Random thoughts

Eyes are really burning and still don't feel like sleeping. My dear friend Susu is sitting next to me with a half finished wine thinking about which movie to play now... So closing my eyes, it black - Pitch black. Nope looking a little close now. Its not pitch black but a collection of dots. So its not black, its more of a collection which looks like black. Yes it has got black, a little gray dots! So if you analyse black very closely you will realise black is not completely black. If you take anything and analyse closely, its not complete. Take anything, love, hatred, air, water, nothing is complete when you look at the smallest unit of it symbolises an incompleteness. So the next question arises , why to analyse anything this close? Not actual a good thing to analyse but best thing is to embrace it. The random stream of thoughts never stop but it just flows in.

Chicken Drum sticks ...easy way ;)

I call it Chicken Drum sticks but not exactly drum sticks ;)

Ingredients:

Chicken leg piece : (Skinless– 8 Nos)
Ginger garlic paste : 1 tsp
Red chilly powder : 1 1/2tsp
Chicken masala : 1 tbsp
Coriander powder : 1 tsp
Salt : as required
Pepper powder : 1 tsp
Vegetable oil : 3 tbsp
Curry leaves : 5 to 6


For garnishing
Onion (sliced) : 1 (big)
Tomato (Sliced : 1
Lemon : one half

Recipe:
Gently spread the 1 tsp ginger garlic paste evenly to chicken pieces and keep aside. Heat a copper bottom frying pan and sauté red chilly powder, chicken masala, coriander powder, pepper powder and salt. Heat it only up to maximum 2 minutes on medium flames and mix well. Keep the fried masala mix to a flat ceramic plate and gently spread over the chicken pieces. Keep aside the left over masala mix. One slight cover up should do it. Once all the pieces are covered with one thin layer of masala, leave the chicken pieces for 45 to 50 minutes. After 50 minutes, microwave for 3 minutes each (4 pieces at a time). [ this is to make sure that the chicken piece gets cooked)
Heat a flat frying pan with 3 tbs of oil (Medium hot). Add curry leaves to the hot oil. Keep chicken pieces on the hot oil and roll them up with skewers every three to four minutes. Each time, sprinkle a little masala over the freshly fried chicken part so that the mix glues to the meat. 9 to 14 minutes frying should be enough. Move the fried chicken to a ceramic plate with tissue paper to remove the extra oil over chicken

Sprinkle lemon juice over arranged chicken pieces over sliced onions and tomato. Serve hot for best taste.

Life's Colors, It is gray!

It is easy to live in a black & white world where you can live with straight lines and defined shapes. As in the moral stories we heard in our childhood where the villain is full of evil and the hero is the living idol of good! Now when we see the world with a thin load of 20 to 30 years behind us, the picture we could draw about the world is never black or white. It is somewhere in the middle. Even when judgmental is the one thing we try to remove from our mind every moment of our life, we circle back to the same level next moment judging each of things or humans around us. The final outcome is never a black or white result; it just draws another undefined shape with the color ‘Gray’. Be it a relative, a friend a stranger, no one is of one color, they change color with time and circumstances and they fill a little of black and white each time they change sides! Some are of a lighter shade with less guilt and more are of a darker shade with a symbol of pride over their achievement. At the end of the journey, does it even matter if what our color is while we exit the world or does it change the true course of cycles of life as in re incarnation?

Camping - Vermont - Emerald lake

Ater a long wait, planning, re planning, scheduling and re scheduling finally we went for our first camping trip to Vermont – Emerald lake. Sunil took care of the reservations and checklist for shopping and we were on the way to Emerald by 12:00 pm from Abhishek’s house. (Plan was to leave there by 10 …just fell over by 2 hours). 5 guys on a small compatible car with truck load of stuff. A tent for 8 ppl, 4 pounds of chicken and pack fo 24 chicken sausage in an ice box, case of beer, vegetables and paneer for grill and couple of cameras. It was 3 hour drive from our place, reached the camp site by 4:00 – just in time so that the park office was open.

