Nice

When things go wrong as they sometimes will;
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill;
When the funds are low, and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but have to sigh;
When care is pressing you down a bit-
Rest if you must, but do not quit.

Success is failure turned inside out;
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt;
And you can never tell how close you are
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit-
It's when things go wrong that you must not quit.

PLANCHETTE

I wanted to play this sneaky game from a long time. I also tried a lot many times but could not succeed as was not experienced in this art. Yup, it’s true and I have really seen a small bowl (katori) moving on a paper chart marked with alphabets, numbers and code words.
I tried it in my earlier home when my cousin had come over. We couldn’t succeed as it was the first time for me and even she was an amateur. Before leaving for US, I visited my home. And on the last night before my departure my wish finally came true. My sister, the same cousin and I sat on the floor of a room with only dim lights on. Both of them prepared the chart and three of us placed out fingers on a small bowl which was placed in the center of the chart. We let the finger be on the bowl for the entire game. With utmost concentration possible, we were just repeating one line “If there is any good spirit around, please come in this bowl and move this bowl to YES.” After trying hard for about a minute, the bowl moved. We started asking very generic questions like “who we are? “, “does the spirit knows us? “, “Will the spirit like to answer our questions?” etc. If you find that spirit is positive in response then only ask more questions else it would be better to say her good bye. For a check I asked the spirit to tell Kunal’s (KD) birthday and it told it correctly(bhutia Kunal). I asked series of questions after that. In the end when our questions got over we asked more about the spirit and in the end asked her to leave peacefully.
My two other planchette-mates also asked a lot of questions and many of the replies given by the spirit have come true. I am waiting to verify answers to my questions. I will write a detailed description on “How to PLANCHETTE “in my next post.

P.S. I keep wondering that if everything is so predictable in life, are we just puppets in this whole game of life and death?

Trip to Cascade Loop

I wasn’t even out of my Jet lag and it was a long weekend, Monday being a Memorial Day in the U.S. Initially, I planned to join my cousin and his friends for the Yellow Stone National Park trip, but it couldn’t work out for me as they were leaving early on Friday and I had enough work to complete before leaving for the Long Weekend. Later, I joined some of my other friends for the trip to Cascade Loop and had a wonderful time.
We left Seattle around 9 in the morning with all the maps and directions ready in our hand. Raj, Devesh, Rakesh and I were in the same car and Gautam and co in other. Gautam was very much aware of the roads and places so we never had any problems related to them.
Driving on Cascade Loop was like dream come true for a person who loves fast driving. All the cars are at minimum 60 mph (100kmph). Driving at 80 and taking a turn is as if you are swinging and if you reach 100 (160 kmph), you are definitely flying. I was really impressed by the well planned infrastructure. If you enter a freeway, you cannot exit before a mile. AT every mile there is an EXIT point which is properly numbered, so that you can very much predict which EXIT is going to be the next and drive on the right most lanes to take that EXIT. You cannot afford to be at a wrong lane as changing your lane isn’t that easy, especially when the cars behind you are at such a high speed. Though, I did that too and not just once but many a times and luckily there was no police nearby else would have been out of money by now for paying 100 dollars ticket each time .
Cascade Loop is a loop close to Seattle. It covers various places like Wenatchee, Lake Chelan, etc. It is a very big loop may be one has to travel around 1000 miles to cover the whole loop so 2 days weren’t sufficient to do that. First it was Rafting time. About 150 miles from Seattle and 20 miles before Wenatchee town there is a rafting point. Gautam and Tony were sitting in the front and were getting drenched with every small tide coming on us. With such cold water they would have definitely freeze. The instructor was a she with say in close to middle 20s with a beautiful pair of cheeks. No, don’t worry, I didn’t kiss them ;) Along with that she was an excellent guide to us.
The next destination was Leavenworth village. It’s a fake German (Deutsch) village, with good beer, chocolate and ice cream shops. I badly wanted to try out my four years back learnt German on those poor fellows, but couldn’t as it was all an American crowd. There was a live orchestra going on with some people dancing on the street. I like colorful places, especially not the normal American towns and cities which have either sky scrapers or some greenery to fill the places between them. Though, Redmond is a beautiful place, but I find only cars on the roads, no people, not much chit chat and no gol gappe wala on the road side. Leavenworth was with life, so I liked it. We entered an ice cream shop and we could try out various ice creams before actually buying one. I tasted about 5 to 6 exotic ones and finally took the best.
Summers usually have real long days in U.S. I am not aware of the other western countries. Unlike the Asian countries where the days are about half an hour or an hour longer in summers than in winters, the American Summer days are like 3 to 4 hrs longer. Sun sets around 9 p.m. and rises at around 5 a.m. And it is summers in U.S. right now, so we could comfortably roam on the streets and drive on the roads without any night glares till 10 p.m. But, who is going to sleep when you have casinos around you. We went to a casino in Wenatchee town at around 10 p.m. and returned around 3 a.m. I didn’t try out much on gambling as saving my money for Las Vegas casinos . Aditya, quickly sleep... As tomorrow is going to be a Bay Watch Day .

