Why should I get married?

Modhu when are you getting married? this is FAQ in ever body's manual of life.
Most of them asking this are either married or about to get married, i guess they want me also to get into ditch ;-).(Just kidding guys!) I am not sure why I should get married or rather I don't know and don't want to (wish i could try it ha ha ha ha). Most famous reasons that have been used and re-used for generations and all sexes & race.(I wish Software engineering was like this,modular and portable ha ha ha ha ha)
1.This is the right age
2.You are getting good offer, you will miss them (yeah like it is end of year sale)
3.You cant live alone
4.You and your family can settle down, while you are still young.
5.You need some one to take care and love you. :-D
6.We all did this (like goats :-))
7.What will you do staying alone.
8.You will loose your mental balance, maybe turn out to be mad man
9.Get married for the happiness of your parent x-(
10.Your education qualifications are less than the girls.
11.Astrologers all over India have said that after first issue you will flourish like anything.
12.Because of you we are getting humiliated.
13.What will you read at this age, you are 28; get married and you can do what ever you want.
14.Maybe some of your friends are asking you to live like this.
and so on, well i remember these repeated again and again.
Well I don't think I should get married because the above reasons are grave and are of high importance just like whether India should attack Pakistan or not now.
Here people are getting married because somebody thinks that you have to get married. Like that is more important thing to do in life, like there is no life without marriage, like its the end of the world.Because of society said you have to get married. Even if you decide to get married you marry to whims and fancy of the society....prrrrrrrrrrr.I dont know if I will ever get married, but I will when I can say "You Complete me!!"

Big Apple

Does any one know why new york is called Big Apple? well i though big apples are grown in NY ;-) and i wanted to eat them. Well on a serious note NY is called Big Apple because of many reasons and Google it you will be a bunch of stories, in brief "that answer about horses and racing is true however The Big Apple was a nyc mayoral campaign during the 1980's to promote nyc and attract tourism." So yes I did go to NY. It was tempting to drive all the way but the distance, time and loneliness was not encouraging. I flew down to NY, landed in La Guardia airport. This airport has a section of the runway on water. When i landed the weather was gloomy, dark and cloudy. looked like it had rained all night. my first destination was to Mukund's place. Mukund my host and guide from my trip. I first met Mukund in Kalpakam,Chennai in a quiz contest and next in Delphi as my colleague after a long long time. Well no there in no Delphi in NY, he works for Bloomberg in the financial district of Manhattan playing around with others money he he he he;-). When i landed in NY it was sure that driving here would be like driving in Bangalore. Lots of traffics unlike in Flint. Anyways we were traveling by metro or foot. Our first destination was Metropolitan Museum of Art, best place to spend time in a bad weather. we went there by train and it was an interesting journey. the system is pretty old and at some places there are two levels. at many places the trains are running on a elevated track on steel bridges, man it can get so noisy. Well the museum has a lots of artifacts from all civilizations. yes all the civilizations from all over the world. interesting how the Americans got hold of them. in some cases the artifacts were donated for preservation. there was a lot to see but less time. so my guide made sure i see the important ones. the best ones were the mummies and temple of Dendur. there were a lot of sculptures from India too, making me think where are these things on display in India? by the time we were done here it was almost 2PM. Next was food.Saravan Bhavan, yes in NY. Indian food after one month, felt good to eat some good food.
Next was Brooklyn Bridge. It is a beautiful bridge, built in the early 19th century. you can walk in the center of the bridge, giving you a beautiful picture of Manhattan sky line. we walked across the bridge and went to a location where a couple of scenes for the movie Kal Ho Na Ho was shot. from here the bridge looks majestic. From there we walked to Ground Zero. the place where once WTC stood long and tall. I got goosebumps when I was there just thinking how the palace could have been when the towers came down. Now they are building a memorial here and the construction is in progress. NYSE was the next place we went, it was just to see the trading place. Here at the Bull we shot some crazy snaps. Yes they sure are:-D. Next we visited Mukund's office. It is a nice place to work. Beautiful environment. we have lot of catching up to do in our MNC offices. Next we went to Time Square. Boy what a place. Awesome place with bright lighting and big, big displays. Lots of people out here just to see the lighting and displays. It would be nice if i could just sit on the pavement in open air and have a chilled beer. Just perfect. By the time we reached back home it was mid night. Guess what the trains run 24X7. Well had a nice nap because of all the walking around in the city.
About NY, the place is not USA. Yep you wont feel like you are in USA, there are people from all over the world all races. It is so full of energy. It was energizing to be there after living in this small town. Life here is fast always on the move and people are not fat:-). they are thin and fit. I felt i should be here for some time. I should look out for a company who has a center in NY ;-). Day two. We were headed to Central Park. The lung space of NY. Yes this is only place in entire city where there are trees, trees and only trees. Outside this park it is only koncrete. People here were engaged in different activities, sun bathing, football, ball or something. there were a lot of shows going on in different place. dances, music and acrobats. all for free, enjoy it and uf you want pay for it. there are some lakes here and you can boat also. we walked a lot here in the part almost 20 blocks. Then we went to Grand Central Station. as the name says, it is GRAND. A huge station and beautiful architecture. on the ceiling of the main hall there are constellations painted. it looks beautiful up there. After this we went to Madam Tussauds. Time to meet the celebrities. this is also in times square. Well they are so near to life you just can beat it. If you are good you can get people confused as to who is real. Here posed with all the big shots and who's who and and some crazy pose. to end it we saw a 4D movie. Well the 4th dimension is the feel of the movies you are watching. Then we went to Empire State Building, 5th tallest building in the world. Getting in the building was like having darshan in Tirupathi. We were moving around in the same floor for ever and there are so many people. We first went to the 102 floor. It was sight from there, entire NYC was visible. all lit up bright and beautiful. one hell of a sight, from there we came down to 86th floor. You can go out and see the city. Got some pics here. We returned back from here and called it a day. In these two days i realized that i have a pairs of functional legs and could feel every god damn muscle.

