Maya's adventures in Life

On My BookShelf Today: Deepak Chopra

2011-05-06T22:35:00.000-07:00

Hari met Deepak Chopra recently and get me signed copy of his new book of soulful leadership. I finally found some time to read this morning.

30 pages done already - Anybody that knows of my reading habits can vouch that this is great progress for me!

The unfinished tattoo story

2011-04-16T05:28:00.000-07:00

Image Courtesy: Unique Tattoos Here is the tattoo I fell in love with recently. I am still waiting to get it done. Suggestions of good tattoo artists in Mumbai anyone? The experience with Al's in Bandra turned out to be completely disappointing...so the tattoo still awaits :(

Harajuku Shopping

2010-11-22T11:03:00.001-08:00

After 4 years of planning and anticipation, we finally made it over to Japan. Given where I work, one of my colleagues had chanted the name Harajuku in my ear atleast 5 times saying I must visit. Never under estimate the power of affirmation ;-)!

Once in Tokyo, I found myself feeling a burning urge to go to Harajuku - still cant explain why.

The narrow brightly lit lane dotted with adorable stores was hard to resist. As luck would have it, my shoes fell apart as we started walking down Harajuku. Conveniently it was right outside a shoe store! I call it 'meant to be', Hari calls it ' the cheat in me' - either which way, I was forced to walk in and buy a pair of cool suede boots.
It took over an hour to find a pair of boots that fit me. Serves me right for taking my giant Ogre feet to a fashion forward store in a country where women have the tiniest of feet that have stayed wrapped up in Japanese silk booties for very long.....

Love our new place!

2010-03-17T22:19:00.001-07:00

We finally moved to a dream place in Mumbai. The sort that Hari and I feel like we have wanted and aspired to for a long time. To my utmost and innermost joy it is in my favourite Bandra area and to Hari's utmost joy, he is close to the sea again (He grew up living close to the Sea). I am itching to order more contemporary yumm furniture and rugs and art!! Boconcept, Urban Decor, here we come!

Antara has got her long awaited baby room in blue and green with a lovely pottery barn style while bed. She is waiting to inagurate it soon!

Most of all, Hari has his long dreamt of DEN! Oozing masculanity with Red black and steel !

Here is a sneek peak - More pictures coming later..

Geek! Marketing! - Labels Labels

2010-02-05T11:28:00.000-08:00

After a long long time.....here I am - once again - back to my dear blog.

While its been a cool 4+ years in Mumbai, professionally, the quest for a befitting 'label' continues.

Starting at Google in India, I was labeled 'Marketing' (to be said aloud with a healthy sound of cynicism in your voice and a look suggestive of impending evil). All the friendly engineers will slap that label on me occasionally along with suggestions of flowery language and commercial packaging in the same sentence ;-)

Moving next to Stylkist, here of course, I wore the halo label - 'entrepreneur'. This label carries a kind of cache which cannot be explained. You are suddenly cool, and sub-optimal working conditions add further to the coolness quotient.

Coming now to the label at hand - 'A Techie with a creative side' - When you work at a temple of fashion, style and luxury (Vogue India / GQ India) and particularly when you preach social networking and the digital way of life, it isn't surprising that a label such as 'A Techie..' has come about. The reference to the creative side is a huge compliment!

And the labels continue to pile up. Wonder what the next intriguing one will be!

Reclaiming our Entertainment and our Marriage! Phew….12 months in….

2009-06-05T09:39:00.000-07:00

We moved into our rented apartment in Khar last year. I know its been exactly one year now since we just re-signed a lease for another year’s extension.

When we moved in, we had a lot of things already set up by the landlords – phone, internet, cable etc. By the time we had moved in all our furniture and settled in, we turned our attention to Hari’s favourite object in the house – the TV! After furious flipping through the channels, we discovered we had no Travel and Living Channel. OMG, it felt like our entertainment lifeblood was snatched away from us. We called the cable guy and used all tactics possible – Requesting in a sweet voice, feigning ignorance and saying “ Ummmm…there is something wrong with the cable….the Travel channel isn’t working …blink blink….!”, yelling like a Behenji, and even threatening legal action by taking the matter up with the consumer bureau. But of course nothing worked. Apparently, the cablewallas had the right to choose what channels you got to watch and what you didn’t.

So we disgruntledly trotted on with no t&L. We did have the option of installing satellite TV or a set top box to get it but we weren’t sure if it was worth the hassle since we were renting.

One year later, Hari and I realized that our marriage was not the same anymore. We hardly spent any time together on weekday evenings. Of-course having a toddler around and a fledgling business to take care of didn’t help matters.
One day, we hit upon the realization that the ONE and ONLY channel that we both loved watching together was Travel and Living. Also given the amount of Wanderlust that is festering inside us at any given time meant that without T&L, we were seriously starved of entertainment.

So after one year of being deprived, we decided to get a set top box to get T&L. The story doesn't end there….the installation happened and we got access to 200odd channels. Bad signal quality seemed to be affecting just a handful but hey, we didn’t care about that if we had T&L right? Oh No! If only life were that easy! T&L was in the handful of channels missing…along with some other Bhojpuri and Telegu channels which we would have never missed one bit.

So another 2 days of installation and 6 meters of additional cable later, we finally had T&L – Hooooooooray! And life has never been nicer. So much more time is made in the day to lounge and watch – Amazing vacation homes and drool over Antony Bourdain(‘s cooking of course ☺) that our marriage has got the uplift it needed. One bloody TV channel is what it takes….hmmm!

Back from a break

2009-02-17T18:58:00.001-08:00

It has been looooooooooong since I blogged. Its not like I havent wanted to or that the break has been intentional or conscious....Anyway, I have found a brief 15 minutes to breathe after a long time so here is my 2009 resolutions post - only 1.5 months too late but hey, better late then never right?

So, my #1 resolution for the year - To do the valley of flowers trek in the Himalayas this year...somewhere mid-year is when the blowers there are in full bloom, making it a visual treat. So if anyone is interested in joining, let me know....

Source: Vanamaliashram.org

The other resolutions are more the usual boring sorts - I will spare you the details.

Lazy Sunday comes one day early :-)

2008-11-01T00:05:00.000-07:00

I woke up in bed today (a Saturday) wishing we were in a hotel or a bed and breakfast....The reason being that I was yearning for a large scrumptous breakfast - and that too the effort free kind. The dream quickly got very specific - Masala Omlette appeared and some croisont and toast with butter and jam and then some fruit and juice and finally a pot of hot chocolate.

Hari and I for a few months had been keeping up our sunday breakfast routine going but in the last two months, the sunday breakfasts had died....

So today, given my dream and all.....we ambled over toe Crepe Station nearby paying due respects on the way to the crows, cats and dogs since Antara was around...and got us our lazy Saaturday breakfast table!! Yay!

I managed to get all except the Croisont for my breakfast....quite sumptous I must say...What a treat to literally live your dream. Lazy Sunday came one day early after all!

On the wrong side of 30

2008-08-27T05:56:00.001-07:00

Some weeks ago, i graduated from twenty something to the wrong side of thirty. Not sitting on the fence anymore. I am now firmly mature/ old / middle-aged or whatever you may want to call it.

But to be honest, I didn't feel bad for even a minute about turning 30. In fact it felt liberated. I looked back at my twenties and realized what a whale of a time I had had with my partner in crime. To top it all, I even had the baby before the big 3 0 .....even the aunts and grandmothers cant complain!!

I am only hoping that the 30s turn out to be even more exciting :-)

I want MORE TRAVEL, MORE HIKES/ TREKS/ RAFTING and the works, MORE DANCING, MORE WRITING and MORE AMBITION and MORE fun times with the family.

I don't believe in new year resolutions but I did feel the urge to do a Birthday / new decade resolution - to write a book...ah ah ah.....almost got away with that......To write and PUBLISH a book. And a novel at that, no serious preachy crap from me.

I am trying to decide in the book title.....suggestions anyone?

Celebrating turning 30 with the Hubby in Udaipur.

Living in the past

2008-06-25T12:33:00.000-07:00

I realized in a not-very-dramatic Aha moment yesterday that I was so living in the past. Thinking of my friends in San Francisco, Thinking of Hari and I backpacking, Thinking of partying at INSEAD, Thinking of Monsoon hikes near Mumbai...
Truth be told, its been anywhere from two to 10 years ago that these things were happening in our lives. I had just gotten used to ' Oh, Life is busy' or 'Life is just not the same now that we are parents' excuses. My resolution since yesterday has been to get back to living every moment to the fullest today. So it was great talking to Yoonmi yesterday, re-connecting with my extended family, just chilling with Hari and dancing away at Subhayu's sangeet.
No more, just reminisching the past.......will let you know how succesful I turn out to be with this resolve.

She Walks, Bites and Dances!

2008-06-09T03:55:00.001-07:00

Its time to do an Antara update - at the risk of being one of those typical moms who cant make conversation about anything other than the baby...

Antara is in her 11th month and took her first steps on her own last week. She also got her first tooth (lower middle), which is so adorable. Being the affectionate creature that she is, when she kisses you now, you get a free bite along with......simply cos she doesn't know how to control her tooth/ kiss/ bite...She gawks confusedly as Hari and I yelp and scream in pain of having been bitten every time she kisses us now :-)

A picture of her with me below when she came along for the 'Bring your kid to work day!'

Tokyo - San Fran - Sydney

2008-05-14T13:45:00.000-07:00

The last 3 months have seen a bit of travel and I have gone to various developed parts of the world.... To be honest I like the developing part better but these were still quite fun. Tokyo and Sydney I had not been to before...

Tokyo

In the short amount of time I spent in Tokyo for work complete with apprehension of being away from Antara for the first time and hoping and praying that she wasnt going to hold it against me for the rest of her life....Tokyo for was quite fun. I didnt really get to do much sight-seeing. Whatever I saw of Tokyo was very modern and ultra efficient. Although, as you drove over the bridges, you would get to peep into offices that were still full of people at 8pm; with a large number of people crammed into a small space with the seniorish looking guy getting the tabel by the window.

You would also catch glimpses of a lazy looking canal over which the hustle and bustle of Tokyo is built. There were no traces of the traditonal Japan in Tokyo proper other than beautiful and ornate lampshades on tall well maintained lamp poles. I couldnt get a good picture of it....which is a pity. Incidentally buddy Nishant had flown in from the US for some work and his better half was going to join him the day after I left. We managed to catch up for a quick dinner. So i dragged the GQ-esque Nish and we went to Asakusa - a part of Tokyo which is supposed to still have some of the old-Japan feel. Most things were closed by the time we got there but we did enjoy a nice dinner in a hole in the wall little shanty where a hospitable couple running the restaurant put up with our quirky requests in English and served us a nice meal.

San Francisco

It was great fun being back in SF. This time along, Hari and Antara had come along, so it was fantastic! It was a bit of a re-union with the old adda for Hari. For me, it was getting my fill and catching up with all the people we have left behind there...

Time with my aunt and uncle and their little brats who got along famously with Antara was super cool and super fun.. Antara had a blast getting roughed up and playing with the boys. She turned out to be quite the show-off as well. It was not funny how many toys she took away while leaving their place.

It was also a reunion of sorts with the old gang. Its amazing how I didnt feel very disconnected with them all....if felt so comfortable as soon as we all got together. I guess thats what happens when you know these folks for over 8 years. So Praf and Janvi were pregnant at the time (baby Dhruv is here now...so CONGRATULATIONS) and VJ and Poonam had gotten married. We loved their cool funky pad. Nish and Chinni got formally engaged...how beautiful and we got to be there! They house is super elegant as well. Antara cruised in and out of lunches, dinners, engagement parties and more with sheer elegance. And we also got to catch up with Tina & Nasir over a 4pm dinner (hadn't done that since Utah!!) and also had coffee with Deborah...!

Wait, its not done. We met dear dear Aparna who had flown down from Chicago, timing her trip to co-incide with ours. And we met her little darling Mira! It had been two yers since I last saw her through it didnt quite feel that long. The last day, we spent in Nipun and Aarti's place (another kickass home) and kicked back and relaxed.

It was the most people packed weekend I had ever had but boy its something I will remember for a long long time....it felt so good!

Sydney

Sydney was more a quick jaunt for work again. This time, I left Antara with a bit more ease but with still the same amount of guilt to deal with.....9 months old, teething and saying "ammma" in a slow pronounced manner with an obvious pout...!

Again, my experience of Sydney was restricted to the downtown Sydney area. We went to dinner at a restaurant that had a lovely view of both the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge (Check and Check on my tourist list). I managed to sneak a quick trip to the museum of Contemporary art which was fun. There was a gallery dedicated to a Aussie artist /photographer called Fiona Hill who made interesting weaves of stuff from shreded coke cans to destroyed VCR tapes.

I also went shopping for a bit. The entire experience felt a bit like the US but honestly I havent done Sydney any justice...But the one funny thing was that I walked into an Opal store and as soon as the shop-keeper saw me, she said oh Indian? Let me show you to the cheap stuff here (!!##!!) - The White Opals....(basically devoid of any colour or interesting texture). She also went on to say, look white opal will look good on black backgrounds like your dark skin :-)

Anyway, aside from that not much else that was interesting.

More on the other bits in Life soon.....

Spa Whores

2008-02-10T00:44:00.000-08:00

Hari and I gifted ourselves a late anniversary gift by catching a couples massage at the Hyatt last weekend. As I was getting my massage, my thoughts started wandering thinking of all the spas Hari and I have been to and which one would be the best, so to speak...

Thats when I realized, there is no doubt.....We are spa whores!!
Here is the list - not in any particular order (cant believe how much money has gone to spas from our kitty.....we need to start a savings account just for spa visits at this rate)

Ten Thousand Waves Japanese Spa in New Mexico

http://www.tenthousandwaves.com/

Mandara Spa in Maldives

White Sulphur Springs Spa in Napa Valley

Nusa Dua Spa in Bali

An then there all the amazing ones whose names I cant remember like the two different spas we went to in Cambodia, the one in Goa, the reflexology in Singapore, the spa in the hotel we stayed in in Bangkok, the foot massage on the beach from a friendly south Indian in Baga beach in Goa, and the funky Japanese spa in San Francisco (which is known for its baths as much as for their massages). Anyway, not all spa experiences have been fun.

Once Hari and I went to an airport spa at Hong Kong airport where a couple of friendly Hong Kong Chinese beat us up black and blue in the pretext of a massage all for only $25......Our parents still make fun of us about this :-(

And then there was this Ayurvedic spa that I went to in Mumbai with Hari's mom. It was meant for us to just hang out and chill. I had never tried Ayurveda before so there was added excitment about that as well! Turns out....Ayurveda is the most hyped and over-rated healing/ massage technique ever!!!!!! They poured buckets of oil on me from an overhanging pot. yes, it was supposed to awaken my third eye but I was more worried that I would slide and fall off the table with all the oil that I never could relax and let my third eye do its thing. To top it off......You get to enjoy being totally oily moily for 3 days after!!! Grrrrrr.... As you can see Ayurveda and I still have issues to sort out.

But coming pack to the point, Hari and I are officially spa whores now...

Of proposals, engagements and anniversaries

2008-01-24T09:32:00.000-08:00

This week has seen a whirlwind of activity on the romance front! Best friend Subhayu wrote saying he was engaged...(cant wait to meet his fiance; She was a junior at my school). Then came the email from Rats saying he is engaged!!!!! Now there drops the last of my friends who was completely unattached up until now:-) I see a bunch of weddings coming up. Come to think of it, Nish & Chini's wedding will also happen sometime this year I suppose...

