Left is right... and right is wrong....

Here's whats happening in Samoa.... a rare event.. as rare as seeing Punter Ponting all genuine.I was told this by a collegaue at work sometime back... and was intrigued... in this day and age would it make sense? Guess it does... On Sep 7th, Samoa is switching the side they drive on.I knwo you might say.. 'Ah c'mon.. we do that every once in a while back home'!! :))

Here is the WSJ report.
It is always fascinating how governments and organizations always come up with the best possible acronym... that people will always remember.PASS, is the organization supporting it. Will they.... passs?:)) Guess they'll only have to fear.. fear only and oh.. a huge truck coming at you too!

the start of it all...

It was to be a rare weekend at home.But its that itching to get out.. to get out and feel the fresh air. And I had a reason to... Ganesh Chathurthi it was... on Sunday.So it was decided that we make a trip to see the dude in his summer retreat.. Livermore. Set amidst the giant windmills on top of hills, it is perfect California in spring, and all green(Windows screensaver says Shank). In summer it turns into one of the many reasons why this is the Golden state. All dry and ready to burn grass.The temple is like any back home.. all dieties and lots of area around, to make you feel silent and serene. I somehow am more comfortable with this kinda place than one small hall as a temple. To me, the point of getting there is to come out feeling good and get some rare and precious moments of meditative silence.That is, if you can withstand the incessant yapping around and people unleashing their huge SLRs right in front of boards that specifically mention 'No Photography Allowed'. It riles me to no end. I almost felt like walking up to this gentleman(?), removing his lens.. and handing him a small piece of paper with Dodo1 on it.

'Please come later to the backside and collect the lens after presenting this token,Saar', I felt like telling them.

Thankfully,the place is equipped, really.. equipped to handle crowds.. and there are enough volunteers to keep over-zealous 'devotees' from cutting through the lines(and getting tripped by me!!) :))

Anyways,we finished the darshan and the as I stood in line to collect the prasadam, I realised the abundance of them all over the place. Styrofoam plates, plastic spoons etc. I'm not a tree-hugger(the perennially exaggerated reference used by those who hate common sense ideology).. but am always surprised by how good we are.... at being eco-friendly in the smallest things.. and always miss the big ticket items!

I guess it wouldn't be too tough for the temple to get bio-degradable cutlery.. for God's sake(he ha ha!) :)) And as has always been the case, there is a huge advantage to a movement when religion gets behind it. I'm sure there are enough people who dont notice it unless the Supreme Office does it. 'Ada, kovil ley idhu thaan use panraanga pa' (Even the temple uses eco-friendly stuff,dude.. in Tamil) would become a common refrain. What a huge filip the entire movement would get among the staunch followers, usually the slowest adopters. After all, what is religion if it cannot lead to the development of the community and greater good. I decided to coontact the temple to see if they respond.
Ok.. done with the serious writing.. :) now to the fun sighting....

As we picked up the food, met a few familiar faces and stood in a corner to munch on the sambhar rice, I happened to notice two kiddos next to us having an extremely animated conversation. The boy(Kid1) had a Calvinesque hairdo... as with all kids... while the girl(Kid2) was well.. lets say Susie like!! :)

Kid1: So tell me....
Kid2: what do you want to know....

Kid1: Do you sleep in a bunk bed?
Kid2: Bunk bed? Nooooo.....

I didnt know if it was at home or some camp.... but our Kid1 wasnt expecting a No for an anwer... he was confused... if there was a Calvin expression to capture the moment, it would this....
Stuttering along, obviously still not accepting the answer....he continued...

Kid1:No bunk bed? So... what... do ....you .....sleep on...
Kid2:(enthusiastically) a huuuuuge Queen size bed (with arms wide open to show the size of the bed)....