Last day last stop Statue of Liberty. Gifted by the French to the USA to commemorate the signing of US declaration of Independence. The statue is suppose to welcome the visitors and immigrants to the US. The statue is of a robed woman holding a torch. I did this trip with gube and some of her friends. Well all good things must come to end. Shortly i was headed back to Flint. Thanks to Mukund who took the pain of taking me around the city and planned it well and not to mention his cooking. Mate that was good, not to mention the mommy he can be taking good care of people;girls are you listening:-). As I am writing this i realize that i will be flying back home. Well what am I going to miss, well my car Dodge Charger, popcorn in the theater and few restaurants here that served some amazing fish :-D. Yes that is it.Adios amigos. Oh yes i did eat an apple courtesy Mukund.

Uncle Sam!!

Uncle Sam is calling!!
Well the call for me was on hold for a long time. Now here i am in Flint, Michigan. It is a small town but still looks big. everything in the US is big, big people, big cars,big road, big food, big big big. There is nothing small ;-). Well that is the first impression you get BIG. There is a beautiful system in place and people follow it. you just cant deviate from the line. you do that and you are in soup, at least on the road you can make that out easily. but there is a lot of silence in office as well at hotel. not much of noise. it is so irritating, so i keep the TV on all the time. Food is always junk in true sense, you can eat a lot of junk food and if you are a non vegetarian you wont die of hunger. it is strange to see how people live on that kind of food. well i am now :-D. life in US revolves around the cars. they dont do anything without a car. well the place where i live there is no footpath. the first time i walked here i felt so alienated. it was so damn weird. yew i wished i never got out on my foot. these guys have a drive through for everything food till ATM. their motto is simple, when there is a simple way to do why do it the other way!!but summer they enjoy like. mainly it because it is a short time when they get to see the sun. so they are all over the road in their vehicles. they go on long trails and drive around the country. harleys are all over and every time they pass though i feel sad for not being on them. we had been to this place Frankenmuth about 30min drive from Flint. it is a small town Bavarian, Germany based town. Well some Germans in 19th century came here and settled down, and the entire town now is like a German Bavarian town. The architecture and planing is all German. there isn't much to see here apart from the buildings and a museum. you can indulge in lots of food out here. there are farm fest also going here. they just open the farm to public and you can see the farm animals and what a farmer is doing. one thing here the horse, you should have seen the size of the horse, fuk it was like the horse was directly out from a Hollywood dark age movie. it was mind blowing. forget the horse even the pig, it was big as a baby elephant. imagine that. see i told you every thing is big. while we were in Frankenmuth there was band of harleys, 20 of them minimum and the kind of roar they created when the passed through the city was amazing. the beats are simply awesome. waaaa i want one of those machines. Later we went to Birch Run a huge shopping mall where you get all the brands factory outlets and there is always a good going on here. so that's pretty much of the first things in the US, now off to Detroit.

