The NFL Draft: Communism inside Capitalism

Yes I do watch American football. I do find the game interesting at times but I tend to restrict myself to just College football. When I was at Virginia Tech last year, I did go to a few games there at the Lane Stadium and it was nice fun (especially the night game against Georgia Tech!). With regard to the NFL, I just watch the AFC and the NFC title games followed by the Superbowl. I have no allegiance to any team and I usually find myself rooting for the team that is lagging behind in the scoreline. I particularly despise the aspect of the game which gives rise to so many interruptions, which in turn gives rise to the inevitable ads. But I am not here to talk about that. Instead, I would like to talk about this one thing that I discovered recently that has fascinated me to no bounds. I am talking about the NFL Draft.

The NFL draft is an annual event in which the NFL teams recruit the best college football players who either just graduated or are ready to stop their college education in order to pursue their NFL dreams. This appears to be something totally boring and routine. But on the contrary, it has been one of the most fascinating revelations to me over the past few weeks. What has particularly caught my attention is the order in which the best college football players are picked.

You see, the way things would have been expected to work normally would primarily include the Super Bowl winning team to have the first pick in the draft. This can be looked at as some kind of a benefit for winning the Super Bowl. But the way the draft order is actually done is exactly the opposite. The Super Bowl champions get to pick the college football players right at the end. In fact, the first team that gets to have its pick among the best of the  best players is the team that had the worst record in the previous season.

So if you finish with a 0-13 record (Zero wins and 13 losses), then you get to pick the best college quarterback in the country! And you are likely to get some leftover mediocre college kid to pick up if you are the Super Bowl champions (also called Mr. Irrelevant). So the basic idea is that the worse you perform, the earlier you get to have your pick among the new crop of the best college football players, thereby closing the gap to the champions.

The underlying idea behind this is what got me thinking. Rewarding the successful is what strikes as the most obvious and even the right thing to do. But this drafting policy goes beyond just that line of thinking. The underlying idea appears to be to create and maintain a level playing field among the many teams that compete in the NFL. So if one team is very weak and performs very bad, then they can be assured that they get to strengthen their team with the addition of the best college quarterback in the country. This also makes sure that the most successful or the strongest don’t become stronger. This is very much reflected in the results of the NFL teams. All except just 4 have won the Super Bowl at least once and have made their presence in the Super Bowl probably more than that.

Lets look at this another way. Say you are a business college graduate and there are a bunch of companies eyeing to recruit you and all fellow graduates into their companies. If the graduate is extremely brilliant and if the choice is up to the graduate, which is usually the case, he/she would choose the company which has shown to be the largest and the most successful. So the already successful company will increase its chances of becoming even more successful. And at the other extreme, the least successful company gets to choose only the leftovers or the big company rejects. This does not necessarily improve the chances of the smaller companies to become more successful. It may even hinder it. But hey! This is a free world. Mutual agreement and benefit should be totally free of any outside interference.

The situation I described above is the trademark feature of a capitalistic way of thinking. And this is usually what happens. The strong become stronger and more successful while the weak and the not so successful become weaker and do not really achieve any comparable success. Now at the other extreme, you have the communistic way of thinking which specifically aims at creating a level playing field and maintaining it that way. Add to this, the fact that America is pretty much considered to be the bastion of capitalism. And you have a fascinating presence of blatant communism right inside the bastion of capitalism!

Dont get me wrong. I am not at all saying that this is a wrong thing or that this is not fair. On the contrary, I feel that if at all one aspect of this world needs to be treated in a communistic perspective, it should be sports. And I am just fascinated to see this being implemented right inside the country which has long been accepted to be the epitome of capitalism.

 

 

On My Disappearance

Ok seriously, not that anyone actually noticed. But I have been away from blogging for a while now- about 1.5 months to be precise. (The interpretation of the previous sentence ranges between I-have-been-too-damn-busy-for-this to I-have-a-cheap-excuse-and-it-is-called-laziness). And so for those who did notice, which would probably include 3 people on this planet, I have been both busy and lazy in the past few weeks. Of course the most significant part is that I am done with my Masters. And because of this, I believe I need to give some kind of a closure to a few of the things that have been on my mind over the past few months.

First of all, during the months of November and December, I realized that I can take the definition of working hard to a whole new level. This included running a code some 200 odd times processing over 16000 files in all. The process was so damn mechanical and automated, that it took me the entire 4th season of The Wire and the first season of Six Feet Under to be playing on the TV while I ran the code — just for me not to go insane. The other aspect of my ‘hard working’ included preparation for my Masters exam and the complete anticlimax during the actual test. Some other consequences of extreme levels of work included the act of what I call – ‘Simply Forgetting’. This largely refers to my complete forgetting of performing many of the day to day activities- like eating, sleeping, bathing, brushing teeth. Its not that I was too busy to find time for it. It was just that I SIMPLY FORGOT to do it. (You can throw in some other metabolic processes into it too).

