mriga
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "mriga" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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08:31 pm
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our peepul are terribul
Life stumbled and kicked me out of my blog-slumber so I can record this for posterity.
My company's India distributor is sending three of his boyz for training in Q for 10 days. Some manager out there booked them all the way to St. Louis instead of Q. So I booked a shuttle for them from STL to Q and sent an email detailing the approximate costs. Since Q is pretty much dead over the weekend and also since these boyz were coming the US for the first time I offered to drive them to STL and back during the weekend and suggested that they book a hotel in St. Louis for the weekend.
The Manager forwards this to his big boss who angrily responds to my boss>>
>What is this? Can't BE provide transport for our team from STL-
> Quincy-STL at BEs cost?
> This was never the case earlier...
>
> Let Hari not do the arrangements.. why not some one else?... like Raul
> or Shelly?
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> The team will stay at Quincy only during the week end...
>
> I am not deputing the team for sight seeing. They are coming for
> training and customer related works.
The Big Boss somehow *forgot* that one of our sales people did the driving around for him when he was in Quincy. For some reason I am very irritated by this dude's response. Is he being a cheapskate or is he just a lousy person?
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06:30 pm
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Pleased...
Pleasantly surprised that I passed an exam with relatively little effort. Find it hard to believe.
I am P(i)MPed.
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02:19 pm
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A minor mile stone passed...
In some ways it is a rebirth, I accepted the citizenship of this country by choice. While I don't agree with all the policies of my new country I am still in love with it and I am very happy to be legally recognized of being a part of it. A country united not by race or religion but by an idea, by a manuscript called the constitution. A country which still is the beacon of freedom however sullied its image maybe.
I feel like an Indian bride who has just left her father's home en route to her husband's home.
Hopefully I will assimilate and still not lose my Indian identity; hopefully I will appreciate this great country while I cherish my "motherland".
Hopefully I will open a McDosa someday.
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08:39 pm
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More work stuff
Busier than yesterday. Too much information to be digested. Sat in on a team meeting, simply kept my mouth shut (tough thing for me to do) and watched the team dynamics. Learned a thing or two. Not having the cell phone is a handicap. The coverage in the office is zero and it is not much in the motel either.
This thought of WTF I am doing away from A&A keeps bouncing in my head. Almost feels guilty leaving them behind. On the other hand work seems definitely interesting. This is similar to the kind of software I would have built if iMAT was fully funded. In fact one of the apps in the suite would have been a real close cousin. Karma?
Quincy is as close to the stereotypical mid-america as you can get. Who says the big 4 motor cos are dead. I can barely see any imports (except of course SUVs) and everybody is riding a battle tank or a starship galactica. The lifeline called Broadway (what else?) is lined with strip malls, one real mall surrounded by all-american fast food joints with the Thai kitchen being the only culinary diversion. Moving here would be a real huge deal for us.
From Bangalore->Delhi->LA->STL->Quincy... hmm... I have been moving up?
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07:31 pm
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A new chapter?
My first day on the new job. The 2hr+ drive ended in a cloud burst, which also took out the power to the company. Quite an appearance I made, sneaking into the company in the darkness, said Hi to a few shadows. Found a familiar voice speaking out from a circle of shadows, I assimilated into the dark circle, punctuating the various threads of conversation with a mix of mono syllables, grunts and other assorted mutterings.
My boss is on vacation till next week and his underlings went out of their ways to show me around. I got a grand tour of the quaint town of Quincy. Nothing much except 10 stop lights, a walmart, dozen fast food joints and such. Main street has the all the beautiful houses.
My machine is not in yet, which means I survive on my colleague's laptop. I took my first executive decision - went out and bought myself a chair, my assigned chair was killing me.
Prior to all this excitement, I had quite an emotional send off by Akhil. He woke up and asked for Appa, nobody has loved me so much, maybe it is not love, maybe it is a wanting. Whatever it is I am glad to be the object of his love/attention/wants. He hugged me and did not want to listen to me. Usually I ask him to look at me and listen to my explanation (and it works most of the time!), this time he did not want anything to do with it. I felt like a telemarketer on whom somebody hung up in the middle of his pitch. I cried. Second time in less than 2 years. I have become a wimp, a happy wimp.