The Devils

In the year 1983 India won the Cricket World Cup. it is 25 years since we won the first worl cup and the celebrations are still going on. this mega event in the history is always referred to as Kapil's devils winning the world cup. Sad but true they won in the stone age and in the IT age we are yet to win. It is ironic to see that today they are hosting a gala event to mark silver jibliee of the success.what is essentially missing here is the recognition to other sports in this country. no wonder why we have produced and re-produced gavaskars and tendulkars and dhonis but not a milka singh. with a popultaion of one billion in this country we havent produced many sports person in sports other than cricket who have excelled at all levels. even if there have been people who came up at the international level they have faded as fast as a fire-fly. they have not been able to exist for long. well i suppose the system has to be balmed. there is no proper infrastructure for most of the sports person in this country to practice and excel in their fields. there is always a lack of fund and if funds are avaialble there is always a bunch of greedy fox to feed on it. no wonder why u can see the some big statdiums in this country in dilapated conditions and atheletes runing bare foot in national and international events. there are big corporates ready to finance cricket team but very few for other sports. basically there is no recognition. sad na....

Infrastructure Bond

Today as i was joggin in the whitefield trade zone where ITPL and many other tech campuses are sprawling i wondered wat the hell has happened to our infrastrucutre. these big builders are who are building concrete over concrete all over the city, state, nation and world wide are a bunch of blood suckers, money minded, pea brain, dick headed pigs. ass holes have build so much but they have not taken any care to improve the surroundings around their own campuses. they make sprawling campuses and claim that are world class. world class my ass. just to look at less than a feet away from the main entrace you can see there are no proper pavements, there are pot holes enough to gulp a baby and burp. the whole place can be filled with filth but they will be least bothered about it. there is enough dust to cover up a vehicle parked with a layer in less than 5min. this can even beat a pregnency test i suppose. the drainage is open and the contents can be shocking, u might think if it is a drainage or a production line for waste management.
Now with all the cribbing i would think that the builders can take up some responsibilt in improving the conditions around their campuses. give a good payment cover the drainage, maybe make a good approach road. with so much construciton happening there is no difference between a construction site and the road, looks like off no where some one has created a dirt track. a typical example is the road leading to ITPB loading bay. idiots are expanding like a creeper and they are least bothered about their surroundings. builder will say it is not my job to get these things but then government is also a slow tortoise. i would say that there should be some rule that will enforce the builders to do something minimum to the infrastructure, society in re-turn apart from filling the pockets of a fat pig in a government office or a politician.

