More on what’s happening at the John Gult and Never Mind household

At work, a few weeks ago, they laid off about 10% of the workforce. I know it's not news anymore but it still came as a surprise because at the beginning of the year, they talked about how well we did in 2008 and how we have enough money to last through the rough times. Apparently, people got the pink slips was because the top bosses were being “proactive” about the bad economy. But, like all those big banks, everyone who is still here gets that big fat bonus. People at work were super pissed with the layoffs. As an intern, I didn't feel strongly one way or the other, but it made me think hard if this is a company that I want to stay with for life and make a career at. Especially, if they don’t think twice about letting people go whenever there is a potential road block. Anyway, as a result of this “re-structuring”, things have gotten super busy. And it does not help to have a manager who works 15 hrs a days and is twice as smart as you. So I spend most days and some nights trying to play catch-up with him and end up feeling like a loser.

At home, things have been fairly smooth. We have given up the high hopes of keeping the house neat and tidy at all times, cooking fresh food for every meal and such. Now we are happy if there is frozen food or leftovers from last night for dinner and laundered clothes to wear. We clean the house over the weekends; that is if you count putting things back in their place as cleaning.

Very recently, I realized that between January 1^st and March 15^th, there is a birthday or an anniversary every other week in the family. So I decided to make sure that our future child’s birthday does not get lost in the jungle. Jan, Feb and March are ruled out. Nov is out for similar reasons. December is al already expensive month with all the Chritmas traveling. It’s too hot to be born between May and Aug. Besides, the kids would hate us because most schools are closed for the summer and they would have no friends around to celebrate with. That leaves me with Apr, Sep and Oct. MIL’s birthday is in Sep and FIL’s is in Oct. Going by my rule of not having a kid in the month when someone in the family has birthday, I am left with a narrow window of just 30 days in April! Awesome! Now its the perfect excuse to give to all those nosy aunty types who want to know if there is any “special news”. It would be super cool to say, “Sorry aunty, I missed the window for this year, but wish me luck for next!” Sorry people, I did not mean to actually type these things out and bore you to death. As you can tell, I do not have anything intelligent to say!

Speaking of kids, one of my bestest friends is preggers. I would have been a lot more enthusiastic about it, if not for the way I came to know of the news. To me, she is the kind of friend you would call, when you even consider the thought of having babies. She called to wish us on our anniversary and adds as an afterthought that she is 12 weeks pregnant, that too after telling half of the people we know in common. I was genuinely happy for her, but could not help feeling bad and left out. Of course, I played along with her not wanting to hurt her during her special time. Oh wait, may be I did. She sometimes reads this blog. But I really hope her pregnancy goes well and they have a healthy baby.

In other news, you remember my brother who was going to travel to the US to take his medical licensing exam? Ya, that one. He is traveling to the US this year to take the same exam. He will be staying with us for 4 months through the summer. I am super excited about his trip. And of course, I can’t wait for all the goodies my parents are sending with him.

With that, we come to the end of today’s edition. You all take care and I will be back with more news and updates soon, hopefully sooner than another 3 months!

Where have we been...?

...At the intersection of writer's block and don't-have-anything-to-say, being incredibly lazy in a busymobile.

Excuse #1: Hour-long commutes and overachieving coworkers leave us with little time and/or self-respect to write anything.
Excuse #2: My theory that weekend hours are only half the duration of weekday hours is proving to be true.
Excuse #3: Every time I/we start a post, I/we realize halfway that others have said it all already.

Thanks all, for checking on us regularly. Regular programming might start here if something interesting comes up.

Its that time of the year!!!

Since all you lovely people lurve me so much :D, I have decided to treat you guys to a little puzzle.

The first four prime numbers add up to the day I was born. If you have figured the date out and are wondering about the month, I say it doesn't matter. Day of the year and calender date are all the same. If you have figured out, you know when to wear your party hats and sing the birthday song!

The weight of expectation (guest post, part 2)

I wasn't too impressed with the Grand Canyon.
There, I said it.
Sorry...

I had way more fun in Death Valley, and I put it down to the spontaneity of our trip there.

