A Kingdom, Far Far Away.

It was Far. 10,000 miles to be precise. For someone who is used to stepping into buses and trains after they start, I was at the airport 5 hours before my flight’s departure to India. After dilly dallying, checking out the shops with expensive goods, I was in for a shock. My flight was delayed because of mechanical problems and the airline staff didn’t know when it would begin. So, I waited. I emptied the charge on my laptop, talked to all the friends I could remember, and even at the end of it, the flight was still not ready for takeoff. So I looked around, went to all the terminals at IAH and after 7 long hours, I finally boarded the plane. The seats were fine, but I had two babies in my row. As soon as the flight took off, they entered into a crying competition. One kid had a deep, growling cry tone, and the other had a screeching, sine wave kind of a cry tone. I got some earplugs for myself and was able to  out of the competition.

When the flight finally landed in Dubai, my connection flight to Hyderabad was long gone. A gentleman from Emirates directed us to follow him into a room. As soon as he said that, he took off and everybody entered into a running race to be as close as possible to him. He went into a big room, took a microphone, and told us to stay calm as most of us were rebooked on different flights. People with different destinations were instructed to move to different parts of the room. I went to the Hyderabad section and stood in a line for my turn. I reached the lady who was distributing new boarding passes. When I gave her my name, she looked through her bunch, put on a sympathetic expression and told me that she didn’t have one for me. She then directed me to go and stand in a line in a different hall, where a ticketing agent would be able to help me out. At the new line, there were lots of passengers whose flights weren’t rebooked yet. I took comfort in the fact that I wasn’t the only one left back. Here, I saw people come up with a variety of stories when they weren’t happy with the connecting flights given to them. One couple said their kid was in urgent need of medication, and that if they couldn’t get to India in time, their kid’s health was in grave danger. A gentleman wanted a ticket back to Houston and vouched that he would never fly Emirates again. Another lady with a kid said she wasn’t going to stay overnight in Dubai because Dubai had mafia and it was dangerous for her and her kid!

A while later, I moved closer to the desk in my line and bored of the wait, I made small talk with an elderly person who was going to the western part of India. After sometime, an Emirates lady made an announcement that only people from the Houston flight were to stay where I was, and the rest need to move to a different room. After her announcement, she tried to catch the attention of a passenger who was in a queue beside me. He seemed lost and wasn’t looking at her, so I told him using a signal that the lady was trying to talk to him. After talking to the guy, the lady suspected me to be coming from a different flight, asked me if I was on the Houston flight, and when I said ‘yes’, she even rechecked the flight number with me. As soon as I was done with this conversation, the elderly gentleman gave me a piece of advice. He said, if I see someone in trouble, I shouldn’t poke into it immediately. I f I do such a thing, I would be getting myself into deeper trouble. So, the best thing would be to sit back and enjoy the ‘tamasha’. This shook me a little and I wanted to ask him if he had learnt nothing in the few years that he spent in America. But then, I was too tired to give him a lecture. I nodded my head and moved ahead.

I finally got a boarding pass for a flight to Hyderabad which was about to leave in 15 min! So, I ran down the hall, hurried through security, ran up the stairs and through the long straight hallway until I reached my gate. There, I checked with an Arab girl, if I could still board the flight and if my luggage was on the same flight. When she said ‘yes’ to both, I put my hand up and said ‘high five’! She looked at me confusingly, and with some restraint, gave me a low five instead. I tried to curb my sudden rush of enthusiasm, and moved slowly through the gate and into a bus that was waiting for passengers. I sat down, and another passenger got into the bus and sat beside me. We struck a conversation and I asked him what he did in Dubai. He told me he was a welder who worked in the construction industry. We talked for a while about welding. I told him about my spot welding experience at TATA Motors and he told me about the arc welding that he does. Once the bus was full, it inched forward. After a 15 min ride, we reached our flight. I commented that it was a long ride, and my welder friend told me that Dubai airport was the largest in the world and the Hyderabad airport was the second largest! I didn’t know how I would convince him that there was no way Hyderabad would figure in the top 25 airports of the world. So, I nodded once again and moved into the flight.

