Lots of people.
People coming out of the station as waves in a sea, relentless...wrapped up in long coats, jackets, scarves, gloves and what not, stepping on each other...impatient to catch the next red traffic light to cross the roads; the Salvation Army Santas ringing bell for donations; Scarlett Johanssen on Macy's bright, colorful, digital billboard doing her jig for holiday perfume; the sanitation department people cleaning of the streets; free newspapers and pamphlets being distributed by punters; two cops sipping hot coffee in the comfort of their white-blue sedan.
And then you see a couple of odd seagulls elegantly finding their way in the myriad of skyscrapers and hoardings towards the Hudson.
Good Morning New York! I'm ready for work.
This is a blog to highlight the perennial dilemma, plights, joy, frustations, enlightenment of being a H1b holding Indian in USA..Collection of true personal experiences, observations on living the Great American Dream-the Indian way
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Saturday, December 01, 2007
All Things Considered!
All things considered, I'm going to start an article on emergent relationships....human relationships....I used to write quite a few during the hey days of my blogging however have not been so pronounced from the time I moved to NY/NJ. Why? May be people in NY/NJ people whom I'm acquainted with are not relationship-emotional oriented.....they are more profit motivated...I mean material profits, career targets, real estate dreams. May be because I'm the right person at the wrong time (super narcissism)....may be because of the whole subprime meltdown (blame it on Merrill and Citi)..hahaha...it can be for a 1001 reasons and again for no 1 good reason...its for me and others to figure out.
BTW, what is a emergent relationship? well its something of a sort of flower bud..trying to bloom against all odds of fluctuating and inconducive climatic conditions. So putting it into human perspective these climatic conditions can be
BTW, what is a emergent relationship? well its something of a sort of flower bud..trying to bloom against all odds of fluctuating and inconducive climatic conditions. So putting it into human perspective these climatic conditions can be
- busy schedule to find time for togetherness, or
- defensive and cautious approach to the whole subject of committment and relationship (because of past experiences!)
- just being overly practical and analytical (read anal :-)) about the other person
- lack of communication between 2 persons with respect to expectations (I lost my blackberry couple of days back and that provided me some downtime to update my blog...)
However, perseverance is the key. The bud can bloom to a flower only by perseverance against these adverse conditions. So all of you out there (believe me I know so many of you now), keep your patience, keep working at it....and be convinced in what you are doing..........you waver from this conviction and a strong wind will pull down your potential bud into ground....
Let me know how you are doing....
Friday, November 09, 2007
Things I want this Christmas
- Wicked remote controlled airplane (to feel the speed whenever I get a chance)
- Illuminated globe (to see how far I'm away from home)
- Meerkat slippers
- A freaking BMW
- Cheap and easily available white wines
- A smart dining table
- TUMI Backpack
- Perfect Pushup Handles
Thursday, October 18, 2007
The Middle Way
I always thought of justifying this 'The Middle Way' .....Buddha pioneered the Middle way long back, the path to enlightenment (what's that) by avoiding the extremes of sensory self-indulgence and self-mortification. The whole idea revolves around the theme of 'moderation'....sounds kind of antagonistic in the fast paced NY life. NY is all about taller sky scrapers, higher ambitions, bigger paychecks, lofty apartments and so on..all things material, all things capital. Moderation is an unknown word in the vocab of the people in and around NY, whether they are struggling actors or established bankers or successful doctors and lawyers.
Life is so hurried here that people don't have actual time to communicate with their near and dear ones....most stuff gets done in phone calls, SMS, chats, blogs, emails....what happened to the habit of just sitting down together for a quiet lunch or a plain walk or just playing a simple board game? We still do all such stuff to provide 'face' time to our 'clients', why cannot we do it in personal life? Why such simple stuff has to always wait for the weekends and not happen suddenly (prize factor) out of a whim? The answers to those questions are obvious; lack of time from work and all. Well adapt the middle path....nothing is more important than doing things (including your work) in moderation specially when you strive for an enlightened personal life. Professional life and work are as much of a calling as the personal goals...and the correct work-life balance can be achieved through some degrees of moderation (the middle way)...what do you think?
