Superstitious??...

India play Australia tomorrow at the Wankhede Stadium. For some reason though its not a match to which I would normally attach great importance, this one however does more than its fair share. I think it has got to do with the fact that it is being played in Mumbai at the Wankhede Stadium….which happens to be among the only two stadiums where I have seen a cricket match…the other being apna Nehru Stadium in Pune….keeping my fingers crossed for India

I am not usually superstitious….as in I don’t belive in things like not venturing out on an Amavasya night, or then things which Ma forbids me to do for superstitious reasons like not cutting nails in the house after sunset and so on ……but when India plays cricket all is thrown out of the window……after all India ka sawal hain yaar….there are lucky positions to sit in…prayers to be said and what not….some things which I have done over the years and experienced…….

There was this game in Bangalore between India and Australia…..and India were down in the dumps and there were not even chasing a large total….sounds very much like our team….so anway…Kumble and Srinath at the crease and they start playing well and soon it looks like we might just snatch victory from the jaws of certain defeat….and I looked around and realized that the moment Dad left the room , India’s fortunes changed……what can I say…..everyone in the house including Ma would not let Dad come out the room he was in…..where I guess he had gone to check if he had received a fax…poor thing he had to sit in the room for the next 30 minutes or so and listen to us shout every time M/s Kumble and Srinath did something awesome….

During the 1996 world cup, India played Pakistan in the quarterfinals …again in Bangalore….when Saeed Anwar and Sohail were punishing the Indian attck, I remember lighting an agarbatti in our ‘ghar’ ka mandir and then in a while a wicket fell and we attributed it to the agarbati….so till the last Pakistani wicket fell I remember along with my friends we kept a vigil to see that there was an agarbatti that there was an agarbatti burning continuously …….

Fast Forward to 2003…India vs. Pakistan at the 2003 World Cup……25-30 of us cramped in one small room at a friends place……once India started batting and Tendulkar displayed the fireworks we all went crazy…and I remember sitting in the same place all through the match and holding the Indian flag in the very same fashion for the full length of the Indian innings…when I took a bathroom break someone else held the flag and India lost the wicket of Tendulkar……and from that moment on no one was allowed to hold the flag other than me….felt good to know everyone there considered me holding onto the flag as good luck……all this while another friend of mine refused to let go of the empty chocolate drink bottle because that’s how he began watching the match…and considering India were playing well, he refused to let go of the empty bottle….

What am I going to do for the match tomorrow…..I think only time will tell…. All the same you can be rest assured that I will do my best to find a winning combination and know that I did my part to help my team win...and when I used to do that my Chacha would tell me.."and to think of Puneri....your team/player has no clue that you are doing something like this....they are just going out there and giving it their best".......who cares....in my mind I know I did what I could and thats what counts.....

Apna boss is very hard to get through to....zillions of people waiting in line to see him and then the phone calls he gets....and to top it off...he works only till 2.00 or at the most 2.30 in the afternoon...but then he comes in anytime between 4.30 and 8.00 in the morning...averaging I'd say 6.15...so thats besides the point...

I went to his office quite a few times this morning to get some things clarified and everytime someone was in his office....finally a while abck I walked up to his office and the same visitor was still sitting thetre...I guess he saw me and told boss that someone had come a couple of times to see him....I'm guessing that he described me too, 'cause in a couple fo minutes apna boss was at my table asking if I wanted to see him......so I followed him back to his office and kept firing off my questions rapidly on the way and while in his office I smilsaid " One last question"...and I rattled off..... while talkin to him I was smiling unknowingly...so when my boss introduced me to the visitor....he looked at me and said .."Seems like you are enjoying your work....its nice to see someone smile when they work and seem all excited about it"....and then my boss praised me a bit....

Wah Wah!!!! nice beginning to the day......

{UPDATE}....4.00 p.m.

