R-Rated

I am playing cricket and the body is aching. Real bad. It feels good though. Feel sorry for the families that lost loved ones in the bomb blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad this past week. Terrorism really has no face and it has proven that it can strike without warning. In the Ahmedabad blasts, the terrorists (Indian Mujahideen) did send an email to the Gujarat police at 6:41 pm. The time of the blasts: 6:45 pm. How do you find and diffuse 17 bombs that went off in a crowded city. Whom do you question and how do you prevent creating a chaos. Tough. And India has got to get tougher against faceless atrocities. 53 people dead in Ahmedabad and close to 200 wounded. 18 bombs were diffused in Surat the next day and 3 in Rajasthan. Can't even imagine the panic among the Gujarathi community had the 18 bombs detonated. Good intelligence and thoughtful work by the calm bomb squads. India has got to pull up its socks. The people are willing but the ruling government and opposition have sta...

Watched the Formula 1 German Grand Prix today. A complete race from start to finish. The last time I did that was in 2002. Final year engineering. The races used to be on sunday evenings and the qualifiers on saturday evenings every 2 weeks. I first got hooked onto F1 sometime around 2000-01 much to the agony of my father. I have been a couch potato all my life and F1 just added to my father's misery. I can still imagine him wanting to tell me, "get out of the house and play". I used to play as well. A lot. Just that my body does not reflect that. Years and years of eating rice can attest to that. Once a rice eater, always a rice eater. No wonder you don't see too many tamilians with six-pack abs. The trend is surely changing though. Couple of my cousins (the younger lot) can easily "walk" into a body-building show and a soccer team respectively. I would like to identify myself as Gen-X but these guys are Gen-Y, as in my age-group is "Xpired". You ...

Saw Will Smith's The Pursuit of Happyness tonight. One word only to describe the movie: "Masterpiece". If Taare Zameen Par brought tears to your eyes, this one will flat out make you cry. I cannot believe how Will Smith did not get a Best Actor Oscar for this one. He has acted brilliantly in a very very tough role. An immensely talented actor with fantastic attention to detail. He is right up there with George Clooney as my favorite actors. The movie is based in San Francisco in the year 1981 and it portrays the shit that Chris Gardner (Smith's character) has to go through before finally making it big. This movie shows how you've got to grab opportunities when they don't even knock on your door and make full use of it when they actually do. The whole movie it about how good luck always evades you but still you fight through it just to make it to an unpaid internship the next morning. The scene where Chris lies to his son (played by Will's own son Jaden) a...

Got back from an awesome July 4th weekend in California. Fantastic place and a great time. Nothing can beat that. Silicon Valley is a beauty with almost all big names in technology within a 20-30 mile radius. Google, Oracle, Yahoo, Microsoft, eBay, McAfee, Apple, Stanford University, Abbott, Sun Microsystems, Intel etc and a whole lot more. That place is a haven for technology freaks. No wonder SV is as expensive and in demand as seen on the television. Gas prices are at approximately $4.55 a gallon. Ouch!! Visited San Jose, Palo Alto, Monterey, Sausolito, Mystery Spot and of course, San Francisco. Couldn't help but enjoy the amazing creation that is the Golden Gate Bridge with the notorious Alcatraz prison and the jaw dropping San Francisco downtown in the backdrop. Lombard Street with its almost 90 degree uphill drive and the crooked downhill crawl is a sight to watch and a thing to believe that such wonders do exist. Driving in SFO is not for the weak hearted. Glad to be on the ...

I remember the time in 2004 when I had started my search to land the perfect job in America. I was already working as an intern at Theken, hoping this would be it. 9 long months and 3 departments later, I had that H1B visa with me. A full time employee. Great!!! Not so much. The job scene at that time was crappy at the least with many of my friends and colleagues unlucky enough not to secure even an internship. One unwillingly pursued a PhD, one jumped the boat and turned to software and IT and one just left the US and went back to India. I guess the stars were shining on me that day in May when I got a call from a friend at Theken asking me if I was open to getting an internship. Yes please!! 4 plus years later, I am kind of settled in my role. The ride though has been bumpy. 2008 has not been kind to the job hopefuls. Economy has been in a slump since March and prices (of virtually everything) have sky-rocketed. An uncertain time looms even for those with permanent jobs making it t...

This song gives me the goosebumps and makes me feel proud and patriotic. http://youtube.com/watch?v=BJ399KOoNRA You should feel the same!!

This past weekend there was a major scuffle between 2 Sikh factions in Mulund. One group was allegedly and deservedly pissed off at Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh's bodyguard for killing one of the protesters. The protesters were protesting for the arrest of the sect's chief for dressing up like Guru Gobind Singh at an earlier event. The killing of the protester spilled on to the streets and violence broke out. Once again stuck in the middle was the common man. Shops were vandalized, railway tracks blocked, trains affected and innocent men and women were threatened by sword-brandishing rioters. To add to this mayhem, a Shiv Sena leader has warned that there will be more violence if the Sikh group does not stop this violence. What!!!!!!!! Instead of lessening the pain, Shiv Sena is trying to inflict more. They are angry that innocent Maharashtrian men and women are being targeted and threatened. Shiv Sena is worried about the closure of shops and rail-roko stuff....