High End Strip Malls

Strip-malls are probably the most iconic sights of North America after SUV’s and McDonalds! Jacksonville FL probably is the Mecca of such iconic sights. The vastness of the city area has given the developers and planners untrammeled opportunities to build flat out inclusive of massive parking lots to park those gas guzzlers.

Even the more recent up-scale construction projects like the prestigious Town Center Mall is nothing but a glorified strip mall. You don’t create quality by replacing a Chinese Takie-Outie with a P.F. Changs and the mom-and-pop-Italian-restaurant by a Maggiano’s. In their defense, there is a prestigious condo complex attached to the mall that even in today’s market is selling at $300,000 plus prices. There is this one lane inside this strip mall that is brick paved with no cars and a little pond with colorful fish in it. Makes it look all cool and European. You almost want to wander into those streets and shop at the designer stores and be sure that they are paying for common area maintenance for these stylish streets and are charging you for it!

The town center mall is paradise for shoppers that think more is not enough but it is a crazy place for a cyclist that is trying to shed less carbon and lose some calories by cycling to his friend’s house. Well you see that they got rid of all those trees to put some walls up and stick expensive brand names outside them. The little gusts of winds pick up speed while those trees have ended up in some print out that will be glanced at once and then thrown away for the noble cause of maintaining a paper-less society. Uninterrupted, these gusts of winds rampage through the drab mall buildings and extra wide SUV spec lanes and create unnecessary head wind for the poor cyclist who was not enjoying the view and is now not enjoying the ride.

Battling the strong head winds, the cyclist turns into St. John’s Bluff, taking shelter among a few tall trees till a gas station approaches. $4.09 9/10. That head wind feels every bit worth battling against!

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.

Desi Boy = 15 Yr Old Caucasian Girl

A freshly graduated Desi boy is the same as a fifteen year old Caucasian girl. India's sub-hundred years of independence and the over two hundred years of dependence is to blame.

I realise that the above two statements are pretty bold and I will lay down my case. I am talking about a recently graduated desi boy in the US of A with a fresh job, trying to soothe terrible wounds of being separated from those other guys that were his friends and family for the entire course of his master's education. In a new city, all people are alien, and he only has one roommate's shoulders to seek comfort rather than the ten plus pairs of shoulders he had in his little university town. He starts his social life in the new city with two commandments...all americans are the same and they have no culture. This implies that there are no American new friends to be made and no culture to explore other than movie and cartoon oriented theme parks. Then he proceeds to get himself a cell phone with unlimited in-network calls to be in-network with his lost buddies.

India is not blamed till this point.

Then calls are made. From everywhere and every time. That is where they push my 'Jack-ass' button. The phone is glued to the ear making that desparate call to his soul-mates from driving to work to eating dinner. "I understand that you need to keep in touch, but damn son, there is a difference between keeping in touch and being an active part of the life of your male friend from 600 miles away!" Americans, with their super-duper-sensitive radar for fruit-cakes call such behaviour 'Gay'. Anyway, one needs to have a riding lawn mower, a truck with either a gun-rack or a fishing-rod-rack in the back to qualify as straight in this free American society.

The worst a desi boy can do to me is talk incessantly on his cell phone about mundane stuff with his BFF while in the car with me driving or while at my dinner table. If that desi boy is an old friend, I will ask him to mind himself, but if he is an acquaintance, I cant even tell him what an asshole he is. "No one gives you the right to make me look like a damn chauffeur and isolate the rest of the occupants of the car because you decided to have your chat at this very moment." I am not talking about making or taking a courtesy call. Desis talk about everything under the sun when someone else is driving. Moreover, they do it so naturally. Did I miss a course at school or a secret all-men-clan meeting in India because that behaviour is highly dis-respecting and ridiculous.

This is where India comes in. I blame the immaturity to the sub-hundred years of independence for this dis-respectful lack of etiquette.

And when he is not on the phone, he is on Orkut scrapping the very friends he spoke to for hours or finding cute girls to drop stupid scraps to.

That is the exact equivalent of a fifteen year old Caucasian girl who, if not texting her friends is on MySpace commenting at their profile. Caucasian parents, please be a little liberal on those H1B laws and increases your chances of finding a daughter in everyone of us.

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.

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...

Poor Gere...or is it Poos Us !!!!!