A while back I went in to see my boss again ....this was about 2.30 in the afternoon...when I walked out these two women who work in my office started laughing and then I heard one of them say " I told you so".....and the other one says " you seem to have found how everyone functions"....though I did not undertand much, I smiled and walked back to my desk....a while later the 'I told you so' woman comes up to me and says...." I was telling her that when you walk out of boss's office you will have a smile on your face....and thats exactly what happened."........."Hemant you smile a lot around here.....thats a good thing"

Ek hi din me itna kuch....aila!!!!!!

Here's to the year Ahead..*clink*

There are days at work when I feel there is not enough and I actually find myself asking for more….and then suddenly there is a flood of work and it is good fun especially when things are going your way…but lack of sleep can make it realllllyyy tiring….that’s pretty much what it is like right now…….

As I gear up for the weekend I relish the idea of having a chutti for Diwali…..I know its Saturday alright but all the same its Diwali and I am going to be at home….jhakas…..I had planned on going to my Mama’s place close by for lunch on Sunday….he asked me to come over for a Diwali lunch….and was all set to go when I realized that the Diwali show on Capus which I had imagined all this while to be on Saturday is actually on Sunday……and I cant even miss the Diwali show…..what’s a show without a MC????…and how enjoyable can a skit be without the narrator…….yeah so that’s pretty much what my weekend is going to be like…..Call the folks back home …Speak to some friends and in general think about how Diwali would have been had I been back home with the peeps and sit back and then enjoy what I have here…and if it gets a bit tough…there is always some Miller Genuine Draft to numb those thinking cells……

Happy Diwali to you all….Have an awesome weekend and an even more awesome year ahead……Like someone I know once said.."Hence the f*** forth, we shall rock the f*** on!!!”

The weather outside is quite gloomy..or rather was gloomy this morning when I got up…..don’t know what it is like abhi considering I don’t have a window around to find out…….and I must say it took a biiiiig effort to get out of bed…all I wanted to do was sleep in till 10.00 and then make some chai for myself….take a blanket…sit on the porch…..read some of the books that have been purchased but not been read…..call the folks back home and crib a bit….…laugh a bit and in general blabber away…its been a while since I did that…….and its close to Diwali…..so all the more reason to stay at home and relax and enjoy…….in short I wonly wanted to snuggle in and be pampered …doesn’t matter if I am the one who provides the pampering……as long as….

But then the multiple alarms on the cell phone kept ringing and the other alarm went of too….put it on snooze and then it went off again………I took the first step towards facing the day and I slowly dragged myself out of bed…...Reality can be very different from the dream world……It gonna be one long day!!!!!

Excess of Sleep has the following effect
Well now I may have re-invented the wheel but what I reproduce be
low came to my mind last evening on my way back from a very relaxed weekend in Michigan with the best bud.

Baccha No. 1: Mere Baba jidhar kaam karte na voh company itni badi hain , ki tum usko parking lot mein kabhi bhi jana…minimum bees gadi dikhega…..

Baccha No. 2: Arre yeh to kuch nahi!!!!!….Mere babuji jidhar kaam karte , voh company itni badi hain ki, uske parking lot mein at any given time challis gadi dikhega….

Baccha No. 3: Kya bore marte tum dono!!!!…..Arre Apun ka Bapu jidhar kaam karta hain , udhar ke parking lot me kabhi bhi gaya na to kam se kam teen so gadi hoga…..

*Baccha No. 1 and Baccha No. 2 have a look of amazement on their faces….they look upto Baccha No. 3 and ask him…….: Arre lekin tera Bapu karta kya hain???????

Baccha No. 3 : Apna babu Car Dealer ke yaha salesman hain!!!!!!!!!!

Before someone takes my betel-nut I am outta here.....but if you think the above was a good effort do let me know....actually let me know either ways......

Food…..we all have our likes and dislikes

I hate

Cauliflower to the extent that when its being fried in the house I lock myself up to escape the smell or then I leave the house and come back later…I remember mom would warn me advance that Chacha wants fried cauliflower so I better make plans……

Falooda ( that slimy thing which goes into it seems like worms and frog eggs to me)…I don’t mind the rose milk and the ice cream in it.

