Sandeep's Recollections...

2011 – Is it already over?

2011-12-31T23:43:00.000-08:00

I thought 2010 went by fast, but to say that 2011 went by faster would be an understatement. A lot happened this year too, and since OCCUPY was the biggest word in the world events, our world was occupied by several ongoing things.

We continued reconnecting and connecting with friends and colleagues, thanks to the social media sites. It is hard to believe that the world has shrunk so much. One can literally see the person on the other side, and not just talk to them anymore. I am guessing holographic communication must be just around the corner.

People we lost in 2011

Nandita bid her final good byes to her mother, who succumbed to old age. Aai, who was nearly 86 years old, was a very remarkable lady indeed and led a full life. We had the fortune of having her spend 6 months with us in 2001 in the US, and she wrote a few pages about herself. I am using those to prepare a write up about her life, which I think is worth making into an inspirational movie.

I lost my very dear friend, Jayesh, who was my childhood buddy. I wrote about it in my previous blog (read about it here).

And of course, though I never met him, I felt sorry to see Steve Job go. Not my idol, but someone I admired for what he had achieved, and for what he sought to achieve. A remarkable man, and a remarkable visionary. If only every entrepreneur was like him (and that could never happen)!

Other noted Indian Celebrities that were lost this year include noted Gazal Singer Jagjeet Singh, Bhupen Hazarika, and the evergreen actor Dev Anand. Each of these made tremendous contribution to the Indian Entertainment world.

Major events in 2011 that made headlines, and caught my attention:

Killing of Osama Bin Laden by Navy Seals
Killing of M. Gaddafi of Libya by a mob
Occupy movement made headlines all over the world.
Bank Of America issued plans to charge a fees and then withdrew it
Arab Spring
Earthquake and the Tsunami that followed it cause severe damage in Japan
Scientists claim discovery of God Particle.
Sarah Palin and Michele Bachman decide to stand united for the US President Elections (ok, I made this one up as a joke).

The Kids

We only need to look at our daughters to realize that time really does fly. Shivangi turned 20 years old while Neha turned 19. Wow!! 20 and 19!! Has it already been that long since I held them in my hands outside the OR’s in the hospitals in Indore?

Shivangi is now a senior at Mills College, as part of her three year dual degree program. She completes her BA in Math from Mills in 2012 and will go to USC, to complete her Industrial Engineering in another 2 years. It is such a pleasure to see her talk to people now. She likes to sit with elders and can easily hold her own in a discussion. She and I flew in to LA to visit USC, and it was a great fun trip for both of us. She has continued to be very actively involved in the local chapter of the Hindu Group (called as shakha), and is now the district coordinator (Nagar Bal Pramukh Karyavahika) for the Chapters of Contra Costa County. She also drove on her own to LA and later to San Luis Obispo, as well as to Davis and Sacramento.

Neha, turned 19 on the last day of the year. She is now a sophomore in St. Mary’s college. She will major in Bio-chemistry, and is thinking about a career in medicine, genetics or pharmacology. She also continues to be involved in the local Hindu chapter and helps in running its daily activities. She moved back home from the dorm this year, and has been commuting from home. She has started opening up in her conversations and it is a pleasure to talk to her, with her detailed insight into several subjects. She continues to be the techie of the family, and loves new gadgets. Often, she can be seen helping Nandita and Shivangi (and sometime even me) with something on our phones.

Nandita and I

Nandita and I turned into the other side of 40s. We have been married for 24 years now, and have known each other a lot longer (since 1981 -- you can read about that here). It still feels like it was only yesterday that I met her and I am just happy that we have been lucky. I’d do it again in a flash, if I had to.

Our new home, where we moved in last year in Aug has had a lot of visitors. We had friends and family visit us this year. Sinhas (Mahesh, Rani and Ameya) visited us in the summers. Sharmila Dey and her husband, Dr. Alvin Sewell spent a few days with us. Rucha, Nandita’s niece, spent her winter break with us (she is doing her masters in Arizona). Also visiting us this year were our very good friends, Alica and Jeff Sandoval, with their daughter Gabby; as well as another of Nandita’s nephew Abhijit with his family. We consider ourselves very fortunate that we have been blessed with friends and family, who feel comfortable spending time with us and consider it our honor to open up our homes to them.

Our jobs

I have continued to work at the Bank Of America in the eCommerce team as a Sr. VP and am responsible for the delivery of projects. Just the other day I was looking at the work done by my team, and the numbers were mindboggling. One of my teams is the Small Projects team – and it had close to 80,000 hours of work this year with zero defects in production. Of the 65 applications that I own, many are changing the architecture to the new state of the art technology. The three initiative teams did a fabulous job again this year (over 150K hours of work), and barring for one project that stumbled due to multiple failures, everything went like well oiled machine. I am in the process of implementing some more changes that will hopefully make things even smoother and introduce the concept of agile development to the Bank.

Nandita has continued to work as a Director in the Clinical and Technical Affairs at Coagusense. The small startup company, based in Fremont company’s product was approved by FDA and the future looks bright as orders have started coming in. I had the pleasure of meeting her CEO, and they seem to be moving in the right direction.

I also helped a neighbor and close friend with a project that he was stuck on for nearly 5 years. JP, my friend, is a graduate from IIT Delhi and IIM, Ahmadabad. It turned out that his Mother on law, and my mother were childhood friends and neighbors in Roorkee, India. Anyway, he had been working on a great product but somehow got stuck in the long-winded process. I promised to help him get the Proof of concept completed, and he is now working with investors to get the product launched. See http://redbaton.net for more details, if you are interested.

The travels

I traveled to Charlotte, NC (about 6 times) on business trips. Nandita and I traveled to Boston this year, and Shivangi traveled with me to Los Angeles.

Nandita traveled to Chicago, Iowa, Michigan, Nashville, Jackson (TN), Tupelo (birthplace of Elvis in Mississippi), Vancouver (WA), Eugene (OR), Idaho, Baton Rouge (LA). Her trips are shorter and more for trials or training of a new customer.

Nandita, Shivangi and Neha also traveled with Rucha, Nandita’s niece, for a trip of Los Angeles. They visited a lot of cool spots there.

Nandita also traveled to India to attend the last rites of her mother.

Activities

The geek in me continues to strive to learn things on my own. This year, I sought to learn a few techie things like Jooma, Drupal, wanted to write a basic app in Android and iOS. I was able to complete all these, though I wish I had more time to try out a few more things in each one. I also bought a Casio CK220 keyboard and want to record some old Hindi tunes. On top of my to-do list is to play/record/share a few of my old high school prayers. I am also hoping to get to become a decent Ukulele player, and I really want to get my hands on a sitar again.

I have also been very active as the coordinator for the Contra Costa Chapter of Global Indian Technology Professionals (GITPRO). The organization is still nascent, but already has chapters all over the world. We had 10 monthly events this year in our chapter that covered various topics like preparing for an interview, planning your career, Financial and Tax Management, Cloud Technology, Innovation, and Legal aspects of starting your own Venture etc. There is a lot more planned for this in 2012. Check it out here.

We all contributed time towards the Sewa project. That is the least we can do to contribute towards the society and community here in the US. If you are not aware, the Sewa project feeds the homeless in the People’s park every third Saturday. Volunteers from the San Ramon Hindu Shakha gather together to prepare lunch packets, that are then hand delivered to the homeless that reside in people’s park. This year, we contributed towards this at the time of my dad’s birthday/death anniversary.

Nandita continues to be involved with her writer’s club. The ladies in this club meet once a month on a Friday evening at someone’s home and read the write-ups that they have prepared. I will be posting some of these on her blog soon. She is also actively involved in the Bay Area Hindu Group, and after handling the role of Women’s Lead, she is now the Chairwoman of the local San Ramon chapter. She manages all these activities along with her job as a Director of Clinical and Technical Affairs in a medical device company. She makes effort to stay connected with her High School friends with whom she has connected after nearly 30 years and is panning a reunion for those living in US in 2012.

This year I had also initiated a plan to have a reunion of sorts of my batch-mates from my Engineering college days. We had all planned to meet in Pune, India this year in December. Unfortunately; I had to drop out at the last minute due to some personal issues. However, other people (Samir Mokashi, Monica Baser Tapadia, and Varsha Karandikar deserve special mention) stepped up to the plate, picked up the ball and planned a great event. I saw the snaps recently, and it looked like everyone that attended had a lot of fun.

On the family side, my mother is doing fine in Indore. A recent CT scan revealed that she has a grown node in her chest and some more tests are being done to identify the nature of the growth A fine needle biopsy is planned for the first week of January, and will help plan the details of the next plan of action. I am praying that nothing abnormal is detected and she continues to lead her active life style.

TV shows and Movies we saw

Some mentionable English movies we saw – Mission Impossible 4 – Ghost protocol, Sherlock Holmes 2 – the game of Shadows, The girl with the Dragon Tattoo (the original series – all 3 movies), Captain America, Harry Potter – Deathly Hallows 2, The Lincoln Lawyer, The Green Hornet, The Social Network.
Hindi Movies –some old Hindi movies that we saw (and recommend) – Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, Dhobhi Ghaat, Guzaarish
TV Serials we followed – House MD, Covert Affairs, Rizzolli and Isles, Bones, NCIS, Big Bang Theory, The Mentalist, Person Of Interest, and Necessary Roughness.

Events we celebrated – India’s world Cup Cricket Victory.

Some good Books we read

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl that Kicked the hornet’s nest, The girl who played with Fire, A few of Patricia Cornwell’s, Saving Fish from Drowning, and Many more.

Remembering my childhood buddy – Jayesh Somaiya

2011-08-19T22:51:00.000-07:00

I recently lost my childhood friend Jayesh Somaiya. It came as a huge shocker – totally out of the blue when Mahipat sent me a message on Facebook and broke the news that he had passed away a week earlier due to multiple organ failure resulting from heart issues, complicated further by excessive weight and heavy smoking.

Jayesh and I studied together from fourth grade until the twelfth. His elder brother Girin was a few years my senior, and Paras, his younger brother was a few years my junior. Two of his cousins, Atul and Bhushan, also studied in DC. He was always smiling, laughing, and being jovial. I never remember seeing him getting upset or hassled about anything. Never a great guy in studies, he was always a good friend. Teachers often got angry at him for creating ruckus in the class. In fact, Mr. Bawa, our English teacher, used his name in one of the class English plays to evoke laughter from the crowd. He lived in Palasia back then, and I’d often stop by his place when riding my bicycle back from that area. We’d sit in his patio and gossip, and sometimes his dad would join us and would share jokes and life events. The Somaiya family owned a couple of petrol pumps and transport business.

Around the time we were in 8^th or 9^th grade, we started to learn swimming at the Kamala Nehru Park Swimming pool. In the summer vacations, Sandeep Dalal, Sandeep Kolatkar, Sarvesh Garg, Jayesh and I would meet at the pool around 3 PM. My sister and I were learning how to swim back then. Jayesh and Kolatkar were seasoned swimmers and would swim laps. He’d often stop in the shallow end and give me tips and help me swim. I distinctly remember the time when my sister, who is about 5 years younger than me, was also standing in the shallow end and suddenly slipped. We all thought she had suddenly become brave enough to start dipping her head under water, where as in reality, she was just trying to regain her footing and stand back up. It was Jayesh who quickly swam past me and pulled her up, helping her stand back. He made sure she was ok, before coming over to me, said something funny, laughed and went back to his laps.

He always loved friends. In the seventh grade, we all went trekking to Choral, Patal Pani and Kalakund with our Physics teacher, Mr. N.C Suley. Mr. Suley had just joined our school that year, and when he went to marry the girl he had loved (she was his student in College, where he was a TA to the professor), Jayesh and Amit Khurana openly made jokes at his expense. On the trek, he was so relaxed there. I still have his snap sitting in the Choral River with Sudhir and Thakur. We ribbed him a lot about that snap, and he took it all in good stride, laughing at himself along with us. That same year, our close friends Pankaj and Pushpendra ended up having a rift and refused to speak with each other. Jayesh went out of his way to try and get them back together. He’d push them into the same team in soccer, basketball and was very thrilled to see them playing together. He’d often come to me and tell me what happened in the game and was really thrilled when they became friends again. That was typical of Jayesh.

Every time I visited Indore, he’d be amongst the happiest guys to come and meet me at every get together of the Daly College batch mates. I remember when I was visiting India in 2005, he came and hugged me when I met him at Parikshit’s house. In Dec. 2009 the last time I visited Indore, we also had Balvinder Singh visiting from Malaysia, Rajeev Sharma and Manoj Shekhavat were visiting from the US. Naim Khan was also meeting us after a nearly 25 years. There was a group of about 15 friends that got together with their families. We met in Velocity Complex, at a restaurant owned by our friend Sudhir. As soon as I entered, Jayesh came over to hug me. I noticed he had become even bigger, but so had his smile. He had lost more hair, but none of his joviality and humor. He was in peak form that day, so thrilled to be back with most of his childhood friends. I told him that he was starting to look like his dad – and in his typical fashion he responded, “Yaar, at least that means I am my dad’s son” and burst out laughing. That was typical Jayesh – at his best. We all laughed, joked, drank, ate and remembered the good old days.

None of the get togethers with friends will ever be the same without Jayesh. We will miss him a lot and every meeting of Old Dalians will always bring his smiling face and jovial nature to our memories. Rest in peace my friend … I am sure you are keeping everyone smiling wherever you are.

Cricket – as I played it .. part one

2011-06-28T00:55:00.000-07:00

In my teenage years, I swore I’d never do this – say that things were better in my days. However, I often find myself back to my cricket playing days. The world of cricket has changed a lot off late. Apart from the good old 5 day test match games, and the 3 day format, and the 50 over one day format; we now have a 20 over format too – and there are so many new rules. With so many different formats of the game nowadays, there is a lot to choose from today. BTW, for my American friends, who don’t understand cricket, it is a “bit” more complicated than Baseball and it has a REAL “world cup” – where, unlike the world-series in US sports, the matches are played between the top 14 teams from various countries of the world.

My earliest memory of the game is from 1969-70, when New Zealand was touring India and was playing a match in Indore, my home town. Medical college Indore had reserved a pavilion there, and my dad took me to see the 3 day game. I remember G.R. Vishwanath scored a century in that match and everyone around me was praising his game. So, I wanted to be like Vishwanath. I admired the running between the wickets and attributed the speed to the leg guards that the batsmen wore. Those 3 days started a flurry of cricket activities in my neighborhood, and all the kids were playing cricket (there was no TV in those days – we actually got out of the house to play outdoor games with our friends).

