Kimya Dawson - Same Shit/Complicated

I love this song, specially the lyrics. The reason i like Kimya Dawson is because she writes poems just the way i would like to write and she rhymes them as well. Also, her poems are incredibly personal and she does things that i would like to do in my life.  This song is from her latest album - Thunder highs. I saw her perform this song live and it was simply awesome. 

You were looking down at them, they were looking down at you.
You were starched and press, they were all disheveled.
They were holding hands, they were ragamuffins and 
they said "I know we're not fancy, but we're on the same level.
We've got plans, big plans we're gonna change the world.
All you care about is dollars, that doesn't make sense.
All you do is hit snooze, watch the news, buy shoes, drink booze, make money, feel spent.
Day after day after day, it's the same shit.
Day after day after day after day after day."
Then you looked at them without batting an eye and said
"Hey little hippie, let your freak flag fly. 
Why don't you go smoke a bowl in your best tie dye,
get a tattoo of a dancing bear holding a peace sign.
You can talk the talk but when it comes to real change, 
aren't you and all your little friends exactly the same?
You sit around at potlucks pointing fingers, placing blame, 
drinking kombucha, and eating tempeh.
Day after day after day, it's the same shit.
Day after day after day after day after day."
If you are judging them while they are judging you,
and you think that makes them assholes, maybe you're an asshole too.
Do we argue with each other 'til we both turn blue,
or find similarities in what we like and what we do?
Yeah, just because someone does not look like me
doesn't mean that they are a clone or a sheep.
Maybe they like their job and they're living their dream, 
and they love their friends and their family.
Some people thrive between nine and five, 
and feel like they're choking if their neck's not tied.
And some people feel as if they're gonna die
if their seams aren't straight and their shoes aren't tied.
Some people like business, some people like numbers, 
some people grow organic heirloom cucumbers, 
and only feel free with their hands in the dirt
in a pair of old jeans and their favorite t-shirt.
Some people feel enslaved when they have a boss, 
some people without one feel totally lost.
To make this world work it takes all different kinds.
We have all different tastes, different strengths, different minds,
so it doesn't make sense to generalize
and it doesn't make sense to judge with our eyes.
We need more compassion, we need to be kind
if you open your heart you might like what you find.
'Cause there are some mean bus drivers, but there's some nice bus drivers
and there are some nice cops in Madison, Wisconsin.
And there's some nice teachers, and there's some mean teachers,
just because you have a mean teacher doesn't mean all teachers suck.
and no one is nice all the time, no one is mean all the time
think about what someone's going through that's making them be mean to you
maybe their pet gerbil died and they are really sad inside, 
or maybe they got in a fight with someone that they really like,
maybe they are really shy and don't know to socialize
they just want to run and hide, not saying that it's justified
but if we learn to empathize the resentments will vaporize
situations metamorphize before out very eyes.
then the need to stereotype will become outdated when we realize everyone is really complicated.
We are all so complicated.
I am also complicated.
I'm a black mama lactivist, a home-owning punk.
It's been over a decade since the last time I got drunk.
I drive a minivan, I've got junk in the trunk.
I think Danny Devito is a total hunk.
I like revisiting the shit my therapist helps me remember.
Being friends with someone for a long time, still not knowing their gender.
I fight for equal rights and I fight for inner peace.
I pray to the dead for the gratitude I need.
I've got chickens in my backyard and a little garden plot,
I really hate commercials but I got a slap-chop.
I'm a sucker for a remix, let me tell you what,
by the time that I am finished, you're gonna love these nuts.
I'm a little bit pop culture, a lot bit D.I.Y.,
I don't know the definition of T.M.I.
I write poems about my period, post pictures of my log,
if you don't like body functions then you shouldn't read my blog.
My husband's a musician from the mountains in France,
he wrote me a song, we did interpretive dance,
then he knocked me up, now we have the coolest kid,
yeah, hooking up with him's the smartest thing I ever did.
Now I feel like I can fly when I'm on roller skates,
I get a little high when I eat dried dates,

I feel like unloading when i'm loading up the car,

I feel like time exploding when holding my guitar.

I don't understand what numbers have to do with success.

or what sales have to do with happiness,

unless they're the kind of sails that will carry me to sea,

where my grandma and grandpa are waiting for me.

I never thought I'd make it to 25, now I'm 37 and I'm glad that I'm alive.

If I ever need a tour bus I'm still gonna drive,

cause I looking out the windshield as the world goes by,

looking out the windshield as the world goes by.

Now I'm 37 and I'm glad that I'm alive

and I like looking out the windshield as the world goes by.

Perspectives in motion

I am a big fan of moving shots. Shots in which camera captures motion. Think A Straight story and the video of fields from Mr. Straight's lawm mower as he is driving. With that music, it is awesome. Another example is Kieslowski's bleu/red when there are couple of shoots when you can see the outside view as a person is driving the car. Or think how do you see when you see outside the window from a railway train. I love the feeling of things going past me, places, towns whizzling past me, new things, watching horizons, air hitting your face, trees coming and going, coming and going.

Videos when running are also very cool. So i decided to shoot those. Most of them have me driving except the one at Yellowstone.

Snow covered trees @Yellowstone -


Driving to Philz on Middlefield -


Driving to Redwood national Park on Highway 101N



While hiking -

(The camera is shaking because i am moving...lessons to learn)

Yet another one -

Redwood national park

Thanksgiving weekend was close and everybody was asking - what are your thanksgiving plans? As usual, i had none. So last Sunday, 4 days before thanksgiving, i started googling. Somebody had told me about redwood but driving 7 hrs alone earlier seemed like an ordeal. But now that i am going to leave this place soon, i thought that this would be a nice small road trip + time with nature + hiking. I looked at couple of airbnb place for lodge but since it was expensive, i booked the first highly reviewed lodge - curly redwood lodge and then i had the plan.

Redwood national park

Curly redwoods is a big giant redwood forest full of big giant redwood trees. Here are a few trip highlights

~ Crossed avenue of the giants. I was supposed to run a marathon here in May but i bailed out. But now on driving, i realized that it would have been awesome to run here. Very leveled and very beautiful route.