Second day was for Lake Chelan. Wenatchee, a river, pours a part of its water into Lake Chelan.We quickly grabbed some pizzas and went on for some water sports. I usually don’t have to think much while ordering and don’t miss Vidit on these moments as there are hardly one or two options for a veggie on the menu card . SO , do akkad bakad bambay bo and choose your pick. We did Jet skiing. We were the only people in full clothes. Mostly, you can generalize these Americans in two buckets. One, who don’t care for their physique at all and the other who have perfect body and figure, not even a centimeter of fat hanging out. You can flaunt it only when you have it. It was really a bay watch day.
We thought of returning back from Lake Chelan as going further was not that interesting and would have been just driving. It was a good trip and am looking forward to more such trips :)

No track of time

I left Delhi on 21st night and flew to Seattle with a change of flight at Singapore and Los Angeles. Flight was on time. I won’t deny that I was anxious as this was the first time I was stepping out of my country. The security check happened much comfortably than I expected it to be. Reached Singapore around 4 am in the morning .It was about 5:30 am over there. The first impression I got of Singapore was fabulous. If I now compare its airport with the Los Angeles and Tokyo’s, I would still bet on Singapore’s. Airport was huge with wall to wall carpet everywhere. My eyes were feeling odd as they were not finding even a single piece of dirt. As I had only 2 hrs in my hand before boarding my continuing flight to Los Angeles, I didn’t go out of the airport and spent most of the time in the duty-free shops. I could find a lot of Indians both as the travelers and as the staff working at the airport.

Our craft landed in Tokyo for re-fuelling. Tokyo was a mini-replica of Singapore airport with the same carpets and interiors except that it lacked some life in it. Earlier, I was never able to distinguish between Japanese, Chinese and the rest of the chini-minis. But, here I could really notice the flaw-less skin of the Japanese girls and the glow on their jet white skin which really set them apart from the rest of the crowd. They looked like dolls to me. I drank green tea, as there was not much present for a vegetarian. Sorry Vidit, but it was a bad experience. It tasted like some jadi-buti :( . Food wise, I didn’t had problems anywhere. In the plane I asked for Indian Vegetarian and they gave me very much the Indian food.:)

I landed in Los Angeles and by having done with my security checks quickly; I rushed to the domestic airport as I had to catch another flight to Seattle. Los Angeles airport is huge but more of an Indian Airport with a little more strict rules and neat corridors. In the whole journey, I had no track of time. I spent my 30 hrs of travel chatting and gossiping with people around me and also watching some movies. I slept only for about 6 hrs in the entire journey.

It has been a week in Seattle and my most of the time has gone in driving. My car is Ford Taurus. It is not the best car over here, but I find it to be good as I have never driven such a big car. It wasn’t that easy to adjust to the well planned infrastructure and the systematic traffic ;). I see a lot of Indian crowd in office and otherwise, so I don’t feel much out of my own place. Will update you shortly about my visit to the cascade loop 

Greater Hyderabad

I can’t believe it. I am staying in a city with area more than the “Sapnon ki nagri, Mumbai.” Two days back government officially announced the formation of Greater Hyderabad, the second biggest city in India. In terms of Area, it will be behind only to the New Delhi. With the merger of 12 surrounding municipalities and 8 gram panchyats, city is substantially larger both in terms of population and area as compared to the erstwhile Hyderabad. It has increased from 172 sq. km. to 725 sq. km. The municipalities included are L.B. Nagar, Gaddiannaram, Uppal Kalan, Kapra, Alwal, Qutubullapur, Malkajgiri, Kukatpally, Serlingampally, Rajendranagar, Patancheru and Ramachandrapuram. The Gram Panchyats are: Shamshabad, Mamidipalli, Satamarai, Jalapally, Mankhal, Tukkuguda, Sardarnagar and Ravarala. HUDA (Hyderabad urban development Authority) will be replaced by the HMDA (Hyderabad Metro Development Authority).
This is absolutely a right time for the expansion of MMTS in the city before its infrastructure starts crumpling like that of Bangalore and Mumbai. Providing good amenities and facilities in the newly added area will allow the population to disperse from highly herded places. Definitely Hyderabad will be in a much better situation now, even if Telangana is assorted out from Andhra Pradesh and Hyderabad is recognized as a Union Territory.

Posting after a long time

I haven’t posted from a long time. But, planning to rejuvenate my almost a numb blog. Life is back to the same square. What next?
My work is going great and having fun with it .I usually do not enjoy doing much of coding but the work items I am going to own are more of design than coding .I have already started working on them and they really give a business flavor to my work , which of course I love .
I have moved in with AC in his new home at Malaysian Township in Kukatpally.
Initially, I was missing my old house as have stayed there for past 10 months, but now all well settled in my new home. The place is becoming more and more beautiful day by day. Our flat on the 9th floor of the building is surrounded by almost nothing but rocks and open land. Awesome view and windy and pleasant nights 
My group in Microsoft is taking us for a family picnic (though, I don’t have a family yet :( ) to Panchagani this weekend. Will be back on Monday morning.

Trip to Bhongir Fort

All in Picnic and biking mood, we 8 people set off for Bhongiri Fort. The date was 1st of January 2007, so all the more reasons to freak out .We were 7 people when we left Madhapur and were supposed to pick up one of our friends from Secundarabad. As the way to Bhongiri goes via Secunderabad , it was very much on the way for us . I drove one of my friend’s Pulsar, the new one. As the bike was new, I didn’t drive it at more than 60 kmph, a rare case for me when I am driving my own bike J . We took the Secundarabad - Tarnaka main road and reached Bhongiri via Uppal. The road was excellent so the drive was smooth and the traffic was also manageable for a carefree drive. After covering a stretch of about 80 kms from Madhapur we reached the 12th century made Fort. The fort is built on an isolated gigantic rock. The fort was earlier known as Bhuvanagiri. Climbing the rock was fun and not to be mentioned we stopped twice before reaching the pinnacle. A small and damaged fort had nothing much to show except the panaromic view of the neighboring places which it offered at 500 feet above the ground. Coming down was comparatively very easy and we had nice tea and pakodas while coming back to home. Over all the drive was fun. Hoping for a few more biking trips soon.