Now my neighborhood was a great place for a kid to grow up. It was a large complex that used to be a hotel complex until the 1940s. The owner sold the place to a Bengali family (Deys), and moved to England. The place was right next to the A.B. Road in Manoramaganj and the new owners promptly converted the place into residential homes. There were about 20 families that lived in that complex of single story homes, with asbestos roofs. It was here that I learned my tolerance for all faiths and cultures – there was a Bengali family, a Parsi family, three Christian families, a Punjabi family, a Muslim family, a Marathi family., Almost all families had kids about the same age, and we all got together to play in the evenings or over the weekends. There were family get together and events were celebrated together. Anyway, that is for another write up.

Back to 1969…after the game with New Zealand ended (read the score card here), all the boys from the neighborhood would gather outside. There was a small yard between my house and that of a neighbor, where all the boys would gather to play the games. Money was always tight in those days for everyone – and no one had the cash to buy bats or balls. So we did the next best thing – we shared and improvised. I remember the time when no one had a tennis, rubber, cork or leather ball to play cricket – so we made one. We took a near-spherical pebble, surrounded it by lot of vase (which was the term for the fiber used to clean cars in the nearby car-truck garage), and then used strips/bands made from the tube of a cycle tire. The bat would often be the “Mogri”, which was used in all houses to clean clothes. I was enamored by the game, and started playing it with full earnest. In my free time, when others were not playing cricket, I’d play alone. The homes had sloping asbestos roofs in those days, and I’d throw the ball on the roof, stand ready to hit it when it came down and practiced my shots. Other times, I’d put a ball in a sock, and hang it from a wooden rod outside the house and knock the ball around.

My dad saw my interest in the game. He had played for his school and college teams, and probably recognized the spark first. Or perhaps it was just his desire to get me to do things that I liked. So he got me my first cricket bat – a size 4 bat for a tennis ball. I loved it. Then when I was 9 years old, he enrolled me in the summer camp of Maharaja Yeshwantrao Cricket Club (MYCC), which ran the early morning nets in the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. The secretary of the club, Mr. Kakirde, was the father of a friend of my father, and kept an eye on me. I’d walk down there from my house – about 1 km away - and play in the nets from 7 AM to 9.30 AM, and then walk back. Sometimes, on my way back I’d stop in the Medical College, where my dad was a professor (a Reader in those days), and have the orderly (Ram Chandra) make me some Chai with condensed milk. I loved condensed milk so much, that I’d often sneak in and eat a few spoons of it from my Dad’s office fridge. He’d get furious when the aid would tell him that they were out of condensed milk, and would scold the aid – until the aid told him “Sir, Deepu Baba was here and he …”. I think he secretly loved that I liked the same things that he did.

In the first year, my coach was Sanjay Jagdale. He was one of the star players for the state Ranji trophy team and was called as Gattu (Hindi slang for Shorty) – event though he was 6’7” in height. He saw me play the first day and made me the captain of the net. It was in one of the net practices there in MYCC, that Major M.M. Jagdale, Sanjay’s dad who was then the Secretary of the State Cricket Board mentioned that he saw a spark and talent in me – enough to see me playing Test matches for India in a few years. The only hassle was that I was about 10 years old and too young to understand what he meant. But, that remark got the attention of a few coaches and I was moved to the nets of senior guys, and started playing with people who were already playing for the district and some for the state. In those days, the district was divided into 5 zones and they would play matches against each other in the MYCC ground. At the age of 11 years, I was assigned to the North Zone and ended up becoming one of their good bowlers. In that year I made several friends here – guys like Narendra Bagtheria, Manzur Hassan, Bhagwan Das – all of whom played for the MP State Cricket team, and then guys like Amardeep Pathania, Sunil Asawa, Kamaljeet Anand, Raju Patel, Rajesh Khujneri, Salil & Nikhil Saxena, Ashish and Raja Raje -- to name a few.

Around this time, I was in the seventh grade and in the senior school in Daly College. We used to have regular sports on a daily basis and in the cricket season, we groups would play games by dividing the team. One of the first games I remember is with Mr.Arun Lahari as our staff monitor and guys like Pawan Kasliwal, Ravndra Sigh Dhillon and others playing with me. As is the case in most schools, Daly College also had a nickname for every teacher. Mr. Lahri was called as “Bum”, probably because of the song that went “Bum ba-bum bum, bum Lahri….”… and Pawan would often speak out the nick name loudly on the field – something that Mr. Lahri would hear outside and pretend to get upset. Now that I think of it, I smile at the fun – but back then, it was scary. Anyway, some of the staff members noticed my game and that same year, I was asked to represent my House Cricket team. I remember that in the very first match, Ankur Sarkar and I scored a lot of runs (I think I got a fifty) and helped the team win. Mr. G.L Verma, the house master of Jawahar house, was thrilled. The next year, when I was in my 8^th grade, I was asked to lead my house team. We won the tournament. I was applauded for my leadership, my field placement, my bowling and my batting (I think I scored well in almost all the games). Mr. Verma, called me out in the House meeting and praised me.

In the summer vacation of my 7^th grade, MYCC selected me to be coached by Mr. P.k. Dharmalingam. Prior to that it was mostly my natural game, with some bits of training advice thrown in or what I learned by watching senior players. Dharmalingam actually taught us the basics of cricket – and he liked what he saw in my game. I learned a lot from him, and Sanjay Jagdale.

In the 8th grade, I was appointed captain of the MYCC team to play against the Malhar Ashram cricket team. It was a good experience and I learned a lot. That same year, I approached Mr. Salim Khan, the senior master and sports in-charge in Daiy College to set up a match against St. Paul’s. A few of my cousins studied there – and after a bit of convincing, I was allowed to approach St. Paul’s for a game. I rode my cycle to that school, and talked to Mrs. Noronha – this was something that had never been done and so, she was equally surprised. But finally, I was allowed to set up a game against the 8^th grade of St. Paul’s. The teams met for a friendly game on the Bolia Ground of Daly College, and it was a good game. DC won the match, but more importantly, it had given me a good exposure.

In my 9^th grade, I was selected to represent my School Cricket team. Sandeep Parekh was the captain. Daly College is one of the Premier Public Schools in India, modeled on the British System. They used to play Triangular Matches with two other public schools- Mayo College of Ajmer, and Scindia School of Gwalior. The way it worked was – There were three major sports – Field Hockey, Cricket and Soccer. Each school would host one sport in its season. That year, Daly College hosted the Cricket teams. I wasn’t sure if I’d make it into the first eleven – and was pleasantly surprised that I was chosen. I still remember the very first ball of that match that was bowled – I was fielding at third man, and the ball flew to me after first bounce. Yadav, the wicket keeper of Mayo was the batsman and went on to score a fifty. I remember the Mayo players very well – Sandu, Yadav and a young guy by the last name of Giri (later I found out that he was the grandson of the former president of India, V.V. Giri). Anyway, the Mayo team was shot out for 184 runs, I took two wickets (Uday Katoch and Buddhiraja), but we lost the game and the Triangulars as we lost the next game to Scindia too. Sandu was the Mayo College Captain and Vivek Singh was the Scindia School Captain.

In that summer, I was back with Dharmalingam, who was then the national coach. I learned a lot that year in an indoor camp. I was also being coached by Vasu Gangwani, who was one of the umpires in the Triangular games. He recognized me on the very first day in the nets and made me the captain of the Nets. When the school cricket season started, I was full of confidence. The school team remained the same as the previous year, as we added a new class for the 12^th class. Kinjal Zaveri was the captain. Unfortunately, the team tried to experiment with my position in the batting order – and in one of the earlier games, I was asked to open against a team that had a bowler Manish Sharma, who was also the opening bowler for the State team. Well, that match cost me my confidence, especially after some of my team mates said a few nasty things to me too. Some people felt that my training in MYCC was costing me my game. I felt really low. Then one day, after school, I was talking to Mr. Dharmalingam and he offered to come to Dc and train the guys for a day. Well – it was accepted by Mr. Jagtap and Mr. Salim Khan and I think the team had a good session with him. That year, I did not play in the Triangulars, which were in Mayo College, Ajmer – I was the 12^th man and we lost to Mayo but won against Scindia. Sandeep Parekh played a remarkable innings against Scindia School. I got some of my confidence back later in the year when we played a friendly game and I scored some much needed runs. One of the memorable games was the inter-house matches between Jawahar and Ashok house – where I took the catch to dismiss Rajib Nadkarni, and helped in tying the game. Jawahar house became the overall house champion that year.

That year in the summers, I was selected to play for the state school team. We traveled to Jaipur to play there. The team captain was Amardeep Pathania and we had folks like Kailash Gupta, Vivek Singh (who was the Scindia School Captain) and Shabbir Ali. We played against UP schools team, which had 4 state level players. I was very impressed with the UP team when I found out that that several players in that team were actually part of the Sports College. Their main job was to be good in the game. They had a player (also a Bhatnagar), who could bowl the “Doosra” – at that time, no one had coined the word Doosra in cricket. On the second day, there was talk that Raj Singh Dungarpur, the National Selector was on the ground. He was from the State of Rajasthan, and was also an Alumnus of my school. UP had piled up a huge score the first day. Their captain and star player Syed Naqvi had scored a century and was still batting. My captain asked me to bowl the first over that day. In my first two overs, fielders like Kailash Gupta and Shabbir dropped catches that were skiers. When the same thing happened in my third over, I heard a shout of “well bowled Bhatnagar” from the Pavilion. I just saw a tall, well-dressed man standing and clapping. He was wearing a dark tie and had a few guys standing with him. Later in the lunch break, the same gentleman came over to meet the players and I was surprised to see my team’s manager running around playing Mr. Goodie all with him. He stopped near me and told me that I was bowling very well and was unlucky not get those guys out. Then he introduced himself as Raj Singh Dungarpur and said he was glad to see someone from his Alma Mater playing for the State Schools. Anyway, I bowled nearly 25 overs and we ended up losing the game to UP – by an innings and a few runs. But, I was glad to have met Raj Singh and his words of encouragement helped me immensely. We met several times after that, and he would always stop by and say hello. Thorough gentleman and a great man!

When my school season started, my coach Mr. Jagtap was happy that I had played for the state schools team, but wasn’t happy that I didn’t get the runs. He wanted me to be a successful batsman too. That year, I was in the 11^th grade. Yogesh Garg became the captain of the school team. We had a new principal in the form of Mr. H.L. Dutta – who had come from Hyderabad Public School. He invited the Hyderabad Public School Team to visit us and play matches with us. We had the Hockey, Cricket, Basketball and Soccer teams visit us in early Aug. Aug was the time when we have Monsoons in India. It is not your average run-of-the-mill rainfall. The cricket ground was a mess and the pitch a dangerous one – totally underprepared. The ball was flying all over the place. I bowled 15 overs and got 6 wickets for 29 runs. The HPS team was shot out for 150 runs and we thought we had a good chance. Well, we had a very tough time batting on that pitch. DC team was shot out for a paltry 29 runs, with only I scoring 11 runs. It was an embarrassing match – so much so that my friend Khaikalian wrote about it in my autograph book, just to rub it in.

Over the next few months, I established myself as a good all-rounder. I was playing as the #4 batsman (batting 2 down) and was able to score in 40s and 50s in nearly every game. My confidence was back and I was taking wickets too. We participated in the first ever inter-school tournament in Indore and won that tournament. Just before the final game of that tournament, I remember biking alongside my friend, Yasmin, who was walking to her dance class – and getting stung by bees which were flying around. The funny thing was that not a single Bee stung Yasmin even once, while when I finally reached home, there were bees inside my shirt and I had a lot of stings in my back. I played the game with a lot of anti-histamines in my body. The Triangular that year was in Scindia School, Gwalior. The team was relying on me. Just before we left for Gwalior, we played a practice game against the Indore Colts, which was led by Pathania and had a few Ranji level state players. During that game, I was hit by a superfast delivery by Niranjan Shirke. To make matters worse, I was declared out LBW. Never to argue a call, I walked. It was my lowest score until then in the matches. We lost that game. The team was a bit shaken up. We left for Gwalior 2 days after that match, by bus on a rainy night, working our way through the traffic jam on AB Road, reaching Gwalior about 6 hours later than expected. We were all tired. We were set up to play the next day against Scinidhia School. Until then, we had been choosing the balls made by BDM, but for some reason we ended up choosing balls made by Recorder, which was what was used at the Test Match level, back then. We realized the difference during the game – the seam was different and our bowlers found it difficult to control the pitching. Our throws were perfect, but our fielding was poor – especially in the outfield, which was very rough. We gave a lot of overthrows too, because the ground was smaller. We lost both the games against Mayo and Scindia and were ridiculed. I still remember Mr. Dhir, the coach of Scinidhia School, making fun of Mr. Jagtap – telling him that he had only taught his players how to throw back to the wicket keeper. Poor Mr. Jagtap – he was smiling but I could see that he was very upset too. I made a silent promise to myself that I’d do my best to reverse this trend of losing games.

A few weeks later, we had a practice game against Tata Leather Company. Yogesh Garg, our captain was injured and Rajib Goswami was asked to step up as captain. He was the other pace bowler. However, it was I who managed all field placements and bowling changes. Mr. Jagtap who was the umpire for the game, was very impressed with my control over the game. One of the Old Dalian (that is the term used for Alumni of Daly College) Narendra Singh Bidwal, who was also the captain of the Old Dalian’s team, watched the match from the pavilion. After the game, he gave me one of the best advices I have ever received – he told me to always look for strengths and weaknesses in the players. As a captain, it was my job to recognize the strengths or weaknesses and use them to my team’s benefit. It is something that I have never forgotten and still use it for my team’s benefit.

In the official match against the Old Dalians, I was the Vice Captain officially, while Rajib went out to toss. However, he told me to manage all the things on the field. The Old Dalian team had some star players of yesteryears, including 7 previous captains. We lost the toss and were asked to field first, much to my delight. I knew that the Old Dalian team had senior players who would find it difficult to field after lunch. Anyway, we got them out for 178 runs, with Sachindra Vyas and I doing most of the bowling and Vyas taking 5 wickets. I still remember catching Sandeep Parekh out in deep mid-wicket, and then taking the wicket of Diliip Singh of Banswara – getting him caught in the slips by Yuvraj Singh (Mr. Jagtap had jumped up with glee when Dilip was out, as he could be a match turner with his heavy hitting). We were thrilled with our show, but knew that the ODA bowling attack was very strong too. Vinod Narang and Kinjal opened the bowling for them and had 2 wickets in the first two overs. Sunil Gupta was bowled off a slow full toss to Vinod Narang, when he thought that Vinod was bowling him a beamer (I still rib him about that). I walked to the field, as I had most of that year, within the first three overs after having lost 2 quick wickets; I thought to myself that this was it. I was facing players that I had grown up admiring and I had a do my best to win. We lost one more wicket soon when Prakash Menon joined me. To make a long story short, we won the match by 7 wickets. I scored 98 runs and Prakash scored 49 runs - both of remaining unbeaten. I was tired but thrilled. We had won that trophy after nearly 9 years – with the present boys winning it last when Vinod Narang was the captain. Mr. Salim Khan and Mr. Jagtap were thrilled –they came to the dressing room and hugged me. Mr. Khan told me that it was one of the finest knocks he had seen in a long time – that was the highlight of my career, and a remark that I cherish forever. The ODA team members came over and congratulated me. The next day, I was awarded the school colors in the morning assembly.

