Archive for the 'Life etc.' Category

The case of sunglasses

Published on December 6, 2009 in Life etc. and Theories. 1 Comment

This is a story about sunglasses, and their high profile life in the Indian society.

Now seriously!
Sunglasses have a very high importance in India. They are regarded as the ultimate level of machismo in Indian circles. At least that’s what I have figured. I will attempt to present my point with some events, during the course of which I may refer to some anonymous faces, which may be recognizable by at least a few people reading this. I will not tell the names here.

I have owned sunglasses for quite some time, but rarely used them in India because of two reasons primarily, the more important one of which I will talk about later. The lesser of the reasons is that I started wearing contact lens only 2 years back, while I have worn glasses since my 4th. I thought of it as rather a nuisance to carry two pair of glasses, and switching back and forth whenever I was outside or inside a building.

A few weeks after I came to NCSU for my studies, a friend told me, “Every Tom, Dick and Harry wears a sunglass here”. I mean, what’s the big deal? Why does someone wearing a sunglass stand out in the eyes of an Indian? I am at a loss to answer why. But I think I know how.

I consider sunglasses more as a convenience than a style statement. The vast majority of Indians think exactly the other way around. What they don’t understand, is the very fact that it is an useful item. I wear sunglasses when it is sunny, because that’s what sunglasses are for. I wear sunglasses when it is snowing, because studies have shown that a great deal of UV is reflected off the snow, and it is always a good idea to wear sunglasses.

A friend of mine once asked whether I was wearing sunglasses to show off.
When I gave my reasoning, he mocked me in the typical style only a Malayalee can talk in, “As if you wore sunglasses your whole life. You didn’t bother about UV and dust and other stuff while you were in India. You started wearing only after coming to US.” Most Malayalees have this bad habit of making fun of people who break convention. I remember another guy asking me to pick up littered newspapers on the road after I wrote this. Being a Malayalee myself, it is sad to see that most are a bunch of hypocritical 2 year olds who refuse to grow up.

Coming back to the case of sunglasses, the answer for that is the bigger, more important reason. It is better explained by the fact that even in US, when I freely wear sunglasses whenever it is bright outside, any known Indian face I meet on the way will make a comment about my sunglasses. “Bada cool dikh raha hai yaar”
Why don’t they leave my poor sunglasses alone? They are a pair of dilapidated old glasses, which have been mutilated more than once, including me sitting on a bag with them inside, and then having to bend the frame back to its normal shape. It is not worth $5 in craigslist. I don’t wear them because I want to look cool. I wear them because I don’t want to squint. I would have worn it in India too, if not for the reason that there would be 100 Indians instead of 10 that I would meet in the course of a day. It once even went to the point that a girl who was introduced to me one evening identified me. She said, “I saw you today morning, wearing sunglasses and all.” Believe me, at the very second, I was like “Why am I even talking to her?”, not because she made fun of me, but because of the hint that I was being pompous.

Now, imagine the horror of wearing sunglasses in India, if this was the case with a handful of Indian diaspora in US. You will have a hundred eyes thrust upon you wherever you go. And hundred is not an exaggeration because India is so populous, it is not difficult to find hundred people in a course of 1 mile.

My thesis that most Indians wear sunglasses only when they have to show off is cemented by a fact which you can notice if you are an Indian. I have seen countless Indians take out their precious Ray Ban from the closet, and polish them spick-and-span, whenever they are going on a vacation. In short, for them, they are meant to be worn only when you are going on a holiday. This has happened in my trip with my friends in US last summer too. I have never seen them wear sunglasses otherwise. Heck, I have even seen one photo in Facebook, where there was a guy who put his normal glasses on his head, then put on a pair of sunglasses on his eyes.. all just to pose for a holiday photo. (Deductive reasoning.. The fact that there are two glasses on his head suggests that it was an impromptu decision.)

