Monday, June 30, 2008

Nameless

Waves of turmoil roar in the sea of thought,
and the roar so loud that i can't hear myself,
Thoughts seem entangled, words are caught.

Smoke of mystery cuts my breath,
desires conflict with one another,
like silence trying to break the shatter.

Yesterday and today are poles apart,
whats missing though is hard to spot.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Holiday Over

My Indian holiday came to an end yesterday with my departure from Delhi. Time just flew very fast. Wish i could have stayed there with my family longer! I didn't miss California even for a day during my stay and now i am at the Chicago airport waiting for my connecting flight to San Jose with a blank and tired mind :-) . From Monday back to the same work routine, although now i have got used to taking afternoon naps after a heavy lunch so need to break that cycle.

This holiday was quite special as i experienced quite a variety of things some of which were quite enriching for me as a person, also was the first time i was traveling with a job and not as a student, and it was after 2 years i was back in Delhi in the summer time with a huge variety of summer fruits we don't find in the western part of the world :-). Will write in detail about some of the special experiences in other posts.

Worth a mention this time, Delhi had atleast 500 new things to offer since i went there the last time 1.5 years back (500 is a bit of an exaggeration). Since the commonwealth games are scheduled to be held in Delhi in 2010, everything is going a major plastic surgery for the good! All attempts are being made to make Delhi a world class city by then. World class is a bit too much to achieve in another 2 years but still plenty of commendable changes have already taken place. Starting with the International airport which has only 2 runways and used to be in a pretty bad plight till last time, new construction is taking place and the whole airport has been privatised. The airport is being changed head to toe. I was quite surprised to see this time that the seating arrangements for the gates have been made much nicer and tidy. Nirulas, Subway, and other food joints have opened their outlests inside the terminal so there are plenty of food options available for hungry souls. Immigration/Emigration lines are somewhat messy as that part of the airport is undergoing construction right now and lines tend to grow very long but thats only a temporary thing seeing the other progress that has been made. The best is yet to come. An Airport Express Metro line is being made from Connaught Place to the Delhi Airport with checkins of baggages which will be done at CP itself! Thats really a big deal in a city like Delhi. Delhi Metro is one of the biggest and the most classy thing Delhi has got recently. Its serving the traffic problem of the city big time. I have travelled in the New York Subway and i must say that Delhi metro stations are much more cleaner, well planned and the train (coaches) itself is much better that the New York Subway. Every major road in Delhi has almost got a metro line running now so there is hardly a need to travel through car anymore. During my stay i traveled through the metro atleast 30 times. It was totally hassle free.
Well everything hasnt happened good, there are things which i also saw have gone bad in the last 1.5 years in Delhi which i will write about in my other posts in detail.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Kiran Bedi - Woman of substance

I guess everybody is familiar with this name. Kiran Bedi is India's first and highest ranking woman officer who joined IPS (Indian Police Services) and retired in 2007. She has served the IPS for over 35 years which predominantly has been a male dominated field if not now atleast till the last decade. And she hasnt been just another ordinary IPS officer but an extraordinary officer who has also represented India at UN, international forums, crime forums, women issues and what not. i just came to know yesterday that she retired in 2007. She is although still a very active social activist. I was just browsing about her biography, quite impressive. Born in Amritsar, Punjab, she was a simple girl who dared to take a tough job as IPS after doing her LLB from Delhi University. She married in a very unique way by going around the temple 7 times instead of the costly wedding customs. During her service, she was also the Inspector General Prisons of , Tihar Jail, Delhi- one of world's largest prison complexes. She did lot of reforms like spirituality, yoga, meditation for the prisoners which earned her magsaysay award.. Person worth reading about!

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Welcome Monsoon, nostalgic of snow.

Monsoon showers drenched Delhi yesterday bringing in cool winds and pleasant temperatures. The fragrance from the mud after the first rain was still the same as it used to be 3 years back :-). Everything looks green and fresh after the first rain. This rain incidentally also reminded me of the first snowfall in Madison. We were in CAE, and a group of friends came and yelled its snowing outside. It was the first snowfall i had ever seen and all of us were extremely excited. We all went walking to State Street, in the snow to Taco Bell. We had a nice dinner and again came back walking to Engineering hall. Those days were fun! As far as i remember we were Me, Daphne, Bharathwaj, Rohit Malshe, Anand, Vishal mehta, Sunil Sunkara. Just 2 years in Madison has formed many many amazing memories which keep popping up now and then making those refreshing moments alive!.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

My Best Buddy

After a long time, i finally got to spend time with my best friend D today. It was nice talking and shopping together after one and a half years. D selected all my clothes which includes 8 T-shirts and 2 jeans, my shopping stock for the next one year. She reminded me of one of our golden childhood memories definitely worth a mention. We were in class 8 and we were best buddies :-). D suddenly changed her school in class 8. It was like a life change for me when she left the school and so for her. We used to miss each other a lot and i actually remember crying in the school and my class teacher explaining me that this is life and things like these happen, we should get used to it. Me and D used to wait for our schools to get over, get back home and talk to each other over the telephones. Our conversations were always a big source of business for MTNL! We used to chat for hours together over the telephone. And then D did something incredible, she left the new school, pleaded to the principal of our old school and came back to my school in my class. The day she came back, there was a round of applause in the class for the two of us, for our friendship indeed! What a gem of a friend, a friend for a lifetime!
And today D and i had a wonderful time talking about our lives, sharing our thoughts, concerns and complexities. Cheers for you dear friend!

Thursday, June 5, 2008

More Experiences in Des

I encountered some resistance from my friend H who read my last post and thought i was being anti-Des. I just wanted to say that these posts about my experiences in India after being gone for 1.5 years are merely my expressions of happiness over things that have improved, disappointment over things that have deteriorated, desire over things that should change and unhappiness over things that never change. In my posts I am not trying to compare India with US as the countries are very different in every way and it would be like comparing apples with oranges. But i do express my opinion on certain things which have been copied from the West and implemented in a very inefficient way.
So i saw a movie Indiana Jones on PVR. Awesome theatre. The theatres in Delhi are very superior to the ones where i went during my stay in US. Here in Delhi, the seats are much more comfortable, sound systems are better atleast by a factor of 5X and the screens are bigger. So far so good. I also took a ride in Metro to Dwarka. Delhi metro is undoubtedly a class apart, a very well implemented network, convenient, clean. Kudos to the Delhi people who have maintained this asset neat and clean till now. I went to the Tilak Nagar Gurudwara and had an encounter with horrible traffic. There is absolutely no way pedestrians can walk on the crowded roads in Delhi ( most of them are crowded and pedestrians do walk). It took me a while to get back to the old ways of crossing roads by running and not expecting the vehicle coming to slow down or stop. People push, force their way and what not. This is something i really dont like and definitely want it to change but its like hoping against hope.
I also visited Big Bazaar and Reliance Fresh stores which are new built on the same concept as the grocery stores in the West. Unfortunately, these stores are extremely crowded and claustrophobic. The crowds push their trolleys all around and there is absolutely no space to move around. The product quality is not too good and vegetables and fruits are not too fresh. The billing takes extremely long and i saw some people just leave their stuff and leave the store after waiting for long in the billing queue. The average time per person in the billing was 10-15 mins. Huh! I have a small suggestion for these stores, they cant do much about crowds and their small areas as thats the case in any city in India but they must start an express lane for people who have lesser items so that they dont stand in the queues waiting so long for their turn.
They should also make their billing staff and computer systems more efficient to reduce the billing time per person.
Still more experiences both sweet and sour are going on...