Goodfellas

It was the summer of our final year of undergrad engineering college. Over the course of time Addi (Aditya) had become notorious for doing things that would make people pull stomach muscles, AJ (Apurva) had become notorious for his witty and open remarks and Alice (moi) had become notorious for being this taciturn chap, with spurts of enthusiasm. Right from our second year the three of us used to attend lectures usually seated on the same bench. We did a lot of projects together and usually bunked classes together, finding refuge in the college canteen. So as I was saying, it was the summer of our final year of undergrad engineering college. Final year exams were around the corner. We got together in college as per ritual to exchange notes and discuss topics before the exams. Something that I looked forward to. Not just cause their two brains were amongst the brightest in our class, but because it was a welcome break from the routine of studying. We were outside our department when a professor met us. He said, "Hello. How are you boys doing. Nice to see ex-students coming back to college to relive old memories. How long has it been since you graduated." We stood there silent. The professor went on,"I just have to keep some notes in office. Wait here, I'll come back and meet you. Its nice of you to come back". As soon as he disappeared we looked at each other and burst out laughing, as we started to run away. Seems we had bunked too many of that particular profs lectures.

Its been nearly 5 years now and Addi has continued to entertain us with his so called Addi-isms. A couple of years back Addi declared to the world that he would get married in December, whosoever the lucky girl might be. However the date was set in February this year. A few weeks after Addi's engagement he met Rahul, a batchmate from college. Richa, his fiancee was with him. Addi introduced Richa to Rahul. Rahul then looked at Richa and said,"Hum dono ek hi class me the. (We two were in the same class)". Addi then stood there perplexed for about 10 seconds. Finally some words managed to come out, "Yeh kaise ho sakta hai. (How is that possible)." Richa and Rahul then had to elucidate furthur, probably pulling a few stomach muscles.

During his wedding Addi was chatting with my mom. My mom is pretty free with my friends and usually ends up joking and stuff with them. For some reason he ended up telling my mom that I only like girls who are booked or married. Addi claims that his choice of words were different. More to the tune that most of the ppl I hang out with are booked or married. But that didn't stop mumzee from increasing the number of phone calls to me. After a week or so she forgot about it. We joked that we should morphe a photo of me with some married chick and with a kid and stuff. err... I'm sure this will give Manish some ideas of how to blackmail me. Right Ayush :-)

After their honeymoon in God's own country, the newly weds dropped anchor in Bangalore, enroute to Pune. They stayed with AJ and me. AJ moved to bangalore a couple of months back. Richa seems to have caught on to the fact that Addi's leg has to be pulled every now and then. Bala and Ashu, our batchmates, got together with us. Dhruv our roomie also joined us. We came back home and then decided that the night was still young. We laid out some Almond mint liqueur, some homemade date wine and some french red wine. AJ then asked Addi's permission to read some of Addi's old emails, which AJ will hold onto till posterity. Addi more than willingly gave the go-ahead. Addi and AJ had done their postgraduation from IIT together. It was about 3 years back. The date was february 14th and Addi rushed to AJ's PC and sent some emails. He forgot to sign out, so AJ decided to take a look as to what Addi was upto on Feb 14th. He had sent some mails to his friends distributing advice. One on Feb 13th, giving some fundaes about life. On Feb 14th he sent out another one to another female friend. He gave a lot of advice, a shoulder to cry on, and ended with a couplet which is part of a ghazal sung by apne Jagjit uncle. The couplet is below.

gulshan ki faqat phoolon se nahin, kaanton se bhi zeenat hoti hai.
jeene ke liye is duniyaa mein gham ki bhi zaroorat hoti hai.

After AJ had read those mails, he told Addi that he had sent another mail to the girl, which AJ of course did not do. Addi was tense and wrote another mail to that girl telling her that his mailbox had been hacked and someone might have sent her some mails from his account. AJ then went on to read the reply which he also managed to save for the past 3 years. It read....

Hi Addi,
Yeah I did get some spam mail from your account. Someone was trying to give me some kind of advice and ended with some couplet or something.....

After the email reading was done, with a lot of voice modulation and pauses of course, we all looked at each other and burst out laughing. Richa had just joined the club. The signature in both mails he sent had the following,"Faling in love is not about finding the perfect person. Its about learning to see an imperfect person, perfectly." Something I had read in the readers digest and had told him about. After a bit of deliberation, we unanimously concluded that he must have typed the signature specifically for those two mails. AJ then opened one of the mails that Addi had sent him around that time to support our claim, and the signature was different. Addi misspelled 'falling' as 'faling'. We surmised that maybe that very folly had done him in. I mean you could think of it as "Failing" and not "Falling", which did make gramatical sense. However to which some parties might take offense. By now we had all pulled a lot of stomach muscles and were rolling on the ground. Addi as usual allowed us to pull his leg to glory. In the midst of our delirium, with our hearts soaked in wine, we decided to hit the sack. It was 4AM.

I had seen this movie Momento, in which the actor reflects,"We all need mirrors to remind us of who we are." Maybe we also need mirrors to remind us of who we want to be. We come across a lot of mirrors in our lives. Some mirrors are ingraved in rich and beautiful frames, some in ordinary ones and some in a quaint setup. But what really matters is what we see in them. Some mirrors we hate to look into, not cause we don't like them but cause we don't like what part of us it reflects. Some mirrors we put on a pedestal, the very act which inhibits us from looking into it. And then there are those mirrors which remind us of who we are and who we want to be. The "goodfellas" mirrors, a term mobsters give to others they consider to be trustworthy and ok guys.

Beneath the Embers

Beneath the Embers

Coup de main, a consensus breached,

Caught unawares, the rainbow bleached.

A masquerading smile, a lukewarm fear,

The icy hands, wasn't it clear.

Consenting adults, the coming of age,

Juvenile passions, each considered a sage.

Prepared questions, to clear up the fog,

As the debate turns to a monologue.

Anticipated answers evoke an alien feeling,

The unfiltered view doesn't seem appealing.

With flowing words, the river runs dry,

As the convincing game ends in a tie.

Astray in the darkness, with each echoing word,

The dialogue begins, others feelings are heard.

As time goes by, you question your faith,

You question your stand, your rhetorical hate.

There is one God, why the contrasting vision,

Cause maybe your beliefs are your religion.

Beneath the embers, as the ashes take form,

From silent lucidity, comes a silent storm.

------ Alistair D'souza 21^st Feb 2006

Tracking the locomotion

10:00 AM:
I awake from my slumber. Its Sunday, or was it ??? Errr... not sure, but it sure felt like sunday. My body aches, I look around and decide to sleep some more. As I close my eyes again, I slowly float back into never never land, as I tend to sway between reality and my dream-like exploits from before.

4:30 AM:
The first rays of the sun were yet to refract their way over the horizon. The air was crisp, brindled with a whiff of raw breath. Still groggy, but with an immense feeling of emancipation we walked out of the bus, looked at each other, smiled and set out on our respective journeys to our warm cosy beds... I dropped Lakshmi at her place on my way back and then was about to hit the bed, when I looked at my clothes and gear... RED!!! It was covered in red dust.

7:55 PM:

We were at the side of the road, brandishing our flashlights, hoping that luck would favour us and hoping that we would soon be carried back to the place we had ventured out of. A truck stopped and we hauled ourselves into the open container behind. On closer inspection we found that our habitat for the next 2 hours had previously been used to transport red bricks. We stood for the initial part of the journey, grasping the sides along the sharp curves, grasping the sounds made by the wind in our hair, grasping the beauty of the clear star studded sky above. Then while some decided to lie down and get some rest, others decided that there was more to grasp.

The truck could not drop us inside Hassan so we got down outside the town limits and found a tea shop along the way. We freshened up a bit and then found ourselves in the back of a milk container carrier on our way to the bus stand. Just before the bus was to leave Sandeep realised that he had lost track of time, the watch on his hand having deserted him. Then ironically Raoul and Sandeep set out back to the tea stall, to reclaim lost time.

