I'm Ashamed!

Every second item on my Facebook wall is about Anna Hazare and how corrupt the government is. Seriously guys, talk about corruption, eradicating it in it's root etc, is kind of very ironic. Anyone who has ever bribed an official voluntarily to speed things up and get things done faster has no right to comment on how corrupt the government is. Corruption starts and ends in us. Unless we are clean, we are all just a bunch of armchair critics!

If we are all that concerned, why don't we do something about it, rather than just "raise awareness" in Facebook? How does that even help? Our raising awareness is isn't going to move a gear or a cog in the government machinery.

What can we do, you ask? There are so many NGOs that support poor kids in their education, we can help them. We can teach underprivileged kids in our free time, it's doing our part in getting people what they need.That's not good enough? If "system change" is what we need, why don't we become the bureaucrats and politicians we're fighting against? Why don't we join politics, why don't we become ministers, why don't we become MLAs and MPs? Why don't we become IAS, IPS officers? We won't do it, we want a "Safe career", we all want to go to "good engineering and medical colleges", we all want "good jobs".

Yes, being selfish is okay, if you are more concerned about yourself and your family more than the country, it is totally okay, just accept it and move on. Do not do things because everyone else seems to do it. Your candle-light vigil is not going to help anything except maybe get YOU some media coverage. Is that all you need? Your candlelight vigil is like the useless "strategy" meetings that happen in big corporate houses, it's all glittery, everyone's dressed up, everyone talks of great things, but nothing ever comes out of these meetings.

I'm extremely ashamed of my generation right now. Half the people who're crying about corruption don't give a rat's ass about what's happening to their own maid-servant's sons/daughters in school. Do they even go to schools? Do you know?

I'm not pointing fingers, I'm not calling everyone bad, but anyone who just decided to jump into the "stop corruption in India bandwagon" overnight, needs to be honest with himself/herself.

PEACE!

Friends!

In life you make friends, you move away from them (physically) and make new friends and the cycle goes on. There are friends from high school, you leave them behind and make friends in college, leave them behind and make friends at workplace, you quit work and make friends at a new workplace and it just goes on. Before you realize, you know more than a 1000 people that you've been friends with at some point. But still, there are a bunch of folks, who, in-spite of not being in touch for ages will start off a conversation where you last left. They are your real friends, friends you should never stop being in touch with. I've been blessed with such awesome friends in life and from now on, I make it a point to keep in touch with them. E-mail, Facebook and IM can never replace a real conversation.

It just sucks that we have to grow up and move on, leaving behind friends from various stages in life. Yes, you meet new people, make new friends, but no one can ever replace some friends.

Dedicated to all the awesome friends I've ever had!

Filler Tag!

Filler it is, till I come up with something on my own. A tag I picked up from Ashwin.

1. When was the last time you swore? Which swear

word was it? Why? At who?

I swear a lot and not really mean it, I probably just called a friend a "bastard" maybe a few hours ago. Does that count as swearing?

If it's swearing at someone with all the emotions, I think it was a few days back.

2. Describe Ms. Perfect.

Tough one! Still giving it a shot:

Someone who's smart, who can get into an argument with me and probably win. Win - not with typical "it's all your fault" argument, rather a scientific argument.

Should share similar interests, which include our taste in music, movies, sports and books. Need not necessarily like the same things, but share interests. Does that even makes sense?

Someone who has goals in life, a goal that is not "get married and have kids". Someone who'll respect me for who I'm and accept me as a whole than try to change me. Someone who'll let me have some me time with my friends and not complain about it.

3. Tell us three qualities that you hate in people (in general) and three that you love.

3 qualities I hate

1. Fake people
2. People who are socially awkward - making fools of yourself for fun is still okay, but acting like a weirdo is not okay
3. Spllng lyk dis

3 qualities I Love

1. Intelligence
2. Taking things in the right sense - not getting hurt for everything
3. Being open and discussing things rather than expecting me to understand and act

4. If you could pick one person to survive Apocalypse, who would it be?

No one really. When the World ends, it should end with everything in it (which includes humans)

5. What is your greatest strength and your greatest weakness?

Strength: I can handle pressure, a lot of it. I'm very level headed (at least I think so) and I will not knowingly hurt a person, I will try to be friendly with even strangers.