Feels very strange sitting in a motel room with A&A so far away. This motel will prolly be my home for the next few months. Brought me memories of my gig in Hyderabad where I worked out of a hotel room for 8 months. I am pensive, too many things to worry about in the new job. I am not sure whether I like it or not. It has not been the best of starts - with no boss around and the machine not ready. Don't know if I made the right choice, oh well, only time will tell. At the very least I will prolly end up blogging more often.
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05:17 pm
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Driven
One of the lasting memories of this delhi trip will be Raju, our over friendly driver. He was very punctual, polite to a fault and insisted on addressing us as Sir-ji and Ma’am (in spite of our protests). From the very first day he decided that we being “imported-desis” did not know anything at all about Delhi, and my wife did not know India at all as she did not even speak Hindi. He took us under his wing and made it his mission to make us taste Delhi… his Delhi.
Our de-facto guide had this peculiar way of guiding us, he would mildly protest (with all the reverence reserved for his customers – who he prolly regarded as people with money and some brains, but not at all knowing when it comes to the street) if our agenda for the day included items not to his liking. For example he was not too keen on us walking in Chandni Chowk or even Lodhi Gardens. He was sure that Kamala Nagar market was the best in India, if not the world, and his sister alone held the key to the mystical shopping skills required to negotiate a fair price. He also thought nothing much of the Taj, according to him it is just a Khabar – a grave.
He would not stop chattering (even I could not get in a word sideways!) while driving and when Anu and I spoke in Tamil he would always ask me what the conversation was about. We did not find this too intrusive as he more than made for this by being very very warm and he did guide us to some nice food. His sister took off a whole evening to help us shop, she did take us around the famed Kamala Nagar market, but we are not sure if we got any nice deals and she used to announce our ‘phoren’ residential status well in advance to the shop keepers.
He invited us home, served us dinner and his mum gifted my dearest a pair of toe rings. We were simply over awed at the warmth and affection his family bestowed on us. After I got back to Bangalore he called to check if I made it ok and he also SMSed me on Holi. One thing which I prolly will take a long time to forget - one Delhi afternoon, he abruptly brakes and points at a burqa-clad lady and tells my wifey “Ma’am look! muslim women!!”. The look on my wife’s face...priceless.
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09:33 pm
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Cured!
After adding another 6 hours to the innumerable hours wasted watching cricket, I feel disappointed again. The silver lining is that I did not waste $200 on the dish package, instead settled to waste $15 on a bootleg streaming server.
Guess I am finally cured of cricket, no more sleepless nights, no more agonizing over postmortems. India out of the world cup, nothing more to be said, I will leave the analysis, postmortems and breast beating to the other millions.
Waiting for the brouhaha in Desh...
Current Mood:  disappointed
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10:38 am
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Wah Taj!
The approach to Taj is horrendous. I am stunned that the approach to our best monument is so shambolic.
In the words of Ian Williams, NBC
“What I can say for sure is that the traffic is diabolical here. Not only the number of cars and the perpetual bumper-to-bumper jams, but the chaos of it all, cars going for gaps, darting across junctions as if playing an endless game of chicken.
There are few cars that don’t bear the scars of war. Motorcycles weave in and out, loads precariously balanced on their backs. Buses have no respect for anybody; it’s almost Darwinian – survival of the fittest, or at least the biggest.
You’ve got to concentrate, got to have your senses about you, since cars can come from anywhere." Though as he turned in his seat to address me in the back, I had a horrible feeling he wasn’t concentrating as well as he should. But I needn’t have worried; he seemed to have a sixth sense, seeing a pushy taxi trying to nudge in on our right.”
Guess what? He was not even talking about India, it is our distant neighbor Iran he is talking about. Guess we are all in the great brotherhood eh? What is it that makes us so anarchic when we drive in India? One would think we are very pushy people, but we are not, except while driving of course. I suppose since I drove first in the US, the desi driving habits are not very well inculcated, at least that’s what I thought at first. The first few days I was rather timid and trying to stick to the side of the road as much as possible, pretty soon like a butterfly emerging from the pupa, my real avatar come to the fore. I become one with the masses - honking, bullying, cowering, raging, and all that. The only difference is that I was the only one doing all this while using my indicators. Guess it is in our blood after all.