But perhaps one of the most useful discoveries during this period was with regard to the food that I ate during those weeks. Initially, my diet primarily consisted of eggs/bread/cheese for breakfast, eggs/bread/cheese for lunch and eggs/bread/cheese for dinner. And then, for reasons I really cannot remember, I prepared Dal Tadka Fry. Little did I know at that time that this particular dish is going to save me so much damn time and help me get so much more work done-while all the time still helping me eat tasty and good food. You see, when you make, say, 1 container of Dal Tadka Fry, you are essentially making some 7-8 containers of the same. This dish, friggin thickens and it thickens a whole damn lot! All you need to do is keep it overnight in the fridge and it becomes so thick and dry that you need to add a whole lot of water just to get it back to edible consistencies, which consequently increases the quantity of the dal significantly. And this happens every single time. So next time, you are hard pressed for time and need to put in a lot of work, I strongly recommend preparing this and eating it for the next many days. (I personally made 1 container last for about 2.5 weeks!)

But in all seriousness, looking back at my Masters, I can now say that I really worked hard for it. So much so, I felt for the first time in my life, that I had actually achieved something of real significance. When I learnt that I had to spend close to $100 in order to do the graduation walk, I initially had to think twice about it. But then I told myself: “I have worked too damn hard and been through too much shit not to do the walk.” And so I did my graduation walk. Where I was at that point may not have been what I had imagined when I first came to the US. But still there I was. Without dramatizing too much, let me quote Atlas Shrugged: “The feeling was a sum, and he did not have to count again the parts that had gone to make it. But the parts, unrecalled, were there, within that feeling.” That was something to the effect what I felt then. But, now I am done.

Well, after my exams were done, came the holidays- perhaps the last break I will have in a long long time. And for me, it meant an opportunity to do nothing- which is what I exactly did, at least for about 2-3 weeks. Then I traveled. The temporary access to a car worked wonders and I am making the best use of it. Apart from that, my bass guitar seems to be seeing more than just the inside of the bass guitar bag. The combination of Sabbath, Dire Straits, Cream, Floyd, Deep Purple, PTree, and Guitar Pro seems to work wonders for my bliss factor. And I do not have any plans to cut down on it.

There is one thing of some importance that helped me get through the demanding times of the past 2 months. I first came to know about it when my cousin blogged about it. I am talking about DUDEISM. It is perhaps the most awesome thing anyone has ever come up with. If the universe gave existence to the Coen brothers just to create The Dude’s character, then I bow to the divine plan. I really cannot do justice to the whole idea here in a blog post. One can truly appreciate the idea only when you experience it first hand. The fact that there is really absolutely no friggin point in worrying about anything at any point in life, irrespective of how fucked up the situation may be, is something that has to be realized first hand. And I have been fortunate enough to be one of them. Just as long as you keep doing whatever is necessary, there is really nothing to worry about.  This realization eventually got me to get ordained as a priest at the “Church of the Latter Day Dude”!

If you have been following my posts of late (redefine ‘of late’ to whenever the last time I was writing), you will find some strong and passionate opinions expressed by me with regard to religion. Over the course of the past semester, I went through different phases of belief and non-belief. And now, I can finally state, without any apprehension or doubt, that I am an Atheist. I have framed some more very strong beliefs and opinions about religion and God since whatever I wrote before. But I do not aim to make more blog posts about them. Many of these new ideas have stemmed from some very long and intense phone conversations with His Holiness. I aim to document all these ideas and opinions in some substantial form in the near future-which brings me to something important.

I have decided to write a book. When, how, why, I have no idea. This is not my priority but it is something I hope to get done in about 3-4 years time. Looking at it this way, I want to get something out by the time I turn 30. On whether I actually possess the skills to do it, I will only know after I have tried.

One more thing. This is about by far the best TV Series ever made. I am talking about THE WIRE. There is absolutely no point in talking or elaborating about what the show is about or why one should watch it. Let me just say this: GO WATCH IT! I was fortunate enough to find all the 5 seasons in my University Library and made the best use of it. There simply cannot be a more realistic portrayal of anything ever. But if I were to give one reason why you should watch it, I would point out the Casting. Not just the acting, but the casting of the actors for those roles. The casting for the characters Omar, Marlo and Proposition Joe have got to be the perfect casting ever made. But really, every single character is so very detailed and perfectly cast that it is very easy to forget that one is actually watching a TV Show and not some documentary with perfectly hidden cameras.

