Mental Roadblocks....

I'm currently without a driver, so driving myself to office everyday...
To say that the experience is harrowing is insulting every self-respecting Indian -its something much worse than that.
The roads are either dug up or are potholed. There are stretches of oasis - but they're over so quickly, they're more like mirages..
clutch-brake-clutch - we're going to invent a new "Ankle Braked on Clutch Syndrome" - a carpel-syndrome brother for the legs...
Add to that idiotic traffic lights/cops which give more time to tertiary feeds than the highway, illegal parking, double parking and some creative road building, and you have me travelling at an average speed of 20Kms/hr.
Of course, I cannot leave aside the stupid overbridge/flyover constructions. They're extremely fast at digging up the road, or cordoning off some part, but after that you rarely seen anyone working! There's one juntion on my route which is cordoned off and I lose 20mins just at that one junction. First of all, i'm not sure why a flyover was required there. So i think they're trying to create a need for the flyover by creating a bottleneck there, so when the flyover is ready, all us motorists will heave a sigh of relief and praise the administration..(conspiracy theory no.1)
I think they're really looking for gold all across the city - which explains the frenetic digging but no repair (maybe they want to come back and do a follow-up dig? ) .(conspiracy theory no.2).
Of course, it does give me a lot of time to think and reflect on life, physics, polynomial equations, the expanding Universe, and my credit card bill, but hey - i'd trade a fast ride any day!!

Back to 160 B.C!

I've been off work for the last week...taking a much needed break.

Had the amazing experience of visiting the Karla Caves.

Now, these are rock-cut caves over 2000 years old, and would you believe it, some of the woodwork (thats at the top) there is still intact! Looking at some of the ancient inscriptions gave me goose bumps!

The picture is of the main prayer-hall (these are Buddhist caves)

i'm a history freak - and it was super to be touching rock that was shaped so long ago.....

Most of the carvings are of couples in standing poses, and absolutely beautiful.

The entrance is grand, horse-shoe shaped...

there is also a temple right outside the main entrance, which has a steady stream of pilgrims. The caves seem to be an incidental attraction for them :-(

i dont know how the ASI allowed a temple to be built smack in front of the main cave's entrance.

The experience encouraged me to climb up to the Bhaja Caves right across Karla caves the next day. the climb is steeper but shorter here, and the caves are also on a smaller scale.

But boy, what took my breath away was not the climb! near the caves, , I just looked up, and in the distance I saw the walls of a fort high up on a mountain, looking very majestic, strong, and invincible...!

Looked a little to the right, and saw another fort..! this one just as lovely.

turned out these were the Visapur and Lohagad forts.

Lohagad is a 11km climb, and Visapur is even higher - have kept those for next time!!

the holiday was great because of these sights, but it also depressed me to see the neglect at such historical sights, and the general decay in Lonavala..the unbridled construction, the complete lack of concern shown by the visitors as well as local authorities towards atleast keeping things clean...it was shameful!

oh well..i dont know when we will learn to respect our ancient treasures...

next stop is ajanta/ellora..

Ever been to a cricket stadium?