To conclude, I will mention a funny incident that Kunal told us. He was talking about the accent of some people in Delhi. You will be standing by the roadside. They come with leather jacket and expensive aviator sunglasses. Then they ask in unrefined Hindi, “Bhaisaab. Tame kya hua?” (Sir, what’s the time? And he *does* say “tame” for “time”) You will literally be shocked if you weren’t from Delhi. That is because seeing the sunglasses, you would not have expected crass language from him. That’s how stereotyped sunglasses are.

The fact is that if you wear sunglasses, it will attract the attention of every single Indian in sight, whether you want it or not. Whether it is a constructive one or a destructive one, is completely out of your hands. The only choice you have is whether to be a robot or an alien.

It is one of the idiosyncrasies of an Indian.
Welcome to Incredible India!

Like it… and not

Published on August 11, 2009 in Just Rambling and Life etc.. 5 Comments

I like…

  1. cracking really good (or bad?) PJs (poor jokes a.k.a. pun)
  2. people who really make some impact in the world whether in a large scale, or in grassroot level
  3. talking to people
  4. listening to people who talk and are ready to listen back
  5. the fact that I never hold grudges
  6. when I always give people a second chance to be good
  7. people who are open to the possibility that their religious principles may be imperfect and needs constant tuning
  8. smell of fresh rain
  9. free hugs (or “Jadoo Ki Chappi”)
  10. to wear seatbelts
  11. to drive fast and safe
  12. cryptic crosswords
  13. Jennifer Aniston
  14. anything made of potatoes
  15. spirituality
  16. knowing more about cultures around the world
  17. movies
  18. the sheer beauty of life

I hate…

  1. when someone asks, “So why don’t you tell me a PJ?” PJs have to come spontaneously
  2. candlelight protests which don’t seem to convey anything useful to anyone
  3. introverts who don’t open up even after I try hard to include them in a conversation
  4. people who boast
  5. when I have sudden bursts of anger
  6. when people don’t give me a second chance to show that the angry me is not the real me
  7. people who are narrow-minded with respect to religion
  8. smell of Chinese soy sauce
  9. any kind of formality at my home
  10. when people break traffic rules
  11. sitting on the other front seat when someone else is driving
  12. riddles
  13. Aiswarya Rai
  14. anything with Coriander/Cilantro added in it
  15. materialism
  16. when people have a very cliched view of my culture
  17. killing sentient animals for food, sport and vanity
  18. Cricket
  19. people who don’t know how to value life

This list will keep growing.

The freak of nature

Published on July 19, 2009 in Hallucinations and Life etc.. 2 Comments

There I was again, all by myself, out in the scorching sun. There was no one by my side. Of course, that was not new. I can’t remember a time when people actually understood me.

Few liked me, because I was not like most. I didn’t know all the intricately false formalities. I was the freak of nature. But was it so wrong to be like that? I asked, what is the relevance of pretense in social life? The same people who talked about “being yourself”, were so fake. I was just walking the talking. Was that so wrong?

I got no answer.

I craved social life. I just didn’t know how to get it. Did I need to change myself? Did I have to snatch friendliness from people? I didn’t know if I could.

Could people actually look past all these shells of pretense? I found out the answer the hard way. No one does initially. You have to condition them to look past the shells, and see the real you.

This is my internal struggle. I don’t know when I can win it. But if you read this, please know that there is more to freaks than meets the eye.

V Day or I Day?

Published on February 14, 2009 in I miss India, Just Rambling and Life etc.. 4 Comments

Feb 14th.

No chocolate for guessing what is so significant about this date.

But I bet you would have guessed it wrong about the significance of today w.r.t. me (with respect to. Anyone remember calculus?)

Instead of getting a date, I got a phone call… from my parents. And they wished me Happy Birthday! A birthday that even I came to know of, only after the call. Before you get all confused, today is my birthday according to Indian Calendar. And because I don’t have an Indian Calendar here in US, I didn’t know earlier. Oh, I just love being Indian. You can have two birthdays per year!

Anyway, it came as a pleasant surprise, because I had absolutely no plans for today. Now I can celebrate, and not look like an ass slacking on Valentine’s day.