Surprise! Surprise! A Business class seat greeted me and I marveled at the reclining seats that were a million times better than the ones in the economy class. I sat back, pardoning Emirates for all the delay they put me through. The couple beside me also seemed to be first timers in the Business class and even they were in awe of the seats. Hyderabad was just three hours away and I couldn’t wait to get down. An air hostess arrived and I ordered a vegetarian meal. The passenger beside me ordered the same and I sat down to finish ‘The Social Network’ movie that I left midway in my flight to Dubai. After a while, the hostess arrived with our food. I took mine, and when she was about to place the food on my co-passenger’s tray, he said ‘I want the non-vegetarian meal’. The hostess, with a hint of complain in her voice said that he ordered for a vegetarian meal and the man responded bluntly that he wanted a non-vegetarian meal. I was surprised at the lack of courtesy the man had for the hostess and didn’t know what to make of it. After a while, I moved on from the topic and enjoyed a nice sleep in my comfy seats. When we were woken up for the landing, I sat back and enjoyed the view from the window with the song ‘Yeh jo des hain tera’ from Swades playing at the back of my head. I smiled at myself for the patriotism the song built up in my heart and I thought if I’d ever do something similar to what Shahrukh Khan did in the movie, or atleast, find a girl as beautiful as Gayatri Joshi. A short while later, the flight landed and I was on Indian soil after two and a half years. I met my Family and a Home that was Far Far Away, was all around me once again.  

'Serial' Killers

In the course of my ugly graduate student life, there was one week where I saw the real American life. My uncle had just bought an Audi SUV and I went to his place to drive it, eat all I want, drink his margaritas and laze over the sofa watching endless TV. But then, a queer thing happened. During the afternoons, I had to share TV time with my Aunt, and being the gracious guest I was, I gave her company in all the Telugu serials she watched. The only images I had about these daily serials from my childhood were that of my mother and grandmother fighting and winning the contest of what channel we all watched. Since I so hated the world of soap opera, I decided to analyze it. I looked at it not in the sense of the effects it has on our aunts, mothers or grandmothers, but with a sense of how a person would go about making a serial. So, here are the strategies that I discovered.

1.       1. Looks: Look. Look deeply. Keep looking and never stop looking. This is probably the most common mantra employed by soap opera makers. Characters have a certain lag time between the moment they appear on screen and the time they start saying something. In one serial, when the husband arrived home, his wife looked suspiciously at him for 2 minutes straight (I timed it!) with a thundering music in the background.  Surely, no woman takes so long to recognize her husband!

2.       2. Delay elements: Soap opera makers are the kings of slow motion. I’m sure one of their future agendas is to have dialogues in slow motion as well. Apart from the usual wastage of time in an old woman trying to climb a few steps, or a male character driving all around town before he comes home, these guys employ some creative means as well. I came across this brilliant idea in one serial where a girl on the roof top is plotting to kill a girl on the ground. After going through all the options, the girl on the top decides to kill the other girl by dropping a flower pot on her head. So far, so good. When the girl on the top takes the flower pot in her hands, the girl on the ground starts walking, so now, both the girls are walking. They cover the breadth of the building once. Twice. Thrice! Then after 3 long minutes (I timed it. They walked in slow motion), she drops the pot. But then, there is a twist. There is this lunatic person who rushes into the picture, pushes the girl on the ground away and takes the hit from the pot. Since he is crazy, he jumps up and down that he saved her, and that nothing happened to him, and it’s almost a minute before…wait for it…before the blood starts gushing out of his head! That, I tell you, deserves an award!

3.       3. Paraphrasing: The script writers are masters of synonyms as well as active, passive voices. The same dialogue would go back n forth, with a few key words substituted with varying levels of the same emotion. A more recent innovation has been translating the dialogue from the regional language into English and saying it again, just so that they eat away a few more seconds.

4.       4. Camera angles: This method is probably the lousiest of the lot. If there is a character that appears as shocked in one frame, the camera would show him/her from east, west, north, south, north-east, south-west and all the other possible directions, not to forget all the angles from each direction. Some have discovered innovative ones like approach shots-my favorite is one where the camera starts from underneath the table on the first floor, moves along the steps and approaches the character (in slow motion, of course!).

At the end of all this brain wrecking analysis, I put myself through one last thing-an awards ceremony for soap opera artists. I could empathize with the best song award, stay indifferent to the best actor, actress awards, but what pushed me over the limit was an award that proved that we live in a world of contradictions – the best editor award!