Mumbai Indians vs Kolkatta Knight Riders! The IPL marketing machine successfully sucked me into its cricket maelstorm and this was a match-up that finally brought me into a cricket stadium for the first time in my life!
Maelstorm it was definitely..with Wankhede Stadium as the vortex this time, and just my luck - its probably the last stadium you want to be a spectator in.
The in/out queues were crazy....the stadium was definitely overcrowded...and me and wifey promised ourselves that we'd never ever come to Wankhede again.Here's some of the things you should know if you're planning to be brave:
-If the match starts at 8, plan to reach the stadium by 6:30 because you should expect a queue and no one follows seat numbering, so you wont get the best seats if you reach late.
-You can probably sneak in a couple of sandwiches and a pint of mineral water in your shirt/jeans, but dont carry any bags
-Once you're seated, forget going to the restroom or going out for snacks - unless you dont mind negotiating local train kind of crowds.
-Wankhede has this stupid system of selling water in small plastic bags with a straw! each bag is 40 bucks (yes-40) and god knows where they fill the water from. I think its an organised ripoff, since they dont allow you to carry your own water inside.
-You can get an icecream bar for 40 bucks too...
-carry a radio if possible, since you probably wont be able to make out who got out and who came in to bat!
-There are NO FANS in Wankhede. Who the heck was the designer of this place? There is zero ventilation, and Wankhede probably owns the record for most calories burned by a crowd in fanning themselves.
All said and done, Wankhede is a sorry place to be in, and I hope they demolish it and rebuild it.
Obviously there are advantages to watching a match at home or at a sports bar, but there are some things only a stadium can give you...
- All the warm-up stuff before the match and in the breaks isnt shown on TV, so if watching some hunks in half pants is your thing, you'll love it
- The Mexican wave thingy is cool...ifyou start one..you'll love watching it ripple around the stands and coming back - we must have done some 5-6 continuous ones!
- The music and chanting in the stadiums is relentless and really funny!

I hope to watch a match in a good stadium one day..maybe in Australia.
But No Wankhede for me!

Dominos Pizza Again!

surprise surprise!
Someone at Dominos Pizza is actually generating reports on who usually orders what!
Today I got a mailer from them giving me discounts for the particular pizza that I usually order!
Now thats what I'd call using technology to drive sales!
Taking it further, wouldnt it be nice if they studied my ordering patterns and called me just when I was contemplating calling them.....?
Or would it be scary having someone predict your gastronomical urges?

Of Managers and Wives..

Its been a tough fortnight at work!! A few resignations, a few nasty customer issues, some idiotic internal processes and soon you begin to wonder about that annual holiday! Being a manager has its advantages (i'm still looking for them), but i'm pretty sure that the transition from individual contributor to manager is actually a jump across a wide bottomless pit...a pit that throws up all those twists and turns which suck you into the bottomless hole....
Well I guess I was more dramatic that I intended to be....but what the heck...it IS the toughest thing.....this move..
In other developments, I am close to being married for 5 years now...and I took a moment to pause and reflect on those years.Some things that came to mind....which I think I can generalize..
a) A wife always has multiple points-of-views , never a single point-of-view. Thats the secret of their versatility. We men are too engrossed in trying to be 'consistent'.
b) All storms are weathered successfully only if respect for each other is maintained.
c) There really is a genetic link between a TV remote and us men...and the rivalry between the remote and your wife is a pre-historic ingrained behaviour that you should not attempt to change/challenge.
d) oh well..i could only think of these in the pause i took...
Come to think of it....managing your team and your wife has some similarities...
you got to make sure there are enough goodies flowing in...they need an upgrade every year...couple of serious arguments and they might leave you...and if you get a new member in the team , you lose sleep worrying about whether they will all get along!!

Dummies Guide to identifying Fraud Emails

All of us recieve these 'phishing' emails. They have gotten smarter and are more difficult to identify nowadays. Just wanted to share some of the easy ways in which I identify them!

• Look at the 'From' address, not just what the 'From' name is. For example, an email from 'YourBank' would actually have wierd_address@unrelated.com as address.
• These emails usually give you a link, and ask you to click that link and login into the site. Now, the link text could be anything like http://Yourbank.com/login.jsp and you'd be fooled into thinking that its the correct site. However, this is just the text for the underlying hyperlink (link that takes you to another site. This hyperlink can be different from what text you see here. To identify that, just bring your mouse pointer on this link, and look at the bottom left of your browser. The address that appears there is site address to which you will be led if you click, and if that is different from what the text says - you're being 'phished' !

Those are the simple steps I use to identify phishing emails. As soon as you see one, please forward to the 'spoof' department of your bank/online merchant to help make the Internet a safer place!!

Of course, if you dont trust the email, simply login to your bank site as you usually would by typing the address in the address bar, instead of using any links in the suspicious email to do so, and you should be safe!