Also, I called my brother, and I talked to him like I talk to my mom – for 45 minutes. The only difference was that we talked about some subjects, which I never dare talk to my mom. It spanned topics like my theory about his craze for Telugu movies (His secret Telugu Girlfriend! Not so secret any more!), about our parents’ trip to Mettupalayam today, how to survive in the cutthroat world of office, my plans for Valentine’s day, his plans, and of course, Ram Sene.

  1. My brother didn’t know that my parents were going to Mettupalayam today. When he asked me why, I said in my usual fashion, that they were going to Black Thunder themepark to rediscover their childhood. He replied back with an impromptu punchline, “Paada Parambil keri Golf kalikkalle Mone Dineshaa” (Don’t play Golf in barren land. To understand what he meant, read this post, section 6.1)
  2. I told him how to proactively cut the throat of those who are planning to cut your throat. You can even mention that during your appraisal, as an example of how proactive you are.
  3. My plans for V-Day – Eat, study, sleep.
  4. His plans for V-Day – Eat, work, sleep when the manager is not around.
  5. My brother told me about Ram Sene’s threat that they will forcibly marry off any couple they see on roads. He was talking about how the mob was a bunch of sexually frustrated losers who wanted an excuse to grope girls. I couldn’t help but crack this joke that there may be gays in Ram Sene, so boys are not safe either. (I am sorry if this is insensitive, but this is how I will show my protest, because I can’t do anything about it from US)

So, because today is my birthday, I’m gonna celebrate it by ordering a pizza and the delicious Chocolate Breadsticks from Pizza Hut.

PS: I generally don’t talk about my Indian birthday outside, because it is strictly for family. But today was too much of a coincidence!

PPS: On an entirely different note, an important event occured yesterday, which will never occur again. At 6:31pm, the UNIX timestamp struck the value of 1234567890. But the trouble-seeker that I am, I accidentally slept across the iconic moment, and incurred the wrath of all UNIX enthusiasts.

Anger Management

Published on February 7, 2009 in Life etc. and Weird things. 5 Comments

How often do you keep your cool when some stranger hits in your head with a rolled booklet? Have you ever had such experience at all? I did! A couple of days back! And I totally kept my cool!

This happened at the career fair. After standing in long queues, I got tired and came back to the lobby to have a seat. Ahh. The plush comfort of the couch! What can be more satisfying than having a coke in a couch? Apparently, checking my email was ! So I took my iPod touch out and started reading email.

Suddenly someone hit me on my head. I was startled for a moment. I quickly looked up to see which of my pestering friends it was, but to my further surprise, it was a total stranger. She froze for a moment. I had a temptation to shout “Someone call 911. I’m being attacked!” in typical Deepak-style. But I thought there were way too many people there, and someone might panic.

Anyway, after the moment of shock sunk in, the lady started apologizing to me. Apparently, the top view of my head looked like that of someone she knew. I was looking down as I was reading email, so my face apparently was not that visible. The only thing I felt about the whole “mishap” was amusement. Now, that was interesting. Because, had this happened 5 years back, I would have been real angry… even if it was a stranger.

There used to be a time when I used to get angry very easily. I used to scare away a great deal of people, who thought that I was not worthy of their friendship because I was rude. But only I knew that I was not rude. It was just… I would get angry very fast.  But as if to counter that shortcoming, I never ever held a grudge against anyone. I would forget that in a matter of hours.

I have become better and better at curbing my anger, since my undergraduate days, and although I haven’t rooted it out yet, I can be happy that the last time I got angry at anyone was several months ago. There have been three key people who have helped me get better at controlling my rage.

Deepu Chandran, who has been a great friend of mine, even after I did this to him. He has advised me a great deal on the need to remain calm, and how to do it.

My father, who I consider an epitome of calmness. I have never seen him get angry in his life. (Although he acts like he is angry sometimes, for example, when he doesn’t get food on time, he is a really bad actor.)