But the Taj more than compensates for all that. It is simply beautiful. I was dumbstruck and I just could not stop clicking away. The guide we hired was totally worthless; he added nothing of value, except for booties and a couple of photos.
On the way back we also stopped at Akbar’s tomb and I was simply over awed at the toilets there. Hands down the best public toilet in India, amazingly clean, no stink, running water, a real Akbar (which means great) toilet!
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05:28 pm
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Desh trip leg 1 - Lazee Monday
Kota House has quite an history behind it. The kingdom of Kota has been around since 12th century but as with any kingdoms has seen its share of mergers and acquisitions. In the last century just before Independence the Rajah of Kotah, Umed Singhji II had quite a cozy relationship with the brits and commanded a 17 gun salute. When lutyens planned Delhi he envisaged the center to be the Viceroy's palace and allocated land around the palace to vassal states for their *embassies*. Thanks to Lutyens, Umed Singhji, and not the forget the vast wisdom of my pa-in-law in sending his daughter to a nice school, we got to enjoy this historical property and also indulge in bit of British Raj. These military institutions are sooo british, I am sure that there is a "Indians and Dogs not allowed" board hidden somewhere. We were treated with a lot of reverence at the check-in, but unfortunately it did not extend beyond check-in, we were made to go back and forth in typical babudom fashion when we wanted to change from a 2 bed config to a single bed config. The babu's in their infinite wisdom had decided to rule on our sleeping habits. The room however was excellent with a nice bungalow-y feel to it.
Authorities in Delhi have decreed that Monday is the day when Tourists should rest. Quite a few sites are closed on Monday! even the famed Mughal Gardens which are open only for a few months a year! We went around Rashtrapathi Bhavan, did the usual clickety-click-I-wuz-there ritual and headed off to Humayun's tomb. Plonked the little guy on the backpack and off we went. Humayun's tomb is very well maintained and the lawn was green, clean and surprisingly very very well laid out. IMHO this is the poor man's taj, must have played a big role in influencing Shahjahan at least.
Lunch at Haldiram's (my wife has a big crush on the food there) and quick trip to Lodhi Gardens. Nothing like a nice walk in the gardens to get rid of my jet lag. We rounded off the day with a quick walk to India gate which was a stone's throw away from Kotah house.
The past two days I had noticed that people were staring at me, and of course I was flattered. Back in the room my ego was punctured when I realized that people were of course staring at the baby back pack. Duh! So much for my handsome looks. No wonder the agent at the ticket counter at Qutub asked me to buy the *foreigner* ticket. Only after I impressed on him in Hindi that I was very much Indian did he relent. The foreigner *tax* concept is impressive, Indians pay a petty 10-20 bucks versus 250-500 for the phirangs. Get the phirangs to foot the maintenance while we Desis enjoy it. Make sense to me ;-)
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03:20 pm
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Desh trip leg 1 - Bubbles and Brown Sahibs
My son gave me a coy smile when he awoke in the middle of the night. A few minutes later he started playing with me, rather hesitant at first and then he was all over me. It was wonderful to see my most loved ones again, I did not realize how much I had missed them.
Our hostess at Gurgaon (or Gudgaon) is my wife's old school mate. Needless to say Gudgaon has changed considerably since I have been here about 12 years ago. This used be just a little more than a sleepy hamlet which you whizzed past to and from the airport. Not anymore, this is now the BPO capital of India. High rises, MNCs, gated apartments, shopping malls (including a desi Galleria which is pronounced Galle riah) with a rather large helping of pizza parlors and bowling lanes...a far cry from what I remembered.
Our hosts live in luxury in a gated apartment with tennis courts and swimming pools. Their live-in maid takes care of almost all their needs. As our hostess described, they are living in a bubble, a very very comfortable bubble. The lingua franca at home is English and sometimes some telugu words slip in unnoticed. Coming to think of it, we Desis are prolly more english than the english themselves and this new wealth from outsourcing is creating a million brown sahibs a month. Sweet revenge on the Brits for trampling all over us for a couple of centuries.