Travel Trivia from the US!

I didnt create this blog when i'd visited the US in winter of 2006, but I did write an email-travelog to some of my friends, and I thought it only appropriate that those emails should find a home here on the blog. This was more of a "Amazing Facts about the US" kind of thing..so here goes...
Dec 30, 2006:
Hello all!Am currently in Charlotte, NC and its a great place.Was on the road from New Orleans to Atlanta to Charlotte - with ample time to reflect!Dont have a personal blog, so I'm writing to you folks abt the lessons learned here till now.

• On a clear day, look up. You're bound to see atleast two jets leaving their trail in the sky.
• Dont get excited if you see piping hot black coffee in the caraffe - the milk is NEVER warm - so your coffee WILL end up lukewarm.
• There's no point adding more sugar to american coffee - it has inbuilt anti-sweetening properties
• You will rarely ever take the same road to come back. So no point remembering how you went from A to B, since B to A will be a different route altogether.
• Christmas REALLY means a holiday - its like a "shiv sena bandh" in Mumbai
• After Christmas is NOT the best shopping season(Always thought so). Weekend after Thanksgiving is the best time for shopping.
• Learnt how to pronounce "Ya'all" (a substitute for 'You folks')
• Anything can be turned into a tourist attraction if you make jazzy pamphlets, and have a restroom, ample parking, a coffee shop, and a souvenier shop at the site.
• If you think ice-creams and soft drinks sell more in warm/hot places, think again. Its about 30deg Farhenhiet (i think thats minus something deg C) and people are freaking out on Coke and ice cream!
• Even numbered 2digit interstate roads go East-West and odd numbers go North-South (how simple is that). If you see a 3 digit number, its a city bypass!
• Hence, dont' think of compass directions when you're on the road - sometimes, you need to take the interstate North to go to a city thats actually directionally on your south!

well..just completed the first third of my travels here...will keep posting any new Amazing Facts as I discover them!

02 January 2007

Hellew folks!As promised, here is the second set of Amazing Facts of American Life:

• If you ask an american "how far is this?" - the time he will tell you will be calculated at 20mph speed in a city area and 60mph on expressway.
• A corollary to that is, Nothing is at walking distance from your house
• When you see a "Do not Pass" sign on the road, dont stop; That sign means "Don't overtake"!!!
• When an American points and says "Look how crowded that place is!" - dont expect to see people. He's just referring to the number of cars in the parking lot.
• A corollary to that is - thou shalt not see people on the sidewalks - they're all at home, in office,in a mall or in their car.
• When shopping for girl stuff, thou shalt be confused by two adjacent sections marked - "Ladies" and "Women". Dont panic - 'Women' is just an euphemism for older ladies!!!

8th January 2007

I'm back again with possibly the penultimate edition.Went up to New Jersey and New York last week and had an amazing time.Most people think of New Jersey as the Indian hub and its only claim to fame is its proximity to New York. However, I suggest anyone going to there take time off to see New Jersey's forests...they've done a swell job of preserving them!Coming back to Amazing Facts -here are some more!

• Its possible to stay in a hotel that charges your 150 USD per night but does not have any room service/restaurant/minibar of its own!
• There is little difference between night and day at Times Square in New York - the area is always lit up by neon anyway
• The Statue of Liberty is a UNIQUE place - because only HERE will you see mothers encouraging their sons to look under a Lady's skirt...(there is a tour to look inside the statue from underneath!)
• Some states require cars to have only a rear number plate! so, if u want to run away from a crowd, drive in reverse to hide your number!
• Dont EVER take your own car to drive around in New York.
• Better have a strong bladder if you plan to visit NY - there are no public restrooms! (Actually later I found that you can use one in the tourist center or the one in Hard Rock Cafe - both in Times Square)
• State capitals are almost always NEVER have the highest population, neither are they the commercial capital of the state And the killer Fact-
• The statue of Liberty is NOT in New York! Its actually in the state of New Jersey!!

Well...I hope some of that was new information for you!!