~Videos. With my new phone+camera, i  had began clicking photos but this trip marked the beginning of videos especially moving videos. Will share links below.

~Hiking - Hiked the prarie creek redwood national park. Started with Prarie creek trail, moved to West Rdge trail by Zig zag trail#2, and then turned back to Friendship ridge trail and finally back to trail head from James Irvine trail. Total 13 miles. A very different trail compared to my previous hikes. Most of the trail was covered with fallen leaves or tiny branches, so it was all red in color. Also, it had rained so it was all green and wet. A lot of humidity in air. Since it was not the peak season, for my first 4 hrs of hike, i saw only one person.  Hiking alone clears a lot of concepts in life.

~ Room stay. Spacious room. Since i reached thanksgiving night and it was raining, i stayed at room and watched two episodes of dekalogue - VIII, and X. Watching kieslowski just makes life meaningful!

~ Driving - 7 hrs to and 7 hrs fro. Lots of driving. But it was a scenic route. Plus on the road i had downloaded NPR podcasts - top 50 records of last decade, 100 most memorable songs, Stephen Breyer's lectures, so it was awesome.

~ Hot tub - Stopped at Arcata at Finnish country hot tubs and saunas. Took one hr of hot tub time and relaxed there. The hot tub setting is quite natural. According to yelp, it is one of a kind in US.

~ Small town. Crescent city is a very small town. And so was Arcata, Garberville. It was great to see life in small towns. Very slow, easy and relaxed. No traffic, no queues. Saw even a cyber cafe at Garberville which was very interesting. Also, found a lot of Hippie influence especially at Arcata and Garberville. I had forgotten that california was the classic hippie destination. Saw people hitch hiking rides, clothe styles, stores selling indian gods and other eclectic things.  Mountain view is a suburb but still the city is close, living in a small town would be very interesting. No matter how small a town is, there is a performing arts center with plays/dances, artists touring, there is a downtown, and local cafes.  I wonder how these people see whats happening in this country. I was reminded of Sarah Palin's real America theory.

~Redwoods - They were big, huge giants. They were everywhere.  Good to see that they exist.


Hiking video -


Driving perspective -

Music discovery

For lack of a better title - this post is titled music discovery.
Here is what happened. I have been feeling for quite some time that my music intake has reduced and i was feeling weak (music deficiency). So i started listening to some stuff that made me feel good but it told me how much weak i really was. This blog post just throws links that i have enjoyed or links that needs to be researched because there is whole world of things that i have to listen soon.


For NPR links, listen to the blog post as well as comments, there is a tone of info even in comments -

Songs that make you feel good - http://www.npr.org/2011/08/16/139679654/songs-that-make-you-feel-goodhttp://www.npr.org/2011/08/16/139679654/songs-that-make-you-feel-good

Songs that make you cry - http://www.npr.org/2011/07/19/138511911/cry-baby-cry-songs-that-make-you-weep

More songs that make you cry - http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2011/07/19/138513593/more-songs-that-make-you-cry

Kashmere stage band - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmere_Stage_Band : Basically this is a funk band, so lets see what is funk. Also included is James Brown - known as the originator of funk.

Kimya dawson albums - Alphabutt and Thunder thighs.


NPR - the decade's 50 most important recordings - http://www.npr.org/2009/11/16/120326033/the-decades-50-most-important-recordings

NPR - when new york was on fire - http://www.npr.org/2011/11/22/142550159/when-new-york-was-on-fire-a-mid-70s-musical-revolution This post talks about the origins of many music forms such as hip-hop, rap and repetitive music.

Money ball OST - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTHeZyOL0aw

Life in Oct 23 - Nov 26

I wrote a 3 page long life in series two days ago and then i dont know what key i pressed, but it closed the window and for some reason blogger didn't auto-save the draft. Alas, here is attempt 2 with 2 more days of update.

Last Life in series installment was little bit sparse, it didn't cover all things that happened to me. Hopefully this one is full of info.

~Boardgames - Yes, i have been a weekly member of office board games (With Maneesh, Brian, Dane, Heather and Sean). We have played Powergrid and other games which i dont remember (sorry about that). It has been a lot of fun and wed evenings were never so interesting before.

~Office move - Yes, our office moved from Mountain view to San Bruno. This meant many things. To start with, it now feels like a big company. Reminds me a lot of trilo days. Large office space, small cubes,  less communication and general lack of purpose :) The office move also brought back the commute, so now we (me and Nikesh) take that caltrain and ride the bike from Milbrae. We experimented with multiple time slots, now we take the 5:57 bullet from Mountain view and 4:24 pm on the way back. San Bruno is little hilly so riding the bike there is a decent workout. I am loving riding my bike again, its a great bike.

~Thunder soul (Kashmere stage band) - Thunder soul was the camera cinema club movie for the month. It is a docu based on a  high school band who under their prof - Conrad Johnson made funk/jazz albums which won many awards and festivals. The amazing thing is that not only it was a high school band but its a band of all blacks and this was 60s when the civil rights movement was very high. What make these documentary is so special is its sheer timing. What we see is that the band members reunite after 30 yrs to stage a concert to than prof who is close to his deathbed. A few band members have not played for the last 30 yrs, so it makes the whole process very interesting. A very inspiring and emotionally charged documentary. As Tim(club director) rightly said, this is a movie that you would not see on your own if it was released. The discussion with the director was very interesting afterward. This movie is not getting any theatrical release because its opening weekend on a test theater was not as expected. So, even thought it has won many awards, it still is not release worthy which is very frustrating for a director.

~Thunder thighs - From thunder soul to thunder thighs, this is the new album by Kimya Dawson. She was in SF, so i went to see her concert. It was great, i have not heard her new album fully yet but from the songs she performed, it seems that they are really good, it is basically poems set to a song like tune. And her poems have message, strong points of view which i agree to most of them. THere were couple of other performance as well and Aesop was there. Overall a good concert to attend.