So, Gere is guilty for kissing Shilpa Shetty in public. If that is the case, I would like to see extra police patrols in Bandstand, Bandra. I can guarantee they will get their hands full at Bandstand, especially when the tide is low during the evenings. Or just peep into the unsuspecting cars parked along Bandstand that appear to be involuntarily moving or the ones that appear to be running for over 30 minutes with heavy tinted windows. I wonder what’s going on inside? Maybe the cars are actually robots, like transformers. A strong breeze from the Arabian? There are kids making out in it dumbass!! So, where are the Hindu activists? Oh, I know, I know. They are at home watching Khwahish...and then a cell phone rings. It is an SMS from a fellow activist informing that a white man just kissed their own Bollywood actress. Infuriating! Burn!!!

The rest of the world thinks it is a stupid law to charge Gere for kissing Shetty. It is not like he stuck his tongue in her throat! Well, they don’t know the Indian culture and I don’t blame them. It is a custom to kiss on the cheeks and greet in some countries. Frankly, I give a rat’s butt the world thinks about this. Especially what war-mongering nations think about this. They have their own set of problems going into war with a bunch of countries and not being able to get out of it. Do I think it is a stupid law in India? No, I don’t. I agree with it, but completely dissent the hypocrisy. If kissing Shilpa Shetty was public obscenity, then what about all those kissing scenes Bollywood movies aired in Indian theatres, in freakin public!!! Do they even get a rating? Even if they do, who follows that rating? No one did till 2004 and you can not argue that they suddenly do.

Remember Bandit Queen? What about the adult people in the theaters whistling at the nude scenes. That is public obscenity! Where were the Hindu activist brothers then? Oh, I know, watching re-runs of Dayavan at home.

Do I agree with the court’s decision for either a three month jail or fine or both for Gere's misbehavior? Hell no! They should have made Shilpa Shetty publicly slap Richard Gere for his innocent display of affection. That ought to be enough. She is a confident Indian woman. She could do it. Hmmm!! Isn’t she defending Gere? I just think Gere was a convenient candidate for the activists so they could shake the cobwebs off their spears and flags and burn some effigies on the road.

What about Aids? Wasn’t that the motive behind the whole drama? How many people are going out on the streets shouting against aids? No body. They are busy burning Richard Gere’s effigy on the streets. Is this the India we want to live in? Is this the India we want to leave behind for our kids?

Brief History of The United States of America

I saw this video in one of the science blogs that I was reading: link
It is in my shared posts, but the video is too good to miss.



Update: 15 mins after publishing the post.
I thought I was done posting this one...till I came across this video.
Hang Tight...

Instant Upma Nights...Muhaji Lovitz

Alright, the instant upma from MTR is not the best kind of upma. An unopened packet sits on my dining table (just been lazy to pick up the 200 gm packet to the kitchen closet, but actually contemplating to shove it in the thrash can) and half a sauce pan of already prepared dry upma sits on the cooking range. I ate about half the contents of the prepared upma, or at least attempted to eat it. With my tongue and upper palette of the mouth doubling as the molars and pre-molars, there was not much that I could do other than buff up my tongue. When I am done with this ordeal, I could probably pull a car with my tongue. The result: it is 11:20 at night and I am still hungry.

Saw Namastey London today. Actually, I rented out 1971, Namastey London and Nishabd so I could write nifty reviews. Nishabd is done, so it was Akshay's day. I must say that I had underestimated the movie. It actually had a few laughs. Other than the absurd dance and song sequences that most movies sport, this one added a new twist to the bandwagon...Indian actors and actresses that can not speak remotely proper Hindi...not even Bombaiya Hindi. Come on guys, Bombaiya is simple...I grew up on it. I know that the characters of Katrina Kaif and Upen Patel were supposed to be British brats and not supposed to know good Hindi, but if you can speak that much hindi, you better get the accent right. I also think that the character of Imran Khan was a तोत्ला . Seriously. It was hilarious. But the sub-title writers probably had the last laugh...or it was me who laughed most at the sub-titles. There were at least five different spellings to every word that had the audacity to appear five times in the movie. They even spelled 'Arjun' as 'Arejun'. Say it in you mind a couple of times...it makes Akshay Kumar, who is supposed to be a punjab-da-munda sound like he was born in Vellore. 'Arejun' is exactly how you would pronounce 'Arjun' with a South-Indian accent.

