Dud Sea Scrawls The Writing, clearly, is not on the wall!

Aren’t fridays great? I mean, if you dont have to work on saturdays! I love fridays mainly ‘coz I dont have to wear a tie. In India I dont have wear shoes on fridays though my manager makes it a point to stare at my chappals every time we meet! Well, some stares needs to be ignored for our own comfort !

It was also a normal friday evening and I finished off all the project releases and was cleaning the desk to head towards home. Had invited myself to supper at friend’s place and was feeling good about it! The guy with whom I share office is a pretty senior person but more than that he is considered as a whiz kid. Its always a pleasure to talk to him on any subject. I had some clarifications on the project he was working on and wanted to discuss it. What started as a design discussion ended up two hours later after discussing many things, mostly about life in India !

When I talk about overself with these people, I do wonder sometimes, whether they can really lead a life in India if they have to! Its so difficult to explain everything about ourself (especially food n culture). There are so many languages, so many cultures and what I represent is a small percentage! One obvious topic was ofcourse arranged marriages. I started out explaining the family structure, lack of dating choices, opposition from parents, hypocracy surrounding the whole thing and how it is changing of late.I was expecting remarks like how can you marry after meeting just once, why should parents interfere in your choices but he surprised me by saying if it is working then let it be !

Another unavoidable topic is outsourcing. If the discussion is with clients it is always a dicey topic. Afterall no one wants to loose their jobs. Myself on other had is of the view that almost anything can be outsourced and if westeners can do something , we can also do it. But I would not want to say it explicitly to clients. He made my job easy by saying there are so many intelligent and qualified people in India and its natural for business to save money by going whereever the jobs can be done cheaply. At the end he added, he should better start thinking about alternate career choices before its too late. I know its the way life works but still it feels sad sometimes. May be sometime in future we will have to work hard for saving our jobs. Its business afterall and the saying ‘Its all about money, honey’ is always true ! However brilliant people are , may be they too will have some insecurity.

It was already 9pm and I called up my friend to cancel to tell to go ahead with his dinner and not wait for me! Went home to see some wonder Pau bhaji cooked by roomies!

Saturday - I will leave out all the embrassing details about loosing the cricket match and in addition to it, ending up late for lunch at Reshmi’s place! She had invited us ( few other friends ) for lunch and by the time we reached there it was almost 3pm! Its never too late for lunch especially when Karnataka delicacy Bisibelebath is kept on the table! She is the first person whom I had mailed in Sulekha after reading her story series ( yes, she had written a hugely popular one long back! ) .
After two years, finally I was visiting her place! Girls immediately started discussing abt the stuffed dolls she had kept on sofa and we guys watched TV !! After lunch, we headed out towards a lake for kayaking but we were too late !

Walked around the lake, buckwaased a lot! Others dont know how we know each other so they can never make out what we are talking about though we were careful not to use key words !!

Sunday - It was India day parade in New York. Had gone to New Jersey the previous week to watch its India day parade but was completely disappointed to see so many American flags. A guy at the front was dressed in Mangal Pandey outfit and was carrying an American Flag. Probably Mangal would have committed suicide if he had seen that. Ofcourse I know, its America and they need to use their flags and loyalties have to be displayed but somehow I never like someother flag flying with ours on our Independence day.Anyway its my personal opinon. The flags tied to poles always had American flags flying higher than ours.

I was expecting the same in NY parade too and was not too keen to attend. It was different. There were so many people around. May be around a lakh or so. Kapoor Khandhan along with Anil Kapoor and Shatrugna sinha were there.

Most of the tabloids had only our flags. It was fun ! Took few snaps .

Guess politics and politicians can never be left behind anywhere be it Indian or American

Standing continously for four hours had taken its toll ! Also the weather was so hot. Till now, I was thiking Chennai has the hottest weather. Now I would replace NY with that ! Chennai atleast has cool breeze in the evening!

Gods need a shade?! Naah !

Went home and had a nice sleep ! Its been so different this time in NY. Last time I had felt bored and also had spent too much time on internet ! This time I have so many friends around! Its been a good trip so far - a much needed and a welcome change !