house hunt to house warming to 1st Anniversary

just summarzing my small little journey from house hunt to house warming to the first anniversary ...enjoy the ride

house hunting was a daunting task...believe me i never searched for anything so much, not even for my second wife. surprised ??? dont worry my wife is both my second and first wife, first is a rajasthani and second is a tamilian. i go to my first wife when i am tired of idli sambar and the minute my rajasthani girl starts the dal-batti thing i run back to my madrasi wife. jokes apart i dont hate dal-batti as much as i sound :-) anyways coming back to house hunting, the hunt had begun in mangalore and my property agent was the best man for the job. you call him anytime in the day/night and he would be ready to show a property but the only problem was he would show the worst possible apartment and still not hesitate to praise !

Well, the first one was on the top of chilimbi hills, my santro took a long time to climb and to top it all they had put zillions of speed breakers which were like small mountains themselves. The view was lovely, but the house was lousy. The next one was on the 8th floor of a 15 storey building. Lovely complex with a sea view, but the moment I entered the flat, I bounced back because of the stench but agent seemed unaffected... "Sir value for money ! i am not sure who would want to buy a cattle-shed at that rate? The third house was really nice, 11th floor, good view but alas way beyond my budget. We saw few more houses before we moved out of Mangalore for reasons which we didnot have control over.

the hunt re-started in bangalore and we probably saw about 100+ properties in the form of villas, gated villas, budget flats, luxury apt, independent houses. I saw so many houses, flats with the tagged per sq.ft rates that the I would ask a vegetable vendor to give me 1 sq.ft potato and tomato :-). Ok bad joke ..lets get back to the house hunt .. finally we saw Ajmera and it was the only one i knew i wanted to buy the moment i entered it. thankfully all in the family liked it, appa to approved our choice by smiling from his photograph in my wallet. We ran through some quick checks about the apt, negotiated the price to a level we were comfortable with and the deal was sealed !

the customary and the basic woodwork was being done in the apt. and before we could finalise the bed, bed's location, pooja room, etc the vaastu bug hit me. Somebody told me there should not be much open space in the south and it is better to close the windows which are facing south as Mr. Yama supposedly resides in the south (as per Hindu Mythology, Yama is a well built guy who travels on a buffalo to take away people's life !!!) though i never believe in such things i surely didnot want to risk an encounter with Mr. Yama. There were loads of other things told so I thought I should atleast get the basics right and so bought a magnetic compass to help me. Me and my wifey scanned through hundreds of websites, brochures to get the right interiors for house with the minimal budget we had. There were cases were we would start with something really extraordinary and finally settle for something that suited our budget. We did go overbudget on few things, one of them was the little temple to make my mother happy. Most of the ladies in India turn to God as they start getting older, not 100% sure why? may be because people on earth stop giving them time just like the way they didnot have time during their younger days !

House warming happened last Year November with only close family members and was ok, we could have planned better but the presence of people who matter to us the most made our day special

It is just about 1 year in our new house (is it still new ?) and these days i am tempted to look at property ads yet again !!

Mr. X in Bangalore ..

today I met Mr. X after about a year and half. We exchanged grievances about the company we work for, ogled at a beautiful lady passing by, i think all guys are biologically programmed to check out potential mates even if they have a lifetime mate. Any ways, we had some good laughs and then were back to our own ways

Before this I had met Mr.X only once during an offsite program. During the offsite program, one of the tasks given to us was to blow up balloons and to make something innovative out of it. The whole group was divided into 4 teams of 8 members each. Me and Mr.X were in the same team, and our team was surprised by the speed in which Mr.X was inflating the balloons (with his mouth). Needless to say we won because of Mr.X who not only inflated so many balloons but also made a unique castle out of it (it was an innovation task remember). During the task, I was teasing Mr.X saying - looks like blowing and selling balloons is your part time job and that is why you are efficient at it. Whole group started laughing, some added saying why don't you come and setup a counter during my kids birthday. To all this Mr. X replied - "actually my father was a balloon seller in my village and i used to accompany him at times when I was a kid" and then Mr.X continued with his job of inflating the balloons. Silence followed his statement, the whole team was embarrassed for making fun of balloon sellers, I too was ashamed for my insensitive comment, in my mind thousand hands slapped me one after other non-stop. I felt so guilty that I could not speak to him during the whole task. I kept cursing myself for speaking low of any profession. I thought I should walk up and say sorry, but I could not.

After the end of the task, Mr. X came up to me and said, don't worry and don't feel bad. He said - "I am what I am because of my father, my father was not educated so he had little options, his only aim was to educate me and he did everything for that, he sold balloons, worked as a driver, watchman, cleaner, waiter, infact he did everything that he could do, to pay for my education. I am proud of everything my father did, don't you think we won this task today because my father also sold balloons". His little pep talk got me over my guilt and we spent some good time during the program.

