Winter Nostalgia

The cycle of seasons through the year is gradually preparing to enter the winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Winter means different things to different people. It could be the omnipresent white snow, the red Santa and the christmas carols, the joyous time of New Year, foggy days with scanty sunlight, the cashews, raisins and almonds, the warm bonfire and chilly winds, the fragrance of moist days with the early onset of darkness, the hot corn made on the coal fire and covered in lemon and spice, the walk in the evening dressed in warm clothes from head to toe.....
For me winter brings back some very fond memories of some very fond places and people. Delhi, Madison both get a fair share of winter every year although of different magnitudes.At first i welcome Winter with a bittersweet feeling every year, which eventually gets transformed into an acceptance of time rich and replete of cherished memories and also a time to form some new ones...

Usual Unusual

Its been a long time since I visited this part of the web. There were multiple things going on, and some lack of enthusiasm to pen down the thoughts.
It was an interesting Monday today, irregular in-fact. Usually Mondays start with a morning sickness for work after the weekend, and end with the usual chores at home after work. Today evening, B & I decided to go watch Inception which has been outstanding in our list for many weeks now. A brilliant intriguing movie with a stunning performance by Caprio. So overall a nice & different Monday after a long time.
On the life front, activities planned and unplanned have been consuming the last drop of time from my jar. Hopefully, in a month or so, there will be fewer activities and more time to fulfill some hobbies. To end this post with a nice note, here is something that needs to be practiced:
In busy times, days tend to look alike with the mind concealed in its own little world. Lets still learn to admire, adore, love, laugh and rejoice in some of those busy moments.

Paths in Life

There are mainly 2 types of paths in our lives. One that we control and the other one which we do not control. There are many instances of the paths that we control, for example our career (to some extent), our choice of partner, our hobbies etc. There are many things that we do not control, and i believe its unnecessary to cite examples of those things. They are omnipresent, like a sudden reward or an unexpected illness, or an employment loss.
As an individual our life is not only affected by just our own state, but by many people who are key players in our life. The closest comes the family , and then friends. A new situation from the uncontrollable sector is often challenging, and due to lack of experience can leave you very helpless. Eventually the course of time, keeps shaping & re-shaping the situations around us. A certain situation can lead to gigantic changes in your perspective towards life. Life includes everything, your personal diurnal activities, your loved ones around you and their well being, your friends & family and sundry other things. Life is always an open ended discussion.
Sometimes it might leave you awe struck with a huge load of happiness , at other times at the trough of distress. You might complain, thinking why in the world you were chosen to suffer, whereas other people around you are living a normal life. But such is life, a wave on which you ride with choice and no choice. Its absolutely irrelevant to compare your chapter of life with some one else's. Every chapter is unique just like us. Even the left side of a body is not similar to the right side, so how fruitless it would be to attempt to jot down the comparisons between my chapter and your chapter of life.
Usually when bad times come, we retrospect about the past joyful events, again comparing the present & past. However, in the past did we enjoy those moments as much as we should have? Most of the times, No, since we took things for granted when everything was normal and only the aberration in the present made us realize how wonderful the past was.
Small things can be a bag of profound happiness, if felt from a warm heart & an alert mind. So , its irrelevant to live your present in a trance, and miss out on the beautiful things only to reach the relatively unpleasant other end. Thus , stop living in a trance, feel the present, however it is, you will find some reasons and someone to make you feel happy, and do return the favor to that or those someones.
Have you ever pondered upon, why we only remember those with a smile when they are not around, rather than telling them everyday how much you love them when they are living with you in the "present". Or why do we lose track of our present for months, giving importance to superficial things more than the elements of life around us, waiting for life to happen once you get done with those superficial things. Why do we waste our precious present, in comparing our lives to the relatively better ones according to our perspective, in treating people like machines sometimes that we dont even feel their "human presence" around us.
In a nutshell, we should attempt to live in the present, enjoy the people around us and be sensitive, not live in our own little world full of trance. The things you can not control, there is nothing you can do about them beyond a point. If not today, someday you will rendezvous with them, and you will have to deal with them with inner strength , faith , knowledge and compassion.

