Mangoes for Dummies

Mangoes belong to the genus Mangifera. They are the rotund-ish, tasty-ish fruit that you get in summer. If you don’t know what a Mango is and the above description does not get an image into your head then this post is not for you.

What this post is, is a guide to the end-to-end experience of the art of potating Mangoes. This post is meant for those who are roughing it our [so to speak], and not for those who get two mangoes a day, cut into beautiful pieces for consumption by their mothers/wifes/girlfriends [I’d like a girlfriend who cuts mangoes for me :p].

Some of you must be thinking, what could possibly be so hard that someone on the internet posted a guide on the art of Mango potation. Well, let me enumerate:

1. Choosing the correct type of mango to buy is a science
2. Carving a mango for consumption is an art. If done with a touch of skill it will enhance the pleasure of Mango potation tenfold.
3. If you do not know the proper techniques for potation or carving then you could end up getting a lot of juice on your shirt.
4. Incorrect carving can be dangerous to your health. You could end up stabbing yourself. Or Worse.

The first and most important thing to remember is:

Mango Procurement
Picking the correct type of Mango to eat is the first and one of the most important steps. You want to buy a mango that is a beautiful shade of yelrange, a mixture of yellow and orange. Your mango should not be green. Green mangos are a strict no-no. Your mango should also not be red. Other colours such as purple, wheat, fuschia, turquoise, while pretty to look at are not indicators of good mangoes. [Ed: The author is quite aware that fuschia probably looks like something else and will gladly point this post on the path of fuschia-correctness if there are 8 comments complaining of this]

The other trick is picking the Mango with the right amount of surface tension. You don’t want your mango to be as soft as the family pack surrounding your abs. You also don’t want a mango that is harder than the proverbial hard-place found just next to a rock. The correct method to determine the surface tension of a mango is to take your index finger and poke the mango. If while poking, there is gooey juice on your finger it means that you are poking too hard. This would be an appropriate time to walk away whistling nonchalantly.

Carving the Mango
You want to be very careful while carving a mango. A well carved mango will increase the eating pleasure. Making a mess of this can not only ruin the experience but in extreme cases lead to death. The first thing you need to do is get a knife. [Ed: to appease the crowd who loves pointless pictures in a post I attach the 100% accurate rendition of a knife below.]

The correct way to grip the knife is by holding the yellow end in your palm. Or to put it another way, if while holding the knife you feel a tingling sensation in your palm and see a red coloured fluid oozing out then you are holding it the wrong way. 

Carving the mango, is an art, it will take a minute to learn and a lifetime to master. For the best results, you should watch your mom cut a mango a couple of times.

Mango juice on your shirt
Anyway, when carving, be careful not to apply too much force. Too much force will result in mango juice on your shirt. And you don’t want mango juice on your shirt. Because once you have mango juice on your shirt you will need to wash the shirt. If you don’t wash your shirt which has mango juice on it then you are going to end up with people saying “Look, fruity boy has arrived” when you step into a meeting. [Ed: This has not happened to the author personally ]

Once the mango has been procured and carved eat it, enjoy and make a contribution to the “Find Zaza Mission” by referring a girl to this blog

——————-

PS: Halley gaaru blog chesaadu

PPS: The hindi-telugu translation provided by pamar

True Love

You have to touch the body, feel the curves. There is an excess of adrenaline, your heartbeat increases and you will find yourself falling in love.

“But how can I be absolutely certain?”

“It’s something that cannot be written in words. You will just know.”

-A geek describing what happens on finding the perfect laptop

Change

“I hate change”, said Neo.

“Change is inevitable. It is like a river, constant, never ceasing, ever flowing. Do not fear change Neo, embrace it. That is the path of the one.” said Morpheus.

Trinity rolled her eyes.

“No. I hate it when these assholes give me coins. My wallet grows too fat”, said Neo.

——–

PS: My first attempt at 55 fiction

PS1: Life meanders along as usual

PS2: Today was a day of firsts. I must remember to write about it.

