Day 89 - Incredible India!

Yes, Incredible India!  That is the thought that comes to my mind again and again, since the last couple of days.  The trigger being my visit to Goa this week for an offsite.

Though the visit itself was very hurried and hectic (spanning a day and a half), while travelling from the Goa airport to the hotel located in South Goa, near Palolem, and back, I was amazed at how rich and more importantly, how different the landscape was. 

The point is, India is such a big and diverse country, with so much to offer.  It is said that the dialect changes every 500 metres in India. Not sure if this is an exaggeration, but it goes to show how different a different part of India might look like to someone who has lived mostly confined to his surroundings.  While on my way to and from the hotel, I could see a Goanese influence on so many things.  The style of architecture, the colours that locals use to paint their houses: vibrant and typical of Goa, the bill-boards, the dressing styles, everything had a distinct Goanese influence on it.

After this experience, I have promised myself that I will try to explore more of the richness and diversity of India's culture, geography and demography, going forwards.  It is a shame that I haven't yet seen the Taj Mahal!  In the next few years, as the children start growing up, I am going to explore India along with the family.  It is an incredible country and there is so much to experience as a proud citizen of this country. Incredible India, here I come!

By the way, the trip itself was fruitful, but quite tiring.  Was at work till 11.30 in the night and then had to catch the 6.00 AM flight.  Friday evening was good.  Once the working sessions were over, the drinking and singing sessions started.  Everyone had a fun time, with me finally retiring at 3.30 AM in the morning.  No prizes for guessing that I gave the yatch ride and the jet ski a miss the next morning.  This was my second visit to Goa.  The first time being for Zulu and Ryan's wedding four years ago, when me and Pince were there with Suryanksh, who was not yet born!

Take care.

Day 82 - Too Much Of Anything; Good For Nothing

I am refering to our country's beloved sport: Cricket!  And the context of mentioning it now is the ongoing IPL Season 3. 

There was a time when I would bunk school to be able to watch cricket.  Not in the stadium, but on television.  There was so much more anticipation before any game of cricket those days.  Waking up at 4.00 AM in the morning to watch the Benson & Hedges World Series matches was so exciting!

Nowadays, there is so much cricket being played and telecast, I do not really care who is playing whom, unless there is a match of great significance being played. 

I believe that too much cricket is not good for anybody.  Not for the fans, not for the players, not for the administrators in the long run and certainly not for the game itself.

Too much cricket doesn't give enought time to players to recuperate from slight niggles and they tend to play with minor injuries which make things even worse, sometimes, career threatening.  I do not remember Kapil Dev, a medium pacer; workhorse of this times, ever getting injured and missing a match due to that. 

For the audience and the fans, we get to see time and time again the same players and teams battle it out against each other and it becomes repetitive and boring.  Interest in the game wanes.  For example I was so very excited when we had the first season of the IPL.  By the time IPL 3 has come around I do not think I have the same fascination for the event anymore.  2 consecutive matches every day is causing cricket fatigue for me.

One might argue that this is all good for the administrators.  More cricket translates into more money.  But the point is that they are all killing the golden goose!  So much cricket is taking the interest out of the game which is not good for sponsors.  The administrators are sweating the game too much.

All this cricket has made the game very different from what it was twenty years ago.  The pace of the game has changed.  The experiments in batting, bowling anf fielding are coming thick and fast.  As of now no one is complaining, but as this goes on we might see something similar to a baseball game on a cricket pitch very soon.  There is a need to preserve the classic form of cricket.

I am defintely not looking forward to a game of baseball.  Take care.

Day 77 - Faith Busters

Yesterday I visited Shirdi, to offer prayers to Sai Baba.  I had been to the place, last time, many many years ago.  This post is prompted by yesterday's visit to the shrine.