inspired by the pace of life in NY
Life is so hurried here that people don't have actual time to communicate with their near and dear ones....most stuff gets done in phone calls, SMS, chats, blogs, emails....what happened to the habit of just sitting down together for a quiet lunch or a plain walk or just playing a simple board game? We still do all such stuff to provide 'face' time to our 'clients', why cannot we do it in personal life? Why such simple stuff has to always wait for the weekends and not happen suddenly (prize factor) out of a whim? The answers to those questions are obvious; lack of time from work and all. Well adapt the middle path....nothing is more important than doing things (including your work) in moderation specially when you strive for an enlightened personal life. Professional life and work are as much of a calling as the personal goals...and the correct work-life balance can be achieved through some degrees of moderation (the middle way)...what do you think?
inspired by the pace of life in NY
Monday, October 01, 2007
Indian doctors in USA
The other day a Turkish cab driver in NYC asked me "What is w/ Indians? Are all of you Doctors or something?" and then I realized how true is he..with most of the other white collar jobs being outsourced to India, most NRI families have been getting their kids to focus more and more in medicine related professions.
In the US, Indians and Indian-Americans make up the largest non-white cluster of the medical community (they account for one in every 20 practicing doctors). The presence has come more to forefront in recent times with more charitable activities, more political lobbying, less high paying jobs in other sectors of the economies, increase of outsourcing of radiology reports and abundance of health tourism (where an american would go to india to get a knee replacement surgery than paying almost twice here).
I mean most of us know that we Indians have a history in medical stuff (Indian Atreya and Susrata established medical schools around 600 BC before people knew about Hippocrates or his oath :-) ) however statistics as "Indians make up roughly 20 percent of the International Medical Graduates - or foreign-trained doctors - operating in the U.S" are kind of social triggers that convince more and more Indian parents settled in US to infuse their kids with the thoughts that they gotta become a doctor. This sense of choosing a profession based on job security and monetary returns is a 3rd world phenemenon however it seems that most Indian parents in USA have not yet been able to curb their inner insecurities for money and stability over years.
Why cannot the Indian Americans be something else in life? I mean how many Indian Americans are good script writers or artists or painters or musicians or social activists or comedians (I can only recall Manoj 'Night' Shyamalan and Russell Peters)? Why most Indian Americans are doctors? I know a few Indian Americans who are doctors because they love being doctors, however what about the rest? Why do they still want to run the rat race?
In the US, Indians and Indian-Americans make up the largest non-white cluster of the medical community (they account for one in every 20 practicing doctors). The presence has come more to forefront in recent times with more charitable activities, more political lobbying, less high paying jobs in other sectors of the economies, increase of outsourcing of radiology reports and abundance of health tourism (where an american would go to india to get a knee replacement surgery than paying almost twice here).
I mean most of us know that we Indians have a history in medical stuff (Indian Atreya and Susrata established medical schools around 600 BC before people knew about Hippocrates or his oath :-) ) however statistics as "Indians make up roughly 20 percent of the International Medical Graduates - or foreign-trained doctors - operating in the U.S" are kind of social triggers that convince more and more Indian parents settled in US to infuse their kids with the thoughts that they gotta become a doctor. This sense of choosing a profession based on job security and monetary returns is a 3rd world phenemenon however it seems that most Indian parents in USA have not yet been able to curb their inner insecurities for money and stability over years.
Why cannot the Indian Americans be something else in life? I mean how many Indian Americans are good script writers or artists or painters or musicians or social activists or comedians (I can only recall Manoj 'Night' Shyamalan and Russell Peters)? Why most Indian Americans are doctors? I know a few Indian Americans who are doctors because they love being doctors, however what about the rest? Why do they still want to run the rat race?
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Corporate America
After watching this, you can gauge how the american corporate world works...groups of like minded people trying to bully another different group to earn their daily living..till they are kicked in the ass by their competitors or some unknown entity cropping out of nowhere...
Sunday, September 02, 2007
Who's Next?!!