The year 2007 that was

The year 2007 was the pig year, I spent 6 months in oriental land and all through the year it was a hectic. It has been an eventful year with lots to do, learn, see, eat, drink, play and travel. I liked the switching between India and shanghai and eventually it was like going to mysore n coming back. I am looking forward for the same in this year also, more travel more food n pejo and more of everything. But in this rat race of deadlines and software deliveries I wanted an off. I wanted to be away from the city and office and work. We planned to get out a couple of times but somehow things did not work out. All of us were traveling or tied to our works. But towards the end of the year we all could unite again. Chandu also came back for a vacation after a year long absence. The plan was to go to Managalore where AK n mindu were spending time with their families and ride on from there to the north or to the south. In their journey to mangalore via Mysore n Coorg the journey for about 120Km was not good and that was something that did not encourage me to ride to managlore. Also on looking at the map I realized that on the new year we all had to bike more than 350Km and that was something not feasible as we all had to hit to office the next week. Ideal distance to cover would be less than 300Km on the last day.
After seeing a lot of combinations for destinations we finally dedcided to go to Waynad in kerla.
We started our journey on the 29 Dec 2007. Ganesh n I rode from Bangalore to mysore early in the morning, the saddest part was to get out of Bangalore and the damn thing takes exactly one hr to hit the high way. Once on the highway it was like heaven to ride on the bullet, didn’t feel a thing. The road was also good. The first pit stop was in Kamath Lokaruchi, just outside Ramnagaram. This place has the best food that I can eat, I like stopping by for breakfast, lunch/dinner or simply for sugar cane juice. After having a good filling breakfast we rode on and as we crossed Maddur we were forced to take a deviation from the highway as there was some unrest in the next town. We were asked to go to Malavalli and the distance was more. In between there was another deviation that took us to Mandya directly. We took that road, it was between small villages and the road was good, bad and ugly. We rode along paddy fields with farmers reaping their harvest. It was a nice ride although the roads were not all that great. By the time we reached Mysore it was lunch time and we had some light meal in Green Court on KD Road. By this time my ass was numb and hurting. The hotel seats were like an icing. From Mysore we headed to Najangud – Gundlupet – Sultan Bathery. The ride was awesome because after Gundlupet it was forest area and the fresh air of the wild was intoxicating. Every kilometer the sight and the smell of the air changes. At the border our vehicles got checked for proper documents. Once we enter Kerla the roads change drastically, I wonder what the heck is the problem for Karnataka govt. to maintain the roads. Ass holes have only time in pulling chairs and power. When we got to Sultan bathery we decided to ride on till Kalpetta. Oh by the way Mindu, Chandu n AK are biking from Mangalore to Kalpetta the next day. We decide to get a room or cottage for the 5 of us. We were facing it difficult to get a room, but at the end we decided to get a room for the two of us first for the night ahead and later look out for a cottage or something. We rented a room in Affas Hotel. The owner told us about a cottage for 3000 bucks and he wanted us to pay for 3 days, ass hole was trying to make money at our cost. There was a risk attached and we were not convinced paying so much. So we just took one room and decided we will look for a cottage later in the night.
After freshening up we went out in search of an internet center so that we can get hold of some phone numbers to call and get us a room. We went to one internet center and the owner sanjay told us that it about time for him to close and he can let us for about 15min to surf the net. We were ok with that. While we were surfing he came up to us and started talking to us and also helped us in getting a cottage. It was a home stay Green Hills cottage. It was a nice place. This guy sanjay was from Bangalore but was here looking after coffee estates, he even spoke in Kannada and that was more pleasant to hear in Kerla. Once we were done with the cottage the next thing was food and beer. We went to a decent restaurant called Pankaj recommended by sanjay. Not a very flashy place like you would see in Bangalore. But good enough to have a nice time. We had some beer and food for the night and that was enough to get us in a sober mode to sleep tight. Kalpetta is not a big town. It is a small place with limited options. It was nice to be in this place. We were moving at our own pace and there was no body bothering us. Most of all there was no need to wear helmet. The weather was also good, not too hot and not too cold. After having breakfast and moving into the new cottage we decided to got to two places while the rest of them came to Kalpetta from Manglaore. Our first destination was to Pookod lake, like any other lake this was also a lake. The ride to the lake was good. Winding roads, green pavements and less traffic. When we went there we did not want to go the lake to the things the rest of the public was doing. We just walked a bit to a distant place alongside the lake had a cup of tea and were talking bull shit. From there we deicded to go to a place called Chain Tree. We rode a little further to the start of the descent of ghat section to Kozhikhode. The view from this point is really panaromic. We spent a lot of time here eating chikki. From there we moved to Chain Tree, sadly this place was disappointing. There was a chain hanging around a tree and it was grounded . We were just laughing. It was 1:00 PM by now and when I called up mindu they were is some place having beer and lunch. So we went back to the cottage and took rest for some time and went to Uduppi hotel for lunch. We had so much to eat there full batting. We came back to our room an I sat on the cane chair watching TV and fully dozed off. Phew that was one hell of a nap that I had. At 6:00 in the evening the rest of the gang had still not come and we were restless sitting inside the room. So we went out for a stroll, had some tea, bondas and bajiis and sat along the road side. Finally at around 8:30PM these guys turned up. Mindu was all jumping on his bike like a drunk monkey ;-). After freshening up we went for dinner to Pankaj.
The next day we had planned to go to Chembur peak and Kanthapara falls. Chembur peak was a private property in a tea estate. The ride was yet again good. When we reached he place, they did no allow us to trek as there was a forest fire a week ago. We just enjoyed the scenic beauty at the watch tower and headed toward Kanthapara falls. The falls was not polluted or crowded. There was not much water, but good enough to do time pass. I did not want to get in water as it was cold and sometimes crazy things happen in my nose all of a sudden. We slept near the falls and then roamed around a bit and headed back to Kalpetta. Waynad has less places that can amuse you. So we were totally out of places for our interests. Again we were at Uduppi for lunch but had snacks. It was 31 and we were wondering what to do. We went back to the cottage room and slept. At night we all decided to go to Haritagiri and hang out for some time for new year. But the option at Haritagiri was not good, so we went to Pankaj back again. Had lots of wine and food and came back to our room. All of us were tired and hardly able to keep ourselves awake. well then there was new year all of wished each other and slept. The next day we all got ready soon and started our bikes to Bangalore. All the bikers enjoyed the ride in the jungle upto Karnataka border. We stopped in Mysore for lunch and Chandu separated from us as he was headed back to Mangalore. We rode on to Bangalore with a pit stop at Kamath. And as we entered Bangalore there was a night mare traffic jam. Ha ha ha I was laughing.