Now that the exciting young romance bits are done, lets come to the oldies....

Three wedding anniverseries in a matter of 3 days. Aparna & Ankur celebrated their second; Swapna and Varun their first and Hari and I our fifth (hmmm....we sound so old)

Well, congrats and happy anniversary to you all! What would we do without our sweethearts!

The Year that was.....

2007-12-29T21:27:00.000-08:00

You know you have hit a new phase in your life when your better half suggests you need phsychiatric help ;-) Life has been a mad mad roll in 2007. Here is my official annual update (which seems to be the fun thing to do these days as Xmas rolls by).

We started 2007 fresh from having found out we are going to be parents soon. Of course it wasn't like we hadn't thought through how it would be to be parents ....but the reality hit us.....errrrr....me (to be specific) hard..With parents and family on a new high, Hari and I went off to Goa for a vacation we had planned a while back. I pensively sipped into my Margaritas on the Pristine South Goa beaches and picked on little starfish in the sand and the long weekend seemed to fly by without realizing. Hmm....as it turned out....the vacation was a babymoon

After being back in Mumbai, I quickly realized that I had so not made the most of Goa and its lovely beaches.....So we quickly planned another trip back there to re-do our babymoon without me being dazed this time around :-). Employee discounts from Hari's employer - a travel company came in handy! Goa was a blast this time around....

Then came the phase when Hari and I struggled to stay away from partying, eating Chinese food, trying to avoid (unsuccessfully)Thai food and not traveling thanks to our Gyneac's advice.

Time ticked on very slowly as I kept getting bigger, grumpier and on a permanent short fuse (Sorry Hari:-))

Finally July came along and amid massive confusion as to what our due date would be, Antara waltzed out in true style. The next 3 months were a dizzying routine of feeding, putting to sleep, changing and cleaning (which unlike popular perception is not that tough to get used to...).

The last quarter of this year has been the phase when Hari, Antara and I have come to a happy medium. We hang out with most of our friends at home so Antara doesnt miss us, I have gotten back to work, we took 4 month old Antara to Bangkok with us, watched tons of DVD movies (Jab We Met rocked) hosted a fun Xmas party with my sis, our friends and her friends as well and even got back to our beloved Golds Gym (working out on the weekends). One thing to note is that, we now find ourselves singing Nursery rhymes in our shower!!!!!!!!! (Not sure if I have come to terms with that though)

The other cool happening this year was seeing the transformation of my sis from the baby of the house to the responsible and loving aunt (am still floored by the responsible bit ;-)) as well as the babysitting t0 make room for Maya & Hari's clubbing urges, and other cool stuff like getting off her ass (finally) and buying a guitar, signing up for salsa lessons and cool stuff like that......

I has taken a while getting used to the new life but we are thrilled to now be a table of 3 and cant picturize life without Antara.....so all is well....(do i still need physchiatric help?? Lets wait and see:-))

BTW, The first annual update I had seen was a few years ago from dear friend Aarts. This year has kind of been out of control....a very sweet fun annual recap from Amy & Henry; A whacky annual update of demographics and phycographic breakdown of their friends from collegue Samir; and a tripped out up update from Tina and Nasir....

5 Things..........

2007-12-19T08:59:00.001-08:00

Tags are fun because they force you to take a break from taking a break from blogs and get back to frequent blogging:-) A new job and little Antara have been keeping me fully occupied; so much so that Poor Hari and my blogging have had to be a bit patient with me.

Ok, So Hari tagged me to write about 5 things...

5 Things in my Bag:

* My tablet laptop which is seemingly nice but with a little use, it became painfully obvious that I have to squint to see anything on my screen.

* An mp3 player with voice recorder which I bought many moons ago for work purposes (needed a voice recorder). This recorder, sicne we are talking about it, has a rubber coating which has now melted due to exposure to sunlight and had accidentally (I honestly dont know how) caught a piece of chewing gum on it which dried and left a mark even after being peeled off.

* 5 Thumbdrives (one branded Standard Chartered, a couple branded Google, One Kensington and another random one)

* A woollen scarf stuffed into the side making the bag look inflated for the cold office and for the cold flights when i have to do day trips for work

* A few electricity bills that I have paid through online banking but have invariably forgotten to put away

5 Things in my wallet:

* 8 Protographs of Antara; 7 Photographs of moi and 3 Photographs of Hari (in his Lebonese disguise)

* A California drivers license in the name of Maya Hari and an Indian drivers license in the name of Maya Mani

* Cash in Rs 500 denominations (the ATM doesnt give me anything smaller and the taxi drivers that take me to work in the morning each day hate me, actually loathe me for it.)

* Random visiting cards of - A nanny agency in Mumbai, A home loan agent, a sculpture store Hari and I had visited in Bali and a friendly shopkeeper that runs a stationary and electronics store in South Mumbai who will drive two hours to deliver reams of printer paper for the home printer if needed (God bless him). Other than the shopkeeper, the other cards, I realize I really need to throw away.

5 things in my room:

* My hubby - My sustenance

* Clothes piled up strategically behind the curtain on the window ledge that needs ironing

* The little creature that comes attached to Hari and I these days.....uhmmm.....what do you call it......oh yeah...Antara!!! And a humongous crib that comes with the creature.

* An elegant FabIndia laundry basket that I am very proud of

* Two pieces of art in blue and green tones (One - a woman's face painted by artist Shan-Merry in Watercolours

Babudom in India ? Think again....

2007-12-04T04:35:00.001-08:00

Twice over now I have had to brush shoulders at close quarters with India's babudom. With much trepidation, the first time over, I went to the local municipal office for applying for Antara's birth certificate. i had read horror stories online about the start of bureaucracy in a person's life happening with birth certificate related red tape. Much to my utter surprise, I walked into a closely guarded air conditioned office where a number of folks were sitting neatly in a queue (surprise surprise - there was enough and comfortable seating there). A woman officer policed the queues and even policed the officers at the counters from accepting any bribe! Everything was computerized. Within 3-5 days of a baby being born the registration file is automatically sent to the local municipal office and you can access this from any municipal office in the country....Now if you are like me, you are probably gaping with your mouth open or falling off the chair right now. Anyway, what was even better was that you ordered any number of copies you wanted of the document (mouth open wider?) and they are instantly printed out in good quality colour print outs!!

I was impressed and thought it surely must be a one off, championed by the head of one department in the government who had been visionary etc...much like a Rudi Guliani in NY or the guy that managed the delhi airport project.

Then came the time when Hari and I had to register our flat in Mumbai. Registration office was computerized and fully loaded with cornea scanners, state of the art printers, thumbprint scanners and digicams....

So, no more babudom posts on my blog!!!!

Celebrity Magnet

2007-10-29T20:25:00.000-07:00

The other day, the Hari family in its new group size of 3 took a weekend trip to meet the grandparents-in-law.on both the to and fro legs of the journey we had some celebrities on our flight. Actors and theatre personalities Naseeruddin and Ratna pathak Shah were heading to Bangalore for the annual theatre festival there. At the BLR airport, Ratna pathak Shah got one glimpse of Antara and stopped to smile and say hi.Ms dum dum that I was, I dazedly walked past Ratna and realized a split second too late!!!!

On the way back musical maestro and flute player Balamurali Krishna went through security check the same time as us. This time I was on high celebrity alert to avoid a boo boo like last time...just in case...ANTARA worked her magic again and he turned to talk to her...errr...us.
After exchanging pleasanteries, I walked towards Hari who was by now convinced that I was slowly going crazy.

Anyway, moral of the story...Antara is a B level celeb magnet..who would have thunk it.

Of Tags and Dreams

2007-10-13T08:16:00.001-07:00

So Sreejita has tagged me (how fun!) and asked me to write about my dreams (the sleeping kind).

Now, speaking I am not much of a dreamer, other than the days when I have overeaten by massive proportions:-). Side question: Did you know that dreams are most often caused due to indigestion?
Anyway, the few times that I have had dreams, they have been violent, morbid and generally involving a family member. I am honestly not sure what to make of it. If you have any ideas, definitely comment!

There has been one such dream which seemed to go on for hours. In the dream, Hari was an innocent victim of a clash between factions of a violent local political party in Mumbai. He was stabbed and taken to a local hospital....I got a phonecall from a good samaritan and in true Hindi movie style, I ran on the streets in panic, all the way to the hospital (which in reality is a 45 min car ride in non commute hours). Anyway, Hari is fine, it was just a dream and we had a good laugh over it.

Anpther dream I had a few years ago, when I was living in California, had slightly more embarrassing consequences. I had one of those early morning 4am kind of dreams. It was my dad this time around. Its been a while...I cant remember exactly what happened in the dream but it was some kind of disaster. I remember I had woken up in a sweat. It felt so real. i had to make sure my dad was ok. I called his office landline. Landlines in India didnt typicallyhave caller id at the time....of course, just my luck, my dad's company was in the monority that had caller id. My dad saw a call at 3.30 pm from his daughters house in california. He picks up with a hurried-worried hello? and having heard his voice and ascertaining that he was ok, I put the phone down. Blank calls happen all the time....i thought to myself. I had hardly turned away from the phone to go back to bed, that the phone rang. I froze....picked up and of course it was a very very worried dad....I couldnt come up with any intelligent reason for calling so just told him, I must have speed dialed accidentally since the hone was next to me.....INGENIOUS!!! :-(
Dad probably thought I was starting to lose it...

Anyway, no such dreams in recent times.....not while i was pregnant, not now.....I am generally so tired by the time i hit the bed that no bad dreams dare enter my head...

Ok, so that was my dreams story. I tag Hari, Priyankka and Rayo......Dream on......

Bureaucrats driving corruption in india?

2007-10-13T06:12:00.000-07:00

Recently, I had to head to the police station to get police
authorization for antara's passport application (the extra perks of
motherhood:-)). Anybody who knows the average police babu knows what a
joy this could be. Armed with my cynicism and my proactive anger, I
drudged along to the local chowki only to find, to my amazement, that the sub-inspector there had filled out all the paperwork for Antara's passport and was waiting for me to sign at a few places and ask a few quick questions....
A little stunned by the unexpected efficiency, I mumbled through the answers and tried to regain my composure. Next the guy sent me off to photocopy the form and bring back. He needed Antara's thumb print on it and I though to myself....here comes the hassle. He didnt tell me he needed Antara in person there. I will now have to go back and wake the sleeping child and bring her back!!!! (grrrrr....). Instead he offered to come to our place with me to collect the little one's thumb print!!!!!!! Shocker of all shockers!! an efficient AND considerate policeman. Could this really be true?

photo courtesy : bandra-mumbai.com

He asked me if I could wait for 10 minutes, so he can assist another couple who had brought their 6 year old for the same purpose I was there. I obliged. He was equally polite to the couple and explained everything patiently. The couple had forgotten to bring the original copy of the birth certificate and he offered to wait till the next morning for it. The woman, was dressed in a crisp formal sari and neat shoes. She was fiddling around with her blackberry pearl as the inspector shuffled through their documents. She looked like she headed a market research firm of some sort....(dont ask my exactly why market research.....she just looked the type)
The guy was dressed in formals and was politely listening to the sub inspector and said he would be happy to come back witht he right documents. Just as he said that, his wife shot him a vicious 'you are such a loser' look. She then gestured to him with her hands to offer money/ a bribe to the policeman so they didnt need to come back the next day. He hubband looked helpless. He didnt seem to agree but he seemed scared to disobey and also was well aware that the wifey had dumped the dirty work on him.

Anyway, ultimately, the policemen didnt accept the bribe and they had to come back the next day. So much for educated, well to do young professionals doing the right thing by their country and so much for organizations like the police being bureaucratic, corrupt and inefficient. No more stereotypes for me....!

High-Low

2007-10-01T22:13:00.000-07:00

Hari and I had borrowed a cool concept from the 1999 Bruce Willis, Michelle Pfiefer starrer called The Story of Us.

Every once in a while, hari and I check in on each others high and low moments.....And almost always one of the answers will surprise us.

So anyway, time for a High-Low moments with Antara check -

High: When she flashes one of her toothless gummy smiles

Low: When I stubbornly fight her to feed from a bottle occasionally and LOSE

High: When she finds comfort in Hari or my arms and stops crying right away

Low: When I cant seem to talk to anyone in a normal voice anymore (the cooing, high pitched tone I use with Antara doesn't go away)

High: When Hari and I can chill at home and sip coffee over the weekends with our friends who come over

Low: When we try all we might but cant bring ourselves to leave Antara with the nanny to go watch a movie, get a massage at a spa or go clubbing!!

The good thing is that there are as many highs or more than there are the lows, so its all good....Cant wait to strap Antara on our back and head off on a monsoon hike in the hills of Matheran.

Fun One-Liners

2007-09-17T23:40:00.000-07:00

"I would rather be pissed off than pissed on" - credits Hari

"Orkut, Facebook, LinkedIn; How much more social can I get?" - credits Nishant

All in the family

2007-09-16T04:30:00.000-07:00

In a funny evolution of our careers, Hari, me and Priyankka (my sis) hae now ended up in the same and small internet industry in India. Funnily enough, each of our companies at the time this post is written are in inter-related stage companies in the internet value chain. So, we end up meeting the same people, meeting each other at conferences, calling on each other for sales calls and more!

The funny thing is that when we meet and hang out, we gossip about work and folks we work with.
Who would have thunk this would happen inspite of not being in a family business :-))

Woohoo

2007-09-04T10:13:00.000-07:00

India has been voted as the worlds favourite country to visit in a survey by CondeNaste Traveller no less. Ok, you guys (you know I am refering to you), no more excuses. If I havent seen you since INSEAD and I have made excuses for not visiting your country, thats ok; but you cant afford to do the same :-)

http://www.livemint.com/2007/09/04200136/India-voted-travellers8217.html

compliment like no other

2007-08-23T03:51:00.000-07:00

The other day, I was in the middle of serious disussions on the industry and strategy and BS like that (As i have indiated already, thats the only way for me to stay balanced and keep goo gooing and ga gaing to Antara

Anyway, in the middle of this conversation, I let it slip that Antara came 6 weeks ago

My friend : " can we digress for a minute?"
Me: "Sure"
My friend : " Where in Bandra are you going to lose weight after delivery?"
Me: (confused) " Nowhere, I am not allowed to exercise until the end of 6 weeks" - (proceeding to go into too much detail as usual) " Since I had a c-section, I am not allowed to exercise - you see.............
My friend : (cutting me off politely)"Then, a special diet?"
Me: " Nope, not really" (more confused)
My friend : "The reason I ask is that my wife had our baby 4 months ago and is struggling to lose the pregnany weight - I could not have guessed that you are a recent mom............."
Me: " Oh! (blush), I guess I am just pure lucky! (on cloud nine!)

I pro.ceeded to stay on cloud nine for a few hours after that :-)

This was definitely a compliment like no other - Especially so after aunts and family kept looking at me int he early post delivery days and saying, yeah, it will take a while for that tummy to go - poor you, cant wear a tummy belt even, bcos of the c-section! Hope you dont get stuck with it! (Grrrrr!)

