ganya manya rants

वाह भैया अब तो हिन्दी में भी ब्लोग कर सकते हैं। यह सच मच एक नया रंग लाएगा इस ब्लोग दुनिया में। देखते हैं मेरी हिन्दी किस हालत में है। फिलहाल ही इंडिया से लौटा हूँ। बम्बैया हिन्दी कि आदत से फिर लग गयी है। इंडिया लॉट के काफी मज़ा आया। सारे दोस्तों को मिल और एक शादी में जाने का मौका भी मिला।
पानी पूरी और तोअस्त संद्व्हिच से मन भरा ही नही। अब वापिस आके खाना फीखा फीखा लगता है।
खैर यह पहली कोशिश थी हिन्दी में, आगे देखते हैं और हिन्दी ब्लोग्गिंग कटा हूँ कि नही.

posted by ganpatibapa @ 6:55 AM 0 comments

Things never reported

I'm sure everyone has heard of the horrific bomb blasts in Mumbai mah dearest hometown. It is sad to see a repeat of 1993 happen to this city. I cannot understand what drives someone to kill innocent people and get a feeling that they have achieved something.
you've read so many things along these lines. And probably don't want to hear anymore about my frustration with the situation. I wanted to mention a few things that never get reported in the articles written about the incident though.
The bomb blasts, the number of people dead, the number injured, who did it, why do you think they did it - all this is discussed in great detail in the media. The things that they fail to point out, speak to the heart of this city. I talked to a few friends of mine who are in Mumbai just asking them about their day and what they had to do to get home. Almost everyone was stuck in traffic jams for many hours that evening. The spirit of the city really came out in the open then. A couple of my friends recounted how as they were sitting in a bus gridlocked for hours, nearby shopkeepers started handing out food (pav wadas - the great mumbai meal) and water at no cost. It didn't matter if you were in a Muslim neighborhood or a Hindu one everyone was helping out. This city has a heart that beats loudly. And lets you know that we have a character, a personality, we stand for something and we do it together.
The other thing that almost every person I talked to mentioned was, the next day after such a horrific incident - not a soul stayed home!!! Everyone went to work, the city of Mumbai worked overnight to put the trains system back into working condition. Except a couple of tracks everything worked fine with the trains. The city was a bustling busybee almost immediately. You can't show these bastards that your will is weakened. You can't let them feel any sense of victory. And that is what Mumbai did.
I love my Mumbai!!! Jai Hind!

posted by ganpatibapa @ 11:17 AM 0 comments

Read this article by Preity Zinta recently in BBC website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4268387.stm

She talks about the two brushes with death that she recently had. I thought it was one of the more weird articles I have read recently. Weird because of what it made me feel. I read with lot of interest cos it talks to real brushes with death that a person had. As you read on through the article you expect a sense profoundness to come off the article or expect it to speak to some action that the person took because of these possibly life changing events.

She talks about the fact that she was in Phuket at the time of the tsunami. And how this place looked war ravaged, and the death and destruction in front of her eyes. Then - this is the most weird part of the article for me - Right after talking about seeing probably the worst situation a person could imagine seeing in their life - she decides to take a cruise (the very next day). Cruise off the coast of the saddest situation possible, and the fact that it was liberating.

I was itching to say couldn't you do something - to help!! Anything - something....
I would like to believe that I would do something. I would like to believe that I would think this moment is bigger than me. I would like to believe there is a larger sense of what is going on inside me and I would try to help in my own way. And that I would see myself as an extremely fortunate person and consider the less fortunate.

Then I again I could have been the person catching the next flight home. I haven't been there. So who am I to say anything. What have I done, do I need a moment of such magnitude or am I just offering excuses for what I have not done?

What would you do?

posted by ganpatibapa @ 11:37 AM 1 comments

Was doing one of my usual work breaks, which is, to start from my own blog page and click on the blogs that I have listed there chit-chats, rush, nish-phish, (since I am too lazy to bookmark them). My blog page has not changed in ages - won't say laziness, more like don't think about it. But after a while I saw that rush and nish-phish the die hard daily bloggers had not blogged (which was annoying actually, because my usual break from work was not working out as well anymore).

