The India Trip

I am leaving for India in two days, 25th to be exact. My bags are somewhat packed. I was laying down on my bed, staring at the lifeless ceiling fan and wondering why I am not excited about going to India. It does not seem normal. I am not excited about seeing the people and the places that I grew up watching.

On further thought, I could point out a few things that are stealing the excitement away. Home is where the heart is. My heart is firmly planted in Jacksonville. This is where my job is, this is where my friends live and most importantly, this is where Laya is. So, the vacation is taking me away from my current home. I am also missing Laya already. We took naps together and long walks. She is being boarded at a good home with loving people, soft couches and other dogs to play with. Even then, I know she will miss me and I will miss her.

I am also not happy about a few disagreements between my parents and I. They take the sweetness away from the relationship, even if it is guaranteed temporary. I am dreading the flight and no more procrastination will work. The time has come to put one foot in front of another and get on with the journey. Travel opens your mind and I am hoping for it to open mine.

I am a little excited about meeting new people during the flight though. The last few international flights have been great in meeting new people and looking at life from a different angle. I am also traveling with more savings this time than any other. That is bound to be a good factor.

I guess this journey, the next whole month is a pot-pouri of mixed emotions and uncertain experiences. It should be interesting. I hope to get some good pictures, digital and mental when I return on 29 December.

Pledges and Carbonated Drinks

One chilly morning in Jacksonville Florida, I woke up to a lot of hoopla on TV about the Gate River Run. Not thinking much about it, I proceeded to my second nap of the day. an hour later, the fastest runners had already finished the 15 kilometer run while thousands more followed. Waking up to this amount of adrenalin on TV filled me up with gumption. Never before had I hated my lethargy so much.

An iPod Nano, Nike Plus shoes and a registration on the Nike Plus website later, I was pledging one of my most original, heart felt and sincere pledges. "if I dont finish 15K Gate River run in 2009, I will give up Soda and sweet tea for 2009"

I have started to run but it does not seem to work for me. The aim of finishing the 15K marathon is not a solid enough goal for me. It is a too strenuous activity for a very distant goal. I dont particularly enjoy running. Moreover, the reason for me pledging in the first place was probably not as concrete as I thought it was.

Running to protest against my laziness is very negative. It makes me feel bad about myself. My other activity of bicycling to work and errands to be more active, save the environment and be independent from cars and foreign oil is much more positive in its goals.

Hence, I quit my pursuit of the pledge. I understand that there is a penalty. I have to give up soda and sweet tea for 2009. There should be a greater penalty for leaving the effort though. Something to teach me to think harder before going into a commitment. So, I hereby give up soda and sweet tea for the remaining 2008 and all of 2009. I wont be substituing it with beer. Just water.

The Weather and I

The first few days of summer are here. Today’s winds blew in from the south-east bringing in warmth and change. I write this with mixed emotions. Praise, some rage, a little self-appreciation and a whole lot of independence overcomes me as I bring my trusty old keyboard out and plug it to the back of the laptop. Typing on the keyboard should minimize the loss of gumption in this long-forgotten venture of mine.

I moved in to a new apartment two months back. This gives a lot more time to think about the things that are really important in life: life itself than ponder over spiral dreams of horsepower, women and logistics. I moved in alone. Well, Laya is with me, the only witness to my evolution. I trust Darwin’s ‘evolution’ and Gita’s ‘change’. I trust it to happen, even if ever so slowly and all I can do is to try to push in the right direction.

I have been questioning everything only to see that people are either too lazy to think and already have made decisions or they take a debate as downright confrontation. Maybe I need to surround myself with better people but what’s better? Where do I find better? Is anybody better in an honest debate than myself? If I take a stand, shouldn’t I be responsible to prove it? Then am I my best critic?

You see a lot of questions thrown around in the paragraph above. ‘Why’ is probably the most devastating of all. Why leads to observation and observation takes you out of the environment. Just like a photographer is always outside the scenery and the third umpire is never in the field. With observation comes responsibility, with responsibility comes seclusion and with seclusion comes the responsibility to not go insane.

A few weeks have passed and the winds have changed since I started writing this. I feel a responsibility to not be lonely too. I was one of James’s groom’s men at his wedding yesterday and being among a ton of family members of the bride and groom makes me feel a little lonely today. So what do I do about it? Join a club and meet more people. I have some options and will be exploring them. More than feeling lonely is the want to do something. Something that has minimal or no ‘me’ in it. It is easy to get a little self centered when in seclusion and lonely.

The changing winds have put me back into the scenery too, if only for a little while. From being behind the lens, I managed to creep in front of it. Literally. I have been photographing weddings and yesterday, I got the opportunity to be photographed. Not that I am portraying narcissism by saying that I like being photographed but it was a soothing change. The maid-of-honor also mentioned that I have a photogenic face but it was probably the zinfandel talking!