Took an hour to set up the tent and set the basic things. We head for the walk trail which looked so small in the map but a long trail with two (foot ball injured guys) in the group. The terrains where not so challenging but injuries take tolls :), have to appreciate my brave friends to go walking on such terrains with nurtured ligament tare and twisted ankles… Folks once on track are all in one aim to finish the trail.


We found one amazing lake bank idle for swimming but we missed our bath towels. After spending a while we realized we are falling short on time to get back to our tent and do the grilling part.
On the way around, we found a nice playing area where the foot ball players showed of their skills, a little time running behind the Frisbee and a lot of walking.



When we came back and started to sort out things in the tent, we realized we are short of drinks, missed chilly power, the grill needs a bad wash and we didn’t had the rite tools. So we head out again in search of a general store in a remote place relying on GPS and iphone searches. Meanwhile Deepak, Bobby and Abhi set the grill to fire. After tenuous effort for about 45 minutes, they got a clean grill with steady flames – hats off to you guys.



After a 30 mile drive and couple of bad search results, we found a super market and got everything we required and started driving back. One the way back the weather took a wild turn. The 30 % rain chance showed up that the 70% fell on the day time and rain gods blessed us with heavy down pour. By the time we reached back, the chicken was marinated, Paneer already grilled and tent was filled with two petromax and rest searching for battery for our big lamp.



The chicken sausages where already grilled and it tasted so good (we had a long day on trail, games and shopping and all we ate was that sausage which tasted the best sausage I ever ate(hunger and taste are definitely inversely proportional to glorify the taste) After a tough search for about one hour, we confirmed that the battery pack is missing and we need to spend our night with two LED lamps and moon light under on a heavy rainy day. But our spirits where high, drinks where on and so do the grill! Grilling and card game went on late until 1:00 PM! We had to keep strict silence as the camp had rules that after 10 it is strict silence …. Also our camping neighbors looked like its mid night for them at 10:00! So we relied on sign symbols and LED lights ….and here is a glimpse of what we ate for night :)



It was an experience on what all we can do in limited lights which included fire display, guess whose drink is where and keeping track of who left what and where.



By 1:00 we had three heavy down pour of rain and it looked like rain is going to stay. It was dream come true for me to sleep under tent with rain sound just over our head, a little warmth of tent inside woods … felt a serene feeling once you close your eyes and listen to the rhythm of rain over your tent.

We woke up next morning around 8:00. We had to cook our breakfast, clean the camp site and leave by 11:00. Bobby again showed his master skills by putting back the grill on in 45 minutes which took a heavy toll from rain last night and some close to wet firewood. The rest of food was finished in no time! We noticed a young boy going to each neighboring camp site picking up the left over firewood (an arm load cost you 4 $s and felt even Americans do this ;)) A fellow camper came around and asked if they can take the rest of our firewood and we felt that these folks take this very seriously – to pay and get firewood. We left the site by 11:30 and were back in home on my bed by 4:00…

It is so refreshing to be close to nature, listening rain, eating from a grill with a shade of charcoal flavor in your food. Learned that getting the tent back to the packing back is a tedious task and all you need is one night to get attached to a place. Until the next camp, I am signing off …..

Shanks

World cup 2010 .......

What next ?

The question is what to do next. There are no more interesting videos in youtube. Most of the recent movies in available free websites are over. Read most of blog friends post or they are no more updating (busy with more important things in life). Not hungry, so can avoid cooking for today. Yesterday was not a big problem as the last thing I remember is folks dropping from the conference call making that ‘Beep’ noise which woke me up from sleep. I kept the phone away and closed my eyes, which was like 4:30 in the evening and I opened my eyes on 6 O’clock today morning, one of the best days …

The spring showers and a tornado kept the summer heat away and water in our pool is freezing, so cannot swim L. Tried 64 channels in our cable subscription, but not a single interesting movie and those on ‘On demand’ I can actually write up the script from heart. It was really a rainy evening today and I partially got drenched when ran into my apartment form the car. A nice tea + bread omelet made my evening ….(my roomie was pissed off as his omelet had a little too much salt (my bad))

But what to do next ? I have so many things to write up and post it here but most of the things are blocked due to one or the other reason. May be because some one told me not to write all those or I am afraid that they will read it here and I will get thrashed! It agains another empty passing phase I guess
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Filters.....

