..with friends surrounded..

Land in US with a job and you will be faced with this question for sure in the first few months itself - so, do you have plans to go back? After almost seven years, I still don't have a concrete answer. Yeah, I will at right time - thats what I think and thats what you will hear from me if interrogated. A very close friend of mine decided to close his chapter here after several years and go back for good. I worked with him for just too long to believe that he wouldn't be around anymore.

We interacted with each other probably more than our better halves on a daily basis (No, we are not gays, not that anything wrong with that). Meetings, design discussions, collaborative coding, debugging sessions, there wasn't a single problem that would go unresolved. I could always walk into his cube for nothing and he would have time for me. It just felt good to be able to look upon someone for anything and everything.

Ah, coffee, it will never taste the same again. We blabbered every alternate day over coffee and it was mostly complaining and cribbing. One of the few good coffee companies I will ever have.

Satish, you know how bad it is to deal with a void pointer, I would never be able to type cast it to anything else. Wish you good luck and wish we cross the same road again.

November in essence - a photo blog

Back from the vacation, here is the report card - Festivity, wedding and a pink(ish) city:

Two little kids

I have been waiting for this so desperately for last couple of months. Finally it is here and I started packing today. I am flying friday night for a much awaited break. I will be there for a month, yes one complete month! It has been so hard to concentrate for last few days at work. This also means that I won’t be writing in the next month, but rest assured will be back with many little stories.

My wife and my 8 month old (yes, 8 months already, time doesn’t even need a reason to fly by) will be there at the delhi airport to pick me up. On one hand, I am excited to see my little bundle of joy again and on the other hand I have slight emotional anxiety that he would not recognize me. Or, could he think that I am just back from a long day at the office and giggle the same way he used to every day when I came back in the evening. Every time I call back there, I can hear him making all kind of noise, but as soon as my wife puts the phone close to his ears, he goes completely silent, puzzled and confused. Does he still remember my voice? Dying to see you dear and yes I know mamma doesn’t play the dadda’s game with you. Just start counting to the twentieth diaper now and I promise the next one will be on me.



Did I mention two kids? It has to be my kiddy brother. He is getting married!! Come on, he is still a kid, how could he get married? He still looks like a kid when he sleeps, how he would know what it means to manage a family etc. Yes I know, he has grown a little taller than me, shaves his beard occasionaly, works, has a bank account in his name and lives in a big city all by himself. He says, he has grown up by all means. Whatever. You will always be my kiddy bro, lets have a blast and make it a time to remember.

How would you name it?

While having an informal talk with a friend, she mentioned that the parents used to name their kids after Gods. That was because when they call their kids in the morning, they will actually be taking name of the God. Smart idea.

When we started to argue on the burning topic - "Name of our kid", we just wanted it to be short and sweet. We had chosen not to find out the sex of the baby beforehand. But we had a hunch that it will be a baby girl. And it was so easy to come up with names for a girl. We had atleast ten in our mind, the tough part was to actually filter out and agree on one. We did, but hey what if it is a boy? It is just too hard to even find one for a boy. We picked one in time though. The origin was "Shaumik", but that was too long and bengalish (not that anything wrong with that:)). So, we took out the 'h' and made it a bit short - "Somik". Do I need to mention that it was a mischievous boy after all beating all our speculation.


I always wondered about some of those interesting email ids. b-l-a-c-k-b-u-c-k, m-a-r-s-i-a-n-m-a-i-d-e-n, s-c-a-v-e-n-g-e-r-s - is that an alter ego? And why not just give an ip address to everyone? A lovely soul responded to my uncanny thought like this:

Fido....IP addresses for names is a wee bit too much even for me so try not to get lost in ur cyberworld. Afterall humans have to be different...!

Well, what's in a name anyway, call me anything. If the tone is right, I will look back and smile for sure. (Inspired by Lily and Sally).

Update: Copying my own comment here:

Boy, if my kid asked me - dadda, what is the true meaning of my name? What would I say - I dont know? No way, dadda has an answer for everything you ask kiddie. Here is my attempt:

somik = som + ik
som = moon in hinduism, e.g. somnath - master of the moon (More at wikipedia)
ik = ness (More here)
Somik = Moonness (adjective, Having characterestics of the moon).