Tomorrow, I slip back behind the lens. Literally and figuratively. Tomorrow, I start reading, learning, thinking, judging, critiquing, questioning, prodding, analyzing and inferring.

Photography and Shek

I am recently doing a bit of photography. It has been one of the major reasons that keeps me from writing. My secret admirers complain that they do not get to read any more of Shek. Other than not having something significant to share with you, I do not have any motivation to write any more. If you read between the lines, you will find a hint that this post is a little serious.

Photography is like my mistress that is keeping my blood flowing when I am not in my marriage which is my job. Not getting into the relevance of the institution of marriage, I want to move on to comparing photography to a mistress. I started photography in June this year and have been fairly impressed with my liking towards it. I did manage to click some pictures that, for me, was sex on the lens. I always did see things differently but never knew that I would be good at looking at my surroundings like there was a view finder in hand. It does scare me that I am superficially good at this. Scares me because I may not be the best and I want to be the best.

How does one start photography? Take pictures and have other people review them. After this thought is processed in the mysterious brain, some words like Flickr, Blog, competitions are thrown in. I would like to concentrate on Flickr. In a business, a businessman only looks for financial advice from someone who makes more money than he does. That is my fundamental problem with Flickr. It is so infested by a bunch of amateurs that the quality of reviews through comments drop severely. Feedback is a vital part of any progress. Feedback plays a large role in molding the advancement and thinking of art. I want my mind to grow free. Photography is an expression, an art and like life, should be allowed to grow on its own, feeling its own way, finding its own counterpoint of expression. I'd rather have one professional photographer review my work than fifty amateurs. My stubborn mind does do a good job of keeping my thoughts from converting opinions to rules.

A photograph is art and should be treated like a painting is in a gallery. It is something to be stared at, something to be felt. Technically, it is not a moment in time but a small length of time, a video, a piece of moving happening life on paper. All 1/1000 th or more seconds of it. I blog to put pressure on myself to see and think and observe and then push the button. Life through a lens is completely different. Better different. You can focus on a subject and see how the background blurs out creating a completely new canvas unseen by naked eye.

My goal is to grab me an SUV (preferably a Toyota FJ cruiser, because I have a thing for cars and my dreams usually have well defined cars), grab Laya, the camera, the tripod, take a month's vacation and just go. No destination, no route.

My mistress can be visited here: Shek's Aperture and here: Jacksonville Daily Photo

The Headache

Eating Chewda right now. I had to buy the damn packets for $2.99 each because someone consistently refused to make and send them to me. Not only that but the someone that I am speaking about had the audacity to send me a link on how to make Chewda!!! I am Bengali. Laziness is my birthright no one should ever attempt to change regional stereotypes! Gone are the days of goodwill and charity. The world is a cold and harsh place now! Where is the love 

I wonder why they allow headaches in today’s society. Of all the things they find a cure for, mankind has not found a cure to persistent headaches. They invent Tylenol go-tabs though, to suppress that headache anytime and anywhere till it is time to buy another packet. I wonder if this is a conspiracy, because it is surely a kick-ass theory. You can not tell me that our parents got vaccinated with small pox vaccines due to which we young’uns didn’t even need to see that needle but the best they have done is sell Tylenol in a jar of 200. You can not tell me that five theories exist (Bouyancy Theory, Bernoulli Effect Theory, Horizontal Vortex Theory, The Coanda Effect and Condensation) on why the shower curtain blows inward during a shower but no one commissioned a successful study on that one super-tylenol that will eradicate headaches. Not only migraines, even simple headaches.

I dedicate the above paragraph to the fact that there was critical bit of analysis regarding a mile long list of excel files and access databases for a customer to be done with a splitting headache. I was however successful in locating the problem and finding the answer. I brought the lingering headache back home to see a letter casually jammed between the door and the frame. At first I thought it was the leasing office complaining about my dogs peeing in the grass. Yes, a few weeks back some Indian dudes (my kind of Indian, not the 'Red Cloud At Sundown' named kind) who play volley ball outside my apartment made a fuss to me (very rudely, I might add) that my dogs peeing on the grass is pollution. These guys can be found standing outside their apartment, talking on their cell phones and flicking their cigarettes casually, spreading second hand smoke and undegradable ashes. Anyway, the letter was about a fine for not paying rent on time which successfully blew off a few more fuses in my cranial matter. The fine being a total of $100, I immediately rushed to the leasing office to sort out the problem. My cheque was not processed because they couldn’t find out what apartment I was in using my name. I am on the freaking lease!