~Music - a separate blog post coming soon :)

~Diwali was decent. Had big plans to cook Rasgullas and dahi vada  but nothing materialized... was lazy :)

~Crosswords/Nytimes - I wanted to read nytimes on my ipad and they wanted me to buy digital subscription. On researching online, i found out that buying print gives digital for free and print had a 50%off offer. So i bought it and its been great fun reading a physical paper since.  Its going to take a long time for humans to adapt :).  At the same time, Tom Macke from office told me that he solves crosswords every day and it takes him 5-10 mins to solve it. He even went (actually invited) to the annual crossword competition once and e said that he was no good there. I asked him to solve the crossword in front of me and it was amazing seeing him work. Anyways, so he sends me a crossword daily and even though i am no good at it, i like cracking my head against it. Even with google (used under restraint) i find it difficult.  But it is very interesting nevertheless. I spent 4 hrs last sunday at the sunday crossword which is supposedly easy but big. It was lot of fun. The whole community around it is also very interesting, its great to read the analysis of a crossword puzzle like in the Rex parker blog or at nytimes.

~Wordplay - I have been a frequent listener to NPR's wordplay on Sundays with Will shortz. So much that about year and half ago, i even ordered his books but never worked on it. Since my new crossword fascination, i have been trying to boost my learning curve with these additional materials, so i spent the last saturday working on puzzles in that book. So fun :)!

~Film making workshop - I bought a fb deal to attend film making day long workshop at SF school of digital film making. It was about two weeks ago on a saturday and i was in no mood to listen to classes. But still i went there but bunked after half way. It was okay, on the first half they covered roles/terminology directing 101, camera positions and showed us cameras that they use. Things that i missed were lighting, scripting etc.  Too many people showed up, it seems that film making is the new craze these days. After skipping the class, i went to Lulu and had an awesome french lunch :)

~Halloween - Halloween at office was less fan fare than usual. I went as a occupy wall street protestor. Also did pumpkin carving at Deepti didi's home with Siddarth and their neighbors.

Stephen Breyer

I went to the City arts and lecture recording last week. The way it happened was quite interesting. Somebody in office posted tickets to some other lecture. I was not interested in that one but i thought that this is one area which i have not explored and i listen to City arts and lecture whenever i get time and i like it. So, i just went to their site and browsed upcoming lectures, saw a judge's name and description mentioned democracy. I just bought the ticket. Pretty easy, huh? And then the day comes and i go to this lecture. Turns out that the interviewer is Michael Krasny.es, The Michael Krasny, whom i listen on NPR all the time and i like his voice and style. So woot! And then Michael Krasny walks in and there comes the clash with my mental model of Michael Krasny with the real one. He is old, he is human :). But nevertheless, he starts talking and all is well in this world. Now, coming to the main point - Stephen Breyer. What a judge, what a person! You can listen to the recording at -
http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201111141000

 Since then, i have listened to another lecture by Stephen (on a podcast) and will be reading his books very soon. In the KQED lecture, Stephen talks about how court works, how the 9 judges vote, how he works with his staff etc. He goes into some history, why courts were created, debates on things that is the court the right system etc. He also shares things that he has learned from being a Supreme court judge - aka to listen. The fact that another Supreme court judge by listening to the same facts can come to an exact opposite conclusion than him makes him question himself even more; he has learnt that an effort is required to see the same thing from another view point and that makes the whole process very interesting. He also shared few books he liked, his memories from his upbringing at SF etc. He mentions few cases, of prominent is the Bush vs Gore case - i would leave you to listen to the podcast recording.

He answered questions very well, in particular the one that i liked was his approach to many things which from what i understood (a) Give time to things, if you dont think that they are correct, find out what is correct and then act , (b) history is filled with bad cases, infact it is a great boon to live in democracy the way we have it now, whether you like it or not. So, do not come to conclusions very quickly, see the other view point and try to get more facts. And there were lot of anecdotes shared. I am going to read his books, may be on this trip to India :)

But a great man. I was very pleased that i went to this lecture. And seeing Michael Krasny, thats a wow!
Wiki page - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Breyer

My thoughts on Occupy

Griftopia book review

Movies

Yes, a post on movies was long awaited. Infact my last life-in series also didnt cover all the movies.

1. The Ides Of March -  Went with Zoheb to this one. This was a Clooney directed by political drama, (and clooney also made Good night and good luck). So, i had to go for it. Dcent movie. Nothing extraordinary.

2. Delhi Belly. This was almost forced on to me by Gurshi. I didn't like this movie. To be fair, this movie definitely gets full marks for breaking out of Bollywood, an interesting story line, and no-song drama.  If a movie contains any of the previous points, that is definitely a fail in my mind (remember Jaane tu yaa jaane na). Anyways, my problem was this movie was that (a) The whole belly arch, its too obscene to watch in a movie. (b) i do not like that Imran khan - too much over acting and ... this movie didnt click with me. If you are making a masala movie, there has to be good humor which was missing and the sound track was also not that good.

3. Anonymous - was Shakespeare real or not? That is the question that this movie addresses and offers an alternative theory which says that Shakespeare's plays were actually written by someone else. Good acting and decently made movie. It could have been more tighter in editing.

4. Raising Arizona - Watched this one yesterday. Considered to be a classic in comedy genre and one of the best Coen brothers films. To me, this was again a decent movie but i would not call it a classic. Nicholas Cage is definitely good to watch and this movie has the typical Coen brothers stamp. I think Coen brothers are such a hip because they always show a different America, an America that is often ignored by others and while showing that, they are true to the subject and understand the local sentiments very well. But to me comedy means something else. Best american comedy for me is Woody Allen's movies like love and death, My cousin Vinny,  Charlie Chaplin and others.

5. Agora - I am a big Rachel Weisz fan. So even though this movie was not that appealing, i watched it. It is again a decent movie,  and Rachel Weisz is very amazing :). It covers the era in Greece when Christianity was beginning and how it questioned the Greek philosophy of science and mathematics. Truely a sad part of our era, Christians will never believe this version. Even though it may not be historically accurate, i believe that it is also not far from truth as well.

