Yes, the memories will never ever fade!

I scrolled down from Twenty most memorable ... , to read blog entry titled "Very few photographs of Korea trip", and I realized how true are the words I wrote three years ago!

Even today I can feel the freshness of the air in Namsangol. I still remember the thoughts I had as I strolled in the soft green grass there. I can still feel the inexplicable concoction of achievement, affection and longing, I experienced in my last ride from Suwon to Seoul. When I peep through the window of my mind, I am blinded by memory of the reflection of the rising sun on Building 63, seen through the window of the train cruising over Han river. Even today I lose the sense of time as I stroll down the memory lane in amzaing Myeong Dong! And till date no one else, except my wife, my mother, and the waitress in Seoul hotel, has been so concerned to voluntarily pack my breakfast everyday and force it on me.

I was right ... "these images on my mind will never ever fade ... their freshness will forever be the same"!

While browsing the past, swept away by Korea

I was reading random entires on my own blog. I was surprise at how many interesting thoughts I had scribbled over time. I felt inspired and moved, until I read Twenty most memorable experiences of Korea trip. And then I was overwhelmed with emotions - of nostalgia, awe, tenderness and something indescribably warm! It almost moistened my eyes. I could read no more. After the Golden Years of my life, the six months I spent in Korea are probably the most memorables time of my life. Even in these times, when inspiration has gone into an unending hibernation, images of my days in Korea stirred me to emotion.

I our mind, every place we stay gets associated with some feelings. With Ipswich, it's joy and beauty, with Pune it's activity and fun. With Korea, it's indescribable awe and warmth. If I ever want to fall in love with myself, I will think of Korea!!

Shocking!

Rs. 1000 crores for a birthday bash! So shocking, it leaves me dumbfounded.

saang saang bholaanaath, barfa paDel kaay...

...office bhovati barfa saaThun suTTee miLel kaay?


Well, someone's prayers have been answered with a vangence! It's the second day Seattle is at home. The entire city and its neighbourhoods are drowned in snow. Not an inch of ground in sight. The entire landscape is covered with snow. Tons and tons of snow. Bored of brown and green, nature wanted some change of colour, and it chosen white. Ground, trees, houses, cars, roads - everything has been whitewashed! It's so beautiful all around!

I will upload some photographs.

rab ne banayee joDi

Saw rab ne banaayee joDee on Friday evening. It's a decent movie. Worth watching once.

First snow of the season!

As forecasted, it snowed yesterday evening. I love snow. Everything is so beautiful when covered with snow. It started snowing at around 6 p.m. At 7 p.m. we drove to Boeing Museum Flight, where had an office party. The drive to Boeing was exiting. While returning it was snowing heavily, which was very thrilling! At midnight we went for a drive in the snow.

The tempreture this week is expected to remain sub-zero (do they call it sub-thirty two over here?). That's quite cold by Seattle standards.

Not just Shivaraj, the entire government has to go!

The attitude of Congress governments in Centre and the states, towards Islamic terrorism in India, can be summed up in one statement made by R.R. Patil - "baDe shahron mein aise ek aadh haadse hote rahte hain". It seemed as if he was speaking on behalf of Congressmen and all other 'secular' politicians in our country.

One of the first decisions taken by UPA government when it came to power was to abrogate POTA. Ever since terrorists have had a field day. Islamic terrorism has spread to all over the country. They have struck every state barbarously and with shocking audacity. And the governments are in deep slumber, dreaming of their Muslim vote bank. It doesn't matter how many innocent lives are lost. These are just minor irritations, as R.R. Patil explains us, in their journey towards power.

It is more than two years that Supreme Court of India convicted Afzal Guru, who was involved in attacks on the Parliament. The government has done it best to stop his execution, despite public opinion to the contrary. Soon after the grieving for the victims of Mumbai terrorist attacks is over, we will the media and politicians displaying their sympathy for Azam Amir Kasav, the lone terrorist captured alive.

This government is not a government of the people. It's a government of terrorists, working for terrorists. The earlier it goes, the safer will be our country.

Shock & condemnation not adequate reactions

Just expressing shock and condemning attacks is not adequate reaction to Islamic terrorist attacks in Mumbai. The government has to take tackle terrorism with seriousness and keep vote bank politics aside. Turning a blind eye to Islamic terrorism has allowed it to grow beyond any imaginable limit.

Oridinary citizens should not tolerate government ineptitude. We have to react strongly against this useless government that has not done anything to contain terrorism.