6:45 PM:
We were losing an already lost battle against time and light. It was the only path we had not chosen so far. We then took a deep breath, armed with our flashlights and a faint belief that we were still not lost, and then we marched on ahead. After more than half an hour of following the unknown path we were still in the dark, our choice being reaffirmed every now and then by the faint sound of a vehicle, only to be stifled by the overwhelming flow of the stream nearby. Finally the sound of the vehicles overcame that of the stream. But then the stream decided to pull another one on us, as it stood between us and the road ahead. Then in the dark we attempted to cross the stream, stepping on slippery stones, using all fours. Some of us fell into the water since the stones were pretty far apart. It took all of us like 20-25 mins to cross it. There was this other group in front of us where the guys were standing straight and with the girls besides them flat on the stones. The guys were flashing the torches for the girls next step. Wanted to take out some snaps as it was really funny... but I guess I would have been beaten up after that...

5:15 PM:
After being seduced by nature we took a wrong path, only to realise the same about half an hour later, when we found ourselves back on the railway tracks. But instead of nostalgia, our thoughts ran amok. We decided that it was not a good time to start beating each other up, so we started to trace our steps back. Then Sandeep mesmerised by nature, lagging behind us, took another wrong turn. We realised he was missing after about 10 mins. We yelled till the forest resonated with "SANDEEP", "SANDEEP!!!". We decided to scout the area and after a few minutes I found myself alone. Surrounded on all sides by trees that seemed to be growing at an alarming rate, their shadows creeping up behind my back. Even the sounds of nature seemed to take on a new avatar. After about 20 mins we found each other again and started to trace our steps back to the place where nature had seduced us.

4:10 PM:
We decided to leave the railway station and take the short cut to the road, through the forest. The route downhill felt like a real trek as our knees took a beating. As we cleared through the bushes we found ourselves panting, standing infront of a beautiful stream, which we just had to delve into. We unanimously decided that we had a lot of daylight time on our side. And since hindsight is always accurate we finally gave into temptation and cooled off our desires.

3:00 PM:
After walking for about 18-19 kms we had reached Yedikumari station that was still under constuction. A solitary engine stood there waiting for us to explore it. There was also a modified truck and a sumo that could run on the railway tracks. After trying to strike a deal with the station master to give us a lift to the next station, we decided to satiate our hunger, only to see our negotiated means of transport leave without us.

1:30 PM:
After having crossed over a thousand bridges and been through a thousand tunnels the journey started to feel a bit monotonous. Trepidation no longer had a place in our hearts as we found our footings across the bridges. The screeching of the bats in the dark tunnels felt more like an accompaniment of nature. Our system had been programmed to move our legs ahead just the proper distance, to find the cemented planks that were vertical to the rails. It was sometime around then that we decided to have a carrot break. It was also sometime around then that a thought arose in someones head, that maybe we should not stay overnight and trek the next day. The thought spread like wild fire.

12:00 PM:
I thought I had gotten used to initial fear before crossing a bridge but the best was yet to come. We then came to this bridge that was about 50-60 meters high. It was high noon, the sun was above our heads and with the dark shadows from the near future trampled beneath our feet, we set out to cross this bridge also. At some points we had planks (1 foot wide) laid along the tracks to assist us in our endeavour. At others we had to manoeuver our fear, as we focussed on the horizontal steel planks. At some points the gap between them was a little more than 2 feet, through which we could see the ground about 50-60 meters below us. Our complete nervous system was on high alert as each foot was firmly placed on safe ground. The trick was not to look ahead at the never ending bridge. Just focus on the immediate problem, one step at a time. After crossing the bridge we took a short detour downhill where we took a lunch break along the stream. From there we could see the old wooden bridge which had been overshadowed by the new mighty bridge.

9:00 AM:
After crossing another bridge we decided to stop for breakfast besides a stream. The bridges ahead were to see a lot of action from us. One of them was to be used as a modelling ramp where I was to showcase the 'Camping (Don't) Fall 2006' collection. Another one was to be the setting for the 'Heads popping thru the tracks' photo session. The snap that is gonna win me the Pulitzer prize :-)

7:00 AM:
We stopped along the tracks where we found a mountainside that we could climb. Manish and Sandeep managed to get to the top. It was too tricky for me. We also found a wooden plank that joined two iron wheels at the side of the track. We decided to carry it and place it on the tracks and then we fooled around a bit. I re-enacted a train scene from the movie 'Ghulam' and nearly got run over by the oncoming man-powered engine. After gathering our bearings we headed out along the tracks, ready to cross all the bridges and tunnels that came along our way.

6:15 AM:
We came across our first bridge. The sun was still rising and so we had to use our torchlights. Horizontal steel planks, about 1 foot wide, were strewn along the tracks to assist us in crossing it. Inspite of all the assistance we were still very cautious as to where we landed our footing.

4:00 AM:
The bus dropped us at Donigal in the wee and cold hours of the morning. A few feet away we found our way to the tracks. We had decided to trek along this train track that was still under construction. We walked along the tracks, aided by our torchlights. After about 20 mins we decided to park ourselves and start a fire. I had not been able to sleep a wink during the bus journey. So I decided to make the railway tracks my bed, while the others warmed themselves besides the fire. As we lost ourselves within the flames we realised that we didn't start the fire, the fire actually started us. We did not know what lay ahead. The unknown journey, layed out with bridges and tunnels was till then subject to the metamorphosis and evanescence of our imagination and moods. Finally we were ready to do the locomotion. It was now reality's turn to etch them out in our memory.

2:00 AM:
I must have been fast asleep, alternating through the various stages of sleep. They say the memorable dreams occur in the last stage of sleep commonly known as REM sleep. I guess it was time to float away into never never land.

The Press Release that never made it.

Aaghe badho!!! Aagho Badho!!! Paisa nahi hai....
====================================

Thats what Sri (CEO) and Baskar (founder of Impulsesoft and CTO), a 30 yr old guy armed with his blue rubber slippers, got to hear when they and the team set out to raise venture capital in the summer of 2005, with thoughts of market consolidation at the back of their minds. "Aaghe tho badhna hi hai, lekin uske liye paisa bhi chahiye". Well there was no 'paisa' but there was dollars. They came across a company called Sirf (http://www.sirf.com/ Silicon Radio Frequency... thats Si R F) who are the market leaders in GPS chipsets. SiRF owns 60% of the worldwide GPS chipset market share. Well for those that don't know what GPS is, its Global Positioning System. Sirf was founded in 1995 with the intention to assist in solving one of man's oldest pastimes, trying to figure out where you are and where you're going. GPS tries to solve it..... but sometimes even GPS can't let us know where we are and where we are going :-) sometimes you just have to fall back to the old star-gazing methods... hmmm... So now after they have acquired us, we are also gonna try to "assist" in solving that age old problem by err.... preaching from the mountain tops ????

Why Sirf and not one of our other suitors you ask.... Picture this.... ok Bollywood estyle picture this... We have Srikrishna (impulsesoft CEO) playing the part of the father figure. Then Shekar (chairman) playing the role of Merlin. Then Raja (engineering head) playing the pragmatic big brother role. Then Sridhar (the architect) emanating spurts of sage advice, like a volcano that remains dormant for most of its time. But sometimes, just sometimes you see it explode with fireworks. An amazing phenomenon. At center stage I can imagine Baskar and Vidhya dancing round trees (bollywood estyle) singing,"Humko SiRF tum se pyaar hai".... Thats why!!! wokay!!!.... See in bollywood you come up with the songs first, then the ending and then the story..... couldn't picture that.... not satisfied... well read on.

SiRF is a very strong technology oriented company. When SiRF went for their IPO in April 2004 they were ranked in forbes 2004 top 10 IPOs in the world... Google was ranked 2nd that year with Sirf 8th..... As of today SiRF have a market of about 1.6 billion dollars with revenues growing at a very good rate year over year.... pretty good for a 300+ strong employee company with 130 patents and 200 pending patents.... We are their 5th acquisition, being the largest in employee numbers i.e 55 of us... SiRF are very particular and acquire like 20 ppl from here, 40 from there types. So now its a 355+ ppl strong company. The management team is pretty strong too. First there is Kanwar Chadha, Founder and VP of Marketing, who has led SiRF Technology from start-up phase to a leader in location awareness within six years and is also one of the most sought-after experts in location-awareness and GPS-related trends and issues. Sirf's current CEO Michael L. Canning, is a veteran with 20 years’ executive management experience in the semiconductor industry. He pioneered the “fabless” manufacturing model at Cirrus Logic, a concept now followed by the majority of semiconductor companies and also helped grow revenues at Cirrus Logic from zero to over a billion.

Before acquiring us, Sirf had a huge percentage of the GPS experts in the world. After acquiring us that number doesn't change... :-) hmmmmm.... err well cause we deal in bluetooth not GPS....

