Cricket, Pets, Tickets and Landlords

Apologies for an extended break from the blog! (does it matter though? The most qualified wean-hall-floor-mopper ever, good friend Samir, thinks it does :-)). As usual, the realities of a harsh semester catch up with you pretty soon.

Although my awesome OS project with two hardcore computer-systems guys (Ravi and Ali) has unfortunately captured my rather limited imagination, I have been able to devote some time to other less challenging activities in life.

Like following your national cricket team. The Indian cricket team rolled over the Aussies in the 2nd Test match in such a fashion that it was breathtaking. It had been a long time coming but the Aussies finally got what they had been dishing out to other cricket teams for almost a decade now. And it was pure pleasure! :D. The cricketing world is small (at least in the number of countries that play it). Sadly, even in the country that invented and spread it over all its dominions, England, the game is firmly behind football. Also, staying in Yankee-land it is easy to forget that a more elegant and cerebral bat-&-ball sport exists :). So strangely, Australia with their bouncer sized cricketers always gave me the satisfaction that yes, the game I love so much is indeed not anachronistic and irrelevant. The Aussies like cricket and love it too. Just like me. At the same time I disliked them for their almost total and sometime arrogant dominance in world cricket. That and the fact that Sir Don Bradman was an Aussie :). Lets hope that final 2 Test matches are more competitive!

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Precisely when I was missing my best friend - my pet dog, I came across this:

"A dog is the only thing on earth that will love you more than he loves himself." ~ Josh Billings

I always wonder that although they are supposed to be the dumb ones unable to tell us how they feel, why is it I who is frequently at a loss of words with them?

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I recently booked air tickets for visiting home this December. As I had a lot of constraints, I first thought of approaching a travel agent. That didn't work as the quotes I was getting were way too high. So, I finally decided to get myself in the mess that is online ticket reservations. I generally go to Orbitz as it is the best of the worst. It took me a frustrating 6 hours to get a reasonably priced ticket on that site. The most irritating part is that these websites on the first search advertise impossibly low fares and just as you decide to take it, they throw an innocuous error - 'Due to traveler demand, this flight is not available.' or 'The flight fare has been increased just now' - Yeah I believe you. Already tired, I found myself ready to accept any fare just to end the agony. The really intriguing part is that these misleading fares are still being shown! If this is not a blatant bait-and-switch strategy, what is! Other sites like Kayak etc. are worse. I do think these guys have to solve this thing (if they think this is a problem that is).

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Another rant. This is against my amazing landlord. Just to give a taste of what my roommate and I have gone through:

• The apartment was not ready even 10 days into the lease, Reason: the landlord was too greedy to let the last tenant's lease end exactly when ours started. In fact, the apartment is still not ready - with things here and there left to be done.
  
• Within a week of entering the place, our apartment was burgled. Not sure what was taken fortunately, but the suitcase locks were broken. I still suspect the workers who had the keys. But our landlord decides to install a new lock and graciously gives a copy of them to these workers. Ohh by the way, these workers are now being searched for by the police for some theft.
  
• We didn't have hot water in the apartment for a good two weeks after that. Reason: the plumbing was faulty and the gas was leaking when it started.
  
• Next, our refrigerator started leaking like a water tap. Reason: it was an old one which should not have been there in the first place. Anyway, he took the ice out and we are patiently waiting for the next leak now.
  
• Next when the cold started, we found out that the heating was not working. Dutifully the landlord mouthed numerous "I'll do it" quotes. But it has not been fixed even now - a month on. Thankfully, after pestering him no end, we managed to get a couple of room heaters which at least make our rooms livable.
  

In spite of all this, the landlord is seemingly insensitive to our problems. And to add insult to injury, he calls us his 'buddies'. So, is it OK if one friend sues the other? :)

Update: The heating in our apartment has started. But as a result, the heating in the landlord's own place (which is just 2 floors below ours) stopped! He is busy dealing with that at present - I hope he doesn't screw up our heating now.