6. The man from nowhere - Wanted to watch a mindless movie, watched this one. Pretty mindless but entertaining.

7. Aagey se right - This was was very interesting. Came from our netflix recommendation. This movie is actually a spoof on bollywood movies and the trouble with spoof movie is that they sometimes become what they are trying to spoof. That is the same issue with this one as well. But this movie has shades of brilliance - The scene when he goes underground to get his gun and when KayKay is talking over webcam. KayKay does a very good job but he should be doing better movies, a lot better movies. Good comic movie. Shreays talpade is also quite good. The ending could have been better but it is not.

8. Dear Zachary - This came from a recommendation from Maneesh. Highly recommended! It is a documentary and one of the very well made documentaries. Lots of love and personal elements put into a movie and made with lots of passion. I cried a lot in the movie.  I am not giving any details because thats how this movie must be watched, with no prior information. Must watch. Cant stress enough!!!!!

Saw some movies again -  Music from the inside out, Swades.
Need to see Kieslowski again.

Asian food and museum

I promised a blog post on Asian art museum and the Fremont Thai temple last time i blogged. I try to keep my promises so here it is -


Fremont Thai temple - 

From Asian art museum + thai temple

If you search for Fremont That temple on google, the first result is from yelp where yelpers are saying how awesome this food is. And that was exactly my reason to go to this temple.  And to explore a Thai temple too... recently after visiting HongKong, i am actually quite impressed by Buddhist temples. The temple was very quiet, neat and spacious. This is how local temples should be, no restrictions,  people acting sensibly, no noise. Kudos for maintaining it that way.  Every Sunday, outside the temple, there are stalls of different foods. It will me 70% non veg, 30% veg. If you are a thai cuisine fan like me, it is definitely amazing. We tried fried sweet potatoes, fried bananas, pad thai, spicy eggplant, couple of sweets. All of them were very tasty, not the restaurant style, these had a little bit homemade touch to it :)

Asian Art museum - 

From Asian art museum + thai temple

This was one of the pending museums in my coverage of SF museums. Gurshi also agreed for this one. We reached there about 3 pm, so 2 hrs to see the entire museum. We took the free tour on South Asian Goddesses where the tour guide introduced us to Parvati, Ganaga along with others ones. The one thing that i felt while visiting the museums was that i had never seen statues of Gods in such detail ever before. I have been to many Indian temples, some with equally similar statues but just because of the crowd, too short of a time to see, and because of scores of Pujaris there, i have never been able to see them. So seeing these statues here, the sculpture work was indeed quite fascinating. Asian art museum typically gets broken statues because they are no longer cared by the temples once they are broken. So, even with their broken shapes it was quite interesting. Most of the museum was dominated by religious statues which was kind of interesting. I really liked the Indonesia's puppet collection and there was also a video of it.  The potter collection was also very interesting.

From Asian art museum + thai temple

From Asian art museum + thai temple

Life in Sept 19 - Oct 22

Missa Brevis - Thanks to Modi, i went to a ballet dance by sjDance at San Jose. This was a rendition of Missa Brevis - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missa_Brevis Decent show, most of the choreo was quite abstract and little bit difficult to grasp.

Margin call - Margin call was the film club movie of the month and as before i liked it a lot. Margin call describes the financial crisis, a fictionalized account but this time from the perspective of the actual traders. It takes us inside into the lives of these traders, these young guys making salaries starting at 250K$ without knowing what are they doing. The cast is very very good, the movie is paced as a thriller all set in a time frame of 24 hrs and it all unfolds in a sombre manner. I have new found respect for Zachary Quinto after i realized that he even produced this indie movie. The underlying social commentary is quite awesome. Highly recommended.


I finally got the half moon bay apartment with a month to month lease but had to say no to the leasing agent. A hard decision.

Went to Asian Art museum with Gurshi. Thai temple with Deepti didi, Siddharth and Sneha. More details on another post.

Bought a new macbook pro. 13 inch.

Hackmeet unconference - attended Hackmeet 2011 unconference at SF. http://hackmeet.org/  Very useful conference, got a lot pointers on hacking and activism, meaning of digital activism and electronic civil disobedience. Very impressed by people who came there, some real activists and some of the best hackers.  Quite good talks and a lot of supportive group. Got to start doing some hacking and ECD.

Cancelled my vacation plan to India.

Met Aninda and Jatin after a long time. Went to 21st Amendment and Dosa at SF.


Went to Arab film festival - Saw movie - Hawi http://www.hawithemovie.com/  - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1776201/ Decent movie - Liked the shoot of Alexandria. Ok story, liked the fact that not everything was revealed.  The title song was good.

Dont judge us

Don't judge us.
Don't judge us yet.
One century, two centuries is too short of a time.
Leave it for the future historians.

What right do you have to judge us?
We were looted, we were exploited,
like a slave, like a POW.
They came, They saw, They conquered.
Where were you then?
Why don't you judge them?

Yes, ours is a way different from yours.
We still have a long way to improve upon.
We admire and respect your accomplishments.
We still have to fulfill basic human dignity.
We look up to you for inspiration.
But there is a cost even in your way,
a cost that is hidden,
that is either unknown or unacknowledged,
intentionally or unintentionally.
Someone is always paying the price.


What are countries?
Arbitrary lines on a map diving land on this planet.
Lines invented by us to serve what purpose?
To claim superiority of one over another ?
The process of birth is still a scientific miracle,
A randomized function where there is an equal probability
of being born here or being born there.

We may act like arrogant folks
who will discard your ideas as impractical and foreign
But deep down, we are desperately seeking answers.
These problems are more complex than we can handle.
And we are shit scared! afraid even to show it.


Don't judge us.
Don't judge us yet.

Haroun and the sea of stories

Haroun and the sea of stories
Luka and the fire of life
Author - Salman Rushdie

About 2-3 months ago, i heard an interview of Salman Rushdie on NPR talking about his new book - Luka and the fire of life. He read an excerpt and i was hooked. Luka was a sequel to Haroun and the sea of stories - a book which i had started to read while in undergrad but never crossed 30 pages.
I finished Haroun and the sea of stories in a matter of 4 hrs while sitting on flight from SF to HK. Today, at philz, i finished Luka and the fire of life.

