Musings of a Transplant

Happy New Year

2008-01-01T15:59:00.000-08:00

Happy Diwali!

2007-11-08T14:47:00.001-08:00

Imaginary Men - Anjali Banerjee a Review

2007-11-08T11:05:00.000-08:00

I bought Imaginary Men for some light reading for my trip to Vegas. Oh now you are laughing at me and saying "Book to Vegas... haha." Whatever. So I bought this book for my trip to Vegas in case I did not want to go clubbing and wanted to stay in and read. I was looking for a light (read trashy) book. After some preliminary Amazon.com book searches, I came across this one. The synopsis read like a frothy romantic comedy so I figured let me give it a shot (after all I did enjoy the movie "The Wedding Date", oh stop judging!)

All I have to say for this book... UGH UGH.. who in their right minds is giving this book 5 stars.
In a nutshell, the book is about 30 something Indian American Lina Ray who makes up a fiance at her sister's Indian wedding to get an Indian Aunt off her back. She subconsciously (or not) models the fake man after this guy, Raja, she had run into at the wedding. What follows is the story, no... soap opera of her lies and the real Raja coming to her in San Francisco. Blah di blah di blah. I think everyone and their mother can guess what happens.

Now one would say, "hey what did you expect? War and Peace? The synopsis should have told you what to expect" Yeah Yeah, but what I am taking offense to is, the whole exoticization of INDIA. Its like the hot commodity that everyone is cashing in on. This story could have been set in San Francisco and have had nothing to do with India and it would not have pissed me off as it did. Its the new model for success for writing, take some soap operaesque story, set it in India, throw some saris, bindis and arranged marriage and voila you get people calling this borefest "Bridget Jones meets Monsoon Wedding"!! UGHHHH!!

Ebay

2007-10-11T13:06:00.000-07:00

I love this cartoon! Reminds me of my friend and ebay addict Chanh :D

http://xkcd.com/325/

On a Whim

2007-10-11T10:57:00.001-07:00

So I moved! It was worth it. I may not be here long, but this was one of those whim things that I did and boy I am glad I did.

I was in Utah a couple of weeks ago and when I landed back in San Francisco, it just felt like I had come back home. Home is an almost alien concept to me. I grew up pretty much like a nomad. Through the years of 0-18, I never lived in a place for more than 3 years. College was probably the only place I was at for 4 years. People ask me all the time "was it weird moving every 2-3 years?" I tell them, "Thats all I know, it would be weird staying at the same place for more than 3 years!"

Now that I know that I am leaving San Francisco/Bay Area, I feel sad. I feel like I found a place that was as close to home as I would get (or maybe I am just getting older and sentimental!). Every time I drive down 101, I look at the bay and think about how I wont be seeing it on a regular basis. I look out of the window and see the ocean and think the same thing. I look at friends and think about how it will be different. I am no stranger to moving, but this one seems the hardest one yet.

Ugh I am rambling...

Here is the view from my window...

The Facebook Skit

2007-08-09T13:47:00.001-07:00

Funny Facebook Song by the U Penn a capella group (Penn Masala) - Courtesy my friend Szu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_Masala

Crazy?

2007-06-30T20:33:00.000-07:00

I must be totally crazy... and here is why I think so.

I am going to transition to a new role at my present company and will be moving to Portland, Oregon around the end of the year. I have a good 6 months before I do that, and suddenly its dawning on me, how I will be leaving behind every friend I know in the US. All of them live in the bay area, barring one who lives in LA (but thats even farther away from Portland). In addition to that I am starting to feel that I don't know the city as well I would have liked to. I deliberately chose not to live in the city, but close to it, to get the city advantage with the parking benefits of suburbia. Now suddenly I am thinking "hmmm maybe I should move into the city for the 6 mos I have left". Is that kinda stupid or what. Moving twice in 6 months? But its making sense to me in my mind. I am going to live in the city in Portland, maybe I can start here. Need to have a chat with my roommates.....

The whole big deal over Gere-Shetty kiss is pissing me off

2007-04-27T15:15:00.000-07:00

By now people on either side of the Pacific, Atlantic and maybe even those astronauts running the Boston Marathon in space have heard about the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) and the subsequent arrest warrant against Richard Gere for kissing Shilpa Shetty. But, if you have been living under a rock or in a cave, here it is...

I did not want to talk about this as I think its a non-issue which should never have been a big deal. But now the whole thing is pissing the hell out of me and I need to vent. I love India, sometimes I love our conservativeness too, occasionally it can be charming. But seriously, have all our problems been solved that we need to waste legal time and money on this shit? I am shocked that the courts even thought that the complaint was reasonable enough to actually go ahead and issue an arrest warrant.

