Diwali in 2006 in US

Jab Hind ki galiyon mein taarey chamakte hain,
Jab kabhie shehron mein jugnu nazar aate hain,
Jab raahon mein kushiyon ke diye jhalte hain,
Jab kuch pal ke liye ghum bhi muskuraate hain,
Jo har manzar se niraalli hai, wohi bhai apni Diwali hai.



Dekh kar duniya ko,
chaand aasmaan se yeh kehta hai,
Aaj Hindustan chamakta hai bhai aasmaan jaisa lagta hai,
Suraaj bhi aaj kal bharat ke noor se jalta hai,
Apna watan aisa chaman hai doston, jisme har dil ki kali khilti hai.

Oct 2006 ki diwali mujhe aur mere doston ko bhi yaad rahegi. Bahut rules padne ke baad, badi mushkil se shop search karke humne fireworks buy kiye. Most firecrackers had visual effects. I had bought different kinds of sparkles(anar des mein).
The weekend started with two bollywood movies back to back. We saw Jaan-e-Mann and Don back to back. The best part on Jaan-e-Mann was that only 3 of us were there. Prashant, vaibhav and myself were the royal kings watching Jaan-e-Mann in the theatre. Akshays smile was good to throw all of us into his laughter gimmick. After 30 min break we watched Don. In the break we had to run and grab quick dinner from Wendy's. So much time management skills are needed to see two movies.
After working on saturday morning, it was feast time at lunch. Our very own Nikhil arora(Aka Vaibhav goel, chief chef, B206) made kachori's, kheer, poori, sabzi and all. After wonderful lunch we had few games of carrom. In evening we all got ready to make a visit to Temple. All 6 of us were dressed in some sort of Kurta. There was huge rush at temple. Now comes the execiting part when we reached home. It was time to busrt some....crackers; people. Everyone was bit scared by thinking what will happen if cops come and many other questions. Although PK had seen on website that lighting these fireworks was legal in US, we were still bit scared. We finally found a place away from homes and car and started to light crackers. On seeing the lights of first cracker, everyone forgot about cops and was toally into festive mood. It was with same zest we were firing crackers as in Des. Jaldi se next fuljhadi jalao, next anaar le kar aayo, arre smabhal ke wahan pe anaar rakha hai...was the voices heard frequently. Woww, it was great fun to see lights on the dark night.
At dinner time, my friends were invited to Kaushik's place. I accompnaied them and that was great move. I ate chakli, ghujia, sev, dahi wada, kadi and all good food items at his place, Bhabhiji had prepared great food. At 11pm we were back to our own house. What next!!. How can a diwali night go without a game of flash(teen patti). So it was again 4 of us playing teen patti with cents. I made no gain no loss at the end of the game.
Even the next days dinner was good. I was invited at Roopesh home. Even there I had a sumptuos dinner with all diwali special items.
It was a wonderful diwali in US. It becomes mor special thinking of my last diwali in US when I had celebrated it by just making phone calls. May every diwali be such wonderful with all lights and crackers.

You can see phot album at http://new.photos.yahoo.com/contactshobhit/album/576460762329860427#page1

A nice video can be seen on http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2516098946991876953&hl=en

Beautiful colors of Nature

Among many wonders of nature is fall(season before winter) color in north east America. It seems all trees would have sung song "Muhje rang de Mujhe rang de" to God and he would have given leaves such beautiful colors.

Leave color changes from green to yellow to orange to red and finally they fall off. See the video of colors at this link NH colors

Its such beautiful that every photo taken with this fabulous back drop looks amazing (look at my photo - Hero lagta hoon na :-))

We had been to New Hampshire state. Loon mountain was the first halt. This place has a small river flowing, a gondola (rope way). Loon mountan is around 6000+ ft. At the top of mountain we have some caves. It was fun to go through caves, try rock climbing. Rajneesh and myself actually were stuck at one of the rocks. It was lovely experience (now i can say as we were able to get down safely :0)

A surprise element was that I met Nahush, mohit, mulik over there. I had no idea they were planning to go to NH for fall. So here is the big gang we formed

Below is the link for masti we did on our trip to NH.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-740679842311816520

We did conway railroad trip. This train ride was bad one. Matheran rail (mini rail that we have in Matheran) is much better and fun.