In the summer vacations of the 11^th grade, I gathered a few friends like Prakash, Sunil, Deepak, Yuvraj and started practicing in the nets at School. I decided against playing in interstate school tournament – against the wishes of the state team’s manager. My reasoning was that 12^th grade was my senior year and I had to perform well in my studies, which had suffered off late due to my passion for cricket – my grades were just sufficient for me to pass the exams, whereas until the 10^th grade, I was considered as one of the bright students in my class. So I went to my Math teacher Mr. Hashmi, to take some private classes to help me finish the Calculus and Trigonometry portion of the 12^th grade ahead of schedule. He was kind enough to oblige and I spent a couple of hours daily with him, trying to complete the course. It really helped me in the 12^th. Had I played for the state schools that year, I’d have been made the captain of the state team – but it would have taken a lot of time from me. Instead, Prakash went to the state school team that year.

The Cricket Triangular in my senior year was in my school. It was also my 4^th year in the school team and I was appointed the captain. I started the practice for the team with lot of rigorous training - -and a lot of emphasis on getting fit. In the rainy season, we’d run around the school campus on the tar roads, Practice bowling on the roads, practice our throws, and play indoor cricket. Of the 17 players that made the team, nearly 14 were day boarders. We played a lot of matches on Sundays – against local colleges, and clubs. I think in all, we played about 25 matches that season, and I scored over 1200 runs and took close to 90 wickets. Before the draw for the Triangular matches, I was asked if I had a preference to play on the first day and take a rest day before the final game. I declined and instead asked to play the last two days. Mr Salim Khan was surprised and asked me if I was sure – I was. My reasoning was that it would give me a chance to see both the opposing teams play at their best, and look for their strengths and weaknesses. The week before the tournament, Mr Jagtap and I sat down with the final 17 players and gave them some pep talk. I was surprised when he put me in front of the team and asked them if they had anything against me or wanted to play under a different captain or wanted me to do something different. Only Prakash said that he’d like me to control my temper on the field – and I realized that I’d been getting upset with the payers when they weren't performing at their peak. I made a promise to them that I’d not lose my cool on the field ever after that. I think that feedback from Prakash has really helped me in my life and I have attempted to keep my cool whenever things have started going wrong. Ever since, I always step back when things haven’t gone right, and try looking at the bigger picture.

I went to receive the teams as they came over the weekend. Sunil and I rode on his dad’s Lambretta. I still remember Mr. Salim Khan stopping us and telling us not to ride the scooter. I spent hours and hours going over my plans of making field arrangements and bowling changes. On the first day of the Triangular match, Mayo played against Scindia. I sat with most of players near the sight screen, taking notes and observing every move of the batsmen and bowlers. I actually prepared notes on their strengths and weaknesses. Mayo won against Scindia -- one of their players, Martand, scored a fifty and in typical Mayo style, showed off his exuberance by throwing his gloves in the air. DC was up the next day, against Scindhia school. I only remember that match vaguely - just that we got them out very early and then after a rough start, we went through and won the game with ease. I actually experimented with my bowling attack, even giving Deepak and Sunil a couple of overs to bowl. In the end, I got 3 wickets, Rodney got a couple and Sachindra Vyas was also successful. On the batting side, I was lucky to get some runs, and it gave me some confidence.

We were playing Mayo College in the last match. I spent a sleepless night, tossing and turning – this was what I had prepared for all of the past twelve months. Mayo team was very confident, even though one of their star spinners, Mir, had to leave to take some exam. Giri was now their captain, and we had played 4 Triangular against each other. He was a really cocky guy, but I guess that is how all the Mayurians (as the students in Mayo College are/were called) were trained to be. We went out to toss, and before I could take out my coin, he took out a ten paise coin and asked me what I wanted. Now, I had enough experience with a ten paise coin to realize that 75% of the times, it would land as a tail for some weird reason (you may not believe that – but I used to keep flipping one while sitting in my chair) – so I called tail. And, it landed as I called. I took off my cap, and moved my fingers through my hair to signal to my team that I won the toss – and a cheer went through the pavilion. I was amused that people had already learned my signals by then. Sunil and Pradeep ran down to get ready to open, as they knew that I’d opt to bat first. I told Giri that I’d let him know in a few minutes what I’d decide and he seemed rattled. We exchanged the list of first Eleven players. The Umpires were Narendra Bagtheria (who was a top notch left arm spinner in the country and bowled for my State team) and Uday Singh.

As we started the game, the pavilion was filled to capacity with present Dalians, Old Dalians, Staff Members and support staff. Some of the teams that had helped us prepare by playing friendly games, also came to watch the match. As was the norm, we lost Pradeep in the first over and then Yuvraj in the second over to Raja. As I walked out, a very loud cheer went up in the crowd – but I felt nervous. The Mayo players crowded around me and cheered their bowler, Raja. The Very first ball I played was a bouncer, which rose to my chest from good length, and I played it defensively to the covers. Sunil walked to me from the other end and we talked as the field changed. I told him that I’d support him as I got settled in. However, it took me only 3 more deliveries, before I got into run. Before I realized, I was in my 40s and striking the ball well. The Mayo field was scattered and they were looking anxious. At one point, the umpire asked their captain, Giri, to stop wasting time on the field and he complained to me. I had to tell him to relax and get on with the game. Giri, their captain, brought himself on to bowl, and with a packed leg side field, started bowling round the wicket to me. Many of the deliveries would have been called wide by a big margin in today’s cricket, but back then, they were considered valid. Anyway, I remember going for a shot and missing the shot. There was a loud nick, and the ball landed in the keeper’s gloves. I walked even before the umpire said anything – with my score at 48. Sunil on the other end was playing on 15 odd runs, and I told him to take control. As I walked, Giri was heard telling his player that he had been trying to bowl that delivery for a long time - -and I couldn’t help but get upset with myself for not connecting that shot, which deserved to be hit for a four, if not a six. Prakash walked out and I stopped to chat with him – telling him to focus and play the innings of his life. Mr. Salim Khan came down to the dressing room and was furious with me for throwing away my wicket. He point blank told me that I’d be to blame if we lost the game, for playing that reckless shot. Fortunately, both Sunil and Prakash played well and scores into their 40s. DC team was all out for 170 runs – not a large score, but it was something we could try to defend.

We started our bowling after a light lunch (I refused to let my players eat a lot –which upset Rodney, who was getting ready to tear into the delicacies that were served), with Kacholia starting from the Junior School end. He was fast, but tended to be erratic – and I wanted to let the Mayo batsmen feel just a bit over confident thinking he was our main bowler. His very first ball was a very short delivery, which surprised the opening batsman, Karul, who managed to hit it towards midwicket. I ran from Mid On to field it – I saved a boundary, but it yielded a couple of runs. The next one was hit directly to me with great force, but I managed to stop it. Rodney started the bowling from the other end, and got us the breakthrough in his 4^th over by getting Raja out. Since each bowler was only allowed to bowl nine overs each, I told him that the next over would be his last, even if he got another wicket. I continued with Kacholia from the other side right upto his 7^th over. I brought myself to bowl from the Staff Quarters end, replacing Rodney. I can still hear the cheer from the crowd. Vijay Agar was sitting with the scorers, and his job was to tell me after each over how many overs that bowler had bowled. I got Karul out leg before on my third delivery. The crowd was ecstatic. Martand (Or Marty) was the next guy to walk in – I had seen him play against Scindia and he had scored a fifty. However, I had also seen that he had a weakness - when he hit the ball towards covers, it would be an uppish stroke and there a good chance to get him caught with some intelligent field placement. I placed Sunil at covers and moved Pradeep in deep Extra cover. Kacholia was replaced in the bowling attack by Sachindra Vyas. I directed Vyas to keep the attack on the offside, and bowl fuller. And Marty took the bait – however, he hit the first two deliveries towards the boundary. It didn’t help that Sunil was slow to react, as the ball raised past him. Kacholia and Prakash came to me and suggested that I put Kacholia in place of Sunil – it was a good suggestion and I followed the advice. Kacholia’s strength was that he was an ace sprinter and had great reflexes. And he caught the very next shot from Martand – just inches from the ground. We were all thrilled, shocked and ecstatic – our ploy had worked. I told the team not to relax and stay on the alert. We were still away from victory. Giri walked out to bat and I asked the team to make sure that we got him out too. My next over was the game changer. Giri was on the non-striker’s end. I bowled to the batsman, who was obviously a junior guy, as he was in awe of Giri. The batsman missed the ball, and it landed in Prakash’s hands. Prakash missed catching it, and the ball fell behind him. Giri thought the ball had gone way behind him, called for a run and ran towards the other end. For a second I thought Prakash was shocked that someone would do that – and as I shouted for him to throw the ball, he picked it up and broke the wickets on the striker’s end. Giri was out – and he walked dejected to the pavilion, cursing himself loudly. When he reached the pavilion, he threw the bat into his team and cursed loudly – drawing an immediate reprimand from Mr. Salim Khan. In my very next over, I ran out another batsman when Matkar threw the ball towards me from square leg – he was placed to field there, as he was a left hander and I thought it would be easier for him to throw balls coming on his left side. We were on a roll – I took 1 wicket, Sachindra took 3 wickets and Anmol took 3 wickets. We got Mayo out under 90 runs, and we won the match. I still remember Kacholia running towards me shouting “Bhattu we did it” and I just stayed calm, smiling ear to ear, but calm. Even back then, I believed in showing less emotions when losing, and even lesser emotions when winning. We all hugged each other, and the team wanted me to lead back. We instead agreed to walk back in one file – with our hands on each other’s shoulders. There were fireworks all around – the support staff was going nuts. We got a standing ovation – and there were celebrations for several days after that. My Principal, Mr. Dutta, came and patted my back as did Mr. Salim Khan. Only my coach, Mr. Jagtap was missing – he had been sitting for the past 3 hours under the score board, watching our every move and guiding us – now he had gone home. I am positive that he had become too emotional to face us. We got to see a different side of him later that night, when the team was invited for an impromptu dinner at the principal’s house. Several of the present boys and girls came over to congratulate me and the team. It was easily one of the best moments of my life – as I wrote to my dad, who was posted in Gwalior then. We had won after nearly 10 years – and it was an awesome feeling. The celebrations lasted for a few months -- Principal's dinners. I treated the team to a grand dinner party at Apsara and a lot more...

We lost the match against the old Dalians that year – I was upset, because I was expecting to win. Pawan Sharma was the only batsman to score 22 runs in that game. It was just a bad performance from us – and as Narendra Baghteria, who was the umpire in the game, explained that it was difficult to get the same peak performance which we showed in the Triangular that year. I won the second College Colors that year and also the best batsman award for the second year running. Jawahar house won the Inter House Cricket matches again -- and as per the tradition that allowed a junior (with a high probability to become the school captain next year) to lead, I asked Prakash to lead the Jawahar House team against Ashok House and Sunil to lead against Vikram House. Matkar was allowed to lead in the final game against Rajendra. I also played one last match that year against a group of Old Dalians and remember coaching Paul Barua on how to bowl with less speed and more accuracy -- he was a good fast bowler, but lacked the accuracy.

Overall - it was a very satisfying year -- something I remember so well even today.

Perfect Storm in Japan

2011-03-16T10:59:00.000-07:00

People on the eastern coast of Japan have been working their way through a perfect storm that has hit them on three fronts. First the Earthquake, then the tsunami and now the pending nuclear reactor bust. Just one of these would be enough for ordinary citizens to crack and lose their cool. And that is why I am so impressed with the Japanese – they have lost an undetermined numbers of residents, continue to struggle with the lack of supplies and amenities, are dealing with threats of nuclear radiation – but, there has been no panic. There is concern, and a lot of it, but I don’t see any crazy panic, people running amok or any crazy acts of violence.

Why would I even expect that there would be violence? Let us revisit some of the recent natural disasters in the US, where I have been for the last several years. Among the scenes of homes in ruin and families weeping are included all-too-familiar images of looting, local residents breaking into shops and looting items (not just of daily necessities) out of greed or necessity. We saw these in the recent Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, in last year's earthquakes in Haiti, the BART crisis in Bay Area and some demonstrations in LA. That was just the mob taking over and people doing their follow-the-sheep act. Those scenes reminded me of the riots in India, when the Prime Minister Ms Indira Gandhi was assassinated – I saw people looting the shops for anything and everything. One guy lifted a TV from a shop, and put in an auto-rickshaw. While he waited for his friend to join him, the auto guy ran away with the TV. So this guy, just went in again and got himself another TV.

But there have been no such scenes reported in Japan, almost a week after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and the tsunami it triggered, which swept several north eastern towns. I saw news clipping where a 79 year old couple was cleaning their house, which survived the mess with little damage. Their response to the TV crew foxed me – they wanted to go and help other people in the neighborhood. In another scene, there were people lined up outside a store to buy necessities. It was a very long line and the store could only accommodate a certain number – so the man at the gates would close the door after every few entrants, politely bow to the guy in front and ask him to wait for his turn. No one was showing any signs of anger or being upset. The same scene was repeated when the officials were distributing drinking water. The truck ran out of it, and there were still several people standing there. They just waited while the officials got another truck and resumed the supply.

I am always interested in analyzing why people do what they do. And this behavior by the Japanese got me thinking too. My guess is that is this is a cultural difference between the people in the east and the people in the west. Some Americans are raised thinking they are like a one-man army and guys like Rambo are their heroes. Most people in the eastern part of the world are raised to think that honor is important and to not do anything that will bring the family or individual honor down in the eyes of others. That my friends, is a very fundamental difference in attitude and approach to life. I remember the time, right after Hurricane Katrina, there was a cloud burst in Mumbai, India. Thirty Six inches of rain fell in less than 24 hours – yes, I repeat 36” of rain. If that were to happen in California, it would mean eternal floods here. Life came to a standstill in Mumbai. The lifeline of Mumbai, the local trains and all modes of communications/transport were in shambles. The Indian Navy was called to help and they took over the operations. It took about a week to get things back to normal – but there were no riots, no looting, and people were very civilized.

I think that feeling of self-regulation, belonging to a social network, being responsible towards society is very important. Unless we learn to respect the others, and how others perceive us, we will never learn the importance of behavior. It is in times of adversity that the real face comes out. India is a very diverse country. But watch them go at it when the country is playing cricket, or in a crisis or under attack (note recent siege of Mumbai, Kargil War, the three wars against Pakistan) – and you will realize that the entire country stands as one when needed. If we were to use this criterion for judging the Japanese, they have scored very high in my books.