We make movies like Murder super hits (for the non-Indians or the Indians living under a rock or in a cave, refer to video below - P.S. I am posting some of the milder stuff from Murder) and then frown upon a kiss on the cheek. Those truck drivers who saw the kiss live, did not give a rats ass, then why some lame ass out of work lawyer (I say out of work, because only a jobless ass has time to waste like this) went ahead and filed a complaint?

And all those Richard Gere effigy burning people, if you have so much spare time and don't need real jobs (like most people in India), there are better things you can do, like keep vigil on the streets, so no woman gets teased, molested or raped. Then you will be upholding the morals you so fervently believe in.

PS Other asinine PILs lodged in India
- Against cricketer Ravi Shashtri for eating beef
- Against Aishwarya Rai and Hrithik Roshan for kissing in Dhoom 2

I am sure there are other gems, but I only heard about the above two on NDTV :p

Whats in a name...??

2007-03-30T13:40:00.000-07:00

This morning I was calling Citibank for some issue I needed to sort out. I have always had pretty decent customer service experience whenever I have called them. More often than not, I have been routed to a call center in India. I cannot say anything negative about the experience. The only thing I always wonder about is, why do they make the reps call themselves by names like Roger, Bill, Pam, Karen? I know that a name like Sashidhar or Vipasana might be hard for an American to grasp, but do they need to give names at all? If someone really wants to know the name of the rep, they can ask, and if they are asking, then they probably care enough to maybe know the real name. I just wonder, how it must feel to Srinivas to be John for 8-10 hours every night. I wonder if it makes him feel unlike himself.

Nam-a-sake: Kal Penn interview with SNL's Andy Samberg

2007-03-06T13:38:00.001-08:00

Nam-a-Sake
Many of us have seen Kal Penn play comic roles in movies like American Desi and Harold and Kumar. Also seen him as the dialogue-less bad guy in Superman Returns and more recently in 24. Now he will take on Gogol. The trailers look nice. I am looking forward to this movie, but pretty much because of Irfan Khan and Tabu.

Holi

2007-03-05T10:02:00.000-08:00

Saturday was Holi. The fun, colorful Indian festival. I kinda missed celebrating Holi. Which is a little weird because its not my most favorite of festivals. I think I know why; it was because when I was about 9 years old, my friends decided that it would be great to use paint! Not just kids, we had some adults going crazy with the paint. I think the paint removal process traumatized me!!
At that time, my dad was posted at this little army cantonment in Jammu and Kashmir. It was pretty much on the border of J&K and Punjab. I have the fondest memories of that place. Waking up early to fill a tub with water balloons and then go on the prowl. The only day when hitting an adult with a water balloon did not get you in trouble! We used to have huge parties in the Army Officers Mess. Holi would bring out rainbow colored people, who spent the morning wishing and coloring friends and then having brunch. Maybe I associate Holi with being a kid and that just calls me sometimes, you know going back in time, being a kid again.
Another holi memory is of the time when I was in the 10th Grade. I was taking my 10th board exams, which are a huge deal, and I think Holi was right before an exam. I was so distracted seeing kids running around. In a way I was happy that I did not have to go out a play holi. Those water balloons are not fun when you get hit, but fun to throw!
As every year passes in a far away country, every festival acutely focuses on how far away I am.

Update to Barring Sushi

2007-03-02T15:28:00.000-08:00

An update to my post titled Barring Sushi.

This afternoon was the goodbye lunch, and we were all sitting and chatting, when suddenly I was asked by the organizer girl, "hey so I googled and could not find Barring Sushi. where is it?" I almost sprayed my gulp of strawberry lemonade and my friend across from me almost choked on her Ahi Tuna..
I responded with a "Don't worry about it, someone told me about it, don't know where it is" It took all the will power in me to not crack up. And then I had to deflect the focus by "So what restaurants in city do you like?"
PHEW..... that was a close one!

