The Shrinking world

Is it a small world or what?
I was reading a historic romance coupla days back and there was a mention of steam engine in it. The characters were amazed by the speed at which it travelled... My God!!! All of 12 KM per hour.This mode of travel was too fast and everyone was sure it would never catch on. But there were many exclamations on how fast they could reach the different places in England. It was making the world small.

From the 1800s to now, the world has been shrinking shrinking shrinking... until there is hardly anything left of it.

Not so long ago,calling to US from India was a major event. You were s'posed to call up the trunk like and book a call and then when it got cleared you had to scream from this side to let the other person hear. There was always a lag and the connection was tenuous at best.
Now we can actually see and talk to people tens of thousands of miles away at the click of a button.

Communities like the orkut and ryze and chat rooms have made life much more easier. I joined (very reluctantly) one such communities recently at the urging of a friend and it was amazing. so many of my friends, schoolmates, acquaintances were also members. Got in touch with friends whom I had feared lost forever.
In fact a pal in one of the communities turned out to be working in the same company as I and we had been communicating for months before we even realized that :-)

One of my friends in my masters class was a chat pal I had lost touch with 2 years back.

How many times have the mails we sent, come back to us through circuitous routes, colecting a list of common friends and acquaintances in the "To" field.

I was able to realize the effect of this phenomenon, when a college friend's brother in US mailed me asking if I knew a person. That person turned out to be my ex-boss, who apparently shared an apartment with a friend of my friend's brother.*phew* Did u get the connection?
Hearing my ex-boss' company,it stuck my friend's bro that I might know her... and what dya know??? Of the 75000 people who work for my company.. I did know her.

Each of us, I am sure, has thousands of such stories to tell.

While everything does have its flip sides, I find myself falling deeper and deeper in love with all these technologies and thingamajicks.After all how else can an eskimo and bedoiun end up becoming best of friends

Dreamy Day!!!

Umm!!! the weather is absolutely beautiful.
Just the way I love it. Cloudy and just cold enough to be invigorating.
The trees and sky all seem to be smiling and waving at me.
My thoughts, like butterflies, flit from one fantasy to another.
How about walking down the beach... just on the edge where the waves threaten to wet the feet, pants folded, shoes in the hands and face lifted to receive the cool breeze the beach blows at you.
or maybe the nearest park, where kids are playing and screaming, birds singing (oops!! was that a crow cawing... nahhh there are no crows in my fantasies) and you just want to laugh out loud at all the beauty and frolic right along with them.
or maybe just curl up on the sofa, snuggle in with a warm cup of chocolate, read a book and gaze out at the garden...
sighhhhhh!!! :-)

*Ping* My computer pings me back to reality. Got coupla more hours left before the day and the week ends and here I am, gazing dreamily at the horizon through the window at the far end of the room.
sighhhhhh!!! :-(

But no matter... tomorrow is another day and a Saturday at that... I shall fulfill all my fantasies then :-)

Hope y'all have a fantastic weekend too :-)...

Mmmmmmm!!!!!!!

The Indo-Pak Game

The Indo-Pak game is the longest played game and has been on for more than 60 years.

Saw The Hindu yesterday. one of the headlines screamed... Indo-Pak peace talk to resume ...(again???)

Its kinda funny... everytime Pak hits India directly they lose and go back with their tails tucked behind. But that never stops them from sneaking an attack every now and again.
And when india gets ready to retaliate (yeah right!!! like thats gonna happen)... they wave forward a white flag and call for a peace talk.

Bharath Maa being so soft hearted always melts into a puddle, forgets all her loses and agrees to the talk until the next attack.

This is what in our SW jargon called an infinite loop.



Remember the last peace talk... just as it was going on, there was an attack and bombing in india and when the finger was pointed towards Pak... their prime minister immediately threatened retribution using nuclear weapons?
But hey thats ok... All is forgiven... hum bhai bhai hain... just like Kane and Abel... so what if their government is bad, the people of Pak love us and so we love them back

India follows the christian principle of showing the other cheek with a difference.
Here is my back and here is the knife... please feel free to stab anytime.

Aur Kya Kahoon.. Mera Bharath Mahan!!!

PS: Dya know that in most of the World Maps created outside India, part of kashmir is shown belonging to Pakisthan, making the top of India quite mishapen...esp all of them created in US? Be sure to google for this if u do not believe me.

PPS: Dya know that this news is known to most indians and they do not find anything wrong with it :-(

Missing America

I am definitely the only person who is missing USA coz I am living there.

Every shop that I visit has indians or atleast one of its near neighbours. People throng to temples and during the vinayak chathurthi one should have seen the temple near my place to believe it.

I hardly ever hear any english spoken around here.. I have heard tamil, telugu, kanada, hindi, malayalam, spanish and korean... just no English. (ok thats a bit of exagerration... but seriously I hardly ever hear english)... Remember my wish to speak with American accent?.. I have come down to just trying to understand the american accent... sigh!!! (yesterday my favourite chef, asked me dogoordoeadhere and I promptly told him I wanted the small one and not large...hehehe)

I swear I used to try more variety of cuisines in India than here in the US. Since I landed here I have visited every indian restaurant and not so much as tasted one bit of american.
Being a veggie doesn't help either.

I know it sounds like I am grumbling... but no actually.. its amazing and very very comforting... I feel more like I am in India here than even when I was actually in India. Almost every city I visited has a place called Little India... which is a piece of india itself placed in US.

But I sure would like to see how the actual US lives sometime :-p

oh :-(

Was reading a blog by a lady from Lebanon...

Made me feel petty for letting little frustrations get to me, when people all around the world are struggling to stay alive and healthy.The bewilderment and confusion among the people in beirut, wondering why all this was happening to them when they had never done anything against Israel, is heart breaking.

I don't find the scenario between India and Pakisthan all that different from Israel and Lebanon. So how come the world stood aside and let all this destruction, but frowns on india and threatens all kinds of repurcussions if it takes any revenge.

I am not condoning the violence but am trying to understand what could motivate someone to cause another human such untold misery and still be able to sleep.

I get queasy as hell when I see the remains of a rat after the cat has had its fill. Wonder how these people justify themselves to their conscience when they are the cat.

:-(

PS: I am still frustrated... but now about the world... hehehe

Frustrations Galore!!!!

politics politics everywhere..
no peace to be found.. :-(

Thats just very bad poem to express my extreme ire on whats happening with my life.I am most happy when people give me my work and leave me to work in peace. Since that is never going to happen...I would atleast like people to know what they want before they give me their request. Now thats not asking for too much is it? But No!... everyone wants the same thing done in different fashion...

Politics is bad enough when people are all of the same organisation... give a situation where there are 5 different organisations trying to work together... AAARGGGHH!!!!... Everyone is correct even if they are wrong.we cannot say/do anything to contradict for fear of stepping on their fragile egos...Being pathetic at playing politics myself..I always end up being the scape goat.

sigh!!! somedays it just is not worth the effort to get out of bed

I really don't need this... Leave me in peace to sulk...