I hope the Japanese can recover soon from the mishap and return to a life of normalcy. God bless them and give them the strength to look at the positives in life, which will help them recover from this catastrophe.

Raising kids -- my own childhood and how I raised mine

2011-01-22T14:52:00.000-08:00

Once a month, I meet my peer at work, outside of work. David and I go to a nearby café and talk over a cup of coffee. It is a good icebreaker and gives us an opportunity to catch up on things, and see what is happening in each other’s world. Since he has been in the company longer than I, I seek his advice on things and he is always helping me do the right thing. This week, as we were walking towards Martha’s café, we saw this Chinese kid, who was probably about 10-11 years old, acting like a brat on the street and hitting his mom. David commented that the kid needed a thrashing, and that had it been him as a kid, his mother would not have hesitated in giving it to him --- and a minute later, after a few more tantrums, the kids mom pulled him to the side and berated him in Chinese. As David and I walked away, we started talking about our own childhood -- his in England and mine in India, and how both of us had received thrashings from our mothers for little things when we were kids. Funnily, both of us said we had never been hit by our dads, and also that we credited our parents for making us who we were today.

I mentioned to David that recently, there had been a lot of noise about Amy Chua’s “claim” that Chinese Mothers are superior. She tells in her book how she and other Chinese mothers whip their kids into becoming Math whizzes and musical prodigies. The western media has not taken very nicely to that. In the west, people think that kids need to be handled with, well, kid gloves and corporal punishment is an absolute No No. I have seen instances, where passersby have called the authorities when they see someone yelling at their kids or slapping a kid for throwing a tantrum. I remember a particular one -- where my colleague Lavanya’s hubby had gone with his one year daughter to the local library, and she started throwing a tantrum in the library -- you know, like all kids of that age do. And of course, the dad -- a typical Indian IT guy from the hot southern parts of India, after failing to keep her quiet, lost his temper and took her in a corner of the library and after yelling at her, tapped her on the back. Uh oh -- sure enough, one of the senior ladies watching that, promptly called up the Child Aid agencies and before he knew it, he was in the dock, with a threat of having his kid taken away from him. I am sure he was in deeper trouble when he landed home and informed his wife Lavanya about it -- but to make a long story short, both Lavanya and he had to take anger management classes. Lavanya was all freaked out when she came to me, and wanted to take a couple of days off from work, to take care of the formalities. Frankly, this one was no one’s concern outside of the immediate family -- but we can talk about that in another blog.

The parents -- whether "Chinese", "Western" or Indian or any other kind -- all come in assorted varieties, and I do not claim that any method of raising kids is superior to another. Like every coin, there is always another side and there are pros and cons to each. However, I’d like to use this opportunity to reflect on what my childhood was like with my mother and also, on how we did as parents.

When I was growing up, my mother would make me practice my math at all odd hours. She would wake me at 5 AM every day (I repeat every day, rain or shine). We would use the morning hours to revise and practice problems mathematics and science. I wasn’t allowed to use that time to work on my homework -- it was practice time. It was learning the Math tables initially, and then I moved over to Arithmetic and Algebra. Reading prose was never high on the list -- it was always Math and science. And boy, did she have a temper. I can definitely lay claim to being hit by almost anything that she had in her hands -- from slippers, brooms, clothes hanger, and of course her hands. It was tough to believe that the hands that could be surgically precise, could hit so hard. None of my cousins had to go through that rigorous training and I always envied them. My mother never liked me playing sports -- and when I did pick up cricket; she was very upset as she thought it took a very long part of the day from my routine. She had always wanted me to become an engineer, and when I was in my 8th grade, she got me books to prepare for the entrance exams. However, I wanted to become a doctor. It is funny how I ended up being an engineer. Oh but her wish list did not stop there -- we would hear her praying in front of the gods, that she wanted me to do MBA. She never coaxed me to do that -- but was very happy when I announced to the family that I had decided to give the entrance exam for MBA, and even more elated when I joined IMS for MBA. ( I am sure she thanked the gods and went to the temple with some offerings after that). That is the way she has always been -- always trying to learn new things. Even today, at nearly 80 years of age, she goes to art and computer classes.

I remember as a kid, Rani Bai, who worked for our neighbor Dr. D. P. Mukerji, would see me studying/practicing and often getting the thrashings I got when I goofed up. One day, she stopped me as I was heading back home and got talking to me. She said I must hate my mother for all the things she made me do -- and was genuinely surprised when I said I didn’t, as I knew she was doing it for my own good. The answer surprised her and I think pleased her too. She later told my mother about this and my mother was thrilled to hear it too. I was treated well at home for a few days and received a lot of goodies -- but that only lasted a few days. All this while, I don’t ever remember my dad ever raising his voice at me, let alone hit me.

My mother was a tough judge and always expected that I’d be the best. There was always comparison with others -- within the family and outside. I remember, once in the fourth grade, I acted in a school drama. I played the role of a bishop who talks to a robber and tries to convince him to act conscientiously. At the end of the play, all the cast members were introduced to the audience and had to say a line from the play. When my turn came I did too. When I reached home that night -- there was no praise for my performance -- but I was told that I took too long to say my line. That was the last time I ever went on stage to participate in a drama -- and had a complex for a very long time. In my teens, I showed signs of rebellion when I disobeyed her a few times. But on the whole, I still remained with the ethics that I had learned. She was transferred to another city, when I was in my 9th grade -- and I ran the house with the little money that was given to me; paying the maids and the gardener, ordering monthly groceries, and continuing my studies rather well. There were no sleep overs permitted; the curfew to get back home was 9 PM with permission and informing my dad about my whereabouts at all time.

My mother had an uncanny knack of always figuring out that the kids had done something wrong. I remember as a kid, my sister and I dreaded taking medicines, especially the large antibiotics which were given to us almost every time we sneezed or coughed a few times. We thought we could fool my mother by throwing them outside the window. Did I mention that the windows had ledges outside and these medicines would fall on the ledge below and of course, my mother would see them -- like WITHIN THE HOUR. Then there was the time when my sister and I were alone, and I was supposed to be babysitting her. I thought I did a good job, until my mother came home and as she was talking up the stairs, she looked at my sister and said she had cut her hair. I was like -- No way, I was with her almost the entire time. But my mother insisted she was right. To make matters worse, my sister denied everything. Then in 15 minutes, my mother came out with a strand of hair -- my sister’s. I still remember the thrashings we both got. And then there was the time, when I thought I’d be smart and not use soap when I took my bath; but to prevent getting caught, just wet the soap. I still don’t know how she did it, but she caught me the first day. I am pretty sure she had some secret device that monitored everything I did.

As a dad, I promised myself that I’d never hit my kids. To date, I think I have kept my promise. I have done my best to give my kids’ confidence in what they do and believe in. I have always said to them that they need to be good, but don’t have to be the best in everything they do. The idea is to be all-rounders, enjoy what you do and become better persons. From what I see of my girls, I like to think that my wife and I have done a good job. My girls attended and organized sleepovers -- in fact, both my wife and I took pride of the fact that my daughters had so many of their friends come home and that the kids felt as much at home in our house, as they did in theirs. They organized dances and events for the Sunday school that they attended. For the graduation party of Sarika, one of Shivangi’s friends, all her friends used our home as a practice pen to try out the skit and the dance moves. The girls played piano -- actually Neha completed 8 years of the MTAC and Shivangi completed 7 years; and both enjoyed it. I often saw them practicing on their own, without really any external force. Both picked up the paint brush and made several sketches -- Shivangi more than Neha. Their artwork was appreciated and both won accolades for it. They joined and led various clubs in their school lives -- with the intention of really helping people, not just scoring points to get admission in college. Sure their grades weren’t always an A, but I have come to realize from my own experience that life is much more than just getting As. The girls played sports too -- both representing their high school in Varsity Tennis. Shivangi was also the captain of her high school team, and also played for her college tennis team.

My wife and I have tried our best to respect the individuality of our daughters. Today, it makes us proud to see Shivangi excel in Math at her college, as she heads into Engineering. She drives confidently and handles most of her issues herself. Just this week, she went into a dorm for the first time and fell ill on the very first day. She called me in the evening from the hospital, where she had gone all by herself, taken an appointment, talked to the doctors, taken her medicines and was returning back to her dorm. And this hospital was not on campus. I take pride that we were able to extend positive reinforcements and provided a nurturing environment to our daughters, as well as prepare them for the future by inculcating good work habits and ethics. And they didn’t have to lose sight of their cultural heritage while doing all this.

I have always told my kids that they don’t owe us anything. We are only doing what is our dharma -- our duty -- and would like to see them well settled in their lives. Today, both are over 18 years old, and we consider them more as our friends than our kids. But, they know that we are always there for them, to offer advice or any help that we can. We will do our duty till they are married and I will be happy to see them do the same thing for their kids.

As my dad told me once, in the end, it is about how you manage yourself in front of a crowd that really matters. Do you have a good friends’ circle and do you feel comfortable talking to people and do people feel comfortable talking to you? And that your family is together and children have grown up with values. Those were golden words, and I realized how important they were, when people stopped me several months after my Dad passed away, to talk about the impact he had had on their lives. That, my friends, is the biggest A one can get - -biggest success in life; nothing can come even close to it.

To end on a lighter note, I present a video from the Indian comedian Russel Peters, on Asian Parenting. Hope you all get some good laughs from it.

2010 - a year that just buzzed by too fast

2010-12-31T08:44:00.000-08:00

To say that 2010 has been a year of lot of changes would be an understatement. As always, like every year, we felt that this year too went by too fast – but then 2010 was really a fast year for us. A lot happened this year – I changed my job after spending nearly 9.5 years with AT&T, we sold our house and bought a new one, our younger daughter left for college, we (both Nandita and I) traveled to several places for business and personal reasons. Above all, we reconnected with a lot of friends from the past, and present – thanks largely to the social sites like Facebook and LinkedIn.

The Kids

We only need to look at our daughters to realize that time really does fly. Shivangi turned 19 years old while Neha turned 18. Wow – they are almost out of their teens. Both have been tremendous help and have turned out to be very good kids. We are always thankful that we have been part of their lives and that they have turned out to be good, responsible kids.
Shivangi is now a sophomore at Mills College, as part of her three year dual degree program. She completes her BA in Math from Mills in 2012 and will go to USC, to complete her Industrial Engineering in another 2 years. She has gained a lot of confidence and enhanced leadership skills. She traveled, all by herself, to Florida & Oregon, to attend conferences for the shakha related activities – which she continues to be greatly involved in. She also manages the planning for the local chapter of the shakha in San Ramon.

Niharika or Neha, as we call her, turns 18 on the last day of the year. She graduated from California High School and decided to join St. Mary’s college. She will major in Bio-chemistry. She also continues to be involved in the local shakha and helps in planning activities. We see a lot of changes in her, with just six months of college dorm experience. She has gained a lot of confidence and now has opinions and contributions to all our conversations. She still continues to be the baby of the family though 

Nandita and I

Nandita and I celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary this year. Considering that we are both 46 years old, we have been married for half our lives so far. We have come a long way since 1981, when we first met over the dissection of a frog. (You can read about that here). It still feels like it was only yesterday that I met her and it has been a great ride - I’d do it again in a flash, if I had to.

2010 completes our 10th year in the US and in San Ramon. Life has been good to us here and we are thankful for it every day. In July, we sold the house, in which we had stayed for seven years and bought another one in August. For a short period of three weeks, we had to rent a house – and we’d discourage all our friends to from attempting a move twice in a period of 4 weeks. The new house is great, we have great neighbors here too and we love it. The house is almost an empty nest, as Shivangi too will leave for the dorm in 2011, but we are getting used to it and starting to plan for our life after the kids move out. We can see a lot of travel, reading, pursuing old hobbies in the next several years.

Our jobs

I worked for AT&T as a Technical Director until Mar of 2010 – and that was a good nine and a half years. I loved my job and my team there. However, one of my previous bosses asked if I was interested to work for her again. It is not very often that you get to work with a person you respect, you enjoy working and, with whom, can be on the same mental frequency. It took me some time to figure out that it was worth the risk and today, I am glad that I decided to switch to the Bank Of America. I work there in the eCommerce team as a Sr. VP and am responsible for the delivery of projects. Simply put – I love my job and my team.

Nandita has continued to work as a Director in the Clinical and Technical Affairs at Coagusense. It is a small startup company, based in Fremont and is just getting the product established. The company’s product was approved by FDA and the future looks bright as orders have started coming in.

The travels

In Jan, we returned from a three week long India trip that we took with our friends, Sue and Rory. It was a fun trip and we loved every day there. It was good to reconnect with old friends and visit new places. There is always a lot to see in India. I revisited India in July, though for an official trip. It was a hectic 5 day trip, and I covered Hyderabad and Chennai in those 5 days. I also traveled to Charlotte, NC (about 6 times) and Evergreen (Colorado) on official trips.

Nandita traveled to New York, New Jersey, Princeton, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Chicago, Detroit, Indiana, and San Diego on business trips. Her trips are shorter and more for trials or training of a new customer. She also traveled with Neha to visit Drexel University in Philadelphia, and they visited a few other towns in the neighborhood. She also made a two week trip to India, to visit her mother and brother during their health crisis – both are doing better now.

Shivangi attended a Shakha Yuva Varga (Youth conference) for the West Coast in Oregon and also a national one in Florida. Neha traveled to Philadelphia, to see Drexel University, where she had been accepted, and also visited New York, New Jersey, and Princeton.
We took a short family vacation to San Diego in the last few days of the year.

Activities

We did a lot of things – but nothing beats the concert that Nandita and I attended. It was Paul McCartney’s concert in AT&T Park in San Francisco, where he performed after nearly 40 years. I had wanted to watch him perform since I was 18 years old – and we finally got the chance to do that on the 9th of July, the day after I returned from a very hectic India trip. But, the jet lag vanished when he came on the stage and we sang and danced to all the 45+ songs he sang in a three hour concert - definitely one of the highlights of the year for us.

Nandita participated in the Ekal Marathon – she and her group of friends practiced every Saturday for several months to complete the 13 miles half marathon to support the Ekal Vidyalaya in India. Unfortunately, at the last minute she had to leave for India, to attend to her mother’s health – but thanks to all our friends, she was able to contribute towards the cause to support 3 schools this year (they need $365 per school per year).

The whole family (Nandita more than all of us put together) contributed time and effort in the Sewa project – which is a volunteer effort to feed the homeless in Oakland’s People’s park. We sponsored the food on Shivangi’s birthday and will be sponsoring the lunch in the Livermore temple for Neha’s birthday.

Nandita and the girls continue to be very active members of the Hindu Shakha in San Ramon and Bay area.