Kid1: Queen size bed(amused by the description)....
Kid2: Yes.. a big bed... :)

That when we had to walk away.. but the kid's expression stayed with me. He had just experienced Peer Pressure 101.. :)) if it was camp, he's going to pester his parents to send him to it.. while the parents are still wondering as to who put this into his head!! And if it is at home? ah! forget it... he'll not sleep unless he sleeps on a 'huge Queen bed' :) I'm sure he'll be as disappointed as being shown a bag full of candies and only given one. But as with kids and some adults too (hint hint!!) being serious/sad over extended periods is not their core competency.One bright yellow truck will do for some........ or sometimes all it takes a drive in the open road to the tune of...(right now).. ' Kya Karoon' from Wake Up Sid.. or always pep song...Be Yourself by Audioslave ....always! Peer pressure.. eco-friendliness.. all can start right in.. HIS office..... and while we delve on Him... i shall recall a saint's words... 'HE must be a Mech'!! hee haa haa! :)

..err.. ummm.. could you repeat the kostin?

I guess there's a dire necessity for some people to turn.. well.. macho.. and all 'Hulk'y... and intimidate harmless people around them.Its a bit more common back home, where the Gabru jawaan consider it their birthright.Middle aged men, in the absence of the Harleys and the associated 'cure for the crisis', think of it as their way of letting out steam and feeling powerful.But if you live in a normal neighborhood here, you'd never have seen it and think it never could happen.My sis would be flabbergasted at being asked that question.
You've heard stories of it from your non-confrontational and peace loving friends but your life is not complete until you've been asked that question.Its more the tone and the body language though, all pepped by the last few generation of WWE love.

'You gotta a praublem with that?'. Six words oozing with bravada... so it may seem.
Having lived in the midwest(Ohio) there's a good chance you'd have heard that, but two years in Cal.. and I'd forgotten it.

It was a routine trip to the department store, after a enjoyable lunch. There I was, sitting in the backseat of Shank's car, playing my DJ role to perfection. We were pulling out of the parking lot when we notice a car zip past, bringing us to a stop. We all look at each other in kinda surprise... but having seen it a gazillion times here in Cal moved on. IK was surprised..SLC , for sure would not see this happening! :))
We proceeded to the exit when at a turn, when suddenly a giant green SUV veered towards us from the parallel aisle and stopped just short of the driver's side. All this while I was busy choosing the next song and enjoying my ..Limca... (a real cute looking Sushma Reddy too..drool drool!!)aah! It had been ages since I had one.. the last time i had one, am sure people were still using spellcheck to get 'recession' correct(1 or 2 's' in it, dude?)!
Shank braked hard as he tried to avoid the SUV, which was making a desperate attempt to threaten us. The windows rolled down and a few words excahnged between the driver and Shank.. well it was more words one way.. and an amused expression from the other!! :)
I looked on,surprised and amused too... wondering if Shank did have a pretty aggressive friend, maen! :))Then it sounded something familiar to me.... 'You got a problem with that?????' was the question from the driver of the SUV, while still talking over the phone(note, no handfree,where's my 20 bucks' fine). We decided not to answer ..just nodded and moved on. It took only 10 seconds when we all looked at each other,after a brief silence and had a hearty laugh! :)) What .. was... that! Unless he thought we'd flipped him the bird, as I lifted my Limca(oh.. c'mon who wouldnt), we'd done nothing to instigate it. We laughed on and actually wondered how we should have answered it... considering we had done nothing to offend,Sire. Lets give it a shot at it, shall we(in Brit accent please)... :)

Dude:'You gotta...'
Us:... hmmmm.. I dont know...I'm new to this place...no GPS too... think I can call a friend and check?

Dude:'You gotta...'
Us:(looking at the car)... (pause)oh... ya... think its time to change the oil... Wait.. are you from Sunnyvale Toyota mobile service..wow!? :))

Dude:'You gotta...'
Us:..C'mon doode... your hair is longer than all three of us put together.. we have an obvious complex(and IK nods vigorously)!! :)

Dude:'You gotta...'
Us:why should I.. its all matched up.... a green SUV and a matching coloured mobile phone? which one came free with which?

Dude:'You gotta...'
Us:Sure i do... is still think Palin should run in 2012.. on both the Dem and Rep tickets... unfair media bias,I say!

Dude:'You gotta...'
Us:oh.. that one.. or THAT one... am always confused between those,dude... could you clarify???