Sushi (I tried it a couple of times and the only reason I controlled the urge to puke was because I was at my advisors place and the other time I was in front of a very expensive microscope)

Mexican food- well I don’t really hate it actually but as long as it does not have beans in it I can eat it…..I like the rice and the cheesy stuff and the salsa etc….but please no beans….

I have somehow developed an aversion to chole, rajma etc. since I came to Amrika…since its quite easy to make it we would make it quite often initially and now chole and rajma to me are just like an overplayed song…

I don’t like Alu and Bhindi together…Alu needs to be a stand alone sabji…no alu and cabbage or alu and bhindi or for that matter alu and anything……expections being pav bhaji ka bhaji….and the masala dosa ka masala

and the list can continue but i shall stop here....:)

I realize the advantages of having a certified car......thankfully I realized that in good time and I dont pay a dime for the valve that went kaput......work beckons....I look forward to the weekend......the weather seems like its gonna clear up....jhakas.....

I was to update yesterday but then apne computer ka keyboard bighad gaya….so I was without the services of a computer all afternoon. Finally aaj everything is up and running…

Since I have started working…weekends have a new meaning now…though I would love to go and party hard and visit places around Akron and beyond….I find myself thinking only about sleep…..not that I get sleep over the weekend….see what happens is……I still live with my University ka roomies in the same town house that I have been staying in for the last two years…..why not move to something that’s nicer and better in terms of standard of living….well I’d rather have the company of good people around me…..so coming back to my ‘sleep’ talk….I end up sleeping quite late everyday…….usually past midnight or sometimes even later….and I cant function too well when I sleep less than 7 hours….and that’s exactly what happens…..6 hours or lesser of sleep every night…sleep deprived everyday and the deprivation keeps piling up….come weekends……and there are times when I can just about manage to get 8 hours of sleep…..two weeks back I ended up sleeping for a well deserved 13 hours non stop…..and that felt like bliss…its not that I am forced to stay awake every night…..I do end up doing some good TP every night…but then….…I can continue rambling…..yeah yeah !!!! I know I am not the only one who is sleep deprived….most working junta out there ( atleast in my age group ) is sleep deprived……but then what to do….there are times when you want to shout out and vent and believe that your problems ( this is not really a problem) are unique and very big…..and this is one of those times…..

*listen listen listen.......*...........OK...:)

Had a meeting a while back……I was a bit tense this being my first one since I started working…but it turned out to be a piece of cake…..discussed the results we have gotten over the last two weeks……both my bosses are happy…..and the project shall be continued……back at my desk…..writing this…eating ‘gummy bears’….how I love them…actually I like all gummy sweets….gummy bears, gummy worms, gummy rats…..sab chalta hain…as long as they are gummy……these gummy sweets are very similar to the wine gums …try the ones made by Maynard….they are simply the best….and I just cannot resist these wine gums, which unfortunately are not available freely here…..hence the addiction to the gummy bears etc.…….I could eat a half a kilo per day aram se…someone wrote this in praise of Maynard Wine Gums...and there are quite a few stores on yahoo shopping which have them in stock...jhakas....aaj order karna mangta hain.....

I had left some stuff at home this morning when I left in a hurry…..and I needed to work on that today so during my lunch break I went back home……pleasantly surprised to see Nish making some upma….so at little past noon with the sun bright and shining with nice ‘thandi’ hava I sat on the porch and had some nice upma…..bless you Nishant…well perks of having your work place only ten minutes from home…..picchur plans for the evening…mostly it shall be ‘Secondhand Lions’……dekhte hain……Michael Caine, Robert Duvall and Haley Joel Osmont …..seems like a good one….work beckons me…..