I do feel like meeting Mr. X's father, Mr. X's father must be so proud to see his son working in an MNC, the result of the education that he gave by probably selling 1 Rupee (~ 2 cents) balloons !

back to India..

it is time to pack and move back home leaving behind the new faces I got familiar with, I might not meet them again but if I do then it will surely bring a smile to my face. Canada, where I spent good 3 months is actually a country still in ice age (I am told the temperature can go down up to -30..crazy !). Canada is a real big country, 10 times bigger in size than India and India is 10 times higher in population. Canada was discovered about 500 years back infact the country is much younger than many of the beautiful temples back home (by home I mean India). For such a young country it is quite advanced when it comes to infrastructure and the standard of living offered to the citizens. Looks like basic education and Healthcare is available free of cost, that simply means the taxes paid are made better use of. Anyways let me take you through my little ride here..

Montreal, Paris of north America (really? atleast that is what the tourism sites claim), was the first city I visited in Canada. Like most big cities, Montreal also has 2 parts, one part of Montreal has the 18th century buildings, few cathedrals (Notre-dame being one of them), narrow cobblestone streets, street shows, horse-drawn carriage rides, bi-cycle or rather tri-cycle rides, etc and on the other side of Montréal we have an amazing skyline, most of the Multinationals have their office here, best hotels are available, night life is vibrant and can cater to all kinds of people. I had a chance to be there during one of the musical nites, the francofolies. I enjoyed the good music but crowd was wild, wild because their way of dancing was pushing or kicking each other (seriously, I am not exaggerating) and they were having fun doing that ! Anyways, I also visited the Olympic stadium, went up the observatory from where you have the full view of the city and also went into the biodome which has the four ecosystems depicted - tropical, laurentian, marine and the polar areas. My son had a good time there and I was happy to see the penguins for the first time. To keep my little one happy we also visited the drive-through safari and the granby zoo, it was the most boring thing I did in Canada:-)

I also went around to other nearby areas and Quebec city was the best of all. Hotel Château Frontenac ,the stone buildings, street shows, winding streets lined with shops and restaurants, they all make the city a wonderful place to visit. One of the weekends, me and family went to Mont Tremblant, the drive to the place was the best for me in Canada, really picturesque. There were too many views which could have been made into wallpapers. The place was again beautiful and gondola ride to the casino turned out good for me as I won few dollars at the casino. Incase I get a chance, I think I would like to spend another weekend at this place but will not have the maple candy on snow again ..too sweet for me

Just for the sake of experience, me and family went apple picking to one of the near-by apple farms, my son who is not yet 3 had picked all the apples. The first one he picked was yummmm and assuming he can pick the right apples we allowed him to pick the remaining but then no-one ate the apples other than me (they all were sour !)

Last but not the least, was my trip to Niagara, the view of the falls from the observatory (top view) or the boardwalk or from the boat ( the maid of the mist boat) were all exquisite, extraordinary, magnificent, splendid, outstanding, breathtaking or simply sexy ! Never saw anything of that sort ever and having seen such a view, I feel sorry for the Americans because though majority of the falls is in America the view is better from the Canadian side ! On our way to Niagara we had a stopover at the 1000 islands, we took a boat ride allowing us to see the various small islands. Some islands were so small that all it had was one small house and water all around. I wonder what will be their postal address ? Do postman actually go and deliver letters there? What if someday the water level goes up and the whole Island goes missing? will the address cease to exist ? Too complex for me till someone explains. Apart from 1000 islands, we spent some time at Toronto downtown and visited the CN tower which I never knew was one of the wonders of the world (sometimes in the 90's). We had a good time and the glass floor in this high rise tower was quite unique

So it was all work during weekdays and fun over the weekends. So though I initially did not enjoy being in Canada maybe because I was away from family after a long time and for a long time but the country now seems friendly and when people say Bonjour I know what to reply ...

Signing off.. oops flying off ..Babu S

Go Habs Go ..

I saw my first ever Ice Hockey game today, not on T.V, i watched it live @ the Bell Centre in Montreal. It was Canadiens (Habs) Vs Atlanta Thrashers. The atmosphere was amazing, thousands of people had come in to support their local (Canadien Habs) team and Canadiens surely needed the support after having lost their last 5 encounters, the match was a do-or-die for them. Very much like cricket in India, Canadians (not just Canadiens) are surely crazy about this sport. Stadium was packed with people from all age groups, kids with their mom or dad or both, young couples (both straight or otherwise :-)), middle aged men, women, university students, school students, few had come in wheelchair and quite a few 70+ youngsters (surely young at heart). They all had just one anthem for the evening - Go Habs Go ...