PS3: Lord of the Rings rocks.

Inebriated Ideas

This post was composed on April 1 after one of those days when you get real sad news. I haven’t made any changes to any of the text. The only change was the title.

Normally, even the thought of writing “What I did today” in a blog post would send shivers down my spine. Today, however is special. It being April Fool’s day and all, so I thought, dear readers, I’d share with you a recent discovery of mine.

Editor’s note: This post may not make much sense. Apart from the usual distractions, there is a certain lightness to the way my fingers are flying on the keyboard, the bose headphones playing in high fidelity some good PInk Floyd and other yada yada which I will desist from mentioning here because I have taken the “Good night mats from the bedroom and Vishnu is sleeping without mosquito protection :”D)’

How to survive a kick in the nuts

On occasaion every guy has been kicked in the nuts. Whether literally or physically or metaphysically [Ed: TODO: what the heck does metaphysically mean anyway]. The secret to surviving all these is the saame. This information, of course is patent pending. So, if any of you weirdos goes and patents thsi before I do, I’m going to poke you in the eye with a finger wrapped in a little pepper.

Before I start on the remedy, I’d advise avoid getting kicked in the nuts at all. However, if you do get kicked in the giblets, the best thing to do is to shut your eyes. Stop the brain from feeling any further senses. Then, go to the nearest pub, down three shots of neat vodka and hope no serious damage has been done.

Editor’s note: My apologies to the lady readers of this blog but I am quite unawarae of the female equivalent of the feeling.

What to do when a hippopotamus is charging at you

Get out of the water. Hippopotamii are quite slow on land. . This PJ bought to you by the guys at the “Jammies for <something>” guys.

The mind

Advances in neuroscience have allowed the French to investigate the effects of eating maroon paste on the human mind. A popular theory is that Murphy’s laws become obsolete once 3 moles of maroon paste have been ingested in under three minutes.

The quest for quintessentially north indian sambhar

The astute amongst you, (this means you @mythalez) is probably cringing away at the title. Wondering what the heck the authro refers to when he talks about norht indian sambhar. Let it be known, for once and for all, there exists sucha  thing as the thing that was mentioned once in the title and once in the middle of the paragraph. This thing, the samae thing that was mentioned once in the title, once in the paragraph and once in the snetecnets before this sentence is actually not a figment of the author’s imagination but more of an eyesore that permeates the here an dthe now from the where and the then.

Nelly Furtado

I have no clue who Nelly Furtadao is. The name sounds funny, a tad nincompoopish (that phrase I have used before), and with my attention now divided betwen the muzak, the biography of Nelly and this post you can be damn sure that you made a mistake reading the words that acamae before the end of this sentence.

Sentences

HaH. i JUST PRESSED ctrl+v. i ALSO ENDED UP PRESSING CAPS+lOCK. Caps+lock pressed actually is an excellent way of typing. It is perhaps the most effieicnet way of instrumenting the way users use the SHIFT key on the keyboard. [Ed: Yes, I did press the SHIFT key while I typed in s-h-i-f-t].

The New Yeara

So far, so not so great. Naah. Pretty okay I guess.

Countr Strike

Witht he statet of the world, the importance of counter strike assumes epic proportions. IT is so damn important tha tI forget the big adjectives and use the small ones. Infact, playing computer games is so important that I will aabandon all pretext of spelling and askljsdfahskdhg sadjgh alsdofiusljdfhkasljdhriwueylikhjuskdjfh

10,000 People Maybe More

Some chap somewhere made a film called 300. THis has been widely recognized as a bad move. Had the film been called 10,000 something else might have happened.

I feel at this time like falling of my chair but as a testabment to the highlevels of motivation to finish this post as well as the temptaion of the packet of maaggi that Iplan to eat after thsi I will persist, persevere.

As, I run out of mental energy and give in to this … I think and therefore have thunked no mareo.

