Hello california again.

I left office and immediately had the feeling that there is a lot of packing left. Travelling to faraway places requires packing and no matter how well planned your 'packing schedule' it always leaves something to be desired, at the last moment. So as usual before I left home to catch the san francisco flight, there were a lot of things to be done, bought, and packed. My bag had been packed and repacked and rerepacked before finally leaving the house at around 10:30 PM. There wasnt much traffic on the road as a result of which we reached early, checked in early and got bored early sitting in the waiting lounge near the departure gate. Anyway, the airport is full of shops and eateries and I had a nice time watching expensive liquor bottles of the finest brands on display, chunky watches with prices so chunky they make you feel faint !! Finally the boarding announcement was made and we got into the flying machine. I had a window seat. No matter how many times, I have sat in a plane, I never fail to feel amazed at the size of the aircraft and at the fact that something this huge even flies at all !!!
The plane took off, the mumbai lights went smaller and smaller and finally disappeared. I mostly slept and ate through the first flight. An eventful flight it was. The landing was in foggy conditions and only when we were very close to the ground did I see the water of the south china sea. The landing was quite soft nevertheless.
At hong kong airport, we had starbucks coffee and me and dad had a great time doing some window shopping. The Hong Kong airport is huge and has a view of the airport runways, the sea and the Hong Kong city. I took videos of aeroplanes taking off and taxing. There was this sardarji who met us at the airport. He was going by the same flight that was taking us to san francisco. He was a religious preacher and the gurdwara committee in US had invited him to preach. He looked like a leader of the Akali Dal party and I came to know that this fellow had travelled to places like England and Canada and amazingly, did not know how to speak English. He knew only hindi. I filled up his emigration form for him during the second flight.
The second flight was as normal as the first one....except for the turbulence near Mt Fuji where the seat belt sign was turned on and remained on for atleast an hour. This was bad, as I needed to pee badly. After the seat belt sign finally turned off, I got up from my seat and immediately realised, I wasnt the only one with a full bladder. Lot of people wanted to pee, and it was another 15 minutes before I finally relieved myself having moved ahead in the queue!!!
I watched the hindi movie, 'blue' and slept. No one who has watched blue would have managed not to sleep after it !!
I listened to some music after that and played games on the entertainment centre. Like all of my home PCs, the entertainment centre produced a software error and crashed when I started a game !!! I called the attendant and he got it reset for me !!!
We landed in san francisco in bright sunshine and a pleasant 18 degrees celcius. The emigration interviewer asked me........
Interviewer: Why are you here?
Me: To visit my sister, she lives here in sunnyvale.
Interviewer: So what more are you going to do apart from visiting her? Sit home and watch TV?
Me: hahaha....no I am going for some sightseeing as well.....san fran and some other places like vegas mebbe.
He asked me some other routine questions as well and then stamped his emigration stamp on my US visa. We took our baggages and came out of the airport area. My sister was there to pick us up. The journey had ended well and apart from a huge nap in the afternoon there were no 'jet lag' effects.
We celebrated my niece's first birthday with a small function on the 18th April where I met many of my sister and her husband's colleagues and friends. They are very nice people.
Right now, we are planning our sightseeing schedule. I have been out on the bicycle to some local stores and am having fun playing with my one year old niece. Will keep updated.

Pyramids of Giza.

Sheaves of papers, minarets of memos, leaning towers of files and huge piles of product catalogues make up a cluttered office desk. It adds importance to your repute in the office. People start thinking you work a lot and if you add a coffee mug to your desk 'decor' and have swollen eyes, people take their hats off to 'the man who shoulders the responsibility of the world'.

But cluttered desks are actually a nuisance to others.

You approach your boss and ask him for some important papers and he points to a small 'pyramid' on his desk and says, "Its somewhere there.You'll just need to search a bit." That 'searching a bit' is equivalent to searching for a needle in the haystack. You approach the misorganized 'tomb of khufu' and slowly as you come nearer you marvel at its precise balance, the haphazard, yet perfectly sound structure and, long gone, is your faith in the laws of gravity !!! You put your hand on what could be an engineering marvel and it comes crashing down and your boss yells...."Lousy careless bugger.....Be a bit more careful will you?"

You eat the words....after all, he is your boss....and he has so carefully 'constructed' the genius creation you just destroyed !!

Ironic to your situation, the creator of the 'tomb of khufu' is able to find the paper as well as remove it from the pile without disturbing the earlier arrangement. This makes you wonder whether you have a set of the worlds most careless pair of hands or your boss is a goddamn lucky bastard that he removed the papers without disturbing any other damn paper.

Cluttered desks are good when it comes to giving excuses. "Oh, its better you take a copy of the memo from xyz. There is no way we'll find it in this mess" or

"Hey, dont disturb me right now, see how busy I am, all this paperwork and nobody files these papers."

If someone of this sort tells me that he's going on leave and that I'll find all the relevant papers on his desk........I'll be off on leave as well.

Wondering whether I should vote this year?