Dude:'You gotta...'
Us:.. Isn't that what we all want to know.. and what the utlimate motive of life is...... tch tch! how profound a statement,Sir...

Dude:'You gotta...'
Us:pssst... engliss nahin aatha ... tamil mein bolo anna...:))

.. and more....

So the next time you ask someone the question, do the right thing. Be courteous(ya right!) and make sure the blissfully innocent person knows what the problem is..... else... someday your going to have to... explain....and that'll kill the very spirit of the question!!

Bathinda to Brazil...

A real cute Puunjabi kudi can take your breath away... and when you mix some Brazilian genes... she sure will cause havoc... almost. It all started a couple of weeks back....when we came back from Love Aaj Kal.I'm picky about the movies I watch, going by my instinct as much as the reviews. Sometimes they turn out to be ridiculously laborious.. Oh yes! the Pink Panther-2.A movie which I wanted to watch primarily cos the first one was partly hilarious.. and the trailer for the second one promised a lot. But I shud've known that Hollywood is as cruel as bollywood... slick trailers and sick movies! All the laughs were in the trailer.. and I was almost dozing off, having even skipped the ice cream my friend suggested I get for the movie. Anyways, back to the kahaani. Love Aaj Kal was interesting at best.. and the songs sounded even better. but one thing stood out. HARLEEN KAUR. Who the hell was that pristine and fresh face that spoke more than words could have? The eyes, the expressions.. made you look want more of Rishi Kapoor's flashback than madame Deepika herself. We came back and immediately utilized the services of Silicon valley's finest... Google! :) IMDB cast? no Harleen... other movie websites too went the same way... no listed in the cast..a nd it was just a day after the release, so not too many reviews had listed her. Finally we found her...Giselli Monteiro... now wiki even has her Har- Kaur as the display pic... we sure have taken over the www!

We began to dig more on her... a Brazilian.. ah! that explains why Shank and I looked at the screen puzzled while she achingly laboured through the jhatka dance moves... err.... but only momentarily. she looked at us again, and awwww! we were weak kneed immediately!! :))
So it was decided that the next time we go out, we'd head out to a Brazilian place..ta da! thats a cuisine we hadnt tried before... we shall dedicate it to Giselli Kaur!

The next day.The concert and the walking and running had made us hungry. We still found some energy to wander into a GAP store, cos after all it was SF..and GAP had to be good. Naa! turns out they had the same old old man stuff positioned as the yeng peepal stuff again! argh! Off to Adidas.. and I felt like I was in Delhi's airport... surrounded by taxi guys. Only, this time it was the sales guys... who thought they'd spotted their bakra for the day.Yep..I was wearing my fav Argentina jersey. My PRECIOUS! I remember running to Fifth Avenue in Bangalore , as soon as I finished college and had cash in the bank, MY cash in the bank, to get it. Ah! I finally had it... Rarely do I wear it. and that day I decided to give it a break from the boring environs of my closet and let it out in the woods to some music... The sales guys wanted me,yep.. they WANTED me to buy the new jersey that had just arrived. I looked awesome...I liked it.. but somehow felt it was wonderfully overpriced. Out we walked, getting Shank's iPhone working on Urbanspoon.. to find us a Brazilian place to eat.We found one, a few blocks away.As I was getting ready to cross the street, I walked past a parked car.. and there I saw it. A brown man, in an Argentina jersy, getting ready to waltz into a Brazilian place. Holy Crap,as Frank (from Raymond) would say!

The other two guys didn't seem too perturbed, after all, I WAS WEARING IT! :) They in fact wanted to see the outcome... would I get strange and dangerous looks? Would I be served bad food.. or even better.. would they do what I always manage to do best... drop food on my t-shirt? :)) I sprung into action. Its not too often that I respect the place I live in,NorCal or Northern California.. where you'd be endangering your mobility if you don't walk out without your jacket, especially in the evening. I typically ignore the ritual ,to enjoy the cold, but that day I hadn't.I covered every inch of the blue and white jersey.. as my wonderful friends protested.But the mother of anti-climax awaited us. The Brazilian place had closed down.. damn! I immediately got rid of my blue-gray jacket.. and proudly displayed my blue-whites as I got more hi-fives and 'awesome team maen' shouts from strangers in stores!All thanks to the kudi... the cute Latino-Poonjabi kudi(salsa and bhangra fusion playing in the background)! :)

A 'mermaid' out of water... in the woods!

