Financial Crisis...A Summary

Something went wrong. The whole world economy is just shaky now, rather at a downfall. There is total chaos in the financial world. With this the tremors are spreading to every domain now. Slow down, recession, economy crisis, bail outs, bankruptcy; these are the every day news.

Actually I wasn't following anything of this and I was just too happy in my world. Slowly I started reading all about it. How it started and how things are getting worse day by day. I used to hear in US that real estate market is down and US economy is not doing well. But as a common man the repercussion to day today activity was not that high. I don't know somehow I getting the feel of it mentally.

Just in 5 weeks there was a financial turmoil. How it started, here it goes in simple terms a company of worth some x billion borrowed 25 times its net worth creates funds to lend and invest. In 2005-2007 the real estate market was on a steep growth and it was assumed that this will continue forever. Mortgage lenders became lenient in their lending standards with the greed of making more money without worry much about the repayment as this can be recouped with the property itself. Now the property bubble burst lead to steep depreciation in the property prices. People could not repay their loan on time and repayment defaults kept increasing leading to those huge chunks of toxic mortgages. These investment banks purchased the mortgages from banks thus freeing them to lend more money. Investment Bankers used these as assets and sold them to various institutional investors like hedge funds, pension funds, mutual funds, and banks in all parts of the globe including Europe and Asia. The real risky mortgages were charged with very high interest rates. Overall approximately $1 trillion was invested in securities thinking they get huge returns later. As the tide turned down, all institutional investor suddenly faced this erosion of the capital. This big chunk of money was all sold and chained through the whole financial system and then there was no real value in those mortgages at all. Now there is no real money with these financial institutes at all. Suddenly everything started falling with huge deficiency in the liquidity and every major company started declaring as bankrupt. Now the government had to come to rescue the whole economy by bailouts and buying the banks the financial institutes.


The two hedge funds owned by Bear Sterns collapsed. The Federal Reserve staved off a Bear Sterns bankruptcy by assuming $30 billion in liabilities and engineering sale to JP Morgan Chase for a price that was less than worth of Bear's Manhattan skyscraper. The biggest American lending companies, which I consider them as the main cause for all of this, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in big trouble with their stock prices falling out. On September 7th the Treasury Department took over them for some $200 billion. One of biggest investment banker Lehman Brothers was totally wrecked and it filed bankruptcy. Merrill Lynch which is again one more big icon of investment banking sold off itself to Bank of America to avoid similar fate of Lehman Brothers. Washington Mutual was down; Barclay Capital bought bits and pieces of Lehman Brothers. On September 16th American International Group, AIG an insurance giant was on the verge of failure which was bailed out by Fed again for $85 billion. The $700 billion bail out plan which was rejected was finally passed. How much this would rescue the economy is not really known. The Dow Jones has fell to 9200 odd points, BSE yesterday had gone below 11000 mark. Strange it has reached to roaring 20,000 points but now down to this level. European markets are down, Asian markets are down. There are many financial institutes in bankruptcy in Europe. Yesterday Kamal Mehta and P.Chidambaram were giving repeated press conferences to build the confidence in the investor and Indian Economy is very much in convergence with the Financial Institutions and we are in a growing economy and we won't face such a situation.

Bus yaar! Yeh saab hogaya. Finance ke bahut sare funde bol raha huun. If you don’t understand anything of the above I conduct special classes on the weekends. Special rates available if you call within the next 24 hours… ;)

Chal abhi aramse chai peeta huun.

What are you searching...

I had a life in Kansas for long time. So many things happened in past two years that my life has stirred up completely. I could really see ups and downs of a life, good and bad things of life, personal life, professional life. I did meet lot of new people at a new level and they did share their life stories. I am not 65 years old and the people I met were not even 50. But for the first time I was seeing with vision of life as a whole. I don't know, optimistic person like me, was turned to a pessimistic person. My faith was shook, the principles and fundas were questioned again in my mind and suddenly nothing was meaningful. This whole thing was a big confusion. What was I searching all along, I don't know...