Sirf's rise to number 1 position is something out of a Mario Puzo novel.
When Surf was founded, Conexant which was still called Rockwell, ran the cartel. They were the largest GPS chip set vendor. Conexant was a pioneering force behind the development of GPS technology in the 1970s. But then Sirf came out with a GPS chipset that was smaller, more elegant and had better performance... some say it was Getafix's Magic potion that did the trick. Even though Sirf was a lot smaller, Sirf has been eating their lunch.Tensions were rising ... there was no place for the both of them... something had to give. Then in the summer of 2001 Sirf made its macabre move and hunted down Conexant's GPS team one by one. The metronome of the casium atom oscillated, in one of the 24 GPS satellites orbiting the earth, for the 7,172,52,760 time in the 53rd second, of the 35th minute, of the 11th hour of that faithful night. The bodies were found near the coast splintered with bullets. The exact location was Latitude: 33.62 N, Longitude: 117.90 W.... The assasins had strewn the beach with their GPS chipsets... they had left their mark..... The night resonated with "Die!!! Die!!! Silicon Die!!!!!" btw.. you have to know a little bit about chipsets.. i.e. silicon, wafer, dies etc to appreciate the 'die' statement... others please smile atleast... or do I have to come there and tickle you :-)

Back to reality... Actually Conexant transferred to Sirf its entire GPS technology portfolio, its products and its core GPS engineering team, about 20 experienced GPS engineers, for a stake in the company. That deal made SiRF No. 1 in the GPS chip market. That was also their first kill.... Finally getting the taste of blood they wanted more...

Their next hunt was in Feb 2003 when they acquired key employees of Enuvis...a wireless location company... adding the ability to acquire GPS signals and deliver high accuracy location calculations in even more environments, such as inside buildings and dense metropolitan areas where other GPS technologies fail.

In late April 2005, it acquired Kiesel Microelectronics (total of 19 employees), a Stockholm-based (Sweden) designer of complex radio frequency integrated circuits, founded by Ericsson, for Bluetooth, WiMAX, WLAN, W-CDMA, UWB, GSM/PCS/DCS, and several ISM applications. BTW it takes a long long time to become an expert in RF. I guess most of them must be Phds or something with 20+ years of experience..

In June 2005, they acquired the rights to GPS chipsets that Motorola had in development and the services of 40 Motorola employees, having expertise in the integration of GPS in a range of wirelessly connected systems, especially in two key target platforms -- automotive and wireless handsets.

come Dec 2005: Sirf acquired what they think is the best bluetooth audio company in the world :-) shuush!!!! lets not tell them the truth :-) They added 55 of our employees to their team of 300+ employees.... so now its about 20+ nationalities in 10 or so locations. They also have a VLSI team in Noida, Delhi which was started in June 2004...

The single-chip solution that Sirf will offer has a complete GPS navigation solution and a Bluetooth 1.2 compliant communication interface. The solution leverages the RF IC design capabilities of Sweden-based Kisel Microlectronics that SiRF acquired last year and the Bluetooth expertise of Impulsesoft.

Well I think the management made a good decision by selecting Sirf over our other suitors cause if Impulsesoft sneezes, Sirf will get the flu. Hey... about the sneezing-->flu part let me try it... "Achoo"... "Achoo!!!"... "ACHOOOOOO!!!!!"... sob sob no one cares.... wait no ones in the room :-) Maybe I'll try it at lunch in the cafeteria....

Anyways these days GPS is finding its way into cars, boats, planes, construction equipment, movie making gear, farm machinery, even laptop computers, plane landings etc. Your cameras will have GPS so that from next time you can search for your snaps on your PC via location and time..... Japan has come out with a service where your GPS and compass (orientation) enabled phones can be used as 'point and search' devices, wherein you can get reviews of movies, restaurants, other info just by pointing (with relevant search parameters) to one of 7,00,000 locations in Japan. Way in the future self-guided cars could take you across town....

I still remember about 2 and a half years back when I left the big building of Cisco to join the tiny quaint house of Impulsesoft many ppl told me "yeah you'll get to do some good work in a startup.... but the company may die any moment... bluetooth is dead... what about security.. Cisco is secure".....

Well as Natalie Goldberg says, "Don't worry too much about security. You will eventually have a deep security when you begin to do what you want. And how many of us with our big fat salaries feel secure anyways. Trust in what you love, continue to do it, and it will take you where you need to go."

But what does she know right...

I guess the path ahead seems one full of possibilities and challenges and therefore excitement, butterflies in the stomach, and a subtle tinge of trepidation to top it off.

The Hand

The Hand

The Hand that makes the world go round,
To which we are so tightly bound.

It follows norms, thats just the way,
It wants to whisper, it has no say.

It sometimes knows not what to do,
Whats right from wrong, it has no clue.

It tries its soul, to brim its wish,
Some silver spoons, some nouveau riche.

But a Hand that is so full of grace,
A perceivable one, it has not a face.

It recruits itself, to do the grind,
The point of life, it hopes to find.

It builds to last a thousand years,
Through sweat and pain and joy and tears.

Perchance to dream, a sculptor's bliss,
The Hand that builds out of nothingness.

It rocks the cradle, a dream unfurled,
Hand in Hand, it rules the world.

------ Alistair D'souza 17^th Jan 2006

The Taj Mahal

I had been to the Taj Mahal when I was in Delhi during Christmas time. The plan then was to leave Gurgoan as early as possible to beat the traffic. However it depended on the fog and visibility. We were off by around 7. Sonali had packed some Christmas goodies made by our mom and Nikhil's mom. Nikhil's mom also makes some real good coffee liqueur which I had the previous day. The drive took us a little more than 3 hours and finally we reached Agra Fort. You are able to view the Taj in the distance from the fort. I took out a snap through the binoculars :-) After a bit of site seeing we decided to proceed to the real thing.

Mobile phones are not allowed inside the Taj Mahal so we had to deposit it at a counter nearby. However ppl had lost the concept of following a queue and then there was a lot of shoving and pushing. There was just one door to enter and exit. The people that were inside couldn't get out and more people were trying to get in. Somehow Nikhil managed to get in and get the job done.

We then moved towards the entrance. I thought it would be this real awesome aaahhhaaaa experience, but I guess I had set my expectations too high. I mean its beautiful and stuff but I guess with the precious gems and the moonlight it would look awesome. Or maybe its cause there were so many people around. I then went to one corner and sat alone and looked at it and it started to look more beautiful. I guess once I read more of the history on it, I would look at it in a different light. Something like when its past is superimposed on its current beauty it would give it this rare combination of awe. However I am still trying to figure out why its like the 7th wonder of the world... there must be something to it that I'm not able to see :-) Thats why the plausible explanations....

I guess you always have to look a bit deeper to experience the true beauty of things, be it one of the wonders of the world or normal things around you or even normal people for that matter. I think its the same with songs, poetry, art. Read this somewhere sometime, where this artist says that the painting is no longer his. It belongs to the person who sees it cause people can view it in different ways and the thoughts/feelings/interpretation etc are theirs. His work is just a catalyst. And then there are times when you usually don't like something at first ... but after some time it tends to grow on you. And its usually the things that grow on you that last longer. Sometimes forever.

Sweet Mother of mine

People often ask me how I manage to get so many days off at work. I was recently off on a two week haitus. Before that I had taken a week off in November. And during the middle of the year I had taken a lot of holidays. At one point I would vanish from the city every 2 weeks :-) The hangover of the previous exploit would just start to fade and then I would be at it all over again.

Maybe I'm important so they allow me to freak out whenever I wanna or maybe I'm not so important, that they do not care if I'm working or not. Hmmmm... Or maybe its cause of the goodies I get back from home. Whenever I say I'm taking time off people are like, "So you're going home!!!". And then they give this big smile. If I reply in the negative then I would hear things like,"Maybe you could go home too on your way back. Its been quite some time since you went home right." Well my mom makes some mouth watering cakes and other goodies. And the cakes taste even better when its fresh out of the oven. Hot cake with some yummy icing to top it off. My mom gave me a lot of cakes (two types) and other christmas goodies. I took some to office and it was over before I could send a mail out. My PC was taking time to boot and other people were like,"No we won't send the mail". No one volunteered to go get a knife. They just used whatever was around. My manager would say,"Lets plan you're next trip home" :-) Then there was Sridhar who complemented me on being my mother's son!