Our ride for the week arrived promptly on time. We set off to see Qutub minar and also hoped to cover some other attraction on the way to our guest house (which would be our abode for the rest of our trip). The ride was spanking new Innova (thanks to a dear friend who arranged it), the driver extra respectful, my son and I really appreciated the rear AC outlets.
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04:57 pm
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Desh trip leg 1 - Assault on the Capital
After a last minute frenzy of shopping and packing and repacking I gave up trying to squeeze in all the stuff to within 100 pounds. After a brief but so friendly encounter with the lady at check-in I plonked myself in the plane to Chicago, very very excited. Drama followed when the captain announced that they needed to change some thingamajig before take off. After 30 minutes of waiting, it was more of the same. I got on the phone to AA and tried to find another flight, but was unsuccessful. More chewing of nails and entreaties to favorite gods followed. Either the gods were impressed with my rather fast conversion to a believer or the mechanics woke up, I will never know. But we got off the ground.
The flight from Chicago->Delhi non-stop is a treat. I got an exit row, the service was great and food surprisingly was good. I caught up with work, reading and lots of sleeping. 14.5 hours later I was in Delhi.
After the usual hour and a half long wait to get the luggage and the usual dose of dirty stares and guttural sounds from immigration, I stepped out to a sea of people holding placards of every conceivable name on the planet. My wife had arranged for me to be picked up and I scanned desperately for my name, and then called my wife and got the number and the name of the driver dude (thank god for mobiles). I called this guy and we made contact, his name was not the name I was told, I put it down to minor confusion. Then the Gudgaon sightseeing began. We went round and round for about an hour or so before stumbling on my destination. And then I parted with a 1000 bucks.
My hosts were up waiting for me and their live-in maid served me dinner. This was 1:30AM! the maid wakes up and served me dinner! I was mega impressed. Amidst my savage attack on the dinner plate, I managed to convey my taxi story to my hosts and they were aghast at the rip-off. A few minutes after I finished dinner we get a call from the *original* taxiwallah claiming that he is waiting for me at the airport!! My host was not amused, he called *my* taxiwallah and berated him with the choicest galis. Nice dramatic finish to a pleasant flight.
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04:52 pm
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Passage to India
In more ways than one, my recent trip to India has been a voyage of discovery. After I moved to the US, this was my first *real* trip to Desh, a trip which had no agenda except to visit and reconnect. The trip was simply overwhelming. Despite my resolutions to record my trip, I have been tardy as usual and made no attempt to blog or record during my trip. The trip deserves a series of blogs, which I plan to do over the next few days.
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04:15 pm
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Skating thru life
The last two weeks I have been trying, rather unsuccessfully I should say, to get my derriere to drop its nasty habit of trying to hit the ice as often as possible while I try to awkwardly balance myself on weird shoes. With this noble goal in mind I bought a 10 session pass to the Steinberg Skating Rink near by. The last session was particularly spectacular, I exceeded all my previous records in falling, and in the process discovered several ways to stop my fall. One of them was definitely not my fault, I was trying to avoid a kid and keeled over with a resounding thump! What took the cake was the remark from the kid's father - "See that a nice way of falling". Optimistic that I am, I took that as a compliment, some consolation on a bleak wintry day.
This whole skating thing has got me thinking, isn't life a lot like skating? Some people look like experts and do all the dazzling things on skates, making it look so easy. What we don't see is all the hard work behind that ease and style. Some people have an innate talent, some people have to grind it through. When we fall, we have complete strangers helping us out. Nothing like a whack on the butt to get me to start thinking philosophy.
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11:59 pm
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General drama of life ...
Ah the drama of life..my friend's father died. We had driven to Memphis to meet this gentleman recently with deponti, DnA and of course KM. We had a wonderful trip and this being the birthday of his wife, he participated enthusiastically. He was my proxy dad during my wedding ceremony. He is just gone. Sometimes it is hard not to believe that we are in an illusion.