Anyway this crap philosophy and all doesn't work. Life is rude to you sometimes. Time up boss! Get your ass out of here. So what all I had till now, had to packed in my just 2 suitcases. Damn! I was doing this packing past last 2 weeks still I couldn't finish it till the last minute. I did one thing though, everyday I paid visit to each of the places in which I had spent my past time. That was a amazing recap. Actually this time I was not feeling sorry to leave the city. I felt good. Change is always good. Change always bring about a new excitement and new colour to life. But certainly the experiences and learning that I had would always remain etched in my mind.

Now coming back to my room was such a Ah Ha feeling. I got access back to all my good old stuff. In many cases, I felt India or Bangalore is far more advanced. I have so much better options here. Suddenly I am back in the crowd, among the people who love me, who care about me, all this just makes you feel wonderful. Things started getting clear in my mind. Although the confusion is not totally washed away, but work is under progress. While I was cleaning some of the stuff on my book shelf, my sight fell on this good old book "The Alchemist". I have read this before and it is amazing. This is a magical fable written in such a incredible way which makes to glued to the book and at the same rate it keeps on telling you life fundas. I have started reading it again and even if I have read it before, even though I know the whole story, still I am able to relate myself much better. When I read it before I was in a different phase of life and now I am in a different phase, so view point have changed a little bit and this book is teaching me new things now.

It is all about following and realizing a dream. It is a matter of a destiny how ones path of life gets decided. These are some excerpts from this book.

"Destiny is what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young know what their destiny is. At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their destiny. It's a force that appears to be negative, but actually shows you how to realize your destiny. It prepares your spirit and your will, because there is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It's your mission on earth" Courtesy Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist.

Airport

One of the most interesting place that I have come across is the Airport. Well! It is quite strange, only for past few years I am getting this opportunity to see this family of place more often, before that it was always either bus stands or the railway stations. Although my first flight in plane was on January 1st 2000, what a beginning! that was the first day after the millennium celebration.I still remember I was in Engineering first sem, I was made to sleep early and we were awake by 3 AM and watching the millennium celebration happening all around the world in TV. My first flight on plane was to Chennai on the way to Andaman Nicobar Islands. Probably that is a different topic altogether by itself.

After staying in Kansas for nearly 2 years, I had almost become a host over there. I used to come to airport on numerous occasions to drop-off so many of my friends. Saying Alvida to so many was always painful. Certainly Life is Big, and I am sure I will bump in with all my real friends again. Finally I had to probably make my final trip to Kansas Airport ( I am not sure if that was the final one, for this year at least ). The strange part is I was always there to send off all of them, but no one comes to send me off. That's fine!

Airport is such a heterogeneous mixture of all kinds of people, from all countries. There is certain smell or should I call it as fragrance in every airport that is kind of very different. Is it the smell of the toilets, phenol or the mixture perfumes of so many people, or air by itself in which we all fly. I hate waiting anywhere, however in airports that is the only best work to do. So my best time pass is to observe people around. All these business people with their formal wears, suit boat show off so much of a class look that as if they are the only people who are making the world to work. Always stressed with their laptops, blackberry, hi fi mobiles holding a first class ticket, which is more of booked at the company expense. Then there are these young teenager who prefer to sit at some corner on the floor instead of the chair which their gizmos connected to power slot. Girls often with a pink ipod, pink laptop, chewing a gum, looking very serious around (Oh! God this pink obsession). Then the young hunks with some sporty shoes, with haphazard bags, caps, some junk style, raw look with some food in hand. There are our desi people too. What do they do, they just stare at the other desis. I don't know whatz up with this staring business. There are some families with kids with their own mini-DVD players, video games. So much of electronic stuff in airport myan! Then these rollers in between for the babies. These rollers are so much of a mess, they are annoying to others too, they always take so much space and are always parked on the way, with the babies and some even grown ones sitting happily in it. Probably I will not understand the use of this now, but I feel it is a big irritating luggage (of course I am not referring the baby). There is other category of people too, these hippies, some art guys, or the music guys, they are always in a different world. Oh! yeah these airport or airline people too, with their uniforms, remove that remove this uuff this security checking, so much of a hassle. Sometimes I feel these guys are still going to school, because they still wear uniforms. Anyway this above sentence is silly. It happens like this because waiting and watching kind of develops a boredom. Finally with boarding call, that be as per the zone, we finally get to enter the plane. First 10-15 mins is all about fitting the big lug gages inside those boxes. Now the excitement of who will be your neighbour, you know it what it turns out always.