The American southerners have plagiarized my name though. They have had a hard time to have to say 'Abhishek' but manage it because I do not give them any choice. Only my friends call me Shek. So, my last name has been butchered to Muhaji. They all remember 'Haji' from Jhonny Quest and my boss would lose track after pronouncing 'Mu..'...so Sven added the two together. Thankfully, they only call me that when they are exceptionally happy with my wit (when my wit is used effectively against them). Sven has been mumbling for a few days that if there is any Caucasian American that looks like me, it is John Lovitz and that I should blog about the similarities. So, here you go Svenie Bunny, I have blogged about John Lovitz, and NO, I do not look like him...HELL NO.

Nishabd...the review

Having spent a good evening at my friend's place, rasam, dal, some chawal, and ice-cream and having dabbled into their Sopranos marathon, I was thoroughly mentally spent. I had to leave before I got hooked on. Now, I really wanted to blog about how some people take ten minutes to get to 35 miles per hour from a dead stop at a traffic light, but the anti-biotics inside wanted me to claim the bed. The DVD of Nishabd sat on the drivers seat along with a collection of ready made and semi ready made miscellaneous food items from the indian store. Hey, I just wanted to shake some cobwebs from my head and watch what I thought was a thought-provoking-ahead-of-its-time movie. I do not go for movies based on who produced it and who directed it, I go for face values. If it looks good in the trailers, if the cinematography looks decent, I go for it and I must admit Nishabd looked nice in the trailer.I was watching Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead with Arjun back in UFL on Malkhani's TV, and watching Jimmy 'The Saint' Tosnia in his first ten minutes of glory had Arjun commenting that the movie had no scope and it takes only ten minutes for anyone to figure out how good the movie is. I argued that it may take more than just ten minutes, but he proved me wrong at least for that particular Andy Garcia movie.

Nishabd started off with Amitabh Bachchan preparing to jump off a cliff, and ten minutes later, I knew why. He probably, no, not probably, definitely felt guilty for acting in the piece of shit movie. Ten minutes and the way the scenes progressed, the dialogues, the acting in the part of Amitabh, Revathy and Jia had me scampering for my pain killers so I could feel drowsy and high. I think the only sane acting was of Amitabh's daughter, Ritu (Shraddha Arya).

Nishabd did wrong what all american parents do wrong. That 18 year old Jia needed vunn tiiight slap, not glamor shots while she drenched herself from the garden sprinklers. Then I saw Amitabh running into the house for his camera. I completely understand that the director wanted to portray an adolescent lust in its primal stage, but it ended up becoming one of the phunniest scenes in the movie.

Love happened right here (see picture >>). Till this scene, any sane 23 year old would have seen signs of a mentally unstable girl. Of course, a 23 year old would have handled the movie differently [evil grin] but lets not deviate from the topic. Amitabh plays a 60 year old. If he would have tossed her skinny arse in the back seat of the uncomfortable Maruti Gypsy and kept it there, the movie would have ended in fifteen minutes, which means there would have been no movie, just a vacation in the tea gardens for Mr. Bachchan and cast and crew and Shek here would be wealthier by $1.99

Fifty eight minutes into the movie, Jia proposes to Amitabh. There is still time to plant that vunn tiiight slap square on this off-the-hook eighteen year old...but no, they kiss while Revathy's picture on the wall watches in horror.

My recommendations to the man, Mr. Ram Gopal Varma, is to go to a neumerologist or something, add a 'd', an 'a' or whatever. Mr Ram Gopal Verma, please click here: link for help with future endeavours. Maybe the movie would have had more sense if it was spelled Nishaabd or Nishabdd. Hey, Zubeidaa worked well that way, other than the fact that it was based on a good story. Adlabs owes me $1.99 and I vow to not give it up ever.

Indians Are The New Mexicans!?!?

I have been browsing though some Desi Pundit blogs and came across this one by Ash. It is a blog by Brijesh. Read the full blog here: link (as of 10 April 2007, the blog keeps getting commented on. Read the comments for the most updated discussion)

Here is an extract:
By US law it is illegal for the employer (desi consultant) to make employee pay for the H1B Visa expenses. But for desi consultants they have their own law. The way the desi consultant works reminds me the agents who work to recruit laborers to Middle East. They are fooling the educated people and the sad part is that educated people fall into this trap due to their greediness for earning dollars.

This is my comment to it:
(Brijesh, )you are right about the problems caused by these consultants to deserving applicants. Desi consultants (head hunters) are not the only ones doing it. There are plenty of consultants that hire other nationality people.