A burglar broke into our garage, a pretty resourceful burglar at that. He managed to scale a 6 foot high gate topped with metal teeth. He found a old tire, plonked it against the gate, bent the metal teeth and jumped across. Once he was in the garage he turned on the lights and took his time to look around and finally made off with the bike. He did leave Akhil's stroller behind. The bike was an expensive bike which I had borrowed from my dear friend K. The cop came in and did a routine interview and left me alone with the complaint number to sob over the loss.
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12:33 am
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Customer Service
Last year I had to make a rather quick trip to India. I thought of giving MakeMyTrip a try. I am usually leery of Desi airline ticket consolidators who advertise ridiculously low prices, but the process of calling and getting the tix takes so long that it is not worth the bother, especially if you are in a hurry. MakeMyTrip's site looked professional and the sales person on the phone was courteous and I was happy to wrap up m transaction in a few minutes. The only wrinkle was that I had to fax my credit card with a letter of authorization to their NY office and also had to pay 2.5% more. I got my tix confirmed in a couple of days. My journey had just begun in more ways than one.
I flew Delta till Bombay and I was scheduled to fly Sahara in the morning. Sahara turned out to be a mirage, after hours of waiting I was told that the flight was canceled. I managed to get the ticket canceled (which involved Sahara stamping a smudge on my paper ticket and asking me, no pushing me to take it up with my travel agent). I had to pay a fortune to fly Jet on Biz class. I was annoyed but I had heavier issues on my mind. This was in Jan 2006.
My Trip with MakeMyTrip just began. I have probably made about 30 calls no less to recover the $$ from them. I had to send me a couple of faxes, the original ticket, my DNA, my son's first lock of hair etc etc. Every time I call I would be told that somebody would call me withing 2 business days. I have no clue what their business day means. Finally after almost 350 days I see a credit in my account; but those $%#^# had credited $16 less. I am very tempted to call them up and give them a piece of my mind; but it is really of no use.
I had a similar experience with ICICI bank. I took them over 8 months and zillions of calls to reissue a demand draft. All the while my $$ was sitting in their account and I was made to beg for it. Every person I spoke to promised me that they will call back. I am amazed at the sheer callousness of their service reps. Usually in the US, if I have a problem with the rep talking to the manager helps. Well, at least both the companies were egalitarian with the managers and their underlings sharing the same excuses, lies and ethics.
I guess culturally Indian companies have no concept of customer service. I am sure I will hear rebuttals claiming xyz company's service being excellent, it is possible, but most likely in the highest (and the most expensive tier). That too, I contend, is more of servitude than service. I am yet to come across a single desi company, whose service I am satisfied about.
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12:26 am
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Tear jerker
In response to my birthday blues post, I seem to have got quite a bit of sympathy, empathy and expressions of love. Thanks to all (especially DnA, D&M and dearest). I did not mean to write a tear jerker, in fact it has been quite some time I have opened my emotions to the world. This blogging is growing on me. I am grateful for all the people I have around me. I am truly blessed, I am simply humbled to me where I am. Thanks world.
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12:21 am
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Techno troubles
A few weeks ago, I thought of a brilliant plan - to ditch my desktop at home. I figured with both of us using the laptop (thanks to Ak for not letting us open the computer armoire ) the desktop is a hassle to maintain. I bought a NAS and proceeded to move all the data onto it. Today I had to go crawling back on my knees to my PC. All my attempts at trying to find a non-PC solution to record DVDs from my camcorder failed badly. I have tried three recorders and all of them have real buggy interfaces, will not let me put even the basic info on the title apart from text, will not use the date code recorded on the tape yada yada. It is unbelievable that we have to use PCs to burn DVDs from tape.
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12:46 am
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Birthday Blues
Birthday started to have a different meaning to me since P died last year. I prolly will take a loong loong time to forget the moment when Raghu called me up a few mins after midnight to tell me the news. It took a long time to sink in. I did not even cry, I rejoined the game (I forget what game I was playing). I did not cry till it was time to go to India, his phone number in Yahoo address book pushed me over the edge. I had not cried for a long long time, the last time I had cried was prolly about 17 years ago.
