Still learning ways to command my mind

Lonavla in Powai

2006-07-05T04:16:00.000-04:00

I went to Lonavla last weekend and felt that the place was extremely beautiful with the gorgeous valleys and water streams. Life came to a standstill and my dad went crazy clicking pictures. Its been one week since we got back and the sight is recreated in Powai, Mumbai. With the beautiful hillocks and the Powai lake, this place is no less beautiful. The clouds cover the hill summits and the tips of the skyscrapers in the area - amazing weather for some halwa poori and khichdi!

Of course, the rest of the city is drowning and the news channels are the only way I get to see te painful sight of people suffering with water flooding their homes and people navigating through the city in boats. Every Indian supports our government's move to make Mumbai a truly international city. However, the way the city planners are working, we are far away from realizing our dreams. The govt. accepts tenders to build skyscrapers in highly conjusted areas. They are ready to spend crores of rupees on gettin more ways of transportation. However, they are very slow with the construction of roads. In fact, forget the condition of the drainage system. People put their lives in great risk by walkin on these roads because the pot holes cannot be seen and anybody can slip and fall. There are certain areas in te city which are extremely charming (Mumbai-Pune expressway, parts of Bandra, Marine Drive and other sections of South Mumbai, Hiranandani) but the rest of city is under extreme distress.

I feel sorry for the people who live in the so called 'bastis' and have nowhere to live during monsoons. The city planning is obviously very poor. However, if you look at the sky line, you will notice that Mumbai is nowhere as green as it should be. Of course, it is one of the few cities in the world which has a national park within its limits. However, for the secong largest city in the world, this is not enough. Even Chennai is greener and scientists predict that in about 60 years, Chennai will be a desert!

The Thar desert in Rajasthan is rapidly growing on both sides of the border and this is not good news (even for the tourism industry!) We are not taking care of the basic issues and are setting too high standards for ourselves. Of course, India is the second fastest growing economy in the world, and we should be proud of it because we are succeeding despite of population problems. But, we still face problems relating to wealth concentration in smaller sections of the society. Corruption has a lot to do with this. Do we all think that we have anyway way out of this?

Possibly, hosting major sporting events might help!! Germany is making a lot of money with this World cup despite being kicked out of it by the Azzuris. The Italians truly deserved the victory last night. Of course, I could not keep myself awake for the entire game. But, the first 90 minutes showed how strong the Italian defence is. Last night, their midfield did a fantastic job too. We saw the best of European football with one touch passes and man to man marking. I have been a Portugese supporter for quite sometime (Spain as well, but they are gone:( ). However, just for the sheer brilliance of Zidane in the previous game, I think the French deserve this world cup for the grandmaster of football.

Slow to update

2006-07-03T05:02:00.000-04:00

I do not know whether I mentioned this - I have moved to Mumbai. Well, I haven't moved to Mumbai actually - my parents have. Which means that I come to Mumbai whenever I visit India. Now, its hard to say whether this is good or bad. Of course, the city of dreams is good and huge and all of Delhi, Calcutta and Chennai can fit into Mumbai and still have space for the tiny Singapore. However, cleanliness and roads is a major issue here.

Of course, its raining here and hence the delayed flights and daily commuter hassles. But, the city is still tolerable because of the number of things you can do here. However, something that I cannot do is go to a disc with a girl. This is because my girl has injured herself.

During her vacation to the Gold Coast, Australia with a bunch of buddies, she went ahead and injured herself and nearly broke her leg. Crutches and painful. sleepless nights is what she got in return for her adventure. Nothing great of course, but knowing her Murphy's luck - I think she is fine. Still hoping the best for her and hope she recovers fast.

I was visiting Kuru's blog and found updates on the world cup. Actually, I was going to do the same. But then, something happenned. Two of my favorite teams are out and only one is left - Portugal. However, I have got to say - Zidane is God with that ball. The way he played against Brazil - hats off to the man. Not that I can do much with that ball, but this guy did whatever I had imagined myself doing in my dreams - and more!!