Thirdly, my mother, who is a good example that you can control your anger if you try hard. Recalling my childhood days, I remember that she used to be really short tempered. But nowadays, I would say she can give my dad a run for his money. She once said that one important thing in keeping your anger at bay was to not attach yourself to anything materialistic.

I have understood through the course of time how important is it to prevent yourself from getting angry. Anger, as I know it, doesn’t help in anything productive. It only lengthens the distance between two people. It doesn’t ease your tension. It doesn’t free your mind. It is an unnecessary and potentially dangerous vestige of human nature. I strive to be free of anger all the time.

Looking at this incident, I’m sure I have improved a lot. I was initially apprehensive about whether I was just not showing my anger because it was a stranger or because it was a girl. But I asked myself, if I was angry inside, about the incident, and the answer was “Not at all!”

Tidbits from the wee hours of 2009

Published on January 1, 2009 in Just Rambling and Life etc.. 6 Comments

Snippets of the last two weeks in Roseville, CA!

  • Heard the same old repetitive jokes from my uncle. Plus a few PJs too.
  • Made my aunt the scapegoat for most of my jokes. I still haven’t stopped joking about her driving. Curiously, she was silent whenever I made fun of her.
  • Apart from that, I was subject to the usual blah-blah of my aunt almost every day.
  • Managed to embarrass myself when asked to crack a PJ. Neeraja and Arun came for dinner, and my cousin told them that I say worse PJs than my uncle (which is not actually correct). Then Neeraja asked me to crack a PJ, and I completely chickened out when I was put in the spotlight. PJs are meant to come out spontaneously and naturally. Neeraja called me “Dubakoor” (which only Tamilians will understand), and I grinned sheepishly.
  • Missed Teena and Sathiq again. I was planning to take a train to Santa Clara and meet them. But they have gone to India.
  • Drove through the Sierra Nevada, and saw real snow on the ground. It was unbelievably bright.. almost blinding. And I had forgotten to take my sunglasses. We had to turn back because my cousin started feeling altitude sickness. I was more than happy, nevertheless, because all I wanted was to see snow.
  • Learned to play Golf finally. But I think I’m not that good in Golf. Anyway, I’m gonna practise once I reach university.
  • 2 lunches, 1 dinner. Got to meet a lot of new people.
  • I got confirmation that I’m bloody brilliant. I won’t tell you the context. It would be showing off.
  • My habit of having new hobbies and getting bored of them easily continued. I got bored of changing my blog theme, and created a half-boiled one.
  • Saw “Slumdog Millionaire” twice (once in a theater). It is an awesome movie (Except for a scene which was gross).

It snowed!

Published on November 19, 2008 in Life etc., Tagged and Weird things. 7 Comments

It seemed a normal enough day today, when I went out to the bus stop just outside my apartment to catch the “Greek Village” bus to my work. It was 12.30pm. The temperature was around 40 F(5 C) when I last checked.

I went out. It was really colder compared to yesterday. I had to wear my gloves to save my palms from getting numb. There was the familiar and boring whoosh sound as cars and trucks sped by.

Then it suddenly turned into a dreamland. A hint of something white! What looked like tiny cotton pieces falling from thin air! It was snowing!

This was the first snowfall I have witnessed in my life; I was beaming, and I could keep my composure well within limits, although I did that Bill Murray-ish strut, which was a visible indication that I was so excited. I have never been happier in several months. So I just decided to share my happiness with my poor blog, which I have been neglecting since I started my grad studies.

I couldn’t take a video of this historic moment, but history will repeat itself, so I’ll take a video and post it the next time it snows.

Now, I have a tag from the one and only Miladysa – a tag called Random & Weirdly Meme. It is a bit weird that I keep getting tags about weird things everytime, but everyone is allowed to be weird once or twice, so it is not really weird to be weird.

The rule is to share 7 facts about yourself – some random, some weird.

#1 – I saw snow for the first time in my life today. (What else were you expecting as first fact?)

#2 – One of my favorite hobbies while in school was inventing nicknames with my cousin to bully my younger brother. I can remember about 20 different names from the top of my head now, but I’m sure there were more. My favorite one must be NKVKMKM, which had a very interesting full form. I won’t disclose it here.