Well what can I say my mother is sweet, very sweet. Even the doctor thinks so. We have known that she has this extra sweetness for the past four years but due to my sister's wedding and christmas she was toooo sweet this year end. Was a teeny weeny bit afraid but I didn't tell her that. My Dad didn't show it but then again there are a lot of Clint Eastwoods out there. Well she has promised to control her sweetness like before, but the sweet goodies will keep coming. And I'll sure be getting a lot of days off :-)

Unwavering Thought

Unwavering thought as tomorrow comes,
A brand new day, the music hums.

Resolutions to make, and some to keep,
As the mind starts to wander both far and deep.

Mountains to conquer, seas to tame,
It all feels part of this deja-vu game.

Unwavering thought, is that all it takes,
To sift the genuine from the fakes.

No grudges to hold, no feelings to hide,
Live and let live, an adage to abide.

As poseidon dies, a poseidon lives,
Unwavering thought from a heart that gives.

Unwavering thought as tomorrow comes,
A brand new day, the music hums.

- Alistair D'souza 31st Dec '05

Boys don't cry

Well they fight and cheat and fight and cheat and grunt too, especially when playing cricket. We used to have these cricket matches between the compound junta where I live in Nagpur and outsiders. Friends and their relations from all around had descended into the city for christmas. It was time to relive those moments that have defined the very men we are now. It was time to teach the younger ones a little bit of tradition so that they can pass it down the line. The teams were formed. As usual it was the compound against the outsiders. Rules were made as the game progressed. One run if it touches the roof out there, another one if it goes into the bush out there, no runs if it crosses this line and what about other places... well we'll decide as the game progresses. The objective is to win at any cost. You can cheat and cheat you must. If you get run out you can argue that it was actually a one run declared and that you were just running for kicks. You can ask for a third umpire decision. And you are free to choose that third umpire. You just have to use your imagination to come up with arguments and counter arguments along the way. Yelling frightens your opponents. Even if you don't have any valid argument you yell to add to the noise, while the brains of the team cook up something. Me... well I usually play without specs, which if my excuse for not being able to catch a fast moving ball. With specs there is no drastic improvement in my catching skills :-) but I usually play without specs and leave the rest to fate and my cheating teammates.

Oh Christmas tree

Reached Delhi/ Gurgaon around afternoon time. When Sonali opened the door she said I was stinking. Well I did not bathe for a week or so cause of the cold and since I was on a trek. During the trek I did not change my last set of clothes for about 3 days. What do you expect me to smell of, musk deer. Carol singing practice was going on at their place as Nikhil was tweaking their singing skills. After a royal bath I got ready for mass. Midnight mass was at a church in Gurgaon. The mass was both in Hindi and English. Nikhil sang some solo numbers. During some of the carols he played some heavy metal on the guitar :-) He also plays the violin and the synthesizer. Sonali told me that he has a grade 8 in violin. Grade 10 or so being the highest. He is very passionate about music. Reached home around 2 at night.

Hitchikers Guide to the Mountains

Day 0 - 19th Dec:

Bought the pending trek items from Delhi. Some woolens and trekking boots. The shoes are the most important thing. It needs to have a good soul :-) Almost missed the train, again. This time was at the wrong station :-) Managed to reach the other station well in advance and caught the Jammu Tawi train at night. Was travelling alone. Decided to make friends along the way. However a friends brother who I had not met before was also coming for the trek. So I would make atleast one new friend. Slept through the journey.

Day 1:Its cold, very very cold. Have to get down at Pathankot which is in Punjab. It arrived at around 8 in the morning. The buses in Pathankot had signs which warned people of unattended items which could be bombs. It also mentioned that you should look under your seat to make sure no one has left anything behind. It could be a bomb!!! Pathankot is a big military base. My mom later told me that someone told her that Pathankot is at the border where there is a lot of bombing :-) She then got all paranoid and stuff. I had switched my mobile off since it was running out of battery. She phoned a lot of my friends in bangalore who finally managed to allay her fears :-) From Pathankot I got on a bus to Dalhousie. Reached base camp around 12. Was supposed to arrive the previous day but I don't think I missed much as the actual trek had not started. Collected my sleeping bag and other essentials. Got acquainted with some of the folks at base camp. However since I arrived late I shared a room with trekkers who were to start a day after us. Met Raoul, my friends brother. Raoul is in his fifth year at BITS Pilani. At night we were forced to showcase our so called talents at the campfire. It was not an actual fire just a solitary candle burning in the middle. People sang, performed a skit, joked, made fools of themsleves and then it was my turn. Well I can't sing, can't tell jokes, can't errr... well I can dance. Oops... not alone..... I managed to pull up 4 other guys up with me, Raoul, Saurabh, Sandeep and Shobit, but since we were taking too long to decide the song we sat down :-) As I said I was not the only one, everyone was making a fool of themselves. Whatever it takes to break the ice I say, whatever it takes.

Day 2:

The sky was clear. It appeared like an artist's canvas, with subtle shades of blue and orange and yellow and purple. We packed our lunches. After a good breakfast we were off to our first destination, Kalatope. There were 50 people in our group which I felt was too large for a trek. It should be 10 max. Our group leader was a criminal lawyer practicing in Delhi. However as we moved along the group broke into smaller groups which maintained their respective paces. There were about 6 of us in our group. Raoul who is studying. Sandeep who is practicing law in Delhi. Doing stuff in IPR in addition to other fields. Saurabh from Baroda who is studying and working. Then Brahma from Hyderabad and Lakshmi from Bangalore. Both are working in IT. The first stretch was along the road which was not fun at all. So we decided to climb up the surrounding mountainside just for kicks. Lakshmi and Raoul led the pack. A few of them were a bit dangerous for me so I decided to be an observer. After our lunch break the route was more scenic without the tarred road. The path got a bit narrower where we had to go in a single file. Reached Kalatope around 3-4ish. It was to be the highest point in the trek. Well over 6000 feet above sea level which is not very high at all. Lakshmi Raoul and myself decided to take a short hike into the forest. We explored some alluring paths and came to a consensus that it would be nice if we could make the hike early morning with torches. So we made plans for the next morning and decided to go to this place where we got an amazing view of the sunset. There was also this whiff of grass in the air. It reminded me of the smell of grass you get at rock shows. Why you ask. I dunno maybe its the feeling since both made me a little high :-) The night sky was crystal clear. It was peppered with millions of shining dots. And as you looked toward the horizon you couldn't distinguish the stars from the lights sources from some houses way below. That night the temperature went below zero. It fell to about -4 at night.

Day 3:

The hike thinghy didn't happen. We and our big plans :-) Anyways after natures call in the wild and all that we were off to Khajjiar. This route was more like it. We were enveloped by thick forest cover for most of the trek. Our knees began to ache as they had to bare the brunt of the sudden uphill and downhill climbs. Along the way peoples imagination resurrected a black block of wood into a bear :-) Well we were trekking through bear land but it wasn't a bear. We broke for lunch after we crossed the first mountain. We ate along a stream in the valley. It was beautiful. Cold but wrm at the same time. One of the trekkers got bit by a scorpion. After a good lunch we were hungry for more. It was a tedious 1 1/2 hour climb uphill. We zig zagged through the never ending ascent. I began to perspire quite a bit but it felt cold. Finally panting we reached the top. Phew. The remaining path was smoother. We had another mountain to cross. At one point there was this tree which grew sideways out of the mountainside. Lakshmi was like,"Lets go". The gang carefully climbed onto the tree and I volunteered to capture their exploits. Finally we reached Khajjiar around 4ish where we descended into this huge open field, the size of 3-4 football fields. It was surrounded on all sides by tall pine trees. There were a few horses grazing in the field. And just sometime around then it started to snow. You could taste the soft flakes while they brushed against your face. It sure felt like heaven. After filling our tummies we proceeded towards the guesthouse. This time we decided to have a campfire, a real campfire. You know like with some real wood :-) I went in the woods to collect some twigs. I had the torch while the other guy carried the booty back. On the way down I missed my stepping and then clung on to a tree for dear life. Finally when I managed to put some light on the situation I realised I was just 2-3 feet above ground. But I could have sprained a few things. Two Navy guys told us about their encounter with a bear along the path. The were ahead of the pack and sometime after lunch realised that a bear was following them. It did so for about 20-30 mins. G.V. Bhushan who is a Commander in the Navy then told us about his Basic mountaineering course experience which he did when he was 19. Its a 20+ day course where at one point you are left in the jungle for 2 days. He said he was petrified as a guy of 21 years was killed by a bear sometime back during the training. A knife is more of a liability in the jungle he said. Its the fire and your survival skills that get you through it. At night there was some star gazing with a studing astronomer as a guide. The Navy guys told us that they would be leaving early next morning as they wanted to leave basecamp the same day. It was 22nd and I also wanted to be back in Delhi by 24th night for midnight mass. One by one members of our gang decided to join up with group leaving early.

