The BIG Transitions

Hi Everyone!

I had promised to myself that I will not start my blog with the line "I am back"...I realized that my last 2 postings started off with that line...so I will not start by saying that I am back in Lincolnshire, and back in my favourite Staybridge Suites...

On the long flight over, I was thinking how the world is poised and watching and praying for a few Big transitions to happen...
The first transition that we are watching is Obama replacing Bush in the White House. I landed in the US on the 10th Nov, the day Obama went to meet Bush in the White house and he was shown around the place.. what a peaceful way of transitioning of power. Everyone I have been spoken to in the US, is very hopeful that Obama will be able to pull US out of the economic downturn and transition the country into a much better place. So come 20th January'2009 , when Obama walks into the white house as the president, we will be watching one of the most historic transitions in our lifetime.

The second transition that I am sure all of us are praying for is the disappearance of the tough economic times and a time where "we all live happily". Depending on whom you speak to, and which financial newspaper you read, the prediction seems to be anywhere between 18-24 months before we will see better times. I feel that as we transition out of these tough times.. we will be all left with a few lessons on how to plan our investments and savings in the future.

The third transition that all cricketing experts in India (and all Indians are cricketing experts!!) are watching is the transition of "old" men of the team..Kumble and Sourav gone, Dravid and Laxman not far off .. And Dhoni the new captain transitioning into the hot seat. If I could steal a line here- "yeah dil maange more" !!!

There are quite a few transitions happening in my personal life- my wife is transitioning into a new job; we are transitioning into our new house- where we go every weekend (everyone is welcome to drop by and have a drink); and I am trying to transition into a musical guru by learning how to play an ipod (teachers are welcome as I am still struggling).

I would like to thank everyone who comes to my blog. Please keep coming back and leaving your comments.

Bye and Take care.

Ramen

Karzzz-myth or reality.

I am back...back on the blog after quite sometime... first I was feeling too lazy to write and then I hit a writer's block :).

By the way..what a crazy October it has been . It was started off with the Durga Puja ..something that all , us Bengalis, look forward to . New clothes , festivities and merry making but instead - on the first day of the Puja ( Sasthi) - Tatas announced the pull out of the Nano plant from Bengal... and if that was not enough, on the Asthami day Sourav Ganguli announced his retirement. WOW!! enough for a staunch bengali like me to boycott the Pujas :( .

While all this was going on the economy is on its own free fall. And everyone seems to have an opinion about it ..but no one seems to know what to do . Today morning ,I was with my doctor and we spent almost 45 mins talking about the world economy and the india share market and how his patients have dwindled over the last 10 days . Evening I went to buy chicken and realised that the prices have gone up. Gullu, the guy at the shop, started speaking to me about the Indian economy and explained that the reason of increase in price is due to the "domino effect"- Gullu is a vegetarian and since he has to pay more for his vegetables, I will have to pay more for the chicken...how very sad..... So to cheer myself up, I drove down to Barista hoping that watching the hustle and bustle of the coffee shop will brighten me up. How wrong I was ..there were only 3 people in the shop , only 3 on a Saturday evening!!! when otherwise there is no place to sit , everyone sitting quietly , drinking coffee and watching NDTV Profit on TV.... (I have never seen this channel playing in any Barista before... normally i have seen Channel V or MTV or sports channel playing)... and everyone was busy watching how the sensex has fallen from 20,000+ to below 10000 and too on a day that Sourav Ganguli scored a century and Australia lost 4 wickets on a very paltry score and no one was watching cricket!!! Sitting there I was reminded of a Thomas Hood poem that I read long time back-

"I saw old Autumn in the misty morn,

Stand, shawdowless like Silence,listening

to Silence"

BUT I am an ever optimist , so I am sure we will be out of this economic downturn soon.... and I am sure that all this noise of debt is just a new Bollywood gimmick of promoting its new movie Karzzzz (Sorry Himesh, not sure how many zzzs you have put in there...wish you had called it KaRsss or Kar$$$$).