So the compliment from my friend was like sweet revenge :-)

Alice in Wonderland:

2007-08-16T10:32:00.000-07:00

Thats how I see myself being on maternity leave currently
After having a produtive goal each day professionally or personally, to trying to get up and get bathed and bathe antara before lunch time is a big change ;-)

Thanks to the internet, instant messaging and my slowly dying laptop, I am still somewhat in touch with the outside world

Funny as it may sound, I read both babycenter.com and Mckinsey Quarterly's newsletters with equal ease and gusto these days

Antara Aka 'Pebbles' Hari makes a grand entry

2007-07-26T03:10:00.000-07:00

Just short of 9 months of kicking, head butting and several other weird movements inside my tummy later, Antara Hari decided to make an entry on July 14th. The exuberant yet worried dad joined me in the Operation Theatre and was the first one to receive his daughter.

A blow by blow account of the delivery proceedings is on Hari's blog. (Warning, not for feint-hearted adults and pregnant women)

She is affectionately called Pebbles (Of Pebbles and Bam Bam fame) inspite of the grandparent's perplexed looks.

Happy July! Bon Julliet!

2007-07-05T01:25:00.000-07:00

July is finally here. It has always been my favourite month of the year. Perhaps earlier on this was the case because my birthday comes in July. But as time went by, I realised July was just a nice month in general. First of all, take the name...July: short, sweet and sounds even nicer in French....Julliet! (pronounced 'Juyi-yay')

Back when I was in school, June was when school opened for the year. That used to be the month of anxiety. Have we got all the books? Have they been covered with brown paper in time for inspection? Old uniforms looked shorter; new uniforms looks too long!! Where was I going to sit in the new class? What section? Are my friends with me in the same section? And so on.......
By the time July came around, it was clam and familiar and enjoyable. Rains would take over. And it was always fun to see puddles of rain water in the school backyard. Exams were too far to worry about just then. There was always this perfectly peaceful lull through school time in July. I could get lost in my dream world at ease....

Then came college times, July was when college re-opened each year. The gang and I would go on Monsoon hikes and hang out at local food joints for hours on end...again...blissful.

Once I moved to the US, my first July spent there was in CA on an internship. Hari and I would collect any friends or acquaintances in sight and ride off on weekend trip after weekend trip to enjoy the sunny California summer.

So, you see...I have had no reason to believe otherwise. July is a blissfully delicious month. Happy July. And also a very Happy Birthday in advance to the tons of leo friends who share this birthday month with me!!!

My recent pic

2007-06-25T23:47:00.000-07:00

Many of you have been upset with me for not sharing a nice side profile pic of me right now. Here is one....after a lot of coaxing from Aparna :-)

Monsoon is here :-)

2007-06-23T00:21:00.001-07:00

The rains are here in Mumbai. I am hoping for a normal rainy season with the dramatic floods and disasters of the last 2 years. The weather is so romantic and fun...I am so excited!!
I have two more weeks of work before I start maternity leave but I am working from home for these two weeks. You can be sure I will be sitting and working by my window watching the clouds and the rain coming down! In a way I am glad that the baby will be a monsoon baby:-)

Umbilical Cord for a Cause

2007-06-19T08:17:00.002-07:00

Hari and I have finally made it official. We are donating our umbilical cord at the baby's birth for stem cell research. We heard so much about this when we were in the US and could never quite understand the republican stand on not supporting stem cell research.
Back in India, it is amazing the number of life sciences labs that work on storing cord blood and working on cures for diseases.

So far according to Lifecell (the labs we are donating the cord to), the diseases that stem cells can already cure include - Acute Lukemia, Acute Anemia, B-Thallesemia and many other versions of these that I dont understand.

Some imminent cures for which trials are underway include -Diabetes, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinsons, stroke, cardiac disease and Spinal cord injusry.

Future cures could be Alzheimers and Rheumetoid arthritis.....

Third Trimester Mumbo Jumbo

2007-06-01T02:06:00.000-07:00

So, I have had an overwhelming number of requests (exaggeration here made to inflate the supposed readership of my blog) to share more about my experiences of going to be a mom and stuff. I think it became obvisous to many that maybe I wasnt being so free with information about the pregnancy and baby stuff.... so here goes..

Hari and I went to our sonography a few days ago - The baby is doing well and the doc says...it is moving about a lot!! I could have told him that, given that I face the brunt of an overactive baby's internal squirming every time I turn on my side to sleep comfortably at night. Anyway, the baby looks great. We noticed she / he has Angelina Jolie kind of lips. For its own sake, I hope the baby is a she now :-).

My mom has been actively sorting out our life this trimester - After a tap into her tamil friends network and a few 10s of phone calls, she hooked us up with a fantastic south Indian meal delivery (dabba) service for dinner each night. Hari has been working long hours and I have been dissipating my energy during the day at a rapid pace. So not having to cook at night and yet coming home to a hot home cooked meal is a blessing! Mom has also lined up a nanny for use once the baby is here. I think I need a seperate post dedicated to mom to do justice to how amazing she is!

I now am puffy, round and waddling like a penguin. I typically throw my hands up in the air and just wait for Hari to get up when the doorbell rings or when something falls down or at any point for that matter.....
Hari mimics me and follows me around walking like a penguin swaying from side to side and cracks up laughing half way through :-(

Life is on the cusp of change for us. I think we are going on with the motions knowing this but I dont think it will fully hit us or sink in until the baby is here. These are the last two months of Hari and my DINK status and we plan to maximize it to the fullest. Do I hear another cocktail party plan coming about?........

The day David Vergara took me out to lunch

2007-05-26T04:22:00.001-07:00

I was at dinner with friends- Swapna and Varun who have recently moved office spaces. Swapna was relating an incident when she said she had bought a new accessory for her cube - a mirror (Dont ask....yes, its a weird accessory, but if you knew Swapna, it wouldnt seem weird. She has an explanation for everything :-)). She mentioned how normally her cubicle is so bare.

This conversation triggered off a memory from the year 2000 in San Jose, California. It was my first job after school in a French company. Everyone wore suits. I bet I was the youngest employee in the office. I reported into an adorable Italian Director of Marketing, Luca. He was great but he spoke very measuredly. The office was generally very quiet except for this one admin guy who would appear to be loudly chatting away on the phone. The whole office knew about all the professional and personal ongoings in his life. Anyway, I had a laptop that I was given and I would bring it in to work everyday. Over the first three months, I also collected a bunch of scrap paper on which Luca and I would have brainstormed a market analysis model in the previsous weeks, some research reports and some conference collateral. Other than this, I really didnt have anything else in my cubicle. I had only two large suitcases worth of possessions overall in life with me at the time (which was very typical of Indians who had gone to the US for their Masters degree and had just started working). I shared an apt with two friends and slept on a sleeping bag....etc etc.

One day, David Vergara, the HR recruiter who had found me at school and recruited me for this role, asked me if I would go to lunch with him the nect day. He even picked an Indian restaurant that he knew. I thought this odd but figured..he is a nice guy...and also, lunch outside the cafeteria may not be a bad thing at all. After talking pleasanteries at lunch, he asked me if I was happy with my role. I told him, I most certainly was (Its true I was happy there). He double checked and asked about everyone that I worked with and more...

Finally, I asked him why he was so concerned. Honestly, I didnt think I had given anyone any reason to believe that. He mentioned how he and some other collegues had noticed that my cubicle was so bare. It to them was a sign of someone that didnt feel settled in. So they were concerned I would leave :-). Come to think of it, what a nice and thoughtful HR guy eh?

I didnt know how to explain to him that at that point, I didnt even know that I could put photographs in my cube....it was my first job and also, it wasnt something that was culturally was such a big deal to me...to have pictures of my family, then boyfriend (Hari) et all.....

So when Swapna talked about the bare cure the other day...It all came back to me:-). What David said had had some impact on me. Today, I look around my cubicle at work and I know that I have consciously included photos of my LA trip with my parents and sis and two pictures of Hari in there dilligently along with cards and other stuff I could find :-)

Depressingly Happy

2007-05-24T23:11:00.000-07:00

So, anyone that knows me well knows that I like art, hardhitting theatre, philosophical discussions, meaningful friendships and 'arty' (for the lack of another word) movies.

Hari generally cringes when we have to go pick DVDs. We maintain our 50-50 rule there too. Since our tastes are so different, we alternately take shots at picking what we want to see. But we always watch all the movies together and that just means that there is an greater than 80% chance that one of us is in misery on our DVD evenings:-)
Specifically Hari braces for the depression zone to hit, when it is my DVD turn. So, I have always enjoyed the weird ones..Memento, White Oleander, Fight Club, No Mans Land
Of course, the Hindi movies list is similar as well.

Recently Hari and I went to watch 'Life in a Metro'. The movie was actually quite well made and navigated through practical and impractical life circumstances around various characters finding love at inopportune moments. Of course, a lot of the movie was depressing. Now, the thing is - I no longer enjoyed watching this kind of a movie. and This isnt a conclusion from a sample set of 1. It happened a couple of months ago watching 'Raincoat' as well. Brilliant movie...depressing...me no likey....hmmmmmm!?@!

Anyway, the superficial conclusion I came to was that this could be a temporary or a permanent change in me attributed aquarely to being pregnant (isnt that convenient...everything can be attributed to that for now!!).

The question in my mind is.....I am not a happy to be depressed person anymore.....but am I depressed that I only like the happy stuff now? Meaning.....am I depressed that I have changed so fundamentally? Depressingly Happy....that is....

Funky Grandma - Tamil Paati from Matunga

2007-05-18T00:10:00.000-07:00

This morning, I was in the taxi riding to work and I saw a really cute sight that brought a smile to my face. I was passing Shivaji Park (a park in central Mumbai which is well known for kids playing and practicing cricket). For residents in and around that area (including Matunga), Shivaji park provides a nice walking path at the periphery of the park. The weather was a bit cool today and several regulars were out walking at a brisk pace. One such regular was a grandma or Tamil Mami. She was a typical older woman I would find in my extended family for instance, wearing a sober coloured Kanjeevurum cotton sari, hair hurriedly pulled back into a bun (South Indians believe in inner beauty and not in external preening), wearing her typical flower shaped diamond earring. The typical resemblances stopped here. She wore power sneakers that looked beaten from regular use and she purposefully walked down the path listening to music on her ipod!!!

A typical funky paati

Now, weather she was listening to Vishnu Sahasranamam (Devotional Tamil music) or the latest grinding number from Akon is anybody's guess.

Three cheers for the progressive Tamil Paati (grandmom).

Paris J'taime

2007-05-12T22:43:00.000-07:00

This weekend, a couple of movie theathres each in Mumbai and Delhi were showing the French movie 'Paris J'Taime' or Paris - I love you translated....

What a treat this was. The movie is a series of nine short stories (from nine different directors) featuring different people and different quartiers in Paris. I am not sure what the reason was for this movie to suddenly get released in Mumbai, not that I am complaining. I am just curious because I would love to see more of these in the future. There is a growing population of expats in Mumbai currently and anecdotally the majority of the ones I have met are French.

There was another small far fetched Indian connection (and thats enough for most Indians to latch on to :-)) to the movie. One of the nine short stories that made up the movie was directed by Gurinder Chadda, the once from Punjab and now from London director.

There were some real cameos in the movie. Some of them were typical French movie like with some fantastic direction peppered with sarcastic French humour. Then there was Gurinder Chaddas's piece - a love story between a classic french boy and an Algerian girl with a touch of a Bollywood love story (without any singing and dancing of course) and an element of diversity to it..

Another really cool piece was a Amercian aspiring actress in love with a blind French guy!!! This was very cute.

Anyway, before I divulge too much of this movie that I spoil it for you......let me tell you Its in French with English subtitles....and a must watch!

We Indians love celebrating :-)

2007-05-10T00:23:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, Hari and I had a nice celebration with some of our close family. The occassion - Being preganant for the first time....

It has a religious part and a social part. The religious part of course is all in Hari's court. He prayed for himself, me and the baby to be; said the Gayatri Mantra dilligently a few 100s of times, and poured a lot of 'ghee' into the holy fire.

The social part was all me. I decked up and changed saris 4 times, got bangles loaded on to my wrists by all the aunts and cousins in the family and ate and drank as much and whenever I pleased.

Here are some fun pics from the lovely event. It all took place at Hari's parents place!

Lovely photographs!

2007-05-04T04:17:00.000-07:00

Over the years I have always been fascinated by great art, design and photography. I have spent many hours admiring photoblogs, coffeetable books and photography shows. Here is a small compilation of cool photographers that I came across recently and adore :-)

Courtesy: Tina & Nasir Shakour (www.shakour.org)

A special note about these two (dear friends of ours from San Francisco). If you have visited Hari and me at home and have seen the lovely B&Ws we have hung up on the wall, those were taken by these guys!

Courtesy: Sandi Gunnet (sandig.blogspot.com)
Courtesy: http://jleestudio.blogspot.com/

And last but not least.....

Courtesy: www.aneeshbhasin.com

Friends, sexism, baby gifts and more....

2007-05-02T02:58:00.000-07:00

Dearest friends and most compatible couple to Hari and I - Nipun and Aarti were flying back to the US through Mumbai. I must take a quick pause here to note how much Nipun loves Mumbai and keeps coming back here cos he cant get enough of it.

As always, it was a blast to see Nips and Arts. Life is quite a hoot with them around. We somehow ended up noticing how much sexism existed in India (I was not the one to bring this up inspite of what you may think!) but it is true...

Men are always asked about their jobs, involved in discussion around 'the industry', 'the economy' and blah blah at social occassions. I wonder sometimes if people just forget that women have careers today as well as brains and opinions or if it is just the polite thing to do by not involving them in such discussions.

One thing Hari and I are very proud of is that we are a true 50-50 couple. So we never fail to share credit for cooking yummy food or making investment decisions and more with each other. However this has now become the butt of jokes in my own extended family. Peoples selective listening or judgemental thinking (dont know which one it is...) has made them assume that I cant cook and I drive my poor husband around to do everything around the house.....

Anyway, after comparing notes on frustrating sexist behaviours....we moved on to more cheery topics :-)

For once, I did not try to convince them to move back to Mumbai as I try to do with all my closest friends.

Finally, Nips and Arts got us our first baby gifts....which was very cute...And thankfully, I didnt react too weirdly. Looks like I am getting more and more comfortable with thinking mommy thoughts. Well, its about bloody time...I am ready to pop the baby out in 2.5 months..I jolly well be ready!

Once we stopped admiring the cute yellow winnie the pooh baby gifts, a new realization dawned on us. We have 2 cupboards in the house - both are explodingly full with Hari's stuff and mine. We certainly have no space to spare or share. So we think its time for furniture shopping!! Not so bad eh:-)?

Hindu Girls dream of church weddings

2007-04-28T08:16:00.000-07:00

The other day one of our friends, Vijay was getting married in India. He is a catholic. He married a hindu girl Poonam. These guys do have quite a fun and sporting spirit. They have literally got married to each other 3 times in one year. Now thats true commitment!

To start with, they got married in the US (where they live) with a simple registered marriage. They had a reception dinner for friends and family in San Francisco. Second, they planned a trip to India to do the Great Big Indian Wedding version(s) of it. This spilled over an entire week starting with the wedding in Hindu style and then a weekend wedding in church.

That brings me to the point of this blog post (in my usual rambling fashion). Hari and I went to attend the church wedding. Although I have wanted to attend one for several years, this had been the first one I made it to. As a young girl, I always wanted to get married in a white gown with a veil. I also dreamt of having Christmas trees at home every year and singing as part of the choir in church. Funny thing was, at the age of 8 or so, I thought I was one of those special people who wanted to find their own religion and their own calling. Then, in a few years, I realized my sister obsessed about a white wedding as well. And so did a number of my friends.