Day 4:

Our small group started early in the morning. We could see the snow capped peaks in the distance. The scenery was covered in a blanket of blue mist. The path all along was downhill. We passed through a couple of villages in the mountains. There was no tree cover above us, just the rising sun. Saw some eagles at close range along the way. It was amazing to see them soar through the sky. At some places the surface had loose mud. It would not have been a path we would have taken, had it snowed. We met a lot of children in the small villages along the way. After some knee beating downhill stretches we reached Mangla. We broke for tea and then headed off to Chamba where we took a bus back to basecamp. The bus journey to Pathankot was cramped. The conductor who was sitting shot gun would go to collect the ticket money from people every now and then. At one point he had to go back by putting his footing on the seat rests. His feet didn't touch the ground :-) When we reached Pathankot we enjoyed a hearty dinner. Saurabh stayed back at Pathankot to catch another train later. The five of us then got on a train to Delhi that night.

Missed the bus

There is always a first time for everything. A time to do things for yourself. A time to do things for others. Some of them you know, some of them you don't. Some of them you like, some of them you don't. But in doing those things you know that in some magical way it will finally make you a little bit happier than before. So I guess its all about doing things for yourself.

Well there are also times in life when you know the outcome of certain actions, you would hope/wish otherwise, but you just know that if you didn't do it then at the end of the day you would regret it. And then there are times in life when you know the outcome of certain actions, but then what you would never hope or wish for happens, but you just know that if you didn't do it then at the end of the day you would regret it. You kinda get a sense of a deja-vu feeling when both happen in close proximity to each other. Not cause of the more than subtle similarities or differences, but maybe cause ultimately the feeling is the same.

Oh my God... What the hell am I yapping about. Ok I'll tell you about one incident. Well I was on my way to attend Ayush's wedding in Saharanpur. He has been my roomie for the past 4+ years in Bangalore. My sister Sonali was to join me from Delhi. I arrived at night by flight and we were to catch the train to Saharanpur early next morning. Nikhil drove us through the fog to the railway station. It was pretty cold. We checked that the train would arrive on platform 12. We parked ourselves on the platform, too cold to move. Then this huge chunk of people that were standing near us, moved away from us and this new chunk of kids and parents came towards us. Morning walk I guess to generate some heat. Good for them. The Shatabdi came into the platform. All of us got inside. It was nice and cosy as the heater was on. This group of kids were going on a field trip up north accompanied by their teachers. Parents were all around us, telling them what not to do. It was gonna be a pleasant journey, a nice loud singsong pleasant journey. 6:55am the train didn't depart. 7:00am the train still didn't depart. 7:05 am the train still didn't depart. Its cold maybe the engine takes time to heat up :-) Then these people come up to us and tell us that one of our seats is theirs. "Ooh oh". We showed them our tickets and then in that eternal second reality hit us hard. They tell us that we are sitting in the wrong Shatabdi, "Ouch!". This one was going to Amritsar, "Yikes!". Both Shatabdis were on the same platform 12, back to back. And good ol Murphy decides to play his pranks. "Nooooooooo", I let out a silent cry. As we regained our composure and woke up from our slumber, we grabbed our luggage and got off the train. The other Shatabdi left sharp at 6:55am. "Damn", I let out another silent cry. It was like one of those movies where everything goes wrong and we were starring in it. Not my usual morning cup of milk. Well our journey had just begun.

Since the next Shatabdi to Saharanpur was at 2 in the afternoon we decided to go by bus. We caught a bus outside the station to take us to the main bus stand. It was a 20 min drive through old delhi. The bus was packed to capacity. As I watched the rising sun which was still a cold yellow disk, I pondered about the evil that lay ahead. Would we manage to get a luxury bus to our destination. Nope we won't. Since I had run out of silent exclamations I was silent as we boarded the bus to Shamli. The direct bus to Saharanpur would take time. By now a couple of people had been informed of our plight. "The poor kids". "How sad". Switch the mobile off :-) We got front seats just behind the driver who kept honking his horn for no apparent reason whatsoever. Maybe its cause all the trucks put up this sign "Horn please" at the back. I then moved myself into this real uncomfortable position so that Sonali could cover her face with my jacket and sleep on my back. It was the beginning of my two week vacation and things were not looking good. The bus was getting packet to capacity when I realised that I had forgotten to pack the most important thing. An open mind and an adventurous spirit :-) Once that was done things began to look different. The misty roads, the cold cold wind, the road ahead, all added to the mysticism. The occasional honking did continue but that was ok. At one of the stops there were these kids who were selling oranges. The conductor was trying to chase them out from one end while others ran in the other end to make a quick sale. Then he would run to the other end still shouting. I smiled. Just then this girl who was seated behind me decided that she was feeling sick. I missed by a whisker as she puked out the window. I smiled again wondering what else could happen.

We boarded another bus at Shamli. Again not a luxury bus. The seats of this one were blackened with filth. Just then this travelling doc stood up and began to shout his premeditated speech. He claimed that he had this powder which would whiten even the dirtiest teeth. I bought one out of curiousity. 10 Rs and if it didn't work he promised to give you 500 Rs. He also gave you this certificate. After making a good deal of money he vanished. I don't know if people bought it out of curiousity or for the 500 bucks. When the bus started filling up to capacity this old lady came in. She wanted us to fit in 3 people in a seat that was mean't for 2. Sonali was fast asleep. After negotiating with her for quite some time I told her that she could sit on my lap. She smiled and refused the offer. If she was any younger I would definately have got beaten up :-) However she obliged when I asked her for a snap. I mean I would have offered her the seat but I was worried about pick pocketers in the crowd if I had to stand. Well I had paid for the seat and I had occupied it long before she boarded the bus, so no one could say anything. Finally chivalry got the better of me and I offered her my seat. Or maybe it was cause I knew I would blog about it and chivalry is good for ones image :-) Hmmmm.... As we moved ahead through some bumpy and dusty roads there was this huge blast. A tire had burst and our bus was tilting to one side. I smiled as I said to myself, "Lets walk". Luckily or unluckily it was the truck at the side of us. The bus then dropped us at the wrong location. So we did the final mile by tempo. Finally after 3 buses and a tempo we reached our destination. At night it was pretty cold and Ayush and Pallavi had the best seats in the house. Near the fire :-) Everyone at the marriage referred to us as the ones who missed the bus. Well contrary to popular belief it was quite an eventful journey. I actually enjoyed it.

Well there is always a first time for everything. And then there are times in life when you know the outcome of certain actions, you would hope/wish otherwise, but you just know that if you didn't do it then at the end of the day you would regret it. And then there are times in life when you know the outcome of certain actions, but then what you would never hope or wish for happens, but you just know that if you didn't do it then at the end of the day you would regret it. Maybe not just regret it, maybe your life itself will be a bit different. I guess its your perspective that matters. I guess its the open mind and adventurous spirit thinghy.

Distinguished Technology Product Company

Its nice to be recognised for the things that you do, be it at work, play or wherever. NASSCOM which is India's IT governing body awarded us with the prestigious "Distinguished Technology Product Company". I remember the first day quite vividly, when I joined Impulsesoft nearly 2 and a half years back. At that point we were a little over 40. I was briefed about the HR practices for about half an hour. Then taken to my seat in the basement of this quaint house, where I was given a chunk of hardware. I was given deadlines on the first day itself and got down and dirty with it right there and then. Vidhya told me, "The aim is to bring this thing to life. There will be a lot of new things along the way that none of us have laid our hands on. So you are totally responsible for this. We can guide you but can't spoon feed you." At first I was a little bit scared but slowly got a hold of all the device drivers, bootloaders, application stuff required to bring it to life. That was just the beginning. Worked on some real good innovative products since then. As a team we have climbed a few mountains that others thought could never be scaled. We have built stuff from scratch, including the hardware for the products which was done by our hardware team. We (I especially) have made a millions mistakes along the way. I still make a million mistakes :-) but I get to learn a lot along the way. We have come a long way, have a long way to go.