Bye for now..as I go back to watching CNBC ..

Ramen

Lessons of growing up !!!

Hi Everyone!

I am back home at last !!! after 54 days of travelling ..wonder how our cricketers manage been on the roads for so many days in the year. And the last few days has been " lazyly busy"....lazy because I did not have to cook dinner and could have ghar ka khana.. and busy because I am back with a frenzy in getting our house ready- need to move into our new house soon. More to come about our new house and my interior designer, Amit,..that should be a separate blog posting!!!

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been surprised how many times I went down memory lane- thinking about my childhood days and my parents. And then I read a blog posting of one of my friends (http://www.unnmukhtgagan.blogspot.com/) about her mom, and it stirred more thoughts...and made me get up in the middle of the night and log on.....

My parents were AWESOME!!! , (I am sure that all parents are ), and as I look back, I think that each day was a special day in my life. My mom was a school teacher, she taught for around 25 years of her life, and my dad was a businessman, for whom family was a priority over his business, and together they taught me the greatest lessons of my life-

1. "Keep smiling" my dad used to tell me. Smile will help you go the extra mile with people and relationships.
2. My mother used to tell me - "Son, the only thing that you can do well everyday is learn something new". So here I am still trying to learn something new everyday.
3. My father used to tell me " Your money is her money, her money is her money and then only there will be harmony "- a successful mantra for a successful marriage :).
4. My parents taught me that there is no problem in this world that does not have a solution. "Keep trying and you will find a solution to your problems. Dont give up".
5. "Do to others what you want others to do to you, respect people the way you want them to respect you and try not to hurt people as you go along your journey of life"- was one of the biggest lessons of my life.

Surprisingly both of them passed away on the 15th - my mom on the 15th of March'91 and my dad on 15th of Jan'04. I was with my mom, when she passed away, holding her hand..thinking that she held me in her arms when I came into this world and here I was holding her hand while she leaves the world,without me been able to do anything !! My dad passed away while I was desparately trying to drive through the heavy Delhi traffic trying to get to him before God reached him, and as always God won!! Both of them suffered a lot during their last few days but they were always smiling and in reasonably good spirits.

I cherish all the good times that I had with them and their fond memories and the lessons make each day much more brighter and exciting to live. I know they are watching me from somewhere and saying "keep smiling son" :) .

Its great to back in Delhi and.... its all FUN ...fun to be back home, fun to see my wife smile at my silly jokes, fun to speak in my own version of grammatically wrong hindi, fun to be back with a couple of more inches around my waist and fun to be driving on the left side of the road and honking to my heart's content...its all real FUN...

Keep having fun...

Ramen

Beer, Boredom and Blabber.......

Hi!

Today is my 36th day in Lincolnshire...and boy am I bored!!! I keep saying that over the last 4 years I have spent more nights in Lincolnshire than I have spent at home !! and it is a fact.

How do I know that i am bored ?? Well I know the song that the bird sings every morning outside my window..I know the tune. I stop getting sales call from credit card companies on my India mobile and miss that Haryanvi Hinglish sales pitch and I know that I am bored. Boredom is when I wake up on weekends and miss my wife's "honey do list" something that I run away from when I am home . I know that I am bored, when the only pastime that I look forward to is washing and ironing clothes.And defenitely know I am bored when I enjoy my Budweiser more than I enjoy Blogging :). Enoughhhhhh of boredom...now let me move on to some blabber.

The best part of this hotel, Staybridge Suites, is that it is mini India. At any point of time there are over 30 /35 folks from India. They come from different parts of India, with different food habits and different companies- Panasonic, HSBC, Siemens and Hewitt. And then there is an Indian store, Spice Bazar, very near to the hotel. It is run by Nidhi and Mikki , an Indian couple. I keep going there for my stock of Chicken Biryani , ready to cook parathas and chole and samosas. Nothing like having couple of cold samosas and then washing it down with a Zintac..enough to make me homesick.