“Your name is not in our system, Sir.” My roommate made it to the piece-of-shit state-of-the-art-system that manages the useless and inadequate complicated and intricate functioning of this organisation. “We will wave off the fine this time, Sir. Please make sure to put the apartment number on the cheque the next time, or I won’t be able to help you again.” A threat! A god damn threat!!! I couldn’t believe it. By this time, more sparks had flown off my butt indicating that the standby fuses in my head have blown off. Quoting Bill Engvall, when I woke up today, I didn't want to be a Jack Ass. They just pressed my Jack Ass button! “I have been paying you rent promptly. Please make sure my name appears in the system. Your system is retarded not accurate. That should not be any of my problem you lazy ass people”. In their defense, the manager did take down notes to talk to tech-support to fix this issue.

I then walked the dogs while successfully losing enough sweat to water a small back yard. That’s when I slipped into my shorts and t shirt and went to bed. Laya took the cue and cuddled in beside me. Eddie managed to find a thrash bag and I woke up to eager groans and licks on what was left of a plastic bottle and some empty cans of Laya’s food in the very middle of the living room.

Now that I am awake after an early evening nap, I have to hunt down this Chewda that I am suddenly craving so much and just have to eat. Sometimes, I feel like a spoiled trophy wife! Therefore, I had to fish out this factory made bag of chewda when I could be eating home made chewda made by someone who knows how to make it and maintains a food-blog to brag about cooking skills.

Save the Cheerleader Carbon, Save the World

Just like a carbon offset, this post offsets the previous post, my fine evening out in Jacksonville. Such close proximity in posting should successfully over-shadow the last post, more so because this one is a little bit more serious than a bit of rain, a bad coffee and cognac. This one, though being written on 08.07.2007 is about my thoughts from the Live Earth Concert held on 07.07.2007

I have been aware of the green house effect as a kid and I feel unsuccessful in doing something about it when I am hopefully all grown up. But we humans have that problem. Being aware is one thing. Acting on it after careful thought is another. Keyword(s): careful thought. Then there are always others who act without thought and solely on misdirection, but we thinkers are not talking about them, are we?

The concert worked. At least on me. It kick-started this dormant chain of thoughts and ideas that have been trying to bubble up for a while. I want to contribute to the effort, so here goes the list. Global warming is evident. The hypocrites argue that it needs more research or that it is non-existent on a cold day (ha ha ha), but they also accept creationism and intelligent design completely disregarding all scientific proofs and hypotheses. So, they can all eat the proverbial dirt.

I gathered the following list from the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC): link
I will go along the list and write my views under the points.

1. Raise your voice.
This is what this post is about and my voice will not stop in the confines of these css codes.

2. Chose an efficient vehicle.
This is a sensitive topic for me and I will come back to it at the end.

3. Drive Smart
I get my engine tuned up professionally. The monthly prompt email from my car (one of those onstar thingies) lets me know what tire pressures are and what they should be. The last one said they were the right amount. The air filter is working great. I will have the dealers check on it in another thousand miles at the next oil change.

4. Drive less
Jacksonville, Fl has a bus system that is not favourable to the everyday commuter unless your places to go revolve around the bus stop. Mine does not. The roads to the grocery store (Publix, Target) are not designed for pedestrians and bikers. It is absolutely ridiculous the route I have to take to go to Publix. Southerners love privacy too much to do effective carpooling. I do try to bundle my errands together to reduce the amount of driving. I need to try harder.

5. Buy Energy Efficient Appliances
I live in an apartment complex that is the oldest in this area. They are trying to make as much money as possible on rent before they get leveled and the land is taken over by a developer. I do try to turn the thermostat up during the day so it does not run while I am at work and is not too hot for the puppies. I will however plan my finances around energy efficient appliances when I buy my own house.

6. Replace light bulbs with compact fluorescent tubes
I will run down to Walmart Target tomorrow. Update: 8 July, replaced four 100 watt and four 60 watt bulbs with eight 60 watt energy saving bulbs

7. Weatherize your home or apartment
We check filters regularly. Like I mentioned, this is an older apartment complex. I will check with the management this week to see if they can do any further insulation.

8. Chose Renewable Energy
As far as I know, JEA does not have any renewable energy options. Suggestions are welcome.

9. Buy clean energy certificates
I will do that after consolidating all my credit card debt. Yes, Mr Citibank, I do not love you as much as you love me.

10. Join an awareness group
On further research, I will join a group that does the most efficient work towards the prevention of global warming. I will be a member of a group by the end of August 2007.

11. Recycle
I buy recycled toilet paper, kitchen napkins and organic food. I try not to print anything at work or at home unless it is absolutely essential. I switch off monitor screens, unplug chargers when not required and switch off lights when not in use. I have to stop using those styrofoam cups for coffee at work. Also, it will be paper, not plastic when I go grocery shopping next.