Not bad:)

Misbehaving in London

If you take out the annoying drizzle from the equation, London is a fabulous twosome place. I visited this city on a business trip few years back and had mixed feelings, mostly well. There are infinite things you could do there - parks, theaters, shopping, restaurants and if nothing else just walk, walk more and keep walking. The good thing is you don’t ever need to look up the map and you will never be lost, there is an underground almost anywhere you go.

Alright, this is not about London, this is about a character, the guy who was going to accompany me to the client. I met him in the hotel next morning and invited him to have breakfast before we got started. He accepted the invitation with a graceful "sure". I served myself a bowl of cereal and a cup of steamy hot coffee. And he tried almost everything. I could tell that he had a very light dinner last night. After a quite long time at the breakfast table, we were ready to go. I insisted that I pay for him (it was free for me with the hotel stay), which he again refused gracefully. We started walking, I naturally paused at the cashier's counter, but he kept walking at the same pace. Now I was totally confused, didn’t he mean that he will pay for himself? When he almost got to the hotel door, he finally looked back. His expression meant - why am I not walking with him? I rushed to him quickly and asked, do you want me to pay? With squinted eyes and in a thin voice, he said - noooooo, looked back and almost walked me out of the hotel holding my upper arm. Once out, he smiled deceptively and said – this is continental breakfast, every hotel has it for free. I couldn’t utter a word, nodded my head in disbelief and looked for a taxi towards my right.

We wrapped up an eventful day with meetings etc. My accompaniment suggested that we take the train back to the city. It sounded ok, so we walked to the nearby station and chit-chatted while waiting. We boarded the next one going in our direction. I asked him, how much it is from here to our destination. He told me not to worry about that. The person issuing the ticket walked towards us, looked at us. My comrade shook his head to him as if he already had the ticket and also mentioned that I am with him. Well, what does that mean? We are not going to pay for the ticket too? He confirmed it with the same smile he had in the morning. He assured me that it is easy to walk out of the station without getting caught. Being a visitor it really started concerning me, but somehow I just decided to go with the flow. We got down at our station and he asked me to walk with the crowd and be on the left side. I just traced his footsteps. There was a ticket collector asking for the ticket as you come out of the platform and he was standing on the right side. Of course, in the rush hour he could not check all the passengers and definitely not the ones on the left side:-). We walked passed him smoothly, looked at each other and laughed as if celebrating our mischief.

Last I heard, he joined a company which sells dental whitening product. He claims that one can make maximum money with minimum effort in that business.

Paper, Pen and Perfume

I don’t quite remember the occasion, when Dolly gifted me this pen. It is a pen with a built-in perfume applicator, a perfume pen. I wasn’t sure what to do with it. We don’t write letters anymore, we are the email and IM people - smileys, lol and ttyl. I can now only imagine what it was like to write to someone close.

It all starts with the paper. I would slip it between fingers, feel the texture, give it a rub, tickling the somatic sensation. I would also pick a suitable color or even a plain white with a thin cyan border. It has to be ruled, or it will be hard to align the sentences.

And the pen, have you ever used those carved out of thin bamboo wood? You have to dip it in the ink and write in 36 size font. It helps improve the handwriting. But I just loved those fountain pens. I had bought a pricey one for my 10th exam. It used to glide like a paper plane in thin air. I kept two extra nibs, just in case. But, now you can get all kind. The gel pen, the ball pen, the pilot pen, multicolor and even the one which will give that bright sparkling effect. But the paper will still probably be most pleased with the ink pen.

I never had a perfume pen though, could have definitely used on few occasions though:-) Spray a bit after you are done writing and what a treat for the olfaction. Dolly, I have either used up or dried up all the perfume in that pen, can I get another one? Also, could you pick something which is subtle and a little masculine?

About Dolly:
Dolly is a jindadil (spirited) person. Every single time I am at hers, she will ask for coffee, make at least 4 different cuisines and finally serve sundae to end the feast. I will end up having an equivalent of 1000 calorie. But, somehow I cannot stop myself; it all just so much feels like home.