Over the last few weeks I met some interesting people in the hotel... I met Ruth and her husband Alfred. They are in their late 70s, always smiling and and always ready to talk about their life experiences. They are from Florida and Lincolnshire, Staybridge Suites, is their Summer home. I have been seeing them for the last 4 years- they are here every summer to escape the heat of Florida. Alfred goes to play handball on Thursday evenings and Ruth is my sundowner partner. Great couple ...with lot of interest about India... Then there is Tim. He works in the front office of the hotel, handsome guy with quite a few girls eyeing him...He has been here on a Summer job and he leaves in 2 weeks time to join the army. All the best Tim, hope we meet again in the future . Friday evening I met " navy mom", i did not ask her name and will call her "navy mom" , because thats what she called herself. She was the proud mom, whose son graduated from the Navy school that morning. I could see the pride in her eyes... we got talking and she told me her elder son is in the US Army and her younger son will soon join the Marine. She told me something very interesting...she told me that she had always taught her sons- honour... Interesting ..this is the first time I heard someone say that they taught their child honour- Normally parents teach respect, honesty, standing up for oneself, success...hmmm...honour is something very different that I heard. I saw the flashes of love and pride in her eyes for her sons..All the best "navy mom", I am sure your sons will do very good for themselves and they will bring honor to the country, to the family and to YOU.

I need to sign off now, my beers are chilled and I am hungry. I am going to make some peas parathas and chettinad chicken today...anyones joining me for dinner??......

Miss you all .

Ramen

Love At First Sight.

Hi!

I had promised to write about the Grand Canyon trip and then, as someone said, I hit a writer's block ( see I am already thinking of me as a writer :) ). To be honest, I was just been lazy..must be something to do with all the Sodas and Starbucks that I have been drinking..tch tch...all the excuses that I can think of.

Going back to where I started- Grand Canyon has been featuring in our "sightseeing list" for number of years now..and in all our past trip to US, Sutapa always used to crib on missing out on Grand Canyon. So this year we had to make it happen...and we bought a day trip with one of the travel companies to take us from Vegas to Grand Canyon and back. We started early, very very early 6.30 AM from Vegas and the bus took us to the West Rim in Grand Canyon...and while Vegas was "vaguely fun", the Grand Canyon was "love at first sight". We took a helicopter and flew over the Canyon, and landed on the banks of Colorado river. The chopper ride was my "first in the life" experience, something that I will never forget ...

Before I talk more about my chopper ride, let me tell you a little bit about the drive to Grand Canyon. The bus was driven by a person called, Randy- a CUBS fan in Las Vegas!!!, with an excellent sense of humor, so we had a lively 3 hours drive. We saw the Hoover Dam on our way. Apparently when the Dam was built in 1935, it was largest electric power producing facility and the world's largest concrete structure (hmmm...largest concrete structure..must be..because the concrete jungle of Gurgaon did not exist then) . The best part of the drive - when I was suddenly woken up with lots of excitement in the bus and i realised that everyone was trying to click pictures of a buffalo, something called a desert buffalo...Did not understand what the excitement was all about, we see them ( atleast similar looking, slightly undernourished ones) everyday on the Gurgaon roads and we cooly drive by them without even a handwave... Funny.. forgot to ask Randy what was the whole excitement about. Other than me spilling fruit juice on the seat and Sutapa threatening to throttle me, if I sang ( rather recited) "Country Roads Take Me Home " one more time...the bus ride to Grand Canyon was without much excitement.

Back to the helicopter ride... We flew in between the Canyon gorge and the sight was breathtaking, the colour of the rocks where different at different places and the Colorado river looked very pretty from the skies. It never occurred to me, how safe these choppers are, till I read somewhere, much later, that they are operating at around much below Six Sigma. Which means quite a few of them actually crash!!!...and I paid over 150$ for it, without been aware of risks!!!! But it was risk worth taking and I don't mind taking it over and over again... The chopper landed on the banks of Colorado river, and we took a boat ride down the river. Do not look at the muddy waters of the river, but focus on the rocky mountains on either side, its a great sight with the mountains rising to a height of almost 4000 feet above the river. Sutapa was ready to throw me into the water, when I became John Denver'ish and started mauling (singing) "Rocky Mountain High". ( BTW guys-does anyone know about insurance that I can take against throttling and drowning...checked my travel insurance and it does not cover them :( )