The match was very interesting and Canadien Habs dominated the game from the word go, the Atlanta Thrashers were being thrashed by Canadiens at the every given opportunity and by the end of first 20 minutes, the Canadiens were one up on the scoreboard. Thrashing by Canadiens continued but from no where Atlanta scored a goal and the scoreboard read 1-1 at the end of next 20 minutes. And finally during the last 20 minutes they played Hockey, I mean there were some fights on field (in India the first thing to pick up during a street fight is a hockey stick), anyway the crowd loved to see the players hit each other and i was one of them. No Goal scored in the last 20 minutes, so the game went into extra time (5 minutes duration) which also did not provide any result and finally Canadien Habs ended their losing streak with a well deserved win during the shootout

Stadium was nice, decent setup to accomodate such a large crowd. Every corner of the stadium had a logo of some sponsor or the other. Infact the game is so commercialized that during penalty strikes the referee waits for the TV commercial to complete and then resumes the game, i do wonder if it was commercials during the break or was it the other way round. Even the support staff who came in to clean the ice seemed to have a sponsor or at least they wore jacket or T-shirt which had logo of the company that sells disinfectants. Well this kind of commercialization is nothing new, it happens in most of the sports but referee waiting for TV commercial was new to me :-)

Anyway, they played good music during the break, during one of the breaks 5-6 yr old kids played Hockey which was nice to see, there were some funny moments like all the Habs were asked to spell CAMMALLERI (last name of one of the players in Canadien Habs team) and none of them could do it. Well it may not sound very funny but it was fun when we saw it. Prior to the game, United Soccer Leagues First Division champion, Montreal Impact were honored and the players received a standing ovation for their win. I am sure the players felt very nice about themselves, representing your city/town/country is a great privilege and then living up to your dream and also millions of others by winning a tournament is amazing !

special thanks to the client who arranged the tickets for today's game (surely a wonderful gesture by them), I got to see a hockey game and the seats we got were also perfect, seats were quite close to the playing field or rink and high enough to be able to view the game without any trouble. Good that Canadien Habs won the game and now Go Habs Go, go get the trophy ..

young blonde in a black dress ..

i reached the place, sharp on time as per the appointment. I opened the door and was surprised to see nobody except a lady in her late forties. She asked me if i am Babu and then gave a naughty smile on my confirmation. She then asked me to get in through another door which was to my left and even before I could stretch my left arm to open the door, the door opened and i was greeted by a beautiful young blonde in a black dress. I went inside and I was then very politely requested to be seated on a recliner kind of chair and as I sat, she came closer to my chair, her brown eyes looked at me with full attention, I couldn't help but notice that her childlike face was in the process of turning into a beautiful woman's. She kept her hand on the handle of my chair, she wore three rings, each with different designs and tiny, multi-colored stones, her fingers seemed long as they were thin and she had applied some glittery red nailpolish only on the outer edges of the nails. how do women come up with such ideas ? Anyways, she took out some paper napkins (just incase she needs them) and then a multi-colored cloth which had geometric print, the cloth looked more like a bedsheet. I was then asked if that looked clean enough for me. I said yes and then she put the cloth over me and tied it around my neck. Just before she could start, i mentioned, please use the scissors and I dont like my hair too short, so please make it medium-short, to which she replied "as you please sir". the hair cut was done in 10 minutes and then me back to my hotel room ! well during those 10 minutes when i looked around there were 5 more seats in the Hair-salon, all of them occupied, no wonder I was told to book an appointment in advance !

so much writing for a hair-cut ?? .... i need to do something better on a weekend I guess !

the name is Khan, Shahrukh Khan

yesterday SRK (one of the biggest Indian Movie star) was being retained (or was it detained?) at Newark Airport for 1-2 hrs. report says SRK felt "angry and humiliated", the whole of his community (the Hindi film community) is angry and have come out openly to comment that they are "shocked", "this is humiliation", "this is racism", and shahrukh himself says it happened because his name is "khan", a muslim last name. One of the actor from Hindi film industry says this is how they (i think the actor meant America) is giving birth to new terrorists.

Now, more than what SRK went through, it is the people's reaction and their comments which brings up a protest kind of atmosphere and makes even a normal person feel very very very bad about whatever happened and somewhere deep in the heart most of them who are attached to the person being reportedly "humiliated" feel like lashing back at the officials, demand an explanation or may be subject them to something similiar or teach them a lesson. And teaching them a lesson is what terrorists do. So, if I had to reply to the actor who commented on America giving birth to new terrorists, my reply would be more than the act of the Newark Airport official it is your kind-of-reactions that will create more terrorists. Also that is exactly what most of the religious leaders do - they make the innocent youth feel bad and convince them to take the wrong path. So for heaven sake please shut-up !