This next song appearas to be some banging. Remote banging if you know what I mean. I am sure I can sfafely assume you don’t so I’m going to elucidate [Ed: what does elucidate mean] damn messd up the the italics and typed the the twcice.

At this point, the only quetion that amakes sense is who let the dogs out.

Trying to type fast feels like no work at all. I bet I can type this entire sentence without making a mistake. And I won’t cheat, I promise, I do I do. No right-click and correcting using the spell checker, no backspace, no delete. Nothing. Nadaa.

Damn, I see the wavy red line, the frikkin wavey red line, and I wonder what impulsemakes me type frikkin instead of the more appropriate vernacular thata starts with a f and ends with a ck having a u in the middle somehwhre.

I will save this post now – somewhere so that it can remain asa a draft – maybe someday i will plug this out on to the word wide web

Epilogue

I tire now. Is that even a sentence. This post seems to be a semi-coherent mess of thoughts. Ideas that permeate the voids of the

The songs played while this post was acomposed

1. Another brick in the wall

2. Cemeteries of London

3. Rock On

4. Emotional Attyachar (Rock Version)

5. I stopped counting right about now.

The best since May 2007

Yes, this is

1. the height of laziness,
2. the epitome of not posting,
3. the mount Everest of tooting one’s own horn,
4. the Vienna Orchestra of blowing one’s trumpet,
5. the French Alps of broken feet,
6. the Chinese New Year of the fifteen squids,

but every since I can’t find my bojo (blogging mojo for the uninformed) I have decided to make a list of the best posts in my humble opinion over the last few yeras. These are sorted reverse chronologically and not in the order of awesomeness and contain excerpts.

1. New Year’s Resolution’s: The mis-understood self-improvement tool – how to solve all your troubles in many easy steps

Featuring the moo of chaat and the elusive chemical mega-phenylo-benzylo-butatic-parmesan-bananoic-orangus-oxynucleic-tri-chromato-sino-indo-pakistano-barackobamic-bin-ladenic-bournvillesucks-phospate

2. Chicken Chicken – a short story

Featuring the five-foot-sandal-wearing godzilla and the diminutive rattus norvegius and a Nokia N73, truly an excellent device by the chaps at Nokia who connect people

3. Bo-Ram-Illu – when yours truly saw a telugu film

Featuring minor flaming and hurling of insults

4. My life in a thousand words – the greatest metaphysical interpretation of work life balance in the world

Featuring a picture made in Microsoft Paint (TM) © 2008

5. 10H – From Secbad to Kondapur – a journey on a bus

Featuring the guy on the bus and Archana

6. 6E306 – From Hyderabad to Delhi – on an indigo flight, bored with a nokia 6270 …

Featuring Bulging Biceps, boldness and Pretty Parul

7. Of food and relationship advice – The curious relationship between food and relationships …

Featuring the best advice you will get on how to get your guy to you-know-*wink wink*   this side of the internet.

8. A Small Push – Yes, this is not mine. But it is so good that it needs another inlink.

9. A [dash] of Hot Chics – you got to read this one, I cannot summarize it in words [yes, that is because of limited vocabulary and not due to the post being sheeringly awesome ]

———————-

PS: Filler, until I get my bojo back

PS1: If you find my bojo wandering on the street do let me know

The little green man

The little green man
Climbed up the tree
He came down quickly
When he heard “Ek ke saath Ek Free”

The little green man
Climbed up the tree
He came down quickly
When he realized that Kiddo Beatrix was on a killing spree

The little green man
Climbed up the tree
He came down quickly
When the aunty next door said “Chi Chi”

The little green man
Climbed up the tree
He came down quickly
When the answer to “Life, the universe and everything” changed to forty-three

The little green man
Climbed up the tree
He came down quickly
When mayhem was wrecked by Dee-Dee

The little green man
Climbed up a tree
He came down quickly
After a sly glance at his belly

The little green man
Climbed up a tree
He came down quickly
Shocked at the abolishing of “Chicken Biryani”

