Whats in a name...??

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

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

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

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

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........!

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?

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

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

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

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!

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