I couldnt figure out if it was the convent education of the advent of cable TV which meant watching Hallmark and HBO type english movies which romanticized the chirch wedding no end. Anyway, many years later, I was married in traditional Tamil style. I always wondered though if all Hindu girls kind of dreamt of having a church wedding! Sort of like...the grass is greener on the other side....

I looked over to Sejal ( another friend of ours) at Vijay's wedding and whispered asking her what she thought of my theory and whether she had ever dreamt of getting married in a church. She gave me quite a pitying look almost as if she was thinking to herself...Geez Maya, how weird!

De-stressed all right!

2007-04-05T05:43:00.001-07:00

The two week de-stress period definitely helped. The first week was pure @home vegetation, long afternoon naps and re-connecting with the social world to let everyone know i was still alive. It was awfully hard to stay away from the cursed blackberry but that is now another mastered skill
Come Saturday, Hari and I were off to the train station (long time dream come true). I think its had been atleast 7-8 years since I had travelled in a long distance train (in India). Eurail and TGV dont count. They cant match up up to the three tier sleeper trains we have with the colourful vendors bring Chai and Nescafe and Idli-vada and biryani!!

Anyway, the train journey was an overnight one and went very smoothly for me at least. Some others whose limbs stretch quite far beyond the end of the sleeper birth had trouble :-) but all in all, we were fresh and awake and reached Goa at 10am. A short taxi ride later, we were in the middle of paradise....nothing beats lush tropical 5 Star Luxury with a Portuguese touch....
We had a cute little garden view villa at the corner of the property.

The resort's beach was amazing with tons of tall waves and so ware the other beaches down the coast. After a rather humungous breakfast (mainly bcos we could not choose and hence ate everything!! Idlis, cheese, parathas, breads, juices, fruits, muffins and waffles) we would slowly roll over to the town and go chill on Baga beach or Calangute....After getting a swim, some beers from Hari and a foot massage for me, we would roll into a nearby shack for a light lunch. Then back to our cottage for Siesta (or whatever they call Siesta in Portuguese) and life went on...

3 days in, we drive a couple of hours to the far south of Goa to another resort...this one in the middle of a small village with nothing outside the resort. the resort and the beach it housed were the star attractions...
We spent most of our time in the pool; tried every activity there was to partake in - archery, table tennis, pool. We tried every single restaurant at the resort. Our favourite was a mediterranian one which served a nice mezze and a paella against a setting of a authentic Goan Mariacchi band none the less :-).

Goa was a spoonful of paradise. It did what it needed to...

The baby started kicking in Goa so I am sure he is likely to be a beach bum like Hari and I ;-)
Here is an ugly pic of me with the bump if you are curious.....and a wind beaten picture of Hari and I

2007-03-18T21:37:00.000-07:00

Its been a marathon month and a half of non stop work. I had literally checked out of all my regular day to day activities. Friends are pissed off. Hari was on edge. Days melted into one another. All I could dream about was the next email war I had to fight. Of course the good thing was that all this was a for a big launch. The launch date was more or less inflexible - which meant that the ordeal would be over at some point.

Now I am on a 2 week 'de-stress or the shit will hit the fan' vacation. One week of vegetating and catching up on mundane shopping, writing, etc. The second week will be a dream come true. So the doc has said no air travel. So seeing cherry blossoms in Japan is out. However, taking a train and spending a week in Goa is in!!

The needs (or read demands) from this vacation were simple. Minimum 5-star resport property, a nice pool and a heavenly spa. And please note...none of that Ayurveda nonsense for me....I am not looking forward to being dunked in oil on the pretext of a massage. I will take the regular western Swedish or Balinese kind. Thank you very much.

Look out for pictures of me with my bump in Goa in a couple of weeks..

Recounting Chennai

2007-02-09T03:09:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday was fun. I discovered that one of the articles I wrote a while back got published :-). It had been so long since I had written it that I had forgotten what I wrote about, the tone and such. I read the piece as if I had never seen it before. It made my day.......Here it is...

Finally I can proclaim it....

2007-02-09T02:30:00.000-08:00

Its been almost 4 months now and I finally am at a place where I can proclaim this to the world (yeah, thats right, the whole world that reads this nail-bitingly fascinating blog) that Hari and I are slated to become parents soon.

Pregnant pause......(pun not intended).........for you to digest this new visual.

Most folks who we have said this to took their own sweet time recovering from the shock of thinking that there would be more to HarMaya than Hari and Maya...

Anyway, we are excited about it. Our doc is very cool. She doesnt fuss or shower us with motherly advice and such. She is dry, to the point and coldly honest....just the way we like it:-)

Life has taken quite a turn. We went through a few minutes of panic saying..shit, does this mean our plans to dive in Thailand and bungee jump in New Zealand may have to be altered??? Perhaps, Perhaps not. We are going to be parents for the first time. So we will live to find out.

In any case, just to be safe, we hope to squeeze in a long awaited Japan trip in March. Who knows if the baby will take kindly to Sushi or Udon once she gets here...

Anyway, thats all for now. I will go back to the fancy world of being pampered even more than usual by Hari! :-)!

Clandestine Visit, Not Clandestine anymore

2006-12-28T03:19:00.000-08:00

So I made a 'secret' visit to the US Bay area that too for a mere 4 days early in December. I was to be in a comany offsite/ conference with mandatory work and mandatory fun all day all night for all four days. Of course, I figured I will have no time to meet anyone or even call anyone. Between all the work related drama and some weird food allergies on my end and the jet lag, I was a dead woman walking. I got throught he four days - avoided all the spots where my dear friends of the last 6 years of my Bay area life would hang out and made it back to the airport with a sigh of relief. In line, waiting to check in at SFO's enormous line for Singapore Airlines, I figure the end is near, I will collapse in the plane in a matter of two hours and sleep through the next 24 + hours of torture before I wake up in beautiful Mumbai. As the long line inched ahead and turned the corner, I met with a horribly guilty feeling. It was Nishant!! In line, going on the same flight, headed to India for work cum vacation. He gave me this incredulous look and a ginger hug saying what are you doing here?? I asked him the same question back only of course to feel completely foolish cos I was the one visitng the city.

I explained my plight with all my disclaimers but the damage had been done!!

Anyway, the rest of the flight was fun. Catching up with Nishant and sleeeping and alternating between these two.

We got a trasit visa at the Singapore airport and went out to go see the city (and shop for shoes, specifically). It was fun hanging out at Orchard road again. We event went to the Loewe store and left a message for Kevin-La (INSEAD buddy who runs LoEWE in SE Asia - see a prev post for more) with the store manager.

After a thai linch for me and a enormously large Malay lunch for Nish, we headed back to the airport. My Jet lag continued. I slept in the taxi. Ihad to wake up to pay the taxi guy. He said (in his chicken Singlish accent) 20 dollars. I sleepily paid him 2 dollars and said thank you as I got out. Nishant was staring at me wondering why I was behaving like a lunatic. Hurriedly I realised what I had done and passed on whatever else I had one me.

Then we hung out for 5 hours at the Changi airport. I promptly fell asleep. Nish got frustrated and ulled out his (hold your breadth) PSP and played for hours. I woke up - washed up- came back settled intot he chair and slept again. The saga continued until I got to Bombay.

This had somehow been the hardest long distance trip I had done in a long time..........

Anyway, so much for a clandestine visit. There has been a new term coined amoung the bay area gang. ' Doing a Maya' - means to visit a city and disaapear without calling :-(

M

Nothing to do? Unbelievable!

2006-12-02T03:08:00.000-08:00

Its a lazy Saturday afternoon. After a nice lunch, Hari settles down with the TV. I try and set and watch TV with him.....ten mins later, I catch myself noticing a stray cobweb tucked away in the ceiling of our hall. Ok, so I am bored watching TV. I look around trying to find something else to do. Painting?...hmmm am too lazy to set up all the paints..
Call my sis?..already talked to her this morning..
Read? The only new novel lying around which we bought recently was Kiran Desai's - Inheritance of Loss (Booker prize winner) was soooooooooo slow and sleeep inducing. I had struggled to get past chapter 2. What were the chances that this afternoon would be any better?

Well, you can see how the afternoon went. It was amazing. I was bored because I had nothing to do. I had lost the art of weekend relaxation. Working 24/7 and having 4 places to be at at the same time has become the norm of the time :-)

Maya

Its all about friends

2006-10-31T06:45:00.000-08:00

It has been a stressfully busy couple of months. The only time we got to see a movie was on the night of on the the Diwali holidays when we snuck away for a late show. Haris work is competing with my work to prove one is a worse time hog than the other.

Btw, taking a step back, Diwali was so much fun! After being away from India for 6 years, Hari and I were celebrating a 'real' Diwali again. It was simple....we spent lunch and afternoon with Hari's folks in South Mumbai and headed North to meet my folks and had dinner with them. The next day, we hung out outside our building playing with firecrackers like 6 year olds. Even our building watchmen and our neighbouring kids got into it full enthu! Then it was back to normal :-) But we sneaked in a few magical moments in between which were aweseme.

OK, now coming to the part about friends (as hinted in the title and subsequently never got to the point of until now) - I am happy this week. It has been a shower of friend's visits and meeting up for coffee (tea actually) sessions and just chilling out. For the first time since coming back to Mumbai, I have been able to mentally turn off completely from work and just chill out for a while. It has been a steady stream of lunch or coffee with the Pri, Sej, Swapna, Gaurav and then had a surprise visit from Sandy which has been fun. Hari and I also got to catch up with Aparna and Ankur in Delhi. I could certainly make a habit of that :-). Happy Birthday Aparna BTW.

So, the point of it all....What is happiness all about? Its all about friends :-)

The Devil Wears Prada?

2006-09-17T21:35:00.000-07:00

Hari and I went to watch this movie last evening and what blast!! I highly recommend this to guys and gals...

I got reminded of the time at INSEAD. I was intently focussed on getting a job in the luxury industry post INSEAD. I spoke the L'Oreals, the Chanels, the LVMHs of the world and also the art companies, wine companies and more. I approached luxury from every angle possible :-).

Somehow, the realization that I came to was that I was more interested in the aesthetics and beauty portion of the industry than the 'luxury'. In any case, the job I chose to take eventually had nothing to do with luxury (so, technically, I could have been partying in Bali over the weekends while at INSEAD in Singapore, instead of working on my job-hunt, but oh well :-)).

The movie, though, brought it all back. I always wondered if I would fit into the luxury industry and I dont know how I would have coped if I were surrounded by the Emilys and the Mirandas of the world

Maybe I will find out in another life...;-)

-Maya

Aala Re Aala......Gela Re Gela

2006-09-07T21:37:00.000-07:00

For those not from Mumbai and those that arent well versed in Marathi ..the title reads...(roughly) He Came ... He Went

I am refering of course to Ganpati or Ganesh - The elephant God. After 7 or 8 years, Hari and I were back to being immersed into the Ganesh Festival celebrations this month. 10 long days of Ganpati displays, prasadam, mandal visits and more.
And the amazing visarjan of course where the Ganesh got immersed in the sea according to tradition. I was returning home from the airport on the 10 day with immersions happening in full steam.

It was such a joy to be in the middle of it all. I was so tempted to join all the 'sidees' on the street dancing away as the Ganesh idols inched slowly towards a sea front. I had missed this sight and this energy for a long time and was so happy to be back.

It was amazing to also read so many stories in the papers and hear of neighbours and friends (of my mother:-)) who were resorting to using fiber glass or silver ganeshas this year for the festivities and hence not immerse the Ganesha in the sea for environmental reasons.

It is interesting. I always thought it would be hard for Indians to break out of the mould of 'Tradition - this is how we have always done it' , especially when it came to matters of God or religion but I was proved wrong here.

BTW, Hyderabad also has visarjan. Very similar to Mumbai actually......Fun!

Maya

The office boy story

2006-08-30T21:02:00.000-07:00

Once I started workign in India, I quickly became aquainted with the unique concept of an 'office boy' . A handyman, a factotum, who magically makes things happen.

From bring you tea and coffee, to clearing your glasses and dishes, to behaving like your personal courier, office boys can do anything to make your life simpler at work. One day a cupboard in my office was locked in mysteriously and I needed from supplies from it urgently. After trying to do things the 'right way' - like asking administration to order a urgent set of replica keys, I hard nothing back forseveral hours. I started getting desperate. I called one of my favourite office boys - Yogesh and told him in true Indian Behenji (Ajuma in Korean or Auntie in Singapore) style, "Do what you need to but I need this cupboard opened". After conferring with his buddy, he brought in a screw driver and five minutes later the cupboard was pried open with the lock unharmed! Miracles, I say!

More curiously, business partners and vendors will regularly send their office boy from one corner of the city to the other just to deliver a sheet of paper (that they could have scanned and emailed much more easily) but the boys are used to it and enjoy their day out in the process. Oh, the joys of cheap labour. Everytime I have suggested the scanning solution, I have typically been met with confused radio silence from the other end of the phone. Som people have enthusiastically embraced it I must say.....

Anyway, one thing that is curious is that there are no 'office girls!'; only office boys.

In the same way that 99% of the times, household help in India are only women....maids.
In this case, there are the minority of men who cook and clean as household help.

Anyway, thats the story of the office boys in Mumbai.

-M

A mini Reunion - sooner than we thought!

2006-08-17T21:50:00.000-07:00

Hari and I celebrated out 10th anniversary in Bali. But I am not going to write about it. Hari has written all that could be written on the topic already, so check his posting on Bali at 360.yahoo.com/vk.hari

But on our way to Bali, we had an 8 hour lay over in Singapore. We got transit visas and headed out into the city. It felt nice to be back in Singapore where we stayed for 4 months last year. We took the train (which we never did when we were in Singapore for whatever reason but now we had time to kill...). We went past the Tana Mera ferry terminal from where we took a ferry to Bin Tan in Indonesia for a weekend break, east coast park where we hung out with friends Ujjal and Neeta, Orchard Road and Bugis street market.

We met up with good ol' friend Sandeep Balaji who was in Singapore. He quickly roped in Kesavan and Vikas to join us for lunch all of whom were werkign within a one mile radius. Kesavan happened to have the number of dear yet elusive friend Kevin Lam.
He didnt recognise my voice at first but then when I threatened to kick his butt and he quickly said : "Maya!! You cant just show up in Singapore!! ''

We hung out with all over lunch and coffee. Kevin proudly showed off his empire of Loewe stores to us and then we sat and chatted for a couple of hours. It was an amazing feeling of home and comfort being with friends. INSEAD was an amazing place for that if nothing else - I made lifelong friends!

Farewell to the Grand Old Man

2006-08-12T21:13:00.000-07:00

July 31st was a dark day for the Mani family. My sis called at 1 am sounding panicked and grief-stricken. Our grand-dad has passed away. I had never experienced death at close quarters before. I didnt know what to think or feel. The entire family was shell-shocked. My grandparents had moved from Mumbai back to our home town Chennai no more than a year ago. We booked tickets online to Chennai on the first flight out in the morning.

All night I kept thinking of Thatha (grand-father in Tamil). I felt such a deep sorrow inside. All my memories of him were filled with happy moments and joy.