Ft Lauderdale

2007-03-01T14:28:00.000-08:00

I went to Ft Lauderdale to attend my friends, Jessica and Gary's wedding. There were 6 of us who went. What comes to mind when one says Florida? Nice sunny warm weather right? Nooooo.... The rain thought we were going to miss it while we were away, so it decided to hop on the plane with us to Ft Lauderdale, leaving behind a sunny gorgeous weekend here. Damn rain.
We did get a nice sunny Saturday, but it was akin to sitting in SFO when its sunny and cold at the same time.
Nevertheless, we had an amazing time. The view from our hotel room was enough to make us happy. The wedding was really nice and I had a lot of fun.We checked out some bars and clubs at the Riverfront in Downtown Ft Lauderdale. Its true when they say East Coast men are more aggressive. The downtown shopping area was very cute, reminded me of downtown Palo Alto, but more expensive. Though a downtown restaurant we had lunch at, had run out of pretty much everything on the menu. I mean how can you run out of Orange Juice on a Sunday afternoon???!!??? Jeeeez.
Ooooh and, the burgers at this beach shack kind of place, had fries and cole slaw inside the sandwich.. weird

Barring Sushi........!

2007-03-01T13:59:00.000-08:00

I recently changed departments, which is the nature of my job. I rotate into a new department and a new project every 6 months. This is a 2 year program that my company has, and then we go on to a static position. Anyway, so my old department is having a nice little goodbye lunch for me and another colleague (also in the same program). The girl who is organizing the lunch emailed and asked us to let her know if there was a restaurant we wanted to try. Well, there is nothing close to work that jumped to my mind, so I said
"Barring Sushi, I am good with whatever you choose".
The response cracked me up
"I wasn’t able to find Barring Sushi so we’ll go to Houlihan’s"

If it existed, I guess this is what "Barring Sushi" would look like........

Me? Cook?

2007-01-16T14:21:00.000-08:00

This weekend, I had a friend over for an Indian dinner. I was really excited about it, as I had never cooked a complete Indian meal for anyone before. And now when I look back on it, its pretty shocking to me. I am Indian, my mom is supposed to teach me how to cook, a la aaloo gobi from Bend it like Beckham (I thank my lucky stars that she is not like that mom)! But here I was, on the phone with my mom "This recipe calls for cumin, cinnamon and cloves (or some such mix of spices) and you are asking me to put Garam Masala!!" and the reply was "Silly Garam Masala is a mix of those three!" Jeez, how am I supposed to know.
Anyway, I cooked and it was not too bad, infact I thoroughly enjoyed the cooking experience. And now I am hooked. I will be having some more friends over and I am looking forward to it. Who knew I had this "enjoys cooking" streak in me....

Indian Runner Fails Gender Test

2006-12-20T10:47:00.000-08:00

This has been in the news for a few days now. Asian games are going on in Doha, Qatar. Indian runner Santhi Soundarajan won a silver medal in women's 800m event. She was stripped off her medal after she failed a "gender test".
I was not even aware that there was such a thing as a gender test in sports. I guess it makes sense considering that the events are broken down into women's and men's. The thing that bothers me most, is the insensitivity with which this was reported. Especially in a country like India, where questions like these can have a very negative effect on a person's life. Apparently

"Soundarajan appeared to have “abnormal chromosomes.” The official also said the test revealed more Y chromosomes than allowed."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16258993/

People are speculating if she had a sex-change procedure.

"Santhi, like many Indian track and field athletics, took up sport to find a secure job and escape grinding poverty.

One of five children of brick-kiln labourers in a rural village in southern Tamil Nadu state, she overcame malnutrition as a child to become a middle-distance runner.

Her family could not even afford a television and watched Santhi's Doha race at a neighbour's house."

To me that does not seem to be an environment where someone's focus was to get a gender-change procedure. She probably never went to a gynecologist or endocrinologist or even thought she had a problem.

Lakshadweep Islands

2006-12-15T11:03:00.000-08:00

So here I was, sitting at my desk and dreaming of where I would want to go for a vacation if tickets to India were not so freakishly expensive in December. Nevertheless I decided to live vicariously thorough the all encompassing internet. Don't know why or how, but out of the blue I remembered these teeny islands off the western coast of India called Lakshadweep. So I trudge off to Wikipedia (ofcourse I don't "trudge" to wikipedia, but makes it sound more like an adventure!! Well.... this is as adventurous as I can be from the confines of this Herman Miller)
What do I find? Actually not much information, I mean after all this is one of the untouched places, like Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Unsullied beaches (unlike the rest of the coastal India), probably not teeming with tourists (no offense to Goa). Looks like most of the tourism is handled by the govt, which does not give me much confidence as to how easy it is to access the islands and how easy is it to go on vacation there. But the sheer gorgeousness of the place beckons me. Yeah one day.....

Welcome

2006-09-25T09:36:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog. I have been struggling for the past few months with writing. Even a blog title would not come to me. I guess it is cause of all other crap filling my head. Now that I have successfully been able to give my blog a name (I would give partial credit for this to Merhawi) lets hope rest will follow and flow!

New

2006-03-29T16:27:00.000-08:00

New