Just after the Babri Masjid demolition, I, as an eighteen year old teenager, decided that I will never ever visit a public place of worship.  And I stuck to it for a long period of time.  The point was, I thought faith is a matter of personal choices and is best exercised in the private domain.  Bringing it to the public domain only causes great damage to the fabric of a peaceful and secular society.  Mind you, when at home, I offer prayers every day, since childhood.  And I feel good about it.  However, after many years, I again started visiting temples, even if just to keep family members happy. 

In the past few years, I have now visited three of the most renowned temples in India.  Tirupati, Palani and Shirdi.  The most striking thing that I have observed after being to these places, is that religion has become grossly commercialised.  To me, as a faithful, this trend kills the feelings with which you go to any place of worship.  And that is, to seek peace and tranquility.  What you do get is:

1) Differentiation based on your standing in the society / the money you have.  VIP passses to bypass every queue of order.  A gross violation of the belief that everyone is equal in the eyes of God.  Unless you have some influence, you are sure to be hugely disappointed with the rendezvous with God.

2) Long queues through which one has to tiringly wade through for hours to get a glimpse of the deity.  By the time you reach the deity, you are not even thinking about the deity; only how to keep your place in the queue.

3) Touts prevail (and rule!) all over the place.  These places wail for professional management!

I much rather prefer the Sai Baba temple in Chennai on ECR Road.  The place is amazing and I would encourage everyone to visit it.  It is a place where I felt like going, again and again, because of the peace and tranquility that it affords, in this fast paced world.

Not sure whether I will visit any famous shrines in the near future.  May be only if, I can obtain a VIP pass!  Or maybe not!  Ultimately, the home, is the best temple!

Jai Sai Ram!  Take care.

Day 68 - A First

OK.  This is a first.  A post on my blog for the first time from an airline lounge.  My first post from a location outside of India as well!  Posting this from Doha, Qatar, while I wait for my connecting flight back home.

This week has been a week of new experiences.  Very hectic with long haul flights within the space of 3 days to and back from New York.  Was at work on Monday on Holi.  Had to catch up on a lot before I travelled to New York on Tuesday.

The journey to JFK from Mumbai is a long and tiring one...and my head was buzzing by the time I got to NYC on Tuesday.  I spent the next three days of the week meeting colleagues in the NY office and participating in workshops.  The evenings were fun too.

I caught up with Niraj on Thursday night.  We were meeting after close to 15 years and it was great to catch up with him.  We went down the memory lane talking about the GLS days, while bar hopping in downtown NY.  On Friday, Prakash, my cousin and his family picked me up after work.  We did a bus tour of New York in the night, had dinner at Utsav, an Indian restaurant (very good food!) and drove down to New Jersey.  Stayed with them for a day before I took the flight back home tonight. (tonight??....today??)  Pakku and Aparna have a beautiful place in the countryside in NJ.  I quite liked it, especially with the snow from last week still not melted and the sun shining in full glory on Saturday.  The best part of the trip was reserved for the last, though, when Jyoti and her family came over to see me before I started from NY.  Again, was meeting Mots after 10 years!  I must say, the rapid progress in information technology has also played a great role in bringing people together and closer, even though, the normal accusation actually is that it is making humans less creative and move away from human contact in flesh and bones.  I find it very useful to stay in touch and connect with family, friends and acquaintences across the globe.

The one big observation, though, out of the NY visit, is that Americans, like everything extra large. XXXL.  From the coffee that they drink to the cars that they drive.  From the bridges that they build to the people who build them.  All XXXL.  A lot of it, especially in NYC, is glitzy and over the top.  Vegas is even worse.  This obsessiveness with all things big only causes a huge amount of energy and gas consunption and a detrimental effect on the environment.  No wonder the developing nations first want the developed nations like the US to commit on cuts on emissions.  But more on this on a separate post.

As I sit in the lounge waiting to get home, I become aware that I am landing on a Monday morning, and will have to go to work in a few hours after I land.  Missing family...maybe I should take it easy on Monday.

Take care.