#3 – I used to steal buttermilk from the refrigerator as a kid. The habit hasn’t died till date. Even today, I prefer drinking buttermilk when nobody’s watching.

#4 – I scored an almost high 28 on an online Asperger Syndrome test, but I don’t believe it.

#5 – I am really (unbelievably) bad at Cricket. I can’t play well, and I don’t follow cricket.

#6 – I’ve been using the same wrist watch for 11 years now. And I don’t even like it.

#7 – Weekends in Raleigh are boring because I don’t have a car, and there’s no public transit on weekends.

Now tagging 7 people is the part I don’t like. So I tag everyone who reads this. :P

In the Wolfpack

Published on September 10, 2008 in Life etc.. 5 Comments

Three weeks in Raleigh and two weeks into classes, and I’m blogging only now. It’s not that I’m too lazy. I’m getting too much of work. Anyway, I’ll try to summarize about all interesting events from my flight from India to present.

Double Trouble

Chris Tucker (Carter) accidentally punches Jackie Chan (Lee) instead of the Chinese goons.
Carter: Sorry man!
Lee: [Holds nose painfully] Carter!
Carter: Y’all look alike, man!
- Rush Hour 2

The flight from Mumbai to San Francisco was uneventful, except for two three facts.

1. There was a lady who sat in the window seat in the same row as me. I chose an aisle seat, as I wanted to walk every now and then. She was trying to talk to me in Telugu. I told her (with a smirk which was brimming with arrogance) that I am a master of 5 languages, listed them and asked her to talk in any one. But she wouldn’t speak in any language other than Telugu. Finally, I had to resort to sign language. But the Jhansi Ki Rani that she was, she wouldn’t give up, and preferred talking in Telugu to sign language. I wondered how this lady was able to travel alone to US, not knowing any language other than Telugu. I gave up and tried to ignore her. But she was hell-bent on talking to me and kept nagging me. I found an easy way out of this. I would sheepishly grin and nod for whatever she said. (without, of course, knowing whether she was asking something, or swearing at me!) How I wished my brother was around, because I’m pretty sure that he understands a bit of Telugu! (for reasons no one knows)

I got the answer about 5 minutes later. She was traveling with her niece, who got transferred to the middle seat from some other seat, as it was empty. They had got two seats far apart and wanted it together. I learnt from the niece that the lady had been asking me if I would switch seats with her niece all along. Now think how stupid you would have looked if you just nodded and grinned for that question!

2. I saw too many face resemblances in the flight and in Shanghai, that my head started spinning. I saw, sitting across the aisle, a guy who looked strikingly similar to Manoj Night Shyamalan, a point which I didn’t hesitate to tell him, as we talked during the layover in Shanghai. I saw a girl who looked like a brunette Mary Pierce. I saw a guy who looked like Masi Oka (The actor who portrays Hiro Nakamura in the series “Heroes”), in Shanghai.

But the surprises were not yet over. I almost lost my balance when I saw someone who looked like ME!!! As I recovered from that shock, I realized that I was looking at my own reflection in the lavatory mirror.

3. I finished another reading of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the only book that I carried to US.

Good Ol’ Roseville

Nothing interesting happened over the course of my 10 day stay at my uncle’s home. Both my uncle and aunt were working overtime because of their workload, so I was all alone at home most of the days. One interesting thing was that I was feeling completely comfortable on this visit to US. It didn’t look awe-inspiring as it did in my first visit. Maybe the novelty had worn off.

In Raleigh

Finally I was in NCSU. The campus looked good. They have a very good transportation system, called the Wolfline. (NCSU folks are called the “Wolfpack”. So most things here have some mention of wolves.) The night time bus service is called “Werewolf”. And there is a dance coaching going on, called “Dances with the wolves”. Nice, huh?

However, Raleigh downtown disappointed me. It looks so sleepy that I don’t wanna visit that place again.

Hike!

