Short Vacation

We are going to Southern California for a short vacation. Will be back by Monday. Will try to write a post on our vacation.

Meantime, after the huge success of Endhiran, the studio has leaked the opening scene/trailer of Rajnikanth's next film. Enjoy!

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Latest News:
Paul the Octopus, World Cup Soccer Guru, has died. He was 2 ½ years old. May his soul rest in peace.

By the Water Cooler

Popular writer, Parul Sharma, has a contest. Any one can write a post telling a story/anecdote based in an office. The winner will get a free autographed copy of her latest book, By the Water Cooler. (Last date to enter the contest is October 31, 2010.)

So, here is my entry to that contest.

I work for a multi national corporation which has more than 275,000 employees. I work in California. Our headquarters is in New York. This happened couple of years ago. On a Friday, two minutes before 5 PM, I got a call. The caller said he is from the CEO’s office and the CEO wants some information about a particular client and that too within 15 minutes. (I thought this guy is using CEO’s name to get the information in the last minute.) I was irritated. My employees have already closed their desk and ready to go home. I told the caller that if the CEO wants it very badly he can call me and please give him my number.

After 10 minutes, my phone rang. I could see in the called ID, our CEO’s name CB. I picked up the phone and said hello. The caller said: I am CB. I am very sorry to bother you this late on a Friday evening. A dinner meeting with the President of this client company has been arranged in the last minute. I am meeting him for dinner in another one hour. I need to get some background about this Company so I can have some intelligent conversation with him. Can you please help me?

I was stunned. The CEO of one of the largest companies in the world calling me and politely requesting some information and apologizing for the last minute request. I told him not to worry and the requested information will be faxed to him within the next 20 minutes. I faxed the information within 15 minutes.

Again the phone rang. Our CEO himself on the line. He thanked me profusely for faxing the necessary information.

When the annual bonus was given out at the end of that year, I was very well taken care of. I then learnt that the CEO had called my VP and told him to “take care” of me during bonus time.

Frozen Memories

(As a comment, I wrote a few words about frozen memories in another blog. Our blogger friend A asked me to write a post on frozen memories. So, here it is.)

Before I started to write my own blog, I wrote this post as a “guest” in Insignia’s blog. I am reproducing that post (with Insignia’s permission).

We immigrated to USA long time ago. Even though we visit India frequently, our memories of India are frozen at that time we left. Since then every time we visit India, the changes, good and bad, give us shock. For example, an ordinary Kancheepuram silk Saree now costs Rs.7000.00. Even though we can very well afford, my wife says “my marriage saree” was less than that. When we go to a restaurant in India, our mind automatically think about the price we paid before leaving India for the dish we are ordering . But it is not shocking to the people who live in India because they grow every day with that change.

This frozen memory happens to all of us. Say we had a friend in school. We have not seen him/her in the past 15 years. Our memory of that friend is still the same as we saw him/her the last time. If we see him/her now, we will be shocked. In school, he had a nice thick curly hair and now he is bald-headed. She was a cute little beautiful girl next door and now she has 2 kids and weighs 185 lbs.

Going back to the place we visited long time ago is also the same. The last time we visited Delhi was in 1997. We visited again one year ago. I was pleasantly shocked to see the Los Angeles style freeways. The toll plaza at Gurgaon looks more or less the same as the toll plaza at the San Francisco Bay Bridge. In 1997, the Ring Road from Moti Bagh to Safdarjang Hospital to AIIMS to Defence Colony to Lajpat Nagar was crowded and congested. Now there is a smooth freeway.

In the past 300 years, lot of Indians have migrated to Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, Fiji Islands, and West Indies. Their memories are also frozen at the time their forefathers left India. In those places, those Indian origin kids learn about Indian traditions and customs from their parents and grand parents. They, in turn, learnt from their parents and grand parents. Therefore, those Indian origin kids think as Indian traditions and customs what was practiced 150 years ago in India.

This happened last month. We were invited to a cocktail reception in a friend’s home. The host and hostess are from Malaysia and speak Tamil at home. They have never visited India. As soon as we entered their home, the host shook hands with me. The hostess started to fall on my feet (to get my blessings) and half way through I stopped her. She said she is delighted to receive me because her grand parents told her that it is auspicious and good luck if a “Brahman” comes to the house. I smiled and said I am not that kind (old, pious, learned, knows 4 Vedas) of Brahman. In fact I have come for a cocktail reception. She said “I do not care. All I know from my grand father that it is auspicious and good luck if a Brahman comes to the house. Therefore, I need your blessings”. (I was thinking in my mind that after few more drinks, I would start blessing everybody. Hahaha.)

Memories are not only frozen but passed on to the next generation also.