Traffic woes

I had been to Ritchie street today afternoon to get a hardware part fixed in my laptop. The fix took only about fifteen minutes, but the commute time was more than 3 hours to reach Ritchie street and come back home. Roads are blocked and vehicles diverted within the city (Chennai) for the metro rail construction. Roads with 4 lanes are reduced to just a passage that's big enough only for a single vehicle to pass. While i drove back, i thought that the mount road will be lane of vehicular chaos and took the beach road. I then understood that it was an experience of jumping onto the stove from the Pan. Vehicles were moving at a snail's pace with lot of vehicles coming in a cool way in the opposite direction. I now understand the reason for the frequent accidents on the beach road with buses and cars ramming vehicles coming in the opposite direction. I should thank Ilayaraja for helping me to keep my cool through out those 2 hours of nerve wrecking traffic chaos. Chennai seems to be in a transformation phase right now with the construction of the pillars and tracks for the metro rail. The plan seems to cover the busiest stretches of the city. I presume the city's transportation system will get a major face lift once the metro rail becomes  operational. Phase 1 may get completed by the end of 2013. The hope is that the car & two wheeler users will reduce their road usage with the advent of the metro rail system. Wherever available, electric trains seem to be the quickest means of transportation within the city. I am very hopeful that most of the vehicle users would prefer using this new means of transport instead of getting tormented by the traffic chaos to save a couple of minutes. So, the only option right now is to keep our patience intact while traversing through the main roads of the city and wait for the metro dawn.

Diwali Again

This year's Diwali is around the corner. The city is as usual ready to embrace  the festival of lights with a delightful fervor. I already see placards outside popular sweet stalls stating that they are ready to take bulk orders for sweets. When i was young(in school), buying sweets from a stall was not very common and there were not so many sweets shops around as they exist today. Unlike other festivals, sweets used to be made in large quantities at least 2 weeks before the festival. I came home everyday with my tongue trickling with droplets of saliva and taste buds ready to devour the variety of sweets that were made at home. Things changed a bit afterwards. Distributing sweets to employees in offices especially for Diwali became a practice  Both my parents were employed and, we waited for the sweet boxes they would bring home. We sometimes snatched those boxes from our parents while on the way, even before they could reach home. We relished them more as they would have exotic varieties of sweets than what my mother knew to make at home. For crackers, my father's office had a cooperative society that sold crackers at a price slightly lesser than the market prices. I would keep inquiring my father about the date on which the stalls would open lest i miss anything on my list as the crackers used to get sold out in those cooperative stalls very quickly. Buying crackers used to be done with so much fanfare at that time. We discussed in our friends circle as to when each of us will be buying crackers. At times, i used to take friends for buying crackers. What an happiness that was. Even crores of rupees would not get us back those days or the feeling. The energy and the spirit have dwindled down over the years. We don't celebrate now. But the fervor seems to be less. Today, I see even kids refraining from lighting crackers now as they are told by their teachers that child labor is involved. But i am pretty sure that these kids miss the excitement and amusement that we expected and enjoyed every moment on that day. Most of the time, Ignorance is Bliss.
 

Power of Prayer

"Prayer is the last resort and the ultimate resource left to  man where the human intellect fails."
- Mahasaya, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa's disciple.
I have often thought about this powerful statement that i read from the book "A Search in Secret India" by the western Spiritual explorer Paul Brunton. When the whole world is aligned with reason and intellect, Is it worthwhile to put effort  on something that  purely depends on faith. How many of us have felt or at least agree with the fact that Prayer is a force that helps us to subconsciously concentrate only on things that are positive. Though i have heard and read a lot about self realization or emancipation, i have not really had such moments in life till now. But, i have a very strong belief that prayer can help you generate positive thoughts and in the long run create a mindset thats devoid of negative thoughts. It also aids in being calm while under pressure and can help you weigh merits and demerits of a situation and take an informed decision. The western philosophy of Auto Suggestion seems to work in a similar manner. Any thought positive or negative is a wave that spreads around you and amasses more of its kind from the surrounding universe until it becomes a tsunami. This eventually has an effect on how you react or respond to people or situations. I am sure that everyone prays for something constructive. The saying that Well begun is half done is grounded to the fact that the person has the right mindset in order to achieve what he wants to. I would say that this is also a kind of a prayer that is done subconsciously without even the individual realizing it. How do i cultivate the habit of praying often? Going to temples often can be a very good starting point. Temples are places where most of us tend to keep our egos out and try to remain our true self. Thats a place where we can start practicing the art of praying or auto suggetion. Once you get habituated to praying regularly, you will realize that you feel calm and your days are better than what you expected. Your talking will get reduced and you will start to judge content and not people. You will also realize that there is always a force that is ready to help you realize your positive goals. With our life span being very short, why do we need to litter our mind with anything negative. I believe it takes only practice to keep our mind bubbling with possitive thoughts all the time and prayer is the easiest way to achieve it.