Now we come to number 2. Chose an efficient vehicle
Here it goes. The normal roads in Jacksonville are good for cruising along at a comfortable 45 mph at which my car gives me around 33 miles per gallon (mpg) or 14 Kilometers per liter to my metric readers. That is a sort of good mileage. I love driving long distances and thats where I get 26 mpg on highways. Not too bad. It is the crazy driving I do, the accelerations that affect my mileage. On a quick zero to whatever, the mileage drops to 19mpg which is way better than the Suburbans, Expeditions and Hummers that seem to have filled the landscape. I would really want to buy a Toyota Prius (55 mpg or 23 kmpl). Actually a Honda Insight would be ideal but Laya wouldn't fit. The problem is that I love acceleration. It fuels my life and I want it every day. It does have something to do with my age and raging hormones or maybe it is something I will grow out of. Therefore, I am presented with this moral dilemma. I want to do something for the environment but I don't want to give up my car. If not anything, I want a quicker car. Now, the option to buy clean energy certificates sounds relieving.

I do see myself in the future with a hybrid car and a motorcycle to fuel those speed-desires.

All you thinkers are tagged. I will not mention your names here but I will personally drop messages. If you are an activist, consider yourself tagged. The rules are to write down what steps you are taking today and would like to take to reduce global warming.

Cooking and Commitments

The well marinated and cooked pieces of rubber in my wok tell me a few things. One, cooked lamb when chewy sticks between your teeth so good that you tongue can do twisters all day at the frustrating crack in vain. Two, I have doubts on my expertise in successfully cooking meat. Three, I can’t really write with a show on Porsches playing in high definition ecstasy.

Looking back in time, I have had a fifteen day sabbatical. Not too impressive per sabbatical standards but then I am no Professor at a university. The sabbatical was aimed at self revelation and awakening from the addiction, but I am not sure if I have achieved it. As a matter of fact, I am not sure what I have achieved. I do feel in more control over myself but that is just my biased opinion, that too on myself.

Today, I feel like a twenty eight year old failed cook with lots of ambition and not much hope, a thirty five year old single daddy to Laya considering I have no night life and own a family sedan and a sixteen year old baby sitter to Eddie. And these are just my evening jobs! For the record, I am twenty four years old and am exposed to commitment and relationships and multi-tasking at a very early stage in life. The makings of the perfect husband myth! Did I mention I can cook too?

All these people in the movies complain about boys to be men running away from commitments. I have locked my hopes, dreams and travel plans in some glass jar and thrown it away already. All you people who look at my profile, gaze at my handsome face, the rock-star goatee and a sexy dog and then want a dog for themselves, the grass isn’t that green on this side. Life gets divided into four to five hour slots and they don’t always match with that evening on the beach or that rave party.

The New Dawn

The last post was a vent out against astrology and related 'sciences' that pretend to guide our lives and show us the well trodden path. The real fact of life is that there is no well trodden path than the one you just walked on. All other paths will lead you to stumble on the very ditches that your leader stumbled on. It is just another way of amplifying other's mistakes. I'd sleep better if I made my own mistakes. At least I get to keep my spine.

I am at a point in life that I am finding a voice of mine, a view through my maturing mind and a new world through my lens. No longer am I dabbling in odd and end hobbies and for once I am sticking to one. No longer am I listening to music that other people say I should be listening to. No longer am I believing in what I should be believing in. I believe in myself and I believe in hope. That is all I need to take on the world with my bare hands.

I welcome the ever changing me with open arms. I am changing by the day and am not the same person I was a year back. Every day is a new beginning. A new birth. We are what we say and what we do. Our actions speak more about ourselves than we think.

This post is a new kind for me. I suddenly feel free. I bought my first tripod today to go with my new camera and I tested it out. It felt great. I felt like I have a real hobby this time. And I left no stone unturned to nourish this hobby. A high capacity, high speed memory card and a tripod that most will vote useless. For some reason, taking pictures with my camera and tripod made me feel more mature than the day I signed the paperwork for my new car. The new car was a toy, a mature and calcuated decision. This camera is something deeper.

Wish you were here....

Heard this song on my way to work today. It is funny how a stressful week makes you remember people. I wish you were here....

Incubus - I Wish Y...

I wish Pandey was here.
I wish Maman Didi was here.
I wish Dad was here.
I wish Sven and Trini were here. He's been like a big brother to me.
I wish Twix was here and I wish we were still friends (Damn you Ipanema Girl!)

The world's a roller coaster
And I am not strapped in
Maybe I should hold with care
But my hands are busy in the air saying: I wish you were here

frands and frandseeps

I wish Wikipedia would define ‘Frands’ or ‘Frandseep’ but it doesn’t. So Shek has to do it himself.

There are friends and there are acquaintances but most people confuse between the two. Some like me have a stronger definition for Friendship than most do. Some like me prefer to wait for that special bond before declaring an acquaintance as a friend. Acquaintances, I have many and then there are some that think they are an acquaintance to me but I could really do without them for ever.