I have been very actively involved with the organization GITPRO (Global Indian Technical Professional) chapter in Contra Costa. We had a few meetings his year and plan to have regular monthly meetings in 2011. The intent of the group is to bring together the Indian Technical professionals and guide them to work together to build a solid network across the world. It is a nice group with no political and no religious affiliations/aspirations and only aspires to help Indian Technical professionals.

On the extended family front, things are ok. Nandita’s mother fell and broke her shoulder. Her Alzheimer is worsening with age and there are good days and bad. We are learning to take the good days and making the most of them. One of Nandita’s brothers suffered a heart attack and recovered successfully. My mother is doing fine in Indore, and plans to visit us in early 2012 – by the grace of God, she is quite active and passes her time by reading and painting.

Movies we saw
Some mentionable English movies we saw – Iron Man 2, Harry Potter – Deathly Hallows part 1, The A Team, Eclipse – the twilight Saga, Inception, Expendables, Prince of Persia, Despicable Me, Green Zone, Shutter Island, Mega mind, Date Night, Knight and Day, The Bounty Hunter
Hindi Movies – Only some old Hindi movies

Some good Books we readEat Pray and Love, Katha, The winner stands alone,
Leading by questions, Astronomical dating of Mahabharata, Life of Ved Vyas, Strategic Thinking: A Nine Step Approach To Strategy And Leadership For Managers, Our Iceberg is melting, Goal.

Water Harvesting in Indore

2009-11-07T08:51:00.000-08:00

The recent spate of floods in India has become a cause for concern for many in the stricken areas. While there are floods in some parts of the country, there are any parts that are facing acute water shortage.

I remember when I was a kid, there was a lot of rainfall (average was 44 inches per annum) and there was never a shortage of water. We would run in the monsoon rains and play. We’d make little paper boats (I got my grandmother to make me some) and watch them float into the flowing water. It was fun activity for all the kids in the neighborhood. I still have photographs that show that the water level in the Khan river was right up to the road level near Navlakha and that lakes like Pipliyapala, Bilawali and Sirpur, were full. So what has gone wrong now, that we are facing such water shortage issues. My personal opinion is that we have ruined the water supply supply system ourselves by the lack of planning and our greed to build and usurp land. Here is why:

About 40 years ago, I remember that the roads in Indore had little “Naalis” on the side. These were like the tiny drains on the side of the roads to drain the access water. These then dumped the water into the creeks (called Naalas) flowing in the city, which eventually met the Khan river or were emptied into the city lakes. Since there was a lot of open land, water would seep into the ground and replenish the underground water. And there were hundreds of thousands of trees, mainly in the catchment areas.

Now we have done away with the Naalis by the roads. The creeks are filled with dirt or are covered by land usurpers and homes have been built on those. Basically, we have cut the capillaries and arteries of the supply system. There are fewer open land slots. As a result, all the rain water is wasted. And of course, there are no trees left in the entire city -- let alone in the catchment areas. Can you imagine, even this year Indore received about 35 inches of rain and there is a short supply? Compare that with places in California or even the village of Anna Hazare, which only get about 7 inches of rain in the entire year, but is totally self sufficient in terms of water.

In California, there is a lot of greenery in the suburbs. The reason is that the government has mandated grey water be harvested and used for watering the grass and plants in the local gardens. Drains collect the rain water from roof tops and from the sides of the road and this is then sent to local creeks. Basically, water is harvested. Anna Hazare has done the same thing in his tiny village in Maharashtra.

It is still not too late. We can recover from this mess that we have created ourselves. All it needs is some collective will power and good leadership.

Shivangi -- grown up and in college

2009-08-27T22:12:00.000-07:00

This one is something that was started by my wife, Nandita, and I have added a few lines.

My elder daughter, Shivangi, started college this week.

It has made me realize how time flies. It makes me realize how limited that duration is, when we have our children to ourselves. Soon all we're left with is all those mental vignettes and snapshots of events...I feel proud to see her blossoming into a confident young woman. Of course there will be celebrations of achievements and culminations of years of hard work - but, I'd always think of her as my little daughter.

I remember the day she was born, about eighteen years ago. We were all crowded around the doors of the Operation Room in Greater Kailash Nursing Home in Indore. After a long night of pains, my wife and I finally came to the hospital. Dr. Ahilya Mukherji was the doctor and Nandita's childhood friend, Anjali, was the assistant. After several hours of wait, they finally decided to take her in the OR to do a C-section, as the baby was getting under stress. I remember the way my father-in-law sat in a corner in the room and prayed, my dad talked to other doctors in the hospital and I paced around the floor outside the OR. At about 7.20 PM, Anjali came out and announced that every thing was ok and we had a baby girl. My first question was about my wife's health and then I went in to see my wife and my baby. There she was -- all wrapped in a bundle, quiet and sleeping. I picked her up gently and clumsily and gently kissed her forehead.

I remember the anxiety when on the third day, I came to the hospital to find her with tubes and under UV light. But it was a minor hiccup. We brought her home soon and things became a blur of activities. As my wife and I had decided, the first child was to be named with the letter S and we chose the name Shivangi - after the name of Lord Shiva, based on a dream I had had (that is a write up for another blog). Shivangi soon became the hub of all activity. She demanded attention and wouldn't let me talk to anyone if she was in the room -- whether she was eating, or drinking milk from her bottle. She'd make this weird grunting noises when I started to say something to anyone else in the room. I also can't forget the countless nights I spent walking in my room with her in my arms, in the middle of the night, so that she could get some sleep. She was adored by one and all -- and was the apple of my dad's eyes. I could sense the attachment in both their eyes when they spent the time together -- so much so that for a long time, Shivangi claimed him as only her grand-dad and Neha, my younger daughter, called him as Didi's (elder sister) grand dad.

She was smart, sensitive and perceptive even as a baby. I clearly remember her first day at the informal pre-school/Day Care behind my house, where she was the only child who was crying when it was time to come home. Then she started a formal pre-school by the name of Mini Land and once again, she frolicked in without a backward glance at us. Her eagerness to go to school persisted next year when she went to Mini Heights where she continued to amaze us with her brilliance. I also remember, that she went to give her interview for the elite private school for Kindergarten. I was so apprehensive when they took her away in a different room, but she just skipped in to match the teacher's step. When they had finished testing her reading/writing and recognition skills and it was time for her to leave, she was adamant that she had not tried all the stations they had set up. We were told that we could just pay the fees at the office and not wait for the final selection list to be posted.

I believe her endearing nature made her the teacher’s pet. She excelled at everything, sports, arts, singing, studies and making friends. I also remember the time we were called by one of her teachers and told that we should not teach her ahead as she gets bored and sits staring out of the window, chair turned back to the blackboard. When we were skeptical of what she could do, the teacher asked Shivangi to write on the blackboard and she promptly did that , explaining as she did that this was so simple. The day that she boarded the school bus for the first time, is still clearly embedded in my memory. My wife stood there, visibly upset, but Shivangi was beaming as the bus conductor took her in and, by the return trip, had made friends with the driver and was already commanding the seat closest to him. She was super excited as she told us about her fantabulous day, and never once said that she missed home. She loved to go to school so much so that one day she ran out incompletely dressed and actually went to school like that.

I remember the time she visited the hospital when Neha was born -- all of 15 months old. She was awfully quiet when she walked in the room. She just sat near Nandita, looking at her and then the new baby. But she quickly adapted, and when we brought Neha home, Shivangi would often push Neha's stroller when we went for walks. They have grown up together into great friends, talking care of each other and ready to support each other. Shivangi always showed deep affection for her younger sister, she never showed any sibling jealousy and willing shared most everything. Her academic life has followed the same high achievement trajectory laced liberally with arts, music , sports and friends. Though, she has given up formal piano lessons, but I still hear her play. She has given up tennis lessons but luckily has been selected to play in her College Tennis Team. She has given up art as a subject, but just last week, she spent a long time in making an oil painting that she gifted to her piano teacher. She is now driving herself, compared to the previous modes of walking holding my hand, walking by herself, auto rikshaw, school bus, and sitting in my car. I will no longer see her waiting to be picked up by me, rather she will get out from her car and stride confidently in.

The last 4 years were devoted towards reaching this goal and now that it is here, I have several feeling. There is however, no feeling of loss, 'cause I have not lost anything. I feel thrilled to see her just the way I had dreamed her to have grown, and yet I know that this is just a beginning of a new journey. It is just end of one chapter for now. There is more to come....

Solving Nuclear tensions

2009-06-17T22:45:00.000-07:00

The wold is currently undergoing another crisis -- the current one being the rhetoric around North Korea making progress in being able to carry out a successful test in its long distance missile program. What has followed has been nothing short of a rhetoric. We had a similar drama when Iran, India and others carried out experiments and explosions.

So why do we have so much drama every time a third world or progressive nation carries out a nuclear explosion or missile test. Other countries threaten to attack and there is a general brouhaha about the whole scenario that is about as repeatable and impressive as a stale joke. There is so much of negativity generated and such a waste of vibes. the end result will be some sanctions, which don’t really do anything except put the general public of that nation into more dire circumstances.

Some general questions that come to my mind:

How can a country manage to get the material required to make the weapons grade material?
Is there a way by which we can benefit the world by reducing tension?

I see that every country wants to be independent in terms of its power generation. The world needs energy. The larger countries want to ensure that they are not attacked. and I am very sure that anybody with brains worth their salts does not wants small time rogues to land up a catch of nuclear pile and use that to attack other countries -- it could be disaster for all.

I also realize that nuclear energy has tremendous potential and has the capability of solving the world’s energy problems. People often have images of Chernobyl’s disaster in the late 80s when they think of nuclear energy plants. So how can we make this a source of solution to our problems rather than cause more issues and discord in the world.

Here is my suggestion:

Get the UN or another International Agency (like the International Atomic Energy Commission) to take over the role of a central Energy producing agency.
Make deals with various countries to establish a consortium. members are entitled to share profits, energy and products.
The consortium should be treated like a business endeavor.
Acquire land from the member country to set up the plant.
Security of the plant will be handled by International organization.
The plant will offer job to local population. The resources can also be transferred between various plants.
The technical staff or exerts in nuclear material will be selected from international members.
The surplus energy can be sold to neighboring member countries.
There could be multiple power plants in a country - depending on its size and location.

Imagine how many jobs this can create. Contrary to the beliefs, nuclear energy is one of the greenest forms of energy. It just needs careful monitoring and close coordination.

And most of all, it needs a strong leader who has the will power to do things. I believe the world and US has one now -- and he can lead the world to come together on this issue.

Some advice to kids (and anyone else willing to listen)

2009-06-01T22:36:00.000-07:00

My daughter, Shivangi, goes into her college as a freshman later this year. As most parents, I worry about the expenses. As a responsible Dad, I’d like her to be able to stay on the right track from all perspectives – character, health, finance and you name it. So, I thought it would be appropriate if I could jot down a few of my experiences and guidelines for her financial safety.

People make stupid decisions all the time. Some mess up in their retirement accounts, while some take out mortgages they think they can afford, without understanding the full implications. I would like to try and prevent my kids from having a knee jerk response to any issues that come. It is always about planning, planning and more planning for me.
Today’s blog is more about making money – big or small -- and hanging onto it. I learned that doing this comes from combined effects of several factors: education, talent, upbringing, luck, and avoiding scrupulous advisors. It also gives some generic advice based on experience in my life. Few things to remember:

We can’t control everything
We can only set goals based on what we value most
Make plans and take concrete steps to achieve the goals
Live within our means
Try to manage risk
Avoid the bad guys

Of course there are always unknowns that get thrown in the mix. Government policies can change, there could be an environment disaster, stupid and greedy CEOs in Wall Street may wreak havoc on the economy. It is like staying sober, but still getting hit by a crazy drunk driver on an empty freeway.
So, here is sharing some advice and experiences with my darling daughters, Shivangi and Niharika – and many other kids all over the world --- as they prepare to step into adulthood and get ready to face the world. Here are some of the habits (some inborn and some forced) and practices that have helped me in my past two decades.

1. Whatever you do, give it your best

It was 1980 and my friends and I were playing cricket on the terrace of Adit’s (a friend) house in Indore (my home town in India). The game was adapted to suit the small perimeter – so things like if the ball hits the side, the batsman scored 2 runs; if it went past the bowler and hit the wall, he got 4 runs; and if the fielder caught it directly or after one bounce, the batsman was out. So, one of my friends hit the ball and I threw myself on the cemented surface to catch the ball. In the process, I ended up getting a little bruised. Someone said that I didn’t need to do play so seriously – but I disagreed. I have always believed in giving my best to the thing on my hand. I have made it a habit to try one more time before I say I can’t. This helped me win difficult matches when I played cricket, and when I designed circuits or applications for my clients. If you really try your best, you won’t have the regrets that you didn’t succeed because of lack of efforts.

Keep evolving – pick your own skills

After I graduated my high school from Daly College, Indore – I was at cross roads. My high school coaches wanted me to go to Bombay and play cricket there. They felt I had the potential to make it big. My dad wasn’t keen that I leave Indore – so make a long story short, I joined Holkar Science College as a Second year student with Botany, chemistry and Zoology as my subjects. It was a drastic change from Daly College. I did my bachelors (B.Sc) from Holkar Science College in 2 years. Next I did my masters in Organic Chemistry for 2 years - -and then realizing that it was not really what I wanted to do, I decided to switch to Engineering. I joined and completed my Bachelors in Electronics Engineering in 1989 from Pune University. That was a course I really enjoyed and made some very good friends.
My first job was with a small Instrumentation company. I had interviewed at 5 companies and was selected to join all of them. I decided to join Nivo Controls – A Toshniwal Brothers Company, thinking that this will help me learn all aspects of a company. And it did – I enjoyed my 3 years in that company. I managed the development of a Magnetic Flow meter and worked on various circuits. I realized that I had a flair for circuits and reverse engineering. And I had a great memory for circuits that I saw. I also realized that if I had to move up in my career, I had to do a Masters in Business Administration. So I appeared in the entrance exam and was selected to join the IMS in Indore. This was in 1991 and I completed my course in 1994.