As I'd mentioned in the previous post... the three of us stooges decided to head to watch Kailash Kher at Stern Grove... the setting was very interesting.. set in a grove... with lines of tall redwood trees up a hill on which you could sit and enjoy the beetiphul meesic! I was confused, as I had to be at two places... but eventually decided on Sat to become one more of Allah Ke Bande...

The train ticket adventure all done, and the sandwiches smelling real good (they were from one of my fav places.. 'witchcraft,in SF).. we were on the platform.. trying to figure out the next train to take.. with the Google App for Blackberry (it works better than Shank's iPhonva.. hee haa!) working overtime.. we were joined when we got down at the station near Stern Grove by a lady, who'd come from the East Bay and heading to the same concert... and her toddler.. who already looked travel weary, having taken two trains to get here. We walked towards the grove and the conversation moved to the kiddo's name... As soon as we heard it.. we were all smiles... it was.. well ....that cute.... Jalpari( or Jolpari.. in bong) meaning , a mermaid.. the lady stressed the use of 'o' in the name. Having had some real good bangla friends (and having taught them enough tambi,tamil, for them to survive in south interior tambi-land) we had picked some bits of bong.. and most of the pronunciation. The lady though was pleasantly surprised that south indian looking fellas got it right. :)We found out later that Jolpari was her pet name.. and her real name was.. well.. I forgot what it was, but it had something to do with water too. I quipped that water seemed to be the 'concept' (with Shank giving me the 'You better stop chaating her now')for the names and that we loved it.... and she agreed, having come up with them :))

We walked along, as she negotiated some stroller traffic on the path.. and were confused to see the route we had to take to get to the entrance of the concert. It was a narrow hiking trail, with a pretty steep gradient and tree roots all over the place... and we wondered if that was the only way to get there. Everyone around was taking it... but we realised that Jolpari's mom would struggle. Shank made sure she was fine.. while Nag and I gave the kiddo a sweet smile, made sure she was ok.. and walked the stroller down.. rather.. carried it down!A few twists, turns and tossing around and little Jolpari finally landed on the concert floor... rocking with the thump from the nearby speakers. We were to look after her while her mom went to look for the tickets. She was amazingly unperturbed but seemed to be enjoying.. smiling at the music in the air.She had to climb some more though.. to meet her aunt who was to meet the little princess.This time it was steep and narrow path to climb onto the hillside... and a few minutes later came two people beaming with smiles and arms wide open ... Jolpari ... they exclaimed!The mermaid had made it to watch Kailash Kher... with even a majestic view from up in the hills.. while her mom explained to her folks that that the three gentlemen(clearing my throat) helped her tame the terrain! :)) We waved at little Jolpari and bid goodbye to her... hoping she'd enjoy the music and the setting and would someday be told of this story by her mom.. while playing Allah Ke Bande.As for me, in those minutes when carrying her down,I was as careful as when climbing Yosemite's upper falls last year on a rainy and ridiculously cold day.. the responsibility I guess. All for the little mermaid. Long after we'd danced to Chak de Phatte and clapped our hands until they were red.. when there was a rare moment of silence(considering the two of us chatterboxes hated silence) the first words uttered were...... Jolpari.The most interesting name I'd heard in a while.... Khoob Suonder Naam! :)

The 'green' monsters!