My verdict -
Between the two, i found Haroun and the sea of stories better than Luka and the fire of life. Infact, I  loved the Haroun's story, it was one of the finest writings that i have ever read in English language. The way words are played with, the way hindi names are used and how things come together, it is just a delight to read. Luka also has similar elements and on its own, it is a good book but in comparison, it fells shorter than Haroun. Haroun had many more literary elements in it and has a more compelling storyline as compared to Luka.  Concepts like P2C2E and M2C2D meaning Processes too complicated to explain and Machines too complicated to describe when read for the first time are simply awesome.  Luka also has many such elements like the videogame analogy or three Jos - Jo Gaya, Jo hai and Jo Aiga.  Both these books are children books with fantasy and magical creatures filled; it is only time when somebody makes animation movies out of these - a job which is going to be very difficult but it will be very colorful and vivid if done correctly.

Rushdie takes hinglish to a whole new level and it is always a delight to read him. I liked Midnight's children and i like these two as well. I will have to go to his other books as well.

The flight journey

Like all things in my life, how i get to a place is equally important to me as the place. This is true of when i go to India. This post covers things done from SFO to India and back.

SFO to HongKong
Midnight in Paris - Finally, i got to see the new Woody Allen movie. Initially, it was Owen Wilson, because of whom i was not interested in watching this movie, i thought that Woody Allen has miscalculated again. But, i was wrong. Mr. Wilson, is actually trying to imitate Mr Woody himself but in his own way which is actually good to watch. The movie overall is a good movie, a movie that could only be made by Woody, old artists, new artists, low confidence, insecurities, romance etc, its all there that it is expected in a Woody Allen film.

Beautiful boy - Michael Sheen, yes i watched this movie only because it starred Michael Sheen. There is something in his acting that is very charismatic. The story is quite sad, a young boy shoots people in his college and his parents try to make sense of it. Its a very humane story, showing the strength of marriage and how one person supports another. Good acting!

Thats what i am. A feel good movie, good performances, coming of age story. Liked it.


Haroun and the sea of stories by Salman Rushdie. A different blog post will address this book.

At HongKong - Thanks to Wang and Ankur who had done some planning on things to go at HK, we went to sight see Hongkong. We went to the Giant Buddha statue in the cable car and visited the nearby monastery. It was early in the day, it was great to visit that place. The monastery is in a distant hill away from general population. Highly recommended. Next we took the tram at HongKong station to go to the peak and enjoy the skyline views. Good view.

HK to India - slept entire way.

India to HK - slept entire way

@HK - This time, we (Wang and me) went to see Macau. Macau is an hr away from HK by ferry. Macau is famous for its Casinos, its like Las Vegas of China :) But there are also some old temples there and some nice churches in downtown. Wang suggested that we should definitely buy some cookies there and they were really good. Both Macay and HK are very well developed and even though the population is dense, they are well maintained. People were really more fashion conscious at these places.


HK to SFO - slept the first half, was very tired. Then, watched two movies.
Page One: Inside the New York times - A documentary about the news paper New York times, how it is evolving to keep itself in business when the print media is dying everywhere. A look at how front page news stories are written,  efforts taken to keep news correct, non biased and impact of new york times on people. A good documentary.

Senna - A documentary on the life of driver Senna - said to be one of the best F1 drivers ever.  I have no idea about F1, yet because this doc was so popular, i decided to watch it. Senna is treated with same respect in Brazil,same as Sachin in India. Good documentary on how money/rich dominate this sport. and how Senna was instrumental in changing some of the crucial rules in F1. Couldnt see the last 2 mins as the plane was landing.

Leela ki leela

यह पांच स्टार में रहना हमारे जैसे लोग के बस की बात नहीं है
हम तो अपने देश में  ही अजनबी हो गए
अपने ही देश में जा के खो गए
देखि हमने लीला की लीला
अपने देश में ही विदेशी हो गए


We stayed at Leela for a week and believe me, even though it was all lavish and rich, it very soon became uncomfortable and unfriendly. Plus the rates, the charges, i was just surprised. We wanted to rent a taxi to explore Bangalore. I asked the front desk , how much it will cost to get a taxi for 4 hrs/40 kms, he checks his computer and comes back with a number - 3700 Rs ($70), i was shocked. I called some external cab companies and got an AC car for about 600 Rs for 4 hrs. Thats less than 1/6th.

I wanted to get a print out, i called the Guest services and they said that it will cost me 27 Rs to print a single page. For 10 pages, i can buy the entire cartridge :). For 27 Rs, you can send them the document to be printed via email and they will take its printout and send someone to deliver it to your room with an envelope around the document. Talk about self service.

I was told that the morning coffee was complimentary and it can be delivered to your room. Next morning, i was up at 5 am, thanks to the jetlag. After an hr of trying to sleep, i gave up and decided to get the south indian filter coffee. I call the Guest services  and order a coffee. After 10 mins, there is a knock on the door and i open it, yes, the coffee has come, but instead of filter coffee, it is the brewed coffee. I ask him, why brewed coffee, why not filter coffee? He smiles and says that this is the new trend here.....

Breakfast was complimentary and it was served same as US style only with more varieties and Indian options included. But the sambhar and chutney were so bland, no tamarind, no spiciness. It was as if we were in US itself.

Even though the room charges were in the range of 14K Rs, the internet/wifi was very bad. They could have charged another 1K and given me a personalized web connection.

We also took a tour of Bangalore (Trinity church-Ulsoor lake - Lalbagh - Vidhan Soudha) organized by Leela. The tour was actually contracted to some other company but it was a horrible tour.

From India "official" trip 25 Sept - 2 Oct 2011

From India "official" trip 25 Sept - 2 Oct 2011

The goods -
Leela used to have live Indian classical music downstairs every evening. That was really good. The Leela galleria outside was still very interesting, specially the Barista and Oxford book store.  They were big on selling Massages/spa. I got the Leela special massage (3000 Rs) which was basically an oil massage, quite good.