In 1992, I decided to start my own business. I took up maintenance contracts of machines and controls for various industries. My first contract was at a friend’s company, which offered me Rs1500/- per month. I eventually added development of customized machines and controllers for them. The company grew from Rs.18000/- per annum in 1989 to about Rs.38, 00,000 in 1999. We were doing job work, manufacturing equipment and machines and a lot more. I consulted for several major lamp filament manufacturers in India, and the Crompton Greaves Phones and IFB microwaves had their electronics PCBs assembled in my shop floor! I was also exporting some controllers. I made things like temperature controllers, Stepper motor drives, power supplies, CFL ballasts, Power conditioners, and a lot more!
And then, in late 1998, I decided to switch lanes and get into software too. So I took courses in Java and other languages. I built websites for companies and also developed software for a community bank. In 1999, I decided to move to the US and joined a company in California. It was a big move, but I decided to go for it, in order to give my daughters a better shot at life. I had to start from scratch, at the bottom of the rug, and reprove myself – and I’d like to think that I have done a fairly good job at it; good enough to now direct and own a team of my own. In 2005, I did my Project Management Professional Certificate from UC Berkeley and learned that I love analyzing human behavior and team dynamics. But, I am still evolving and quite sure that I will soon join another class to learn something new.
Trust me – it will help you stay ahead of the curve. Learn a new language, a new hobby, perfect your current knowledge – whatever … keep doing something every two years or so. Work exceedingly hard, and enjoy harder. Be aware of your competition and realize that your competition is global and you are entirely dispensable. So invest your time and money in developing your distinct abilities and a network that goes with you from job to job.

Plan A, plan B, plan C

Always plan your moves – have a plan A and a Plan B and sometimes a plan C. Remember that Murphy’s law often kicks in – when you think something is all set, things will start hitting the roof. It never hurts to be prepared for the worst and hope for the best. I am a firm believer in under-committing and delivering more.

Define rich

I highly recommend that you list a few things that are of utmost importance to you. This list should include quantifiable and non-quantifiable items. I would include items like strong and true friendships, health, freedom, or a home or a Mercedes. Set your priorities and put a dollar figure on them. Build a plan that will give you a view of your tomorrow – immediate, 5-year view and a 10-year view. This will help you plan your next moves.

I have always felt that my priorities are getting my kids a good education, staying healthy and ensuring that my kids stay focused on their goals. I bought my first car in US in 3 months and my first house in 3 years. For me the car is just a means of going from point A to point B. Though I have admired expensive cars -and if I could afford to, I’d buy them - I don’t believe in blocking my money in these items. Remember that the car loses its money as soon as it leaves the Dealer’s shop. A house on the other hand, often appreciates. When you decide to buy a house, I’d suggest buying even a small house in an area with good schools and zero crime rates. Its price will almost always go up in the longer run.

Mind your credit

Pay credit cards on time and in full every month. If you already carry a revolving balance, get rid of it as quickly as possible, even if it requires living at home (or sharing a dorm) for a period of time.
Don’t borrow more than what you can repay. Understand how the banks operate. They make money off you and you need to figure out how to use their money. They will love to entrap you into their credit schemes. You will get a momentary high, and then you will get so dependent that you will need a cold turkey treatment to get out of the debt trap. Learn to say No – keep minimum numbers of credit cards and you will find that you have a good credit score.
Once you understand the mechanics of the credit system and ratings, and are able to get a good credit rating, maintain it ------ and it will speed you in style to your destination. If you let your guard down, it will damage your ability to get a job, rent an apartment, or borrow money to buy a car or a home or for your kids’ education.

Take good care of your health

Exercise regularly, eat a balanced diet, and don’t smoke. Avoid alcohol, if you can and definitely avoid it, if you are drinking more than once or twice a week. Get yourself into simple things like Yoga or just walking 30-45 minutes per day.
I took yoga as a subject in my school days and practiced all the asanas and poses that I had learned. Then life got busy and I rarely got a chance to do it. During my 2005 trip to India, I had a slightly high blood pressure so my family doctor suggested that I start some yoga exercises. I did and loved getting back into it. It is very relaxing and helps me immensely. I try to go for a daily walk of at least 45 -60 minutes. If you have a family history (like I do) of diabetes and blood pressure, exercise is best bet.

After you turn 30, get regular check ups. Build a relationship with your physician and nurses. Get to know them and help them get to know you.

Manage your own money

Learn about options, bonds and stocks. There is a lot to read about these on the web. Understand simple mathematics of interest and Principal. Remember that banks compound interest on your savings. Understand how to minimize tax impacts on your earnings.
My simple rule of thumb is – save at least 10% of whatever you make for your rainy day. Always have at least 6 months of savings, based on your current expenses, as your buffer. Anything more than that can be used for whatever you want to splurge on.

Go for 401k investments in your company, even if the company does not contribute. Try and save 15 percent of your income, from the time you start working, in your 401K and you should be fine when you retire. Spread the allocations and update your allocations frequently based on how the market is doing. Diversify your risk by buying very low-cost index funds or exchange-traded funds. Look carefully at the charges and fees for investing. If you don’t have the 401K options, look towards Roth IRA, where you pay the taxes now, when you are in a lower income bracket, and take the money out tax-free later.

Have at least one account with a good Credit Union, for your day-to-day finances. They pay a higher interest and cheaper loans. Also, consider saving with online banks – like ING. And always check for FDIC insurance of your banks.

Build a Network

My dad always said – the only real wealth one accumulates in the world is friendship. I have come to realize that is very true. The good thing about friends is that you choose them, unlike with relatives. In my humble opinion, a friend is one who can tell you that you are doing something wrong. And still be around when things are not working well for you. With good friends, you don’t have to pretend – you just be who you are. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t been in touch in years – you always pick up where you last left off. That has been the case with my friends and me.
Even at work, talk to your colleagues. Establish a relationship with your boss and your boss’s boss. Meet your boss for a one on one meting at least once a month to go over what you are doing right or wrong. Meet your Boss’s boss (with your boss’ knowledge) at least once or twice a year. Meet people outside of your work too and build a relationship with them. Meet people at your religious gatherings and get to know them. You never know when you might need a referral and knowing someone may come in handy.

Be grateful

Finally, always be grateful for what ever you have received. Remember, it could be worst than what it is. Contribute to the community and be involved. Get involved with a cause that is worthwhile. The way to do it is by looking at the expense ratio. If the organization consumes more than 10% of the funds it collects for itself, I think it is wasting money. There are several small groups that are doing very good work but lack the means or don’t feel the need to advertise.

I normally avoid religion-based groups, as I personally don’t believe in converting people’s religion and faith. If someone wants to do social service, they should just focus on that and preserve the local culture.

I think I will stop here. More until next time!

Wheeling and Dealing!!

2009-05-25T16:48:00.000-07:00

Just yesterday, my wife and I bought a 2005 Honda CR-V SE for our older daughter, Shivangi. It is a beautiful car – black in color with tinted glasses and about 40K miles on it. We surprised Shivangi with the car and it was fun to see her reaction.

The effort wasn’t easy, by any means. We (I) had to do a lot of research and finally settled on this car. Of course, my daughters just complicated the matter as they kept eyeing different cars. One wanted a Mustang and the other wanted a cute Smart car! I wanted safety as the top priority (and that rules the Mustang out from my list). Finally, I just decided to do this on my own. It helped that one of my colleagues at work was the neighbor of the dealership owner.

We shelled out $5K for the car – roughly about 1/3rd of the asking price, as down payment. The deal went through in under 2 hours and we drove the car back. As my wife and I got talking in the night, we realized the enormity of the situation. Our daughter had grown up and we could now give her a responsibility of driving a vehicle. I’d have never thought of buying a $16k car for my kids in India (that is like a Rs.800,000 vehicle!!).

My wife and I thought about our younger days --- our first vehicles and those of our parents. My first vehicle was an old beat up ladies cycle (Landmark was the brand). I got it as a gift for standing first in my class in grade 5th. I believe my father bought it from a friend for about Rs. 75/- (back then, the USD traded for about Rs 8/- -- so this was like a $9 bicycle). After the initial euphoria died, I realized that all my friends had cool looking racing bikes while I had an old beaten ladies bike. By the time I was in the 7th grade, I found it embarrassing to ride to school on a ladies cycle. When I reached my 9th grade, my dad got me a red BSA SLR, another used cycle he bought for about Rs150/- (by then, the USD was trading at Rs 18 to a dollar, so this was again under $10/-). I loved that cycle and used it till I finished my graduation in Holkar Science College. Only once did I buy a new cycle – in 1983 when I was studying in my final year of B.Sc in Holkar Science College. It was a beautiful red colored Hero cycle. I paid Rs.400 for it and sadly, it was stolen within the first week from the College cycle stand. Fortunately, I still had my old BSA to ride.

When I went to Pune to study for my engineering, I ended up buying a used cycle in my second year (called sophomore in the US), for Rs. 200/-. One fine day, when I was returning to my hostel, my friend Dhananjay Ashtekar needed a ride so we decided to ride doubles, with me sitting on the bar in front. As we rode on a over bridge, the bike hit a pot hole and all of a sudden, I found myself staring at the front wheel of the bike moving to the left and the tar of the road approaching my face. I took evasive action and put my hands in the front to lessen the impact of the fall. That helped and I thought I was fine, until Ashtekar came and landed on my head, hitting it on the tar. Realizing that I was on a busy downtown road, I reacted and quickly pushed him away and rolled over to stand up, just as a car and a scooter screeched to a halt near us. A good Samaritan got us the wheel and helped us get to the side, where I realized that my shirt was soaked in blood – I had a broken nose, thanks to Ashtekar falling on my head. To make a long story short, and to remain focused on the tale of vehicles, I eventually made it to my hostel with a swollen face, a messed up shirt and a broken bike and nose. Raja and Arun, my other good friends, came over promptly and took me to the hospital where the doctors pumped me with injections and wanted to keep me in the hospital to rule out any head injury. Fortunately, I was fine and things got back to normal. But I learned a lesson – never to buy a used vehicle with out proper inspection.

I was able to convince my dad that I needed a Luna (a simple moped) in Pune (it was always Dad – my mom never fell for these. If she had her way, I’d have become an expert in the Pune Bus system known as PMT). So in 1987, I ended up buying a Luna for about Rs. 4000/-. Boy, did I take good care of it – never missed a scheduled servicing or maintenance. That was the vehicle I used to receive my wife Nandita, when she visited me there (yes, for those who don’t know, I married her in 1987, just before starting my junior year). That was the vehicle I used to runaround to complete my projects and run errands.

Once I landed back home, I started using my dad’s Kinetic Honda. When my dad was a kid, the British ruled India. My grandpa was the jailor at the central jail in Indore. They were fairly well to do and eventually even bought a car. But the luck changed when my grandfather succumbed to injuries he suffered while suppressing a jail riot. My dad was then in high school. His first vehicle was a Raleigh bicycle – a beautiful piece with gears and dynamo driven lights. The bike was passionately maintained till the 80s, when he gave it to his friend’s brother. In the 70s, when he and my mom were building our house, it got tiring for him to cycle around from work to home to the construction site. So, they bought a Suvega, a 50 CC moped. When I reached my 8th grade, he sold the Suvega and bought a Hero Majestic, another 50 CC moped, which he rode till 1988. It was a beautiful green colored vehicle that he loved and maintained very well. We also bought a Luna for my mother. It was a very simple living for us – they were simple people and preferred spending their money on the kids’ education. Both my parents were doctors and could have splurged on themselves had they wanted to. So while we (my sister and I) received the best available education in expensive schools, my parent toiled.

In 1988, after my marriage, my dad bought a Kinetic Honda. It was a red colored 150 CC scooter that was built by Honda in Japan and sold by Kinetic, the same company that made the Luna. I still remember the number plate – MKE 3718. I remember the time when I picked it up from the shop and rode it home, along with my dad. Nandita was standing on the terrace and saw us as we turned into the lane towards the house. I could see her get excited and run down to meet us. She then took the scooter for a ride. It was the most expensive thing we had ever bought until then and it cost all of Rs.14000/-. The vehicle was considered to be very fragile – so much so that my cousin quipped if we had receive a matchbox free with the scooter to light it up in case of a fall or accident. ?. He now has two himself.

After my father had his first heart attack, in 1992, we started looking at old cars. I remember spending a couple of Sundays with my father, walking amongst the used cars in the Car Melas in Indore. Our budget was about Rs. 50000/-. However, that was never to be. He passed away in Feb of 1993. Then, his close friend and our neighbor, Dr. Mukherji was selling his Fiat. I knew that dad was keen to buy that car and so offered to pick it up. I ended up buying it for Rs.90,000/- (USD $2200/- back then) . The funny part was that I didn’t know how to drive. But that has been the story of my life ( I bought my first album (Band on the Run by Wings, before I bought a record player, my first CD before I bought a CD player). But that was never a hassle - it turned out that I was pretty good at it. I picked up the art of driving like a fish takes to water and drove around the town with the help of a driver in the local Special Armed Forces Unit of the MP Police, where my older sister was the Superintendent. By then Shivangi was about 2 years old. We drove from Indore to Bhopal in June of 1993 for our first long drive. The Fiat car was called as Premier Padmini and was a fairly decent car. It was, like most cars in India, a stick shift vehicle. The cooling system was water driven and I had to stop after every couple of hours of driving to refill the radiator and allow the car to cool down. But I loved the car.

In 1993, we decided to sell the Kinetic Honda and buy another one. So, we bought a black one (MP-09H-1678) for about Rs 20000/-. The USD was by then close to Rs 50/- per piece, making it about $400/-. I used this vehicle till the day I left India in 2000. Also, in 1996, we eventually grew tired of our Fiat and sold it to a friend for Rs50000/-. He used it for another 7 years after that, for his local commute. We on the other hand, picked up a Maruti Suzuki, a 800CC vehicle from a neighbor for about Rs. 180000/-. This for us, was the ultimate mark of luxury back then. I used this car till December 2000 and sold it to my tax advisor for Rs. 100,000/- in order to raise some money to move to US.

We landed in SFO in November of 2000, when I took up a job with AT&T. We decided to live in San Ramon, about 4 miles from my place of work. For the first couple of months, we did not own a vehicle. We chose a place close to an elementary school, so that the kids would have the convenience of walking to and from school. I found out that the only public transport available were two buses that plied at 7 AM and 7.20 AM, to take me towards my work place and would return back at 3 PM. Since there was no way, I could leave my work at 3 PM, coming back in a bus was ruled out. I did use that bus to go to work, but had to walk several times as the bus wouldn’t show up. The area was too posh for people to use the buses. Then, my wife found that the dad of another kid in the same school worked at Chevron, right across from AT&T and would be happy to give me a ride. So, I’d stand outside my apartment complex daily at 6.30 AM in the winter (it was December/January of 2000 and it was cold ( remember, I was just coming from India!!!) for Jitendra to come and pick me up. He also let me drive around the town in his car to help me get used to the rules in the country.

Then in February, Jitendra, Nandita and I drove around to visit all the car dealerships looking at cars. After spending a couple of weekends, we ended up at Hyundai in Dublin and after spending the entire day in the shop, ended up buying a new Hyundai Elantra for $13000/-. Jitendra put in our down payment of $3000/- (which I later returned over a period of 3 months). It was a stick shift vehicle, much like the vehicles we drove in India (and like Jitendra’s vehicle, that I had used to learn driving in the US and to get my license). The car was simple and cheap but nice. It gave us about 32 miles per gallon.