We were planning to go driving for Mt Washington but somehow the energy level droped and we made return journey to home sweet home.

More photos can be at on my yahoo photos

Aasmaan se giri, jameen pe utre

Everyone would hate a fall. Be it a fall into pot-hole, fall of stock market, fall on ground. But I really enjoyed fall from the sky. Free fall from 13000 feet to 4000 feet and then on parachut, was lifetime experience.

I had waited for long to try sky diving. We went on May-31-2006 to sky dive. The climate was good at afternoon when we reached there. But when our turn came climate showed real colors. It became cloudy. Funskydive team tried 2-3times to decide if we could sky dive. We had to come back home without diving on that day. One of my friend, Vaibhav goel, did jump on that day. Rajneesh and I were determined to sky dive and made booking for next week.

Next time we went there in morning. Our turn was supposed to come in afternoon. Climate was good there and it was not hot. It was fun to lay down on grass and just talk different things. A day out - thats what I titled my day. It was windy that day and our pilot was not ready to take flight. We had to again come back on that day.

We reached there again on July-08-2006. This time everyone at skydive school knew us. We had become kind of notorious there that we bring bad weather with us. But this was the D-day for skydiving. Rajneesh and myself were all geared up. Sky looked clear and climate soothing enough. The ride by the airplane was bumpy. I had not imagined such small plave accomodating 6-8 people. But there we were at 13000 feet. One fellow person jumped off the plane with any warnings or preparition. That was scary. Next it was my turn to jump off the plane. I tried to hold it and get used the climate. But I was shocked to see myself turning around in air. My first reaction on jumping off the plane was try and grab something. Good they had instructed us to grab the safety belt we were wearing. When we stabalised it was smooth fall. Air speed was so high that I had to apply pressure to move my hands. I was scared to open my mouth, least all air would fill into it :-). Then suddenly there was this jerk. It was jerk of parachut opening. I did try to manuever the parachut a bit.

And finally we made a perfect landing.

Watch my video oniline at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7835245857458316681

My Nissan Altima

Its me still putting smiling face even after going bankrupt :-)
Here is my new 2002 Nissan Altima. Fully automatic with lovely interiors.


The backlights look lovely. Isn't it nice car to follow :).

Conwall rafting - April'06

Pyaar ki kashti mein, lehron ki masti mein,
Pawan ke shor shor mein, chale hum zor zor mein..

Huff Huff...Puh Puh..this was our state; tired,and exhausted; after 3 hours of rafting. 22-April-2006, Saturday, was decided to be spent in water doing rafting. All planning was done, cars booked, excitement packaged, energy preserved and enthusiam bottled.

After many months I had seen 6:30 am on Saturday. Normally Saturday morning happens at noon ;-). After having quick breakfast I was all set to pickup my friends and start the trip to west cornwall. Pontiac Vibe was rented for the trip. This was March 2006 car which had run only for 1500 miles. Was it fun to drive the car? O yeah! I was driving 90 mph easily on it. So following the route CT-4 we reached clarke outdoors in 1.5 hrs.

http://clarkeoutdoors.com/rafting.htm

After reaching clarke outdoors we got ourselves dressed up in rain jacket, life jacket and gloves.

Rafting was first time experience for all of us.

There were many who did not know swimming. But hey swimming is not at all necessary for rafting. Even a swimmer cannot swim in rough water :-). So we were given quick KT by Bill, our coach. For non-software programmer KT = Knowledge tranfer...oh yes we IT guys mix work and personal life. So here we are are learning strategies from the guru.