And with regard to my (redundant) New Year resolution, I have decided to blog more regularly. Yeah…whatever.

Encounters of the Upanayana Kind-Part I

Firstly, this is not MY Upanayana that I am going to write about. The Upanayana  described here is that of my cousin, who has NOT written about it here (yet). My own Upanayana took place some 8 years ago and under totally different circumstances as you will eventually understand. Oh and for the uninitiated, UPANAYANA stands for the THREAD CEREMONY, a (sacred) ritual popular among the Brahmins. It is  a ceremony where the VATU (or the child) is supposedly initiated into the Brahmin tradition- so to speak. Of course, in recent times, all this boils down to is a set of fixed rituals that the Vatu-no-more (or now called Brahmachari or a celibate) performs twice a day- well at least is expected to perform- called Sandhyavandane. And so last week was the day that my cousin was inducted into the Brahmin community amidst quite some drama and action. Hereon in, my cousin will be referred to as VATU (child) during the incidents before his formal induction and BRAHMACHARI (celibate till marriage) after induction. But first, lets have some background about the VATU in question.

The Vatu is an atheist. The Vatu likes Metallica and has recently discovered the bliss surrounding Pink Floyd, Old Monk and the various combinations involving the two. The Vatu went to the same IIT-JEE coaching center and is now studying at the same Engineering college that I went to. The Vatu likes living in the hostel except for the part wherein he has to eat the mess food and use the same mess water and sink to brush his teeth.

So now let us flashback to about 3 months before the Upanayana.

Vatu is in the hostel playing FIFA’10. Vatu’s mobile phone rings. It is his mother. Vatu reluctantly answers the call.

Vatu: Hello?

Vatu’s mom: How are you?

Vatu: I am ok.

Vatu’s mom: Had your dinner?

Vatu: Yes.

Vatu’s mom: Ok. What did you have?

Vatu (getting impatient): Rice and Dal.

Vatu’s mom: Ok. We are having your thread ceremony on June 2.

Vatu (thinking): WTF??!!??

Vatu’s mom: Good night.

Back to 1 week before the ceremony:

Vatu (to his mom): I will be going to KQA Mahaquizzer on May 30. I will be occupied that day.

Vatu’s mom: No you are not. That day we have the Devara Samaradhane for your Upanayana (Loose translation: Pleasing of the Gods for your Thread Ceremony).

Vatu (thinking): WTF??!??

DEVARA SAMARADHANE:

The day of the Pleasing of the Gods was a Sunday and the complete First circle of Family randomly decided to show up for the occassion. (It should be noted that for ‘occasions’ like these, the FIRST circle somehow always gets redefined to include every Seena, Guru and Ramesha- the equivalent of Tom, Dick and Harry- in the family) And so I found myself dreading at the prospect of meeting all the vicariously existing Aunts and Uncles, not to mention random second cousins seeking career advice from Akshay Anna (Big Brother Akshay). And of course, for those of you who remember, I knew I would meet up with THESE dudes as well. But perhaps what I dreaded the most was the inevitable enquiries into my life over the past 10 months-thanks largely to me having gone to FOREN and all. So, in my case, FOREN referred to the USA and so I could totally see people thronging around me yelling “Akshay Anna has come  back from FOREN!” or “Akshay Anna how was FOREN?” I could also see me being introduced to random people as “This is Akshay. He has returned from FOREN.” Apart from the sheer WTFness involved here, I still had to keep in mind that this was the day when the Gods were going to be pleased to bless my cousin’s (the VATU) thread ceremony.

Eventually, I did show up at the Vatu’s house where I found the Vatu himself (clothed in dress code for the day- Panche/Shalya) with his parents, in front of what appeared to be a mess of flowers, Akshathe, coconuts, random blouse pieces, fruit, other relevant junk and one self righteous Shastrigalu (priest). The whole show was being directed (as is always the case in Hindu ceremonies) by this self righteous priest sporting a supercilious attitude and accompanied by his two mandatory sidekicks whose only aim in life is to emulate (quite literally) him both in the mantra-chanting aspect and the attitude sporting aspect.