Expectation is a killer. Expectation is why a 30 by Harbhajan is thrilling but a 30 by Sachin empties the grounds. It’s why Surya’s Ghajini feels like a routine run-of-the-mill masala movie, but Aamir Khan’s Ghajini feels like a disaster, a terrible start to the year (if this were the script of a Ghajini-like movie, I’d give you about seventeen more examples like this, including, in no particular order, a crying baby, sunshine after rain and blooming flowers).

Anyway, to come back to the point of this post, when we started planning this trip, it centered on three focal points: LA, Las Vegas and Grand Canyon. And invariably, the places we enjoyed most were then ones we did not have concrete plans for. But let me try to be at least partially chronological here.

- Rancho La Brea is a little gem tucked away among the high-rises of Los Angeles. I wonder how many tourists in LA even know about this place?



- Las Vegas has been one of the epicenters of the housing market collapse, and boy, does it show! Vegas stretches out in all directions into the desert, with seemingly no reason for people to live there. There’s way too many housing complexes and accompanying strip malls than seem sustainable, they all look new (and quite good), and most of them look empty. Abandoned before being occupied? Maybe. I don't know, but it's bizarre.

- You don't hear much about downtown Las Vegas (no, it's not the same as the Strip), but it's fun. Downtown lacks the mega-resorts that you see on the Strip (MGM, Venetian, etc etc), but there's this enclosed area on Fremont St that reminded me of Bourbon street in New Orleans. It was cold, but free concerts, easily available drinks access to many hotel/casinos and the huge screen more than made up for it.

- Speaking of the Strip, did know how LONG it is? Looking on a map, Caesar's Palace is perhaps one block from the Bellagio, but it takes a good 7-8 minutes to walk the distance. It's fun to roam around on the Strip though. I didn't think I would like Vegas - thought it wouldn't be anything more than a pimped-out Times Square. And though it is indeed a pimped-out Times Square, there's lots of things to do, and varied "sceneries" and "skylines" to see, so it's all good. Felt a little bad for the Latino dudes standing at the street corners, advertising/offering hookers to passers-by, with most guys trying to glance from the corners of their eyes without looking too interested.



- I had noticed this in Atlantic City, and was convinced of it in Vegas. Chinese people, especially older folks, are mad about gambling! Vegas, with no history of immigration from Asia, has a Chinatown, and tour bus companies abound, ferrying people from Vegas for day trips. Sort of explains the rise of Macau, no?



- Red Rock Canyon is a short drive from Las Vegas, and it’s apt that it has that singular in its name. We only ever saw one red rock (okay, hill for you quibblers) there, and the rest of the 13-mile drive was “routine” mountains and desert. Nice place, but not the highlight of the trip. That, my friends, would be...

- ...Death Valley!!! Places like this remind one that humans may build the mightiest cities, but these are no match for the beauty of nature. Death Valley is a bleak place, the hottest, driest and lowest point in North America. That turned out very nicely for us, because the low elevation meant it was warmer (ok, less colder) than the other places we went to. Hiking in Death Valley was not so difficult, but it was amazing how few people there were on the trails (and almost no one away from the trails). It is such a pleasing experience when the only sound you can hear is the crunch of the long-dried-out river bed under your feet. The Sound of Silence, you say?



- Driving to and from Death Valley gave us a glimpse of the US that we aren't used to. There are no big green signs telling you 10 miles in advance to take an exit. You take a state route, watch for a nondescript turn, drive over potholed roads. Very much like rural India. Some of those towns have a real frontier feel to them. You wouldn’t want to venture past these towns at night and/or in the summer without stocking up on supplies and survival gear.

- Zion National Park was the most spur-of-the-moment we made, and it was only because we didn't think we had it in us to drive to Bryce Canyon and back in one day. But again, it was awesome. The red colored road along the Zion Canyon floor matches the red sandstone cliffs towering on both sides. Zion seemed like a summer destination with streams and much greenery, but I'm glad we went there in the winter. Some of the trails were closed due to icy conditions, but this is a spectacularly beautiful place. I’m amazed by how varied the geography of the American West is. All you East Coast folks, do yourself a favor and head west for a vacation.