It’s been almost a month now since I came from my vacation and just couple of weeks after my trip to my cousin’s place. A dry afternoon on a boring Monday with lots of pending work but I am seriously tired and sleepy! My right eye is twitching and I am unable to concentrate on anything now. To beat the sleep I walked up stairs, almost 8 floors up in 2 minutes and met my roomie / colleague and talked for 10 minutes ( that much to kill my afternoon nap).

To stretch it out, I did Google the reason for ‘Twitching in right eye’ lead to answers like “Causes of myokymia include, nervous system disorders, Staring at the computer or television screen for a long time, stress, fatigue, lack of proper sleep, consumption of too much caffeine and irritation in the cornea or in the conjunctiva of the eye”

From what I remember I slept from 12:00 pm to 6 AM yesterday night, had only one cup of coffee, did not stare more than the usual 12 hours at my computer screen and two hours at the television screen, so I have to blame it on stress and fatigue due to travel (read it as three hours of sleep in New Jersey transit train and Metro North Train). Now back to the heading of my post, yes Filters….As I mentioned earlier, I went to my cousins’ place and I had to watch my vocabulary, jokes and the kind of talks initiated in a family environment and on the way back, I came back to more of me ( bachelor vocabulary’ once I was back at my house). It started a series of thoughts about the kind of filters we use while talking and on conversation depending on whom we talk to and the place where we are.

An ideal scenario would be answering about a simple question ‘How was your weekend?’If it’s my client manager, it goes like

‘Good, went out played tennis, had an eat out, did some driving’

If it’s my cousin, ‘It went well, had a good play with my in law, made him pay for an expensive restaurant, ate and slept well’

If it’s my friend (just a friend), “it was great, had a good time with family and it went very fast’

If it’s my jigidi dosth (read it as one who stays in the circle) “Had a good time, made my in law sweat a lot over tennis, had some good fights with my nephew, had great food at cousin’s place ….

How about you” Basically, the message is, I had a good time, but depending on whom we talk the intensity, the things we share, the way we project it, details …everything around it changes. This is implemented by everyone, applying filters on what we talk, leaving some details and making it sound totally different. The best part is when you get to listen to the things as it happens which will be shared to very few (friends and family)Every moment we open our mouth to talk something in a group, there is a filter in place. These filters, they come in different intensity levels according best possibility on the moment! The best part of it is when you are around someone and then goes with them when they meet their friends, family relative and colleagues and they talk about something that happened where you also were the part of the crowd watching. This is the time when you can seriously watch a filter in work from a third person perspective.

Is this because we can’t be ourselves to everyone? To make an image or just to follow the ‘Social rule’ to be followed as it is painted on everyone? It works well as well defined and well in control filter becomes a part on ones personality ( either imposed or natural filters ) where one decide what to say, what not to say and how to say it.I am just talking about conversation filter here, but the thing is every one of us live behind a mask. The mask which filters out what your mind really want and what one can really express. Some go with the way it comes to their mind but still when they are around their loved ones / influential people, they watch their thoughts or actions.

Back to the topic, as a child I was not aware of having any filter in my mind, as my niece who will ask anything as it comes to her mind and she doesn’t care. As we grow up we tend to pretend or molded to something or someone, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. As we grow up, we keep on adding too many filters into our life and we lose track of it as we grow old were we just blurt outs things because our filter process is not in place anymore. I think I am carrying a lot of mask / filter lately, I guess that’s the way it works until I lose track and end up blurting out ‘me’ to many as it is!

Dude, where is my car ????????????

Dude , Where is my Vasu ?