So as I watched the actual Pleasing of the Gods (“the Gods” basically referring to the junk mentioned above), it took me exactly 2 mins and 3 seconds to get bored enough to actually strike a conversation with one of THE DUDES mentioned before- the dude with the stitched sac. The other dude seemed to be completely at home and at peace donning the Adige Bhattru (cooks) uniform and helping out the Adige Bhattru in their adige (cooking) and eating arrangements. Soon I was inevitably drawn into the career advice doling role of Akshay Anna and I did my best to spread my belief that Engineering was evil and that aspiring to become a software engineer is not exactly an aspiration. You will end up like that anyway. However, there were no games of chess involved this time around, largely due to the failure on part of the kid to get the chess set to the ceremony.

Now every family has a family douchebag. My family douchebag happens to be a 45 odd year old man (who also incidentally looks like an actual douchebag), who does not spare any opportunity to convey the fact that his IQ is less than that of TIMMY. I am not exactly sure what this dude does for a living. But I have heard from various sources that he used to run a Detective Agency somewhere! No kidding. And it appeared that now he had shifted professions and was presently working as an arranged marriage broker! Imagine that! Your marriage being set up by a family douchebag! This guy happened to sit in the same room as I was during lunch time and I was subjected to some interesting one-sided conversations (in Kannada) of his over his cell phone. Excerpts:

“Sorry there was a mistake in the newspaper ad. We want brides not grooms.”

“I have 32 grooms and 4 brides.”

“All the brides have ran away somewhere!”

Presently, one of his brothers accused him of blatantly trying to get one of his friends/relative (the groom) married to a woman who reminds people of the “Gajalakshmi” from old Kannada movies. (Think Boiler dimensions!) The douchebag defended himself by saying that the said Gajalakshmi was very insistent that she be married to a man of good standing and that he himself was very keen to ‘offload’ her off his brokering lists.

Eventually, the ‘guests’ began to leave and I found myself just loitering around doing nothing in particular. The Vatu’s father spotted me doing nothing and suddenly beckoned me and introduced me to who I believe to be some lady related to him in some way. The dialogue that ensued was quite remarkable really:

Vatu’s dad: This is Akshay. Akshay this is my “insert n degrees of separation where n>3” relative.

Me: Hello aunty.

Vatu’s dad (in Kannada): Ivara yoorunu US nalli MS madtha iddhale. (Loosely translates to implying-“There is some person whom I do not know who is doing MS in US but is related in some way to this lady here!)

Me (thinking): OMG!!! What a coincidence???!! Somebody whom I have never heard of or met before in my life knows somebody else who happens to be one among the lakhs of people who are studying Masters in USA!! Un-fuckin-believable eh??!!?

Stranger Aunt: My friend’s sister’s daughter is also studying in US.

Me (thinking): Wait! Who? Does she even know you exist?

Stranger aunt: Where are you studying?

Me: Virginia Tech (hoping it would ring some bell. After all, she happened to ‘know’ someone who was doing their Masters in US.)

Stranger Aunt (betraying her ignorance): Ok ok. So you are doing Masters in Computer Science?

Me: No.

Stranger Aunt: Ok so you are doing MS in Electronics is it?

Me: No. I am doing my Masters in Civil Engineering.

Suddenly, Stranger Aunt began to change her expression to “looks-like-I-have-been-wasting-my-time-talking-to-this-guy” kind of a look. Eventually she realized that she had to say something positive and so :

Stranger Aunt: Oh Civil is it?? Ok. So is there scope for Civil Engineering there??

Me (thinking): WTF Biatch??!!?? Who the fuck do you think are building all the skyscrapers around you? Don’t be proud to display your fucking ignorance around just because you know some girl, who really doesn’t care a fuck if you live or die, happens to be studying Computer Science in some random US University!

And on that note (and without giving a response), I just walked out of the room. And in a short while, I found myself liberated from the clutches of meeting random people who seem to pass judgment at the slightest opportunity. And so just before I left, I met my cousin, the Vatu, and empathized with him for a short while for what he had to go through and for what was still to come. But what was to come on the actual day of the thread ceremony was something neither of us could have anticipated or be prepared for in anyway!

Thats up in Part 2 of the Upanayana series!

Updates

Warning: Long, Self Indulgent post ahead.

I am trying to remember how it is to write a blog post. Looks like I am already doing it now. So lets get down to the part where I actually make the effort to write something more readable than these lame introductory lines.

The idea of  this post was me to write something about a lot of things that have been happening around me and TO me since the last time I wrote about a lot of things that happened around me and TO me. Oh and that by the way, was way back in July last year when I decided to shift continents to do my Masters. And I believe the idea was to write a post before I completed my Masters and shifted continents once more to go back where I came from. So here I am, fulfilling my own expectations, way ahead of time!