He loved his grand-kids no end. We were 11 of us in all. We would visit Thatha and Pima (what we affectionally call my grandmother) every summer or during Deepavali time. If we visited in summer, Thatha would have spent a month, planning what to buy his grand kids as gifts this year. We have got some amazing presents from him over the years (water games, quiz flash cards, watches, clothes, jewellery) but most importantly each one of them were filled with affection to the brim. He loved fried and sweet eats. Every year, as soon as all us cousinst landed in Chennai, he would call his driver and tell him "My grand-kids are here, go to Grand Sweets and buy sweets and savouries for them'. The truth was that he used us as an excuse to enjoy the snacks. We used to laugh about it with Pima.

If we visited during Deepavali, he would order a massive amounts of fire-crackers. He would dilligently bounty in equal parts amongst us and watch over us while we enjoyed the crackers. He was an early riser. His pet peev was people who slept till some late hour like 8 or 9 am (ahem...). A cousin of mine, Anand and I were always sleeping late. Thatha would get frustrated after 2-3 wake up calls and start rolling the mattresses we were sleeping on while we were on it:-)!

He taught us interesting card games like Literature and Bridge. Over the last few years, he was having trouble talking fluently because of after-effects of a stroke. Hari and I would visit him and spend time with him. We would talk to him some, have lunch with him and hang out. Some-times we would just sit with him, in complete silence but letting him know how much we loved him and enjoyed his company.

Now, all of a sudden, every minute we spent with him is so precious. His legacy of love and affection and great memries is cherished by all in the family.
-Maya

Bitten by the writing bug

2006-07-20T22:47:00.000-07:00

Recently, I re-visited an old passion of mine - writing. At various points in my life, my predominant passion was a different hobby: Writing, painting, learning music, learning dance, mosaics. Back when I had just moved to the US from India, I had taken to writing and got published a couple of times in a magazine called Life Positive in India. At the time my first piece was published, it was my happiest time yet in life :-). Since then I have had a few more happiest times in life (day Hari and I got married, day Pink Lotus took shape, day Hari and I got into INSEAD).

Anyway, my most recent piece was on Zen Living and was published last Sunday. I enjoyed writing this piece immensely.

Here it is below -

Reminiscing

2006-07-19T01:43:00.000-07:00

My sis Pri called to say today that she had finally finished her Engineering program and had got great results in the last semester. She felt freed from the shackles of education and the monotony of college. Of course, I am thrilled for her - she does sound happy but little does she know...she will be begging for this same monotony and sleepy mornings and drabs of lab sessions very soon :-)

She heads off to Pune to explore life by herself (or that with only 3 other flat mates!!), life with a job and the felling of living from weekend to weekend :-)
Ok, I am partly kidding. Hari and I are excited that we will get to see much more of Pune thanks to Pri (talk about selfless thoughts).

-Maya

Happy Happy Joy Joy Again

2006-07-12T04:17:00.000-07:00

Ok, so my last post ruffled a lot of feathers among the millions of those devoted to reading this blog (yeah right!!) The two of you know who you are!!

Heres a collection of funny links that I received all in the last two days. Ahhh...The internet...It plays such a crucial role in my life :-)

Cute song.
http://img.tapuz.co.il/forums/8572800.swf

An unfortunate fall out of the Soccer World Cup.
http://www.gazzetta.it/openxlink.shtml?http://widelec.org/zidane.html

Another sing-along tune
http://members.shaw.ca/faithshannon/baby-mabelinne.htm

Ok, enough joy for the day. And for the record, I am impressed with the bombay folks who made temporary shelters for those stranded in the bombing, and those who stopped and gave rides to those walking on the street in the rain and more.

I am waiting for the day when one of the Ambanis or Tatas or others just get fed up and say, hey! we are going to build Bombay's infrastructure ourselves. I know, its wishful thinking but hey, tall dreams of mine have come true before, so you never know :-)

-Maya

The Moment of Truth - Yet again

2006-07-11T09:37:00.001-07:00

How many times is Mumbais spirit to get tested? Beyond a point the cities spirit doesnt cut it anymore. Today we had 7 bomb blasts ripping through the entire city along the western railway line just after 6pm. These trains are most packed and at peak occupancy at this time because of office commuters. So far already 135 people have died. I am so angry, sad, down and yet so happy to see how amazing peopel are here, so proud. But the first thought that came to mind was that I hope my sis and my family moves out of here soon. I would hate to have anything happen to them. Mumbai has really tested our mettle this month.....First the lashing rains, then the disturbance andcommotion last weekend (Shiv Sena) and now this.

Inspite of being the eternal Mumbai loyalist, I am tired right now......Lets see what tomorrow brings.

-Maya

Tamizha Tamizha

2006-07-05T01:58:00.000-07:00

I spent the last weekend in Channai with Hari and his parents. It was a pleasant surprise to be there. I had visited Chennai last year as part of a project I was working but it had been a get in, dive into meetings and get out kind of trip. Since we were there for 3 full days this time around, I was more awake and had a chance to see things around me. So a rush of memories came back to me...

My grandparents have lived in Chennai for a long time now. As a kid, I used to visit them religiously every summer to dutifully tan in the Chennai heat. But sometimes, my sis and I would also visit for Deepavali (the Hindu festival of lights occurring in the winter). My grandad would order a humungous amount of firecrackers for all the grandchildren (we were about 7-10 of us on average on any trip). He would then equitably split it amonst all of us. Of course, my sis and I would form a cartel and bragain for more sparlers in return for loud 'bombs' with our male cousins.
Those were the days..:-)

Chennai had some nice sights and smells this time around. Bundles of jasmine strings for the hair, cool sea breeze from the Marina beach, elegant compact bungalows with traditionally artistic doors and gates.

Oh lets face it, Hari and I (like I had mentioned in the Amsterdam post long ago) are house voyeurs. That was what we liked most in Chennai. Especially since we are in the market for one now....in Bombay though....!

Ok, as a dampener to our trip was Indias premier low cost airline DECCAN which was brilliantly late and dis-organised on the way to and back from Chennai. No matter what time our flight was, we reached our destination only at midnight!!##$!

-Maya

Vote Mumbai

2006-06-28T21:32:00.000-07:00

The rains are here to stay in Mumbai. It is quite a lovely and horrendous season at the same time. On one hand, the weather is dreamy and poetic and makes you want to stand by a window watching the raindrops as you sit into some hot chai accompanied by bhajiyas :-). On the other hand, reality bites every morning as Hari drives us through puddles and traffic jams from hell.

Bombay is on edge right now though. You can feel the collective nervousness in the air as people get reminded of the deluge of 26th July last year. People are over cautious and also come out very strongly against the civic authorities to improve the infrastructure of the city to better handle rains. Today, I read in the paper about a mass movement to educate and bring awareness in the city while also affecting policy by liasing with the BMC, government and more. IT is run by a collection of NGOs funded by Mumbaikars and Indian corporates (funds from political parties and foriegn companies are not accepted).

Check out their website when you have a few minutes -
http://www.votemumbai.org

I am thinking of volunteering. We'll see how it goes. I am a Mumbaikar now afterall :-)

- Maya

Trip Report: Back to La La Land

2006-06-23T00:19:00.000-07:00

After a period of a year and a half, I was going to visit California on a business trip. After having lived there for 5 years and then moved to France, Singapore and then India, I guess it should naturally feel more familiar than any place. But it freaked me out when I knew exactly at what point on 880S freeway, I should move to the right most lane, to avoid a traffic pile-up.

Anyway, it was such a thrill to meet all of Hari and my friends who we have known on average for 7 years. I realized how life was progressing on their end and how they were all getting hitched or buying houses. I guess life for Hari and I is moving on as well....Us moving to India, starting to look for a place to buy, etc

I mis-calculated Rathish (a.k.a Rats') birthday yet again but still I should be triumphant as it was only by one day this time around rather than 4-6 months as it has been on occassion in the past.

The other cool thing was that I was back to driving (hehe I got a convertible from the rental company) and living the California life :-). Everyone asked me if I felt like I wanted to come back to California for good. The answer for me is still No. I am happy in Mumbai. It has its frustrations and it has its comforts (just as California did) but it is a choice of which comforts I wanted in this case.

To be honest, only time will tell if our decision was the right one for us.
Time will breed familiarity (as much familiarity as California holds for us today) and build memories and more. For now, we are happy to be back as we plunge into life, joys and frustrations of life in Mumbai.

Making News in Mumbai

2006-06-21T23:10:00.000-07:00

Like I told you the fact that Hari and I work for competitors is the funniest cocktail story we can ever tell anyone these days. It has even replaced the ' Frozen Priyanka' story. Well, if you havent heard that one yet, its too late, I aint talking about it anymore. Priyankka is not very happy with me for telling it to so many people. She and I will wait to write a book and then you can read all about it.

So we got interviewd by a magazine that is a Sunday supplement with the DNA news paper about our life etc. We couldnt believe anybody would want to read about us. Then came the time when we went scrummaging through all our photographs to pick ones where we could pretend to be pretty looking corporate jetsetters.

More than anything else, I think we did our parents proud ;-). Photu coming in paper and all!

http://digital.dnaindia.com/epapermain.aspx?queryed=26&eddate=5/21/2006

Look at page 20 for our 5 minutes of celebrity fame.

To add to this, a few days before this got published, Hari got picked as the most good looking Yahoo employee and thus got featured in a series of Yahoo ads on (large) billboards, print and online ads. Nipun and Kumaran were among those that suddenly saw Hari in an ad as they read their morning news online. I am still considering becoming his image and PR manager full time. Although the deluge of calls asking for his endorsements that were originally expected havent quite panned out yet. So it is a wait and see on that one.

-Maya

Back in Mumbai with a bang

2006-06-20T21:58:00.000-07:00

Ok..yeah yeah yeah - I know I havent posted anything worthwhile in a while, ok: I havent posted anything in a while..forget worthwhile.

Here is a fresh attempt to prove that there are still interesting things going in our life.
So, my dream for over 4 years now came true at the start of this year when Hari and I moved back to India. It was like turning an emotional switch on which said - You are home!
It was quite exciting to learn the ways of working life, banking life, etc in India. We had lived here all our life until we were 21 but we had never been'responsible' adults here (insert sound effect here: sneeze and say bullshit at the same time). Its always nice when life is an adventure for us thrill seeking nomads.

So I compiled a list when I was still wide-eyed about being back in Mumbai. Here goes -

The good stuff:

1. Everything gets home delivered. I mean everything - groceries, fruits, electronics, furniture, wine, bedsheets, anything...

2. Everyone has a mobile phone. The only one I know who doesnt have one is my maid

3. People talk about money quite freely. Whats your salary, how much did you pay for your house, how much are your shares worth, how much is your monthly expenses, therefore, how much is your monthlysaving. Initially, I wondered why. I tried to avoid answering. I tried to change the subject. I tried to make sarcastic jokes (of course no-one still gets my sarcasm, so I just ended up offending ppl)

4. Mothers get on board super quickly. Mothers organized food, idli ka atta, chapathi ka atta, fruits, vegetables, maid suggestions, mangoes, coffee powder, sambhar poweder chapathis, sweets, sweets, and more sweets every time they visited our place. :-) They are the sweetest. Hari was amused by it. I fought it. we both gave up and now enjoy it :-)

5. You get Feta Cheese in Mumbai (yay!). For all those of you who have known us for a while and have had dinner at our place at anytime, you know how much we love Greek Salad. And you CANT have greek salad without Feta. So Hari and I embarked on our quest to find Feta in Mumbai and thanks to helpful suggestions from fellow Bandraites (which is what we are now), we discovered Magnet hypermarket (v.cool! Also reminds me I need to talk about my favourite entrepreneur AP Mani in another post). The we met the Mumbai celebrity chef Moshe (thanks to the big fan Swapna) who graciously let us buy some feta off him in his restaurent after hearing the most amusing story about how Hari works for Yahoo and Maya works for Google (hmmph!)

Ok, so more later. The list about Mumbai will continue later.

-Maya

2006-04-16T04:43:00.000-07:00

Nerdy times are here again..........

2005-07-31T20:58:00.000-07:00

So we finished our first term and rushed outside our school's Freddy's bar (a midsized bar with overpriced alcohol mainly used by the executive MBA folks)and sprawled ourselves on the lawn in the freezing cold and had a champagne party. Of course, I bought myself a can of diet coke to try and fit in (as if!)

Afterwards, the entire student body seemed to part in two like the splitting of the sea. One bunch including moi headed off to Barcelona in search of some sunshine and quality partying (since we have so little of that at INSEAD) and the other bunch headed off to Chimonix ski resort in France bordering with Switzerland to catch the last snow of the year. There were some stragglers that wanted to do their own thing (how dare they!!) and decided to visit other exotic lands.
Barcelona was a lot of fun..No sun though; just rain:-(

After returning, noses to the ground, Hari and I were studying hard. We wanted to take a break from Entertaining for a few weeks (By now we felt like Bawarchis) and instead we ended up getting invoted to dinners at other folks place..so we just kicked back and enjoyed it:-)

Assignments and readings and group work got to a point where tensions ran high and arguments about interest rates, discounting factors, target segments, corporate strategy etc gripped the entire campus.

We slept no sooner then 2 am each night. For sure nerdy times were here to stay....

Pics from the 2nd term at INSEAD
Link to photos

Time flies....

2005-07-29T21:28:00.000-07:00

It seemed like just a few weeks ago that I wrote the last blog. But my blogger tool reminds me that in fact it has been over 5 months.....geez! But the 5 months have been the 'slog my butt off to keep my dignity at INSEAD time'!! So that has been the reason for our gaping absence on the www.

I must share some interesting snippets of Hari and my activities at our MBA program at INSEAD. Hopefully my endless and not well connected rambling will take the shape of a story at some point.

INSEAD since the minute we got there has been a party heaven. Since the school is in the middle of the French countryside, students typically get together for large parties in chateaus for entertainment. And the first 6 months at INSEAD have been a string of endless fantastic dance parties. It was a breath of fresh air from the predominantly hip-hop dance numbers in the US. Even Hari got into the groove regularly!!!:-)

Aside from partying of course, we did do some serious studying.....(yeah right!). Hari and I were somewhat well known even before we came to INSEAD because we were 'the couple that both made it to school at the same time. We enjoyed our mini-celebrity status at school during the first few weeks. In fact, we were quite relieved to have been alloted different sections or else we would have extended our intellectual disagreements to the classroom as well (yikes). But 2 different classes also meant two different set of friends and dinner parties and conversations and hence double the social / networking advantage for Hari and I. Aha! the true strategy of our simultaneous MBA plan comes to bear:-))))

The slog began close to February at school. Each term is two months long with the first two terms having 5-6 exams at the end. Dark circles, speed reading and red bull became the standard in all our lives. Hari and I were determined to not stop there. We entertained friends furiously. Friday evenings was dinner at Chez Hari and Maya's day. We had a lovely cottage in a village in the middle of the woods (Arbonne la Foret) and a lovely landlady who had tastefully and artistically done up the house. Hari and I would rush back from school on Fridays and cook various Indian eats in two hours flat. If the MBA doesnt work out, being chefs could certainly be an alternate profession for us:-)

The first term came and went before we knew it. We took our exams and came to terms with the fact thet we werent the most brilliant folks on campus. Life went on.....after all there were more parties to attend and dinners to host. We could not afford to dwell on anything for too long.

First Term at INSEAD
Link to photos from INSEAD term 1

Back in Lovely London

2005-01-05T09:04:00.000-08:00

London has been a favourite city for both Hari and I. We have been there multiple times before and love it just as much each time we visit. We had 5 days to spend in london this time including Christmas day. We were planning on going to Cambridge as well.