Dr. B or: How I learned to stop worrying and love Feedback Theory

It was a strange feeling that day. I was a newbie at the university, trying to find out where lecture room 227A was. Being born with a pathetic 3D sense, I was going around in circles inside the Zachry building. When I finally found it, my pent up expectations sort of took a hit. I was expecting a classroom rich with décor, style and modernity, but what I saw was just another classroom like the ones we have in India – a large board, worn out projector system, closely spaced seating area with a couple of broken chairs. A few minutes passed and the clock ticked past 10 am and the professor who I expected to be on time still didn’t arrive. So, we waited some more and after ten or so minutes, in walked Dr. B with a crumpled shirt, a pair of soggy pants, a cup of coffee in his hand and a strange, but serene smile on his face. He had this small bump on his head which was funny as hell. Never the less, that’s when I bumped into Feedback Theory.

Dr. B was a gripping lecturer. He had a free flow of thought coupled with a wry sense of humor. For once, I enjoyed being in the class. It was so unlike my under-grad days when I could have written a book of curses on the professor in the little time I spent in the class room. But, things were different with Dr. B. Even on those rare occasions when the topics were less interesting, I could find a reason to laugh by looking at his bump, conjuring up stories as to how he might have got it – may be his wife gave it to him, or maybe it was the equivalent of Harry Potter’s scar! Who knows?!! I even committed the blasphemy of asking doubts, going to his office to clarify my understanding of Feedback Theory. I also took to what has become an important skill in getting good grades – the art of “buttering”. It prompted me to show great respect for Dr. B’s style of teaching, his research, and his intellect. In the course of this academic courtship, Dr. B gave me three of his most important thoughts.

1. A marriage is like a feedback control system.

2. A disease is a failed feedback control system.

3. And finally, I don’t have any money to give you!

Needless to say, my interest in Dr. B’s research waned drastically after that. I found my previous self. Drooping eyes, bunking classes became the norm once again. At the end of it, I finished the course getting an A, my first A in a core electrical course during my entire life, along with 48 other students in a class of 50.

Then I moved on to other courses, courting other professors and here I am, four semesters down the lane, pondering over the past once again. The three pieces of wisdom that Dr. B gave me seem to make some sense. The marriage according to Dr. B comprised of two systems (man and woman) that were locked together in a feedback loop – one as a plant, and the other as a controller. So, when the man is throwing a tantrum, the wife would act as a controller resulting in a stable output, or when the woman is crying, the man would comfort her preventing a meltdown. In the course of a disturbance (which could be a kid, a secretary or a mother in law!), if neither of them act as a controller, the system would turn unstable and a fight would erupt. Makes sense ain’t it?!!

So, with the first piece of wisdom down, I looked at the second. This was difficult to crack. With my little to zero knowledge of biology, I didn’t know how I could make sense of a disease being a failed feedback system, so I started to look at other areas where it could be verified. The confusion continued until I heard a very able politician by the name Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan say these words – “The difference between us and the Americans is that we haven’t built self correcting government institutions like the Americans did”. I guess what that means is, we haven’t built proper controllers into our administrative agencies. In a larger context, when the government is throwing a tantrum, the people wouldn’t come forward to set things right. Interestingly, this might be the reason we don’t have enough money to give ourselves a better life.

Rainbow in the Night

If you risk, and if you ask

All the secrets in this world, will be eager to unfold

You can’t halt, you can’t sleep

It’s only your fault, if you’ve taken life with a pinch of salt

There is pain, and a prospect to shine

Nothing to gain, if you freeze your brain

So bring in the light, bring in the rain

It’s only your fault, if you want a rainbow in the night

The road of life, doesn’t go left or right

It’s a one way street, with the dreams out of sight

Hang on to the bus, with your entire mite

It’s only your fault, if you choose to alight

The fruits of your labor, may not be for you to savor

The dice of god, may not run in your favor

But work you will, and shine you shall

To discover oneself, is to know it all

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone-Akeela and the Bee

The How’s and Why’s of a How are you.