Some of the unfortunate ones that come here to get a masters fund it through loans and such...and when they can not find a job, they go to the consultants. They probably 'train' for a few months then 'sit on the bench' if unlucky or get a project if lucky. It at least helps pay the dues.

I am not in agreement with the immigration laws too. If you and I know about the consultants malpractices, you think the US govt. does not??? They will do what benefits them. Back in the day, they encouraged Mexican immigrants because they wanted interstates to be built and crops to be harvested. Once done, they shut the doors at the border and put a guard on it. Where is the fcuking homogeneity in that? I do not disagree your discontent with the consultants, but this is the ghee-with-tedhi-ungli case.

Does that make us Indians the new Mexicans. If the government (US Govt.) knows about these consultants, which I seriously think they do, are we being brought in for cheap to build their IT highway?

Disclaimer:
I do not intend to talk about Mexican immigrants in a derogatory way. If you consider me a Hispanic-hating racist, it is purely your biased opinion and I encourage you to keep it to yourself. It is not an entire fact but a part of the fact. This post is not an opinion but an argument and a debate.

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.

Who is the Hottest Mom Online

'When I hear the word culture, I reach for my pistol.'...Reich Marshal Hermann Goring.

I hold very liberal views but having a 'Hottest Mom Online' competition is pushing it. Hottest Mom In America™ - The search for women who define modern day motherhood; they are beautiful, smart, talented moms who also happen to be HOT!. I am fine till the beautiful, smart and talented part (though I believe that every woman is beautiful, smart and talented), but I can't see HOT and MOM in the same sentence. Competing in a beauty contest is more dignified than competing here. Beauty contests concentrate more towards other aspects of womanhood than just hotness. I am not able to digest a contest being held to measure mothers hotness and I need help to understand it.

Am I being conservative and still claim to have a liberal mind? I am not a chauvinist and I would not like my readers to judge me like that.

My room mate's sister, Misty is competing. She has her video uploaded. You can view it here:

If you can not see the video, there is a glitch in the website. I will rectify it when the video becomes available.

Habijax

“HabiJax is the local affiliate of Habitat for Humanity International. We are an ecumenical Christian housing ministry that builds affordable houses with God's people in need. Established in 1988, HabiJax built its first three homes and has quickly grown to be the largest U.S. affiliate.”

Bob Carr has a senior engineering position in the team I work with. He has been volunteering with Habitat for Humanity in Jacksonville, Fl (Habijax) to assist them in their new home-building project. Having built houses for a long time, this volunteering work comes naturally to Bob. Having seen homes built by my dad, I have been inclined towards this project. Being an engineer, I raise questions to all things that interest me and answers lead to more questions. I am trying to validate Habijax through this blog.

Why build homes and not condos? Who is it for? Why this cheap? How does it help? Most answers are found on this link but digging into the details completely amazed me. The county has donated them land (free land) in deprived areas. The building materials are being donated by other organizations. Labour is voluntary. Qualified home buyers buy these homes with a zero percent interest for 25 years. They also have to put in a certain amount of labour in building other homes.

Back in India, I had come across a project of building complexes for relocating the needy people living in illegal outfits (slums). They had one such project in Bombay, close to Chembur, but the people who were given these one/two bedroom flats (condos) started selling them off illegally to other people. Easy money. I don’t think they had to put in hours of labour against building their flat, and/or other’s flats. This example is very different from building a 1400 to 1800 sq ft two/three bedroom independent home with yard all around and no garage. That is what Habijax is doing. Owning a home is a very prestigious and important goal for the people of this country. It is a dream and goal for a lot of people. I think, it is more of an ambition for people in USA than for people in Bombay. Once a family gets qualified for a home in Habijax, they are required to and willing to put in extra labour hours on evenings and weekends towards building their house and other’s houses.

I see this as a bigger challenge for America than for India because labour costs in India are so low. Habijax, with its high labour costs builds a home and fulfils the dreams of a family. Also, they improve the property value of deprived areas by having home owners build houses and pay real estate taxes.

I intend to design fool-proof processes for receiving and storing donated home-building materials, and possibly do some hard work building those homes too. I am interested to know is of similar initiatives in India.

The Swamp

Gators rule the swamp. To the uninitiated, the Swamp is the Gator football (not soccer) field in Gainesville, FL. This season, we haven't lost a single game in the swamp. The stupid Auburn team beat us.