This city was going to be all about people for us. We decided to catch up with friends and family here and experience London differently this time around.

We picked two B&Bs in different neighbourhoods of this big city and spent two days each in them.

We spent time with friends Madhu and Santosh on Christmas eve and another evening. We
enjoyed meeting a couple of their friends and also enjoyed watching them open their gifts to each other. We were supposed to judge which one was a better gift (the sooper dooper Sony music system with Wireless LAN or one 2 hour airplane lesson).

We also met with Hari's cousin Rama who Hari hadnt met in a while and I was meeting for the first time. She treated us to a hearty meal in true Indian fashion. We shamelessly lapped it up of course, blaming it on the fact that we had been surviving on bread, cheese and occassional potatoes over the previous 32 days of European travel.

We then headed out to lovely little town of Cambridge to meet Hari's best friend from his childhood days - Ferzina. It was only a 45 minute train ride and at the end of it we were in this quaint little town of academics and tourists and wanna-be acedemics. Cambridge is a city on the river Cam. The river Cam also has many punts (row boats) on which the punter would stand and row scores of tourists and parents of Cambridge students giving them tidbits of history and trivia about Cambridge.

Cambridge university (we learned from Ferzina ) consists of many colleges and when you apply for admission, you would apply to the university and could get admitted to any one of the colleges. We also heard that some colleges have loads of money (Trinity college) and then there are others that are not as loaded and can be bought over or acquired. So if you are interested in having a Cambridge college named after you, there is still hope.

We had an awesome lunch by the river Cam in a local pub and walked around town the rest of the afternoon. Later in the evening, we went back to Ferzina's college (New Hall) and checked out the computer labs (geeks!!) and then headed back and watched "Bowling for Columbine" together.

We had a great time there. The next morning we were on our way back to London. We met with some very dear family friends of ours in London on Christmas day. Christmas in London is so not like what one would expect. There is no-one on the streets. Everything is dead quiet. Shops, restaurants, movie theatres, any and all establishments are closed.

We walked a lot through quiet London that day. Between lunch at a Indian restaurant and dinner at a local pub catering to lost souls such as ourselves, we were taken care off..
We reflected as to how lucky we were to have been able to travel for 38 days in Europe.
We had each other to share it with and we would never forget the precious memories we had made for ourselves in Europe.

We drank to all this on Christmas night (I drank diet coke and Hari drank warm water as he was battling a cough but we drank to the night alrite!)

The next morning - on boxing day (this is what 26th Dec came to be known in UK as it was historically the day people would box up food to put away for the cold winter) we headed back to Fontainebleau via Paris (on the Eurostar train).

Our vacation had come to an end but life in France for a year at MBA school was a dream vacation in itself.. we drove back looking forward to the year to come..

Photos of France and England

http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=35mf8y.b9fllgsr&x=0&y=3i0j8e

Nice.....oh la la - very nice indeed

2004-12-31T06:36:00.000-08:00

So here we were aboard on our night train from Roma to Nice. We were slightly excited as we were heading back to Francais land which meant we could practice more of our French speaking skills.

Of course not before long, we realized that the coach in the train we were assigned to (# 95) was missing in totality. Coaches 98,97,96 were there followed by a no number coach and then a coach 63 after that. Out of panic, we and a bunch of other coach 95ers got into coach 96 and the train started to move. We were standing in the aisles with all our luggage trying panicked hand gestures to explain our problem to an exclusively Italian speaking controller. Thank God for great train mates who were fluent in French, Italian and English. They figured out that we needed to be in the no numbered coach. We all dragged our luggage there and found all the compartments locked and no controller. Confusion reigned for a while. Then from one of the compartments of our coach emerged a controller. We rejoiced and rushed to him with questions. HE did not reply neither in English, French or Italian. That’s when we realized that he was stone drunk and had already made his bed and was ready to collapse. Thankfully he atleast opened up our compartments for us. Hari and I had sleepers in a compartment with four other people in a small compartment. There was no way we or our luggage were going to fit there. So we just took over another empty compartment and locked the doors and went to sleep. The trip was uneventful for the most part for the rest of the trip aside from our Italian/French/ English speaking friend having her luggage stolen in the middle of the night.

Anyway, on a more upbeat note, the train journey in the early hours of the morning as the sun broke was breathtakingly gorgeous!!!! We were hurtling down the Italian coast and then entering the French Riviera as we passed Monaco, Monte Carlo. A small piece of geography trivia courtesy of Hari here…Monaco is a principality of its own and not part of France although I am told they share the same postal service and banks. Monaco is very rich and home to the very famous Monaco Grand Prix. It is a completely tax free place. So rich celebrities who make loads of money and don’t want to pay taxes try to become citizens of Monaco. Some famous citizens include Boris Becker and Michael Schumacher.

Ok, moving on…We reached Nice which was gorgeous. It was a bit more crowded than we had expected but that didn’t seem to bother us. The first day, after checking into our hotel, we promptly headed out to the beach. After all, that’s what Hari and I (both being lovers of the sea) had come there for. We spent the entire afternoon there. We ventured into the water with some anticipation as it was winter but the water was quite nice. Slightly cool but certainly warmer than California beaches in July!

We lapped up the waves and the ocean spray. We made sure that we got each other adequately wet to the point where we were satisfied that we could not do more damage to each others clothes.

We then chilled out on the rocks in the sunlight trying to dry our pants. Hari promptly fell asleep on the rock. When he opened his eyes a half hour later, he was surrounded by a large tourist group (ahem…we wont mention any other details) who had come in a group that were photographing every inch of the water, sand and rocks. We then ambled back in town enjoying yet more of the beautiful Chirtmas lights and decorations.

I went and bought a much needed recharge for our cell phone SIM card, speaking throughout in French. I noticed that people were now squinting at me less and understanding me more when I spoke in French. That ought to be a good sign….I must be getting better..

<>The next day, we took a short train ride down to Monaco. Hari was very excited and was tripping over himself trying to stress the import of 'the tunnel' in Monaco to a sports illiterate like me:-) Poor guy. Such a sports fanatic. It must be hard for him to put up with someone like me. It was a lovely day to be in Monaco. It was cool with a bit of sun and lots of people all around. We hung around the main port area for a while. The water was perfectly clear and we could see the fishes below. There were quite a few fancy boats from around the world (Cayman islands, Virgin islands, Cape town, London, etc) that Hari savoured. We found a fun offer while we were strolling about. For € 35, Santa Claus offered to take anyone in his Ferrari 355 spyder for a ride on the Monaco Grand Prix circuit. I could see Hari's eyes light up and we decided that it would be a fitting early birthday gift for him. So he went and came back and anyone we meet (and I) have been hearing about that till date:-)

Before we left Monaco we also sneaked a visit to the famous casino and we saw some royalty and some famous designers (whose names I cant remember now - you will need to check with Hari) leaving in their fancy limousines. One large icecream later, we headed back to Nice.

The next day at Nice was slow and relaxing. We walked around a lot and also managed to get a compulsary dose of crepes (yummmmmmmmmmmm.....) before we left France. For the uninitiated, crepes are a form of French food. They are like dosas or thin pancakes stuffed typically with sweet stuff like sugar, icecream, fruit, nutella or chocolate sauces. Sometimes, you can also get what they call Savory crepes which are salty. Needless to stay, I stick with sweet crepes and hari sticks with salty crepes. That is generally how things go in our life. It may also be the secret behind a happy marriage now that I think about it.......since you dont have to share the things you really like in life;-)

We soon bid farewell to this lovely town and spent the entire rest of the day in trains (first from Nice to Paris and then on the Eurostar train from Paris to London). London is our last stop on the trip. We are both excited as well as pensive that this vacation will soon come to an end..

Before I forget, riding the Eurostar was fun. A 3 hour ride , 20 mins of which are through the 'chunnel' - the tunnel built under the English channel - gets you from Paris to Waterloo station in London.

Photos of France and England

http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=35mf8y.b9fllgsr&x=0&y=3i0j8e

Rome - The Eternal City

2004-12-20T04:10:00.000-08:00

Ah Roma! Such a gorgeous city, so full of history and beauty and so full of people. This was always going to be a big stop on this trip.

This city is a veritable treasure chest of western history. I mean this is ROME - the capital of arguably the most influential western empire ever (The US is trying to wrest that title away now). Romans taught the western world so many things and their influence is so great that they founded another great European city, which today is the source of most things cool - London (or Londonium as they called it). We had so many things to take in - the Pantheon, Vatican city, Trevi fountain...and then there are the Roman ruins. Like many other guys, I have always loved to hear stories of the brave gladiators who fought and died in the Coloseum. Who can forget Ben Hur and the chariot races at Circus Maximus? And then there is the Roman Senate itself.

Anyway, we got started the very first day, We trooped off and after a little searching found ourselves at Trevi fountain. This is the fountain where if you turn your back and flip a coin in, you will be guaranteed a return visit to Rome. Looks like there will be plenty of return visitors. :) Let me tell you - this one is the worth the hype. Easily the most magnificent fountain I have ever seen - it seems to grow out of the building which its attached to. Huge beautiful statues adorn the fountain, and at night with lights on, its even more beautiful. Water flows out several orifices and all in all, it is an architectural masterpiece.

The next morning was the big day. We were going to see the Roman ruins...yay!! We took the underground to the stop for Circus Maximus and I stepped out hoping to see an impressive oval race course. Oh God - its an unmaintained open garden...dirty and with very little of the original structures remaining. I walk in a daze around the famous course, with M helping me get over the shock. Sigh...

Anyway, next we climb up one of Rome's famous hills - the Palatine hills to see the Roman Forum. This was more like it. Covered with Roman history and old buildings, one wished one could get an explanation to every sight one saw. Yes, I know...too many "one"s in the previous sentence...get over it! As I was saying...we saw structures built by the various Caesers...Julius, Augustus, etc. We saw the remaining columns of the Roman Senate, and marvelled at the remaining architecture. Having walked our a$$$ off, we took a break at a nearby Irish pub (been eating waaaay too much Italian food lately).

After this we headed to the highlight (for me) - the Coliseum. It remains standing and shows the brutality and engineering ability of the Romans. With the old wooden floor rotted away, one can see the basements of the Coliseum. Using slave power, elevators lifted wild animals through trap doors in the wooden floor. We also heard horrific stories, such as the blood from dead gladiators being squeezed out so as to sell to people who drank it believing it had healing powers...kinda gross. But with the sun light streaming in and beautiful shadows everywhere, this was a day we will never forget.

We spent the evening near the massive monument/building built in honour of king Vittorio Emmanuel II dedicated to essentially the entire country of Italy. Magnificent!

One day was spent taking the bus down to the Appian Way (where Spartacus and co. were crucified) and the ancient Christian Catacombs. Ancient burial pits for the christians during Roman times, they remain hauntingly beautiful today. Getting back from the outskirts of Rome was another matter altogether, with our bus arriving 1 hr late on a chillingly cold day.

A funny thing happened at our next stop - the ancient baths complex of Dioclean. On our way out of the complex, we heard this loud shrill cry coming from the skies. This cry kept ringing out...too loud to be natural, yet eerily nature-like. We struggled to find the source and finally located loud-speakers high up on the building walls. 1000s (nay, tens of 1000s) of small birds were flying in spectacular fashion in the skies above...bobbing and weaving to this shrill cry. Tourists looked bemused, while locals went about their lives as if they heard nothing. After some investigation, we found out that they played this cry every day at 3pm to scare off the thousands of birds that call the area home...well, it sure damn well scared some tourists, I tell you!

One night, we met up with a future classmate from INSEAD - Vito. Vito works for Cisco Italy, and one of the perks of his job is that he gets a company car - a BMW 330. He took us to a traditional Napolitan restaurant (as he hails from a town near Napoli) and promised us a meal of traditional Pizza. Pizza you see was "invented" in Napoli. The meal was long, with several yummy snacks preceding the actual pizza. Leaving the restaurant at 12 midnight, all I can say is "Vito, we owe you one great Indian meal!". With friends like him in store, INSEAD should be a blast.

The final few days were spent at the Vatican and seeing a few remaining spots, such as the huge dome shaped church of the Pantheon - originally a roman structure built by Marcus Agrippa. A giant sphere can allegedly fit in leaving just mms of space around the walls. Amazing.

The Vatican was something else. The awe-inspiring, Bernini-designed St. Peters square leaves you safe in the knowledge that you are at some major seat of power - in this case the Holy See (Seat of the Pope). We walk into the massive Michelangelo-designed St. Peters cathedral and like generations before us, are left in awe. The light plays wonderful tricks here, and the sights of the frecoes, walls and even the floor leave us speechless. A massive canopy designed by Bernini again, provides a lovely focal point to the Cathedral. Mike's Pieta on one side has the tourists snapping away...people, always remember - flash photography DOES NOT penetrate glass, if you are directly in front of it. :)

We stroll through the Vatican museums...home of thousands of art works, ancient maps and of course, the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo's fresco is as amazing as advertised and the walls of the chapel are also adorned by some great art. What a show!

We are done with Rome...though there is soooo much I have left out (in interest of not boring you to death). Italy has been a great host for the last two weeks...M and I are lucky to have seen it the way we did, and are better for it. Onwards to Nice...

-Hari

Pisa - leaning city of beauty

2004-12-18T14:16:00.000-08:00

A short trainride from Florence brings us to Pisa. The train-ride was through the absolutely gorgeous Tuscan countryside on a very sunny day.

The train was a tiny one with very few people on board. We arrived in Pisa just before noon. We are assured that this sleepy little town was a sea-trade giant which has now been effectively surpassed by Genoa and Florence. The city of course is known for the biggest architectural goof-up in the world - the leaning tower.

It turns out that the tower was built on marsh-land and as the foundations started sinking, the tower started leaning. Four stories were complete when the leaning commenced. Urgent corrective efforts have been undertaken but even today the tower leans 4m off vertical - yikes!! They allow 30 people on the tower at any given time. I sure hope they have weight restrictions for those 30, because from the looks of it, the tower is one straw away from flattening a bunch of gawking tourits. Another amazing piece of trivia here - evidently, one tower was not enough. Several very nice looking marble buildings in the area lean ...all to varying degrees, but all decidedly off vertical. This town is crazy :)

The twon has some other beautiful squares and is the home of Galileo. Thats the amazing thing with Italy - inch for inch, they see to have contributed the most towards western civilization in several fields - religion (Catholicism), art (Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael - not the teenage mutant ninja turtles, mind you), science (Galileo, Leonardo), etc. Even tiny Pisa has done its share....

We ambled around the lovely city all day and then took the train back to Florence. A day well spent...who says everything needs to be at right angles?

-Hari

Artists haven - Florence

2004-12-15T02:35:00.000-08:00

Having left the canals of Venice, we found ourselves in the artists haven (or should I say heaven?) - Florence. The map we had printed out was dead on, and a few streets from Florence station we found Hotel Florence Room. Nice, and they serve breakfast in your room....sweet!!!

We spent the first day aimlessly wandering the streets...this is the first of two loong stops...each for 4.5 days. No need to rush. We found a lovely restaurant that gave us great food at a nice low price. Fed and ready to roll, we headed out to discover the city. We headed to the famous bridge - Ponte Vecchio. We will have photos online soon, but suffice to say, it is bursting with shops and looks like an overfull cupboard, bursting at the seams. Chock-a-block full of residents, tourists and vendors, Florence reminds both of us of any major city in India. People have no issues pushing past you and there is a lot of friendliness in everything....forget about "personal space" - it no exist here!!

