basejumping

base jump – seems to be an interesting game. saw some of the videos on espn and it is so cooooooooooool. I might have missed the bus, got to get buy-off from someone else now

wondering if there are daredevils I know, who will … Will ya?

when grown men cry….

I had an emotional ride in this trip to India – my grandmother has been bed-ridden for the last 2 years now, unable to talk clearly and not being able to comprehend people’ presence around her. It is difficult for me to see someone like her, who used to be a fireball of energy, someone who always had a quick retort for any comment, lie around aimlessly – all my friends from college will second this statement.

The last time, I saw her healthy was 2 years back during my engagement – she was so happy. Just 2 years later, the situation is a complete turnaround. It started with a hip injury that was the beginning of the end. Ironically, she always spoke about going away quickly all her life. And harshly death makes her wait.

I went to the hospital several times in this visit and each time would talk to her. Seeing her lying down lifeless yet alive brought tears to my eyes but I held back. It is one thing to suddenly lose someone like my grand dad a few years and totally another to see a gradually degradation. I don’t know which is easy to get over.

When I went to see her for the last time, a couple of hrs before my flight – I broke down. I realized that this might well be the last time I am going to see her with life. I left helpless – each time I heard her mumble in pain, all I could do was ask and got no response.. Several years back, she would have been the person to cuddle me when I was in pain. And here I was, watching helplessly.  There are things that are beyond our control – things that no money can buy, things that no position of power can influence.

I feel privileged and honored to have been under her wings for a large portion of my childhood. An amazing woman, who has studied only until her 6th grade, but who taught herself to read english and converse briefly in Hindi. She has immense will power and that is why she is still with us. She was not perfect, but again who is. We have had our share of disagreements, fights but in the end both of us knew the bonding we shared.

All  I ask now is that she have a peaceful ending.

HYD airport is a f******g fishmarket

Just came back to good ol chennai – had a terrible experience (as always) while travelling from HYD airoport.

Yes I am using the ‘f’ word – HYD airport is a freaking fishmarket.

For starters, it is god damn small and there is just so much commotion. The Indigo boarding pass area is 3 feet wide and every1 having a trolley needs to figure out his way back after collecting his boarding pass without knocking the next person in line.

There is 1 board which has all the flights taking off and a bunch of voices calling out flight numbers and hazaar folks hangin around. It took me a while to figure out that my flight was checking people into the aircraft. Finding the boarding gate is another pain – 1 display board with no correlation to the Gate#.

Then comes the tag check – the  system (not in HYD in general) requires the hand baggages to be tagged and the security check is supposed get it stamped. I happily tried boarding about 15 mins before take off and was stopped and asked to go back. I came down to the security area and they did not have any tags. I found a tag which was blindly stamped which I just took to the security guy and he let me in.

I have never been in a situation where I got past the gate and still had to figure out the path to the aircraft. There was absolutely no one and there were 3 areas going to different flights. I  managed to find someone who claimed that ‘Sir, but we have been annoucing know, sir’ - bunch of clowns in a fishmartket in a wierdly management system does make the whole thingy entertaining if you are not in the receiving end.

 How I wish the airline prices were expensively enough so that places with adequate infra-structure wont be bursting at its seams? Maybe the strata of the financial pyramid will decide who goes where and sort of load balances the system. I think all services should become to every1 when the infra-structure is in a position to handle it. Just having a noble goal to provide everything to every1, with folks having to go through this is horrible.

Amen

time is the most precious commodity

This post was triggered by an incident during my trip to the US, a philosophical trigger, if you will. The itinerary for the trip was Seattle -> Amsterdam -> Hyderabad. We flew for about 4 hrs and were just over just over the Hudson bay when a lady had a medical emergency. She was 37 and was complaining of chest pain. She was accompanied by her 5 month baby, scheduled to meet her husband in Amsterdam. The flight had to make an emergency landing, so the pilot turned back and landed in Churchhill, Canada. Believe me, I was a little sleepy and looking through the window, it was like landing on a different planet. It was simply a place with rocks resembling craters filled up with ice in some places. Apparently, people visit this place to fish and the inhabitants are very sparse. The lady was taken out by a medical crew who were planning on taking her to a hospital 100 miles away. Hopefully she and the baby are safe. We had some airport protocol to follow which took 2 hrs to complete – apparently, as per security protocol, you cannot take some one’s bags when they are not in the plan (maybe there is an exception when airlines “lose” bags and send them in the next flight), an aircraft cannot land when it is “heavy” – people were mentioning the reasons why we had to travel half way over Hudson, and then apparently we need a new travel plan [ sort of like an air traffic regulator]

It set me thinking as to how life can suddenly turn around in a few hrs. Could become a question of life and death. It reminded me of Steve Jobs’ talk in Stanford when he mentioned of his cancer treatment. Indeed time is the most precious commodity. As most of us rattle through our daily lives, most times we forget this fact. It takes a minor incident to bring us back to reality that we are indeed time bound in our stay on earth. As Steve mentions, the thought of death felts all our feelings – be it greed, fear, shame, ambitions, etc. The things that are truly important to us, stands as top priority.

For some realistic take-aways, the action items is to write up our long term plans and start working towards them. Each of us may want different things out of life, want folks to remember us in different ways. So the POA is to chalk out the long term goal and work towards it. Making the plan as a set of tasks and making each task time bound is very useful in tracking. This is obviously more complicated that I state – as the dependant variables change over time, the long term plan which is a function of this, changes. But the good part is that when it is written down, we can see that and make the required corrections.

Let me throw out my plans out there – I always wanted to contribute and make an impact in peoples lives by getting the “deserved but poor” folks educated. That is something which is core to me. Even though this task seems something that can be done in parallel with other aspects of my life, I think the best impact will happen when I do this full time. In order to do this full time, I need to get to a reasonably financial state that will allow this flexibility.

Another aspect that drives me personally is entrepreneurship, which represents a freedom in executing things that you truly believe. An attempt at unleashing your unbridled passion in a specific field, whatever it may be. days filled with insecurities and challenges that you resolve and getting things done. An attempt that may lead to financial independence or a few years spent to gain wisdom.

One of the other important things for me is getting back to desh and spending time with my parents – the least I can do for their role in my upbringing.

Tieing all these together, as I have been chalking out timelines for these tasks over the years, new variables have been added and some things tweaked. Some of them are negotiable while others are purely externally controlled (GC types). But I have been constantly trying to lower priorities where ever required to make the timeline happen. There is still uncertainity with what I will do and how – but aint it the fun? If we cant, no one can.

If you are curious about the timelines, you will know it when you need to . Anyways, how does it help you knowing my plans – you are your own judge.

But if you have similar goals where we can align, send me a private note. If I dont know you (yet), post a comment with your contacts.

Cheers

jet lag and no NFL – this is injustice

I am currently in HYD for 2 weeks. Usually, during my personal trips, jet lag takes much lower priority and the adrenalin of being at home, helps get over it 

But this time.. Waking up at 2 AM and hanging around is a pain. I browse through the TV channels in my hotel room and see some baseball game live!! This irritates me further – why the hell do they have to telecast baseball when NFL is currently in full swing.  Asaya kamchu irritate panranga!! And that too baseball, which probably has even fewer followers in India who will treat it as some bad imitation of cricket.

Maybe its time for T20 to get to the US and kick baseball out of transmission.

Now let me catch up with some old cricket matches until I fall asleep. Hopefully, my team does well and wins today.