Looking Back at the Caving night

2006-05-30T00:16:00.000-04:00

This weekend caving experience was scary. I did not think about it so much when were really stuck. When we were trapped, all we could think of was KFC and pizza. This was primarily to keep each other motivated and not let anybody fall asleep. We had been caving for 7 hours before we got to the underground lake and had no energy at all. In fact, I remember, when we were finally being rescued, I would sit down after every small climb to rest and then move on.

There were 5 of us in one bug huddle to keep ourselves warm as we were rapidly losing body heat. We called out huddle a huggle. Huggle = hug + cuddle. Sameer kept saying, "I love hugging people!" Kati kept laughing (and then getting pissed too!!). Chuck was trying out some push ups (God knows how he was balancing himself there). Cristie was doing great actually (have no idea how). I was just standing there - because I had no energy to move.

Some funny quotes that I can think of. These things kept us going and alive while all this was going on.

Charles: Do you want to listen to a bad Helen Keller joke?
Darshan: (all alone on the other end, suffering from hypothermia and not responding to anything we say) Nooooooooooooooo

Sameer: Dude, its cold. I think we should remove our pants!

Sameer: Hey, did I just poke your boob by any chance?
Kati: Ya well, its ok. I don't care.
Rahul: And my leg is stuck between two legs. Who is this??
Kati: Ah well. It's ok!

Darshan: I can't feel my toe.
Rahul: Dude, rub yourself!!
Charles: What!!

Charles: Guys, we are gonna get out of this and then go to KFC and have biscuits with honey and their Pepsi products.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz (snore snore)

Charles, Rahul and Sameer: (on 3 separate occassions) Are you okay?
Kati: Do not touch me!

More keeps coming!!

I died - almost

2006-05-29T19:18:00.000-04:00

Memorial Day weekend - late May. Charles and Rahul leave for Cincinnati on May 26 to pick up another friend, Darshan. We drop our car in La Quinta Inn on Exit 115, Kentucky and head towards the camping site wid Kati in her car. We reach the site somewhere in Kentucky at about 9pm. We met a bunch of other people, few of them were our friends from Michigan, others who joined our friends to camp and cave.

We had no idea what was going to happen to us over the next two days. After having some soup, we decided to head off for cave exploration. However, we never found one and instead got lost in those woods. It was so dark that we could never find our way back. All we could do was try to hear far off sounds (cars, barking dogs) and try to figure out a way. But this did not work. So, we ended up spending the night in the woods, trying to hold each other to stay warm. This is when Charles came up with the famous line, "Dude, what could get worse than this!"

Things can get worse than this. We managed to find our way out of the woods in the morning once we could see something. After 3 hours of sleep and a bagel and a banana, we head out again (a smaller group of 7 this time) to explore. It was 11am when we got into the caves. This was supposed to be a 3-4 hours long exploration. We did all stunts we had seen in the movies. Military crawls, hanging on ropes, log rolling through narrow passages - whatever you have seen on tv - everything happenned with us. The worse one for me was when we had hang on ropes and climb down by 8 ft onto a ledge which was by the edge of a cliff. One slip and I would have died. We had to then some how move away from the cliff and stick to the wall and try to avoid missing a step. All this happenned and we were still alive.

The group then walked through waist high water (15 degrees F or so). We managed everything. But, we did not know that 30 ft lake was waiting for us. This lake was not supposed to exist in those underground caves. But there it was. We had caved for 7 hours now and could not back track because we could not climb up those 8 ft anymore. The only way out - swim across the lake. The first person into the lake was Darshan. H ewas half way across when he started drowning. There was no way he could swim with those heavy boots, clothes and helmet. Steve then jumped in to help him cross over to the other side. Now Steve is an engineering student at Michigan and a very experienced caver and climber who was leading our group.

We were freaking out by now and were very worried about Darshan. He was hypothermic and was alone on the other side of the lake. We tried to keep him awake and kept talking to him. In some time, Steve came back with a blanket for him and went back up to get help. 911 was called and at 1:30 am, Darshan was pulled out. They got to us at 3 am. By that time we were completely exhausted and trying to keep one another warm by body contact.

We were pulled across the lake and then hung on for our dear lives at the shores which were terribly slippery. There was another lake after that. We pulled ourselves on a tight rope so that we could avoid swimming through this one.