Italy is my favourite country in Europe because it is such a sensory overload - sights, smells, sounds...wow. A bit like home I guess. We walked around the bridge and then ambled to the first of several majestic structures we would see here - Palazzo Vecchio. Like some buildings in Europe, they are taking advantage of the low season and doing some renovations. Oh well, there was still plenty to see. Huge majestic old statues dominate the square and we see amazing likenesses to Hercules (how one would imagine him) and several other mythical folk. M discovers her favourite statue - odd becuase it is called "Rape of the Sabine Woman". We later found out that this was just a fictional scene. The artist wanted to construct a statue that would look different from each side and so created this great statue with 3 figures (look it up on Google). That made M feel better about it, as the name had sent a look of dismay onto her face earlier :)

The squares seem to be home to numerous open-air concerts. One side hosts a young teenage band that is screeching some noise and torturing their guitars in an attempt at rock. At least THEY were having fun. :) Another side of the same square had something more fun. A marching bad...I love marching bands...i really do. They played some high spirited stuff, with some important looking older dudes standing around. Everyone had this old hat with a huge feather from some exotic bird in it. Once done, they bounced off...yes bounced, not jogged, not marched, not walked...bounced, i say. They bounced off to another square and could be heard repeating their performance again. The amazing thing is that pigeons in Florence (of which there are many) seemed to fly to the tone of the band...amazing! Someone want to try this trick with the pigeons in Bombay?

The next few days found us visiting the Galleria Accademia to see Michelangelo's David....easily one of the most awesome statues anywhere. We then went to Palazzo Pitti with its sprawling Boboli gardens. We spent quite a few hours here. We also had invested in some drawing material. This meant that we both put them to good use in the huge gardens...painting the Neptune statue, peacocks and the garden itself. That was a great afternoon....a little cloudy but not tooo cold, and not too many people in the gardens...have I mentioned how great low-season is? ;-)

Days of observing art, gulping down yummy Capuccinos and Ciocollatas (hot choc) and eating pasta have left the body confused. We surely cant walk any more and yet could not eat any more either...talk about extremes of everything!

We spent one morning even climbing to the very top of the magnificent dome and what a lovely view greeted us. Florence remains unchanged with red-tile roofs and no structures over 4 stories (except ancient castles and towers)...quite the same way it must have looked 100s of years ago when the dome was first built. We highly recommend it to anyone who wishes to see a city still very much in its original glory.

One evening we walked the 1/2 hr uphill to Piazza Michelangelo that gives a lovely view of the entire city. Having spent an hour so in deep conversation (somethings remain between a husband and wife ;-)), we headed down. But wait a min....where is M's bag? The money, credit cards, IDs...shit, damn....run dammit run... We run back but there is nothing anywhere... M runs frantically to one side, HK to the other. Finally, M hits the jackpot...a kind store owner had seen a pickpocket trying to make off with it and had snagged it. He had kept it in case we came back. God bless that man! Breathe again....

Enough excitment..we decided to take it a Saturday night mass in the famous Duomo of Florence. It was awesome...the lovely dome and the echoes of the session...very nice indeed!

One day was spent at Pisa, but that is worthy of a posting of its own....

-Hari

Dreamy Venitian days

2004-12-11T01:15:00.000-08:00

Venice has been a dream place for Hari and I to visit. I guess that is probably the case with most people. It was to be one of the highlights of this vacation. The train to Venice was just a 6 hour ride from Munich through the lovely Austrian Alps. We rode through some snow covered areas in Austria which were very pretty especially when looking from the inside of a well heated trainJ. Hari did decide to be adventurous and ventured outside along with some anxious Japanese train-mates to take some pictures.

The weather was slightly warmer at Venice than Germany. Our train took us to the heart of the city from where we took a water taxi (Goa style ferry) to a quiet neighbourhood where our B&B was. We were greeted by a really sweet old host called Franco who inspite of much insistence on my part refused to let me carry my suitcase up to our room and he wheezed up the stairs with it instead.

Venice was all that I had imagined. Beautiful architecture, cute alleys, quaint stores and churches lined the streets and gorgeous canals! The way I figure, anything in Venice would look adorable because of the charm of the place. We were put up very close to Santa Maria Formosa cathedral which is one of the most important in Venice according to Franco.
The first couple of days we didn’t see many Gondolas in the water as it was a little cold and rainy but there were many boats and water taxis. All homes are made of the same characteristic stone and most were lined with potted plans and flowers along all the windows. Homes were either 2 or 3 stories high and the ground or the first floor was generally empty as winter time brings a lot of floods.

Being in Italy also brought pasta back into our livesJ Wasting no time, I got my much needed dose of Pesto for dinner on our first night there. Hari vowed to have as many Spaghetti meals as possible.

The next day we walked a short walk up to Venice’s main attraction ( other than the gondolas) to San Marco square wherein lies the beautiful San Marco Cathedral which aside from being a regular cathedral also houses some amazing pieces of art and frescos made of gold. The main attraction here (atleast in my opinion) were the mosaic art works.

Around the square, there were some exquisite stores with glass displays. Venice and its little neighbour Murano are well known for blown glass work. How I kicked myself for being an unemployed student with no budget for Venitian glass sculptures at the time you will never know! But it was a pleasure to just take it all in as well. I guess we didn’t quite look convincing as unemployed students. So we were accosted by a salesman who offered us a free water taxi to take us to Murano to see some glass sculptures being made in a glass factory. After that of course we would have the privilege of perusing the factory’s large galleries of items for sale which we could choose to purchase from. Somewhat suspiciously, Hari and I agreed to go and were treated to some skillful glass blowing. The ‘master’ at the factory blew glass to make a horse sculpture. After that came the uncomfortable feeling of being chased around the galleries by a nosy and imposing Italian lady. She kept trying to push us to buy some sculptures and when we finally obliged her by buying a glass pendant, not quite what she had hoped for I suspect. We quickly beat a retreat and returned to Venice.

The next day brought some sunshine and soon the gondolas were out and Hari and I joined the eager tourists in trying to hail down a gondola at the beautiful Rialto bridge. We had a beautiful half hour tour by Gondola of lovely Venice and forgot about everything else during that time. During our time in Venice, we also saw the Chiesa de la Salute (Church) and the local Chirstmas market.

Venice truly lived up to all the hype. No let down here whatsoever.….

Some things that we noticed/ learnt-

* Gondola drivers own their own Gondola. There are a total of 400 gondolas in Venice. At any given time, 300 are active and the other 100 are rested.

* Venice has garbage and trash lying around in places and lots of graffiti on the wall but somehow the place is so beautiful, so you never notice anything offensive.

* Murano glass shops are competing (as are most places in the world today) with shops with similar glass artifacts made in Taiwan and China.

Next stop – Florence!

- Maya

Good times in Germany - Munchen

2004-12-10T01:13:00.000-08:00

A lovely train-ride through the German countryside finds us at München Hauptbahnhof (Central Train Station). Berlin was an enormous culture shock in that it seemed much more conservative-minded than Brussels or Amsterdam. It was a great history lesson and was an experience we will not forget soon.

Munich seemed to have a much more welcoming air from the very offset. A few streets from the Station we found our hotel – the uniquely named “1st Creatif Elephant” – I kid you not! Hotels have been a source of great entertainment for M and me. Brussels had crazy old Mrs. Bluet, Amsterdam had a punk as our hotel bell-clerk, and even Berlin had me begging a couple of ladies to come back in 30 mins to clean our room (in vain) and them refusing to even try to understand my valiant attempts at sign language J. Munich finds us in a very creative hotel – both in name and in reality. The hallways are painted in numerous colours and there is even a stained glass window between the bedroom and bathroom (a small one mind you - ;) ). There is a great energy and the smell of hearty German food in the air. There is still a chill in the air and we have yet to clear 5°C during peak daylight hours. However, lack of maddening crowds makes the low-season a great time to really see these cities, imbibe the atmosphere of the true city and see it without the “makeup on” (if that is your cup of tea). Each city seems loaded with tourists from the country itself and that is always good.

Munich is a stop that I insisted on after a short splash and dash stop (Formula 1 term) during a recent business trip through Europe. The train ride through a part of what I assume is the famous Bavarian black forest and the great energy in the city, seem to be rewarding that decision already. We spend the first day drifting through beautiful Marienplatz, sipping hot wine and taking in the street Christmas fairs that have covered every stop on our trip so far. In Germany, these fairs are called “Christkindmarkt” and are composed of lots of stalls where you can buy food (sausages, potatoes, cheese, roasted chestnuts, pralines, etc), Christmas souvenirs, play carnival games etc. Munich seems covered by these too. A big one is in the main plaza – the afore mentioned Marienplatz. We stop to check it out and catch the 11am performance of the Carillon. The Carillon is the performance of the mechanical figurines up in the clocktower, to the accompaniment of church bell music. The entire plaza comes to a grinding halt to watch this twice a day 5-minute performance. It was cute, though I wager the figurines in the clocktower at Salarjung Museum in Hyderabad, India performed a more entertaining and definitely a more in-tune performance. German food is hearty and German food is meaty – day 1 found us eating Indian food at Rasoi. A hearty meal of Chole, Paalak Daal and Naan really hit the spot!

A good night’s sleep and a great shower followed by an awesome breakfast spread had both of us agreeing that this is the best hotel yet. Today is going to be emotionally challenging. We are going to visit Dachau – one of the main Nazi concentration camps, in the nearby Munich suburb of the same name. A longish subway ride followed by a confusing bus ride finds us at the bus stop for the camp. It is a fittingly bitterly cold and damp day (check out the snaps for proof). The visit to the SS headquarters in Berlin was chilling, but that was in the middle of the city and was surrounded by sights and sounds of a new growing city. This is in the middle of nowhere. We solemnly trudge down to the main gates – it looks like a modern prison compound. We pick up audio guides in a lonely wooden building in the middle of a huge compound. I am struck by one question - Can you believe the inhumanity of this place? It is the size of several football fields and was dedicated to the torture, imprisonment and murder of 1000s of people – how low can we stoop?

Attention, Attention – Hari is ascending the soap box. I cannot go past this point without bringing some thoughts up. The Nazi torture of several people (not just Jews) should have taught us to prevent this from ever happening again. But time and again, the world has turned a blind eye – Kurds in Iraq, the Balkan wars and now very recently in Rwanda. Genocide of people cannot be justified – period! It is up to all sensible thinking folk to ensure we don’t let this keep happening. In my opinion, there is only one way to get a feel for what these tragedies may have been like. Go to these places and see them first hand. TV has done a great job in informing us, but over time we get numbed to the horrors we see day after day. 60 years later, Maya and I felt a little bit of the horror felt by the prisoners at Dachau. We must never forget history or we are doomed to repeat it! *Hari has descended the soapbox, for now at least*

We stopped into the barracks and saw the horrid “living” conditions. We saw the terribly graphic photos everywhere and the huge rollcall grounds, where every morning, for 12 years (1933-45) several thousand prisoners lined up. We stopped by the gates to see the five levels of security (huge walls, guarded strip, barbed wire fence, electrified fence and 8ft deep ditch) that surrounded the camp. We even stopped by the tragic ovens meant for cremating bodies…and yes, we stepped into a Gas chamber. Enough said that it had M in tears and me in a very somber mood indeed. Never again should this happen….

We took the long ride back to the city in silence. Can we get back into a good mood (though never ever forgetting today’s experience?). We take a break in the hotel and get some rest. A few hours later we take a subway back to the heart of the city and decide to head to the loudest, most fun beer-hall we can find – the famous Hofbrauhaus. My memory has not failed me, and we find it without much of a struggle. Finding a table inside was not as easy. This is a huge hall with 30 foot ceilings and several cafeteria-style wooden tables. There are people in Lederhosen (local dress) serving beer, performing music and even dancing. Guests are encouraged to join in. Maya and I find a table and sit down opposite a large gentleman with a very red nose and a big silly smile on his face. I order my obligatory 1 liter of beer while M gets a coke-lemonade mixture that looks like a darkish ale. We toast the night, our trip, all your healths and a few other things I can no longer remember. With Maya liquored up on coke, we head out to find dinner…that was a very fun and happy walk as far as I recall. We stumble into the sprawling Ratskeller – the sprawling cellar of the Rathaus (Townhall) to find some vegetarian German food. It is our last night in Germany and dammit, I need some potatoes. We order some Potato Au Gratin, Potato pancakes with Sauerkraut (sour cabbage) and that was good!

Munich served up wholesome helpings of welcoming energy and cheer (in spite of freezing temperatures). It taught us a bit about the ugly side of human history (Dachau), but also showed us how positive the future can be (the street fairs in the city). We board our train to Venice. Germany has been quite a rush to the senses for us and we look forward to Italia.

-Hari

Cold Cold Berlin!

2004-12-06T02:17:00.000-08:00

Berlin was one of those places we decided to visit which wouldnt typically be on many Eurotrippers list. But we have wanted to see it and experience it - all the history, the industrialization and all.

When we got there it became quite obvious that the city was not as tourist friendly as the others had been on our trip so far. But by no means was it bad...We were quite surprised at the fact that most people spoke and understood no English. We had assumed otherwise.
But on the positive note, there were many many street shops filled with heart shaped chocolate cookies hanging all around:-)! That sort of made up a little for the rest of it.

We spent 3 days in Berlin and were situated in the heart of the city. The first day was a saturday and we had made up our minds to somehow make it till 10pm and go to one of the clubs nearby to soak up some local music. Clubs here reamin open until 7am! We were half expecting scary germans letting loose on the dance flloor to Electronic music. It was cold as hell that evening. We had dinner and it was only 7.30pm and we had to kill time, so we ordered dessert. Done by 8. So we ignored our dinner bill for a while and refused to make eye contact with our waitress. After getting many stares, we decided we couldnt prolong this anymore and sulkingly paid our bill and trudged out into the cold. Then we proceeded to walk the streets aimlessly to kill time until 10 pm. We witnessed a car accident and I had one of my hiccup fits. A pretend coughing fit by Hari was needed to cover up Mayas hiccuping noises as passersby sneared and jumped when they heard it and of course Hari's pretend coughing turned by some weird stroke of fate into a real hiccup fit which could not be covered up!

Finally exhausted and sleepy, we made it to the club to find out that there was a out of tune band playing there that night and they had come all the way form..............The USA!!
So much for trying to soak up local music. Anyway, we quickly made it to the dance floor so as not to waste any more time and danced the night away:-)

The next couple of days were filled with visits to various places of historic interest including the place where the berlin wall used to be and the checkposts of the US control part of west Berlin, etc. All the history and geography that I had adamantly refused to study from textbooks back when I was in India was being showered on me in a crash course in 3 days. We also visited the Head quarters of Gestapo (Hitlers secret service) and witnessed via pictures and documentaries the atrocities and medical experiments on the jews and gypsies and prisoners of war. This was slightly hard to take in but very enlightening all the same.

On a ligther note, we enjoyed the tons of Christmas street markets all around Berlin. We also took in some very funky architecture in Berlin. After visiting some of the local bookstores, we quickly learnt that Berlin is very well known for unique architectures and in sme cases a lovely melding of the old and new styles. I have yet to find out if Berlin is famous for any large architecture schools. With the amount of emphasis on it I would imagine ther would be.

