Sunday, June 28, 2009

Mango fest and my first sub

I am enjoying a mango fest at home. Slice to drink, mango for snacks, mango shake for breakfast, mango ice cream for dessert! I'm lovin' it. It is surprising but Slice ads do seem to have enticed me into drinking Slice. And guess what I found - there is a substantial difference in taste between other Mango drinks (incluing Maaza and Frooti) and Slice.


I had my first subway sandwich! Incredible as it sounds, I never tried subway because I never associated healthy sandwich with good taste but I have been proven wrong. The first time I tried a sandwich of that kind was in Germany. There were these shops displaying 'Doner Kebap' - a misspelt version of Doner Kebab(or Kabab, what the heck). Those are not Kebabs as we know them in India, they resemble a big bun partly sliced and filled with shredded chicken and other sandwich stuff. I liked those but they were monstrous - I could never quite eat more than 50-60% of it in one go!


I have finished reading Blink! and I must say I need to go back in time and eat my words. I have liked this book a lot. Some propositions that it makes initially about what it is going to describe and detail made me categorize it as one of those Deepak Chopra genre books but it is far from it.


If I end up with enough enthu, I might write a better description of what this book is about. But I can't wait to start reading The Selfish Gene. It has long been on my reading list, having been inserted there at the recommendation of Kamlesh. He's one fellow you can depend on when you are in need for a book suggestion!


A very interesting (and in the words of Strato - gross) thing happened today. I planned to make egg curry for lunch and in order to avoid any potential disasters, I thought I would look up on the internet to see if there are any special things I must watch out for. Guess what Google Ads displayed (the ad on the right):






Thursday, June 25, 2009

Hard at work

The moment she said those words to me, she knew she was in deep trouble.
A friend asked me this afternoon - "So what are you doing? Hard at work?"
I thought for a moment and thought again.
The answer was no indeed. The company I work for has banned gmail and orkut and facebook and any other website known to help mankind pass their time. You get the drift right? How could I be hard at work when I was working so hard? There was simply no reason. And it wasn't in the morning.
I have this problem. Not the one where you are never hard at work, but something else. I can't help it when people say things filled with innuendo, deliberate or otherwise. For some reason, I am able to see or hear things hardly ever intended. This was one case. There are countless others. Wait till you say something like that to me :P

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Discovering TedTalk and wearing a nice t-shirt....

I can't believe it, but I discovered TedTalk only yesterday. It is fabulous. Thanks FB for leading me to it, and I found a lot of awesome videos. Link 1 , Link 2 and many more.
The video about Sixth sense, from Media Lab at MIT is incredible. This guy, Pranav Mistry, really is a genius. The generous applause he gets at TedTalk seems to be completely deserved, and recognition at such a forum can be a great career booster. Hats off.
A tall, attractive girl today complimented me on my t-shirt. In fact, she did it twice. Got me thinking. Well, if I hadn't been so much in love with Strato (Yes, I finally admit it in my blog), I would have tried to continue the conversation a little longer, and I believe I stood a good chance of making a good friend with her.
No, I am not reading too much into a simple compliment, but her demeanour does seem to indicate that she doesn't think I am as hideous as I sometimes I am. Anyway, ever since the love story with Strato started, I have really lost the enthu to make new friends - beyond a pleasant acquaintance.
At my cha cha class, there are a lot of interesting people. The instructor is a very funny guy who points out our mistakes and corrects them and adds humor to the whole process. The girl instructor is a beautiful lady made all the more attractive by the wonderful way in which she dances. When the two instructors dance, (I don't know if they are a couple or not), it is a sight to behold.
Then there is a girl who has just cleared her Class 12th exam. Considering the rate at which my hair are falling, I am not wrong in thinking of her as a bachchi! Well, she has a very pleasant smile and she dances reasonably well. Then there is the girl who complimented me on my t-shirt. There are others, most noticeably a gentleman, around the age of my dad, who is so well-mannered, I must tell you I am impressed. In simple gestures, he shows a gracious demeanour. If he were younger, he would be popular among the girls!

Friday, June 19, 2009

How time flies by...