Finally, we were out of the caves at 5:30 am - after spending 18 hours in the dark underground caves. There were about 200 cave rescuers all the way and paramedicals to take care. At the end we were chilling inside the ambulance. I swear to God - this was one adventure you would not envy missing out on.

This was probably the scariest experience of my life. Never saw danger so close. But, we came out safe. We handled it well without losing our balance. Kudos to the team - way to go Sameer, Cristie, Kati, Darshan, Chuck...and well, I hung in there too!!

To learn more, look at this video clip from ABC:

http://www.wkyt.com/Global/story.asp?S=4960254&nav=menu181_2

Take care - happy caving

Deeeeeeeeeeeeeetroit Basketbaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall

2006-05-21T19:19:00.001-04:00

Pistons are in the Eastern Conference Finals now. They beat Lebron's Cavaliers to the finals against the Heat. And guess what, the first game is at the Palace of Auburn Hills.....now i so wanna go for the game but its too far off from Ann Arbor....

The biggest hassle in USA - TRAVEL. Supposedly, the most dominating country in the world has been unable to plan out a good public transportation system. It could not be more ridiculous.

Anyways, so I am in Rochester, MI at my aunt's place with this cousin (Priyank) who has come all the way from Mumbai for the Pistons games (no jus kiddin!! - to meet his girlfriend, well kiddin again...or am I ;))

Of course, Nihar (my ABCD - "American Born confused desi" cousin) is also here at home. I got the new Red Hot Chilli Peppers album from him and hope its good when I listen to it in A2. Another exciting event this weekend was an addition to my orkut testimonial by Nitya.

I hope you read this Nits - I miss you a lot dear....see you soon...

Adios for now I guess!!

Finally got something to do

2006-05-21T19:19:00.000-04:00

So I have been sitting in Ann Arbor trying to do some work. All this to impress damn professors so that they can sponsor me for grad school. It had been two weeks and I had done no practical work. Of course, Dr. Segall was excited that he gave me a problem to create a meshing software for GM. But, frikkin' hell! How the hell can I create a software. This is supposed to be a phD. project. After two weeks, he realized that this isn't going to work. Well, as if I hadn't been telling him all this while!So, what do I get to do then - work for GM again. But to solve a manufacturing issue. I do not like manufacturing at all. There is too much mugging to do for mfg. classes and I hate it. Open book problem solving exams are any day much better. Anyways, right now I am applying Silica 160 on these car cylinders and trying to get the finished impression. Then I am supposed to look into these marks under a microscope and measure the angle of impressions to obtain an expression for intensity of reflected laser light as a function of this frikkin' angle and surface roughness.Did you understand - if you did, then let me know...because I need help!!

On the other hand, my very own Sri Lankan Aero prof - Dr. Anthony Waas gives me a finite element problem. Now if you do not know what finite element solutions are, then let me explain. Wait, I am not sure either. But, basically we cannot solve every kind of differential equation on planet and we have derived a way to solve them numerically. So, we divide structures into tiny elements and obtain their stress-strain behavior numerically. This is an efficient method and supposedly reduces our problems. Oh yes, I want to end my problems.Now this sounds like intense work right. However, this is not the case. Research is such a slow process. I get bored sitting in the lab, finish my day's work ASAP and run home - watch FRIENDS and then go and play squash.How can you ever find this blog interesting...hmmm...but life is boring right now!!

Peer pressure

2006-05-15T18:09:00.000-04:00

Its amazing how internet seems to take over the world. It is also amazing how things become 'outdated' with the blink of an eye. The other day MSN was the best way to communicate. Of course, people had completely forgotten how we wrote letters on paper. But, I mean - chatting. I never knew this was also an outdated mode of communication until my friend, Kuru Kuppu (also called Raghuvansh) said that he does not come online anymore because he is either busy downloading or orkutting or blogging.

Peer pressure has now brought me to blogging - a method of expressing one's views for public reading. With the current writer's block, I am unable to write anything. But I will get back to some writing in a short while. This one was just to announce my presence in the blogging world.

Take care