The little green man
Climbed up a tree
He came down quickly
At the re-airing of “Shrimaan Shrimati”

The little green man
Climbed up a tree
He came down quickly
When Neo died because of Trinity

The little green man
Climbed up a tree
He came down quickly
When the usual suspects felt too cheesey

The little green man
Climbed up the tree
He came down quickly
At the sight of the retreating french army

The little green man
Climbed up the tree
He came down quickly
When he listened to “Prashant Thiruvengadachari”

The little green man
Who can he be
I’ll give you a hint
He most certainly isn’t me

——————————

PS1: Feel free to add more

PS2: For all those who read this on facebook – check the blogroll once in a while you lazy bums. Facebook might be great but it is not the be-all-andend-all of the internet.

PS3: Yes, the next post will definitely be the next oBelIX in America

New Year’s Resolution’s: The mis-understood self-improvement tool

[Authors Note: The American Travelogue will be completed later. At this point I am too moo to write parts VII onwards. All the facts and figures quoted in this post are either figments of my imagination or copied from the Internet. If this post leads to a lifestyle shattering revolution then please do leave a comment thanking the author and honk SOS at a pretty girl on the street ]

New Year’s Resolutions as defined by wikipedia [The defacto starting point for all non-porn related gyaan-searching on the internet] is: a commitment that an individual makes to a project or the reforming of a habit, often a lifestyle change that is generally interpreted as advantageous.

Now, most of us do not know how to properly utilize this marvelous tool for self-improvement. What we do know is how to properly mis-utilize this tool, which then leads to sadness, depression and the mis-labeling of January as the worst month of the year. [Author: that is true – people think January sucks]

I have only recently discovered the not-so-visible power that can be harnessed. In fact when this realization first hit me, i felt like moo. [Author’s note: A separate post will follow eventually on the many forms of the word moo; not much unlike the many virtual avatars that we don on the interweb].

Getting started

The first step is of course to figure out what you want. Taking my own <insert appropriate adjective here as per your taste> self as an example, at the start of the year I wanted to:

1. Get in shape
2. Read more
3. Obtain ngyanam on worldly matters

How not to make resolutions

The layman’s attempt of making resolutions at this would go:

1. Go jogging at 6 am in the morning for one hour everyday
2. Read one story book every week
3. Study samskritam, the holy scriptures, wikipedia so as to find moo

This, infact is the most flawed set of resolutions in the world. Analyzing from an engineering perspective we find that:

1. There are no fallbacks in case fail to meet something
2. The goals are too specific
3. The time boundaries are too strict
4. It’s just too much work.

In short, the quotient of moo in these draft resolutions is so high that only a very thin hippopotamus would even consider them. [The fact that many variants of the above set of resolutions abound implies that thin hippopotamii are not on the verge of extinction]

The correct set of resolutions

For the above stated goals, the correct set of resolutions that would help the individual [in this case me] achieve my desired objectives are:

1. Stop eating pizzas
2. Eat more chaat
3. Read story books on airplane journeys when you did not put a good movie on the zune
4. Finish more than 3 xbox games this year

An analysis of the above, correct set of resolutions

Resolution 1 and 2 address the desire for getting in shape. [Comments on the absolute pointlessness of this desire will be deleted and the mental stability of the author’s of such comments would be questioned leading to their virtual humiliation]. Based on the fact that pizzas are bad for health and I consume too many of them, cutting down on pizzasa would help get in shape.

There is a safeguard built in. Even if I renege on resolution 1 I still have hope. After compensating, by eating enough chaat, I can ensure that I still maintain shape.