Its a fact that less than 95% of startups survive. And for product companies its even harder. First you come up with something new and innovative, then you build it including the h/w, device drivers, right to the application level stuff. You learn whatever you have to get the job done. After that you throw the product on the wall. A very few of them stick, very very few. I've seen some real innovative products that have not seen the light of day. Some cause they are ahead of their time and some cause of one tiny little loophole. But thats part of the game. You have to keep at it, keep churning out those ideas which finally metamorphise into something. Some of them make money, some don't. But some of them give you this warm fuzzy feeling.

We are now about 55 heads strong. Along the way we have been ranked amongst the top 10 startups of India, then the top 3 innovative Indian networking companies, and now this. One of the products I've worked on has also been featured as the "Gadget of the Week" by Time Magazine. It sure takes a bucket full of tears and an ocean of sweat to get a successful/innovative/trend setting product out the door. Its been a roller-coaster ride so far with its share of lows and highs. But the few highs more than compensate for the lows. I'm hungry for more :-)

www.impulsesoft.com

Hungry kya ???

PS: I'm also known as the unofficial HR and PR person of the company :-)

Bangalore Habba

The Bangalore cultural festival was held from 2nd to 11th Dec. There was live theatre, music, art shows, traditional dance, singing, street theatre, rock shows and the likes. And to top it all all of it was free. All you had to do was get free passes from the local Cafe Coffee Day. I actually went to about 7-8 outlets around the city to get passes for all the plays :-) Some of them were good and some were like totally experimental. There was this play where this guy was moving and talking in slow motion. He moved so slowly that even if you closed your eyes for 2-3 seconds he wouldn't have moved much. Yikes. Saw a good Hindi play based on Marquez's "Erindiza and her heartless grandmother". Went with Neeti, Deepti, AJ, Bala and Deepa for various plays. I could say we were all playmates but then Neeti would kill me :-) On Saturday we went for the rock show where Strings and Indian Ocean performed for a very little while. Finally Neeti and Deepti agreed that their eye candy performers played for a longer time and ate into the slot for the rock performances. Sob sob.

God's Own Country

Jimmy was getting married in Kerala on 27th Nov, so a few of us planned to attend. The wedding was in Trichur, which is his home town. Jimmy is one big guy. Used to gym with him. Also played football with him during Cisco sports, a long long time ago. He introduced me to the Saturday charasmatic church meetings. And also to an old age home nearby. Nice chap with a big heart. The only time I have every seen him angry was during the Cisco football finals where the referee was favouring the other team. He shouted, "If you don't give a foul now, I'll beat you up!!!". The referee got scared :-) and then decided to play it straight. I mean anyone would get scared cause of his size. We were the underdogs throughout the tourney. After scoring the only goal in the finals we defended and marked our opponents like there was no tomorrow. We foiled all attempts of a comeback and I even managed to drop a couple of their players down :-) They sure had a lot of stamina. But finally we won. Yippee :-)

Anyways so I went along with some friends from Cisco, my previous company. Met a lot of other Cisco/ex-Cisco colleagues, friends and acquaintainces. Stayed at Gopa's place as he too is from Trichur. The day before the wedding we went site-seeing. Saw a lot of waterfalls. The restaurant where we broke for lunch had a bookrack. There was this one book called "Whos who of Gulf", which had the names of all the important people in the gulf. Kerala's virtual economy.

I tried on the traditional dress for men in Kerala. Its called the 'Mundu', where a white cloth is wrapped around the waist. The full mundu version is worn as a sign of respect for elders. There is also a half mundu version where my hairy legs were exposed. I looked more like a bouncer at a roadside toddy shop so I decided to wear my original attire for the wedding.

That night we had this sudden urge to watch a Malayalam movie. Gopa told us of this new actress, forgot her name, so we were all game to watch this movie in a language we did not understand. We reached about 5 mins late and bought tickets for the movie. When we entered we discovered that it was free seating. The theatre was peppered with a few unoccupied free single seats. Since we could not sit together we decided to go outside and get some help from the 'ticket dude'. Gopa and the dude exchanged some words in Malayalam. Or maybe expletives. Well whatever it was it sure made the dude a bit touchy. He said something and then looked at us as if we did not understand his language. Well technically I didn't but we all grasped the gist of it. We decided to leave and maybe catch another movie. Since I didn't understand the langauge it didn't matter what we saw :-) Besides we were out numbered and didn't want to attend the wedding with a few black eyes. We finally saw some other movie at another theatre. I asked Gopa what he had asked the dude. He said he asked him why the theatre didn't have seat numbers and the dude was offended. The dude said that thats the way it has been and thats the way it will be, so help us God. "Mind it. Wokay!!"...

It seems that all the theatres in Kerala have free seating. The second theatre guy was more polite and tried to give us a rational explanation for the current state of affairs. According to legend, a long long time ago there used to be seat numbers. Then someone discovered that the seat he was sitting in did not have good enough fan coverage. So he demanded that he get better fan coverage. When the likes of the dudes could not satiate his innermost desires he cried foul and decided to park his belongings someplace else. Then a fight broke out. And alas seat numbers were abolished in the whole of Kerala. Sigh... Hmmmm....

2005 A dog's love story

We have a German Shepherd at home. When I was moving out my Dad looked at me and said,"You're going... We need a dog now". So we got a dog and I christened him Scamper. When he was about 4 months old he entered an all India dog competition and won in his category. His grandfather and father had also participated and won in their respective categories. So it was kinda a family affair. A couple of years have passed since then and he has grown to become a very handsome mutt. He is single coated and has a very muscular frame. I mentioned this to my little sis Janelle and she was like,"yeah you have shoulders just like him". I don't know whether to take it as a compliment or not, being compared to my dog, but it was yet another oppurtunity to mess her up. Even my mom calls him all 'my' pet names when she has to make him eat :-) His daily diet consists of about half a kg of meat, 1 litre of milk and other stuff. My mom gives him carrots for good eyesight. He wakes up by 5am and then protocol demands that my dad take him for a walk. There are these cats that like to tease him. They walk along the roof of our neighbours house and he goes into a frenzy. Barking and running around. The cat daintily walks by, pauses, gives him the look and then moves on.

His life was moving along peacefully and then the birds began to sing. My cousin Charlene and her cousin Tina had arrived in town. Both of them love animals, especially dogs. I remember sometime back when I was out with Charlene there was this guy who was kicking a calf to move it off the road. Charlene pounced on him and beat the crap out of him. Also when I wanted to shoo away this cat she was like,"I'll beat you up if you do that". Anyways one look at Scamper and it was love at first sight. Actually it was kinda a love triangle. Both the girls would cuddle and tickle and hang out with Scamper trying to woo him. They would kiss him... yup kiss him... there would be these blue marks on their hands and legs after playing with him. After they left, he was like deeply hurt, mentally bruised and visually scared. His eyes were all droopy and stuff and he would just sit and wait for them. Sigh!!!!! Then the cat came back.

Four weddings and a 'holy communion'

I had taken the week off and was headed homewards to attend my sis, Sonali's wedding. Well her name is Sonali cause she was born in Sonali hospital. Nikhil, my brother in law, is from Kolkata. We know him from small when they used to come down for holidays. Nikhil's aunt Jocelyn is my mom's sister-in-law. Sonali and Nikhil met again at a wedding and exchanged phone numbers and Airtel's profits doubled. After some months they realised that they liked each other. I had been for the engagement which was held at Kolkata. He currently works in Delhi. I carried a lot of extra baggage with me since my mom feels that masalas from the south and better than masalas from the north. Anyways the free space in the baggage is always filled up on my way back so I never complain :-) I arrived on saturday, just in time for all the revelries and after all the preparations had been done.

Day 1: Nov 5th - The Bachelorette party
We started with some prayers. Then Sonali and the two bridesmaids, Charlene and Janelle, prepared themselves physically and mentally, to be embellished with rosewater. We decided not to use haldi since it sometimes gets messy. Not for the 3 of them but for others. I've seen it happen :-) Anyways I also was to sit with them cause I was one of the 'best men', but I somehow escaped, which is a good thing. The initial few ppl stuck to protocol and applyed rose water in a decent manner. When it was my turn I and a few others smashed some eggs on their heads. Then someone poured water on them. It was pretty cold and we were partying outside the house. After that some home made wine was poured on them. They drank some and the remaining was used as conditioner. But they were still looking decent so someone painted them with atta (flour) :-) My dad got it all on 8mm. Finally we were contented with our efforts and allowed them to get cleaned up. After that there was this naughty game... Aunty Sandra came up with it. Nice :-) Nikhil and a few of his friends dropped in. Then there was dancing and dancing and a lot more dancing. I mean a whole genre of dancing!!!! There was the jive, the shake, the gajre re types dancing, the item number types dancing, the decent dancing and the mellowed form of dirty dancing. Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey could take a few tips from us. I mean it was technically a bachelorette party. We danced way into the wee hours of the morning.

