All the random thoughts

It starts at the airport. The jazziness, the lights and a promise of heaven are all at display once you get off your flight in Las Vegas. No one expects any less and people seem extremely happy to have escaped the constrained monotony of their daily lives to have a taste of freedom. I had come to Vegas for some expo and that means work. The true taste of Vegas was not on offer unless of course, if I could make short work of my work. That was not to be but the good thing was, staying at a Casino hotel and being a victim of jet-lag provided me with an opportunity to have a cup of coffee at the Casino restaurant every morning at 300 AM, a rather Godly hour for Vegas. And thus, I assumed, it was nothing but a twist of fate that allowed me to have another ring side view of life as it unfolded at a Casino. Now what all this has got to do with Foxes and Crows might not be an invalid question to ask at this point in time. And it also might not be too bad an idea to bring into context the educa...

My journey from Omaha was quite peaceful as I reached Chennai in near perfect health, physically and mentally. If anyone asks me about this journey they'll probably get an earful about waiting in airports. In all I have waited at various airports across the world for 21 hours, in addition to some 4 hours wait inside the airplane. I waited for 2 hours at the Eppley airfield in Omaha before I actually rushed to catch my flight. In fact, we had to knock on the door of the gate as we were under the impression that plane was going away leaving its most loyal passenger to wait some more. Except for the good looking flight attendant of the American Eagle flight, nothing interesting happened as we landed at the O'Hare Int'l airport in Chicago. This was at about noon local time and my flight to India was a good 8 hours later. Phase 2 of waiting at airports included reflecting on my two months stay in Omaha, reading a novel by Billie Letts,'where the heart lies', smiling beni...

I do indeed search for instances of commercial sense taking over common sense. It is fun, it is sad and given the world we live in, it is not all that bad. So then, there I was. With one suitcase in hand and a laptop laden backpack, I stepped out of the delightful lightrail that brought me from Beaverton Transit Center (BTC) to Portland International Airport in little more than an hour. A fascinating journey that took me through the city center and gave a glimpse of the early morning traffic, while reassuringly avoiding all of it. Equally fascinating would be my flight from Portland to Sanjose, I told myself. I had never been on an aircraft run by the exotic sounding "Alaskan airlines" for one and then the prospect of meeting so many of my dear friends in the bay area was exciting. So it was with lot of anticipation that I brought myself to face the "help yourself" checkin machine of the Alaskan airlines. With little effort and lot of skepticism about my technical c...

I come from a big small school in Hyderabad, Andhra pradesh. The school went by the name "Swami Vivekananda Centenary High School" and was a fascinating place. It was small because the cost of education was minimal and affordable to all the middle class families aspiring to good education for their kids. It was big because it had (at least during the time I studied there) very good human beings as teachers, large play grounds and an elaborate ritual to begin the day with. The ritual included a unique prayer praising Sri Ramakrishna, followed by Jana Gana Mana and finally, for reasons unknown, some drill with one kid yelling "Stand at Ease" and "Attention" for all the other kids to play around with their feet in amusement. This ritual in the play ground was followed by a walk back to the class and a loud reading of the ' pledge' in each class room and then, the day commenced. If the head master had an announcement to make, he'd walk into the ...

We will attempt to make sense. Of every thing. Of the statements that people make when they are probed - "I did what made sense". So, here is an independent attempt to make sense. To make sense of things that already seem to make sense and question that sense in making. Like the recent mumbai blasts and the supposed resilience of the mumbaikars. It makes sense to rush back to work the day after bomb blasts because, they say, we are resilient. What's this resilience that leads to apathy? Is this a kind of oppium to desensitize one to the grief and tragedy? Resilience in wake of a natural disaster I can understand. You cannot fight nature and if you really want to, you could do so at your own peril. But resilience in wake of a man made monstrosity? Why? What is the point we are trying to prove? That it is OK to live with bomb blasts because we cannot fight them? Is common sense giving way to commercial sense? What is this sense all about that is being made around ...