Vasu is the short name for my car ‘Vasumathy’. We named my car so after naming D’s car as Kalyani kutti and A’s car as Meenukutti. (note: these are names of characters from two super hit Malayalam movies of Mohanlal, and when we discussed about naming my car, it was more like Vasumathy, ….athumathy, another movie dialogue, but not from Mohanlal’s movie)

This is happened on a very cold morning in November. The temperature outside my apartment was 26 degree f. (Close to -3 Degree Celsius). Time was around 6: 30 in the morning and I was rushing through my morning routine. I had packed up my lunch (whatever was left behind from the experiment in kitchen the day before), polished my shoes and headed out to the drive way. Then realized that I forgot my company ID card and came back to find that I left my wallet as well! So I had to remove my shoes again and get into the bed room to get all the possessions!
Phew!!!!! what a way to start the day. Doing all this, time was around 6:43. Every day or most of the days I have an in-person meeting with my team at 7:00. So my trip to office is a 20 minutes drive to cover around 17 miles and a 6 minutes’ walk ( others usually takes 12 to 15 minutes ) I have long legs and I always walk like someone is eating my lunch at the other end of the building, so I cut it down to 6 minutes.

So I had all this running in my mind that I am going to be late for today’s meeting as I am already late. To cover a 17 miles drive and a 6 minute superfast stride in 17 minutes, not a chance. I didn’t count the time to start up my vehicle, clean the ice off and warm it up so that it will actually run! Imagining all those, I walked to my drive way and alas!!!!!!!!!! I am looking at a different car in the place I had parked my car yesterday. I had lot of things going on my mind …..

Where did I park my car?
When did I park it?
Do I have my car key?
Where is the insurance paper?
Where is the title?

Do you know the moment your throat just go dry even if it is freezing cold and you were not even close to thirsty? Then the stream of thoughts went something like this ….
Ohh I lost a lot of things with my car ….was it stolen? How will I commute until I get the car / new car …. Lots and lots of questions! Then the thought came to call Thimmashan ( Mr D, who is the car guru in our group. He is a wonderful Business analyst but he love cars) so tapped his number and woke him up on a cold first light ….so the tête-à-tête went like this

D: Halla
Me: My car is missing

D: What???
Me: Eda, My car is not where I had parked it yesterday!

D: Look again, where did you park it yesterday?
Me: In the open parking lot next to our building

D: Are you sure you parked it here, or it was in a marked parking lot
Me: I am pretty sure, I parked it here ….(or if was one lot on the right side thinking in my mind ), So what to do now

D:What else, call up 911 and tell them your care is being stolen!
Me: WHAT ?
Me: Yes , go ahead and call them

So here I go tapping 911 …

Me: Hi
Officer: Hi, please state your emergency

Me: it looks like my car is stolen , I had parked in my parking lot and it is gone today morning
Officer: Can you please give the license plate number and the location

Me: It is XCP …. And location
Officer: your car was towed yesterday night at 12:30 as it was parked on someone else parking lot. Please contact the tow vendor at (address& phone number) to get your car.

Me: let me write it down and thanks for the info

I went back to house with D, and sat on sofa thinking ‘Did I park there ???’ Then called up the towing company and they said I have to pay 75 $s to get my car back. This is towing and handling charge …. So I bought my car again from the towing company for 75 $s…. I remember the incident where my mom bought me from a police man when he caught me for driving a scooter without a license ….That day I still remember the conversation with my mom and the police man.

Policeman: You shouldn’t allow your kid to drive the scooter at such young age
Mom: how much

Police man: 500
Mom: OK, I will make sure he doesn’t drive out again ….

And she came back home saying … Look what I bought today for 500 ….. Me.....

:)

Nothing is the same after a point in time. It’s like a point in space of a line, where things look so different and after that. For each and everything, all you get is one decision point where you take left or right and then it goes like rail lines … they don’t give many to change lines after you choose one. When you look back, all you can recall is the moment with span of seconds where you thought what to say, how to act and then its done which will never be un done. So think before you go with everyday life, because life is not lived in chunks of time, but day by day – moment by moment. All one need to enjoy is their time with their mind and a little energy to enjoy the same. No matter how bad things go, if you can strain on to the ray of hope, that’s all that take you to the end J smiling …

RT.....