Day 2: Nov 6th - Rest day
The next day was supposed to be rest day cause of all our exploits. However there was a parish fete so we went for it. Won some prizes or maybe its cause we bought all the coupons to ensure that we win :-) We did this at various stalls. However some of them we actually won. I tried my luck at this football game where we were to kick the ball through a tyre. My very first shot was an all star shot. I kicked the ball straight into the volunteer who was running the show. It was definately an all star shot. Ouch!!! I took solace in the fact that I've not touched a football for quite some time. I decided that it was wise to let the volunteer contemplate on the recent turn of events, like the turning of the ball, as if a premonition. The volunteer at the next stall was ... err... luckier. I tried my hand at this wire game where you were to move another loop through this length of bent wire without touching it. The trick here is to use your second hand as a vibration dampener and to assist in maneuvering the sharp curves. Bingo!!! We decided to stay on for some jam session that they were having afterwards but it was getting late. So we decided to gate crash the bachelor party that was on our way back. The ambience had sobered down by the time we arrived. We hung out there for some time then headed home, only to realise that we had missed a lot of fun. Aunty Sandra what was that....

Day 3: Nov 7th - Wedding day
I took out some snaps of Sonali as soon as she woke up. All puffy and groggy. I then followed her around as she applied some cream to remove her moustache :-) I mean I'm the brother ain't I!!! I then decided to make myself useful and carried out some wedding errands. When we got the cut cake we realised that the slices were too tiny. On apprising the baker about our concerns, she was like, "You'll are lucky... I have another order and I still have to cut that cake." Ok so then what about their concerns!!! I then went to check out the hall and church decorations. Nikhil was practising with the choir, polishing certain pieces. After that I headed home to rest and then get ready.

The colour theme was blue so the bridesmaids and best men and flower girls and page boy's attire had a dabble of blue. My mom had this flower on the side of her head. Nice :-) The bridesmaids also had this flower thinghy on one hand. Sonali was looking gorgeous. I reminded her that its just the makeup and showed her the morning snaps. Hey I'm the brother ain't I :-) Once everyone was ready it was time for the blessings and then we were off to church. My dad led Sonali up the aile. The page boy was Kevin and the flower girl was Ruby. They walked infront. I walked with Charlene. Janelle the other bridesmaid walked with Nikhil's brother, Anil. Nikhil played the violin along with a friend. He then sang 'You raise me up' backed by the choir and the laptop which gave it a gospel song type feeling. Aunty Rhonda did the first reading. Nikhil's sister Diamay did the second. After the sermon there was the exchange of vows. Uncle Vincent and Jackie stood as witnesses. UB sang the 'Our Father'. Anil and our neighbour Sheena also sang. I did the reading for the offerings. Before the mass ended Nikhil sang 'Beautiful in my eyes'. Charlene was like, "I'm gonna cry". Well it was the song... I didn't step on her foot.. trust me!!! After a brief photo session we walked out of church where the couple were mobbed by family and friends.

After the wedding we were to go to the studio to take out some snaps. Before that we went to my aunt's place where Nikhil's parents and relations were. We made Nikhil carry Sonali inside. I took a lot of snaps and also tested his endurance :-) They had a short prayer service which was called 'The welcoming of the bride ceremony'. Midway through the ceremony Sonali was like, "Is something burning". Oh my gawd!!! Her veil was on fire. Nikhil and Janelle doused the fire with their hands and got some minor burns. Seems her got too close to the candles behind her as there were a lot of ppl in the room. I called it 'The burning of the bride ceremony'. Maybe its cause we never spoke about dowry :-) They then cut the veil from the sides and did some kind of overlapping and covered the evidence. However I caught the veil cutting act on camera.

We then went to the studio to idle away some time before the reception. When we entered the reception hall we walked around before the cutting of the cake. Then Jocelyn said a few words on the couple as she knows both of them from small. Then Nikhil spoke. Instead of singing the bridal special first, Nikhil sang 'Through the years' for the couples parents. He then sang 'Amazed' for the bridal special. This was followed by the grand march and the wishing of the bride and groom. After that there was a lot of dancing. Nikhil played some heavy metal on the guitar accompanied with his friend. Janelle also sang. Then my cousin Adrian who is a percussionist, played a little Jazz. Uncle Ralph joined him on the synthesizer. They played pretty well together. I played err... I played ... the fool and danced too :-)

After the carrying of the bride and groom which was an energy sapper there was the throwing of the bouquet and shoe. Tina got the bouquet and I got the boot.. err the shoe. Then it was time for our item number. We danced with a lot of jhatkas and matkas.... Then Tina tried to hit me with the bouquet and the flowers came off, the stalk still firmly held in her hand. Being in a challenging situation, my survival instincts kicked in and so I picked up my weapon.... err the flowers and we fought... Zorro style.... Then there was another photo session before we called it a day... a wedding day...

Day 4: Nov 8th - Dinner.
We had a dinner for family and friends in the compound outside our house. It had become pretty cold so we started a fire. This time I made sure there was no 'Burning of the etc etc ceremony'. Nikhil's dad, Uncle Danny the organised a game.

There were 3 other weddings that week. Then there were also some 'holy communion' ceremonies too. Tiring :-) After the dust had settled down, Sonu and Nikhil packed their bags and were all set to head off to Shimla and then Delhi. We also had this guest book thinghy, where people could write some message for the couple. Since most of us were partying hard on the wedding day we did not get a chance to write in it. Finally when I sat down and was trying to marry words together I remembered this saying which I had read in the Readers digest eons ago. It goes something like this, "Falling in love is not about finding the perfect person. Its about learning to see an imperfect person perfectly." After jotting that down I put down my addendum, "But thats just falling in love. Love is whats left when all the falling in love part dries up".

When I was back in bangalore a friend of mine told me he was soon to get engaged. He had seen this girl at his brother's wedding. His parents spoke to the girl and her parents and felt that she was a good match, so thats that. He had not spoken to her yet. I asked him if there was eye contact. You know like one eye or two eyes. Or first two eyes then one eye :-) When we subtly asked him about the 'haven't spoken to her yet' thingy, he pointed out, "What comes out in half-an-hour exchanges are niceties about a person which may not be a true reflection of self... just like personality contests." Hmmm. Yeah I guess love is whats left long after the personality contest is over. The gestation period may range from half-an-hour, to a few months, to a few years.

Tricks up his sleeve

My Dad is known to always have a few tricks up his sleeve. Like when he came to work in Nagpur he was living opposite my mom's house. He was upto his tricks even then. He like winked at her and stuff and put her under his magic spell. When we were small, sometimes we used to wake up early on weekends and escape into these nice magical sceneries. My mom would be praying (overtime) at home so that snakes don't bite us. He also had this small bag filled with various magic tricks. He has always had this thing with children. Dada retired sometime after I moved out to earn my own bread and butter and cheese and jam. I then heard that pops was upto his tricks again... err magic tricks.. just to make things clear :-) I heard that he had been performing for a lot of children, big and small. Children of all backgrounds... some with no backgrounds.

I had reached home for my sis's wedding just after all the preparations and stuff had been done. My cousin Luke and his family had come down from hyderabad. His little girl Ruby was like really shy. She wasn't talking to anyone. Dada showed her a rope trick and some other magic tricks and she became very pally with him.