1. Just to clear things up before I say anything, I am still in Blacksburg, Virginia-also known as “middle of nowhere” or “place where there is nothing to do”- with the only claim to fame of this place being that it is where Virginia Tech is located. Perhaps, at this point, if you are still not able to make the connection (i.e if your IQ<75 or if you are Timmy), I am doing my Masters at VTech (Go Hokies! I guess…). While my last post about my stay here would have indicated that there could not have been anything better I could have chosen, I have also come to realize that where it really matters, I have nothing to show. In every other aspect, I could not have asked for anything more. Having said that, I have also come to realize that things have their own way of setting themselves right and so am ready to play out the remainder of my stay here.

2. Now looking at the brighter side of things, lets just start off by saying that I was able to experience one of my to do things, somewhere pretty much on top of my bucket list. And I am talking about ME WATCHING METALLICA LIVE! All those times I listened to them back in India and felt so damn helpless that I could never get to see them live, I guess this is definitely one of those dream come true things. October 17th at  John Paul Jones (not the Led Zep dude) Arena Charlottesville is where I saw Metallica play Sad but True, Fuel, One, Master of Puppets, Creeping death and a lot more. So next time somebody talks about how they wish to see Metallica Live, I can show them this video and tell them  I was there when Metallica made their trademark entrance with Ecstasy of Gold (Remember Ennio Morricone and Good, Bad and Ugly?)

I WAS FUCKIN’ THERE when Metallica played FADE TO BLACK!

And I was there when they played Enter Sandman

And I was friggin’ there when Metallica played ONE.

I can go on and on posting videos of every single song that I saw Metallica perform live. But I guess you get the point. But I still remember that time when they were playing Nothing Else Matters and I began to think of all those times when I was fantasizing what I would do if I saw Metallica perform Nothing Else Matters live. I had thought I would sing along, probably play an air guitar. But in the end, all I could do was just sit back and just LIVE a lifetime through that song! Those 2 hours made the rest of my bovine existence get some meaning.

3. Sticking with concerts, I saw Eric Clapton & Roger Daltrey live last month at Raleigh, NC. Raleigh, NC, also being the same place where North Carolina State University is located where one of my fellow Alcoholics (and a stand in for Team Rectilinear Redemption ) from NITK is doing his Masters along with a Mal who is still trying to learn the Mal language. Or to put it in simpler words, I met up with Masai and Hiran, who were staying along with Sounder. I met them after almost 2 years and needless to say, alcohol consumption was pretty much high on the agenda. (Come to think of it, that was the only thing on the agenda) Meeting them after that long and seeing that they have hardly changed was perhaps what made the whole experience even better. Masai, for one, still continued to be the opportunistic, manipulative, cogent speaking guy that he has always been. Hiran, on the other hand, still reveled in the wholesome process of Masai-belting. Sounder poor guy had a bout of sore throat, thus rendering his voice non existent. Getting drunk with an alcohol buddy and belting him just for who he is after almost 2 years is I have to say, quite priceless stuff. But perhaps, one thing I will take away from the trip is when we went to an Irish bar where Masai and I ordered Guinness beer to the waitress who asked “Is that all?” and to which Masai coolly and purposefully replied, “Thats all. Thank You SWEETIE!” Good Ole Masai! Hope he stays this way for the rest of his life! Either way, this was way better than that time when he was drunk and said “I wanna h**p the whores” at 2 AM in a temple on top of a mountain!” Here is a pic of me, Masai and Hiran at that very Irish bar.

Hiran, Me and Masai- after almost 2 years.

And as far as the concert itself is concerned, it was quite an eventful affair. This included missing out on more than one exit on the way to the arena (thanks to an awesome GPS), consequently getting stuck in traffic for more than 2 hours while I was setting new records for holding some salty stuff in my bladder for an extended period of time. This eventually made my friend and I miss out on a few Roger Daltrey songs but we were both in time for Baba O’ Reily though!

But of course, the reason I went there was to see Eric Clapton set his guitar on fire and to hear him sign Layla. Which he did of course, along with a host of other songs. But I really got my money’s worth ten times over when he sang OLD LOVE- that one song which I used to listen to day in and day out in my hostel. With an extended lead and mesmerizing vocals, I really could not have asked for anything better. That sweet sound of the Fender was a treat in itself. This is by far the best Old Love version I have ever heard. Here is the video-not that great quality but you can still hear the song clearly.

I have to admit. His vocals, even at this age, are as good and mesmerizing as ever. Just listening to him sing Wonderful Tonight is a treat in itself.

