Culture shock

I have visited three different Countries, without counting the airport stopovers -Germany, United States and Hong Kong. Mentioned by the order visited. All three of these Country’s offered different experiences, each different from the other.

Growing up along with American sitcoms, pop songs and TV shows I expected to find similarities in America rather than in any other Country. To my surprise, the biggest cultural shock I got, came from Uncle Sam. Maybe because of the transition from one of the busiest and congested cities in the world - Bombay, to a city in the lone star state - Dallas, Texas. The first thing to learn there was a local saying - “Everything’s bigger in Texas” and ohh boy, was it true!

As an automobile enthusiast, I can’t help but observe cars, regardless of where I am put. If you’ve been to Texas you’d know cars are almost synonyms with Indian mini trucks. The concept of small cars is almost not known. A Maruti Ritz running in Texas roads, would look like a baby among Megatron’s.  Not just automobiles; television, stadium, houses, green land and average size of a person…everything’s, bigger in Texas. The visit to the Cowboys stadium only proved that the local saying is indeed true. The vast land and the amount of sky one can see by standing in the front yard was simply epic!

On the adverse front the public transport system was as good as nonexistent. The food was bland, but thanks to Mexican food I could have something similar to the Indian spice rich meals. Fortunately, my stay was too short to experience the full agony of culture shock. The time to leave came just when I was about to experience the pinch of homesickness.

Now that I have visited few states in America I am looking forward to the opportunity to experience the big apple - New York City!

Aimless wandering: Myths

Myth's I wanna feed fodder to: white's nice, black's naughty and red's sexy it rains when gods cry prettier the girl; messier the car chocolate is the closest alternative for sex  It is harder to lose weight than to gain  using a calculator to do complex math makes you look smart vampires :D ohh cupids too a messier desk is a sign of hard work eyelashes, pennies, wishbone, shooting stars and birthday candles are elements that bring good fortune the positive outweighs the negative (not sure if this is myth or real…but I'm all for it)

Love :)

Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired - Mark Twain

February, a beautiful month, when the young at heart around the world carry a ‘single long stem’ rose in their hand and multitude of emotions in their hearts and express their feelings to their loved ones. Seems too fairytalish and unattainable from where she stood. 

Many a times she wondered - is it she who was unaware of loves existence or was it love that was unaware of her loneliness. Mostly content with her family and career she never had the need to look out for love. However, there was a kind of emptiness in her heart which she felt sharply during this month of love, especially on Valentine’s Day.

From the day she qualified to be an adult, all her efforts and energy was put to being a stronger and independent person. However, as soon as she started realizing her independence the need to share it with someone special grew stronger. The want for a companion to share her life with started to flicker and each passing Valentine’s Day seemed heavier than the previous one. Ignoring it, by stating “Valentine’s Day is just another day publicized purely for commercial reasons”, no longer made sense to her. 

This valentine’s Day, once again she is single and not sure of what life has in store for her. She awaits eagerly the arrival of her knight in shining armor, believing, when the love of her life finds her, it will be so worth the wait.

Happy Valentine’s Day everybody!

Keep going...

 The static feeling when we are close to achieving what we’ve always desired and the constantly popping questions in our heads - is it worth? Is there a better path? Am I good enough? Will I survive through or fall back? These questions make us doubt even our deepest desire. How to overcome this?  Face it “uno por uno”, an ounce of courage and a smile, is what gets me walking through most of my difficult tasks. As mark twain would put it “The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.” 

Aimless Wandering: After Earth?

The earth as we know it was formed some billion years ago and it may or may not be here some billion years from now. The truth here is this - ashes to ashes; dust to mere dust. All our efforts to “save the earth”, is only to extend its life so that we shall find a way to survive, after EARTH. 

Hail Humanity!

A visit to the music store

I had to go out to shop for Guitar; obviously it was not a routine errand on my to-do list. Yesterday morning my brother told me he has selected the guitar he would like to purchase and requested me to tag-along to buy the guitar along with an amplifier. The level of excitement was almost null; however, being a ‘caring sibling’ (insert: Laughter), I agreed to go with him for the purchase. I had to leave office earlier to avoid the ‘sixth day Ganpati Visarjan’ crowd because believe me you do not wanna be driving on Mumbai roads during monsoon or Ganpati Visarjan;

A Ganpati pandal and the roads decorated for Ganpati

you can’t imagine the chaos when both these events occur concurrently. I left office (more like sneaked out) around six p.m. and managed to avoid any traffic till Bandra and if you’ve been to Mumbai you would know that, there is no escaping rush hour traffic in Bandra. I picked up Ajay near the Shoppers Stop mall and by the time we reached the music instrument shop it was already dark. Since Ajay had already chosen the Guitar he would like to buy we did not spend any time scanning through the Guitars (Halleluiah!).

It seemed like forever waiting for the store guys to pack up our stuff. In the meanwhile we noticed couple of guys trying out guitars in there and suddenly I became aware of the fact that we were looking like couple of unsecured new buyers. If it was any other day I would try to escape this insecurity by asking anything and everything I know about what I am going to purchase and by flaunting my communication skill (Speaking fluent English is considered a skill in most parts of India K). This day I was too tired to event attempt anything. So we got our stuff packed, scanned through and selected few plectrums for the guitar and found our way home.

me so lazy...

Lazy seems to be today’s mood. Woke up and lingered around the house not wanting to go to work, the morning workout hardly sprung-up the dizzy mood. Somehow, I managed to get into my car – Ritz, to drive off to work. Usually the power drive through the almost traffic-less Tulsi pipe road puts some spirit into my day, but, not today. Today I was the one who drives slowly in a track with less traffic. Office held no surprise, apart from few opened cartons spread out around my work station. Wondering how these cartons got here, I switch on the system to start off this lazy day at work. 

Ever since I took the promotion as a product manager the pace of my work has drastically slowed down. Customer coordination - which I love to do, is almost null, fewer emails, no more deadline rush and what’s left in the job is products - way more products. This brings me back to the cartons; these cartons carry product samples for a show in which our firm is taking part. The show happens in the States at the beginning of fall. 

I have a humongous task in hand and a lazy mood; let the battle begin.