The “moo” of chaat

This paragrapah is for the skeptics who are wondering how the above statement is true. Chaat is an excellent source of nutrition. Consider the following points:

1. The masalaa of the paav-bhaji is bright red – the colour of carrots and is full of vitaamin A and extremely good for eyes
2. Most chaat items contain an abundance of spice which is good for digestion
3. Chaat items with curd in them are good for the body because:
1. Curd has protein (being derived from a milk product)
2. Curd is cold – leading to a calm, soothing, destressing effect
3. Curd contains the amino acid – mega-phenylo-benzylo-butatic-parmesan-bananoic-orangus-oxynucleic-tri-chromato-sino-indo-pakistano-barackobamic-bin-ladenic-bournvillesucks-phospate which clinical studies have shown reduces the chances of coming up with stupid names for non-existant amino acids by upto 80%.
4. Most chaat items also contain DHMO [DiHydrogenMonoOxide] which actually flows by the quart in our veins
5. The dhaniya added on top of chaat is a green vegetable and I’m sure your mothers must have told you about the benefits of eating green vegetables

Analysis (contd)

Resolutions 3 and 4 ensure that no matter what I do not feel sad. Consider the first set of resolutions. They said, “Read a book every week”. That is clearly impossible. I would have blown it in the first week itself and then felt sad and depressed.

By relaxing the book reading criteria, I now ensure that whenever possible I do read a book. This means I get the best of both worlds – by the end of the year I will be very well read and not sad. In the worst case, even if I do renege, and don’t read a single book, come next december, when I take stock, I can look to myself and proudly say, “Yeaah baby, I finished 6 games this year”. There is no way thata I am going to be sad

Conclusion*

I am sure, that by now you see clearly, how to exploit new year’s resolutions for actually making ground breaking changes in your lifestyle without much fuss or feeling sad if you do break them. This is one of the many potent weapons in your arsenal in your quest towards moo-ness and I hope you now have some understanding on how to use it.

As always, it was a pleasure to share insight with a bunch of hugely talented gents such as you and do come back at some point of time for another post – most probably the continuation of the american journeys [yes, more excitement there as well] or the one on moo

*For those of you pedantic wonderers resolutions for point 3 of my todo list is left as an exercise for you guys.

———————–

oBelIX in america: Part V and Part VI

Part V: The worst chaat ever

Yes, this entire series does contain a lot of stuff about food. Yours truly did try a multitude of food stuffs in the USA. On one of the walks near the hotel, I found this Indian place. I go in, just to see what they have and there are indians there. Lots of Indians there. Anyway, they have sweets and dosas and idlis and the like. They also have chaat.

I decide to sample the papdi chaat. At 4$ it is by no means cheap. It is like 160 bucks (at that time I was still converting everything to INR in my head). Anyway, what’s the point of the annual bonus if you can’t spend it on food eh . So, I order a plate. And that gentlemen and ladies [yes, I know, in all probability one lady will read this post but then, you’ve got to be politically correct haven’t you] was without the teensiest-weensiest shred of doubt, the worst chaat I’ve ever had. It was so bad that I would rather sample the one year old orange juice from here than eat that again.

“What’s that? It couldn’t have been that bad you say”. Well, it had no spice, it was totally bland [probably for the one American’s palate they get each month, in the forlorn hope that more will follow after he gives a stellar review]. It had those things instead of those other things which totally messed up the taste .

Now, quickly describing other culinary experiences in Redmond. I had Malaysian which was quite nice. Spicy and soupy with vegetables in it. I had “Tandoori Chicken on a flatbread” for 6$ at a company cafeteria which was delicious. They were also very kind with the serving – I finished just half of it. I also ate mexican which is a rather safe food, tasty and not bad at all.

Part VI: Seattle proper

Yes. This is the last part about Redmond. I’m guessing you’re all so bored of it that it makes sense to not describe the awesomeness that happened at the Company Meeting.

The company meeting was when I went to Seattle. It finished at 2-ish leaving me time enough to roam around downtown. It was then I purchased the sweatshirt that I sport currently in the warm Hyderabadi winter [the excellent piece of clothing deserves a mention here: it has been brutally mistreated and is still holding out so well].