As in work life, we are set to dive into the new task with basic idea. In teams of three we were all set to race among ourselves on water.

Shiv, Deepak, Vinod and I were in one boat. We learnt the art of rowing, turning left and right quickly. We started rowing quickly to race ahead of all. But Magesh, Chandru and Suresh were fast enough to be defeated. First 1.5 miles was smooth and we mistook rafting to be simple task. We had the first experience of slight rough water and enjoyed it thoroughly. When raft twisted left and right in wild water we were screaming with excitement. There were many people standing in cold water and fishing. After this came the tough path. There were many rocks just submerged in water in the path. Our raft got stuck in rocks. At runtime strategies were made and implemented to get into flowing water again. Shiv and I had to get into water and clear the raft of rocks many times.



Now lets talk about climax of rafting. We were told by instructor that we will see an island on right side in 3/4th of path. After 2 to 2.5 hrs we were desperately looking for island. We had to motivate each other to row more. Finally we saw the island. After gathering last drops of energy we rowed to reach the destination. We had lost all the energy and were feeling cold. Vinod was shouting to us "bas ho gaya yaaro, see thats the end point, come on row fast". And yes we finally reached the destination and ran into the van. The heater in van was feeling real good.

Finally we drove back, had a good dinner in udipi resturant. Hot water bath at home and sound sleep was all we needed.

Parting time !!! - Touching moments

After 4 years I said good bye to Infosys. I never imagined it will be so emotionally touching moment. It was not because of love for company but because of love of fellow people. In past I had changed a project after 1.5 yrs and had same feeling. Leaving ACAS project was also touching. Team mates gave me greeting card ( I still have it !!), gift and touching speeches. I had made comments on most of them and in return got great opinions from many.

This time again I wrote small but valuable things about team mates which I felt touched me. I was overwhelmed when they spoke high about me. May be part of it was because at parting everyone talks good. Its old joke that if you stay with the company they will highlight your weak points and cause problem in appraisal. Once someone quits, everyone talks big about him and portray him to be 'the' employee :-). I had same feeling but somewhere I felt most of them spoke truth :-). Feel good factor about myself , you see. All qualities were highlighted by some live incident. As I was getting close to parting moment I was getting a feeling that I would be missing my friends a lot. Few of my close friends had arranged for pizza party. Party started by giving me gift which I know is real useful to me. Then biggies started talking about me. Then it was my friends who started narrating incidents and refreshing old memories of good times we had together. People highlighted the first impression or old image they had about me and how they found me different ;0). It's touching when people speak about you. I did gather few points which I should improve on and I am sure friends will help me in improving on them.

Greatest surprise to me was client giving me card and gift coupon. I had just spent few months with the client. They wrote emails to me and shared personal email IDs. I had written about them as what quality in them impressed me the most. I was really happy to receive replies from them. On gosh..Touching moments.

Now fun part. My flight was on Saturday noon. I was at airport 1.5 hour before. My friends were there at the airport with me. We were having photography sessions and chit chatting. We waited till last moment and I left some 30 minute before for security check and all. Then there long queue for security check. Boarding point was far off and I had to walk long and take subway and again walk. End result - I missed the flight. I returned to my Seattle house to spend another day with old pals. :-)

Finally I made to CT.

Talkative Man - R.K. Narayan

Today I finished reading Talkative Man by R K Narayan. As ususal author wrote in simple and flowing way. Story moves at good pace. Its about a person living in Malgudi who happens to meet a foreigner from Timbuctoo. TMs interaction with foreigner, station master, village folks is very interesting. The way author described station master's agony in trying to remove person from Timbuctoo from waiting room is great. Our foreigner started by three piece suit but towards end of novel came down to shirt and pant. Our foreigner in a seminar announced that world is doomed to end in year 3000 AD. After hearing his reasoning and description of doom women seemed to have fainted. I was laughing on reading this.