Till now I have seen Chennai, Port Blair, Hyderabad, Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Frankfurt, Paris, New York, New Jersey, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Chicago and Kansas Airport. Of all I like the Paris Airport, why it is stylish and fashionable as per its city. Although this time the toilet was bad. May be that particular one. Anyway it is damn good. I haven't seen the whole world there is a separate ranking available for airports based on many criteria. In fact I expected more out of the new Bangalore International airport. It is of course big and good, but to the international standards, it should have been more a lot more different.

Anyway that's it, I am feeling less interested to write more on this topic, but it is quite fascinating on how the directors have managed to make a movie "Terminal" Tom Hanks on it. Really a good movie. Well! All the way on this travel back I was tired tired tired. The very first leg from Kansas to Atlanta made me feel such a long flight. Then Atlanta to Paris and Paris to Bangalore, back home and then slept like a log. End of the story.

Funny and True ;)

Couple of days back I got this set of sentences as a forward. Found it really cool!

Relationship between eyes

The best relation ever is between two eyes,
"They blink together, move together, cry together, see together and sleep together".
STILL they never see directly each other.
But when they see a girl, one will blink and the other will not.

Moral of the story: " Girls can break all kind of relationships ".

Aeeerrrooopllaaaannneeeeeee

When I was little, probably of age 4-5 years, that was when I joined the school for LKG or may be before that I guess. I had one ambition then. Whenever whoever used to ask me what will you become, when you grow up, I used to say "I will become a PILOT". My ambition or craze for becoming pilot was so strong that I had a huge bunch of toys which were only aeroplanes, helicopters, guns. We used to stay in a small taluka place Yadgir in Gulbarga district. Hardly any plane would fly through that air route, even if it happens to fly, you can hear a mild plane sound and suddenly I used to start searching the whole horizon of the sky. Somewhere if lucky would find an ant sized aeroplane. In every fest I just used to get planes and helicopters. Whenever I had fight or angry with any of my aunts or cousins, my punishment to them was "I won't take you in my plane". At that point of time we had black & white TV. If I remember correctly the brand of TV was Crown TV. It had a wooden shutters too :). So in that area it was like only we had TV. All the people, kids from neighbourhood used to come to our house and watch TV. TV was such a cool thing then, but it was not for me. If everyone used to be inside house I used to be outside with my planes. The only movie at that age I remember seeing was a movie probably called "Vijay" which was about a war and there were lot of planes in that movie.

As we grew we changed places, houses, schools, then in 8th standard I decided to become IAS officer. As we grow, our childhood dreams, imaginations, innocence all fade and we advance towards so called realities of life. Then all the herd mentality will start. Play safe nature is always so much embedded within. Then took science in PUC, then there are only 2 options. Engineer or a Doctor. I don't have any backup or background in Medicine so Engineer is the best choice. Then study cram cram in exams get good CET ranking, get good Engineering college, then cram cram study in engineering, get good company. This thing never ends. It is a rat race and everybody will be just running. If I imagine this I see a huge 6 lane road on which the whole population is running. I am standing on a footpath with a bag(why bag I don't know). I would stop somebody and ask "Hey where are you going", he would say "Don't waste my time, I will be late, I have to go". I didn't get the answer, so again "But where are you going". He would say "I don't know but everybody is running". I get the same answer from couple of other people. Well! This is not the case with everyone. Just my imagination, sometimes I feel even I am also running, but very hard to accept that, probably I won't accept it even today.