Back Home

I am back home now. Landed in Chennai yesterday morning after a long & tiring flight. No flight transports you back from America to India in less than 24 hours, atleast 22. Its a sea of difference between the streets of Manhattan to the streets of Chennai. But Namma Chennai is as sweet as ever with a sense of belongingness to the city prevailing in me all over. Slowly catching up with the news & events here in India and Chennai. The political heat is on with BJP stalling the parliment proceeding quoting the allotment of coal mines to private parties in an arbitrary manner. On the better side, The weather in Chennai seems to be getting better. The heat during the day seems to have simmered down a bit with a few spells having brought down the always soaring 35+ deg temperature.  I went to Pazhamudhir Solai to get vegetables today. Prices of vegetables seem to be under control. I have plans to take my daughter out sometime this week- She might not have been taken out last 2 months during my absence here except for her school and other classes. But she has her exams this week and I need to plan. Nevertheless, I have to go to office in a day & start getting engaged with my next assignment. But on the whole, i am happy to be back home.

Saravana Bhavan, New York

In continuation of my previous post on Saravana Bhavan dinner yesterday, i should admit that the taste was authentic south Indian and it just transported me to Chennai for those 30 minutes that it took to finish my dinner. It was a typical Saravana's style dinner with items such as Sambar, Rasam, Kootu, Vatha Kuzhambu, Appalam, Payasam and rice. It was just about 8:30 PM when i opened the pack with lot of fondness, i realized that the quantity of rice was less. Especially for a south Indian like me whose staple diet is Rice in different forms for BreakFast, Lunch and Dinner, the quantity i felt was just peanuts. Also, the rice had become cold and hardened. So, i made rice myself and consumed all the items given with a reasonably large quantity of rice. The taste of the items was just the same as what you would expect in any of the Saravana restaurants back in Chennai. In Chennai, they have a centralised kitched from where most of the items (At least for a meal) would get transported from. I was wondering as to how these guys manage to bring their authentic Saravana taste to all the places they go, be it Singapore or New York. Myself and my daughter have always been a fan of Saravana. My daughter will not agree for a lunch or dinner in any of the hotels other than the HSB, Like wise, most of my cousins have tuned their taste buds to the taste of the HSB Masala Dosa and Sambar. When i called my cousin today to tell him about my tryst with the HSB in New York, he asked me to call later. The reason was that he was in Saravana Bhavan having a Masala Dosa in  and wanted to enjoy the Savor of the moment. Chennai or New York, that's the magic of HSB. I am sure you would agree.

Saravana Bhavan, New York

I have been trying out different restaurants in the last couple of weeks, here in New York. But none could satisfy the taste buds of a person who has been eating authentic south Indian food at Home and  restaurants like Saravana Bhavan   and Annalakshmi, back in Chennai. So today, i was determined to have my dinner in Saravana Bhavan. I had called my friend yesterday and had asked him the way to one of my favorite restaurants, the HSB. I was also longing for a good Filter Coffee so much last couple of weeks which was a granted back home. The Saravana's or HSB for short is located at the begining of the 28th Street in the Lexington Avenue, New York. I have got used to the concept of Avenues and Streets of Manhattan due to my commute to the Park Avenue office every day. But otherwise too, there should not be a problem finding a spot in New York with a bit of a direction sense, for the reason that Manhattan is very neatly divided into Avenues and Streets. If you know the Number, Street and Avenue, you can reach your destination without much help from others. I set out for my dinner errand at about 5 PM and headed straight to the 33rd street. From there, it was about a 20 minute walk to the HSB. The ambience was great with tamil songs being played to give a feel that you are in a hotel which is a hallmark in Chennai, though the place right now was New York. The place was clean and well organized except that the waiters could have been a bit more friendly rather than being mechanical, according to my judgement. I ordered a coffee as soon as i entered and could not have my dinner there as it was just quarter to six which is too early for my dinner. So, i ordered a takeway of a South Indian Meal to be consumed at home later. I then took a walk back to the subway station on Lexington to head back to my Hotel. I will post again about the taste of the food items. I plan to go there whenever possible, but will take a bit of time and effort. But anyway, Saravana Bhavan is a name thats worth the money and effort whether its Chennai or New York.