Frands I have none. To have frands (sometimes spelled ‘frends’ or ‘phrens’ as in ‘Phrenseep’), I would have to be a 20 something girl on Orkut with one decent picture and a relatively common name. This is what the common Indian guy does in his spare time. He logs on to his orkut account and hits the search button. Then types in his location (usually something like a major city name where they think cute chicks reside) and the age range of the girl; hits enter and browses through. I have been guilty till this stage of activity. Your Shek is not so dudh ka dhula hua! The one time I did it (god-promise only one time); I came out with a friend who is funny, cool and very nice to hang out with.

Once a cute-chick-profile is found, most guys usually start messing up. Without being shameful enough for their name to come up on the ‘recently visited’ section, they leave a retarded ice-breaker in the scrap book for everyone to see. Instead of something smart, un-intrusive, funny and un-insulting, they bluntly say things like:

1. “I stumbled upon your profile, don’t ask me how.” What M.F.!!!…did you trip and fall?!?!
2. “Looking at your profile…I think you are an amazing person” You must be an antaryami (all-knowledgable priest) to know what kind of a person someone is by reading what movies she likes and what color her eyes are. Can you look at the share market for me please?
3. “Hi. I am kool and you are too. Check out my profile”. Let me complete the sentence for you, Mr Kool: “….Check out my profile and you will find a mirror in it that I look at every hour admiring my थोब्डा (face), my hair and my oh-so-gorgeous-smile”…Yes Mr. Narcissus, you are fabulous!!!
4. “Can we be the frand?”I am confused. Can you ispeak the English?
5. “Reply Plz”; “Add me to ur frnd lst plz” This is no SMS, boy. Type that extra few letters. And, how desperate can you be?
6. “I know you must be bored hearing this again and again, but …blah-blah-same-old-BS” This is the sensitive type. He is oh so aware of the abundance of filth in a cute-chick’s scrap page that he had to sugar coat his own so his bull-crap could stand out in the midst of other stinky turds.
7. “hey, u hvnt replied” Mr. SMS back again, this time he demands an answer. She doesn’t need to know if she has replied or not. She didn’t reply, so she knows.
8. “hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii” This bugger seriously believes the number of ‘i’s in ‘Hi’ is directly proportional to his perceived coolness factor. Dude, ever tried pronouncing it? It only makes you sound like a retarded kid. Invariably, someone will have a few extra ‘i’s among the next 10 scraps.
9. “hey, are you from so-and-so place? Where exactly in so-and-so place?” This is just like saying, “Hi! I like your pictures and hence am looking forward to stalking you. Moreover, I actually think you are dumb enough to tell me exactly where you live. If that does not satisfy you, I am even dumber to wait for your reply and if you don’t, I will pull a #7 on you.”

Exception to the rule:
There are guys who defy all possibilities of rejection even after sending out silly and foolish scraps and actually end up with girls falling head-over-god-dang-heels over them. They are the pretty guys who have a good game on in their orkut album.

Disclaimer: Shek is not at all threatened by over-eager little boys prowling cute-chick’s profiles. He writes this post out of his sheer respect for women and thinks that every woman deserves better, even in an orkut scrap book. So ladies, the next time you see that funny, cool and handsome blogger in Florida, ask him out so you don’t have to wait for pesky-little-boys to come knocking on your orkut-door.

Ghosts

It was so easy. I asked my 18 year old brother if he has been reading my blogs and what he thought about the writing style. He easily said that he liked my writing style and it showed that I have been reading for a long time, that I have. My curled eyebrows shot back at all I have read and all I have written. Was I writing with my ghosts?

A slab of the finest Cadbury’s chocolate and some leftover Thai pasta is appointed to my table so I can prepare for the second paragraph. Robert Pirsig defines ghosts in a better way than what I am about to attempt. I am being torn between two worlds: One of rituals, customs and traditions and the other of logic and science. Maybe not torn but my mind ponders a lot. We all live with a lot of ghosts, some good and some bad. These ghosts accumulate through all the countless interactions and incidents that we have experienced since kids. These ghosts make us do crazy things like respect lifeless objects and defy logic. Then again, mathematics and logic are our biggest ghosts.

A day of Ganpati utsav in my colony flashes back. As hordes of people gather around the arati, head bowed in submission and bodies swaying in a trance, kids eye the sweets waiting to be distributed while their moms discipline them. Do the kids need to be disciplined because their lack of attention is an insult to the prayers? They are just being innocent kids. The real answer is that the moms are being persuaded by their ghosts. The ghosts are ruthless dictators that make people of all ages speak and write what they want to say and be written. Families that maintain age old customs, rituals and faiths do just that. They maintain them like a night watchman at a forgotten museum. They do it to preserve the culture. What about evolution then? Shouldn’t culture evolve and change? I can see some people jumping off their seats,”Sacrilege! You can’t change culture! Culture is our identity.” It is their ghost speaking for them while they allow culture to become their very own fantastic bottleneck. The whole galaxy is evolving as we speak except our ghosts. Ghosts don’t evolve. They merely maintain the exact form and shape of what they looked like when they truly existed.