Nantar bhetuya

Welcome back Khyati

The weekend has been good for many reasons I must say.......the top three being listed below

-Tim Couch played an awesome game for the Cleveland Browns as they beat the shit out of the Pittsburgh Steelers( our longtime rivals) ......on their home turf

-Yours truly slept like a log over the weekend...like the good ol' grad school days.......14 hours non stop....I think that is a great way to spend a saturday night.....basically the weekend was one long slumber party....with a few waking moments spent in front of the idiot box or in the mall or watching movies or catching up with ol' friends.....

-I got myself car insurance...which means I can take delivery of the car this evening....jhakas........

I woke up sometime saturday night because the room had gotten to hot as one of my roomies had the thermostat on right up there in the high 60's..........damn....just when I was having this nice dream about being in India with all my favorite people....another thing on the wish list....a pause button for these nice dreams just in case I am stirred from my sleep becuase someone can't stand the cold......actaully cant blame people....its my sleeping habits that are wierd...I need the window open for fresh air to come in no matter what the outside temperature is.....and I cant stand the continuous flow of that hot air from the heater.....so usually the heat vent is open only partially......

Thats it for the moment.....back to work.....monday morning and work seems to be piling up already......

Pictures anyone???

The F1 hangover just wont go…..got the pictures developed and I must say I have some sweet pictures of Michael on the podium celebrating his 60th win for Ferrari….I think I need to scan them for the benefit of some public who mite want to see the pictures. This might come across as boasting …but I think I am improving as a photographer……some other pictures I took have also come out well…….and I am quite excited about how the black and white pictures I took at Indy are going to come out…….and I am absolutely in love with the zoom lens I bought (Quantaray 100-300, F 4.5-6.7)……that baby has some zoom on it……the pictures speak for themselves…….

I remember when I was quite a kid ….I was quite the fascinated kind watching what Dad did with this black box (his SLR camera…) in his hands and asking people to smile….and then the flash went off too (I did not know it was called a flash then)…..I was told it is a aaankh band hone vali light……..once I figured out what the camera did I too wanted one of my own….not the ones you get outside the parks but a proper one like Dad……but then I settled for the cover of the SLR camera instead and would hold that in my hand…close one eye and peep through it from some angle and shout “smile” along with Dad……that was my initiation into photography….as time went by I was allowed to take a couple of pictures along with dad after he had set the zoom and the aperture and focused on his subject……and from then on there was no looking back…..soon I figured out for myself what aperture and zoom and film speeds meant…..and I knew then and there that I was hooked….once I came to here to Amrika I knew I had to get my own camera…..and it would be non other than a nice SLR…well I got that (Canon EOS Rebel G) and when I visited India last year I gifted that to Dad….my Photography ‘guru’…and in less than a month after my return I had bought myself another SLR (Canon EOS Rebel 2000) to replace the one I gave dad……..

Though Dad still thinks that most pictures I take are not good….he is interested in portraits and people’ pictures in general…to play with the light and mood and scenery and get that perfect shot….whereas I am more of a landscape fan…...love taking pictures at events…..of nature….night time photography…the only time I like taking pictures of people is when they are not paying attention….those pictures are the best……absolutely natural….…...I have never been fascinated by box cameras…..and the digital ones..….well there are ok… but I think I cannot have the functionality I need within my budget ….to get that i.e. a digital SLR would be way too expensive…maybe in the near future ……..eventually when I am back in India….I just feel happy at the sheer thought of knowing that I will have the zoom lens on the Rebel 2000 and the regular lens on the Rebel G ( ohh…did I mention that I plan to own an array of lenses)….and moving around with both cameras and go on trips…….…..but till then I think I am more than happy with what I have going here …..

Turn it on???

Winter is here…kinda felt that when I had to turn on the heat (sounds a bit naughty) two days back……my cubicle at work is way too cold for my comfort….I need my surroundings to be cool but this is way to cold……I think I should get myself one of those small heaters…..The four of us at home don’t like the heat too much……usually all through winter over the last two years I don’t remember the heat being set above 60 F in the night…..and I think most of the times in all rooms the window is open for air circulation…..kitna bhi thandi rehene do……window will never remain closed……I know this sounds crazy but then …what to do we are like this wonly…..