Whatever! Though the dream is still there. Just by mere coincidence, or that`s how life takes you or something like that. Even though there are numerous companies in various domains, I landed into Honeywell through campus placement in my college. I remember the first day in Honeywell after the initial orientation of half day we were assigned with the teams and I didn't knew what the hell was my team all about. A senior of mine working in Honeywell had told that Automation and Control Systems has better work than Aerospace. So I went on to the 5th floor of our Uranus building, I was anxiously looking at the books, boards, posters at the cubicle to see what domain did this team belong too. Though ACS was good I wanted to be in Aerospace. Finally I am in the Aerospace domain and it has been such a interesting journey to not just see but work on so many exciting things about aeroplane. I salute to the Wright Brothers who discovered that we can fly like birds a century ago. Even after travelling in planes so many times, whenever a plane flies in the sky, I don't stop staring at it until it fades away. Guess what! A pilot working here in Honeywell Olathe is going to take me on a plane. I will be sitting in the Co-Pilot seat. In air I will definitely take control of the joystick, operating the instruments and I will be flying it. Just waiting for the Tornadoes to settle down to give us a clear sky.

One day I really want to fly my own plane. I will become a pilot...

I Touched the iTouch

I had a confusion in my mind since a long time. In December I was thinking thinking and finally didn't execute it. Nothing great! It was just that iPod vs iTouch vs iPhone. My brother was more on to iTouch. It is cool and looks damn good.

Well! the thing is iPod classic has 80GB costs $250 and iTouch $300. If I take iPod I can store lots and lots of data, songs and movies. In iTouch I just get 8GB seems to be less. I don't want to pay another $100 just to get 16GB iTouch. But I have 500GB hard-disk. I can watch movies in iPod too. What else is great in iTouch, nothing more just Wifi and calculator and other stuff. How much to I use these Wifi stuff in India. If I setup the WiFi network in India, I would rather use laptop to browse the net rather than doing it on iTouch. One more thing is that if I take iPhone then iTouch would become redundant. I don't want to take iPhone from here, by breaking that AT&T contract and do the exercise of cracking it for Indian mobile network. I would be at the risk of guarantee of iPhone.

Yesterday was a Good Friday, So I thought I should do something good. In the evening went to Plaza and then to the Apple Store. Apple store always looks so good, everything white looks royal, sleek, Hifi(Wifi was there) and techno atmosphere. Especially the new MAC Air is just awesome so thin. Then focusing on my requirement I went to the place where iPods were kept because the store was about to close in another half an hour. I went on with initial thing of pressing all the buttons and hearing bits and pieces of what was there in iPods. I was thinking white iPods looks better than black iPods. It was good.

Then turned towards the place where lots of iTouch were kept. iTouch welcomed to its interface with a big screen. It just looked awesome, big screen, so sensitive, all 3D glossy icons, the maps, calci, safari browser, music quality, photo viewer. The interface is just too good, you can pinch it and anti pinch it(I don't know what is the opposite word) for zoom in and zoom out. Just for satisfaction I checked my gmail on it, luckily it went to my actual mail account. It is like a big room inside (a web page or anything) and you can just by moving your fingers you can reach the ends of the pages top down left right. Man! This damn whole thing impressed me a lot.

iTouch: Hey! How am I?
Srini: Too good man! Steve Job and your engineers have worked a lot on you to the most minute details.
iTouch: What do you think, I am better than iPod
Srini: Yeah! I am feeling but space, and your big brother iPhone and all....
iTouch: Man! Don't think too much, For everything so much analysis, you feel good about me, just take it, I will be loyal to you :). Moreover see I am new and cool, iPod by its name 'classic' it is pushed back to old age now.
Srini: Ok! Da! enough of your marketing, I will buy you now.... :)

So my credit cards was swiped just like that and iTouch was in my hand. My friend exclaimed Welcome to the iPod family!. Get out! you are telling as if Steve Jobs is your uncle(He has a iPod that's why all this style). Well! One more thing, iTouch or iPhone is not the Resistive touch screen unlike kiosk, PDA, ATM machines. It uses the Capacitive touchscreen technology where a thin film conducts continuous current to the sensor. You know human body is also like a electrical device, your finger touch would create a capacitive field and this change is the capacitive field it create distortion which can be used to execute an action. That's why iTouch or iPhone works with your fingers only not with stylus or even your hands with gloves. If you don't understand don't bother or ask questions back to me, this is just to show off that I am electronics engineer hahaha :D.

End of the Day "I touched the iTouch"...