Joy of the Dawn

Rays tip-toe on my face
Cheating the blinds
Announcing their arrival
Tearing night's dark sheath

Life has begun - they proclaim!
Birds are serenading
Flower buds are bursting
Impregnating air with bliss

So spry; yet so calm
Dew-drops sit still
Yearning to fly unto Heaven
Or frolic with your eyes
Creating colors from white

My hapless soul glances outside
Allured by grass soft and wet
Summoned by fragrances I least understand
Is this a fortuitous accident?
Or a divine stratagem?

Clear skies embrace me
With the warmth of a Mother
And the passion of a Lover
Beauty justifying one's existence
Akin the Child's simple innocence

I try to resist the ephemeral
But isn't it Nature's elixir?
Have I drowned myself
Head over heels
In the Joy of the Dawn?

Nostos and Algos

Nostalgia as a word traces its etymological origins to (nostos) homecoming and (algos) pain. Interestingly, some computer scientists believe that the word 'algorithm' is derived from 'algos' as well! :)

Nostalgia is a strange thing. It was in fact first thought of as a medical condition. Some think of it as a vague, distant and alien emotion. Some romanticize it to such an extent that it nauseates you. My personal view (as for a vast majority of people I guess) is that it is a dirac function - mostly non-existent, but suddenly it comes and shoots up and then everything is normal again. And as you get older, it gets easier to drown in one of these bouts!

My most recent bout was when I saw two amazing photo sets one on India and one on my old school. Although it is too biased towards the current events in the country (more precisely in the Northern heartland), some photos are still breathtaking. Don't miss to check out the one with the majestic Royal Bengal Tiger! And the pictures from my school where I studied for 12 years evoke nothing but warm and fuzzy feelings and remind me of the time when my biggest worries were when I will go out and play and what would Mom make me for dinner!

Sometimes it is funny as how when you are in the present - I mean actually experiencing a situation - and think that you would eventually feel nostalgic about it! Sometimes even the bad memories can become a source of nostalgia. This is what I don't understand. Is this the case of the spectatorial axiom: distance automatically brings perspective? May be those situations weren't that bad after all? Or one is subconsciously trying to suppress the bad parts and trying to remember the good ones? Or as Franklin Adams once simply put, "Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory"!

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Have a meeting in < 2 hours (am I the only one to have Friday 4:30pm. meetings?), so later!

Update: The meeting was a short one thankfully - otherwise I was on the verge of stealing some winks! I guess having a DB group get-together immediately after helped :)

Dreams

Someone told me to dream
to dream free, big and bold!
then why am I scared?
of the possibilities that behold!

I was there though, happy
Looking ahead at the reverie
Or instead, was it the fancy
laughing back at me?

Thousand dreams there are
Which to choose? Which to destroy?
What if I fail? What if I blunder?
Hundred questions at such I flounder!

Time presses for an answer
Look around me, mine always say
Immersed minds, confident and positive
Swimming towards goals, without any delay

Made that way they are, probably
I hypothesize rather wildly
Cocooned from world I am, may be
Confused and random, thought seems hazy

Do others know what goes inside?
Reflecting the light like the moon
Like the Jester in pain
I laugh and behave more of the same

Hope hasn't deserted me yet
Some rays of glory fall on me
Is it the Dawn? The beginning of a new day?
I don't want to know, ignorant
I try to dream. And ask myself - which is the way?

Pamela's

Ok, on the demand of a blog reader, here's a 'lighter' post :) (Yeah, I better keep the anyway small number of readers happy!)

So, Pamela's is the name of this awesome restaurant chain in Pittsburgh. And I moved into an apartment just one-fourth of a block from one of the locations. Pamela's serves breakfast all day (I guess that makes it a diner or something?). And that breakfast has some of the best hotcakes, french toasts and what not.