Somehow I was not really ready to digest the abrupt ending. The concept that Dr Rann from Timbuctoo was fraud and had cheated many women was strange. Even RK wrote in post script that he found the story not moving after 166 pages. I thought a lot about what more I wanted to read from the story. I think I wanted to read that TM in our story was wrong in judging the person. I wished to read Dr Rann was genuine. Ah I wish all incidents and stories in world had happy ending. More on the book at http://www.brucebawer.com/narayan.htm

I have read 'Bachelor of arts' by same author and found that much more interesting. The style in which thoughts of boy is captured in this book is great. Boys struggle to build business, or find love, or follow girl all are described very nicely.

Now I am thinking which is the next book I should pick up.

Vancouver and Whistler trip

Neel-n-Nikki made van couver quite famous. How can I miss visiting Canada, which is just 3 hrs north of Seattle, WA. So the planning began by gathering friends willing to spend dollars on yet another trip. Shiv, Basav, Alok and myself were part of famous five. Four of us planned to join the fifth member in Van couver. Rajesh ,my college friend, agreed to be the host in Canada for 2 days. Running around to get Canadian Visa, get visa style photograph, run to office and run back to visa consulate, all made us much more busier.

Despite heavy worload and like true travelers, we were all set to embark our journey on Jan-27-2006, Friday. Friday ! oh the same day Rang de basanti movie got released. Its a must watch movie. So first we went for movie. Enjoyed the movie thoroughly. ' Arre isko toh hindi aati hai' Amirs dialogue later became part of our Canadian trip.

After having dinner we finally started driving towards Canada. Time check - Its 12:30am. We reached Canadian border at around 3:30am. The consulate officer was wondering why four young men are driving to Canada at such an odd hour. We had to convince him that we were late because of some party and started late.

Saturday Jan-28, 2006

Day began very early. Yes it we left the apartment very early, around 11 am :-). After having brunch we went straight to world famous Capilano Suspension Bridge. Although the suspension bridge is nothing when compared to Lakshman Jhula but the rain forest adds to it beauty. The concept of treetop bridges is unique and gives wonderful view to observer. Tall and green cedar standing high, water flowing below and lovely surrounding.

Walking down different trails was thrilling. All structures were made of wood. Infact there were many Chinese mythological images kept. These objects were made from signle log and were looking wonderful. It was raining heavily so we ended the rain forest tour in two hours. We were anyway short of time and had to rush to next spot in the list.


Grouse mountain was our next destination for the day. Snow lift took us to top of mountain which was completely covered with snow. It wasn't snowing at all below and we could see green trees. But as we went up and up we could see snow covered trees like bride in white wedding gown. There was so much of snow that we decided to walk on snow, have a coffee out in snow and just enjoy the moment.















Evening was spent in downtown van couver looking at lights and watching birds :-).

Sunday Jan-29, 2006

This day was to be spent in close by city in Canada, called Whistler. It is famous for its adenture sports. Whistler is two hours drive from Van couver. The route is very scenic and we took breaks to click some photos.















One can do zip trekking, skiing, snow mobiling and many more sports. We decided to do only snow mobiling. Its like driving a snow bike. No one among us had done this before but all were very exicted about it. It was two hour tour.

There was fresh snow on mountain. Snow depth would have been about a foot. We were riding in between mountains away from any civilisation. It was all white and white. We crossed bridge and reach another mountain. Again view of snow covered trees and mountain cannot be described in this space. We played a bit by throwing snow on anyone and everyone.

Return Journey

Return jounrey was equally challenging in terms of driving car. It started snowing heavily. Road was covered with snow and it became slippery. It was dark outside and only thing visible was tail light of car ahead of you. So it was driving just following the car ahead of you. In between I became the first driver and then we all started peeping out of glass to guess the road. But I was behind the steering :-) and we all made is past the snow covered roads. We dropped our friend at Van couver and came back to Seattle at 11pm. A beautiful trip came to an end. I am sure I would visit east coast of Canada sometime in future. Canada wait for me, I will come again.