New York Times

I am once again (and again) in the US, this time in New York to work for a banking giant. But this seems to be an entirely different experience, No cars to travel, lot of walking on the roads and commuting by the Path and the subway. Its has been an tiring but exciting 3 weeks till now. New York is outright pacy and different than the other cities i have seen in the US. I stay in a place called Journal Square in Jersey City and travel to Mid Town Manhattan, where my office is. The commute takes about an hour and i change 3 trains to reach my office. Its Path which carries me from Journal Square to the 33rd Street. From there, i take the N or the R subway uptown trains headed for Queens to get down at Times Square. From Times Square, there are shuttles every minute to the Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan. From the Grand Central Terminal, its a  five minute walk to the Lexington Avenue to reach my office in the Park Avenue. The significance of this journey i described is that the most visited tourist locations of the world are on my way. The empire state building is in the 34th street and sometimes in the evening back home from office, i take a walk back to 33rd street from my office only to see this engineering marvel. Grand Central is again a spot that you cannot miss for its architectural beauty. Thousands of people throng New York to see the places that i just mentioned, but it has turned out to be a visit to these place everyday for me. Its turning out to be a new and enriching experience for me here. Will keep you posted more on my life here as i experience.

To Know or Not

Have you ever given a thought about the dwindling count of sparrows in your neighborhood? or to be more relavent, what constitutes the poverty line, leave alone knowing the fact as to what percentage of our population  live below the poverty line. Not many of us would have bothered about all of these. Most of us are so much lost in the chores of our meaningless day to day life that we miss the importance of knowing some of the basic facts around us. There is so much stuff that we take for granted as it does not impact our daily livelihood ie. money making. I feel that it requires some amount of passion to want to know about the things around us which indirectly impact us. Take your son's or daughter's school books and you would get to know how much ignorant you are in basic science & history and more importantly in the day to day affairs. Most of us don't mind spending hours and hours watching mindless movies or unimportant cricket matches. The other day, it was a shock for me to see a television show where some youth were asked as to who the father of our nation is and many did not know. May be the question was not relevant to them as it was not connected to Cinema or Cricket. The habit of reading and the inquisitiveness to know the fundamentals seems to be lacking with the youth these days. Moreover, a majority of  the children nowadays seem to be more obsessed with online games and television shows than reading a good book on history or current affairs. Reading is one thing which always has the power to keep you contemporary apart from the pleasure it gives you in getting to know things. It has to be encouraged among kids in schools even from a little age of 6 or 7 when they are taught to read small sentences.

3D Movie John Carter

I am not a big movie buff myself. At times, I watch them to kill time. However in recent times, I have become a regular to Satyam and Inox . My daughter is a 3D movie buff and we have seen most for most of the 3D movies that were released over the last one year. Gulliver's Travel, Cars, Kungfu Panda are some of the worthy ones to mention. Our last tryst was with John Carter in Satyam, a sci-fi movie that really could not keep our attention intact throughout. An army officer gets transported to the planet Mars, by virtue of possessing a magical talisman. The rest of the story goes on in Mars with battles between martian king(dom)s to reign supremacy in the planet. Its hard core science fiction and a bit difficult to follow the story line, if you haven’t read the plot in the wiki before you go to watch the movie. Nevertheless, the sets of the movie are spectacular with huge fortresses, their vehicles for transport catching the eyes.  The art director definitely needs a mention for his imagination of the people(creatures) that inhabit Mars. There is also a tinge of comedy when the hero is thrown up in the air because of the low gravitational forces, whenever he tries to walk. The movie will be an overall a fun filled outing for kids except for the story line that will be slightly hard to follow.