Long Weekend Nowhere to go

It is a long weekend this weekend. The whole of this week our greatest topic of discussion is "What is the plan for this Weekend?". I don't know how many times we have discussed about this. To plan any trip is not a difficult thing, it is very easy; just decide on what is kind of requirements you have or type of fun you want to have, freeze the place, take the maps, book the motel online, start your car(Ofcourse if it is a road trip). I like road trips because it is fun to drive. But there are some things like in a group, some one has to take the initiative, some one has to do all the arrangements, some one will drop off in the end, some one has to maintain the enthu in everybody, now these kinds of things are not easy.

Actually in my last visit I have covered the possible places in the north, east, south, west of Kansas. The places which I would like to see in US are Las Vegas, Los Angles, Yellow Stone National Park, Niagara Falls, Miami Florida(any Florida beaches), Hawaii. I mean these are special. If I try to plan for any other cities around it would be again typical tall buildings, some observatory, zoo, aquarium, museums, park. So for the places of my interest I have to fly.

So I am in a fix situation, I feel like going out somewhere and really feel relaxed, rejuvenate and reset the health state of the mind. I have to do some of my work too which are to be done from my side. Going out also gives happiness and accomplishing the work that we have in mind also gives happiness. Doing nothing, just killing time is the worst thing to do, it is very boring, frustrating, it is like flowing as the wind blows, and then regretting that I did nothing. I feel 80% of the time in our life(by making a generic statement I am not trying to drag everybody) we do nothing, it like death waste, killing the time just like that, rest 20% of the our life time is what something remarkable we do or which remain on the top of the head that we did something. For the time line it is not required to consider a whole life time, just considering timeline of a year or 3 years is good enough to do the analysis. Suppose suddenly you ask me what significant things did I do in the last 5 years, or if you ask me what do I know, I just go blank... aaah aaah aahh.

What crap am I talking about. Some crap man! Actually I am bored I am searching for happiness. There are lot of these Maahaaan sayings "Happiness is within", "you can be as much happy as much you decide to be" blah blah... After knowing all these still you won't see or get the happiness. Bliss is a long way to go, as I believe it is advanced stage of a happiness. Man! then it gets spiritual. One has to realize himself to be in a blissful state. One will be happy when he finds what makes him happy, what he loves.

By the way I was talking about trip for this weekend, totally forgot about the topic, but they are inter-related. Even if you go around if you don't get the happiness then there is no point in a trip too. Man! A good company is required, not that I have bad company.

Whatever! I am not going anywhere out this weekend.

Memories with no delete option

A month passed by since I am back to India. Suddenly in between I was having a different kind of a feeling. I was so busy in work at office and some personal work in hunting for the property. I was just living every day. Go to office, come back, sleep, do some work, fill forms and back to office, meetings and tracking. Just like salt or sugar when dissolved with water will loose its original form. I got dissolved in this busy world. Today I was listening to some of my favorite songs that I used to listen in Kansas. It had happened something like this that the USB memory drive of 1 year which was disconnected from my PC, suddenly got connected and started showing me off all the history files.

Initially Kansas was like a boring place, but slowly as I went on spending my days in here, I started liking the city. What was special about the city, the people I met here, the homely nature of the city, the plaza, the parks, the downtown, the candlewood suites, my running path, the office, the work, everything almost everything in here. As though I found it was not good for buying anything much of electronics items unlike the deals in Fry’s electronics of Phoenix. But I did roam around places here and went around lot of restaurants and pretty good hang out places. Though all along the time we went on blaming Kansas for its geographic position, it is like you won’t understand the importance of something that you have, until you loose it.

Initial one month went off in just getting settling down in here, getting my laptop, SSN, DL, car and things like that. Then when we 3 Honeywell guys (Bejoy, Arya and me) got together we started experimenting the roads and places around. After the Wipro guys and gals pitched in the Candlewoods, our group started growing. I still remember I had invited everybody to The Country Club Plaza, I had heard that it was a good place! that’s it. We missed the exit or a lane change and went altogether in a different route. Someone helped us in showing us back the route, but we were in doubt whether they are helping us or taking us somewhere. After the first visit to Plaza and then later discovery of this place, it formed our favorite place to hang out every weekend. Few of the places of Plaza I just can’t ever forget. The fountains around, the bridge over the water stream, the statues, the cheesecake factory, the starbucks, the America’s Pub, the Barnes and Nobels, so many other restaurants. Plaza is one such a unique marvelous place; it is so romantic, it so mystical and magical.