It seems like it was yesterday that I blogged about cha cha classes. It was yesterday that I came back exhausted from my cha cha class. And it was only yesterday that I was celebrating another weekend. Apparently.
I just finished reading 'Weighing the Soul: Scientific Discovery from the Brilliant to the Bizarre'. I loved it. It describes the development of a few puzzling concepts in science which were incredible when first proposed and is a treat for lovers of scientific history.
The one thing I absolutely love in a book is its ability to present itself as a conversation rather than a lecture and invoke some kind of thought process in my head. The two classic examples, and amongst the ones I often use as a benchmark for judging books I read are Organic Chemistry by Boyd and Inorganic Chemistry by J D Lee. These names might force you to label me as a maggu and I hotly dispute that, but let us keep that as a separate thread. These books are benchmarks because these are among the first few books I really loved reading.
Both these books have, in my opinion, set standards that have made me reject a lot of books. Sometimes, serious fiction might not suit the conversational style, but it often has. I loved reading Great Expectations and I still remember the feeling of being told a story when I read it. Then there are novels where you have to read and figure out the story. Almost invariably, I stop halfway through them - if at all I reach there.
I started reading Mother by Maxim Gorky. Serious literature. I picked it up, read the summary and liked two things - it was about a culture I know little about, so reading it would be like exploring a new place and Gorky is a name that has always intrigued me. He is reputed and I had read none of his books. A third of my way through the book, I gave up. It was way too taxing for me.
I have started reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. Having read Fooled by Randomness and mildly agreeing with Taleb's argument, I do not find Gladwell's arguments very convincing. He does have a point when he talks about how we like or dislike a book in the first few sentences we read from it. Snap judgements they are. But they are as likely to be right as to be wrong - Halfway through Blink, for instance, I am not enthused to complete it. Definitely not when it competes with sleeping and cha cha for the very little free time I get. Contrast that with 'Weighing the soul' , which I used to read even at midnight out of curiosity.
I am thinking of watching X-Men 4 but I am not sure what to expect. Ladies go there with the allure of Jackman, but whats there in it for men except some fast paced action?

Monday, June 15, 2009

Life's like that.

Small pleasures, big pains!
I take delight in small accomplishments. A problem had been haunting me for some time. Then, after a brain storming session, I went back to my previous approach, and with slight modifications, I was able to achieve a result close to what I had been wishing for. No money made, in fact, if the proof is in the pudding, I have only gotten to the point of reading up the recipe on the internet. There is much more to be done before it leads to any tangible benefits but I felt happy.
I have also gotten addicted to Cha cha cha. I just love dancing to the tunes, though I am scared of doing it in the presence of anyone other than the people in my dance class. Suddenly, there is some novelty, something new to create excitement in life.
On personal front, I am really trying hard to get things to move. I am determined to not celebrate the new year alone - if you know what I mean !

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Too much in the name of show off

Our social lives are attuned to the custom of showing off. A marriage ceremony is treated as an opportunity to impress the magnitude of affluence on others, even if it results in budgetary cuts over the next few years. Parents save over years (actually decades) to be able to spend on that one occasion. It is fine to spend, but the problem is that a wedding ceremony becomes a circus performance. The bride and groom wait for gruelling hours, standing and smiling, their cheek hurting from having to maintain the grin for extended hours. How encouraging is that?
My own experience of wedding ceremonies (as a friend or close relative) tells me that not many people might want a simple ceremony, but those who do cannot express their desire without risking displeasure of family members. After all, log kya kahenge.
I am full of contradictions. I am socially conscious about minor things such as appearance, but on major issues, I really really think 'log kya kahenge' should be the last bit of concern. Who I am marrying, what career I want to choose for myself, how I should celebrate something - things of such importance shouldn't be decided based on 'log kya kahenge'. I have one life and should I choose to do something in one particular way, I needn't worry about people's perception.
This does not give me the licence to parade naked on the road (who wants to do that anyway!),
but yes, the bounds of social norms are imposed far too stringently in our society than I believe befits a liberal one.
Our society is not liberal, you might say. So what are we doing about it, I ask you!

Monday, June 01, 2009

Sway with Cha cha cha

I have started learning Cha cha cha. In fact it has been 4 weeks. At a session a week, the pace seems slow, but we have been taught some pretty complicated steps. At my level of initiation, a lot of things seem complicated. But I am trying.
I absolutely love this song :



I really want to go on a trip somewhere. The last time I went on a long trip was in last November. The length of the trip was a meager one week. That is what a working life reduces us to - beasts of burden. I wonder what it must be like to be able to take a month off from work and travel around the world.
With a busy work life and lousy social life, I really have no choice. And when my friends tell me about their lucky travel plans ( one to Bondi beach, another to Brazil! ) I can only say Lucky Basses [The obvious expletive avoided to keep this a paarivarik blog ].
My dream travel destination : Scandinavia. I have been there once, but I can't get enough of it! It is just too beautiful. [ And way too expensive! ]