Vehicle For Communication

In the last couple of weeks, there had been news articles of two engineering students ending their lives. The reason stated is that, the two students were unable to cope up with their curriculum.  What make these incidents even more heart rending is the fact that the students ended their life not because they could not cope up with the demands of the course but they could not follow the content of the lectures and text books as the medium of instruction was in English. As a result, they had accumulated a number of arrears over a period of time. With the boom of the IT/ITes sectors in India, the knowledge of English has become inevitable. One of the top criteria that define employability of engineering graduates in these sectors is fluency of the English language. The job profiles require employees to converse with clients in unknown lands. There is no harm in studying subjects in the mother tongue. In my long stint with the IT sector, i have seen students who have done their entire schooling in Tamil medium and engineering in reputed colleges with subjects taught in English, but have done extremely well in college and at the workplace. There are also people who have picked up the language of English so well over years, though they are from a rural background and have done their schooling in Tamil Medium.
To an extent, it’s soothing to hear that some of the branches of engineering are being offered now in Tamil. A welcome Initiative. China, Japan & Russia are some examples that hoist their flag high in the IT arena in spite of their population not being very conversant in English. The major problem as i understand with our setup is that there are no standards that are used to translate many of the technical terms used in engineering to and equivalent  in the vernacular. Students are left in a lurch using these terms when it comes to examinations.
To make things better for such students, there has to be a dictionary which translates the technical terms into an equivalent in Tamil. This dictionary has to be updated regularly and should be made available for students as a free download. This will weed out any possible confusions in the usage of such technical terms. Coming to the point of gaining fluency in English, all students in school taking up their studies in Tamil medium have to be given coaching in spoken English. This effort can start as early as, when the students are in the seventh or eighth standard. This can be done after regular school hours, for two or three hours a week. This will go a long way in giving them an opportunity to face the employment world with much more confidence. Language is a vehicle for communication. It should not be allowed to become a vehicle that takes the life of students.

Relation less Relationships

In the last couple of weeks, i had got about two or three invitations to my email ID with my name in the blind carbon copy(bcc) list. This made me think a bit. Either, the sender did not want me to know, who were the other people that were invited for the occasion or he did not want others to know that i have been invited (Security reasons? :-)). An invitation should never be a formality. Most of these emails, rather than invitations give me a feeling that the sender wants to be so much dutiful that he does not want anybody to blame him for not inviting all acquaintances for the occasion. I very much suspect if anybody in the bcc list would ever go for the celebration. Very unlikely. Atleast, it makes me feel embarrassed to send an invite that way.

How do you even talk/move with the person once you send an invitation to him, figuring in the bcc. Are relationships not be valued more. There was a colleague of mine whom i knew for the last couple of years. He recently got got married. He did not send me any invite knowing that i would not be able to attend the marriage as i was not in the country. I am sure that he would have given me an invite in person had i been in Chennai. I liked that attitude rather than being sent an invitation with my name figuring in a list of unknowns. I have also had colleagues whom even after years remember me and come in person to invite me for their personal events. I make it a point to attend those. Its better if people take friendships/relationships more seriously or better not have it.

Mexican Taste

The winter weather in the US can sometimes be very deceptive, atleast for people who have travelled from the tropical region. It would be very sunny out there and you go out off guard expecting a Chennai afternoon, you would have to run back home. It was one such Friday afternoon when we decided to taste Mexican food daring the wind chillness and the weather man's warning of minus something. We headed to the Blue Agave, a popular restaurant that specializes in the Mexican cuisine.

It was past one o clock when we checked in and the crowd was meager for the magnitude of the place. The restaurant was dim lit, but had a great ambiance. There were 2 huge inches plasma panels that played dance & music - should be hard core Mexican, i believe. That day, i was lucky enough to have people who had vowed to eat vegetarian alone on that particular day. I had been to Mexican restaurants before and had tasted the popular Mexican burritos and tacos during my earlier visits. I wanted to taste something different this time. I glanced through the menu and settled down for the Vegetarian Fajitas. Its a light combination of Mushrooms, bell peppers, onions & tomatoes served with Mexican rice, fried beans, pico de gallo & 4 flour tortillas. You just had to open the tortilla place some of each of the accompanying items of the vegetables,beans and rice, fold it and eat. The taste was just awesome. We wolfed down 2 tortillas in quick succession followed by a big glass of lemonade refilled time and again. It was a great lunch after having a not so good outing with the previous one. We wanted to go there again but did not as we had to cover other tastes as per our manifesto. We want to take a break and taste Indian next week. Let us see how that works to fulfill our mission to satisfy our taste buds. Ciao then.