The next day some kids had come home to give us their 'holy communion' invitation cards. A little boy had come with his 2 little brothers. Since I didn't know them I smiled and bent down and asked one of them his name. It was sometime around that very moment that I saw stars. The little fellow punched me in my face!!! In slow motion I unfolded myself and grew to my usual size, my shadow growing on the little fellow, finally enveloping him. As he gaped at the silhouette that had metamorphosed right in front of him, I contemplated about what fate had in store for the little chap. I mean I could have taken him out right there... but etiquette prevailed and I beat him up... just kidding... Ok just for the record I may have been 10 times his size but I wasn't afraid either of him or his 2 little brothers. I mean I could have had a go at all 3 of them.. that too at the same time... but you know me :-)... hmmm.... so as I was saying the 3 brothers came ahead of their parents, so that they could get some extra time at Uncle Melville's place. Pretty mischievous. Finally the eldest guy decided that it was ok if I know their names. He then whacked his brother on the head as if pointing to him when he mentioned his name. Then he pulled his other brother and hit him on the head before mentioning his name. Hmmm nice introduction... I smiled. As they stood there like 3 penguins on an african savannah they started to twitch, then squiggle and squirm in their place with their mouth shut.... then the eldest one exhaled,"MAGIC". And all their eyes lit up, as if they had achieved what they had set out to do.... then my dad appears and takes out this huge box and shows them some tricks.

However come to think of it, when my mom misplaces the keys she has to resort to praying before she finds it. Now thats one magic trick my dad hasn't figured out yet.

Runaway train

Runaway train never comin' back
Runaway train on a washed away track
Runaway train, another dead, its just a name
Runaway but it always feels the same

My phone rang. There was a hint of winter in the air or maybe it was just the north wind. I glanced at the number. "Unknown", I said to myself. I picked it up and the lady's voice on the other end seemed a bit shaky. "Err is this Alistair". She was making an effort to maintain her composure but there were cracks in the cover. I responded in the affirmative giving her my complete attention since I knew something was wrong. "I'm Apurva's mother. Do you know which train he is coming in. He phoned me up before he left Bangalore and said that he would reach Secunderabad and would catch a connecting train at 7am for Nagpur. His mobile seems to be off."

The south of India had been at the receiving end from nature. It was pouring everywhere due to the low pressure in the region. Roads were washed away. Localities and homes were flooded. In Bangalore some lakes overflowed and caused floods in the surrounding areas. Ayush used to carry his mattress and change of clothes etc in his car just incase his place got flooded as there was a lake nearby. The railway service between Bangalore and Chennai was stopped temporarily. AJ and Ashu were off to spend the coming Diwali week at home in Nagpur. They left on Friday. But then for reasons unfathomable to the soothsayers from amongst the populace, the support system of the tracks at one point were weakened. Eventually being washed away, by the excess water due to the heavy rains. This manifested itself in the form of a train accident near Secunderabad at about 5am types.

I assured AJ's mom that I would call her back. Thats all I could do at that point in time. I surfed through the channels on the TV. Time seemed to have slowed to a crawl as the signals from remote took their own sweet time to reach the TV. I saw some glimpses of the train compartments that were crushed. It looked pretty bad. I knew the train name which they were travelling in. The channels did not mention the name/number of the train. Maybe they did but I didn't see it. I then decided to surf the net and found that my friends were travelling by a different train. I called up AJ's mom and apprised her of the situation. The shakyness in her voice seemed to fade away as we continued our conversation. Parents are same everywhere :-) Someone once said that you don't need to tell your parents that you love them, they already know. Well someone else said, that the someone who said that was probably not a parent :-)

As daylight faded, I heard the news about the 3 bomb blasts in Delhi. The next day I was discussing with Sridhar about the events of the previous day. Sridhar was of the opinion that in India human life is not valued. Agreed that we couldn't do much about the bomb blasts but maybe the train accident could have been avoided. Trains could have been diverted since it was a known fact that the area was under a heavy lashing of rain. In India, we come up with technology for others but don't use it ourselves. I had worked on a compact high processing device that could do a lot of things. It had wireless capability in addition to other stuff. Ppl in another country were contemplating using it for remotely monitoring railway tracks and informing authorities about possible hazards. The key word here is 'another' country.

Maybe a few lives have to be lost for others to even start thinking about improving the quality of life. There is this email floating around where they say that you should be proud to be an Indian cause our ancestors invented/discovered so and so thing thousands of years before the rest of the world did. Applause please. Yeah right does past glory really matter now. My roots are from Goa and I may have a bit of Portuguese blood running in my veins. Well I can't speak Portuguese but I can speak Hindi. But you know what I really don't care cause it doesn't matter if you are proud of your ancestors or not. What matters is if your ancestors can be proud of you.

Addi's Engagement

Aditya Kulkarni aka Addi. We got thru engineering college together. He now works for a startup that builds high computing scalable computers with parallel processing, that they have positioned as a replacement for costly supercomputers. He was part of my gang of few friends that I would hang out with. The good thing about him is that he talks a lot and enjoys it when ppl pull his leg. Exam time he would call me up, "Ally... How much have you completed!!!". I would lie and tell him that I am nearly done, then he would get all hyper and stuff,"Gawd... Mera kya hoga... I'm gonna get real low marks this time"... sob sob etc etc.... However he would always manage to be amongst the top in the class. And then we also had Apurva Jadhav aka AJ who is a master at a lot of things, one being pulling Addi's leg. People say that AJ reaches his prime in leg pulling when Addi is around. We have a lot of stories.

So Addi was gonna get engaged and some of us from bangalore were heading towards Pune over the weekend. I was to travel with Ashu by train and on the way back AJ was to join us back by flight. The train journey was comfortable. Ashu gave me company. There were some vendors who were selling bottled water. The wrapper claimed it had 300% more oxygen. Yeah H2O4. H2O2 is hydrogen peroxide which is used especially as an oxidizing and bleaching agent and as an antiseptic. H2O3 is a shorthand for maleic anhydride which is toxic. H2O4 is the shorthand for oxalic acid. Yikes!!!!

Anyways we chatted with some ppl whose children are also engineers. These days everyone wants to get into engineering :-) At night they realised that the chains to support the bedrest for the middle berth were not of equal length. I then suggested that they twist one of the chains till the lengths are similar and it worked. They smiled and were like,"hmmmm... you're an engineer". Well I've said before that engineering is all about solving problems. All you gotta do is think. Sometimes think different. If you are a computer science engineer then its not about knowing languages like C, C++, Java etc. Its more about logic and applying that logic in a systematic manner. I remeber on another journey there were some ppl who had put a click lock on the zips of one of their bag. The bag had a double zip which was bonded by the lock and the key was left inside the bag. They tried to fit their finger into the bag by pulling the zips as far apart as possible but it gave them just about 1 inch of space. Above that the bag was filled to capacity. Then they started discussing how they should break the lock. The path of the zips formed 3 sides of a rectangle. So I moved the zips to one of the corners. Juggled the stuff inside a bit to make some space and then tried to make the sides parallel to each other. I then moved the zips (still bonded by the click lock) along the parallel tracks, away from the corner. Now your full hand could be put inside, infact you could put in two hands. They found the key and smiled and were like,"hmmmm... engineer right".

Arrived in Pune sometime around 3-4ish and headed to the place where we were to meet Addi. AJ was in mumbai on some work and was coming along with Gaurav. Met Addi's dad who is also high on the list of ppl that enjoy pulling Addi's leg. His sister also enjoys it. I mean everyone does it. His fiancee Richa has also started enjoying it. We rested a bit and then it was engagement time. Addi was to receive a sherwani from his inlaws which he was to change into. Clicked some snaps of him changing :-) to get the before and after effect. A lot of his other friends turned up in the room and on the way out someone left the key inside and shut the door. Afterwards when we realised it we had to start a background process to retrieve the key as the hotel ppl didn't have a spare???? One of the bell boys jumped in from some window from behind and finally opened the door.

Meanwhile Addi was upto his stunts on stage. His inlaws gave him some laddoos and he was putting the full thing in. Had to get him water to make it all go down. Caught the moment on camera :-) After the ring ceremony the pujari told him to give a laddoo to Richa. Don't know what he heard but he ended up eating the laddoo himself :-) The ceremony went off well. I was entertained. Caught up with a lot of friends.

The next day we moved into Addi's flat. For a bachelor it is set up very well. I must say I was impressed. AJ has bought a flat in the same complex which overlooks Agakhan palace. In the afternoon we ate some good maharasthran food. I stuffed myself. When we were back I decided to climb to the topmost point of the building and get a panoramic view of Pune. Richa joined us for dinner, where she revealed what all Addi had told her about his hobbies. Said that he claims that photography is one of his hobbies and that he showed her a snap of a monkey. There was a lot of poking after that :-) Back at Addi's place the discussion continued till the wee hours of the morning... Slept around 4:30 types.