My first motorcycle escapade

Some of my friends already know about my recent act of indulgence. Yes, guilty! I bought a motorcycle. It has been a couple of months and I have been using it just to commute. That is quite strange in this part of the world, in case you are wondering.

Finally, yesterday I got a chance to take the beauty out on the hills for a spin, thanks my good friend and colleague, Peter.

Boy! was it fun!

In all, we covered more than 100 miles in a few hours through the winding roads up the Santa Cruz mountains. We left our office on the Hillview Ave in Palo Alto and rode up Page Mill road to highway 35, also called the Skyline Blvd. It took me about 20 minutes and a dozen sharp curves to get a hang of riding a cruiser bike on winding roads. Since I was doing quite okay, we decided to push it up a notch and took the Alpine road for some more tougher roads and came up to the intersection of highway 35 and highway 84. There is this small grocery store there where we got some coffee and refreshments. The Alice Restaurant there serves as a watering hole for all the motorcycle (and even scooter) enthusiasts riding on the Santa Cruz mountains. It was interesting to see a rather large riding group of scoooters, maybe about 50 scooters, riding down highway 35. We also saw a few nice looking cars, well, nice is not the right word, but I don't think I can adequately describe those beauties. There was a vintage Ford Mustant, a Corvette Sting Ray, a few Ferraris and Lotuses.

The weather Gods seemed to be pleased, and it was beautiful weather. The sight of the ocean, blue and gleaming under the Californian sun, filled me with an unexplicable joy. After spending some time on a couple of beaches, we headed back. Take a look at the map for the route details. I could not capture all the small winding roads we took, but managed to roughly map out the route. I could not stop to get a lot of pictures, wish I had. The madly winding roads with tall redwood trees rising high above on either sides, sunlight filtering in through their tall branches and the pristine air (except for the pollution bikers like me were causing) can make a poet out of a physicist. Well, I am not going to bore you with any of that.

Take a look at my bike, isn't she a beauty!

Here is the map of the route we took.

View Larger Map

Dostana - a tale of friendship - redefined?

I saw the latest Hindi hit - Dostana, yesterday in San Jose.
It was a bit of a struggle to find parking at the theater, which never happened to me before. Then, I walked in to a packed movie hall, and to my dismay, found that the only seats remaining are scattered across the couple of front rows.

Obviously, all this was building up my expectations, but I should have known better.

I am not complaining about the movie in general, it was an entertainer. A mindless comedy about a couple of hunks pretending to be gays just to be able to rent couple of rooms in a fantastic apartment, owned by a sexy siren played by Priyanka Chopra. As I said, the story doesn't matter. It is full of clichés and convoluted schemes and grand displays of love and other emotions. Well, I expected as much from a Karan Johar movie!

It was a good movie, nonetheless. I had a good two and a half hours, lots of laugh, some great locations, two hot babes, can't ask for more.

The only complaint I have is the way the topic of homosexuality was treated. It is a very sensitive topic, and quite a new one too for the Indian society. To make a complete joke of it, and to portray it in such bad light, to use such wrong and stereotypical representations of homosexual characters throughout the movie is, in my view, unfortunate and unforgivable.

I understand that it was meant to be a funny movie, but couldn't the script writer, the director or producer have spent at least 5 minutes, or 1 short scene, or a few dialogs to separate reality from fiction, and to spread the word on the importance of the issue. It might be in the interest of the movie to show all gay characters as being dressed in bright colored dresses, flapping their arms and behaving effeminate. But, is it too much to expect that a movie entirely based on gay jokes and characters will also clarify at some point that the truth is far far away from it, and urge the audience to treat the subject and the people with a little more sensitivity?

Moral Brigade on the prowl again!

This time is it Rajanikanth who is in trouble.
The Tamil Megastar met his fans on a dais, with a banner on the back drop reading - "Kadamai sei, Palanai Ethirpar" meaning " Do your duty, Expect returns for what you do".

This had kicked up quite some dust. What I find nothing but amusing has angered the Moral brigade again.

Read the Rediff.com report here.

The self proclaimed protectors of the Hindu Dharma has pounced on him demanding a public apology. The reason - simple, the one liner is a direct violation of what is written in Bhagavat Gita, one of the holy scriptures (rather an excerpt from an epic poem - The Mahabharatha).

Why can't we keep our faith and belief in the private domain. Why should some people so vehemently protest a statement made by a film star, which may not even reflect his true spiritual ideology, and is mildly amusing at best.

Let us not be hypocrites - we all work expecting reward for our actions. A few enlightened souls may be spiritually elevated to the level of following the principles laid out in the Gita or any other holy scripture. Why should we try to force it on anyone to the extent of infringing on the right to free speech.

What is wrong if I don't believe in The Gita, or the Holy Khoran, or the Holy Bible?
I am entitled to my opinions, and so is everyone. I agree that we should follow the accepted norms of fair social behavior, especially someone as famous as Rajanikanth, who gets noticed, and whose words get quoted.

But, it is a stretch to ask him to apologize for something as silly as this, or to kick up a storm based on this. I remember other incidents like the time when actress Khushboo was criticized and forced to tender an apology for making some statement to the effect of saying that all Indian women who get married are not virgins, or something like that.