Overall, i will never stay at Leela with my own money. Not only i can't afford it, also its not worth living there.

India "official" trip

Sept 26 - Oct 3

India "official" trip happened amidst a lot of uncertainties, but it finally happened. A good trip. Adjectives for this trip would be hectic, fun, short, busy and rich. Yes, rich. Since it was official, we were going by the official policy which mandates to fly business class, live in a big hotels and has significant per day expenditure limits to enjoy other meals. Interviews at blore very too many, hectic but a lot of fun to talk to people. Overall, it felt that people were really very smart, the only difference was finally in the exposure. Indian companies, even though may be paying competitive salaries, the exposure to work has still been not that great. I wonder what would have happened to me if i had stayed back there. A thought that often crosses my mind but fails to give any answers.

Trip photos can be found here


Bramin's cafe -
Tired of having the daily rich and formal food at Leela, we decided to visit Brahmin's cafe (The number 1 Idli shop in Blore, Thanks to a recommendation from Abhay). Brahmin's cafe serves Idli, chutney and filter coffee and it was really really good, i think it was the best food i had in my entire stay there.  The filter coffee was amazingly strong. We took an auto from Leela to Basvangudi (round trip cost of about 250 rs) just to have this Idli. Thanks to Nikesh for coming with me.  We left Leela at 6 am, thanks to the jetlag, this was very easy :)

From India "official" trip 25 Sept - 2 Oct 2011

Business class -
It was great to fly business class, the key advantage is that the seat can go all the way back to an horizontal position, so one can sleep. I also got to sit on the higher deck both while going and coming back, higher deck has nothing special about it. The other advantage of the class is the lounge access at airport which basically gives you food, drinks and alcohol. But the best feature of lounge is access to shower which i heavily used at the HK airport. Since i had about 14 hrs layover each time, having the option to take a bath was very useful. Food was ok, not that great, freshly squeezed juice was awesome.

Kochi -
Went to Kochi for a day (20 hrs to be precise). Going to Kochi is always fun and relaxing. Seeing relatives, naniji brings back spirits. Life in kochi has a different feel than everywhere. Plus the greenery, yes, those trees, it is just soothing. But this time, i saw many many malls. Too much money is coming in. Aapam and egg curry is always a delight along with Payampoori.
Kochi pics can be found at -

Kochin Oct 1, 2011

Life in Aug 15 - Sept 18

Welcome to the latest session of Life in Series - The latest and greatest happening in the life of yours truly.


Not many posts were written between last session and this one. Strange, but thats how life is sometimes.  But that does not mean it was not an interesting time. A mix, a true mix of work and some really good things (See drama streak post before). Here are some highlights -

Modi stayed with me for a month until he found and apartment and now Gurshi is here until he finds one. Home was always buzzing this whole time.

Apartment hunting at Half moon bay. Yes, it got to my head that i have to move to half moon bay. Two-three trips to half moon bay to see which place suits better but none have been finalized. But we went one holiday and stayed at the beach, it was always good to sleep on the sand, under the sun.

Drama streak, hackathon, see previous posts.


Movies -
Bol - A new movie by Shohaib Mansoor (man behing Khuda kay liye and Ankahi). Yes, i had to see this movie. Liked it a lot. A very heavy movie focusing on social issues like Women rights, transgender rights ,  female infanticide and many things woven in between ofcourse including religious fundamentalism.  The movie is quite good, but i think one of the best things that i like out of Shohaib Mansoor is the dialogue delivery style. Remember Ankahi and how the dialogues were delivered in that rich pakistani style, especially from women. This movie brings all those memories back. It is not as well made as Khuda kay liye but in substance it is as powerful. It raises a very important question - If it is a crime to kill a child, why it is not a crime to give birth to a child while knowing that you can not take care of him. A deep question, need to think about it sometime.

Contagion - a good movie with a big cast and an impressive presentation - i mean the juxtaposition of screen and the sound track, makes the soundtrack makes the movie seem like its moving at a good pace while it isnt. An average movie, but not great.

 Missed the camera cinema club movie but it was The Debt. Have purchased membership for next year as well.

Movies at home - Thanks to my tv, watching movies at home has been a lot fun. Serendipity has gone up.
Saw The people vs Larry Flynt - A movie based on a true story and responsible for the current free speech right enjoyed by Americans. A break through judgment. A very interesting story, would have been a big fiction, had it not been true.
Watched Motorcycle diairies again and loved it again. Again sent me to think about life.  Note to myself - Motorcycle diairies have hints to answers for life's existential questions.

US open on my TV was simply awesome!

Bought a dvd player for 10$ from craigslist.

Went to a concert by a new local band called Eastern Brew. The concert was called Hazarron Khwaishein aisi and anything with that in name, i have to be there. It was a mix of concert and poetry. The band was a little disappointing because basically they were taking best songs from Indian/Pakistani fusion bands and singing them, so it was like an orchestra but to give them credit, they were doing a good job in performing those songs. The whole concert was divided into four segments, each segment began by one person narrating a story. These people were from Naatak theater and the stories were quite good and they delivered in some style.  Overall, the concert set the mood and with Coke studio songs like Jugni, it was a good experience. 
 

Drama streak

Last month i blogged about going to Stanford summer theater here. Combined with Oedipus from SST, i went for three plays in three weeks.  This post is a review.

Stuffed and Unstrung -
Website - http://www.stuffedandunstrung.com/home.html
This i got to know through SHN Broadway stream and was quite curious by reading about it. A combination of improv and puppetry, very interesting. Again, i have seen only one or two improve before and so far, i have found it interesting but have realized that i do not have the context (the american slang) to get a more complete experience. But this idea of combining improv with puppetry sounded very interesting and indeed it was. Modi and me went to see it, there are about 100 puppet heads sitting on  a stand and there are 6 artists who take different roles for different scenarios. Suggestions for each act come from audience and even though the audience is trying real hard to give cheesy or double entendre like scenarios, the artists handled them very well.  Puppets are also very well done  and the artists change their voice to match the puppet's character. Highly recommended! May again go again.