Why am I writing about the swamp? When I said that I might go to Atlanta for a few days this Christmas vacation, Reshma asked me what was to see and do in Atlanta? Well, there aint no beach there for sure (thats why I live in Florida). Plus, I get to see the ocassional Lamborghini and Ferrari in Atlanta which is why I never looked further. Her argument was that in India, if you go from Bombay to Pune, there are new things to see and do. Puneites do some things that you can never see in Bombay and vice versa. So, I went on to explain her the whole thing about the three main cultures of the mid-eastern United States: southern, yankee and people from Texas. Other than that, you pretty much get the same food, clothes, language and way of life all over North America.

Then, there is the Ikea store in Atlanta : the National Gallery in my world, the Coca Cola Bldg etc. I wasn't happy giving these miniscule evidences of diversity. I went to work the following Monday wearing my Gators polo shirt and I was the star. Then I realized: Sports is the culture here. And there is so much variety: college football, NBA, NFL, NHL, PGA and on and on. Just like we have one Cricket in India, they have a dozen sports here.

Probashi

Born in Chandernagore, WB...grew up in Bombay. That makes me probashi. Never understood why there should be a distinction between bengali's in West Bengal and those that migrated to greener pastures. To the uninitiated, 'Probashi' is a term in Bengali that means that a person/persons is/are not living in the home state and are Bengali's, but in another part of the country.

I grew up in a bengali rich family. My parents had always been big into Bengali literature and Bengali music. Always attended Durga pujas in the various pandals in Bombay. Then moved to Thane and had our own little community, and our own Durga pujas, Saraswati pujas etc. Helped around with the festivities. Distributed Bhog after the puja. Still wondered what the difference was between the non-probashi's and the probashis. Other than the fact that every calcutta trip reaffirmed constantly: people there are lazy and the life is real slow, I did not quite grasp the reason to call us probashi's probashi. Speaking of my trips to calcutta, my cousins and friends always thought that I see Sachin Tendulkar and Amitabh Bachhan on a regular basis. Do you other probashi's living in Bombay get that when you visit Kolkatta.

Three years later in a cool Fall night in Florida, I decided to find a 'Mukherjee' group on Orkut. Orkut is today's more popular net-friend-finder site. Though everybody wants to convert me to GAZZAG. Already a failed member of Facebook and Hi5, a dormant member of MySpace and a somewhat active member of Orkut, I think it is enough for me now. Back to the Mukherjee group. It was happy to see that some mukherjee had decided to form a group on Orkut. I later found out that there were two more groups. So, I joined the one that looked most popular. This is another funny thing about joining groups on Orkut. Your groups tell more about you than your profile does. And all groups do is send you a bundle of emails that you delete anyway. Alright, so I am browsing through this group and all my thoughts about being Probashi comes back at me. This group spoke in a language that I am not aware of. It might be the case that I have been away from India for a while now..2 yrs and counting...and probably the same amount of time away from Bengalis and the Bengali culture. Now, I can not even identify myself to this group.

There is someone asking what surname goes well with mukherjees..as she is considering it for marriage. Here is the introduction to the discussion topic:

ideal match...
tomader ki mone hoy..kon surname amader shonge shobtheke bhalo match kore..maane biyer byapaare....
Translation: What surname according to you matches best with our (mukherjees) surname with respect to marriage! Alright...some one with too much time and hopefully too many choices for marriage is trying to choose one person like choosing earings to match with a saree.

Another post. Ghoti na Bangal.
What is Ghoti, what is bangal. I almost called up my mom 10.5 hours and 6000 miles away. What did you forget to mention about me ma? What am I? Ghoti or Bangal? Apparently it is important as every member decided to declare what they were and there is an active count going on.

Correction. I just called up my mom. She is a bangal, dad is a ghoti, me born in west bengal that makes me a ghoti. What a relief!! I was lost for a moment. Lost enough to start this blog. What if I was born in bombay? What would that make me? This is getting too complicated. So, I am a ghoti first, then a probashi, then an NRI now. I flip through the forums on that site and all those people (most based in and around Kolkatta) speak this lingo that I am unaware of. This culture that I am distant from. It is these forums that make me understand what probashi means.

But why the distinction? Havent we had enough? Men - Women, Gay - Straight, Hindu - Muslim, Black - White, Yankee - Southern. Now, we want to take it to another level of Probashi - Non-probashi. Not satisfied yet....Ghoti or Bangal? But I see hope in our generation. I see more people recognising these distinctions and working with them instead of building bigger walls.