The caste system is the biggest most evident ghost of all। Is it a good ghost or a bad ghost? Both. The caste system died the day when automated flush tanks were invented. Then, a बृह्मण (Brahmin, the highest strata in the Indian caste system) became an instant अछूत (untouchable, the lowest strata in the Indian caste system) while he flushed his toilet. The caste system created groups of people with similar job descriptions and hence similar intellect. Some were good at research and education, some at war and some at creativity. It gave a much needed structure to the society. Carry that forward and most families of the same caste have similar traits, habits and behaviours but not all. People of the upper caste prefer to feed the ghost as they get to say that they are superior while people of the lower caste feed their ghosts so they can get those nifty reservations. I don’t care who you are but if you have ever taken a reward, award, position, promotion or admission based on your caste, high caste or low caste, you are guilty in my court. I won’t hate you but I won’t agree with your actions.

I am living with my own set of ghosts. Some make me respect everyone like they were God; some make me respect the physical paper and coin money and some make me respect all elders no matter what. I am trying to break away from the bad ghosts and keep the good ones. If I respect someone abusive by not retorting back, then I am disrespecting myself and that is wrong. I should not have the right to disrespect anybody, be it me or my abusive ‘someone’. I should rather respect the use of money than its physical form. I should spare my elders the dignity by not dragging them into this 2 cent blog.

My brother lives with my ghost. I met him after over two and a half years. He was visiting me on his way to summer school in California. Spending the week with him made me realize that he still sees me as the brother he knew three years back. He lets my ghost translate and then hears everything I say and sees everything I do as my ghost would three years back. Three years back, I was 21 and just like any other 21 year old, I was stubborn, had my own ideas about the general functioning of the world and was a ruling elder brother. Three years have changed me to a hopefully more socially acceptable stubborn person and a friendly elder brother to my now 18 year old sibling. I still have my own views about the general functioning of the world and that is what these blogs are about. It is just as important for him to fight my ghost as it is for me to fight my own ghost.

Of Jets and Humans...

I now know why people strap jet engines to their cars and try to kill themselves on the salt plains of Utah. I am writing from 10,000 ft. above the sea level on my way to Atlanta.

As the plane waited before the straight stretch of runway for a signal, it felt like dejavu to me. The feelings I get when I stop at the broad white strip watching the red light from my car came flooding back. I almost knew what the pilot was thinking. The pressure of getting up to the triple digit speed before the runway ends is as enjoyable as it is nerve-wrecking. The pilot’s arms rests on the levers just like my right heel rests on the car’s carpet with a light calculated pressure on the brake waiting not for the green to appear but for the red to disappear, waiting to slam ahead.

Both cases though, the scenery watches in horror. The trees and light poles know what is about to happen. They brace themselves for the sudden turbulence. You could almost feel the mounting acceleration while standing still as the jet prepares for its thrust. The pilot gets his signal, surely in a more disciplined fashion than I get mine on the road. The plane lurches forward as I feel my back pressing against my seat. The required speed is reached in seconds. Where I start braking to acceptable speeds, the plane takes off. The adrenalin rush is inevitable even though my body aches momentarily from the increasing pressure and the g-forces.

This is a fantastic way of starting a Monday. I am visiting Atlanta with my boss to manage a start-up of a new implementation of a project. Some process improvements on the general activities of the contract are also on the cards. I will be meeting someone that I met online for dinner tonight. She happened to be in Atlanta on a project too. I am not used to making too many random friends online but she seems to be genuine, outgoing and uncomplicated. Sounds like we will be going for ribs at James's recommended barbecue joint. Mmm Mmm Mm Mm Mm!!!

Looks to me as the starting of one awesome week!! Rock on people.

Shek's Confidential

I tried positing last night and the blog did not publish any text when I hit 'publish'. So, I decided to sleep on it as I did not have the energy to think any more. You see, I had blogged about a challenging experience that had happened to me at work a few months back. I am completely optimistic about it and I harness the experience in a positive way. Even then, it had its kinks, and I did not want to go though the whole ordeal of recreating the post again.

Waking up this morning, I decided to host a confidential blog available to only selected readers. This is my confidential post: Shek's Confidential. I have added a few people to be able to read this post, but I do not have the email id's of a few of my friends. Specifically Neihal, Glazed Donut and Rowe. If you guys email me at shekscribb *at* gmail.com I would add you to the invitee list.