Cymbeline
Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymbeline
Modi and i were sitting at Philz on this saturday evening. Having worked all day, i was feeling a little bit tired, philz break was always welcome. There we saw this poster of Shakespeare in the park and today it was the Tragedy of Cymbeline. Modi asked - chalna hai? and a play in the park is always interesting, so we went.
It was performed at the park at Cupertino.  The setting of the stage was just too good, they built a stage on the water pond and people were sitting on a small grass hill giving it like a amphitheater like get-up. The play was done very well, it was a free play yet the performers were quite professional. It took me some time to understand the accent but after reading the wikipedia page, it all made sense. Since it was all done in open, it became quite cold once it got dark and wearing shorts, sitting on a grass soon got a little uncomfortable, but the play was good enough, we didnt move. Donated some money after the show was over.
A good experience with no planning. Thats the best kind, if you know what i mean :)

The Cofeehouse Investor

I am playing with stocks now. I have accounts with etrade and optionshouse and am beginning to follow the stock market.  I, who had never understood how stocks work; I, who had no intention of buying stocks; I, who was tired of listening from others about stock market discussions. I have now decided to invest 5000$ into stock market. Nothing more, nothing less.

So, after sharing my crappy investment ideas with Nikesh and bitching about that how GOOG has screwed me over (it went to 490 after i bought it at 555), Nikesh recommended this book to me - The Coffeehouse Investor. With just the title alone, i was excited. Being an avid coffee lover, any book that combines coffee and investing, hooyaaah!!

Website - http://www.coffeehouseinvestor.com/
 Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/New-Coffeehouse-Investor-Wealth-Ignore/dp/159184245X/ref=sr_1_1

Here is my review on the book, it is a good book. It is a very practical book for newbie investors like me. This book goes to the core of stock markets (in a completely non technical manner) and tells us the fundamentals of stock market. It has a no BS approach and ridicules a lot of mutual funds and other stock market constructed tools which mostly work in the favor of wall street.

Basically, the advise can be summed in these steps (a) Invest in stock market as it is essential (b) Invest in index funds because index funds are aggregate and as stock markets rise, index funds will also rise and (c) Dont listen to the BS and wrong marketing messages of wall street jokers

There are many more tips but the last three were the main points that i derived.

The blog on the site looks very interesting, something to follow.

TC Disrupt hackathon 2011

Thanks to Nikesh for pulling me (almost literally) into this.

Nikesh and me participated in the tech crunch disrupt hackathon this last Saturday. Hackathon details can be found here - http://disrupt.techcrunch.com/SF2011/hackathon/ The idea is that each team has 20 hrs to build some hack and demo to a panel in 60 seconds. The hack should work even though it may work for only one query.

This was my first hackathon.


Our idea was to create a event tracking tool (named Evister by Nikesh short for Event-Register). Through this tool, you can enter events that you want to track and it will send notifications whenever those events are coming or whenever its registration dates are open. We were able to build a pretty sturdy backend, it was able to figure out the event date automatically but we had a pretty bad UI and it took a great deal of time to make that bad UI.

But, overall the experience was a lot fun. We were able to successfully give a demo and got two free tickets to the disrupt conference. After not sleeping for two days, i slept for 14 hrs straight on Sunday.

We went to the actual conference on Wed. As usual the atmosphere was very electrifying, so many startups, so many good ideas. Working in a startup is a very fulfilling experience, one should always go though it.  Lots of info and lots of excitement.

Aik Alif - Coke studio3

There would be thousands of post on web on Aik Alif. This will be another one.

This is my fav coke studio song. It was my first coke studio and no song can beat this one.

The best part of this song is its lyrics(copied below). Listening to this song on any morning just makes the day. 




Parh parh ilm te faazil hoya
Te kaday apnay aap nu parhya ee na

(You read to become
all knowledgeable
But you never read yourself)

You read so many books
to know it all,
yet fail to ever read your
heart at all.

Bhaj bhaj warna ay mandir maseeti
Te kaday mann apnay wich warya ee na

(You run to enter temples and mosques
But you never entered your own heart)

You rush to holy shrines to play a part,
Would you dare enter the shrine of your heart

Larna ay roz shaitaan de naal
Te kadi nafs apnay naal larya ee na

(Everyday you fight Satan
But you never fight your own Ego)

You are quick to attack the evil one,
yet pride is a battle you have not won.

Bulleh Shah asmaani ud-deya pharonda ay
Te jera ghar betha unoon pharya ee na

(Bulleh Shah you try grabbing that which is in the sky
But you never get hold of What sits inside you)

You grab for a star you can control,
yet fail to grasp the light in your soul.

Bas kareen o yaar
(Stop it all my friend)

Let the race end, my friend

Ilm-oun bas kareen o yaar
Ik Alif teray darkaar

(Stop seeking all this knowledge my friend
Only an Alif is what you need)

Stop trying to be the one who knows,
for ‘God is One’ you need to know.

Bas kareen o yaar
(Stop it all my friend)

End the race, my friend

Allah Sayyaan Allah Sayyaan
(God is the Master, God is All)

God is All we need! God is All!

Nee main jaanaa Jogi de naal

(I shall follow the Yogi {ascetic/sufi})

Follow the wandering dervish!

Jo naa jaane, Haqq ki taaqat
Rabb naa devey us ko Himmat

(Those who deny the Strength of Truth
Lord does not give them courage)

If you deny the power of all that’s true,
God will not grant strength to you.

Hum Mann ke darya mein doobey
Kaisi nayya? Kya manjhdhaar?

(We have drowned in the river of Self
the boat and the flowing waters do not matter)

We are lost in this river of self,
no boat or streams are of any help.

Bas kareen o yaar
(Stop it all my friend)

End the race, my friend

Ilm-oun bas kareen o yaar
(Stop seeking all this knowledge my friend)

Stop trying to know it all, my friend.

Allah Sayyaan Allah Sayyaan
(God is the Master, God is All)

God is All we need! God is All!

- English Translation and Lyrics originally in Punjabi | English in bracket is approximate literal translation. A more poetic rendering in bold by Naomi.