In November of 2002, a friend’s neighbor was moving to Europe due to the economic downturn here in the US. He was selling his 1997 Honda Odyssey with 57000 miles for $13000. Fortunately, he agreed to my offer of $11000/- and I had my second car. The 1997 Honda Odyssey is a V4 with good miles per gallon ratio ( and it was our first auto transmission vehicle. I still have this vehicle and it has so far been driven to about 122000 mloaded tooiles. I just got new tires on this.

In 2006, we decided to sell the Hyundai Elantra and traded it for a Hyundai Tucson. The reason was to help Nandita who had a fairly long commute and it got difficult and risky for her to drive a low car on the freeway in the rains. The brand new car, cost us about USD $22K out the door, and has been our most expensive purchase outside of the house we bought. It has a 6 CD changer, auto transmission, power windows, power steering and all the works.

So now, Shivangi has a car that is fully loaded too. It comes with 6 CD changer, auto transmission and has power everything. Now when I think of it ( we as parents are trying to exactly what my parents did; give our best to our kids. Help them become much better people and focus on their work and studies.

Here is a comparative chart to indicate how things moved. Note that my vehicle, when I was about 19 years old, cost me about $23/- :)

VEHICLE	Old/New	Year	Rupees	USD $$$$
Landmark Cycle 20”	Old	1974	75	9
BSA SLR	Old	1977	150	9
Hero cycle 18"	New	1983	400	23
Suvega 50 CC Moped	New	1976	4000	235
Luna 50 CC moped	New	1976	3500	220
Atlas Bicycle 22”	Old	1986	200	22
Hero Majestic 500 CC Moped	New	1979	5500	300
Luna 50 CC Moped	New	1979	4500	260
Kinetic Honda Scooter	New	1988	14000	800
Kinetic Honda Scooter	New	1993	20000	700
Fiat Premier	Old	1993	90000	2200
Suzuki Maruti	Old	1997	190,000	4000
Hyundai Elantra	New	2001	7,00,000	13,000
Honda Odyssey LX	Old	2002	6,00,000	11,000
Hyundai Tucson	New	2006	12,00,000	22,000

Frankly Speaking --- the state of US Economy

2008-09-25T22:48:00.000-07:00

In his recent speech, President Bush declared that there was a real financial crisis and that US must act to prevent a major crash. A massive $700 billion dollar bail out was proposed.

Is that something that surprised me? No – as a person who likes to keep himself aware of the world around himself, I read the news and on goings. A very simple lesson I tell my kids and colleagues at work is – things don’t fail or crash over night, but they slip a little on a daily basis. It is our job as leaders to keep an eye on the slip and prevent the slide. What bothers me is that no one thought of this bail out in the past one year.

Over the past one year, we heard time and again from the President and his team, that the economy has strong fundamentals. I guess those were the only voices saying that. All financial gurus, news papers, economists were screaming in the other direction. One only has to look at the housing mess around to figure out that there is a serious crisis brewing.

Have you ever compared your grocery bills over the past year? I could swear that my Costco bills have increased by at least 60% for the same items. I used to spend on an average about $70 per visit and now, my invoice reads at least $120. Gas prices used to be about $1.70 about 4 years back. Now they are close to $4. Some idiot starts speculations on these and they start moving like a machine that takes three steps in one direction and one in the other. As one of the former FBI guys said on CNN, these greedy guys at Wall Street have succeeded where the terrorists failed on 9/11 – they have brought the US economy to its knees.

Frankly speaking – I am appalled. This deserves a full fledged investigation and prosecution of the culprits.

Choose Products Assembled or Made in America

2008-04-07T21:00:00.000-07:00

I just returned from a vacation that I had taken with my kids to Washington DC. Washington DC is a beautiful place with a lot of history (from a US perspective, a lot means about 300+ years). My older daughter was nominated for the National Youth Leadership Conference and she had the pleasure of being part of 350+ student leaders from all over the country.

National Youth Leadership Council (NYLC) program scholars represent the upper echelon of today's youth in both academic performance and community leadership. Each student is hand-selected for nomination based upon academic achievement as well as by distinguished educators, mentors or NYLC program alumni, ensuring that every participant possesses the drive and determination to emerge as a future & world leader. You can read about the organization here.

The trip gave me the opportunity to move around in Washington DC. I was staying with some friends in Alexandria, Virginia. On the advice of my friends, I decided not to rent a car to move around in DC. In hind sight, it was a great decision. The DC Metro system is extremely convenient for tourists. I’d catch a Metro train from Huntington to Union Station and then catch the trolley tour. The Train ride would cost me about $5 two ways and the trolley tour would cost about $32 for a whole day pass. One can get off and board the trolley at any of the regular stops of the trolley. There are even duck tours very aptly named as they include cruises in the river too, to take you for sight seeing along the river. One can also get to Mt. Vernon, the residence estate of George Washington. You can view the photos of my trip by clicking here.

While in Alexandria, I also had the opportunity to visit Mt. Vernon. This is the estate of George Washington. The estate is a beautiful, right by the Potomac river. George Washington and his wife Martha loved to live a very stylish life style. The splendor of the building is worth viewing. Kudos to the management for maintaining the site so well and keeping everything in a near pristine condition. The only thing that bothered me was that the shops in Mt. Vernon were full of Chinese goods. As an American (and I am not one yet), I’d be embarrassed to see foreign made busts of George Washington, replicas of guns, Salt and pepper shakers looking like soldiers selling in a place of National pride.

However that upset me. It got me thinking (D’uh!!!). Today the US economy is reeling. Jobs are dropping in weekly reports. It is time we took some drastic actions. I can’t expect the government to do anything towards this. The government is probably too busy trying to figure out a way to get out of war and do damage control. The only possible solution that comes to my mind is something that Gandhi practiced in India more than 65 years ago. It was simple solution then and it is a simple solution now. Stop buying things made abroad. Now, I know this is easier said than done. The things are a lot more complicated now. But we can make a start. Let us start buying things assembled in this country first. We need to get some manufacturing back in this country. And I don’t mean just cars. It has to be smaller stuff that is used in daily utilities. And that effort has to start from the public. Once the public refuses to buy good produced abroad, things will change for the better.

I for one have decided that I will try my best to give the first preference to American manufactured items. Even if it says assembled in the US, I will choose that over something that is made in China. What do you think?

What could be wrong with the US business model?

2007-11-04T17:50:00.000-08:00

I was recently at a get together with some friends from India. The atmosphere was informal, food was good (Assorted parathas, served with assorted pickles, Kadhi and Raitas can always be a treat). As always happens, we started talking about the business and economic boom in India.

Someone mentioned a very interesting fact -- in one month, the cell phone subscribers in India, had grown to about 9 million -- up 2 million over the previous month. On an average, the customer was paying $2-4 per month in India and the companies were reaping in profits. Compare that with the figures in US -- there are at least ten times more cell phone users, who on an average pay about $40 per month. Yet the companies are on shaky grounds. Some bigger companies have started showing profits lately, but over all the system is a losing model.

The difference lies in the legal system. The legal system in US for criminal cases is probably the best anywhere. But for civil cases, it just doesn't support the business. Any system that ensures a payoff to the tune of $160 million to someone who is being kicked off the post has to have something wrong with it.

Why does the health care cost so much? Just look at the legal cost borne by the doctors and health staff -- it is phenomenal. The rich keep getting richer and it does not bother them to pay a few thousand bucks for their health coverage. It is the middle class and lower income families that have to suffer -- either they can't pay the health benefits or they pay through their noses. It is they who have to support the illegal immigrants, who can't be turned away from the hospitals. It should not take a rocket scientist to figure the logic here. All you need is a strong political figure, who can lay a meddle ground for everyone to use.

We really need to simplify the civil rights laws. Some things are just not legal things. There are things required for business that need to be done. If that helps benefit the country in terms of economy, it is worth it.

Just my two cents -- feel free to share your thoughts on this.

New blog on Indian Heritage, culture and Traditions

2007-10-13T20:36:00.000-07:00

I decided to open up another blog to write about the extremely rich traditions of India, its heritage and culture. You can find it here.

Sandeep's blog will be more personal and will tell about specific events in my life and express my opinion and write about the Indian touch where ever possible.

Hope you will enjoy both.

Send me your comments and suggestions.

Wings of a Sea Gull

2007-09-12T13:54:00.001-07:00

Wings of a Sea Gull
Originally uploaded by sandeepbhatnagar

Caught this image in Carmel By the Sea.

Importance of a thumb and two fingers

2007-09-11T11:03:00.000-07:00

We recently purchased a set of Cutco knives from my daughter’s friend, who was selling them to gain some money for her College education starting this year. Boy, are they sharp!! More like surgical knives!

Anyway, to make a long story short, within a week of buying the new knives, my wife cut up fingers up. It was a Saturday and I was away with the kids at the Piano classes when I get this call from my wife. She was panting and asking me how much time would I need to reach home. Well – I was about 20 miles away and the kids were just finishing the lessons, so I assumed about 30 minutes. Then I was informed that she had sliced her fingers with the new knives. I, being my stupid ignorant self – not having learnt from my 20 years of married experience, thought this was a minor cut but then was told that the cuts are deep and there was lot of blood flowing out. Yikes!!!

The knife was new and was as sharp as a surgical knife. Needless to say, the cut was really deep and she was bleeding badly. She tied tourniquets above her elbow and kept her hand raised high up over her head. She squeezed ice cubes to stem the flow of the blood. But after about 40 min of this, the blood was still not stopping and that made her think that she was in trouble.

So I told her to contact our neighbors, who were unfortunately out. Then my wife reached out to our friends, who stay a couple of mile away in the same town. Luckily, Keerti was there and decided to come over right away. She too thought it was a minor thing, until she reached home and saw her hand. I, in the meanwhile, was zooming on the freeway and made it home just in time to see Keerti driving out of my driveway. They told me they were going to the ER.

The ER was a long wait. After almost an hour, a nurse came out to see and told us that she was going to need stitches. It took nearly 2 hours before the doctor could come over. By then the bleeding had kind of tapered down and was no longer gushing out, so he chose to put a kind of bio-glue called as Derma Bond. It seals the skin and the blood vessels. I thought it would be a good thing to sell with the Cutco knives in the future and am going to recommend it to that company. They may have a new market for this product, if they can get the clearance to sell that glue.

Anyway, my wife’s fingers were bandaged heavily and each bandage was about 3 times its size to protect it. By the late after noon, the bleeding was contained, and the pain had stopped.

It has been about 2 weeks to the incident, now as I write this. My wife had trouble doing a lot of work since the two fingers (fore finger and the middle finger) in her left hand were damaged. But this brought a couple of interesting historical things to my mind.

According to a popular myth the two-fingers salute and/or V sign derives from the gestures of long bow men fighting in the English army at the Battle of Agincourt during the Hundred Years' War. The story claims that the British archers were very good and to over come their skills, the French started capturing the suspected British archers and cutting off two fingers on the right hand of captured archers. The thought was that this would prevent them from holding the arrow and shooting accurately. However, as luck would have it, the British still won and to tease the French, they saluted them with two fingers and said Pluck Yew!! The gesture was a sign of defiance by those who were not mutilated. (This false etymology has also given rise to an alternative name for the gesture, which can also be known as flicking an "Archers Salute" or just "Archers" as in "He just flicked me an Archers!".) The website Snopes, however, shows that medieval warriors had no interest in capturing common archers that could not be held for ransom, preferring instead to simply kill such prisoners. Furthermore, mutilating a prisoner to stop them from using a bow wouldn't make sense, since killing them would stop them from ever serving the enemy again. There is also the fact that contemporary accounts of the battle make no references to the French mutilating their prisoners by cutting off fingers from their hands. The first definitive known reference to the V sign is in the works of François Rabelais, a French satirist of the 1500s.

The other historical incident is from the Indian tale of Mahabharata, supposedly about 5000 years ago. For those that are not aware, Mahabharata is the epic of a huge war between the armies of the first cousin brothers – the Pandavas, who were 5 brothers with a common wife, and the Kauravas, who were 100 brothers – all born around the same time using artificial techniques (similar to the test tube available technology today). In the story, when the kids are young, they all study archery from the same Guru, Acharya Drona (Acharya means Professor). Drona liked Arjun and promised to make him the best archer in the world. Now, one of the adivasis (aborigines in India), Eklavya also wants to learn archery from Drona, but Drona declines saying that he will only teach the Princes from the Royal Family. Eklavya is upset but not heart broken – he builds a mud statue of Drona and practices by himself in the forest, soon mastering the art. One day, the princes go out on a hunt into the forest along with some dogs. One of the dogs goes close to where Eklavya is practicing and starts barking. To shut him up, Eklavya shoots 5 arrows into his mouth before the dog can close its mouth, without killing the dog. The dog runs back to the princes who are astonished at the feat. They ask Eklavya who did he learn the art from and he proudly points to the statue of Drona. The princes go back to Drona and Arjun tells him the whole story. He also asks Drona how the Acharya could go back on his promise of making Arjun the best archer in the world. So, Drona tells Arjun not to worry and they decide to go and meet Eklavya. Eklavya is thrilled to meet his Guru and bows to him. Drona tells him that he is glad to see that Eklavya was able to learn from him even by not attending the classes in person. But, since he had used the services of the Guru, he had to pay the Guru his Dakshina (which was a fee the students paid the Guru after their education was completed). Eklavya was more than happy to ask the Guru what he wanted for his Dakshina/fee and to the utter dismay of everyone present, Drona asked for the right thumb of Eklavya. Even more amazing was the fact that Eklavya promptly chopped it off to give it to his guru. The thought behind this request was that if the thumb of the hand that pulls the string and holds the arrow, as it is pulled from the quiver and placed on the string, is not there, the archer will not be able to shoot accurately.

However, Eklavya was still able to master the art using his forefinger and his middle finger, but his efficiency did come down and Arjun did become the best archer in the world.

First female president in India

2007-07-28T22:50:00.001-07:00

So, India has another first in its vast history -- its first female president.
Pratibha Patil was elected as the first president of the country. In a country that has been known to respect the ladies and its women, this does not surprise me.

Wikipedia has a nice writeup on the president of India. You can see it at President of India .

Someone recently asked me how can I say that Indians respected women, when there have been incidents of Sati and bride burning. I understand their concerns but drew their attention to the fact that the rituals of Sati and Jauhar are known to have started in the medieval era only -- when India (then known as Bharat) was being attacked from the west. To save themselves from humility and trouble, wives and unwed girls killed themselves after their husbands were killed. The most common way was to jump in the pyre lit to cremate the husband. For those who are unaware, Sati is the term used to describe the ritual when the wife sits on the cremation pyre along with the dead husband's body. Jauhar on the other hand, is the term used to describe the ritual when all the ladies of the house jumped into the fire, mostly when their husband(s) or men were killed in a battle and the enemy was expected to loot the palace or kingdom. The most well known such cases were recorded in the Rajput states of Mewar (now Rajasthan).