Before this apartment, the only location of Pamela's which was easy enough for access was near CMU. Moreover, I had heard about the place a lot from all the friends here. Hence, I just had to make questionable excuses which would allow me to go to Pamela's. The place used to open at 7:30a.m. in the morning. Some 'plans' used to look like,

• On the eve before submission of a big assignment: 'Hey, lets waste our time playing foosball and monopoly till dinner. Then work and put a night-out (and screw our next whole day) and then have a fantastic breakfast at Pamela's in the morning!'
• On the India-Australia Cricket final match, even though we all had important meetings next day: 'Hey, lets watch the amazing cricket on our office computers and put a night-out (and get a warning for over-usage of bandwidth) and then have a scrumptious breakfast at Pamela's in the morning!'
• On a general work day: 'Hey, lets work normally, just sleep in Wean Hall on one of the public couches (and get a back-ache) and then have an awesome breakfast at Pamela's in the morning!'
• On a more mundane day: 'Hey, lets just roam outside Pamela's till it opens'

Strangely, all of these plans looked reasonable then! And yes, I have implemented each of them. (ok, may be not the last one!) :)

Pamela's has in fact caused much heart-burn! Once, I managed to convince two of my friends that the way to spend a perfectly nice Sunday morning was to stay hungry till 12:00p.m. and then go and have the Sunday brunch at Pamela's. The plan was made that we all meet near school at 11:45a.m. sharp and then take the bus to the place. As it happened, in between frantic phone calls, all of us messed up the synchronization and turned up slightly late, and we ended up wasting 2hours, hungry and angry, in front of the school waiting for the next bus to take us there. We finally got the next bus and reached at about 3:00p.m. Early evening and we three haven't eaten anything yet the whole day. Turns out, the restaurant was closed - as it was some holiday which we all managed to over-look! Hurt and dejected, we tried finding some other place. But only one place was still open - Subway. :) After all this, we finally ate at one place we all mutually kind of hated!

Another time, on my birthday in fact, after braving through 3 buses, I reached there only to find that I had no cash. They only accept cash, and sadly there was not a PNCBank ATM within a km. With my steely resolve, I managed to locate a sidey ATM and get the cash. And guess what, it was 5p.m. already - their closing time!

But in spite of all this, my enthusiasm for that place has not decreased - for the great food and easy atmosphere. And it is reasonably cheap. And it is a nice way to hang-out with friends on Sundays :)

So, if you ever happen to be in Pittsburgh, give me a call, and we can go to Pamela's together for that perfect breakfast :) Call me before 5p.m. though and have enough cash for both of us!

No Meat, Me Vegetarian!

My first non-trivial post and I start off with something which bothered me a month ago. I spent the summer at Sprint Research Labs at a pretty place in the Bay area called Burlingame where, in the words of my manager, 'rich white families live complete with their kids and dogs enjoying the summer Sunday barbecues'!

As it happened, my group of friends in the lab were all non-vegetarians and as a result I frequented a lot of basically no-veggie-on-menu restaurants. Now for someone who places a fair bit of importance on good food, this was a major change. Although Pittsburgh can't match good old India, it was still OK. I was surrounded by numerous Tam Brahms, Gujju Boys and Marwari bodybuilders. And all of these budding scientists are veggies. So, it can be said that I was nicely ensconced from the big bad world - I didn't have to put that much effort to eat vegetarian :)

Coming back to California, given that I suddenly felt responsible, each lunch/dinner became a long question-answer session in the restaurant; either with the waiter, if he/she was not sure then with the more important looking person and if even he/she was not sure, then with the manager. "Does it have lard?" "Hmm, looks good, No meat, I mean I am a vegetarian, so no meat" "Ahh, so fish works right?" "Ohh no no, no meat means no beef, no chicken, no pork and no fish as well!", "Does it have oyster oil? or maybe fish oil then?" "Is egg OK"? "Dude, do you eat anything at all?!" were par for the course. And having a lot of Chinese lab-mates didn't help! :) Then it started outside restaurants to pretty much anywhere I had any food. "These marshmallows look good, but seems like they contain gelatin - is it fine?" "What about Kosher Gelatin? Must be better no?" (In fact, the kosher one is worse for Hindus at least, as it is sometimes made from cow skin compared to pig bones for the standard gelatin!) "Okay, definitely Pectin should be fine then"!

