hyderabad. But the current rented apartment - though judged by my friends as better than normal for the rent I pay - sucks big time! Today's rain brought a lot of water seeping right through the walls in the hallway. If it seeps through the wall within my apartment, it is well worth considering a resettlement, no matter how horrible the transition!

Together forever!

Finally one snap wher both of up look normal

Sleep july 25!

The sight of sun setting is one of the few things that make travel by train memorable!

Places in TN and its specialities

A few months ago, I have been travelling from Karaikkudi, a place in Tamil Nadu and my wife's native to Rameshwaram, via quite a few places that were familiar. Familiar not because I just knew about them, but because they were always associated with something special. So tightly associated that just mentioning the name of the places without following them up with the speicality made it sound incomplete. For example, just saying Kaangeyam, without mentioning "kaalai" (Bull) made me feel as if I am leaving something incomplete. Simiarly, Thiribuvanam "pattu" (silk) and silk brought to my mind the famous Kacheepuram.... then a series of other names and specialities! Then I began to wonder how far can one go with this. So, I sent an email to friends from Tamil Nadu and at the time of writing this blog post, the list is 35 entries long and it is at http://bit.ly/eSx3U. If you are familiar of a place in Tamil Nadu which is traditionally known for a speciality and if this list doesn't have it, go ahead and add a feather to TN's cap. But no cynical or comical entries please! I love them too, but lets create another list for that! :)

Gulmohar at Karaikudi

This Gulmohar now fully blossomed, is planted by Sriramya in front of her home when she was a child. Five of her friends decided about planting a tree and now each of their homes has such a bright tree. :)

Fool or trouble seeker?

This evening I leave chennai with profound distaste. A few times now I have been ripped off by the tricky auto walas, in chennai or elsewhere. This time i thought of standing my ground. But that gave me a day full of bad mood, in addition to the official branding that I am short tempered. Now I wonder if feeling foolish gives less of a distaste than being called an immature trouble-seeker by my own loved ones. Either way I have decided to stay away from those criminals who take the city hostage with their three wheelers even if it means walking a couple of kilometers or missing a train. But I wonder how long that would last or if that would remove the tag I have on my forehead. But if thats the only way to keep myself at peace amidst these goons, I suppose its worth the try.

Passport to passport

Standing at the queue at passport office for reissue of passport I realize how the gandhi capped freedom fighters would have felt during dhandi march. Waiting in line to face the inevitable blow. The checking officers here are no less arrogant than the british imperial police. :)