Gift

It is one of the first few raw writings of mine, much before I learned the nuances of online writing. This article remains my favorite and inspiration as well.

The day I submitted and till date it is rated#1. The reason I presume is sheer truthfulness of the content. It is a piece of writing straight from my heart without an iota of fiction or internet research.

The best electronic gift I ever got

A computer with internet connection is an awesome gift, the best gift I ever got. When I came to United States, initially everything from soaring skyscrapers to fast cars on freeways was all shock and awe for me, but as days passed by, life became routine and quite monotonous. Of and on I used to check emails on my husband's computer, squeezing between his tight work schedules.

It was then my husband realized my loneliness and gifted a laptop, for my exclusive use. Earlier I was not much tech savvy, but over a period of time I became a computer freak. Now its about three years and laptop is my lifeline. It has been a blessing in disguise. Apart from being in touch with friends and family through emails, I can store and share my digital photos too; it serves many other purpose as well.

The laptop really made life easier for me, in pursuing my hobbies, like listening to music, watching movies, reading books, cooking. World Wide Web, as www stands for, has wealth of information; it just needs to be explored. I listen to songs online and if one spends few cents the songs can be downloaded as well, same holds true for movies and books. From Net Banking to get an eticket for a flight the benefits of internet are immense. I have really become net addict, now my day begins and ends working on my laptop.

I presume everyone will agree that Internet ready computer, indeed, is a very useful device in today’s information age and Internet itself is a great invention of all times.

http://www.helium.com/items/732628-the-best-electronic-gift-i-ever-got

Namaste America

On a lazy Saturday morning (2006, Stamford, Connecticut), I get a call from one of my friend to switch on the television and browse the local channel. I followed the instructions and to my delight, bollywood music starts ringing in my ears.

Since then I have become ardent fan of Namaste America, a one hour infotainment each weekend. I am fortunate enough to get the broadcast along with regular cable connection, wherever we have been located.

It is a good mix of latest bollywood music, movie reviews, DVD releases and news from the Indian sub-continent. The most interesting part is behind the scene interviews like making of movies or making of a particular movie song or interview with bollywood stars who now more often premier their movies either in New York or Los Angeles.

It is an interactive program, one can online request for a song or a shoutout. A shoutout is a brief message for loved ones on his/her birthday or anniversary, read aloud by the anchor during the show. Here advertisements are called messages hence shoutout is used for, what we would call a message in plain English.

The advertisements are limited to that of two insurance companies, Nationwide and Farmers, of which most Indians are either customers or agents and of course Wal-Mart, the low price leader.

However much I read online Indian news, bollywood gossip and listen to songs and watch videos on youtube but the television program has altogether a different aura. It summarizes and presents bollywood and India in a nutshell. I can say with conviction, television programs are here to stay despite internet tsunami.

Forrest Gump

A post on fifteen year old movie seems outdated, when Indian film fraternity is going gaga over slumdog millionaire. There are valid reasons too, AR Rahman winning the golden globe, the Indian music with Rahman flavor getting international recognition, indeed an achievement…now back to Forrest Gump.(as I need to watch the movie first, before giving any further inputs)

Though I read the book and watched the movie long time back. I recall it today after reading a news snippet; Aamir Khan will remake Forrest Gump in Hindi. Of late, Aamir has got the latest bug of remaking Hollywood movies. After success of Ghajini, remake of Tamil movie which itself was an adaptation of Memento. All’s well that ends well.

The book, Forrest Gump, by Winston Groom is a good read and academy award winning movie is also awe-inspiring with Tom Hanks at his best performance. The story is about a boy with below average IQ, and how he struggles in life and slowly achieves everything; and wins over Jennie, his childhood sweetheart.

Prior to watching movie and reading book, I dined at Bubba Gump, a seafood restaurant, with specialty in shrimp. The prawns are known as shrimp here and are bigger in size, the big shrimps are sold as jumbo shrimps. The international restaurant chain is inspired from the movie.

The storyline portrays, Bubba, a friend of Forrest Gump, while Gump is enlisted in army during Vietnam war. Bubba always shared his dream of owning a shrimp business, but he succumbs to injuries during war. So Forrest starts the shrimp business to live upto his dreams.

I always wonder how life incidences connect. Everything seems related. Dinner at Bubba Gump, watching movie Forrest Gump, reading the same title and stumble upon bollywood gossip. All four incidences happening at different places at different point of time. I just tried to join few dots together and created this post.

Obama

Hope and Change

An Obama portrait using pennies,nickels and dimes.

source-www.time.com/flickr.

Fortune cookie

Fortune cookie, the best description I can give, is a hollow bland ‘gujiya’ without any filling. The waiter serves it along with the bill in a Chinese restaurant. I find its shape close to bow ties.

It contains, on a piece of paper, one line fortune more like a maxim. My fortune cookie foretells – You will soon bring joy to someone.