Random thoughts

I guess these days I’m having more of random thoughts rather than any straight thoughts!
In this world of emails and n number of networking website and a hell lot of other ways of communication, I was wondering, if I see some one I know after a long time, will I even cross the street to meet them? I thought about it long enough in my hard race like driving from Hartford to my house. I am not sure what is all about this hurry for every one on the road. Anyway I was not in a hurry following the 65 mph limit and pissing off every one behind me in the traveler line. So back to the thought, In the era of gtalk / yahoo/ strings of emails/ facebook / myspace, we can always choose whom to ignore and whom to attend even without letting them know your choice. Even on your phone you get the choice whom to attend and whom not to. The same with the voice messages, you can always choose without hurting anyone. The technology gives us the luxury of avoiding / meeting people. There are some lucky / unlucky people are flurried with lot of communication and there are some unlucky / lucky people who don’t have much to answer. The technology doesn’t change the attitude of any one in their mind, it just gives you more option to do the same thing and have the same results. What would it take you to make that move and take the pain / pleasure to cross the street and say a Hi / hello and share the email / phone number / email id according to the depth of the friendship strength?

Yes, the major part of it would depend on the last meeting or the status of the person you just saw! No one would want to stir up some one they had avoided in he first place, but yes if it is a charming person who always remind you of the good times you had.!
So I was just thinking through the short list of people who would make me cross that little street form my daily amazing life and take time out to talk to him / her. I realized that there are not many who would make me do that, may be I have not met many charming people yet or they don’t find me charming.

Either way, it was a good thought and it left me with a good smile and some faint memories of some good old faces …..winds of smile and thoughts …it just flows through

Something to smile about

How do you celebrate every day in your life ? Do you celebrate sometimes ? I am talking about enjoying the smallest and sweetest things in the world which is not actually the biggest but which gives one of the best feeling. Because I do get up some days feeling so dejected and lonley and starts thinking ‘ What am I doing here ? ‘
Why exactlly I am here and what I am supposed to do about something, matter of fact about everything. I do have quiet a good job, a little bundle of good friends and family and a lot of other things to wine about. But what actually contributes to my life ? Is it my salary ? Is it the kind of work I do or is it the way I feel every day. Happiness is bound to be what you make out of everything you feel
Following are some of things I enjoy these days a lot. Its not much but these are kind of luxuries I (WE) have in our life which most of us ( I did) take for granted. Now atlest when I am in my good sense, I do really take the time to appreciate it and enjoy it. I had good hard reasons to enjoy it. Some tims mind is too busy to see the details and focus on the big picture. I am going to list down some of them and looking forward to keep that things that way …… Its kind of akward, but it works for ME !
1. When you wake up hald slept in early morning on a weekday and realise that its just 4:30 in the morning and you have another hour to sleep. It is a luxury to have a cosy bed and time to sleep at your will. Not many have it this early in their career because many of them have an angry boss’s face when they close there eyes to catch that ‘ 5 minutes of escasty sleep’
2. A little time in the morning to make a good nescafe coffee for your self and sip it through the rush hour morning wondering what I am going to do today about the hedious production defects I am going to sit through today. Most of the time, the activites of the day steals the coffee effect but there are days where I can sit blank and just sip the coffe and appreciate its taste and aroma. Just a coffee but it is really good when you enjoy it.
3. The morning songs I listen to! Now this is a bigger luxury to have your own choice of music to be played that early in the morning where a nice search would get you any song available in intert in youtube. It is strage that I some how love the song ‘Dil khoom khoon kare’ but my roomie gets sad lsitening this song and requested not to play it. You now know what I meant by luxury
4. A good bath! You might be wondering if ever a bath ia luxury. Belive me, I am now living in a new england winter where the temperature seldom falls above 5 degree celsius. I just get mesmerised standing on a hot shower and let the face skin feel each droplets of hot water. It starts with a sharp knill but it leavs a feeling og hot nails which I love afterwards.
5. To have at least a crush or a face to think about when you actually dress up for the day. Mostly we end up non – noticed but this is something I enjoy. Just wondering about a moment where some one might catches you on a good costume and you get to know that ( seldome got this luck, but yes I do some times)
6. My favorite song being played in shuffle when I drive. Its again a luxury that my co travelers let the song complete as we seldom get people pf same tastes ad same mood at same time
7. A slot of 5 minutes for myself at some or the other time in a day. Now a days, life just rushes through from one tast to another! Its kind of too fast and there is never a moment to ourselvs, just to sit blank and enjoy the moment of glory ( even if its not a gladiator fight) we do win our wars at times
8. To have such a place where I can write such piece of crap and still people do come here, read up to here thinking what is this guy up to but still reads to the end :D ……. Ok this one was far fetched and I am stopping the luxury details here …….