Bought an iPod

I am not a fan of gadgets and gizmos. I first heard of iPod couple of years ago. I knew that it was some gadget from Apple to play music, which had become the latest craze. But my knowledge was limited to that much until recently. When Poornima started asking me to buy an iPod earlier this year, I ignored it. On her birthday, I made first attempt to understand what iPods and MP3 Players are. I remember doing a google on 'difference between an iPod & MP3 Player' a few months back. Then I made an unsuccessful attempt at buying an MP3 Player. I searched the web to buy an MP3 Player online. But the more I searched, the more confused I became.

One day Poornima and I searched the Net for cheap models of MP3 Players and iPods. She liked iPod Nano, but I thought it was too costly at $150. We then gave up on the idea without a fight. Then Diwali passed and I blissfully ignored shopping and gifting. Today is our 3rd wedding anniversary. Yesterday evening after coming back from office I walked to RadioShack and inquired about iPods. They had 3 models - the Shuffle, Nano and iTouch.

Shuffle was already rejected because it did not have a screen to view and select songs. I had gone there to buy Nano, which was priced at $150. When I saw iTouch for $220, I thought why not pay another $70 and buy it rather than buying Nano, which is a very basic iPod. So I immediately doled out $251 ($31 of tax over the price of the iPod) and purchased it.

That's the way I shop. I don't buy much stuff. I hate shopping and rarely buy anything for myself. When I buy, I don't waste much time on doing research. I just go out and buy what I like. I don't care much about the price. That's the way I am.

Anyway, the iPod is really cool and we are enjoying it!

Schindler's List

Poornima & I saw Schindler's List yesterday. It was the second time I saw it and I realized what an amazing movie it is! In Marathi there's a saying - vaalyaachaa valmeekee jhaalaa. That's really true about Oskar Schindler, who first began his business by exploiting Jewish labourers, but later gave up all his wealth to save the lives of as many Jews as he could.

In 1967, Schindler was honored at Israel's Yad Vashem memorial to the victims of the Holocaust as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, or "righteous Gentiles", an honor awarded by Israel to non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust, at great personal risk. Schindler was the only former member of the Nazi party to be so recognized. He was also honored with the German Federal Cross of Merit and with the Papal Order of St. Sylvester during the 1960s. He is buried at the Catholic cemetery at Mount Zion in Jerusalem, the only member of the Nazi party to be so honored.

Historic day for America - Obama wins

It is quite exciting to witness this historic day for America - Obama has won! Opinion polls had indicated that Obama was in the lead. However nobody had written off McCain, until at around 8:30 pm PST, he conceded defeat in front of his supporters in Arizona, Biltmore, and congrulated Obama, now the President Elect of the USA. It was a very interesting campaign. First Obama-Hillary fight and then the Obama-McCain dual - both very interesting.

I had watched all the 3 debates between Obama and McCain, and Obama had impressed me with his views and thoughts. His views are extremely rational and progressive. To top it, he is an extraordinary orator. His victory speech should have been very inspiring to Americans.

Tonight, however, I was also impressed by the speech that McCain made. The graciously manner in which he accepted defeat was exemplary.

Quote

A nice quotation I came across in an email signature of someone at work:

"Let your mind be a prism for your thoughts, focusing on the subject of your choice and burning through to the truth".

Go-live! A sense of satisfaction

After close to three years of work our project went live today. For me it was culmination of an year of toil. It gives a great feeling of satisfaction to know that all the efforts have borne sweet fruit!

Happy Diwali!!

This year Diwali has been much better than last year. The weather has been much more pleasant. There has been a lot of sunshine until recently. Even in first week of November we can go out without having to wear thermals. We can even keep our windows open! This gentle weather has made Diwali more pleasant. It is only after coming to this western world and experiencing the harsh weather here that one realizes the obsession of the people here about weather. When so much of your joy is linked to the whims of weather, it is no wonder that the people here become obsessed with it and discuss it so frequently. Here, in Seattle, no day passes without mention of weather. We discuss weather with every other person we meet. It's either a great day or a lousy day depending on whether the weather is sunny or not.

Google Chrome

I have installed Google Chrome on one of my laptops. It seems to be a good browser. Like all other Google products it's designed to spare the user of the pain of being bombarded by pop-ups, flash and other attention-sucking bombardments.