We were in for the dinner, which happened to be a buffet. For dessert there was an array of colorful fresh fruit bowls, water-melon, cantaloupes, papaya, grapes, strawberry and mango. Maybe this is the secret of flawless glowing skin and shiny black, straight hair of Chinese people. So my three course meal was over and done with fruits only.

Two things I like about restaurants here, in general -
1. Upon entering any restaurant, the waiter or the manager or the owner of the restaurant greets and asks for the number of guests and accordingly ushers the guests to the table.

2. Most of the restaurants have lunch buffet. Buffet is a safe deal, no surprises and misadventure; there are several starters and desserts to savor and an assortment of main course meal. Accompanying drink needs to be ordered separately. You can have a sumptuous meal to your heart content in one flat rate.

Makar Sankranti

It is 8..30 pm January 14th, another day coming to end. In India it must be the next day after Sankranti. I recall it now as I open Helium.com; a site which I regularly contribute my writings to. It is amazing to find all featured articles on homepage dedicated to Sankranti.

The articles on topics as varied as faith tourism, the international kite festival and introduction to Hindu calendar; add on to the more quintessential articles on Sankranti celebrations in different regions like Lohri in Punjab and Pongal in Tamil Nadu.

The burgeoning Indian population is making Hindus ubiquitous. I had been celebrating Sankranti since childhood savoring til ke laddoos and Kichdi; even today I made for the occasion pretty edible laddoos, but the global importance and presence of Sankranti, I came to know today.

Please click on the picture, to see the article titles. I have really invested time on capturing the web page. First searched for the software; came across snagit, downloaded the trial version.It was okay till here but the actual usage of software, capturing a webpage and publishing in blog took me over two hours and here it goes.

Shamu - The killer whale

(photo from the web)

Shamu, the killer whale is shiny black with white patches near eyes and snow white ventral body. It is the most gorgeous sea creature I have ever seen.

There is a facility called ‘dine with Shamu’; now don’t assume Shamu will be the guest of honor at your table. It is a poolside restaurant along with shamu’s habitat, so one can watch shamu leisurely drifting in water, when it is not performing. The night show, starts just after sunset, with Shamu and two more killer whales. Shamu arrives on stage, somersaulting in and out of water, swirling, twirling, soaring high above water, presenting all high flying thrills.

With amazing speed goes along the edge of pool splashing water on spectators close by, in a similar fashion as dolphins did in afternoon. Shamu show is an augmentation to the dolphin show. The colorful light focusing on water and reflecting on shamu at night, the background orchestra and giant screens made the show even more spectacular. It was like watching a live show and at the same time watching the broadcast too. The stadium for about five thousand spectators was packed to capacity.

Watch shamu right below the white screen and the live telecast on two large screens on either side.
Few more highlights of the show: the trainer galloping on the back of Shamu at lightning fast speed. Next Shamu dragging a trainer hooked to its tail. The energy and speed of Shamu is mind blowing, and same can be said about trainers as well. A trainer dives deep along with Shamu and the very next moment …

(photo from the web)

WOW!!, both emerge out of water with trainer in the air, standing right on the face, to be exact on the mouth of whale, lest it opens the mouth, the trainer will land up inside Shamu somersaulting.I find it awesome and at the same time torture to Shamu.

This is about thirty minutes extravagant Shamu special show during Christmas holidays. The regular 'Believe' show is during the daytime.

There are dolphin and whale watching cruise in the Pacific Ocean, like a jungle safari. Maybe someday, get a chance to relive the sea world experience in the wild too.

Having visited so many tourist attractions here; each is worth time and money spent. The legs start aching, reluctant to move any further, feel dead tired by evening but the exhibits, shows and rides all seem endless. One day is never enough to cover all. So now most places of interest have introduced fun pass which is valid year round. It is always pleasure to discover something new on each return visit and refresh old memories.

Sea World – San Diego

On a visit to sea world, I got familiar with two new aquatic creatures; dolphins and killer whale. The attraction is all about sea specimens, as the title suggests. It is not that rest of creatures like seals, sharks, penguins, sting ray and colorful medley of other aquatic life; are any less important or uninteresting; but now it has been numerous times watching them, at different locales and exhibits. So we devoted much time on dolphins and killer whale during the recent visit and I will write about my adventure with the two.

An encounter with Dolphins.

A bottlenose specie of pacific-dolphin

See in the picture above, dolphin has teeth, eighty to hundred in number, in its big mouth.

Feeding dolphins

Dolphins love to eat fishes and squids. One can purchase, handful of fishes to feed the dolphin right here. Dolphins do not have a nose, hence no sense of smell; but have a blowhole to breathe. It was rather amusing to watch dolphins, periodically and rhythmically squirting water from the blowhole.
(In the picture see the blowhole of dolphin closest to you, mark the hole just behind the long snout, on top of the head.)

Dolphin show

First there is a dolphin encounter where you can touch, feel and feed the dolphins. Then there is a semi-circular stadium with dolphin pool in the center. It is a twenty minutes show. Dolphins by nature are friendly and playful too. Dolphin’s dorsal body is lighter shade of grey, while ventral is off white in color.