A look in the early history tells us that Indians have treated their women as Goddesses as described in the Vedas. However, there has never been a mention of these rituals in earlier times. It was sheer call of the period that forced this custom amongst the women of Western India, and it gained an improper mention in the PR engines of the world, without giving the right reason for it.

Thankfully, this process is no longer followed. There have been few incidents where girls (more specifically brides) have been burnt, in most cases due to dowry related matters. Both these (dowry and burning) are crimes and are heavily punishable by law. In fact, I am told that the law in India goes to the length of saying that if the bride dies (of any cause) with in the first 7 years of marriage, there will be a judicial inquiry into her death. It is not a thing written in any religious book to burn anybody -- just some idiots, who feel that this is the only way they can show their power, turn to this stupid way. Little do they realize that this way they only show their impotence and powerlessness. It is a most heinous crime and should be deplored by one and all.

Hopefully, Ms. Patil's appointment to the highest office in the country will let the women in India know they have more power and rights. She has very big shoes to fill in, as the office of the President of India has been occupied by leaders like Dr. Radhakrishnan, Dr. Rajendra Prasad and the outgoing President, Dr. Kalam. There have been women leaders before Ms. Patil (Rani Lakshmi Bai - who led the first war for freedom from the British, Sarojini Naidu - a great freedom fighter and Mrs Indira Gandhi, to just name a few). Hopefully, she will bring honor to these names and also to the women of India.

My anniversary and how I met my wife

2007-07-28T22:41:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay in writing this blog.

Simply put – I have been busy. I just celebrated my 20th marriage anniversary!! Woo Hoo!! We had a beautiful time while on vacation – it was a wonderful time at a beautiful place.

I guess 20 years is a long time, by any standards. My wife and I have known each other for 25 years and been married for 20. It does seem like a long time – but I remember every day of this period, almost as if it just happened just yesterday. No seriously – I could tell you everything we have done over the past 25 years. It has been a ride – not always smooth, but a beautiful and enjoyable ride nevertheless. We have had our ups and downs, the storms and the calms, and what not – but what is important is that we have made it so far.

I feel as if this match was made in heaven - -perhaps that is why we were born just 5 days apart. She was born in Gwalior, a former princely estate in the central part of India. I was born in Indore, a few hundred kilometers to the south west. Her parents were both Ph.D – her father in Zoology and her mother in Chemistry. My Parents were both Doctors too – my dad a MD in Pharmacology and my mother in Obstetrics and Gynecology. Two of her three brothers went to the same school as I did.

But – we met in college in Indore. We were both studying for our Bachelors in Science in 1981. It was the second year of a three year course, and both of us were in the same class. Surprisingly, we never talked that year – perhaps because we were both very reserved and introvert. It was my first experience in a public college and coming from the sheltered life of an elite private (called as public schools in India – and these are top of the line institutes) school, I was just trying to figure out the system.

Finally, in the third and final year, there was this very boring zoology class going on. The professor was teaching something about Salamanders and every student in the class was bored. I was the only one writing something in my notebook – it was notes, but I was writing the lyrics of Paul McCartney’s song, somebody who cares. His album, Tug of war had just come out and I was (still am) a huge fan of his work. She thought I was taking notes and asked me to show her my note book. I gave it to her smiling sheepishly. She thought I was writing a poem (whatever!!!).

That was the only talk we had that day. Next day, as luck would have it, I was late for my zoology lab. Unluckily, the lab staff did not allow anyone coming in late to join the lab, which was about an important dissection of frog. So, nobody believed my reason that I had a flat in my bike and it looked like I’d miss the dissection. So she put in a word for me. Her dad was a professor in the same college and it helped. She offered to show me the demonstration that I had missed and we got talking over a dead frog and a bunch of calipers/forceps.

So, we discussed my “poem” and I found out that she wrote poems too (I didn’t). Her brothers were engineers and two had studies as Government of India Scholars in my school. We talked about our families and things in general. But that was about it. The very next day, we met in the Chemistry lab but I avoided saying anything, as I didn’t want her to feel that just because we talked the day prior, I had the right to say something to her. I still get ribbed about it.

Anyway, we kept talking off and on for the next few months. Just before the final exams, we were trying to go over some dissection practice together and she convinced her dad to show a few to us. So, I went to her house with the animals (a dog fish and a pila) and her dad showed us the dissections. That was my first trip to her house and a chance to meet her parents. Of course, her dad had seen us talk in the college, but we were just friends then. We continued to be friends over the summer vacation too. Then we traveled together to Delhi, to give a medical entrance exam. She stayed at her aunt’s place and I stayed at my aunt’s. It was on the journey back that we felt close and we held hands almost all the way back from Nagda (a small station midway) to Indore.

Then we joined the masters program – she in Biochemistry and I in Chemistry. We were closer friends now. Things got better from this point onwards and we started going out. We saw a few movies together, had lunch at a few spots in Indore and visited each others homes. Almost a year after our train journey together, we finally told each other that we really liked being each others company and would like to be together as a couple. Our parents still had no clue about all this; although I am pretty sure her dad had some idea as did mine. You see, my father had friends in the staff and they would often tell him that I was talking to this girl under a tree. Indore was a small place and it still doesn’t take a lot of effort to find out about someone. Also, remember that it wasn’t very common in those days to see a guy and a girl going out together – not to say that it didn’t happen.

We knew there would be trouble. We were of different sub-castes, though both of us were Hindus. She was a Brahman and I a Kayastha. Eventually, she told her eldest brother’s wife who decided to meet me. We met over lunch in a Chinese Restaurant called as Hong Kong Cuisine. Luckily for me, things worked for us and I was called for a full fledged interview at her house with her family. Boy, what a grilling that was – all three brothers were there. They asked me tons of questions about my plans, my life etc. etc. Finally, I won their approval. Her mother was not very happy, but finally relented.

On my front, I chose to tell my aunt first and then to my dad. My dad was a bit apprehensive at first, but then agreed to meet her family. My mother was a different story and didn’t like my choice (I have a faint feeling that she still doesn’t – but it is too late to even think of changing things now, right?). It turned out that my dad and her mother had studied in the same college and my father knew about her family. That helped.

So, to make matters simple, we got married in 1987. I was still studying – having decided to switch to electronics engineering in 1985 – in the second year of a 4 year course. For two years, I was in Pune while she was at my house with my parents (in India, children often stay with their parents -- just the roles reverse, as parents age and the kids, mostly sons, take care of the parents). I will write more about that later in another section some other time, just like I feel I have to write and tell you all about the process of arranged marriages in India.
It has been 20 years of marriage and 25 years of having known each other. We have been through a lot, have come a long way and are closer than ever. We still have a lot to do and still have a long way to go. I hope to give you all more insight into our life together as we carry on with this blog.

Beauty in Glass

2007-05-30T22:05:00.001-07:00

Beauty in Glass
Originally uploaded by sandeepbhatnagar

This was displayed in one of the stalls at the Art and Wind festival. The depth of vision and the blue color gives a good effect to this photo.

Memories of Kite flying and San Ramon Art and Wind Festival

2007-05-28T09:13:00.000-07:00

I was at the San Ramon Art and Wind Festival today. It was a joy to see the fair and the community spending some time out in the beautiful weather on the grounds of the Community Central Park.

It also reminded me of the days I spent in India flying the kites. My father never liked my flying the kite – he was worried I’d fall over from the terrace or run myself under a truck while chasing down the road to catch a kite (and believe me, I have seen this happen a few times). In India, kite flying used to be a craze!! We would have kite fights or Painch (pronounced Pain-ch), as it was called --- where one kite would “fight” another till the string of the loser were cut and then the losing kite would float away, with a whole bunch of kids chasing the floating kite, down the road.

Obviously, every kite flyer wanted to win the fight. There were two ways to fight an opponent’s kite – either you pull a string or you let the string slide.

The “kheech” or Pull was usually favored when flying with the smaller fighters because they were lighter and more maneuverable. In this form, the agility and moderate weight of the kites, and skill of the kite flyer was more important. The kite was flown to a certain distance in the sky, about 1000 feet and usually ahead of the other fighter kites. When ready to fight, the flier then began pulling on his line as quickly as possible at the same time trying to cut any kite lines that were in the path of his line. Experienced fliers could cut the opponents line from either the top or bottom, and even from the side.

‘Dheel’ or Release cutting, letting out as much line as possible, was used more often when flying the larger fighter kites. In this form, the weight of the kite and its stability were more important. Kites were flown long distances, often well over 3,000 feet. The flier needed to keep the kite stable so that it could take out more line. The kite that could release more line quickly usually had the advantage over the other fighters.

With the larger kites, there were usually two people involved in the flying of an individual kite, and both were equally busy. While one person controlled the kite, and kept it steady, the other held the spool and was responsible for the line, making sure that there was a sufficient flow of line for the kite.

Either way, the 2 kites would move so that their strings would slide against each other, in a saw like motion. The only way to win a fight was to make a stronger string. So, we all would try and “make” the strongest “maanjha” – as the string was called to fly the kite.

To make the stronger Maanjha, either we would have to make it a smooth slider thread or make it abrasive enough to slice the other Maanjha. Maanjha is the thread line, cured with a special mix of glue and ground glass. Since a lot depends on the sharpness of the string to which the kite is attached, a lot of effort is normally put in making the maanjha. A combination of herbs, glass powder, sand and glue are applied to thick ordinary string to sharpen it. Our maanjha was made by using crushed glass mixed with glue to create a razor sharp maanjha to cut the strings of the all the enemies in the sky. To make a smoother maanjha, we would use things like okra, arbi (colocasia, taro root), apart from finely crushed glass, glue, and color etc. All the boys in the neighborhood would get together on a holiday, to make the maanjha. It was a whole day event and every one was given specific tasks – mixing color, grinding glass, moving the glass or the gliding herbs over the string as some one walked with it and moved it in the air to dry it.

Then, we climbed up to our roof top and got into kite-fights against all the other kids flying their kites from their rooftops. The sky would be filled with dozens of kites in aerial dogfight. The event was fun filled and involved the entire neighborhood. But, now that I think of it that was the way the life was then – fun-filled and something to involve the community. There was no TV, no Wii or Play Station, No computer – it was all fun and games outside the house. And I loved it – so much so that it has left an indelible mark in my memory. The art and wind festival I saw today also brought the community out and people organized picnics. There were cultural dances from all cultures -- I saw the hula, the belly dance, the bharat natyam and lot of other thing -- I enjoyed it a lot, but my childhood kite fights were more fun!!!

Sunflower

2007-05-20T13:07:00.003-07:00

Sunflower
Originally uploaded by sandeepbhatnagar.

First Passion flower

2007-05-20T13:07:00.001-07:00

First Passion flower
Originally uploaded by sandeepbhatnagar.

Catching soap bubbles

2007-05-18T09:21:00.001-07:00

Catching soap bubbles
Originally uploaded by sandeepbhatnagar.

My sister playing with some soap bubbles my kids were blowing out. Canon A80 was the camera used for this. The joy on her face shows age is not a limitation to enjoy small things like this.

To Celebrate Life or Grieve Death

2007-04-08T19:41:00.000-07:00

I got a chance today to attend the 12^th ceremony, normally held on the 12^th day after the passing away of an individual. The departed soul was about 85 years of age and was perfectly healthy, except for the last couple of days in his life.

While there, I was surprised to see that the family was dressed to the hilt. Normally, in the Indian Customs, the grieving family shuns away any signs of showmanship. So, naturally this behavior intrigued me.

I got talking to the wife of the departed man. And I am glad I did --- this was an eye opener for me – a real lesson in principles of Life.

They had been married for about 66 years!!! Both were very religious people their entire lives – devotees of Lord Krishna. I asked her – how does it feel now that he is no longer with you. The answer surprised me. Half expecting her to start weeping, I was genuinely surprised when she said that everyone comes to the world alone. You get to live alone for a few years- perhaps 17-23 years – then, you get married and start living with another person for a few years – perhaps 30- or 40 years – and then one has to live alone again. This is how life is supposed to be. As Gita says – what did you bring with you, and what can you take with you? You came alone and you will go alone.

For people who have migrated from their country and are far away from home, it is very difficult to be in touch with their heritage and customs. This couple had been away from India for the last 24 years. So how did they manage to keep their culture alive? She and her husband wrote everything down in a diary for their kids to follow – what to do in which ceremony, how to celebrate the festivals, etc. Tedious task – but looks it paid off for them and their family.

I asked her if she was sad at the loss. Again, she looked at me and said why should she be? She and her husband had believed and taught their children, that Happiness and sorrow were momentary and always went hand in hand. Don’t be too happy when you are celebrating your happiness and you won’t be sad when you are celebrating your sorrow. I know this is easier said than done – but this couple had practiced it all their lives. They taught the same doctrine to their kids and grand kids too. That was the reason why no one wept at the passing away of their beloved father or grandfather. They were celebrating his life.

The Royal Chronology of India: Generational Timeline of Indian History

2007-03-11T15:06:00.000-07:00

I found this interesting collection at this site. It has a link and the text about it basically says --

An important part of understanding Dharma and world religions is to understand world history. Few nations in the world have a less historical understanding of their past than India. So much of Indian history has been inadvertently or purposefully subverted by various mythologies, that the real history of India is unknown to most people (including many Indians).

The link below takes you to a page with a link to open up a Microsoft Excel file that contains 4 tabs in the spreadsheet. The tabs description is as follows (taken from the site):

1) Royal Chronology of India (Columns K through P on the right-hand side describe other civilizations - Egypt, Israel, Iraq, Iran and China). On Page 21 of this file is a Population Chart of India from 8000 B.C.E. to 2200 C.E. On Page 42 is a list of assumptions and sources used to build the timeline.

2) The History of World Religion (all major religions [Eastern AND Western] have roots in the Vedas)

3) Comparison of Most Religions

4) Festivals of India

Royal Chronology of Indian History

Though, I can't validate this information, I find it to be quite an interesting reading. Personally, I do not agree with the comparison part -- in my opinion, every religion has its own plus and minuses -- but that is a topic for another discussion.

Vedic Intelligence

2007-03-11T14:48:00.000-07:00

For a long time, I heard and learnt that the Aryans came and conquered India around 1500 BC. Somehow, that never made any sense to me. I always wondered that if that was the case, did Ramayana and Mahabharata ever take place in India? I have been reading those sacred texts ever since I can remember and my curious mind always wanted to know the truth.

Finally Ajit, my brother-in-law, sent me a link about a research on this.

Google video about Vedic Intelligence

Having been to many of these cities myself, I always believed that somehow there was some fact in the Vedas. I think, somehow, this research tells me that things really happened as described in the Vedas.