- Which brings us to our final destination. We parked the car 50 feet from the South Rim, made our way to the edge through throngs of people, and peered into the great big hole for a few minutes, too embarrassed to admit to each other that what was supposed to be the grand finale of the trip was a bit underwhelming. To be fair, Grand Canyon is indeed stunning, but when you’ve been bracing yourself for the stun for so long, the stunt gets a bit, well, stunted. Yes, I know we should’ve hiked at least some distance into the canyon, but it was icy and time was a bit tight. Also, all sources said the park would be empty in the winter, but we found it to be a zoo, with a thousand cars and a dozen tour buses (incidentally, what’s with Chinese/Japanese/Korean people and tour groups/buses? Ever seen a desi tour bus in the US?) If this is the scene in winter, I shudder to think how it must be in the summer!



- If you’re a National Park aficionado (like me), it’s a great idea to get the annual pass. It saved us at least 30 minutes, getting into Grand Canyon past the long line of cars and buses.

- Finally, this trip takes both NM's and my (US) state-count to/past 25. Woo-hoo!

And that, boys and girls, ends this travelogue. I'm glad I wrote this up before my memory got erased. Regular programming will restart soon from Never Mind (I hope...).

Road Trippin' the South-west.....(Guest post, part 1)

Happy New Year and all that jazz, people. Never Mind has lost her mind, and is down with writer’s block (yes, again). I’m the one referred to in these pages as the “the husband”. Going by my origins, you can call me John Gult :) This is my first blog post of any kind, so I hope I don’t cost her too many readers…

NM and I took a road trip last week. 2563 miles in all, across four states, over seven days. We had planned to do a day-by-day posting on this blog, but two things happened. One, apparently Priceline does not check if your would-be hotel has free wi-fi, and two, we got a bit shamed sitting around in the parking lots of coffee shops, searching for wi-fi signals to steal. I’m still going to pretend we’re doing a day-to-day posting though, and give you more wisdom about our trip than you care for. Pliss to excuse.

Here are some of the points that stuck in my head about our trip:

-You would think a driving time of nine hours from the Bay Area to LA, with an average speed of 25 mph for half the time, would mean a sucky day. Well, not when you are driving through the Big Sur. This region, with surprisingly little traffic, is spectacular, and the road, sandwiched between mountains and the Pacific has to be one of the prettiest drives I’ve ever taken. Supposedly, you can see whales while driving the road too. Methinks someone must’ve forgotten to notify the fishies that we were coming…

- Some dudes on the California coast have a lot of money, I tell you. How else do you explain these zebras grazing in a ranch a hundred meters from the ocean?

- Los Osos and Cayucos must be among the prettiest towns in the US. Actually looked like tropical resort towns, with bright multicolored houses fronting beautiful beaches.

-San Bernardino county, and California in general, are HUGE. Driving out of LA towards Las Vegas brings you across an amazing array of environments. From a coastal city full of beaches to snow-capped mountains to arid desert, all within an hour’s drive (well okay, considering LA’s traffic, three hours).

- There’s quite a few solar power plants (thermal, PV) in the Mojave desert of CA/AZ/NV. If only we could get either the price of silicon down, or the efficiency of other technologies higher…

- I’m still trying to figure out what exactly made us spend 50 bucks in Hollywood to go gawk at the homes of celebrities and movie stars for two hours. It was a sobering day for the Santa-costumed driver too, with 90% of his jokes and celebrity gossip fizzling out, what with 15 desis (coincidence, I may add), 2 Chinese and no Americans in his van. On the same note, it must’ve been a pretty low-tip day for him too ☺

- For a famous landmark, the Hollywood sign is visible from very few places. Yeah it's cheesy, but, c'mon of course we had to take pics with it.