Trigger and Response

Be it the indian or western, classical music is not everyone's cup of tea. But then there are pieces, which are just phenomenal. I stumbled upon a blog while doing my ritual weekend browsing and found this short but obsessively bold performance. Even more interesting is the way blogger explains the performance in layman's term to the curious mind, it all just made straight sense:

If you notice, there is a trigger melody and there is a response melody. The response goes from statements ..to upheavals .. to long winded rhetoric. It is short, yet very eloquent. It speaks of two lives in parallel. It speaks of two melodies embattled in an intense conversation. It is reverie. Look at the spatial symmetry created in this piece. Splendid. This is consummation of the melodic ideal. This is Shanmukhapriya in reverie. This is contemplation in Shanmukhapriya.

Listen to it in your leisure: Is it fixed - 1:30.

Could some carnatic fan comment, what is "Shanmukhapriya"?

So to have coffee with you

Like any other couple, we fight each other. And like any other man, my ego will put me in a spot, where it is hard to go back and apologize. Sometime it was so bad that we ended up not talking to each other for the whole day. But with time, we realized that it is better to put it off as soon as possible and I looked for creative ways to get my sanity back. Here is an incident that almost makes me think that it is alright if you fight once in a while:

Another night, we got into this again and went to bed with a clear line drawn in between us. The sun came back after taking a round and our anger had still not worn off. She prepared my lunch pack and kept it on the counter-top, where I could see and pick it up myself. I finished my breakfast after the morning routine and came looking for the lunch pack. Call it the spur of the moment, the Newton's apple dropped and I had the whole plan scripted out in front of me to end this war. I knew she is not even going to come to the door to say bye, so I deliberately didn't pick up the lunch pack and left quickly. I almost ran to my car and drove away, before she can figure out my mischief.

As expected, my phone rang before I could even settle down, open my work email inbox and start hitting delete monotonously. It was her:

me - what?
her - You left your lunch here (and btw you are such an idiot).
me - Oh really, I did'nt realize.
her - You did that cause you are mad at me?
me - No, why would I do that? I probably forgot (smiling).
her - I know you. Do you want me to come to your office?
me - (it was working, in a slow voice) Well if it is not too much trouble for you.
her - See you there.

She drove to my office. I came down and looked at her red eyes. She had a faint monalisa smile, as if she already knew that I wanted to get over this one. I asked her to park and come in for a coffee. She resisted, well she would never say yes to anything anyway when I ask first, so I insisted. She nodded a reluctant yes and we got two cold coffee. She was ready to go back and then all of a sudden I murmured, should I come back with you? She looked at me puzzled and asked - why did you call me here then? So to have coffee with you, I said (and looked in other direction hiding my cunningness). By now, she knew what I was up to and asked - this is only 11:00, you don't have much work? I said, I can work from home. But what about your car, she asked with innocence. I almost laughed and said you can drive your car and I will mine and we will meet back home. She smiled big this time caught in the moment of her own silliness.

I do - More or Less

A wisdom was passed to me few months back that it takes about 7 years to settle down, develop a relationship and build the so called trust between an indian couple. Well, how many of you think thats true? We will celebrate our 6th anniversary this year and things are definetly on track:-) I would just add that it is a kind of an Exponential_function, if you put time on X and the above said qualities on Y.

But, what is the pre-marital story? More often, is an indian wedding end result of a love story? No way! Many of my friends (non-indians) get so amused to know that we can hold an stranger's hand and commit to a life-long journey (literally) without getting to know each other well. I happen to have an email in my archive describing exactly how it happened for me and it still lits my face like the new year ball in big apple. Here is a copy with minor edits:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sushant Kumar"
To: "Pankaj Saini"
Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2002 2:16 PM
Subject: RE: ...