I dutifully did this for a little more than a month - then when eating out became such a chore that I resolved to ask myself why exactly I am vegetarian and why I need to take so much care. Most of the Indians are simply raised that way - they are vegetarians, just as the Sun rises from the east! In my case as well, I just continued with my up-bringing and despised meat as second nature without really giving it much thought. As eating vegetarian was easy enough, I just continued with it! After the hassles in California, my idea was that I will try to answer my vegetarianism as far as possible by using only logical arguments. This is because cooked meat in general doesn't really gross me out unlike many other Indians. Sure, I would hate to sit in-front of people removing the shells and eating crabs 'fresh' from the cooking pot, but I don't have a problem with cooked dishes containing meat (except some sea-food which are frankly stink-bombs!). Also as I am a traditional Telugu/Kannada Brahmin, clearly not everything can be explained by hard logic. But still, I think it gives me reasonable room to answer myself in a reasonable way why I can't/can eat marshmallows! :)

Hinduism just does not allow beef consumption. The reason is that Hindus revere the Cow. She is a giver and symbolizes fertility, abundance and life. She eats grass and gives us milk. She helps the farmers to till the land. She is docile and hardworking. She acts as mode of transport. Even the cow-dung is useful for humans! I can't think of any other animal which is useful to the humans in such a way! It is in fact but natural that Hindus began to worship her. Now you don't go and eat the one you worship, right?

What about other meat products then? Chicken? Pork? As far as I know, Hinduism does not really say anything about these. I don't think that they are "prohibited" as beef is, for even Brahmins. I asked my parents as to why I can't eat these (fearing an angry response though! :) ). Surprisingly (although a little reluctantly), they had no problem in me eating meat, but still their parental advisory was not to. Upon more prodding my dad said that not consuming meat is a way of discipline. It is a way of showing that you can control your senses and allows you to live a more 'dharmic' (aka religious and righteous) life. Hence, we Brahmins should not eat meat.

Fair enough I thought. But the actual reason for me had to be more than this. Some would say, we should not kill animals. Note that surely our ancestors must have been eating meat. I guess after all, the earliest humans had to be hunters right? In fact, if we did not eat meat, then the human race would not have survived at all for organized agriculture to flourish! So, I don't think there is anything inherently 'in-human' in killing animals for food. But I do think that there is definitely something in-human to systematically do some kind of mass industrial 'production' of animals and bloat them to monstrous levels, all for the sole purpose of killing them for food! Isn't animal life something important? One would say don't the vegetarians kill plants then? Yes, but being humans, don't we have a hierarchy of living beings? Fellow homo sapiens are at the top, sentient beings who can convey us their pain are next and plants are after that. Clearly, that is why cannibalism is despised everywhere (well, almost!). Thus, according to me we have a greater responsibility towards animal life. Plants are important too, but as nature has told us to eat either plants or animals, eating plants is OK! Consequently, I felt that the modern meat production system is unnatural and it is fundamentally different than the natural instinct guiding the humans to kill animals in the wild. I abhor this and hence I do not eat meat.

What about stuff like gelatin etc? I think they fall under the same category as shoes and leather belts. These are primarily made from dead animals - basically animals are not killed for it (for the standard varieties I purchase anyway!). Hence, I decided it is fine to wear leather belts and eat products containing gelatin like marshmallows!

I agree I may have taken help from religion at some places, but at least now I have a better understanding of what makes me vegetarian. In any case, for lunch and dinners, food is not as important as whom you are there with! :)

Hello World

Is anybody out there?