He played the acoustic version of Layla in which he distinctly messed up the lead once. But I was really looking forward to him playing Badge from his Cream days. That song has a killer bassline but then Clapton made it more riff oriented-which sounded good anyway.

Again, one of those few nights that make the rest of your life feel meaningful.

4. Still sticking to concerts, I have to say fortune seems to be favoring me a lot of late, especially with the convenience at which things seem to be happening. I got to see Prasanna Live. Right here at VTech, free of cost and at about 10 feet distance. Whats more? I got to meet him backstage after the concert! Amazing chap. Extremely humble and nice. Got to learn that I would be missing out on Victor Wooten’s workshop back in Bangalore. Damn! But either way, amazing experience for more than one reason I would later learn.

And just so I complete my concert experiences here, I will be going to see Porcupine Tree Live this month end.

5. My Trip to Florida: West Palm Beach, Florida. 5 days of unlimited fun including unlimited alcohol, and unlimited inspiration. Meeting all my idols, going for a swim in the Atlantic ocean under inebriated conditions at 12 AM, enjoying the 40 deg C increase in weather, generally getting drunk, awesome 12 hour road trips and trying out some awesome exotic food- all in one place and in a span of 5 days is I have to say pretty damn awesome.

6. My experiences with Snow: Here is how I reacted to Blacksburg being covered with snow:

Day it snowed: This is friggin awesome! Mindblowing stuff this snow is! I LOVE SNOW!

1 Day after snow: Yeah! There is snow everywhere!

2 Days after snow:  Hey look! There is still snow everywhere.

3 Days after snow: Oh it is still covered in snow.

4 Days after snow: No bus service on weekend. Stuck at home. Damn this snow!

5 Days after snow: Weekend plans messed up. WTF is this snow doing here?

6 Days after snow: Total disaster. Cant walk out of the house without 5 layers of clothing and shoes.

7 Days after snow: My Facebook status: “In the next few days, if anyone spots a snowman who is significantly deformed, beaten up, or simply violated, then you know where all I have been.” and “RIght now I am so damn pissed at the snow that is going to ruin my weekend plans, that I think I will build a huge snow man and molest it every single day for the entire next week. And you can be sure there will not be any protection in sight!”

And then snow was the reason why I ended up  having a nice time one Sunday, which, I would realize later, meant a lot more.

7. My Awesome Culinary Exploits: It took me all of one week in America to realize that I DO NOT like American food. Apart from the mandatory presence of beef and other meat in practically every dish, I still do not prefer bland, mix-a-lot-of-stuff-together-and-you-have-a-meal type of food. (I liked the Cookies and the Pumpkin Pie though ) And I am sick of having to eat the same Veggie Patty sandwich at Subway.  As a direct consequence of this, my culinary skills have gone from edible to tastes-like-something to tastes good to simply-mind-blowing! Most of the stuff are South Indian dishes including Masala Dosa, Onion Uthappam, Gojju Avalakki, Nucchinunde, Coconut Burfi a.k.a Kobri Mithai, etc. All this has made my parents and well wishers warn me that this might work against me as my eventual would be wife would make me do all the cooking thus ‘escaping her duties!’ You can find most of the awesome stuff that I have prepared here.

8. The last 7 days have perhaps been the most eventful days I have had in a long long time. They were painful, stressful, filled with helplessness, frustration and at the same time also blissful, memorable, filled with clear skies, pancakes and one nice meteor. It is almost like I have been living life for the past 7 days filled with extremities at both ends. Technically I guess this would perfectly qualify for a week wherein MY LIFE WAS AVERAGE! But when in reality, it was anything but average. In more than one way, I will look back to this week and say “Those 7 days were when I learnt that I have the capacity to reason my way through the tough times and the memorable times.”

In regard to this, I guess it will be relevant now to tell Kitta : “I am no longer able to continue on our rounds of Mathematical Induction every birthday. My ‘n’ stops at 24. I am sure you know what I mean. Keep the comments discreet though!”

So there you have it! My past 6 months in less than 2000 words and a few videos. Now I have to go do something more worthwhile such as publicizing this post in all social media circles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVbvEE_dPUI&feature=related

Bliss Factor

It has been close to two months now, since I set foot here in America. Two months of experiencing something new and experiencing it first hand. And I like it here. Thats just it. I simply, like it here. Maybe its the small size of the town, or maybe its the nice climate, or maybe its the excitement of meeting new people. Perhaps, it may just be about how happy and contended I feel about my decision to come here. Whatever maybe the reason, I can, without any hesitation, say that I like it here

PEACE...