- Christmas morning, guy walking on water. Wonder if he was the Big J…? (NM’s joke originally. Just so I don’t get accused of plagiarism…)

- Turns out there is indeed such a thing as too much free non-stop porn on TV. Add in a rat hole of a hotel room, torn threadbare towels and a non-functioning heater, and you have a contender for the worst hotel stay ever. This was self-inflicted pain though. I know we should’ve waited longer in that coffee shop parking lot for a reply from priceline, instead of rushing to the nearest hole-in-the-wall.

Ok, I get a feeling that's enough gyaan for today. If I don't scare off too many readers from here, I will post more details tomorrow (or whenever). Take care, people.

Remembering Bhopal

Remembering the Bhopal Gas Tragedy that left thousands dead and many many more injured. And some of them paying the price even after 24 years!

I was barely two when this disaster happened. But I had chose to write a review paper on it earlier this year for a class I was taking and thats when I knew details about the event. Even just reading papers about the disaster and the effects it had on Bhopal has made my stomach churn. After 14 years, we can only hope the new Dow chemicals plant in Pune is not another Bhopal waiting to happen.

Here is a link to some pictures immediately after the disaster. It also includes Raghu Rai's award winning photograph.

Update: Thanks bollyviewer for the correction. I dont know how 2008-1984 was 14 anyways!

Your God or Mine?

I wish the recent terror attacks are linked to radical muslims trained in Pakistan. Yes, I said it. For all of us who spent Wednesday to Saturday of last week glued to one news channel or the other, it does not seem a very unreasonable wish. After all, the terrorists came to the coast in boats, carried Pakistani IDs and all other such evidence that points to Pakistan. And like any self respecting Indian, I was quick to add that if it is indeed true, then India should attack the terrorist camps and use nuclear weapons if necessary.

Sometime during the course of the 60-hr drama in Mumbai, I checked Al-Jazeera’s website to see what they were saying about the attacks. To my utter disgust, they reported that the attack could be the act of India’s internal terrorist organizations while India blamed Pakistan in a knee jerk reaction. I yelled some at my computer screen, made some expletive noises about how there are no “internal elements” in India and gave up reading news for about an hour. Today, in an email conversation with a friend, in a fit of anger, I declared that all the Muslims in the world should be treated like terrorists unless proven innocent! (I hope you recognize the emotional rhetoric here). My friend immediately asked what makes me so sure that this was perpetrated by “the outsider” Muslims and not our own homegrown rogue elements like Bajrang Dal. I made some noises about how the radical Hindu organizations are not that indiscriminate and immediately changed the topic.

To me and millions like me in India who enjoy the luxury of being in the majority, it is comforting to blame “the outsider” as the enemy. I wonder if the entire terrorist attack episode would have been as sensational if it weren’t for the Pakistani angle in it. Aren’t we all waiting to hear that the FBI and Scotland Yard aided investigations will provide conclusive evidence against ISI?

Once I started reading more about the possibility that the attack might not necessarily be from outside India, I am scared than ever.

Being a Muslim in India is not easy. Most of us who belong to the majority, take this struggle for granted. We never stop to think how it is to live in India as a muslim. I do not have specific examples to cite but we all have heard stories about the muslim family that was refused an apartment in the building or the muslim household that struggled find domestic help etc. I am willing to believe that years of such oppression could have resulted in absolute hatred and intolerance towards the rest of us. That coupled with a country jealous of our progress (?), Kashmir issue, ties with US etc etc could explain the Pakistani trained terrorists’ theory.

But what if it wasn’t the muslims? What if it was our own Bajrang Dal that moved up the terrorism ladder? What excuse do they have apart from sheer intolerance to another faith? That is what scares me.

Like always, someone else has said all of this much better.

http://www.samarmagazine.org/archive/article.php?id=275

PS: Please excuse me if in any way I have conveyed that it is okay for people from one religion to kill. Obviously that is not what I have tried here.

And I am back!

Howdy y’all? Thanks for all the concerned comments and encouragement to write more frequently. Well guess what? I have taken your comments way too seriously. To compensate for the last 3 months or so of zero activity, I have taken up La Vida’s recommendation of a blog marathon. I will make a sincere attempt to post at least once every day whether or not I have something coherent important to say. It will be a challenge given that I commute about an hour and a half to work each way and am left with zero enthu to do anything once I get home. But, you asked for it people! So here we go.