So I write instead.

If I go back and look at my blogs, a lot of them start with a sense of apology or offer excuses for not blogging all this while. None of that this time. This is a spite blog to get all the regulars to put some sweat into it and get bloggin again cos my work breaks are hanging in balance.

Most interesting recent day (gotta work on that) - Had a friend of mine come over recently. He had some work going on in his apartment so needed a place to park for 12 hours. When I say he needed a place to park I really meant he, his wife, his 3 month old cute baby, his mom-in-law and his two cats. All made for an interesting day to say the least.

I think I was at the height of my domestication that day and made me look very fearfully into the future. Wanted to wipe that feeling off my brain instinctively with a lot of alcohol. But couldn't get myself to do that, am still a bit turned off from alcohol (Don't worry it won't last) after the worst hangover in a while on Jan 1st. Particularly can't take the sight or thought of wine - since it was the poison of choice for New Year's Eve.

I am sure with Super Bowl looming large the alcohol shall flow again.

posted by ganpatibapa @ 12:20 PM 2 comments

kwafee kwafee no kwafee

the huge humungoid kwafee machine broke down today ... waaaaaaah!!! maybe I put nazar on it (jinxed it)

posted by ganpatibapa @ 4:59 PM 5 comments

kwafee

Last few months I have almost abstained from the kwafee. In the act of getting addicted Chitz off the caffeine, me too became a total chai person. Always have chai - to the point that I don't really like the local starbucks variety coffee too much.
Now I come to new project in new company with snazzy office in South San Francisco. I used to work in a dungeon .... any other office looks like a palace in comparison. But I digress.
Was recently shown the way to the break room. There stood on a platform, a huge humungoid kwafee machine. I mean the local starbucks would be jealous types. You want Kwafee press a button, you want capuccino press another button, you want espresso press another button. Not only amazingly convenient - the thing actually grinds fresh coffee off a hopper for every serving and then does the dear percolashun.
Kwafee may be back in my life

posted by ganpatibapa @ 6:46 PM 3 comments

The much ignored

I was showing off my new little hobby of bloggin very proudly to a bunch of my friends. The hype was well built especially since some of them figured prominently though unnamed in a couple of blogs. Lo and behold me goes into hibernation for a month or more - attributed to sheer laziness (although I do feel like every great blog idea comes to me only when I am away from my laptop). That said lots happened in the month since I blogged.

Went to sweet sweet aamchi Mumbai for a couple of weeks. I thinking I am still sweating alcohol from the trip.

Spent the first four days getting up at 4:00 am. Too early for my building watchman who would have to open the gate at 4:30 am coz I couldn't think of anything better to do at that time than go to the beach (apna Juhu Chowpatty Beach).

The first walk to the beach - I saw so many things changed in my ol'neighborhood. Old bungalows being broken down and new apartments coming in its place. The old tide water dam gone (I am sure there is a more technical word for that contraption). The same chaiwallahs on their cycle serving chai/coffee/bidi/cigarette to the rikshawallas (was still scared of the water so didn't have any of that kickass chai on the first day). Dogs dogs and more dogs barking at the lone soul on many of those roads ... I think the number of strays has actually gone up.. fertile fertile mumbai. My school looking even bigger than before, they seem to be getting bigger by the year. It was a small three storey bldg when I left school, now it's a 5-6 storey structure covering half a football field I think.

I reached the beach to be completely shocked. The whole expanse was a trash can. I had forgotten that I was there the morning after Visarjan (Ganesh Chathurti - uninitiated look it up). The beach probably had thousands of people till late in the night immersing Ganpatis. Which means plastic bags, flowers, incense sticks, idols, and whole list of sundries were thrown in the sea. Which reminds me Mumbai city has banned manufacture or use of plastic bags by any commercial establishment desiring to operate in the city ... I just love it ... next time you go shopping better take that cloth bag from home or you are going to carry everything back in your hands. I still went ahead with a two hour walk at the beach. Got back home pretty tired but I saw a whole lot that I liked and otherwise ....

There is more on its way about mah India trip ..... I haven't even started with the alcohol stories.

posted by ganpatibapa @ 2:52 PM 2 comments