Wordless

Small old things, which in the past used to seem regular, now when retrospecting, seem so joyful. The green grass outside the campus, hanging out in the ECE Dept, waiting for one professor or the other more than i used to in my own ICE Dept :-). Waiting sternly for the DTC buses inorder to use the student pass, and sometimes spending more time waiting than on the actual bus ride. Other times, feeling extremely lucky on getting a direct bus home. Sulking after such a long day at college, and coming back home famished & worn out with the heat in summer. Mom greeting me with a glass of neembu paani followed by my self made grilled sandwiches for everyone. Spending hours in my room on the roof, on my computer, studying, doing engg drawings, listening to music. In the night spending time on the roof just staring at the glittering stars in the sky & dreaming about the future. Before the exams i would just sit on my bed with the books scattered everywhere, and would get my food delivered by my brother to my room.
In the winters, Mohit, mom & I would bask in the sun on the roof, and mom would bring a plate of salad to munch on. She would be extremely excited on a bright sunny winter day, and would spread all the quilts in the sunlight so that they become crisp & fresh.
On Sundays Dad & I would go to buy stationery from our favorite place, Jain Book Depot, and we would even go for our driving sessions on Sunday morning. He would make me drive till Dhaula Kuan & come back home. On hot summer nights, we all would fit in my room & sleep there, since thats where the only AC in the house was.
Good old days!

An engrossing weekend

I had a hectic but an extremely enjoyable weekend after a long time. Friday night kicked off the weekend with a nice dinner with a few friends at Cascal. The food and the ambiance were quite nice. By the time I got home it was almost midnight , so i hit the sack. Saturday morning i went to REI to buy some stuff. We attended the Mtn View spring parade, and took some nice pictures. It was a pleasant day and the street was packed with boisterous crowd dressed in colorful dresses. There were also some performances after the parade, the ones from the Karate school were quite entertaining. People were gathered and were spending a relaxed afternoon on the lawns of Pioneer Park. It made me feel like Madison, sitting under the sun on green grass on a lazy afternoon.
In the evening, i went for some more shopping to replace my torn shoes, B had to buy some stuff too. After a long and tiring day, i retired quite early after returning home. Sunday morning, the day started quite early at 8am with the IPL finals, followed by a drive to Folsom to meet S & S. We had a nice backyard barbecue at their house, and we chatted for a while. We saw a nice sunset from the top of the hill, and then drove back to Mtn View. We got home only at 10:30 in the night, and i spent another hour and a half cooking.
So a pretty nice weekend with a diverse set of activities..

Two Letters

Serendipity is fantastic, especially when you stumble on an old letter from a very dear friend on an otherwise dull and cloudy day with nothing interesting going on. Its been raining cats and dog on almost every weekend now. Today the cloudy weather is a foreboding of the rainy storm to come tomorrow. Winds are gusting at high speed. I was getting ready to do my taxes , and pulling out the papers from an old handbag in which i store all important mail. Accidentally i pulled out these 2 letters from one of my dearest friends D. She gave me these hand written letters almost 5 years back when i was embarking on my journey to US for joining UW Madison. I had completely forgotten about these letters now. Reading them after 5 long years from someone who has had a very unique & pivotal influence in my life just made my day.

Present brings the past closer..

"Present brings the past closer" can apply to a lot of things in sundry different ways. For me , it applies to UW Wisconsin Madison where i spent two beautiful years. Those two years i grew as a person phenomenally, transforming from a young adult who hadn't explored the world much and had never stayed away from home into a person who saw the world from a completely novel angle. Among the myriad blissful experiences at the University and the memories connected to different places in the campus, one is particularly peculiar. Wendt Library where i spent many evenings, afternoons & late nights. Sometimes doing management assignments with B & S, sometimes studying VLSI with a lot of scare in the mind (source of fear: The VLSI Professor :-) ) or doing CAD computer assignments till late nights to get the program to work at any cost. Me and B almost used to rush to the library during the spring break to go & reserve the window seat on the 2nd floor as a study table for us. That window study table used to overlook the Camp Randall park and the view used to be gorgeous. In addition to that there used to be rocking chairs with that table. Perfect place to study. We then used to take turns to go to Union South to grab some lunch & keep the table reserved for us. Probably the most amount of time that i spent in Wendt was with my best friend B.
Now living in this new apt, the surrounding area profoundly reminds me of the Wendt. The library right across the Street has a very nice park & a beautiful view from its 2nd floor windows. In addition to that, the study tables in the quiet study area are quite similar to the ones in Wendt. I can not ask for anything better...