So how have you all been? I have most of you on feed reader and have been reading your blogs stealthily at work while swiftly shifting between windows every time I hear footsteps (Thank God for keyboard shortcuts!). I haven’t been commenting much because I haven’t yet gathered the courage to log in to blogger from work. Any of you have cool tips on how to blog/comment while appearing to be busy at your desk? About us, the husband and I have quit being floating particles and have settled down fairly well in the Bay area (couldn’t resist the PJ). I flew across the country in September to see the husband talk about his work, thank his mentors, parents and parents-in-law, and bottoming-up 6 glasses of Champagne back to back. Needless to say he has no memory of what happened to him after that. Not that anything really happened, except that he was made to wear a really ridiculous looking hat and paraded around the campus in a shopping cart by his group members. And that was how a very innocent looking, baby-faced husband became The Husband Pee Etch Dee. After a week, the husband wrapped up in the University town and moved to California with me. So that was our September.

Most of October was spent trying to figure out what we will need to run an functional house, where to buy such stuff, buying the stuff and setting up the apartment. Now don’t let this simple statement trick you into believing that it is easy to set up an apartment from scratch. Actually buying the essential stuff is easy. You go to a department store and pick up a toaster, a microwave oven, a vacuum cleaner etc. The tough part is furnishing and decoration. In the process of furnishing our apartment, the husband and I became an IKEA couple like Broom once described. We were fighting about the fabric, color, design, pattern, size and you-name-it. If we agreed on everything, the damned thing was out of our budget. After numerous stressful trips to IKEA, Wal-Mart, Target, Sears, Linens n Things and such, we managed to put together a decent looking place. At the end of it, the effort seemed worthwhile when we sunk into the couch in our newly furnished living room sipping a glass of wine.

November has been a super fun month. We went to Napa/Sonoma valley to celebrate the husband’s birthday. We stayed at a little spa resort, got couple massages, had great wine and a lot more :) Before we could completely get back to routine, it was Thanksgiving and we had to do something fun again. We spent the weekend in Lake Tahoe and Reno. There wasnt much snow there for skiing but we manged to skate on ice and hike in the snow. Also did I mention that I met a super cool and lovely blogger in November? She is as interesting in person as she is on her blog if not more. She does have a great smile, she does wear her lipstick well, and she does have an amazing sense of humor. It was so much fun to meet her that I forgot about the sucking day I had that day. Wait, since this is a marathon and not a sprint, I will save up the details of that day for another post.

So overall, we have been exploring the Bay area and now let me please pause for a second to eat my words. Bay area is fun!! I did not like it in the first few days of moving here because I was alone, home sick and had to deal with giant humongous lizards which I knew were out there to get me. I have not seen those despicable monsters anywhere else except around the cafeteria at work (maybe they guard all the free food in the cafeteria). Mostly I love the Bay area because of the number of options it has for people to have fun. You like clubbing and night life? You have it. Want some quiet time at the beach? You have it. Want a good hike? You have it. OK you get the drift. That’s pretty much been my September, October and November in a nut shell. Eating good food, going out, having fun and in general having good time in life.

Of this,that and award

Guess what Never Mind is up to?

I had an internship offer in the pipeline for a while now but it took so long for me to get over all the irritating hassles to finally get here that I can barely believe this is happening to me. I got the offer in November last year for a scheduled start in June '08. I asked my then PhD adviser if I could take up this offer as a supplement to my work in his lab. He refused to let me go and was of the opinion that industries have nothing new to offer to the academia. I later decided to quit the lab owing to many other reasons and thought I could pursue this internship while I find something else to do. Just about 2 weeks before my start date, I found out that the university did not allow students to go and work and I couldn't work without being a student. Unable to solve the paradox, I postponed my start date to Sept '08. I went through the employment authorization process once again with the hope that this time, I use the correct channel. I was denied authorization again. That was when I decided to chuck everything and move-in with the husband. On hindsight, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. We had so much fun living together in our first apartment, it was magical. OK, I digress. Getting back to where we were, I transferred Universities and applied for employment authorization for a third time. A lot of drama, a few tearful goodbyes to my career and several tensed days later, I got my approval and and I finally started working yesterday. This is just an internship position for 4 months but is totally what I wanted to do. Also it pays well enough to have enough money left for those shoes and purses after paying all the bills. So I am super excited. Excited about the work, the money,everything.