Seattle downtown is a nice place. Fun to walk around in. I spent the entire afternoon and evening walkabout. There was this Pike place market that I went to which was quite quaint [a little bit of alliteration there for the not so alert amongst you ]. I had the most delicious cheese cake there. If you do goto seattle, do check out this shop – the approximate address being 1592 Pike Place.

From there, I went to Westlake center, took the monorail to the space needle – which is this big pointy tower like thing in Seattle. There are a couple of pictures of it here.

It was pretty late by the time I returned to Westlake center. Nearly dinner time. I headed up to the food court and there I was stymied. There was just so much choice. I walked around once, wondered what to eat and couldn’t decide.

The smartest thing then seemed to be, to goto the counter with the prettiest girl serving. That ruled the Indian place out. There was someone like Behen Mayawati at the counter looking like a red potato. The girl at the sushi counter was also kind of pretty, I remember because I took one look at her, then one look at the food and moved on.

The prettiest girl was at the French counter, where they seemed to have a wide variety of crepes on offer. So, I go up to the counter, and ask what their speciality is. “Crepes” she says. “Which one?”, I ask and she answers “My favourite is the vanilla one with sugar”. “One vanilla crepe with sugar it is then” and I take out my Amex.

She then says, “Oh, I’m sorry, we don’t take Amex”. “That’s quite alright”, I say, fumbling around in my wallet and managing to pull out a 10$ note while smiling like a jackass. Then she smiles. Now, she’s making the crepe, and there is no one else around [yeah, in hindsight, seeing no one else around should have been hit enough that the food sucks]. We continue chatting while she’s cooking, some chitter chatter, “Yeah, I’m from India. Yes we have buffaloes and cows on the streets. Oh you have a friend from India. Which part of India? Oh you don’t know? Just from India eh? Yeah, India is a big place etc etc etc”.

The crepe is done. She wraps it up, hands it over and says “Come back tomorrow” or something to that effect. I take a bite, turn around and wonder, “How in blazes do the French eat this?”. For those who haven’t eaten a crepe, its basically a thin roti like thing with sugar and vanilla on it. And it tastes like grass with Vanilla on it.

Anyway, the lesson was well learnt. Another 4-5$ wasted. I moved on, went to the Mexican place – they had something called a Mango Chicken thing with rice and bread around it. That was quite good.

That was pretty much the last interesting thing (or rather one of the most interesting things) that happened in Redmond. The next morning I took an early flight out to San Francisco. Stay tuned for more exciting stuff … [yeah, I know I exaggerate occasionally, stay tuned for more stuff is appropriate]

oBelIX in america: Part III and IV

Part III: Redmond – food

The first evening in Redmond, I’m wondering, what to do. I go ask the receptionist where’s the nearest place to buy electronics. She says, “Goto the best buy. Its a couple of miles, would you like me to get you a cab”. “Hah! I thought. A Cab. Pfft. I can walk”. Redmond’s a nice place to walk. So, I head in the general direction of this electronics store. I get there, buy a camera and what not. Now, I’m hungry. Fortunately, there’s a shopping center nearby: The Crossroad shopping center. There, I had my first taste of Greek. I had a sandwich of Pita bread which had hummus in it. Now, I don’t quite remember what hummus is but the whole thing tasted excellent. Quite refreshing and cool.

Now seems as good a time as any to talk about the differences in buses between India and the USA.

1. In the USA, the buses will not stop if you put your arm out and wave about.
2. In the USA, the bus driver will not open the door to let you off at an intersection even though the bus is at a complete standstill. Let me be quite clear here, when I say complete standstill, I mean that if it was any more stopped it would be going backwards. [That sounded a lot better in my head]
3. In the USA, you have to have exact change. The driver won’t give back any change. Fortunately, I did not learn this the hard way. I put in a 2$ for a 1.5$ ticket, the mean driver pointed to a sign that said “Exact change only” and when I was seated a kind old lady gave me 50p saying she’d gotten it from the driver and asked me whether I was new here .