I really cherish my right to free speech, and I believe that anyone is allowed to express his opinions in public, unless it amounts to misdemeanor or worse.

C'mon, grow UP!!!

The Palace if Illusions - My thoughts

Recently I read (heard would be more appropriate, as I listened to the audio book) the book - The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.
The Palace of Illusions is Mahabharatha retold by Draupadi (Panchali) through her experiences and interpretations. I really enjoyed reading it, even though Mahabharatha is not new to me. The fresh perspective the book brought in excited me, shocked and surprised me at various stages. The first person narrative was very refreshing, although not new. I had just finished reading "The Life of Pi" by Yann Martel, which has the same narrative style.
The book nicely blends the epic saga with some very contemporary issues - politics, philosophy, ethics, morality and equality of women in the society. Once can draw many parallels with one's own life experiences with that of Draupadi. It also draws our attention to the lesser known or discussed aspects of the epic story - that of the complex relations between the numerous characters.

Try reading (or listening - as I did. The audio book was one of the best I have laid my hands upon. The narration by Sneha Mathan was exceptional) and share your thoughts.

Cricket Mania

This week saw the young Indian cricket team winning the Twenty20 world cup making all Indians proud all over the world.
But, what followed in the name of celebration was nothing less than a mania.

The whole nation went hysterical, or so it seemed. BCCI and other organizations challenged "Karna" (of the Mahabharatha fame) in a rare display of selfless giving - announcing awards and cash prizes one after the other to the players and staff. So far, I was quite happy.

Then comes in the governments. The state governments started competing with each other in giving away huge cash prizes to the players and coaches.

Now, this is where I start hating the whole thing.

How can government give cash awards, and that too, substantially high amounts to these players? Where does this money come from? From us, the tax payers?

Is this even legal? Can the government just sqander away the tax payers' hard earned money like this?

Can cricket cure hunger and diseases, stop floods and droughts, build roads and bridges? Isn't that what the money is supposed to be used for?

Beats me!!!

The "moral" brigade

In my last post, I wrote about how my perception about India and the events that happen there changed off late. My sole source of the news from India are those web-sites which are maintained by the leading news and publication channels, and my favorite being CNN-IBN's www.ibnlive.com.

Some of the news that caught my attention in the last couple of weeks were those about the "moral-brigade" in India, the people or groups that take it upon themselves to safe-guard the so-called moral values that the Indian culture has always stood for. I am sure all of you would have seen these incidents being discussed and debated by the media during the prime time.

The first one was the famous (or infamous, you can decide for yourself) Shilpa Shetty-Richard Gere kissing episode, that led to arrest warrants being issued against them and a lot of hullabaloo that followed. How can one blame Richard Gere, I can only envy him for what he did. Probably, it was just the envy that triggered strong reactions, which manifested itself in some other ways.

Then there was this incident where a group of people who had apparently shouldered the responsibility of the cleaning up Bangalore off its pub-culture went on a rampage in one of the city's pubs. I am not quite sure what they were trying to achieve. At least, the pubs gives the people of Bangalore an opportunity to get away from the bigger problems that dog the city, like bad roads, lack of power and water, corruption, traffic, and countless others.

There were other opportunities for the morality brigade to bask in the limelight of media attention. The long standing debate on whether to have sex-education in India or not came back into focus with a couple of incidents in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. And again, all the recommendations from prominent educationalists and other organizations that fight against AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases fell on deaf ears. The country that takes pride in Kamasutra, denies sex education for its young generation.

We had some laugh at the expense of these stories. We also had some more coffee corner talks about this. The most interesting conversation happened when one of my Chinese colleague asked me about the Shetty-Gere episode. The news had made it to CNN in US. And my friend was struggling to understand what went wrong - "so, he kissed her on her cheek three times, and someone filed a law suite against him, is that all that happened? So, is it illegal to kiss in India?" he asked. I was speechless.

Well, what is ailing India. What is wrong with our democracy.

After a long time

The last blog I posted was ten months back. In these ten months, lot of things changed in the world, and a few things changed in my life too. The big change in my life was, I crossed half the globe and moved to US, in search of some new challenges in my career, and maybe, in search of some new adventures and experiences in life.
I did find the challenges I was looking for in my career. Life also got less stressful and more enjoyable. The ultimate dream of any middle class Indian, if I dare say, coming true for me.
But, this move into a foreign land, also brought me in touch with some interesting experiences and perspectives. The big difference I felt was with respect to my view of India. I started seeing India and the life, culture and the happenings in India in a different light or with a different perspective. Suddenly, I had this view of an outsider who could see things from a 50,000 feet view with much better clarity. I could see things in a more neutral perspective, more or less like the rest of the world. But, my knowledge of the Indian society and the culture gave me a unique advantage, I could also analyze these incidents in their right backdrop, and explain to my American, German, Chinese, Vietnamese and other multi-ethnic colleagues, who were often bewildered by many of the weird and bizarre incidents that shook the biggest democracy of the world.

But, this also makes me, and other numerous Indian colleagues and friends here, think - Is everything fine with India?

I thought it would be a good idea to blog about this, about all the discussions that we have about India and the incidents that catches the attention of the prime time media. I hope to start with this soon. So, till then, ciao.