One thing I really wanted to do after coming here was learn American Football. Not that I had any intention to increase the number of bones in my body or decrease the number of teeth, but I thought it was cool. I got the chance during our international student welcome dinner. It was fun, except for the dinner! Being a vegetarian, I hardly had any options; all I had were garlic bread, fruit salad, a snack with fried cheese balls with jalapenos inside, and coke! (That’s not too much, by my standards). Each person could register for one “fun game”. I signed up for American Football without even checking other ones.

We set out to the lawn outside after dinner. There were two American students to teach us. It was fun big time. I was in the offense, and unfortunately I was one of the linemen. (or whatever they are called.) So my job was to stop the guy in defense from reaching the quarterback. You couldn’t get a tougher guy for the job, mind you! So there I was, being tackled ruthlessly. I fell down couple of times, and I even tackled one. But he turned out to be one on my team. But it indeed prove that I was strong enough.

After that, we went in, sweating all over, for the next round of sweating, which was called Line Dancing. Let me tell you that I’m a dud at dancing. Singing on stage, and rocking the stage is an art which comes naturally to me. But I can’t dance to save my life. However, the line dancing concept made a dancer out of me, and I really enjoyed it. Don’t ask me to dance now. I forgot.

Carrot Heads and Paisley Eyes

As if we hadn’t had enough, there was this ECE/CSC bash on Tuesday. But unfortunately, the welcome bash was washed away in the rain. It was raining non-stop, killing all the fun. To top it all, the only vegetarian food that was provided was salad. SALAD!!! Why the hell was I wasting my time eating salad? And they had icecream. Yeah! As if I’m crazy enough to have an ice cream during cold weather. Apparently, I am crazy, because I did have ice cream. After that, I quickly escaped from there in a wolfline bus. The only thing worth mentioning is the moment when I was taken aback when I suddenly saw a guy with what looked like grated carrots planted on his head. And I’m not exaggerating. It was orange.

I won’t say much about the paisley eyes. I saw them the next day which was otherwise bland with boring lectures. I think I’m smitten.

Hitch

One day when I was returning from my part-time job, there were a couple of people shooting something with their camera. And they were shooting 5 second videos with students as amateur actors. They would choose the best ones around the country and use it in their ad. And they were giving free T-shirts to whoever agreed to act. All you had to do was say a smooth pickup line. They had a list of lines, including the Hitch dialogue, “I noticed it just now, but you look a lot like my next girlfriend”.Now who wouldn’t want a free T-shirt? So I jumped in.

Here’s what I said, “Is your last name Gillette? Because you are the best a man can get!” How’s that for a pickup line?

That’s about what happened here till now. Oh yeah.. we had another party for Indian students. I’m overwhelmed! A major disappointment was that the release of Half-Blood Prince is postponed to July. Plus, I’m in love with the songs of Rock On. One of these days I will sing “Sindbad the Sailor” with our band.

Behold the new hairdo!

Published on July 25, 2008 in Life etc.. 9 Comments

As the wind was riffling my hair, I thought….

What the hell? I hate wind riffling my hair.

PS: This is what I meant when I told Rain Tree that I experiment with my haircut!

PPS: Someone asked me whether I went to Tirupati when they saw me. I replied that I went to the local barber shop :D

And the reason is…

Published on July 4, 2008 in Life etc.. 8 Comments

I just remembered about my blog which was gathering dust. It has been more than a month.

Anyway, I wrote in my last post about quitting my job. The reason for that is something which I had been contemplating for more than a year. I am following the footsteps of some of the fellow bloggers in my blogroll and going to get Permanent Head Damage.
Well.. it’s a different field, in Electrical Engineering, but you got the drift.

I will be traveling on 23rd of this month. 10 days at my uncle’s home in Sacramento, CA. Then I’ll be back to academics at North Carolina State University. Wish me luck!

There was a reason I didn’t mention this earlier. I thought I’d better wait until my visa is approved.

Meanwhile, I’m enjoying my 2 month vacation in Palakkad.