But then a very valid question from any muslim could be why us ? why only a khan or a mohammed and why not a peter or a anderson or even a srinivasan ? There is surely no answer to this now, it is like a chicken and egg story, it is difficult to say what followed what ! Let the security do their Job, a day will come when they will not stop a khan or a mohammed for interrogation and that is mostly likely to happen only when the religious leaders shut their ...

happy birthday India (15th August) ..

thanks to all the Freedom fighters and their family for their unconditional sacrifice, we are free today. I am happy we have the right to liberty, i.e. the right to freedom of action, to act on our own judgment, the right not to have a gun pointed at our head and be forced to do what someone else commands. And also the right to pursue our own happiness, choose our own career, friends, hobbies, and not exist as a mere tool to serve the goals of others .

Imagine the state of affairs before freedom- Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose had to request "tum mujhe Khoon do, main tumhe azaadi doonga" (meaning - join my army to fight the british and we will get the freedom, which he dramatically put it as "give me blood and i will give you freedom"). To all the freedom fighters like Netaji, a sincere thankyou ! you all surely have the highest regard in the heart of every Indian (if they dont have it, they are not Indian anyways ! ). Well after all the tough times in India, I hope you guys are freaking out there in heaven - gorgeous ladies, unlimited wine, may be I should ask vijay mallya to drop some Kingfisher beer cans when his flight is zooming through the clouds. By the way, some of you guys need to come back to earth and please do make sure you are re-born in India. There are quite a few morons in Indian politics who are all set to divide the Indians on the basis of religion, caste, etc. Come back Netaji and friends, we need strong leaders like you to weed these morons out !

week1 was fun..

the first week at work is done, though Friday night (i.e. yesterday night) the weather wasn't very good, today I woke up to a nice, bright and sunny day...oh man, me already talking weather - do we talk so much about weather back home in India ? I am sure we don't, but i am not sure why. Anyways, week-1 went past zoom and was quite good, my fellow consultants are nice, talented and warm guys, so work wise things should be pretty cool. Weekends will be boring till my family joins me even though online video chat, phone and emails keeps us connected, I would still prefer them here. Honestly, it is difficult to be away from my super boy and as I write this blog my super boy must be sleeping and probably dreaming about playing more and more games on the computer. Well he is already a techno geek, prefers my touch phone over his mama's coz it is easier to play games, plays online games on his own (not kidding), he can browse through a site named http://www.uptoten.com/, choose his own game, play it through and then move on to other games,all I need to do is just get him to the site and then anyways I am not allowed anywhere close to my laptop. My super boy builds Eiffel tower, London bridge, house, fence, alphabets, etc from simple blocks which are supposed to be used to just stack..quite creative I must say. There are many more things that he does, a separate blog on it someday, anyways my super boy's (2.5 yrs old's) activities, which I don't know if is normal for the kids of his age makes me very proud but I am not amused or surprised, after all his mother and my beautiful wife was equally good as a kid, as a teenager and is amazing as a wife, mother, daughter and daughter-in-law. As a kid, varsha was always among the top 3 rank's in school and university/college was no different, infact at the university she has won best sportswoman , miss college, etc etc awards apart from being among the top in academics and post her studies she is doing good at work place too - last week she won a award for some nice pre-product project that she and her team recently completed. So it is all in the genes for my super boy !!

as I re-read my own blog I realized the blog sounds more like a testimonial to my wife and super boy but that is ok I guess, when you are alone doing nothing then all the nice things about the loved ones come to your mind and to me that is the best part of being alone but I pray to GOD that I am never left alone in life.....

Just Landed..

having avoided the official travels for about 2 years, here i am again travelling, i am in Canada, Saint Hyacinthe ..localites pronounce it as Sain Ya cin. Saint Hyacinthe is about 30 min drive from Montreal and is a decent place to live for not more than one weekend and here i am for 10 such weekends. Anyways i am staying in a decent hotel which has a temperature controlled indoor pool and is surrounded by some nice trees/plants but much to my disappointment the pool is frequented more by the guests who do not interest me, anyways it has been just 2 days so I will figure out the interesting places to visit.

The place is not very big, infact you can drive through the whole city (sorry town) in just about 30 minutes. Anyways, just like any other town it has everything .. pubs, pizza hut, Mc-Donalds, chinese restaurants, lot of italian restaurants, a multiplex etc etc, they all are at a walking distance from the hotel but the problem is there are not many people out here, the place seems to be far away from civilization (probably Modern civilization, is there such a term? whatever !) . Well you have the basic things available but the language barrier does exist, people here speak more of french (or canadian french), so naturally most of the hoardings, sign boards, etc are all in french, which looks more like "english with spelling mistakes" :-) .... well i shouldnot be saying such things, but then my blog, my space ..so its my wish !

so for the next few weeks it will be pancakes instead of dosa, corn flakes will have to replace kanda-poha, roti sabzi will now be called veggie wrap, salads will not have the onions, tropicana or similiar will be the only fresh juice, etc etc..