Anybody else who wants to read this, please email me.

Nice Guys

The world is a cold and harsh place for nice guys. A-holes get the cute chicks and nice guys remain 'good friends'(read: expendable). It is seriously hard to be a genuinely nice person without being branded as unmanly and weird. How many of you have been nice to others only to never be appreciated and taken for granted? I am not saying that you should only be nice so you can be appreciated, but a pat on the back helps. How many of you have tried to honestly tell a girl that you like her without being shooed away?

It has been confirmed by a certain lady friend that cute chicks actually prefer a-holes. With a-holes, no speculation is needed to analyze what kind of a guy he is. He is simply an a-hole and will probably dump one cute chick for another. Now nice guys are an unknown. The dreaded 'x' in the algebra test. Even after a lot of calculations, girls don't know what 'x' is until the results come out. Ladies, I will solve the suspense for you today. 97% of nice guys are actually psychologically challenged immature adolescents who wont grow till they are 70. Then they become teenagers. Women, not all guys are the same. I know that concept sounds real good in your head but it is not true.

What hope do the 3% genuinely nice guys have in life? Are they always supposed to hold the doors open while hordes of people walk by, let other cars in their turning lane at the last minute? They have to protect their good, and to do that, they have to be a little bad. Stop helping around ungrateful people who will never appreciate your concerns. I protect my goodness by being headstrong sometimes (I am very very accommodating otherwise). Nice people, stop taking crap from others, be a little bad, open your mouth and say 'No fcuking way!' when you don't like something. Be more confrontational but be prudent. When in doubt, use this track. Hang tight...

Water

I recently saw the movie Water. It touched me immensely. I can see why it had all that opposition. I have never been an ardent follower of Hindi movies...I just watch the good ones. Most of Amir Khan's work, Nagesh Kukunoor's work is what I like to watch. I like to watch movies that are more realistic and not over the top. Therefore, I can not stand over-glamorized movies like everything that Karan Johar makes, no offense to his work and his fans.

I have had an idea of how the widows were treated back in the day...but watching the raw hypocrisy of the Hindu culture sent a cold chill to my bone. I feel ashamed to be a part of my culture, but I also trust my teachings. Widows are no longer treated with inferiority in most parts of the country any more, but the hypocrisy continues on. No matter how much I hate hypocrisy, I think we all (Indians) have it in our blood. It is a way of life for some people who practice it without intention or knowledge...and some people like me hold dormant hypocritic views.

Yes, I agree that I can be hyporcitic at times but it is like a mirror that makes me look at myself, question my actions and thoughts and hopefully influence me to make the right decision. No matter how optimistically I direct my hypocritic energy, it can't be denied that I harbor hypocritic thoughts. Thoughts that I have to logically reason out. Logical reasoning is an easy exercise for me, being an engineer, I live eight plus hours a day with MS Access queries, Excel spreadsheets and analysis. The only thing dissatisfying about logically reasoning out every problem is that we leave emotions out. Not many ideas can sustain by themselves without emotions as emotion is nature and by denying emotions, we deny nature ( nature can not be denied).

Laya helps keep me from getting too logical. She fills the gaps with emotions. That is the reason why I love her so much. She needs me and I need her.

Nidradevi

Dont you have one of those days that you can not sleep. This is the second time this year that I am just not able to sleep. The mind is too preoccupied. Preoccupied enough to not rest at all. I close my eyes but nothing. The mind is breaking speed records at the salt lakes of Utah. I just lay down and think. Think about the day that lies ahead and about all that has gone by.

I have a busy day ahead. I start by taking Laya to the vet by 7 am. Then an early start at work. I have a deliverable by 10 am, then a meeting with one of the Directors and my boss. Back to the vet at lunch to pick up Laya..she is having her fleas treated. Drop her home and back to work to crunch numbers and bring costs down. This time, we are talking in millions.

Dont get me wrong. I enjoy my work. It is just that the day I needed Nidradevi to co-operate, she doesn't. The last time I could not sleep, I took a drive to the beach. The beach was empty. The sky was dark. The sea was dark. The waves crashed invisibly. They sound more intimidating when you are by yourself and all you can hear is the sound of the breaking waves. Those waves rule the beach at that time of the night. Before the joggers and walkers with their dogs can arrive to claim the beach one last time, the waves rule. It was like the waves were talking to me. Weighing in their power over me. I had run to the beach because I couldn't sleep that night. I could not sleep because I was upset and pondered over a matter of great concern. An event in my life at that time that was important to me. I was seeking recluse at the beach beneath the pitch black sky. The waves were like God's voice saying that he had his power over me, instantly making me feel better.

I went home that night to catch a few winks before showing up for work. That morning, the Sun looked bright and warm as ever.