Perhaps I could attribute a major portion of my satisfaction to my program including the professors and the facilities that come along with it. Not to forget some very like minded classmates that I have been able to befriend. It is difficult to express the bliss I feel everytime I decide to study and find people around me actually encouraging me to spend time studying. This in contrast with all the mockery and ridicule I faced back in India during Undergrad while trying to do the same (And incidentally, unlike most of the other programs, I find that there is just one more Indian in my class). It really is something different to be in a position to decide to study at any point and actually be able to do it well. And the way ideas and concepts revealed themselves when I recently immersed myself in a topic for a few hours, reminded me of the long forgotten raw bliss, the experience of which was my only purpose in life. And now, when I realize that I really don’t have anything else on my mind and that  my greatest concern is about submitting my assignments on time, I am quite certain that this is the time when I can go back to fulfilling that purpose.

There have been a whole load of things that have definitely contributed to my bliss here. One of them, and inevitably I have to say, is alcohol. After discovering that Beer is cheaper than water here, my weekends have inevitably involved at least 2 l of Beer, the operative words being “at least”. The entire town just comes alive on Friday nights when every single person is likely to be found in some or the other pub/bar. If you want to see and appreciate the feminine beauty in this place, you need to necessarily visit downtown bars on a Friday night. Beer is really such an everyday concept that it is almost considered a taboo if you do NOT drink beer! And you will know you are in America when you find yourself drinking a whole load of beer and wine with all your professors in their home! In fact, that was part of the icebreaker arranged for everyone in my program and to which I had taken the Bhel Puri that I had prepared myself (Ellarigu Kadlepuri Thinnisdhe!!).

And then there is this whole new experience of seeing skin. You know it for a fact; you have been prepared for it; you have seen them in all Hollywood movies- but irrespective of all of that, when you see that extra piece of feminine skin in front of your own eyes, it is only then that you truly understand that you are indeed far, far away from home! Seriously speaking, sometimes you see some females wearing such clothes that you really wonder why they even need to wear whatever they are wearing. And everytime you feel you are getting used to it, there comes along a girl wearing a dress that makes you go “WTF??!!???” all over again. Not that I am complaining, but its just the fact I have seen more skin here in the past 2 months than I had seen in my entire life previously.

Technology and infrastructure take whole new meaning in here. The fear of getting sued for millions of dollars has probably put everyone on the path to perfection. And so you will find internet connections of 7Mbps which basically means that I (FINALLY) get to watch 4 Champions League matches simultaneously! Pandora and MySpace become the two new sources of music that I have never gotten tired of exploring. Of course, with all this, the price we pay is the inability to download torrents without ending up in jail. But I think I will settle for that.

And with regard to my food, about which I had cribbed so much last time around, I have to say that my culinary skills have vastly and very quickly improved. I find it extremely easy and nice to cook twice a day. And make no mistake here. I am not talking about bland stuff like rasam or Upma. I am talking serious cooking like Sambhar with different vegetables, different gravies, dal palak, dal, Akki Rotti, Veg Pulao, Peas Pulao, Shavige bath, Brinjal and Capsicum Bath, egg curry etc. I somehow am pleasantly surprised myself that I am able to cook everything with such ease.

And so, on the whole, I have to say that, contrary to my expectations,  I really don’t have anything to crib about here. And, having been at the receiving end of many plans-in-life-going-wrong, I am not setting any long term goals nor am I making any plans as to where I will be when. I am just going with the flow, letting the system take me wherever it is supposed to take me and all I am concerning myself with are my assignments and tests. Everything else seems to either fade away or just fall into place. Such a certainty in having made the perfect decision comes but very rarely……

And I am going to a METALLICA concert on October 17. LIFE IS GOOD…..FINALLY!

Arriving Somewhere…

So finally here I am, writing this inevitable post, after I have got settled in my new home. It has been just over 2 weeks since I arrived here in Blacksburg, Virginia. Two weeks during which I came, I saw and I drank beer!

Leaving India for the first time, I somehow just didn’t go through any of the pre-departure blues that was so much drilled into my head. In fact, my last day in India was all a bit surreal. As I was done with most of my packing by then, I was never really in a rush. So went to visit a couple of my close friends and then I was all set to go to the airport. The flights-Bangalore to Mumbai, Mumbai to Atlanta, Atlanta to Roanoke- were quite uneventful in themselves, apart from of course the highly admirable Kingfisher Air Hostesses and the very very large collection of movies that was on offer in the 18 hour non-stop Delta flight. But I will probably remember the Delta flight more for the missed opportunity on my part to have free beer and wine on flight and get high-literally and figuratively! (HTF??!!??)