Let me tell you something sexy about living in the US. In most places that you go to, be it a grocery store, an eatery or a sports store, you will always find pretty girls at the counters asking you the three beautiful words – “How are you?” Their clean white teeth and the shortness of their shorts make you feel ecstatic about coming to the store. It’s not just the stores - you make eye contact with someone on the street, you get a friendly nod. You get into a bus and the driver immediately says “Howdy!” I thought these were refreshing experiences when I arrived here first, but lately, I seemed to have noticed the head fake in some of them. The funny thing is that pretty girls make you forget the sorrow of paying the bill. Shelling cash is no longer a pain. You don’t think twice about the extra stuff you bought, instead, you become convinced that you made the right choice.

I think about what I faced in India in similar situations like these. You get into a bus only after a lot of pushing and shoving. If somebody is able to find a seat, he could as well become a wrestling champion! In villages, there is this ingenious practice of throwing a kerchief into the seat and claiming it for their bottom! In spite of all this, there are things that rather seem out of place. In all the pushing and shoving inside a bus, one finds a witty conductor who could become a standup comedian if he wishes to. There are wannabe race drivers who ended up as bus drivers, and I can’t tell you how much fun it is to travel with one of them! Strangers may not wish you a good day, but they will certainly guide you when you are lost. Marwadi stores may not employ pretty girls, but they trust you enough to loan you their goods.

These things confuse me. The engineer in me tries to weigh both sides on a scale, but the balance never stops bouncing back and forth. After some effort, I go to sleep, hoping that the night would weave an answer out of my worries. When morning finally arrives, I go and stand in front of the mirror, and ask the same question that has been put to me tens of times – “How are you?” I look deep and wait for the mirror to throw an answer at me, but all I get in return…………is a blank stare.

5 feet 5 inches and standing tall!

As a kid, I didn’t have many dreams about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I just went to school, secretly followed by my super intelligent dog whom I had to take back home after discovering her presence during the prayer meeting! I was neither clear about what profession I would get into (we hardly understand that you have to make money to live then!). But, if there was one thing I was clear about my future, it was NOT to end up as a Shorty! Though now I think that by being short, one could naturally be environmentally friendly. I’m not kidding! Shorter people would mean smaller houses (lesser wood, so more trees!), smaller vehicles (lesser fuel consumption, so lesser CO2), lesser food and water consumption, and if you think deep enough there will be a million things that they save and reduce. No matter what aspect of life you look at, shorter people are better for the planet, period.

I couldn’t analyze so well back then, since all I was reading, rather memorizing, were when a bunch of people fought each other, or what comes out when you multiply 15 by 23 (boredom I say!). All I prayed for, standing second in line during the prayer meeting, is for the guy in front to be hail and healthy every day. The problems didn’t stop there. I sat in the first bunch, so I couldn’t fall asleep during the lessons, and of all the things, the pretty girls in my class were taller than me! This continued for a while and over the years, the childishness in me gave way to more pressing issues during my engineering. Things like, how do I pass my exams without reading anything? How do I keep walking straight when I kick back four shots of vodka?

After four years of fun, I sat down to get serious. I tried to freeze the world and understand what it’s made of, the way it works, and the kind of people that make it work. I tried to pick role models, people I would really admire, people I want be. I sifted through the icons that I came across, but the only one I could truly revere……. is the master blaster. I was in awe, because this man kept the match alive for India no matter what the situation was, and it’s not just his excellence on the cricket field, it’s also the things he says and the things that brought him to where he is today. Things like the little Indian flag on his helmet, his century for India during the very next day his father died, comments like “I am a very proud Maharashtrian, but first, I am an Indian” for which he received a lot of mindless flak from Bal Thackeray, or the essence of what Harsha Bhogle said about him – the story of Sachin Tendulkar is not just about his talent, it’s also about his passion and an extraordinary work ethic.

The gist of what Sachin and Bhogle said, Indianness and work ethic, values that exist deeply within us, are what I guess are getting muddied in Indian society. It’s like having a telescope, but not being able to gaze at the stars because of hazy skies, or strangely, something like the way people understand ‘Jai’. Did you know that the Mahabharat was originally called Jai? That this great epic ends not with the Pandavas winning over the Kouravas, but with Yudhistira understanding what it takes to ascend to the Heavens? The word jai has a completely different meaning from the word vijay. In vijay, there are winners and losers, but in Jai, there are no losers. It’s a state where there is compassion, where things are in perfect harmony with the laws of nature. If people could only think what their words really meant before they said Jai Telangana or Jai Andhra or Jai Maharashtra or Jai whatever, may be they would have a better sense of what to do. Life is short, so is Sachin Tendulkar, but what life could grow into is only determined by how well we understand the word Jai, and whatever you add to this little word, doesn’t matter at all.

