Thoughts in general

I am not a politician or even a writer. However, I am concerned with what I am seeing in India. There are couple of aspects that really worry me about the country. One is when politicians try to brand themselves as secular/non-communal and others who subscribe to another ideological theory. I have seen the Congress party claim that BJP is communal. Why? Because it has affiliations with RSS, who in turn has affiliations with VHP? However, if you look at the dictionary, ‘communalism’ is defined as follows: Main Entry: com•mu•nal•ism Pronunciation: -n&l-"i-z&m Function: noun 1 : social organization on a communal basis 2 : loyalty to a sociopolitical grouping based on religious or ethnic affiliation - com•mu•nal•ist /-n&l-ist/ noun or adjective If you read the above dictionary meaning of communalism carefully, then Congress itself is guilty of being communal, as they so frequently like to label their opposition. Congress has been in power for greater part since India's...

Next few days I will publish my old posts from blogspot, where I used to maintain the blog in 2006.  Here is one of them.  This is close to my heart and I feel this still applies in 2009 and going forward. *********************************************************************************** Power of Nature It has been seen recently that nature's fury has been striking at various places. Places like Gujarat (earthquake and recent floods), Mumbai (37 inches of rain in a day), Orissa (floods), Tsunami (South Asia), Famine (parts of Africa), floods in Czech republic, heat waves in various parts of the world and now the hurricane and destruction of New Orleans, Biloxi and parts of alabama in the USA. I am not a scientist by any means and don't wish to get into a scientific debate on what is causing this. However, one simple thing I learned long back is that when you hurt or mess with nature, it will strike back with all its fury and wrought destruction, no matter how powerful you th...

Well, my son still continues to suffer from fever.  Everytime he takes paracetamol (Crocin), the temperature comes down and then rises back again.  So, I am back working from home and trying to juggle him with my conference calls and emails :-)  It is fun and I can kind of understand how much work it is to go to work, cook, clean and tend to a child.  I think I would be terrible if I had to do it full time so, full credit to my wife who does it quite seamlessly. While at home, I get to watch all the kiddie show and current favourite of my son is "Chhota Bheem".  It is quite clean and little educational, no where as educational as Dora though.  I enjoyed the Bheem show though and wouldn't mind seeing it again.  We are again hooked to shows on National Geographic and Animal Planet.  It is so much nicer to learn about nature than to watch mindless soaps or slapstick comedy programs. Thinking of Chhota Bheem and Dora, I am reminded about the monkey that is roaming around in o...

I came home yesterday and found that my 3 year old son has fever, though he was in a pretty good spirits.  That is the thing with kids getting sick.  Parents feel more for the kid than the kid themselves.  They are generally in jovial mood unless the temperature goes beyond 100C or if they start feeling lethargic. I finally got to have my favourite fruit- Black Jamuns.  Our driver saw them with some sabziwala so, he bought them for me.  I guess in Tamil it is called "Nagapalam".  Interesting..I learn new things everyday. Additionally, I had worked out early in the morning yesterday and then I worked out again in the afternoon.  Surprisingly, I still feel refreshed.  I did about 50-60 push-ups yesterday.  I don't intend to do that many everyday, but I wanted to find out how far my body can go and looking at how I feel today, it seem I can probably do even more. :)  So, I guess it is all in the mind. I have started doing meditation in the morning around 5:30am.  Although I ...

The one thing that kept me sane in my early years in the US was various songs from old hindi movies.  My father's friend Mr. Harish Bhatt (we lovingly called him Dada) was a big bhakt of K.L.Saigal.  Being in a small town of Porbandar, there was not much to do or see every weekend so, we used to visit Dada quite often and he used to sing K.L. Saigal songs.  Soon, me and my brother started loving it and singing them.  We also got exposed to other great singers in Punkaj Mullick, K C Dey, Khurshid etc from the 30s and 40s. This is not to say that i don't like modern music or even songs from 60s and 70s.  I love them all however songs from late 30s to 50s are probably my favourite.  There was something about them - purity, soothness, innocence - I am not sure. Here are some of my favourites: Duniya Rang Rangili Panghat pe Kanhaiyya Aata Hai More Balapan Ke Saathi Diya Jalao Jag mag Even...