My last trip to India is a blur. I had to go thru the ritual of putting his soul to rest, a very painful process, I cried so much that day. I went over all the things we did together, I regretted that I did not visit him earlier, I reminisced about all the fights we had, all the things he did for me. I remember holding his ashes (actually a piece of his bone) for a long time before I threw it into the temple's pond. I think I really realized the fleetingness of life itself. The last one year and half has been one hell of a journey. I can feel the aging (some people would call it maturing) process. A birth and a death has changed soo many things.
Back to the present, last night while watching the nice cricket match, courtesy a bootleg internet feed, my age meter moved one more tick. A queasy mix of emotions - missed my dear ones, missed my bro, took stock of last year's achievements and the excitement of watching Ganguly bat his way to the World cup team. I did not tell my host about my birthday. It is funny the men are, men don't remember friend's birthdays. We could spend a lot of time together but not be emotionally connected. But doing things together is male bonding I suppose. I kept this swirl of thoughts bottled in my head.
I called *A* hoping I could talk to her, but she had a few relatives visiting. I spoke to Sis and my fav niece Gayathri. Brought some minor comfort, a temporary band-aid. I was hoping I could really talk to A, but I was not too sure whether that will help me. I think I was hoping that my Mum would call up. I should know better, she has called me about 5 times her entire life. One more emotional chord dangling, sometime chafing, but literally hanging in there. With age comes wisdom? I think not, I think with age comes the realization that I know nothing, too many questions, too much gray.
This trip was emotionally eventful for me and S, in the sense of bonding. On my earlier visits to the garden state we always used to catch up over a drink or two amidst my sight seeing; we have met about 4 times the past 10 years. It was great to just be with him, no sights to see, no "other" friends to visit, simply spending time. I could understand why he feels lonely and wants to go back. I have begun to see him in a new light.
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05:21 pm
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Chillin in the garden state
Great to catch up with ppl from the past. My friend S and his wife have been treating me like royalty. I am amazed at their hospitality. Most of yesterday was spent flying and by the time I reached his home it was way after dinner. We managed to pick up some excellent Aussie wine, yellow tail Merlot. IMHO Yellow tail is one of the best wines in the market. I am not a wine connoisseur but I am simply enthralled with this wine. I picked it up a few weeks ago while looking for a cheapo wine,
since then it has been one heady affair.
Chatting with my friend brings up interesting questions. He has decided that he will move to India in 2009, and I really wish I had such a concrete plan myself. His position offers me a different perspective about moving/staying. While we are not really wrestling with the question right now, I have moved far from my earlier position of staying put. A few years ago I had rather strong feelings about staying here; US was going to be my residence for ever. Now I am not soo sure...as I said earlier, different perspectives are good, albeit confusing.
He has two wonderful and adorable daughters. The older one took to me pretty fast, or rather took to my tiffin-box-cell-phone pretty fast. She is almost addicted to the bubbles game and also started playing the solitaire in no time at all. Keep in mind she had never played solitaire before. Oh well kids these days are smart. At 7 I did not even know to button my shorts!
Spent some two hours with S in the jacuzzi much to amusement/chagrin of his better half. We just chilled caught up with things. He is very very financially savvy and has made a killing in the real estate market. He does know how to leverage, and to me talking money is nirvana. We prolly talked about every financial instrument out there and not to mention the usual desi real estate market story. His wife does not believe this story at all, she is still wondering what the F we were upto for 2 hours. I don't think S has spent 2 hours with his wife in the jacuzzi, or so his wife claims.
Before that, I hit gizmo heaven when we started rewiring his new DLP, Home theater, DVD and etc. Oooh, it is fun to rig up a new theater system always. Did not take much time, but I am glad the hosts are happy.
Time to go and wake up my napping host and go out.
Tags: ues
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03:12 pm
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Logitech quick update
A follow up from my previous post. Apparently it is not just me who is infatuated with logitech, customers and investors are swooning over it. Logitech's quarterly filings indicate that sales went up nearly 15% year over year, net income rose by 36%, and free cash flow quadrupled. There is something this company is doing well. Starting off as a mouse/Keyboard company they have come a long way and successfully morphed into a consumer electronics company making remotes (ever tried their harmony remotes? simply awesome), ipod accessories yada yada.
Should have bought their stock earlier (72% increase over last year).
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