I moved to California this Sunday and am slowly getting used to being a Californian. It is not as beautiful as everyone hyped but it seems like a fairly nice place to live in. California lost part of its charm for me because of its lizards. Did I ever mention how much I hate them? Actually, I am terrified of them. Yesterday when I walking back from lunch, I saw three lizards in the walkway for the first time in the US and I was scared beyond wits. Since then, I kept checking my surroundings to make sure there weren't any more of those horrible creatures. And now, the great part, the husband got a job in California as well and he will graduate from school and start here in October. So it looks like we have some fun times coming up. But I promise, no more excuses for not blogging. I will resume regular blogging and update this place as often as possible.

To make the happy times more exciting, the lovely La Vida has honored me with the blogger BFF award. This award is special not just because it is my first but also because it means a lot to be a friend. I have very few BFFs in real life and blogging has introduced me to some great people who I wouldnt have met otherwise. While accepting the award with great pride, I pass it on to my blogger BFFs.

1. La Vida Loca : It has to come right back to you for the warmth you sent my way and of course your fun posts. Her dry humor and profession remind me so much of Mathew Petry in The Whole Nine Yards.
   
2. Dew Drop Dream: She once asked what we thought of her as a person. I never had a chance to write then. But I think she is a lovely lady with a great "Office"-ish sense of humor, treasures her friends, buys great gifts and a truly unique person in that she is loved right back by earthworms!
   
3. SnippetsnScribbles: Very simple words that touch your heart, every day happenings that make you laugh and Profound thoughts on love, life and marriage. Thats SnippetsnScribbles for you.
4. Chandni: Bohemian Rhapsody has been and continues to be a great place for me to hang out. Lots of fun, interesting tidbits from Chandu land, 55s and heartfelt posts make Chandni more than eligible for this award.

Enjoy ladies! You have truly made blogging a lot of fun for me!

How Bollywood achieved gender equality

In an attempt to achieve gender equality in apna filmdom, it has been reported that all our bollywood leading men have been advised of the following fashion guidelines.

• You will henceforth wax your chest hair and show as much cleavage (if not more) as your heroines. You will of course take full advantage of the one thing you can do in a family movie that your heroines cannot. Go topless! While our Sallu miyan has been the trend setter here, strict warnings have been issued to a certain Kapoor to clean up his act. Here are some illustrative examples.

Good







Better









Best

• Waxing does not stop with chest hair. You will use the sticky goo until you achieve silky smooth legs comparable to your female leads. Once achieved, those fine legs can be displayed on screen while wearing bottoms of variable lengths.

Good








Better (note: this image also shows how not to cover your legs)

Best

• You will style your hair to match that of your female co-stars. This will not only help both hero and heroine look alike but also make life so much easier for hair dressers. We understand this will be a difficult rule to follow but have seen boys men who made it happen.

Perfect !

• You will insist that your director will have at least one song shot on you right after you finish taking a shower and one right after you finish swimming. This has previously been the domain of the lady stars but we have had brave men who have taken up and performed the feats as convincingly as any of those lovely ladies.
  

• 
• You will follow a daily cleansing routine comparable to that of the reigning beauty queens. We appreciate his highness Baadshah Khan for setting up a regimen suitable for all you Bollywood stars.

• You will not be afraid of wearing pink or animal prints like those lovely ladies. Remember, real men wear pink, surreal men wear cheetah prints! Fashion police Payal and Priyanka have shown how animal prints can help you communicate with your ex even while your wife is around.
  

In related news, budding star Riteieiesssh Deshmuuukkkkh has mentioned to a new talk show host that these new fashion rules have helped him get in touch with his feminine side. He was relieved at not having to wear drag ever again.