A Pleasant Evening

Its been about 5 days since I moved to Mountain View downtown. I didn't get much time to explore the neighborhood, as its already dark by the time i get back from work. In the daytime the area rocks, with a line of fine dining restaurants, coffee shops, beautiful parks & neighborhood. Other than a short walk in the night at 10:30 on Tuesday, i didnt do anything else in the area in the past 5 days. Today i got back from work and there was still light outside. I walked to the public Library, right across the street. Its a 2 story building with a wide variety of movies, books & magazines. I was pleasantly surprised to see issues of India Today and a couple of other Indian magazines. I actually picked a few of them & got them home. There is a nice park behind the Library. The area had a campus like ambiance, with students, elders glued to the computers, or studying in the library, relaxing in the park. It was very refreshing to walk around, its quite a luxury to live right across the library, it can hugely impact your hobbies :-)

In a trance

In a trance since i left India on the night of 27th Feb. Some of it is contributed by the jet lag , some from missing my family & some from getting back to the old routine which i am not in a mood to enjoy right now.

The 4 weeks i spent in India were entirely action packed, with so much to do each and every day of my stay. Till 13th I was in Delhi, shopping & doing other preparations for a very important event. 14th Feb onwards i was in Chennai for a week. This was practically my first trip to the South, i traveled to Trichy, Tirnalvelli which is just 80 Kms from Kannyakumari, the southern most tip of India. The landscape while doing the roadtrip was very pretty at many points with the Western Ghats making a shy appearance once in a while. The coconut trees dotted the landscape every where. The most exciting incident for me was the Elephant blessing people by touching their heads with his trumpet inside the MalaiKotai temple in Trichy. I was quite scared to go near the elephant inside the temple, as it was a first time experience for me. Somehow i was coaxed into doing so, and i dont regret it.
From 21st onwards i was in Delhi for sightly less than a week. We did lots of shopping from Janpath, the malls in Rajouri Garden & ate at a lot of nice places. We did not visit any important places other than Bangla Sahib. We drove past India Gate & the Rashtrapati Bhavan a couple of times & the sights were beautiful. I spent some quality time with my mom, although did not get enough time with my dad & brother.
Since i got back yesterday afternoon, my mind continues to be in India :-).Things & people seem strange here, with lesser traffic, lesser people on the road, no tea in the morning being given by mom, the smell of Delhi in the cold mornings & the buzz during the day. I truly miss the time spent in India...

Paneer Capital of the world

I have never seen so much of creativity or byproducts of any other food item before. Paneer the yummy 'Indian Cheese' seems to have dominated all food joints. This popular Indian cheese is unavoidable in any Punjabi household. But now, it seems to be ubiquitous in all cuisines as some variation or fusion dish. Just some of the mouthwatering dishes off the top of my head that i have been scanning at eating joints in the past few days:
1. Paneer Kulcha
2. Shahi Paneer
3. Paneer Kathi rolls
4. Paneer stuffed dal chilla
5. Paneer Parantha
6. Paneer Tikkas
7. Paneer Tikki
8. Kadhai Paneer
9. Paneer Bhurji
10. Palak Paneer
11. Paneer Masala Dosa
12. Tandoori Paneer Naan

My head is already feeling dizzy with the repetition of the word 'Paneer' dominating the food charts in Delhi, which i name as the Paneer capital of the world.

Quick one from India

This time, even though i am visiting India after almost 14 months, the settling time has been very short. Things are pretty much the same as they were when i visited last, and probably i am better prepared. The settling time is not due to the difference between the East & West, but just the change of dwelling, reunion with family & friends & the stir that causes to the mind & heart.
The traffic in Delhi is pretty much the same, with parking being one of the draconian troubles at busy joints. However, the condition of the roads has enhanced, there are very few bumps, the roads have been pretty smooth so far. I still need to take a ride on my favorite & i guess every body's favorite Delhi Metro. This year there are more lines that have been opened, thus more places you can visit by the metro.
The weather has been kind since i landed, with no fog & bearable cold. All in all, a busy visit so far, but unfortunately less awakening spiritually & mentally than last time. Waiting for the stir...

Unusual

In a subtle mood today, without anything specific to write in mind. I haven't written for almost a month now. Forget about trying to understand a complex problem, sometimes its extremely hard to fathom whats going on right inside you. Damn, its not like i encounter such situations frequently, but even a handful can rip out the hair from your head. Well, what are you supposed to do when you cant comprehend your "own" self.

Its a strange tingling feeling in the stomach with the mind absolutely blank. Maybe thats the issue, being so used to the mind being overwhelmed with 100 odd things all the time, when suddenly its blank, its a sign of unusual which is inconceivable to our brain. Unusual is like a virus , the immunity of our conscious just like the one in our blood tries to fight it and get rid of it initially. Looking around, most of us are so used to our routines, our usual stuff, our habits, that even a single change kind of terrorizes us. Although we do adapt & accept, but still initially we try to fight the virus.

So the blank mind is good, thats what i am trying to reassure myself, there is nothing abnormal about it.....