Tonight's lack of sleep is not for any mental agony. I am just thinking of too many things and my mind is traveling all over the place. I think I need that sunshine today. Weather.com says sunrise at 6:50 am today. I will be at the beach with Laya to catch the first rays of warmth.

Laya

I have finally solved the mystery of what my dog’s name is. She is a retired racing greyhound. I adopted her from the racing kennels. Now, if you have been to the greyhound racing kennels in the United States, you would know that the dogs have funny names: Potrs Rachel, Gsi Susan, Oliver Cromwell, DG’s U Too, Pat C Thanks etc. My dog was named Zelaya. So, you can guess that behind every weird name is a nicer name…like Rachel, Susan, Oli, DG, Pat and Laya. For some reason, the adoption people called her as Layla. Now only if I knew where Majnu was!

I was moderately satisfied with the name thinking that she lived with it for three years that there is no point in changing it now. If you are thinking why she is retired at 3 yrs of age, well, greyhounds only race till about four years of age. Then they are either bred after that or left to be adopted. Two months into her adoption, I have finally received all her papers, birth certificates, names of her parents and both sets of grand parents and a CD with her racing videos. All have her named Zelaya. So, as of today, 12 November 2006, I name her Laya for all practical purposes. My friends that live by the Jedi code love that name as it rhymes with Princess Leia.

There are other reasons for me to revert to Laya from Layla. The image I get from the name Layla for a dog is some show dog like a Pomeranian or a Poodle that’s dainty and showy. My dog is downright lazy. Lays down on her favourite spot on the couch all day. That’s Laya. Don’t think that she is not a good dog to be lazing around like that all day. That is how greyhounds are. They are sprinters and then they relax for the rest of the day. I wanted a laid back dog because I am laid back too. I did not want a Labrador or a Beagle who are on play-mode all the time. And frankly, Laya gives me some competition in being laid back. She used to follow me around the house before, if I went to the kitchen or my bedroom. Now, she just watches me, maybe props her head up a little. I can almost hear her say,” Where did you go? Is there any point in following you? I guess not. I will be right here if you need me.”

So, coming to the point of why I wanted a dog in the first place. I never had a dog in my family ever and was downright afraid of dogs. What changed? Well, I got too cold in the heart and wanted some warmth back. Got cold in the heart trying to get to where I am today. My one and a half years at the University of Florida was very challenging. My father paid for my tuition fees but I lived by myself, worked twenty hours a week in the middle of ten credits of gruelling master’s courses. I made less money than what I needed to live on. I worked at the Taco Bell frying nachos, empanadas and tacos, and then graduated to making pizzas and pastas as a cook for Gator Dining. They eventually saw potential and gave me a 20 cent raise and let me handle the grill. Now, I was cooking salmon, pork and chicken filets. Next, I was a lab assistant to work in the corn fields for two months. The research eventually ran out of funds and I was laid off in the middle of the semester when every other part-time job on campus is full. Then came summer and being unable to secure an internship at what I do best – Industrial Engineering – I resorted to being a student assistant for $6.50 and hour. The icing was that I could work 40 hours for summer. Having made some savings, I blew it up on medical insurance for fall 05 and the numerous car rentals for job interviews. You see where this is all going? To add on that, I haven’t been to India in over two years. Come December, I finally managed to secure a full time job position as a Logistics Engineer in a firm with an international presence.

This was my first time with a stable and high paying job after the numerous hits and misses as cooks and lab assistants while a student. Not every job was bad. Fall 2005, I worked as a student assistant with the Map and Imagery library. To any UFL student that reads this blog, it is, by far, the coolest place to work at. I had the nicest supervisor at the library and to this day and I visit the library and her any time I go to Gainesville.

None the less, this whole experience of living on a tight budget had made me quite cold and I needed the warmth back. That’s where greyhounds came in. My buddy got Streaker and two months later, I got Laya. That’s the time it took me to overcome my fear of dogs and get one myself.

Now, I do sometimes think if it was wise of me to get into a binding with the dog because when you get a dog, you pretty much reconfigure your schedule around your dog. Wake up at 6:15 am and walk the dog, come home for lunch and walk the dog, come back from work and walk the dog, walk the dog before bed time. It is almost like being a single daddy. Hats off to all the single moms out there! Laya has brought the warmth back to my heart. She is my family now, at least here. She gets all happy and excited when I come home, runs around me, tries to play with me, then I take her for a walk. Back from the walk, she just lays on the sofa watching me. She sits by the kitchen when I cook and outside the bathroom when I shower. When I sit by her, she just puts her head on my lap acknowledging me as her friend and companion. After all, I gave her a home and lots of love. Dogs understand love easier than we humans do. They have a beacon for affection. They get pulled towards warmth and happiness like a magnet and in my case, Laya brought warmth and happiness to me.