Tom DeLay
Rep. Duke Cunningham
Rep. Bob Ney
Rick Renzi
John Doolittle
Don Young
Sen. Ted Stevens
Mark Foley
David Vitter
Sen. Larry Craig
Rep. Duke Cunningham
Rep. Bob Ney
Rick Renzi
John Doolittle
Don Young
Sen. Ted Stevens
Mark Foley
David Vitter
Sen. Larry Craig
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Golf and I
It's an interesting encounter of sorts....still now I'm on the losing side.
My experiments with golf initiated a year back..however I had to terminate it prematurely after 2 of my first swings broke a window (I used to live in an apartment complex surrounding a 9 hole golf course) and hurt a cat. Now again with renewed vigor and passion, I have started taking golf lessons, visiting the range; also got inspired enough to buy a brand new set from PineMeadow.
You would think that golf is all about "knocking a small ball into a series of small holes in as little strokes as possible while avoiding the hazards"..however it's definitely not that easy. I'm still trying just to get the right swing (http://www.abc-of-golf.com/playing-golf/full-golf-swing.asp) with a success rate of 10% i.e. 5 tee shots are going correct in terms of height, direction and distance out of a possible 50 shots that I hit at the range.
The battle is still on...
My experiments with golf initiated a year back..however I had to terminate it prematurely after 2 of my first swings broke a window (I used to live in an apartment complex surrounding a 9 hole golf course) and hurt a cat. Now again with renewed vigor and passion, I have started taking golf lessons, visiting the range; also got inspired enough to buy a brand new set from PineMeadow.
You would think that golf is all about "knocking a small ball into a series of small holes in as little strokes as possible while avoiding the hazards"..however it's definitely not that easy. I'm still trying just to get the right swing (http://www.abc-of-golf.com/playing-golf/full-golf-swing.asp) with a success rate of 10% i.e. 5 tee shots are going correct in terms of height, direction and distance out of a possible 50 shots that I hit at the range.
The battle is still on...
Labels:
golf,
loneliness,
love,
patience,
trials and tribulations
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Monday, August 06, 2007
Plain updates-Ver 2
NY Bar Live Music Feedback
Had an awesome time with the band Breaking Laces at the Cutting Room in NYC. The lyrics are strong, the stage presence is commendable and the crowd was loving it thoroughly. The cover charge of 10 bucks was worth the music and the free CDs and the crowd..
Princeton Piano Concert
If Breaking Laces was all about raw energy and drums, meet Alexander Gavrylyuk, the pianist-prodigy from Ukraine (currently based in Moscow). The winner of all major piano masters competitions across the world, this 24 year old enthralled a diverse and appreciative audience by his rendition of Bach, Schubert, Mozart, Filippenko and Rachmaninov in a solo performance session lasting for 2 hours. Standing ovation was only but due to him.
Corporate America
Have you heard this joke " I wish I were African American when in a club but a Caucasian when dealing with Corporate America" ...I thought this is a joke till last week when one of my professionally trained and accredited friend got replaced as a frontline Project Manager for a major project he was handling as the client wanted someone 'senior' (say Executive Director or CTO) to lead the project..was it a modest way of telling that we don't want to deal with a smart Indian guy with a not so bad accent...I found this interesting article to confirm my assumptions.
Had an awesome time with the band Breaking Laces at the Cutting Room in NYC. The lyrics are strong, the stage presence is commendable and the crowd was loving it thoroughly. The cover charge of 10 bucks was worth the music and the free CDs and the crowd..
Princeton Piano Concert
If Breaking Laces was all about raw energy and drums, meet Alexander Gavrylyuk, the pianist-prodigy from Ukraine (currently based in Moscow). The winner of all major piano masters competitions across the world, this 24 year old enthralled a diverse and appreciative audience by his rendition of Bach, Schubert, Mozart, Filippenko and Rachmaninov in a solo performance session lasting for 2 hours. Standing ovation was only but due to him.
Corporate America
Have you heard this joke " I wish I were African American when in a club but a Caucasian when dealing with Corporate America" ...I thought this is a joke till last week when one of my professionally trained and accredited friend got replaced as a frontline Project Manager for a major project he was handling as the client wanted someone 'senior' (say Executive Director or CTO) to lead the project..was it a modest way of telling that we don't want to deal with a smart Indian guy with a not so bad accent...I found this interesting article to confirm my assumptions.
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