The Curious Case of American Beeps

Well, this is what one of my German friends at TATA Motors said about America’s attitude towards systems at work – “The Americans devise systems which try to enable every stupid person on the road to do the job at hand”. I thought “Ah, these Germans, always trying to prove they are superior!” Well, days passed and I eventually completed my prison time at TATA and arrived in the land of opportunity (or the lack of it nowadays!).

Then one day, I saw a Top Gear video, a famous series aired by the BBC and hosted by a British egoist called Jeremy Clarkson. Jeremy is judging a car by the name Cadillac CTS. It’s a full size saloon manufactured by GM that costs a ton of money, has sharp edgy looks from which ever angle you look at it and was clearly a good looking car. But then, there is something that Jeremy points the viewer’s attention to. The car makes a different kind of beep every time

1. the door is open

2. the door is closed and the key is not inserted

3. the key is inserted and the engine is not switched on

In fact, its got a myriad range of beeps to alert the driver of every little thing he does. For once, my hatred of the sense of superiority that the British show totally disappeared, and I thought, the Americans must be truly out of their minds to design their cars like that.

I pondered over it for a while and the story stopped over there until I found a job as a programmer. The program I was writing runs on a mobile device which is like a bar code scanner, only difference being, it scans stuff using a different technology and is wireless as well. This time, I wasn’t busting my ass like I did at Dining Services. I was rather working from home, choosing when I want to work and when I want to watch a movie; sometimes mixing both if the task at hand is not too complicated. I worked hard for several weeks and the system started working pretty well. So, one day, I and my colleague had to wake up at 5.30(!!!) in the morning and go to the company which actually pays for my job. The company’s pickup truck came and the driver opened the door and there it was! The beep! It was an all American GMC truck and the moment the sound hit my ear, I could only think of what Jeremy showed in the Top Gear episode. The next day, another employee of the company came to pick us up in a Chevy truck and when his door opened, there was the all American beep once again!

So, I laughed within myself about all of this and we went to the company, showed the people over there how to work with the device. They made faces that didn’t really convey much information and I asked them

“So, what do you think?”

The head of the company said, “It’s all fine, but……can we have a continuous beep when the device scans the items?”

The top gear episode, the way Jeremy mocks about the beeps that everything Americans use started flashing in my mind. I returned back to reality and I said, “Well, we are going to design it exactly the way you want it to be”. I pasted a pleasing smile on my face and prided on the fact that I am finally beginning to learn the nuances of customer service. So, we went back, made the changes to the program and got back to the company next day and showed the device to them. The thing made the beep sound when it was scanning and all of my American audience was ecstatic. Feeling on top of the world for pleasing my customer, I asked them once again,

“So, what do you think?” (Charlie, this is Houston. We are ready to take off)

And with a small pause (….3….), they said

“Well, that’s a good job Anu (….2….). You have a small head (…1…), but you got a big brain inside your head! (Lift off!!!!)

But…..can we have a sound when the device finishes reading all the items?”(Crash!!!!)

And so, I had the Top Gear episode flashing in my brain once more. I grew a little cautious about my customer handling skills because these guys were slowly turning into people who eat, drink and sleep beeps, but I held my nerves tight with all my Indian resilience. Riding the wave of vanity, I accepted my fate and agreed to their request.

I went back to my office, added the sound and landed at the company the next morning. This time they were extremely elated, showered some praise on me and my friend. We felt good too, having showed how smart we Indians were. So, things went smooth and we took the device and connected it to the computer and performed what is called a sync operation to transfer files from the device. The computer screen displays everything that is happening between the device and the computer and I breathed a sigh of relief that the job at hand is over. The operation was about to finish when the head honcho said “Hey Anu, can we have a beep when the device is syncing with the computer?” At that point, I was no longer in doubt about what my German friend had said in the beginning itself. So, it’s true you know! The Americans love beeps and want to hear it no matter how silly the reason might be. They wanna be people who keep their ears open rather than the ones like us, who would keep their eyes open!