This restaurant is one of my favourite joints in Bangalore.  It is a bit on the expensive side.  It does have a decent selection of food from soups, salads, sizzlers (veg and non veg) and other items.  They serve mainly continental food so, if you are looking for Indian food, this is not a restaurant for you. I honestly go there for nachos.  I miss mexican food from the US, especially from California.  Nachos used to be my favourite along with burritos.  While good burritos are hard to find here, nachos at indi Joe's are quite good.  No baked beans in nachos here though.  They put rajma instead and they also put sprouted moong.  Guacamole and Sour Cream taste the same as in the US.  Overall I have eaten the entire plate while my wife settles with whatever she can manage when I am on the eating spree :-) Their Veg sizzler was quite good.  It had a fairly large sized veggie pattie along with nicely burnt rice (in a good way; aroma is awesome) along with various veggies on the side.  ...

We had been to Bannerghata National Park last weekend.  It is always good to see wild animals in their natural settings.  The place is quite nice but I cringe at the thought of how close the national park are to the human settlement.  If you look at a slight distance away from the jungle, you can actually see some high rise buildings, which is a bit scary. We took the Lion and Tiger safari + Zoo.  The price was Rs. 90/person on a weekend.  Luckily we ended up there only an hour after the opening of the park.  We got lucky and only had to stand in the line for about 1/2 hour before we boarded the swaraj mazda bus.  This bus took us first to the Lion safari.  We saw a couple of lions sleeping as usual.  I heard I think on Animal Planet that it is the 2nd laziest animal on the planet.  It sleeps nearly 20 hrs/day.  From there we proceeded to the tiger sanctuary.  It was amazing that we were going in the bus while tigers/leoprads were in the cage :)  It wasa  bit of anti-climax to say the ...

A great circus that is the Indian Elections are coming to a close.  In fact, IMO, this is the beginning of it.  The hypocrites like Congress, SP, Left etc who seem to change positions like the weather in San francisco are licking their chops trying to prevent BJP from forming the new gocvernment.  These folks are only interested in grabbing power and have the least interest in the country that has given them so much.  The only thing they do is throw bit and pieces of crumbs to people when election times are near.  After that they will promise moon, stars and everything else they can think of.  Good thing God cannot be seen because otherwise they would even trade him for power. I will readily admit that I am a BJP supporter, but you must also know that Congress' thurst and arrogance for power has turned me off from them.  I hate dynasties and do not believe that in a great country like India, votes should begged for on a single surname - Gandhi.  I think Gandhiji's soul must be ...

Finally, I hope this whole PAN card application fiasco is over.  I had applied or a PAN card for my wife.  She is a US citizen but now that we reside here and she wants to work, I thought it prudent to apply for a PAN card for her.  Per guidelines mentioned on the IN site, I sent copies of our OCI card and the US passport for Proof of Identity and Proof of Address.  Since there was no way she could prove her proof of address, they said we need to send proof of address.  Now, in India, they ask for PAN card for any service be it phone, mobile, bank etc and to apply for PAN you need proof of address. Finally, we went to a gazetted officer and got his signature which confirms that she actually lives at the address we mentioned.  Let's see if that is accepted by them. In past couple of weeks, I have taken volvo bus to go back home and I tell you what- I love the buses.  They generally are less crowded, comes almost every 5-10 minutes on Airport Road and are quite well maintained.  I ju...

I have this habit of starting blogs and then shunning it and creating new ones.  However, I am hoping to continue this blog and actually share my daily life in India with everyone. On the other hand, elections in India are almost close to an end.  Last phase of elections is scheduled for May 13rd and thus will end the long and painful election cycle in India.  Me and my friend are all set to sit in front of the TV with our chips and other snacks to watch the election results.  It will be interesting to see thew tamsha that happens once the results are revealed.  By all accounts, it will be a majorly hung parliament and see parties with 2 MPs playing kingmaker will be very interesting to watch. My work life is a bit quiet at the moment with a lull period before it picks up later this week.