We went on trips to the cities around as far as possible. St Louis was the first trip. It was just 260 miles away from Kansas. It was good fun time to see the arch, the kiddy museum, the zoo and just roaming around. Only frustrating part for me was that I always missed the exits, may be as I still say it was because Vinod was helping me properly with navigation. The Chicago trip was just amazing. Man! Chicago, has its own flare, it own style and attitude for which I liked it a lot. Just after spending 3 days in Chicago I felt it is a city to live. The drive was just too long and memorable. My second profession was driving, I was a driver :), but since I love driving, I don’t mind this even as a profession. The Dallas trip was good, too long drive for 2 days, but it was a good break. The Rocky mountain trip was rocking. Rockies in covered with snow was like heaven, it was too beautiful to handle, the lake walk, the trees half covered with snow, the colorful lighting on streets, the thanksgiving parade, the starbucks over there, twin owls hotel. It was one trip with no deadlines and we watched so many movies while in hotel. It was the best trip of the year. The New York trip was fantastic in its own ways. These cities are just the best cities in the world. “I love New York” that is saying that goes around everywhere in NY and I really feel the meaning of it.

The friends I got here, I believe them to be friends for lifetime. I just hope so that we keep in touch till the last moment on this earth, but I don’t know. My Honeywell folks were Bejoy, Arya, Madhava, Harshad, Prashanth, Sachin, Enrique. From Wipro were, Anoop, Pooja, Vidya, Matangi, Nakul, Ayyanar, Vinod, Nirmal, Safeer, Srirajesh, Imran, Senthil… Well! I am not taking any attendance here :). Each of them came and went off for a period of a time. I always had a strange feeling why do people meet and depart. I used to kind of give them send off and I used the feel what the hell am I the host here or what. But I knew no one is permanent, even one day I have to leave from here. Anoop Pooja and Safeer were on H1, so in a way it was good for me with a thought that I will always have their company. Unfortunately something happened, Pooja left Kansas, unsolved mystery forever for me. All means of contact with her was lost just like that!. I wish even today Can God make some modifications here. Anoop was always there, in fact he was a default person in all my trips and weekends. Dude! Thanks man!. Matangi is an amazing cook and she never feels bored to cook any day any time. She is like a radio (Mat don’t feel bad, it is a complement in a good sense), once it is ON it goes on and on. Nakul was cool, we all had a big adventure and worlds of fun was loads of fun. Arya is a cool person, I really had such a good time to have him in our company. He has his own typical style and philosophies. Something or the other thing would be going on giggling, laughing or some jokes when he is around. Madhava is one person who ultimately gave me a send off. On the way back to India I went through New York and New Jersey. Anoop came along and we roamed around a lot of places in New York. It has just too hard for me to say Bye to him, talking some crap and avoiding eye contact I ran off to my path next ahead at the Times Square. It is very difficult for me to stop writing for this blog, because I have so many more things to say. The strange yet another thing is that I started writing this post when I was in India and I am completing this when I am back in Kansas again.

All these memories are buried in my mind and would remain green forever.

Home Sweet Home

Many topics have come and gone in my mind. Time is flying and the situations in which I am around are rolling one after the other. I don't want any of those feeling to go off without notice. Somehow I need to keep up with the time and keep writing.

After encountering the deadly snow storm of Kansas, I somehow reached New York. New York is altogether one more separate topic. New York in Christmas time was awesome, it was totally filled with energy. I threw myself into the Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt and then into the flight from Frankfurt to Bangalore. The journey was tiring, with very little sleep on the those comfortable seats(just like BST bus). Now this strange thing that should be true with almost everyone. Always you would expect some good looking female should come on the seat beside yours. Till someone arrives you would be damn curious about who is gonna take that seat. This is true for bus, train, and plane. Ultimately what happens is kind of always certain that, it would be taken by either some old uncle, grandma, or another male software engineer, unless and until you are damn lucky and your time is so good that all the nine planets have got aligned in a straight line. So the obvious thing happened with me. When the plane touched the Indian land some kind of happiness aroused inside me. After all it has been really long time almost a year. I was just waiting to get on to the Bangalore land. When the plane door was opened I could feel the smell of the city. Even after a year it hasn't got changed, it won't ever probably. The taxi wala didn't knew the road to my home and I hadn't forgot the road either.