Weakness: I over-think things, I dig deep into what a person could have meant when he/she said one simple sentence.

6. Apart from your father, who is your hero?

My department's head in college Dr. S. Jayaraman - a man know seemed to know, literally EVERYTHING! I really don't know what kind of a man he was in his personal life, but when it came to academia, he was easily THE BEST!

7. When was the last time you wanted to kill a person? Who was it and why?

Political and it could be a CLM.

8. Put up a picture of your room.

9. Do you consider yourself materialistic? Prove either answer.

I'm very unsure of this. I like my car, I like my gadgets, but I'm not attached to any of them. If I end up losing my phone or my laptop - I would be more worried about the stuff inside them (letters, pictures, movies etc.) that I lost than the laptop itself. Does that make me materialistic?

10. Apart from the obvious, what is the first thing you notice in a girl?

Grammar and accent (this is a new interest now, trying to find out where the girl is from based on accent). If you thought everyone sounded same, you must watch this.

11. Who, after 24 years of living, would you consider your best friend, the one who’ll remain so till you have ten great grandchildren.

Pavitra Subramanyam closely followed by the G Gang and Rafi.

12. What was the last joke you heard/read which had you laughing till you cried?

When Chemists die, we Barium.

13. How often do you lie? (Don’t tell us you don’t because everybody does)

I don't count. Really.

14. What was the last gift you gave (to who) and received (from whom)?

The last time I gave someone something on my own for no occasion is to Vignesh Deivaraj. Aviatoresque shades from Fast Track.

Last gift I received was a blu-ray disc of The Dark Knight with extras from Rafi.

15. Can you write haiku? If so, give us one. If not, die trying (for convenience, I leave the topic upto you).

No.

Okay, I think I'm in LOVE!

No no, it's not what it looks like, I was doing some blog-hopping and ran into this. This girl sure can write. I've already spent more than 5 hours on her blog - people who work in my team - a dwell time of 5 hours :O, have we ever seen that on a landing page? ;)

Truly, I'm in love with that blog! It is AWESOME (no, not Awesome number 1 or 5, I meant Awesome number 4 - something that strikes awe. Command over the language, flow, sarcasm, humor and everything)

Now she has inspired me to start and continue writing (Ashwin you too), your mail served as a reminder and I got to this blog through you (thanks for that too)!

May this inspired frenzy continue. There's already something about Seattle and maybe I'll write something about my experiences in the United States - the cultural difference, the different people I've met and things like that!

Till then, I'm gonna spend a couple of more hours doing some blog hopping and off to lunch - it's Indian food day today! Woohooooo....

Seattle - I just realized how much I love this city!

Seattle is no New York or LA, it's not Mumbai or Bangalore either, but it has it's own beautiful charm. The two most famous Seattleites are people who've had really screwed up heads but created arguably the best music ever - yes, Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain (maybe it was the weather that made them like this)

So far, I've done none of the touristy things except visit the Space Needle when Mr.Kshira Saagar (a friend, a colleague and almost a brother) had come along. I've also not done any of the awesome summer things like camping, hiking, trekking etcetera. But still in a moment when I looked at Seattle's night skyline and the really weird road patterns (unlike other cities, Seattle does not have perfectly perpendicular roads, it can actually be very confusing for a newcomer) while I was inebriated, I realized I LOVE this city. Yeah, I said it!!!

I've always, always complained about this city to anyone I met in the US -it rains a lot, it's dark, gloomy and depressing, but in-spite of all that it is really awesome. The city has a very decent night-life (though I'm not a huge fan of night-clubs), has some of the best bars and restaurants I've ever been to, is truly multi-cultural and very accepting of foreigners like myself.

LA is great, New York is just friggin awesome with all the history, but still I'm happy living in Seattle and now given a choice between cities, I might (just might) choose Seattle!