The welcome performance, dolphins swim speedily along the pool edge, splashing water with all might using flippers (forelimbs), and tail flukes (fins), covering the semicircular arch in few seconds. The first few rows of the stadium are meant to get wet; it is mentioned as well as forewarned before the show.

Show theme is a volunteer’s encounter with dolphins. The volunteer, fearing pretentiously, seamlessly blending her performance with dolphins. Dolphins exhibited few daring feats, with its flexible, frisky body; each time lifting the body above water; the best was a high jump across the rope, a very high indeed. Surprise in the end, the volunteer was none other than one of the dolphin trainers.

Dolphins are intelligent mammals, maybe easy to train. All dolphins were being rewarded with ample fish, after each accomplishment, I assume this is the way it is trained to perform and excel.

(travelogue to be continued for killer whale)

Library- I knew not

I purposely omitted this part from yesterday’s post for two good reasons; firstly, it was making the post too lengthy and secondly, I found it disoriented from the blog theme.

But after reading Atoorva’s comment I decided to post it today.So let me continue right away from where I cropped it –

***
I indulged in extensive reading not prior to year 2006.Earlier my reading was confined to magazines and newspaper only. I was never deprived of books and libraries in India either but somehow never developed any keen reading interest.

In school, right from sixth grade onwards we had a weekly library period. I remember issuing books by Enid Blyton, PG Wodehouse, Nancy Drew series and Mills and Boon, but seldom read. Here I would like to mention my ever sincere elder sister, she read all library books from cover to cover and even remember her exchanging books with friends and neighbors. Who inspired her? I think it is the basic instinct.

The university I attended had a huge central library, apart from several small departmental libraries. Back then I presume college libraries were meant for learned professors and studious research scholars, purchased text books sufficed for under graduates like me. My hometown also swank a public library in an old colonial era building, yet to be visited, someday definitely, now I am even more eager to visit any public library at the very first opportunity.

It is true library membership was not known to me during early growing years but we had one gentleman, panditji, who did brisk business of door to door, mobile library of magazines. He used to come on alternate days on a bicycle with two bags full of magazines, and lent two magazines at a time.

Newspaper reading was limited to local English daily namely, Northern India Patrika. The Times of India, Delhi edition used to come a day after, in those years (1980s) of slow communication.

During my three year stint in Delhi, I came across makeshift, pavement book lenders. They too have hoards of novel but my preference was always for magazines.

***

Abruptly ends here. I believe, a fine prologue to yesterday's post.

Library

I will dedicate my first writing of 2009 to public libraries of United States. I owe all my writings to the library. I would never be writing this blog today; had I not inculcated reading habit.

I indulged in extensive reading not prior to year 2006.Earlier my reading was confined to magazines and newspaper only. I, myself don’t know, what transformed me into an avid reader; which I never was. It is all circumstantial, having lot of free time and of course availability of books, in plenty.

The library has ample books for all; toddler, children, teenager and adult. Sometimes I just sit and skim through picture books. I also read several autobiographies; abridged version found in children section, from Houdini the magician to Charlie Chaplin the comedian.

The library gave me the chance to watch many old classic movies like, My Fair Lady, Godfather, To kill a mocking bird, Gone with the wind …. There is a vast collection of DVD to select from.In few libraries, there are international movies too, including few Hindi flicks and auditorium for screening them.

One thing amazes me, the movies are also available in VHS cassettes. A Combo DVD and VCD cassette player is available in stores till date.

Internet ready PCs are available, for one hour at a stretch. Library also has a Wi-Fi where one can work for hours together on laptop. This facility is extremely useful when we are new in city and yet to get internet connection at home.

Several other activities like book reading sessions, story time for kids, tuitions for children, computer classes are regularly organized in library.

A different lingo, you don’t issue a book, here you check out a book. If in haste, no need to step inside library, there is a drop box outside library to return books. Fifty items can be checked out at a time. Generally the book is issued for three weeks with few exceptions(new best sellers) and DVDs for a week.

A fine of twenty five cents is charged for overdue material, but then one can access his/her account online and renew books. One can even download audio books and keep a book on hold for future reading, from the comfort of home.

There is a book store inside library. Patrons and so called friends of library donate used books to the store as well as library .Volunteers are always welcome for arranging and maintaining books.

One may find old people leisurely reading inside library. India Today and Times of India are found,in magazines and newspaper section, in most of the libraries.

For elderly members, there is large print edition for select few(hundreds) novels befitting their age. I remember how my grandfather use to struggle with magnifying glass for reading, in his latter years. Americans come out with unique solution for any infinitesimal problem.

Reading results in lot of learning, otherwise it is not possible to experience everything, first hand, in this short life span. Books not only help us to understand human psychology and relationships better but also introduce us to different cultures, religions, historic events…

To conclude, the saying “Books are (wo)man’s best friends” aptly suits me now.

Happy New Year

Random rambling with colors