After our helicopter ride, we went across to couple of viewing points- the Eagle Point and the Guano Point. The Eagle Point, has the SkyWalk. Anyone who goes to the West Rim MUST go on this. The SkyWalk is a Glass Platform, with glass floor, over the gorge. So when you walk on it, it looks like a sheer fall into the gorge..not for the weak hearts though.. you need to have a strong heart like mine, who is not afraid of been throttle or drowned or been thrown into the gorge when I kept signing " Top Of World". The Guano Point had a lovely view, and also a great lunch. I think I was taking too much from the buffet table, because the hostess came up to me and told me the story of how Guano Point got its name. According to her Guano means bird droppings (eeeksss!!!), and there are bird droppings every where and for some reason my appetite vanished after that story. Guys you can give Guano Point a miss ;).

On our way back to Vegas, Sutapa slept most of way and I fearlessly(!) sang " Every Breath you take, Every move you make... " Wonder why everyone in the bus slept...I never thought it was meant to be a lullaby......I think the "Sting" in my voice must have put everyone to sleep.

Bye for now...and keep coming back to the blog and leaving your comments...while I go back to humming ( now I am getting bold!!!) " chalte chalte mere yeh geet yaad rakhna kabhi alvida na kehna".....and before you guys click on the log out button..alvida for now and talk to you soon.

Keep singing

Ramen

THANK YOU.

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for visting the blog and leaving your comments. For someone like me, who do not really enjoy writing, your comments are great "motivation" for me to come back and write.

Thanks Vikrant (Vik) for teaching me how to design a "counter" on the blog, and keep a count on the number of visitors to the blog. You may have noticed that I designed the counter similar to the fare meters in Delhi autorickshaws , hoping that the counter runs the same "crazy" way the meters run in Delhi. In this case, it runs only when you visit my blog ;).

Love you all.

Ramen

Quiet !!!! Weekend

Hi
I am back after a quiet weekend.

Saturday ..the S-power took over...Shruti, Sunil and Sutapa went shopping!!!They hit Kenosha outlet mall with a vengeance. I have promised them that I will not speak/write about their shopping, so mums the word...but they definitely contributed enough to the US economy and I keep getting intrigued by the way girls go about their shopping. May be i will write a separate blog on my understanding about their shopping (does any one want to read about my understanding?....)

Sunday was real lazy..thanks to Sunil. He is such a great cook. He cooked chole and aloo subzi for lunch and it was GREAT. He insists that he is new to cooking, and if that is true, he definitely has inherent talents. The food was too good, i ate too much and just could not move. Sunil has been a revelation on this trip, I always knew him to be a good guy, a very good colleague and now also know him to be a good cook. Thanks Sunil.

The next few weeks look very boring. Sutapa leaves for India today, which means I will be alone. Maybe I will hit the gym and spend most of the free time swimming and reading. And ofcourse I will try and write a few lines on my blog every day.

Bye for now

Ramen

Las Vegas....and all that vague us...

Hi!

Sutapa and I were in Las Vegas last weekend. It was a very "interesting" experience..cannot really understand , if i hated that place or just mildly disliked it or did i love it ... isn't that vague??

Let me try and explain, rather vaguely explain.. I found Vegas to be a place of excess- excess people, excess drinking, excess gambling, excess honking, excess jostling, excess illusion...kind of excess of all kind excesses. The illusion aspect was very interesting, I was told that "The Strip" is only a small strip of road and one can always walk up and down the strip. The first day on the Strip, we wanted to walk down from Belagio Hotel to Venetia Hotel..and I could clearly see there Venetia hotel BIG neon sign and it just looked like a 2 mins walk...so we started ..and even after 2 bottles of water, quite a few gulps of oxygen and intermittent swig of Budweiser, we were still not there..that was my first brush of illusion at Las Vegas. The hotels and the neon signs are so built that they all look very near...but start walking and you will Keep Walking. So if anyone is planning a visit to Vegas, instead of walking try the bus service, its very good and cool too ( you don't have to brave the 100F + temperature).