Berliners were not very friendly to us. We tried to ignore rude stares and looks the first day but when it continued through our entire stay in Berlin, we were compelled to take it somewhat personally. After checking and doublechecking that our clothes were in order, our fly zipped up, etc, we finally decided it had to be our skin colour that was causing the stares and rude behaviour. It is such a pity! I had just not expected it especially with all the historic baggage that this city carried.

All in all, Berlin left me with mixed feelings. I dont regret coming here but I left with the disticnt feeling that Berlin was trying very hard to look like it had more about itself than the terrible history it carries. But the truth is that it will pronbably take years for Berlin to form an identity of its own.

With anticipation and excitement, we board our train to Munich. I hear people are friendlier there...

-Maya

Amsterdam..........City of the liberated!

2004-11-28T03:11:00.000-08:00

Amsterdam was the biggest surprise to me personally on this trip thus far. The moment we got out of the train station, we were embraced by an electricity of a big city much like Bombay or London I suppose..

Lots of people, lots of colour and lots of charm all around.
The funniest thing was that the city made famous for making prostitution legal accepts it like it were just antother profession. People go about their day passing by the red light district like it were just another quarter of the city!

Amsterdam surprised us by all the variety of things it had to offer from being the host of international documentary film festivals to plethora of Indonesian restaurants (not sure why??) and of course incredibly beautiful canals and architecture. We also saw lovely art and artifacts at three of amstrerdams largest museums. We took a beautiful canal cruise around the city by the night. All the houses with large french wondows showed off gorgeously neat and artistic homes behind them. While we were oohing and aaahing over the pretty Dutch houses, our guide on the cruise pointed out the the houses along the canals in Amsterdam were very narrow and extending quite deep. Supposedly it is regular practice to decorate the front room of ones house in a spectacular fashion with large bookcases filled with books one never reads and colourful lamps and such - just for onlookers to see of course. How interesting - I had never seen window displays for houses before:-) Oh and Brad Pitt has a home on a canal in Amsterdam. We couldnt quite get the cruise guide drunk enough to tell us the address!

Another thing we discovered was that Netherlands is one of the few countries in the world where gay and lesbian marriages are legal! It was quite exhillarating to experience this beautiful city with a very very broad mind.
Most people understood and spoke English in Amsterdam so we had no problems getting around. Oh and did I mention? Our hotels name was 'Hotel ABBA' and the guy at the reception looked like a punk:-)
After 3 days and a few total blasts, we are off to Berlin. Who knows what Germany has in store for us. Our adventure continues...........

Link to our photos from Amsterdam and Brussels:
http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=35mf8y.cpxykm7f&x=0&y=-b33eer

About Lesbos

2004-11-26T03:03:00.000-08:00

I thought this was an interesting bit and wanted to share with you all...

Hari and I went to an art show in Brussels about the Turkish empire and its rise and fall etc..

We read this short story about a queen/ goddess in a place called Lesbos where only women lived. This Godess is known to have fallen in love with many women in Lesbos and she was thereafter admonished in society. Hari came up with an astute abservation that likely it was after this fact that the term 'lesbos' or lesbians came about. While we are yet to verify this I thought it was interesting how terms from the past take on new meanings asa society evolves.

BTW, if you havent already, the book 'The Da Vinci code' is a must read. It too talks about a number of different words and concepts from the past becoming distorted to take on new meanings in the world as we know it today....quite fascinating!

Welcome to Bruxelles (Brussels)

2004-11-24T02:06:00.000-08:00

*Continuing the random style of this blog, I will not type this entry in 3rd person*

After a lovely ride on board the Thalys, we made it to Brussels Midi Railway Station. We had done our homework and so we knew that we had to take Subway line #2 in the direction of Simonis and get off at the stop "Hotel de Monnaies". Having bought a ticket for Euro 1.30 each we made it very easily to the station.

Surfacing to street-level in Brussels, we found the city chilly but not too cold. After a quick consultation of the map we trudged off in the direction of the first hotel of this odyssey - Hotel Les Bluets. With unerring accuracy we found the hotel. It was just 150m from the subway stop and the area looked clean and safe - yay!
We buzzed the security intercom, and heard the voice of our hostess for the first time - " Les Bloooay", she cried! We introduced ourselves and made our way in. We found ourselves face to face with a stocky looking, middle aged, red faced, bespectacled Belgium woman. Another fascinating conversation was surely in store -
Hari: Bonjour, hello, my name is Hari Krishnan and I..
Mrs. Bluet (dont know her name, so this will have to suffice): Hello, the window in our top floor room is broken and so we cant occupy it and rent it out..the man broke it off, and they no longer, how do you say - fabric it? We cannot close the window and so we cannot give you that room. You must walk 1, 2,3..4 roads and take a left at Le Boucherie Carlos and take a left...find 4, Rue Capouillet and thats your hotel room. Climb to teh 2nd floor and you will find your room. Thank you, now give me one passport!
Hari: Uh...cant we get a room here?..
Mrs, Bluet (Redder in face): The window is broken...etc, etc. Heres the key, off you go, thank you!
Hari: No, thank you!

Well having dashed the hopes of a hotel 150 m from the subway, we trudged about 4 blocks down to our new abode. It was a deserted looking house in a quiet lane. Climbing the steep staircase ( a trend to come) we made it to our room. It was spacious and clean. The shower room, sink and toilet were in the same room. Each was in its own section closed only by a curtain from the main room :)
But it was quaint and full of cute artifacts and painting....plus we had free Internet access on the ground floor PC.

Getting around Brussels was very easy indeed...the subway was a gem and was clean and fast. The train got us to diverse sites in this quiet little ville - lovely churches, beautiful palaces and huge gardens. We saw the European Parliament and everything was uncrowded. The low season is awesome! The tempearature was definitely low, but Maya has been fantastic. Considering her susceptibility to cold, she has fought thru it all!

The second day in Brusells saw us eating breakfast around the one large dining table at Les Bluets. About 10 people sat around the table - germans, french, spaniards and even a quiet japanese girl. A hearty breakfast of juice, cereal, yoghurt, toast, coffee, fruit and a dozen different jams made for a great start to that (and every) morning. Entertainment was in the form of Mrs. Bluet scolding the guest - "you, sit here", "If I am busy, make hot cocoa for yourself", "The black man took the chair without asking yesterday and you will not take it today"...were some of her gems. Whats with her, anyway? :)

Having eaten heartily, we decided to take a day trip to the quaint little village of Bruges. It is known for fine lace and quaint streets. A 2 hr coach ride later, we found ourselves in Bruges. Our friendly guide is a 50ish frenchman who speaks good english. He shows us around the beautiful streets and takes us to a lace shop.
A proud little Belgian then proceeds to tell us the intricacies of Bruges lace. To all of you, remember this one thing - If you dont have Bobbin lace, you dont have good lace! There were several other details I wont bore you with, but he broke down why his lace shop was a dying breed. It seems that most shops in town didnt do their own lace. They had it made in the factory of the world - China! Thus, he effectively showed us that his lace was better than the rest of Bruges, and that Bruges lace is better than Brussels lace (non-bobbin lace). Anyway, enough on the lace...
Maya ran off and bought us some Belgian Truffles Chocolates and we immediately dug into them - yummmmmmy! We had a great day walking around Bruges, but i was really, really cold...brrrrr.

The next morning found a new victim getting their scolding from Mrs. Bluet. Good morning to you, Mr. Late for breakfast!
Anyway, Maya and I roamed the streets of Brussels. The belgian version of a hot-dog stand is a Waffles truck...they smell divine in the sub-5 degree C weather. Promises were made from me to M that we would partake in waffle eating before we left town.

Overall, the city was like a poor cousin to Amsterdam (our next port of call). It was cute, but more than the 3 days we spent would have been unadvisable. The good news is that our passable French and English were more than enough to get us around. We seem well on our way to becoming those Indo-europeans we will be soon.

However, lovely bleak churches with ancient and modern stained glass cover Brussels and it is quite a cute little town. The fact that I am currently reading the awesome "Da Vinci Code" and am in Europe is definitely augmenting this trip. I recommend the book to anyone who has not read it yet. Maya has dibs on our copy though, and she will read it next.

Well, Brussels has wound to a close and we find ourselves waiting for the Thalys again - destination Amsterdam! Maya will likely take over for the next entry, but this has been fun and our dream trip is definitely off to a great start!

Link to our photos from Amsterdam and Brussels:
http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=35mf8y.cpxykm7f&x=0&y=-b33eer

And we're off....

2004-11-21T01:35:00.000-08:00

Hi again all...Hari here and I am making a debut on our blog.

Well, we've done all the responsible stuff, in other words -
1. Get a house - Check!
2. Lease a car - Check!
3. Collect ATM cards - Check!
4. Deplete bank accounts to truly feel like students - *sniff* check!
4. Embarass ourselves speaking french(?) - Definite check!
5. Transform ourselves from Indo-Americans to Indo-frenchies - hmm, not quite there yet, mes amis!

Now its time for the long planned, long anticipated EUROTRIP!!!!!!!
We have dreamt about it for the last few years. I have been calling hotels, shortlisting hotels, planning train-rides and booking tickets for only the last 4 months, thats all. So now time to enjoy the fruits. Time for the movie to begin -

ACT I:
Date/time: Nov 20/6am
Location: Somewhere in the forests of Fontainebleau

We find our two intrepid adventurers frustated with attempts to defrost the damn windshield of the rented car. Many minutes later, we find them zipping through the french countryside, a dash above the speed limit both for driving and heart-rate - you see Havek is a nervous traveller and has managed to transfer some of that to his poor wife - Mayhem (there nicks are no coincidence)

After paying a Euro toll and following the poor directions, they find themselves......

..hold on a bit, the poor directions warrant some explaining. You see Europe uses an equivalent to the excellent Mapquest.com service in the US, called Mappy.com. Well Mappy has been obviously designed by some sadistic souls as they try to be as unspecific as possible, as if to say - enjoy the moment, take time, smell the roses, drive in circles. Well mission accomplished...I can confidently say that I as I type out this rant, several poor drivers are meandering around Europe wondering what they did to deserve this. Mappy has beautifully painful directions and in spite of being a Brit site ( or maybe because they ARE a brit site), the English is pitiful at most times.

...anyway, where were we? Oh yes, our two brave gypsys are now on the outskirts of Paris. AFter taking a deep breath, they dive into the city of lights. Paris is still fairly asleep at 7:30am, but the roads have a fair amount of traffic. Driving here is like driving in Bombay - lanes are suggestions, not requirements and the horn is put to fine use (I mean some poor guy spent time testing the damn thing, so use it will ya?). After zipping through traffic, the duo find themselves within a 5km driving distance of Gare du Nord Railway station, but never closer. Try as they might they cant seem to get any closer to the goal.

After some dubious U-turns and quick turns, they find themselves near the station, but rental car return is nowhere to be found???? AVIS and co. in their infinite wisdom have not posted any signs showing the way. Maya bravely steps out to ask some friendly Parisians the way. The conversation (helpfully translated went a bit like this) -

Maya: Bonjour Monsieur (Good day sir)
Frenchie: Grmph... (Grmph)
Maya: Est-ce que vous m'aider ... (Could you help me...)
Frenchie: Je ne parle pas l'Anglais (I dont speak English)
Maya: Ou est le.. (Where is the...)
Frenchie: Je ne parle pas l'Anglais (I dont speak English)
Maya: Savez-vous.. (do you know)
Frenchie: Je ne parle pas l'Anglais, demandez le serveur (I dont speak English, ask the waiter)

Well Maya is made of some tough stuff and much later she came back beaming...she jumped in to the car and said "Take the first right". Well, of course, it turned out to be the first left...
Anyway, long story short....we drove into a subway below the station that wound to the very centre of the Earth and parked our car at the doors of Hell. Mucho climbing later, we made the terminal (just in time) and got our tickets stamped and breakfast eaten. Hari's folks called too and managed to sneak in a greeting.

At 9:45am, the two adventurers boarded the shiny red train (Thalys) headed for Brussels. After stowing away the luggage, they settled ino what was to be a very comfortable journey on a very fast train. Trains in Europe are spectacular and very fast. Especially a few special trains which have names associated to them, eg, Eurostar, Thalys, etc. The Thalys connects Paris to Amsterdam via Brussels. So, the dynamic duo will be using it twice (Paris - Brussels, Brussels - Amsterdam).

Belgium....here we come!

Acclimatizing in France

2004-11-19T01:41:00.000-08:00

France seemed much friendlier at first sight than the US did to Hari and I. Immigrations and customs were a breeze and our luggage was intact. The French drive on the same side of the road as the US so no adjustments were needed there. We got lost a few times before getting to Fontainebleau.

Then came the fun part: We parked in a store parking lot qnd wanted to go ask for directions. Hari and I fought over who should have the first pleasure of encountering the Frenchies:-).Hari won and I had to go and ask a few questions in French.Mind you........NO-ONE speaks any English. The storekeeper squinted at me not understanding the French I was speaking: not sure if it was the words or the accent or something else:-) The good news is we made it and since then our French encounters hqve been getting better. Less squinting and more smiling!!!!!

Since then we have found a lovely country house made of stone in the middle of French country forests and vegetable farms. Given that both Hari and I are big city people, this is going to be fun:-)))

French creperies are a dime a dozen too.............yummmm!

Some things I noticed:

1> Lots of old people out and about in France and I truly mean LOTS

2> OF most people that own real estate to rent out, it is generally the women that managed the renting out......maybe they are considered good at it or maybe it is because seemingly French people think abt women as homemakers primarily and hence women would fit this sort of role best.

3> Unlike popular belief French babes are not necessarily very pretty looking. French guys are flirty

4> French people dress phenomenqlly well. One finds very few people wearing sneakers. Each town also seems to hqve an abnornally largz number of hair dressers [coiffures]

Au revoir for now and bonvoyage to us. We finally head out on vacation before school starts. First stop: Brussels.

Leaving the states after 5 + years

2004-11-14T15:42:00.000-08:00

This is where the blog begins I suppose. Hari and I didnt think too much of moving from country to country when we said 'Yippee!' and signed up to study at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France. We had done the move before when we were 21. We had moved from India to the US and with all of two rather large, heavy suitcases.

Moreover, we were getting this unique opportunity to study together once again! Hari and I first met at indergraduate engineering college in India. So going back to school together once again fascinated us. This time we would shoot for an MBA degree.

The two things that dawned on us as we got into the logistics of moving were that
a> We had managed to accumulate a lot of crap in 5 years. Mind you, very pretty and artistic crap none the less we said to ourselves with pride. That which was not going to fit into two or four or even six suitcases. We couldnt really put stuff in storage since maybe we were leaving the States for good for now atleast.

b> All our friends - those we studied with in India, those that we had got to know in thelast five years and those we were excited about just getting to know were all going to be far away from us once we moved:-(

Anyway, when an opportunity of a lifetime comes along, one has got to look forward and not backward I suppose. Your friends will remain friends with a little more effort long-distance.....

The last two weeks were trying. We had to be super orgnaised and yet not have a home to come back to. Soon we were jobless, homeless and car-less bums:-)
But as one of my dear friends gently reminded me - 'wandering nomads' was a better description.

The last few days with the gang of friends and our angel-like cousins and family were precious to both Hari and I. We all hung out at La Fondue in Los Gatos for chocolate fondue. For a choco-holic like me nothing could have been better and that would be true of the company as well.