Lyrics taken from - http://www.koolmuzone.com/forum/music-infonews/bulleh-shah-aik-alif-%28lyrics-translation-history%29/

Laches and Charmides

Amazon link - http://www.amazon.com/Laches-Charmides-Plato/dp/087220135X

Thanks to Charles Pletcher (Chuck) for generously giving me this book to read. What a delight to read. It took me more than a month to finish this tiny book. It is a great pleasure to read this book, but it is quite heavy material if one wants to see the hidden layer. The best part about the book was how the sentences were constructed and how conversation was written. Here, this is Kudos to Chuck who insisted that translation matters a lot.

This book is a good introduction to Socratic method of understanding a topic. More about the Socratic method can be read here. I need to do more reading in this area to fully understand it. The best part of this book is that it was both philosophical and literary in nature. It was educational without being didactic. A fun to read, definitely to be included in one's summer reading list :)

And i think, one can clearly see the "thass" being applied in practice by none other than one of the masters of thass aka Socrates.

Life in June 13 - Aug 14

A day before Indian independence day. There is a new rendition of National Anthem with full song of Tagore sahab. You can listen it here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JltFQS9kFXA

Two months, wow a long time. The last 7 updates cover the important things that happened. This post will cover the minor events -

June 14, birthday. Came and went. Took off but there was nothing special about this day. This will change next year.

Lost my wallet at Stanford and later found it. I am indeed lucky. I think this is the karma of returning that 100$ note.

Been very busy at work overall. Very very busy.

Spent 4th of July BBQing at Guy's place. Went to watch fireworks at Dumbarton after that. Pretty good day.

TV Series - Burn notice and White collar. Masala shows but i still watch them.

New board games at office.

Turkey Bowl - Camera cinema club movie of June. A very indie movie which if you hear the plotline sounds boring but its implementation is very interesting. Camera cinema club is getting diverse which makes it more fun. Turkey Bowl needs to be seen just as a lesson in cinema.

Rakhi was yesterday. Spent the day at Deepti didi's house with local family and good food.

Cant remember what else happened. Whenever i think, i only see myself spending time in office.

Movies in Aug 2011

Movies in Aug were seen in an interesting fashion. Because now i have a tv, the chance of watching good movies serendipitously has gone up. Here is the list

Harry potter and Deathly Hallows Part 2. The final installment was seen at IMAX San Jose and it was a very interesting experiment to see that movie at IMAX. The circular dome screen creates a special effect all in itself. Regarding the movie - There is a 30 min sequence when they try to protect Hogwarts, that is very well done. Every HP movie is better than previous and it is HP, it has to be watched.

The Whistleblower -
Whistleblower was the camera cinema club movie of Aug. It is based on a true story about a woman who tried to expose the sex trade happening under the hood of a UN peace keeping mission. Rachel Weisz plays that part and she delivers a great performance. Its the director's debut. Kudos to her for making this movie.

My Beautiful Laundrette -
This was one of my tv discoveries. On a Sunday morning, i was working on my laptop and as usual the TV was on. After some random channel surfing, i hop on a channel and i see Saeed Jafrey. Since i do not have an Indian channel subscription, i am curios. After reading the description which says that this movie has Daniel Day Lewis and is made by Stephen Frears. That's it, i have to watch it now. And boy! what a movie. Daniel Day Lewis is very young yet his performance is very strong. The story is about racial tension in UK with gay and other subjects explored. Highly recommended if you like DDL or Stephen Frears.

Koran By Heart
An HBO documentary about a competition on who knows Kuran the best and who can recite it with correct pronunciation. Made it in the style of spelling Bee, it follows the life of 3-4 contestants, how they prepare, what they want to do and interviews with their parents. What makes it special (and different than Spelling Bee) is the Koran or the religious aspect. What is the take of organizers of this competition on growing religious fundamentalism, why a father wants his daughter to learn Koran and what all he is willing to do to secure a good education for her. There are many interesting insights into this documentary.

Stanford summer theater

Links -
Stanford Summer theater - http://www.stanford.edu/group/summertheater/cgi-bin/sst/


This season, SST is having plays on theme Memory. They had two plays and i have seen both of them. Old Times by Harold Pinter and Seneca's Oedipus.

Old Times -
A very interesting play, a play where it takes some momentum to get over the inertia and once its gone, its a delight to watch. I think the story is very well scripted and its sensual nature keeps everyone at the edge. There is so much electricity in the air and no one knows where it is going. The play summary can be read on wikipedia

Oedipus -
Since i had read the book, i was familiar this time with the story line. But everyone knows about the story of Oedipus. The fun lies in how it is going to be narrated because by no means it is no easy to dramatize it. In Oedipus, a big shout out for the protagonist who played Oedipus, he had atleast thousands of lines to remember and speak them as continuous monologues at a high pitched voice and he was just very good at it. One of the big thing in plays is how the set can be used with minimal prop and in this one, it has been done in a very clever manner.

Acting is good in both plays. The plays were quite cheap 20$ a ticket. Looking forward to more of them.

Stanford Tennis

Thanks to Nikesh, i have now seen a live professional Tennis match. It was Stanford women's annual Tennis tournament and we got to see the final match played between Serena Williams and Bartolli. It was not only my first live Tennis match but first live professional sport anywhere.

I liked it a lot. It was a sunny cool Sunday with clear blue skies and the match was at 12 noon - a time when it is just beautiful to sit outside. We were at the top row which gave us a good top view and enough distance to pass comments at the match. Audience in Tennis match differ a lot by audience in a cricket match. Since audience is so close to the court, there is no loud music or drum rolls going on. Infact the referee had to step in couple of times to ask audience to be quite while the match was in play. And people also don't like others talking while the play is going on.

We liked it so much that we decided to stick around for the doubles finals as well, i do not remember who played. But overall it was a great experience. Watching the play raw and seeing them sweat it out, one realizes is that it is not an easy game. And as audience, it is so easy for us to comment and say that she didn't play well but in reality those players are giving everything there.

From Mixed bag

From Mixed bag

From Mixed bag

From Mixed bag