You go to Vegas and don't talk about gambling...nah..thats not possible . I am not really a gambling guy, i believe in safe bets..very very safe bets BUT we still played the slot machine. There is a saying in Vegas "Whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas"..and now I know exactly what it means..whatever $s I gambled in Vegas stayed in Vegas :). Don't ask me how much. An experience in the Casinos is a must. I was told that only 40% people who come to Vegas gamble, wonder what the other 60% people do ?? They cant be possibly climbing trees, because there are more Casinos than trees in Vegas....wonder what they do may be they only drink and are too drunk to gamble or may be there are more "earthly pleasures" in Vegas which i missed.

The best part of the visit was the Indian restaurant called Gandhi. Not sure if Gandhiji would have liked a restaurant named after him, that too one that served liquor and non-veg.But the food was great, the chicken tikka masala and the garlic nan was better than Karims... or was I feeling homesick ..maybe..

We cannot leave a place without shopping, can we ? I will not bore you with too much on this shopping thing..but yes we did buy. We bought a hookah...yea yea a hookah, of all the crazy stuff that we have ever bought in our different trips, this was the craziest of all. If the hookah survives the trip back to India, you will see in my den on the bar table..so look out for it when we do the house warming party.

I have still not been able to learn how to post pictures along with the write ups, will try and learn it over the weekend. Then I will write about Grand Canyon and post the pictures. I will try to wrap this is over the weekend, but it looks all packed with Sunil, Shruti and Sutapa planning to go on a Shopping binge where I need to be their chauffeur :) ( wow that will be 4 Spower and poor me!!! so please pray for me )

I love the comments, so please keep them coming, and talk to you soon.

Ramen

Phew....Its all about Marketing

Hi Everyone,

Since my first posting last night, I had been busy marketing it :). Some of you received emails, a few got a sametime message from me, and ofcourse a few text messages also went out. Sunil Moorjani was at the "worst receiving end" of this marketing blitz... I invited him to dinner, fed him aloo parathas (though he got the pickel and curd) and kept telling him about the blog. Must have repeated the blog address over 50 times, till he staged out a walkout . Thanks Sunil, thanks for listening to my marketing spill.

So the next step of marketing, can some of you , please leave a comment on the blog. I want to see how it works and if it really works .. :)

I will talk about my Grand Canyon trip next so do come back and I promise that you will see some awesome pictures .

Bye for now

Ramen

How and Why Did I Start?

Hi!
This is my first attempt at blogging. Getting the layout in place was such a fun !!! and I am sure most of you who are reading this and tried their hands at blogging understand what I am saying. Why did I start this? So I need to get into a little bit of preaching here. My mom used to tell me "Son you must have a hobby" and my wife, Sutapa, was telling me the other day ..that it is time that I pursued a hobby. And I thought hard and long...what is "this" hobby that i should pursue. The only thing that I had in the past,as a hobby, was playing sports, but i am too old now, and with a bad :) back ...so sports was out. Come on I can't take up singing or dancing , though Sutapa insists that we should learn Salsa!!! but i love it only when it is a sauce. I tossed around a few more thoughts around hobbies , by the way cooking also featured as one of the shortlisted hobby items but chopping vegies and skinning chicken was not really a very appetizing hobby for me. So here I blogging, and I hope to do it as a hobby. I plan to speak my mind here, write about my experiences , and sometimes even thoughts and ideas that I come up with. Mind you , all these ideas will have copyrights..but if you plan to steal them, JUST ASK and STEAL.I do not expect too much people to come on this blog and read , but in case you stumble across and have thoughts and views on what I talk about, please feel free to comment.Let me try and post this now...and see how it looks on a real blog :).
Ramen