Food Festival Continues

My tryst with international cuisine coninues. It was Chinese food last Friday for Lunch. We went to the Sun Flower Chinese restaurant which is about a 15 minutes drive from our office in Polaris parkway. The restaurant is in a corner and could easily be missed. The lunch package has tea, soup and rice, all complimentary along with the main course. The Tea tasted better than what it would be normally. Traditional Chinese Tea!!!. As usual, my choices were restricted to the food items marked green on the menu card. The soup had vegetables served in a colorless liquid, but tasted good. I ordered brown steamed rice with a buddhist delight for my main course, while my friends applied permutations and combinations with number of dishes and how they could share it. I think we ordered more food than what we could eat. The quantity is much more than what was served in the italian restauarant where we soothed our taste buds 2 weeks ago. The buddhist delight had raddish, onion, carrots, brocolli cooked in a mild sauce. It really didnot go well with rice which tasted a bit sweet. I could wolf down only half of the delightful Buddhist delight and so were others. Some of my friends packed the left over for their dinner. The lunch got over with a chinese fortune cookie. Its a desert that has a small piece of paper hidden in between two crispy pieces of biscuits that and has some words of wisdom. It was a a different experience with the taste of food and the ambience of the restaurant. We plan to visit the house of Japan next week. I have been to Japanese restaurants before, but will share my experience with the Japanese taste once i have it.

Soul Stirring Music

Ilayaraja is an all time great. Till now, i have not been able to move away from his tunes of the 80s' to any other form of music. I was getting bored on this Sunday afternoon and was browsing you tube for his evergreen movie Back Ground Music(BGMs). I happened to listen to the BGM of the movie Idayam. I have seen the movie many times. And one more time, it just transported me to a different world. A soul stirring & a divine experience. The movie was released sometime in 1992 when i was in my graduation and i still remember my friend talking about the movie for nearly 2 weeks after he had seen it in the Devi complex. I happened to see it in the Kumaran Theatre in Madipakkam along with 2 of my cousins. This was a movie which embraced me like a breeze. I would say that 90% of this effect was made possible only because of the Maestro's BGM. Added to it is the Spelendid Picturization and a perfect screen play!!!. It remains one of my best movies till now. I dont think i have seen or heard about any tamil movie till now that narrates romance in such an impressive way, between a man and a woman using the language of music. I have seen the movie many times now in the cable channels. Just hear to the BGM on a quiet afternoon. The BGM brings in a state of peace in me. I can feel my nerves calming down. I truly believe that music can cure diseases and am certain that Raja is one of the pioneers in this field of medicine.

Rendezvous with International Cuisines

I am once again in the US, this time in Columbus, Ohio. The work is very interesting and the people are friendly and make me feel at home. I have been lucky enough, all my previous trips to escape the harsh winter. But this time, my stay is a bit long here and is in the peak of the winter season. It has snowed only a couple of times this season and the weather god has been considerate. The temperature in the afternoons lingers around the 5 degree centigrade mark and falls below zero during night. To me, December was very cold, but seems very mild for some of the news papers here. They are now writing about the city entering into the coldest season of the year. Dont really understand what it means. But anyway, the stay has been good till now. Every time when i visit the US, I make it a point to visit all the Indian restaurants in that city. But this time aroud, I have decided to taste a different international cuisine every week. We(myself and my team) started of with the Indian menu a week ago and tasted Italian(Olive Gardens) last week.

The ambience was very pleasant. The food was good though, the names were a bit difficult to pronounce. The dishes were blande and went well with my taste. I started with the Italian bread & salads followed by the Egg plant Parmigiana & the stuffed mushrooms. Choices for Vegetarians is always limited. We have plans to visit the Chipotle Mexican grill this week to taste the burritos and tacos. This will be followed by Thai and the Mongolian Barbeque. I am liking it.