Part IV: oBelIX jogs through shady sections of Redmond

One of my colleagues had suggested, goto Redmond Town Center, it is excellent for shopping and other such leisurely activities. It was late in the day, so I hopped onto a bus that went to RTC. This bus, as it turns out wasn’t going all the way. It dropped me off somewhere, and when I asked the driver, how far to Redmond Town Center, he said, “It’s quite near, a couple of blocks”.

Ab, herogiri to karni thi. It was dark out. I’m walking in what I think is the general direction to Redmond Town Center. The entire area I am walking through is deserted. Desolate. Run down shops and buildings. There are a set of weird looking guys, built like monster trucks, on the next intersection. I take the first turn away from them and start walking at a pace which most of the human populace uses when it wants to misplace the flab around the belly. I hit a railway line crossing the road. At this time, I am scared, lost and reminded oddly of a level in half-life 2. Anyway, I happen to find a shop selling painting supplies and so on, which in a different frame of mind I wouldn’t have minded looking through in more detail but at that time, all I can do is go to the owner, ask him where Redmond Town Center is and practically run there .

For the record, Redmond Town Center is a waste of time. Absolutely nothing interesting there. There were no people. I had two absolutely crappy slices of pizza at a place called “Pizza Schmizza” [The exact address thanks to the interweb: 16552 NE 74th St, Redmond]

oBelIX in america: Part I and II

When in a foreign country, hungry, with a multitude of culinary options available, do not go to the counter with the prettiest chic. -CeG<oBelIX>

This post, for your convenience is divided into sections. Everything described here did happen. I meant to write this up many months ago but then general laziness etc etc and as they say, “Better late than never”. (I don’t know who *they* are but if you do, do drop a comment. I’ve got a bone to pick with them). This is also a very long post, and I promise to put the same energy and focus into each section as I have put in this introductory paragraph which “Windows Live Writer” [excellent software by the way, I recommend it wholeheartedly] tells me is several lines too many too long.

Part I: The journey to the US of A

Do not fly via JFK. -CeG<oBelIX>

So, I left for a business trip to the USA sometime in September. Flew emirates, which is an unbelievable airline. Really super. The flight from Dubai to JFK was in an Airbus A-380 which is an unbelievable piece of engineering. It is unbelievably quiet inside. Emirates’ food service is unbelievable as well. The in-flight entertainment is the most unbelievably awesome in-flight entertainment system I’ve seen. [Note to self: Open up word and look for synonyms for adjectives in future ]

The travel guys had booked me onto HYD-DXB-JFK-SEA. There were two problems with this as I discovered.

1. It took a very long time to get to Seattle. I reached the hotel at 2AM, woke up the next morning at 8, took a shower, ate breakfast and reached a meeting at 9
2. It took me through JFK which is the most useless airport in the world. Absolutely pathetic, you’d think the richest country in the world would have a new, shiny, exquisite airport that says, “Yeah, this is America”. But no, JFK is old and just so blah. Beijing airport is better. Delhi airport is better.

Part II: Redmond – First Impressions

The company that I work for makes excellent operating systems and is headquartered in Redmond, a suburb outside Seattle. The weirdest thing for someone coming from India is the sheer lack of people and the sheer number of cars. There are no people on the street. No gaay/bhains, bacchas playing gulli-cricket, stray dog running around etc. The whole place is built for people with cars.

The first morning, I am dressed formally, well fed [in a manner of speaking] and outside. The first problem: traffic intersections. I’m at this traffic junction, waiting for the light for pedestrians to turn green. Everyone gets their turn, but the light for pedestrians to cross hasn’t yet turned green. I wait. Another turn. Still no green. I wonder, “Daal main kuch kaala hai”. Another turn. Now, bemused, I am scratching my head thinking that the whole system is defective. Then this cyclist, clad in a weird jumpsuit type dress comes up to the pole, hits a button and the it turns green. So, faithful readers who have endured many paragraphs of numbing narrative, I give you another piece of hard-earned wisdom: You gotta hit the button at the traffic lights so that it will turn green for you to cross.

… To be continued