As I was passing through the roads a lot of memories were going as a flash back in my mind. I could see nothing had got changed, everything remained the same, even the ditch near my home. I reached 4:20 am and was totally tired, but was not in a position to sleep. I went on talking, talking and talking with my Mom and brother as if I hadn't spoken for years. Even they didn't had a good sleep, but they were also excited to have me back. The next day my Dad was flying all the way from North India, Punjab to see his son after a year. After really a long time we all four had dinner on a same table. The challenge for me the next day was to drive to airport to pick up my Dad. After driving really powerful cars of 200-300bhp, I was pushing really hard the accelerator pedal of our car. Moreover the traffic and the driving on the left side of the road the quite opposite of US. Though I felt a bit of hurdle to move around in traffic, but then I have driven 10 years in India and just a year in US. I was more than excited to drive my Pulsar. I was all the time driving car, so my pulsar was looking at me with side eyes. So I had to come take it for a ride, you know what, it responded me with the same roar when I turned its accelerator. I was back on the Indian tracks in total action in a day. I haven't forgotten anything, driving, riding, swimming is all like walking. All of these you have to learn once in life.

After coming from US, even if you want it or not there are few things which you feel implicitly. Everything looks small, the roads, the cars, the airport, the cubicles, the shops, the buildings, and everywhere so many people, the dust, up and downs on road. You try to walk on the left side of the pathways. You would the pull the doors in office to open, but they are to be pushed in order to open whereas in US it is standard that to enter you have to pull and to exit you have to push. You would be more used to English films and channels where in you would have the update information but nothing much about the latest Hindi, Kannada songs. So when you are changing channels on the TV, it would somewhat get stopped at HBO or Star Movies, VH1 and also you would recognize the songs. The English accent would have got a bit different. When we went for shopping I was converting the price to dollars ;) (This is not attitude, OK!, the thing I was buying was cheaper in US). These are things that you feel naturally, but whatever be it, the happiness you get being in India is something non-replaceable with anything.


I went to my cousin's place to celebrate new year. It was total fun and there were all young people and so many of my relatives. Suddenly you would have become a highlight. Everyone asks these set of questions, How was US, Where all did you go, How did you feel, Did you used cook, What did you get me, where are the chocolates, you have become fat, Are you going back. Somewhere inside I was really feeling bad. In the period of one year I couldn't speak to so many people who I know, so many of my relative, so many of my close friends. Many things have happened in their life about which I am not updated with. My cousin is Mom now, four of my friends got married, I couldn't even attend, I don't remember the names of their finances, some have changed their companies and I don't know where they are now, one of my friend went to Germany, other was busy preparing CAT, few of them are in US, but couldn't meet them there. When you are in the other side of the earth and in total opposite times you would really miss many things. When I was watching TV, even then I felt in a year I have missed so many things that have happened here. But really Brand India is great now and fast encompassing around the world. The stock exchange, the Indian bull has ran to great heights, some 110 shared have risen 1000 times, which means if you had invested 1 lakh, it would have become 10 crore. Every channel has Shah Rukh Khan with his six packs because of his brand establishment. It seems India is the flourishing with new opportunities and energy.

Even in office everyone comes to your cubicle. I went on telling my experiences and places I went in US. Of course even on the project I was in limelight. But it is like this say when Tendulkar hits a century he would remain in limelight for some days, all news channels and all the people in hair cut saloons speak about him. Or say some new movie is released those actors in the film will be in total limelight spotlight what not. Then as the time moves on the glamor dies down. People forget and Man the nature to get adapted with the environment. So after some time the nasha of US goes off. You would become one of the sheep among the herd and move on.....

PS: But I don't agree with the last sentence.