The whole weekend was like an episode of Seinfeld... one small irritating issue living with us... travelling with us and almost ruining the day! It started off rather innocuously... all I had to do was to head to the nearby self-wash station and give my Si a super wash! It all went on well, until the machine that was to give the quarters did not like the notes I was sending in, halfway through the wash.It was like a competion... I send the note in.. and count to three, and out the note would come!! damn! It'd been a while since I was so angry and frustrated! The whole thing got so irritating that I did a rather ordinary job at washing.. and would most likely have to wash it soon... sorry Si!:)

We were to then head to the Hanuman temple in the hills(oh yes! there will soon be a post on that).. pick up some stuff from the ayurveda store(yes! in the mountains up in Watsonville!) for an ailing friend and then head to my weekend retreat.. Shank's Spanish-style(it'll turn you into Brendan Fraser in Bedazzled..in no time.. you'll run out screaming... muchooss graaciaass) apartment in Mountain view.The store was closed.. so we decided to catch a snack at Anjaneya's world cafe(my dad'll love that name).. near the temple... but as it turns out.. the place doesnt accept cash(the $20 note makes its grand entry.. BG meejik et al).. so all we could do was walk around...but when we finally went to the store, that was almost in the forest, we realized, well.. they accepted cards!! hmm... so the store that less people frequent does something than the more popular cafe. yes... that makes perfect sense? :)

We drove into the clouds .. and when we came out of it, we were in the mountains, driving down a road that'll fit perfectly in any of the Final Destination series.It was narrow.. winding.. and well... a dirt road, with atleast a 50-100 ft fall if we missed a turn.. and ridiculously blind turns.. can you even call that a road? :))I wasnt driving... so my friend Murphy could'nt do much! Finally we made it out.. and head to Fremont's Naz8, my first visit there, to catch Love Aaj Kal... had been ages since I watched a Hindi movie, especially in the theatre. The movie's songs were awesome.. and I'd made Shank and Nag hear it long and repeatedly enough that they wanted to watch it too! :) After an unsuccesful attempt at AMC, there we were, trying to catch the 10pm.We reach the box office and see the dreaded printout.. "Cash Only at counter"(the $20 bill giving the Gulshan Grover smile).. The ATM machine inside didnt work and we were almost shoo'ed away by the guy there as though we were going to pull a 'Bank Job' on the ATM. We managed to find an ATM nearby.. and happily took enough cash for the rest of the month, only to make it to the top of the line and be told.. "10pm sow solld... laben pm sow only"... argh! it was like a credit card offer... *conditions apply.. need to spent 2 hrs in this place... all while hungry and trying to find a good place to eat! We took the tickets and ended up going to Sweet Tomatoes(the review on that rather interesting experience later). We watched the movie(not bad at all),after some super desi ads and thought we'd had enough of the 'green monsters'!
Apparently not.....cut to Day:2... just in time for a Kailash Kher concert.. there we were.. at the Powell station in SF trying to get catch the MUNI... only to realise that the ticket counter took only quarters... and the change machine that would give you quarters..accepted only $1 bills(seriously, this is supposed to make the experience so freaking good that the aam junta would prefer public transit again?) .. Shank ran to get a $ 5 bill(the $20 bill's kid has grown up into a villain too!!) broken.. and returned with.. a banana(??) and more ammo,$1 bills.. while I was doing the Ka-Ching routine at the speed .. the machine wanted to! :))Finally.. we ran to the turnstiles...one guy holding the bag of lunch sandwiches... one with a backpack and the remaining bills... and me flexing my forearm and wrist with 6 bucks worth of qtrs.. in slow-mo!! :)) It'd have been fun had one of them decided to slip through my fingers.... :)
We made it to the concert... through the weekend.. and after the multiple encounters with the $ 20 clan, ended the weekend with none of them remaining.. but me made it alright, just about!
What Now? Get our quarter-ammo ready, in a sack, when we hit SF's MUNIs next weekend.. and walk in slow-mo too...!

Update: A couple of days after I had written about them, the monsters strike again! Fighting a back spasm and trying to desperately get some work done, I went to the office vending machine, for the first time in well... ages!I picked up an Its-It ice cream sandwich(yummy cappuccino flavor) and out they came.In response to a $5 bill.. there was one sound .. and one too many in a few second... I was Ka-ching'ed!! I walked to my desk with a bar of choc sandwich in one hand... and a handful of DIMES, worth about 4 BUCKS in the other.... and there were a couple of folks who did seem quite amused.. looks like I gave the fag end of their day something to laugh about.. trrring.. KaChing!!