There is one issue I have observed. When you press Esc key while watching videos in full-screen mode on youtube, Chrome hangs. However, you can recover from that, and it doesn't get stuck so badly that you have to kill it.

Sense & Sensibility

On Friday, Poornima & I saw Sense & Sensibility on a DVD. It was nice movie. Poornima was releived to finally watch a movie with a happy ending. Last three movies before Sense & Sensibility were Muqaddar ka Sikandar, Braveheart and Gone with the Wind - all of which had tragic endings.

Last year I had read Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility. It enjoyed the movie more than the book, because the movie was more fast-paced than the book. Emma Thompson has played Elinor well and so has Alan Rickman (who played Prof. Snape in Harry Potter) played the role of Col. Brandon. Kate Winslet and High Grant have done a fair job of Marianne and Edward Ferrars respectively.

It rained!

It rained here this weekend. The sky was overcast for most of the two days, with sun peeking in through the clouds a few times on Sunday afternoon. This rainy weekend marks then end of the short summer and marks the begining of long depressing cold and wet season that will last till June next year! :-(

Reading

What am I reading these days - John Grisham's Playing for Pizza....
though I better be reading Rita Mulcahy's PMP Prep Guide!

Loose English

People often confuse between similar sounding words while talking or writing. We often see people incorrectly using ‘there’ in place of ‘their’ or ‘your’ in place of ‘you are’, etc. However, I haven’t seen any other word used incorrectly, more frequently than the word ‘loose’. I have seen people using the word ‘loose’ in place of ‘lose’ in personal emails, official emails, word documents; and today I saw it incorrectly used in Oracle User Guide.

Support the troops

Not so frequent this time around, however, when I visited the US in the fall of 2005, I frequently saw cars inscribed with message "Support the troups". Even then the US was fighting the war in Iraq. Ordinary Americans know well that often we can do very little for those who are risking their lives and fighting for us on the frontlines, except for providing them moral support. We, the people of India (belonging to religions) should give our moral support to the determined fightback being given by the Hindus of Jammu to long established policy of our governments of giving in to demands of Muslim seperatists and fundamentalists in Kashmir.

The lost inspiration

Where is the belief that made me wise?
Where is the inspiration that made me rise?
Where is the belief that defied the reality?
Where is the inspiration that delivered victory?

Where is the belief that made pain bearable at least?
Where is the inspiration that killed the beast?
Where is the belief that made this life worth the fight?
Where is the inspiration that made each dark day bright?

"Child, I led you this far. Now you go alone", are these words real?
Oh God! Say that not to me for I am still not able
How do I lead myself to inspiration?
When lost is the desire for salvation

Losing Trust & Confidence

Don Manmohan Singh and his gang of thugs took Indian democracy to a new low with most blatant use of bribery to stay in power. The whole thing was so shamelessly open that people are stunned to silence. This corrupt Congress government of crooks has lost whatever little moral right it had to rule the country.

Taller than the Statue of Liberty

The tallest of them all!!

Stop this!

Stop these unethical conversions. And preserve our culture and the integrity of our nation.

My nieces - Monu & Sonu

Monu on her baarasa.

Chocolate bones for loyal dogs!!

Political masters throw bones to their loyal dogs.

Lies about the man who stood for truth

“Right from 1948, I have been saying Gandhiji did not utter a word when he died. But no one listened to me. Tushar Gandhi has not even seen his great grandfather. How can he say that Gandhi said ‘Hey Ram’ while dying?” wondered Kalyanam. “While Gandhiji had repeatedly said that his wish was to die uttering the name of Lord Ram, that was not to be. He could not say a word when he was hit by the bullets,” added Kalyanam, Gandhiji's personal secretary, who was standing right behind Gandhiji on that fateful day.

Read the complete article: Mahatma did not utter a word when shot: personal secy

Wasn't it Nehru & his gang who perpetuated such lies about the man who is a symbol of truth and honeshty? Sixty years after Gandhiji's death the truth is being brought to light.

Day after so-called "Super Tuesday"

I hope he wins Democratic party nomination for presidential election in US. Why we do I support Obama? There are two reasons that come to my mind immediately - one, due to his multi-cultural background, he is more likely to be sensitive to the opinions of the rest of the world (something that most of the US don't even know exists), and two, he is not a spouse of an ex-President. It would ludicrous if Bush dynasty is voted out only to be replaced by Clinton dynasty.

Poornima's recipe site

Savour it.

Good article on Gujarat elections. Read it till the end.