Elections for the 'nagar sevak' or corporator are just around the corner and campaigning is in full swing. The other day, the doorbell rang. The music was playing and no one was at home and ,swinging the steps in line with the music, I opened the door. There was a big crowd outside my house and all had worn white clothes and colourful scarves. The man up ahead was a big hulking figure with a large belly that seemed to be a 'beered' one (beer belly). 'Namaskar, me xyz, aaple aashirwad pahijet, hyaa varshi amhaalach safal kara, mat dyaa, kalyan kara' (Namaskar, I am xyz, give us your blessings, make us successful this year !!). I stood there for a minute in my half chaddis, wondering what he had said. Then I realised that it was election time and this fellow was a candidate....the 'aashirwad' mentioned was my vote and safalta (success) meant his victory.

These people take their large crowd from house to house asking for 'aashirwads'.

All candidates have set up stalls locally, with huge banners on them with their own stupid photos smiling on them. Party names have been displayed. They take up a sort of rally everyday, with their supporters shouting victory slogans and cheering their candidates. They look like a real angry mob approaching and an outsider would start wondering whether he should take cover. They burst firecrackers as they go and shout on top of their voices. They annoy you with the noise they create and you start cursing them and make vows to yourself not to vote for the candidate who creates noise. But all of them do and you start thinking that mebbe voting for any of them at all, is a bad idea. Most of us don't know what work any of them have done and, the heck.....there's no way of finding out. All politicians make promises and never keep them and that is the universal truth.

I wonder whether I should vote this year at all?

IPL

The IPL match was certainly an experience, whatever people say about it being hot in the stadium, not getting the required views like the TV camera does, and not being able to see the ball from a distance. I can tell you, after watching one IPL match, that whatever be it.....you have to go to a stadium to watch a cricket match....just for the atmosphere..!! Its best when you have a huge group.

So irfi having booked the tickets for the IPL, we were off on Sunday to the DY Patil stadium...me, irfi, chakot and two of irfi's friends....avinash and govind. We took my car as there were 5 of us and left 1 and a half hour early for getting a good parking spot. As we reached Nerul, we realised that everybody had the same idea (obviously !!). So after a zillion turns and trillion lanes, we finally found a parking space and believe me........ we were lucky to have got a parking space at all. And then it was a short trek to the gates, through big crowds.....it looked like the whole world had come to watch the match. Irfi being the tallest was ahead and we were following him. Usually I am not easily visible among crowds....height being less.....but none of the 5 wanted me out of their sight, coz it was my car they had come in and my car they would ride home in !!

So having stood in a queue for sometime, we made our way inside. (which we had to make sure was a queue to the gates !!)

Having found our seats, we sat and the match began in a few moments.

Roars from the crowd as Sachin walked up to the pitch, swinging his arms, warming up. Sachin gets the loudest cheer, when he walks, talks to the umpire, when he is batting, adjusting his groin guard, signalling the third man for a change of gloves......in fact he would get a cheer in DY Patil stadium even if he is not playing in the match !! Thats 'the' awe-inspiring Sachin Tendulkar for you !!

And for crowds in India....Symonds is a universal target for jeering......

"Hum sab ke neeche kaun? Symonds.......... Symonds.........." And I dont need to explain the meaning of that to you.

Sachin played some swashbuckling shots,. He was hitting the ball so easily, it was as if he was playing with a rubber ball!!

Meanwhile there was this fellow in the crowds in front of us who was standing up just when the ball was being bowled...After being told off many a times by all 5 of us....he kept doing it.

Finally, Avinash cracked, jumped off his seat, nudged him and said "Arre khaali bas naa saalyaa, ball taaktaanaa tari, saalya pahilyandi aala kaa match baghayala?" (Now saalya, saala, saale is universal. Rest of the translation of the marathi statement is ...."Sit when the ball is being bowled atleast. Have you come to watch the match for the first time?." ) Now this was saying something, as Avinash had come to watch the match for the first time too!!!

Avinash and that fellow had some bitter exchanges, but soon a policeman walked up and asked both of them to calm down and told the man to be seated. Avinash outbreak was effective as the man did not get up again to even celebrate and cheer with the crowd!!!

Mexican waves were being made and every time a six or a four was hit by the mumbai indians the roar of the crowd would be deafening. The sexy cheerleaders were cheering and the crowd danced with them.

The middle 10 overs were boring and we thought Mumbai Indians were playing slowly and would face a huge defeat. But the last five overs were very exciting as harbhajan played a swashbuckling innings. Crowds cheered him loudly, if possible the loudest (as with tendulkar).Mumbai Indians made 171/7 as a total score.

We rarely thought about food during the match but those dominoes and macdonalds guys kept carrying their food items and tempting me.....but we had decided to have dinner later.

The deccan chargers made a weak start and they lost gilchrist early. No one really played an innings like Bhajji that day....

I remember Gibbs hitting a couple of fours which were really great to watch. But not as great as it was to watch Bhajji and Tendulkar.

The Deccan chargers buckled out for 131....thanks to some fine bowling by the likes of Zaheer, Malinga and.......... bhajji, once again spinning the way to victory.

We had work to do.....and that was getting to the parking through the huge crowds. We had dinner in Hotel Bhagat tarachand and it seemed like there were only people from the IPL match crowd who had come to eat at that place !!