saini,
....
everything just happend in a span of a week..i didnt know i will take such an important decision of my life so quickly..well, my parents had seen this girl for me..and they said she is good for me..i tried usual tactics and told them i was not prepared for it right now..but they insisted that i shud talk to her atleast once..so i did..first one was a pretty short, yet sweet one..she was kind of nervous and i was even more nervous than her..but, generally she sounded ok..so, i decided to call her up again..this time we were more comfortable with each other and talked for almost an hour..she sounded even cooler..no frills..but, quite understanding and emotional(as she puts it:-))..man, i cudnt stop myself to ask her if she wud like to make it together for the longest journey of the life..and answer i got was a sweet yes..so, i am done..my half life got over..another half just started..we now talk each sunday..things are looking good..i dont think she is lucky to get me, but its vice vera:-)

so, how does that sound?? boring way to start this half of the life..is it?? it also happens to be the good old way..isnt it?..
....
chal..
Sushant

More or less, thats the way it ends up with an "I do". So, we continue to hold hands and even have backup plan for our old age, a boy, who would hold our hands and help us walk;-) Now that's not true at all, not here, not anywhere.

PS: why did I used to have double dots at the end of each line then? Dont quite remember. And why did we only talk on sundays, cause it was freaking costly to talk for 5 hours! Although, as usual my smarter half did devise a plan later on to do it more frequently:-). Tune in later for thoughts on early days of married life.

How do you look like a dad?

"You dont even look like a daddy", one of my friend had this casual remarks for me while chatting over lunch. So, how does a dad or more specifically a new dad look like? Tired red eyes from sleepless nights? Drive a van? More responsible (how do you bring that in your looks though)?

The birth process itself was a rocky, up and down kind of adventure (more on that later). It has been almost six months now and I am definetly sunk into this reality that I am a dad. I cannt wait to lift and hug my bundle of joy as soon as I get home. In fact, my wife always has to remind me that I have to wash my hands before I even get close to him:-). And boy does he return the favor. As soon as he figures out that I am around, a twinkle in his eyes and a welcoming smile with his lips stretched all the way out. Then a sudden jolt of the body, mouth open as big as he could with sweet giggles in between. He will start cycling his legs like he is close to winning the race of his life. He knows, it is dadda kind of play time.

My better half takes care of not waking me up at nights, which may explain the not so sleepless eyes. I do offer her a good sleep over the weekends though:-) She would consider any car, but a van and that may explain why she is still driving a CRV and I even started riding motorcycle (which I consider more disciplined and knowing things better around you). The responsible part is subjective in my opinion, let me know if you can describe that look for me.

Riding the wheels

I dont quite remember, how it got into my mind. May be a surge in motorcyles parked in the office parking lot or a concern that my old car will die pretty soon or probably one of those things that I got to do. Oh well, I did start riding, even after slight social resistance and bunch of you gotta be careful advice. The learning itself was an adventure and needs a page devoted to it.

You know what, not everybody can ride. I mean you will see necks turning from a BMW, that guy can afford five of these, but it is not something that you buy, gas and go. And dont even think about it, if you are a gotta-talk-on-cellphone-while-i-drive kind of a guy or gal. Perfect example of do one thing at a time.

My younger brother also drives a motorcycle back in india. It is different there. It is slow, crowded, a primary vehicle for most of the middle class with 4 family members. He sent me a teaser - trying to be young when you are getting older big brother. Well, I am not that old btw:-), friends tell me that I dont even look like a dad (more on that later). My answer to him was - you are a kid buddy. Life starts when you get close to thirty and no kidding I do believe it does.

So, what I have liked about the bike? Yes it is like riding the wheels. The sound, the vibration, thighs stuck to the gas tank, leaning (oh yeah!), shifting, gushing wind and not to mention trying to accelerate fast when my 250cc powerhouse says, thats it buddy, get a bigger one if you want to do more. Even, filling the tank is not like you swipe the card, put the nozzle in and kill 5 mins looking at your fellow bus (vans) "not in service" mode drivers until it clicks automagically. You got to hold the nozzle with one hand at a proper distance, pull up the skirt:-) with the other hand and look into the tank until the gas just gets below the neck. And, you release it right then, it is all about timing.



So, what next? I am not taking freeways yet. Not even sure, if I am interested in doing that. I think I rather like city curves and highways. Take those backroads someday, when I have developed enough confidence and got a better tire.

And? Fly a plane some day. To tell you the truth, I dont know how this one got to my mind too.