CRUSH

I guess it is a good thing to have a crush going on, in life at any given moment. This is what I read in one of the dailynews recently. Looking back, I could say I had my fair share of crushes from my childhood and most of them are one way crushes starting from Hemamalini( yes she is almost 30 years elder to me ) when I had that thought in my mind. If I recall it correctly, the next one was my music teacher in my 4rth standard (do people have cruses at ages like that or it’s just my evil perverted mind?) I don’t know, I still have a soft corner for the fairer side who are really good singers. It went on with couple of girls in my college life and that was it. Somehow the work life kept me so busy that I never found any face / person interesting enough to catch my attention (may be a pretty smile somewhere). I am not sure if it was more of a realization that crushes doesn’t help much unless you work on it. (In my case even you work on it!)

So it leads to the question what happens if I try to work on a crush to take it to next level? Most of the time I get crushes to the best person around and I end up joining a marathon run rather a short sprint with limited people where I have at least a chance to finish and ends up my heart being crushed! So the million dollar question is why I am talking about crush at this point of time. Yes you are right! I got that long forgotten feeling of having a crush over some one lately. A pretty face which I bumped into in my current workplace! I am not sure if having a crush in mind for someone is ok and if it is good to write about it here! I hope I will be able to keep this in my blog long enough J and no one comes walking to my desk to break my legs / hands

More about the crush lady, I have to come up with some name which cannot be traced back to this girl. So I will go with Crush Lady- CL. I have never tried to work on a crush to see if it would reach somewhere. This time, I sat back and thought, When I had such a thing going when I was in 4rth standard, my thought process went like I am just 4, let me grow up. The same thing came back on my adolescence, again thought I had to grow up a little more. When I got my first job, I tried something and didn’t get the best of results! I think, that is the last time I ever tried until now.

For now, I sat and thought long enough and thought if I don’t do it now, when I would have such an opportunity? Looking at the time gap, last time I found some one interesting was around 4 years back. So I guess my eyes have a specific filter for such faces and it’s not something always available out there. With the backing of such farfetched thoughts, I tried making conversation couple of times over office communicator and ended up getting cold answers. Cannot blame CL as how comfortable any one would be talking to a total stranger over messenger! What I am talking about is not a yahoo messenger or a chat box but office communicator! ( yak what a pervert!!! ;))

Do you know how tough it is to get a lady to talk to you when you really want to her to talk! If the girl already got signals of the possible crush factor, the girl is going to make sure that every window /door and any open communication media are closed out for any kind of inroads (unless she is really interested). I think after the futile chat attempts, the earlier half smile / eye contact (which might be another farfetched thought of mine) was denied. One thing people don’t understand is being friendly to someone doesn’t hurt anyone but as a matter of fact,’ something in demand is always short of supply!’ With my friends who are really good at getting crushes, I always ask them what happens if you just smile and walk past to those who are really behind you and these folks have never given me a good answer on why they keep the straight face.

One thing strange is I always find a little crush feeling only with the best ( at least something which falls best for my eyes ) and I never come in the radar for any of those ….matter of fact I wonder if anyone had a crush feeling anytime towards such a freak (ME)….I don’t think so :D. So I am still thinking about whether to wink at this CL or let her have fun with her life and avoid the elevator she is already in :) you know, next time she might slap me with the laptop she has in her hand!