And since arrival, I have had much to see and do. Blacksburg, being a village by American Standards, made my transition into America much easier. Sure there are wide roads and the people are different and there is a lot more order around but it hasn’t taken me long to get to know this place well and feel at home in here. The excitement of meeting people from all over the planet never abated at any point of time. Attending the regular get togethers at the International Center has been one of the highlights over the past 2 weeks. And also due to the significant Indian contingent, I never really felt out of place or alienated.

The place as such is quite small and it took me all of 1 week to travel all around it. But at the same time, it is one of the most beautiful and picturesque places I have ever come across. Situated right at the heels of a mountain range, Blacksburg provides many breath taking views, many times right from the windows of the houses. A 45 minute drive to a nearby Claytor Dam lake was perhaps the best of it all. The weather here, is pretty  much the same as it was in Bangalore, with the only difference that this place reserves the right to rain with absolutely no prior notice of any kind. And also of note, is the day timings what with the sun deciding to set only after 9 in the night!

There have been many changes that I have had to adapt myself to -inevitably. Some good, some not so good, and some bad. On the good side, there is the very useful law (and one that I have never got tired of exploiting to my own benefit) that requires vehicles to stop for pedestrians to cross. There is also this really really punctual Bus service that runs through the town where one has to actually “request” for a stop! (At this point, I am making an honest effort not to compare the aboriginal BMTC back home with its counterpart here). But perhaps, more significant than any other observation that I might have made, the friendly nature of the people here is definitely worth mentioning. Back home, we are never really used to being wished by complete strangers or being thanked for something that we are just supposed to be doing. There is a basic sense of courtesy around here that everybody respects and follows.

And now on the bad side, is the food! Where I used to eat dosa for breakfast, Americans eat beef. Whenever I had Samosa or Pani Puri, Americans prefer beef. Where I used to eat rice, Americans prefer beef. And sometimes they even eat  random parts of the leftovers of the cow carcass which somehow magically metamorphoses  into a conveniently edible form of a pizza. The name given to this – I think it is called Corn Dogs- is almost euphemistic in nature! And so you now see, where my troubles begin. My own cooking, I have to say, has already gone through various stages on the “edible” chart. Incessant experimenting led me to making Aloo Capsicum when I had set out to prepare a rice bath. A mixed vegetable gravy eventually traspired to be more of an Aloo Mash. Upma, the one dish that I had sworn I would never touch, suddenly became the staple food for a few days. Other staple food include eggs, bread, to an extent rice, and of course the Veggie Burger at Burger King. Also trust me when I say that the Apocalypse is indeed near. If you don’t believe me, then please look out for the mutated vegetables that one is bound to eat here. These include 1/4 kg capsicum ( and I am talking about 1 Capsicum), wax bananas, onions the size of a small watermelon and some really really long carrots! And so canned vegetables is now the new order of the house. Oh and BTW, TORTILLAS SUCK!!! For the uninitiated, Tortillas are supposed to be the Mexican equivalent of the Roti or the Chapathi-only they are NOT! It lies somewhere between a Dosa gone horribly wrong, stale bread, decayed cheese and some randomly chosen white or brown powder for flour. But thankfully, I discovered an Indian food store where I get the original roti and parathas and hence am now not in the process of asking my mom to courier food everyday.

But apart from all the food, lies the drinks. And in case you are not aware, Beer is ACTUALLY cheaper than water here!!! It is not a myth, but a solid fact. In fact, if there is one thing that you  CAN convert into Indian rupees, it would only be BEER. And here is the best part: It is still going to be cheaper! And so, as a natural consequence, some extra-ordinary amounts of beer has been bought and devoured in the past couple of weeks. This included a  5 day nightly ritual of 3-4 cans of Budweiser and the consumption of a 1 liter bottle of JACK DANIEL’s by just me and my friend- with some totally delirious consequences (there are still traces of unclaimed food stains in the bathrooms!). And last night’s dance party at a nearby pub was also inevitably filled with loads of beer, and fun!

On the whole, I have to say that I am finding my feet here and am already feeling at home. Just a little more purchasing to do-including my mobile and laptop- and then I will be fully set. I have personally undergone many changes myself- in what I talk, in the way I dress and in the way I see things. It is almost that I am sensing a kind of a paradigm shift taking place. I am already looking forward for the classes to start. And of what I have been repeatedly told, “I WILL BE BUSY”. I just hope this doesn’t come too much in the way of my blogging.  There will definitely be more that I will seek to write about in the near future as and when things happen.