My tryst with the United States of America

It all began when I moved to a new project within Hewlett-Packard... My long forgotten dream of visiting the elusive United States of America was about to come true !! I was supposed to travel to the U.S.A for 22 days to transition the project from U.S.A back to India.


I had to travel to Chennai to get U.S VISA done with a colleague of mine. I had to take up the VISA interview. Got all the formalities done at the office. Filled up the DS-160 form & submitted it online & paid the VISA fee through the company. There was some weird questions in the form like do you know how to make bombs, are you part of any terrorist organization & blah blah. I did not understand the purpose of asking such questions in this form. Even if the terrorist were to fill up this form, who would answer to these questions as "Yes" ??
Finally submitted the form & took the print out & kept all the necessary documents along with the company invitation letter in the BEP (Business Executive Program) folder.

My Tryst with Hollywood

My Tryst with Bollywood

My Tryst with the Mobile Phone

Cut to flashback...I need to first mention about the land line telephone which we all were used to earlier.
I went to the telephone department at Sheshadri Road to apply for the telephone connection by paying a deposit of Rs 3000/- when I was an engineerig student in 1999.
I was so happy that that I need not go to the PCOs or the coin phone booths to call my friends. Now I would have my own number where my friends could reach me when I was @home.
It took 3-4 months before we received this phone connection. We got ourselves a cordless Panasonic handset & I was all gung ho about this.

It was the year 1999 or 2000 I think, I got my hands on the mobile handsets such as Siemens & Ericsson. These were bought by my father. And then there was the mobile phone from Motorola which belonged to my uncle which used extensively for SMSs.

In 2003, I badly needed a mobile phone of my own since I had already started searching for jobs. And then Reliance's Karlo Duniya Muthi main campaign happened which revolutionized the mobile phone industry by making LG CDMA handsets available for a paltry Rs 500/-. This phone had a medium resolution blue backlight display which was capable of displaying images in grayscale mode. There was R-world CDMA data service through which we were able to connect to the internet for downloading ringtones & images from Reliance CDMA data sites.
The phone used to get heated up during long conversations on it. It had a stand type of charger. The phone was quite cute & small with a nice keypad layout.
The mobile cost me dirt cheap Rs 500/-

Due to this, mobile phone was no longer a gadget of luxury & even people from lower middle class could easily afford it. But of course there were expensive models even then which only the upper middle class used to go for.

Then came the era of mobile phones with color display in 2004. There were lot of players in the low end market of color display phones then such as LG, Samsung & Ericsson. Nokia was a somewhat late entrant into this category since its B/W phones were doing very well such as the 3310, 2100 Nokia models.

Finally I bought my first GSM phone from my own hard earned money which was a Samsung C100 which had a brilliant color display & a blinking LED on top which emitted multicolors during phone rings. It had nice ringtones of midi format such as the nature sounds, horse's squeaking & so on. It had a nice steel slim body finishing with a nice keypad layout.

This one cost me Rs 7000/-

This was the cover of my first GSM pre-paid phone connection from Airtel. I still use this same number even after 8 years but have converted the connection to post paid plan.

Then came the era of camera phones during late 2004 & that was when I went ahead with the first upgrade for a camera mobile phone from Motorola. I dont remember its model number but it had a much bigger screen than the Samsung C100 & it could display JPEG images with great clarity. The camera was a basic one with 0.3 megapixel but it generated decent images.

The pic of this phone is here for all to see :)

Little did I realize that this was just the start of a never ending saga of mobile phone upgrade due to its craze & frequent upgrade of mobile phone technology which is true even today.

Paid Rs 10,000/- for my first moto !

Mp3 ringtones & video camera in a phone became a rage a few months later. the lack of it in my moto mobile phone was pinching enough for me to go for a new phone very soon. In 2005 I went for Sony Erricson K500i camera phone which captured decent videos. It supported mp3 ringtones & very nice call recording capabilities.

I paid Rs 6,500/- for this one. It was a very sleek mobile with nice 3D games & a video camera for the first time in my case.

This was the phone which I used when I got engaged :). Needless to say that it had great battery backup which enabled me to talk endlessly with my spouse for hours together.

Just before marriage around November 2005, smartphones were round the corner. Nokia had introduced its first smartphone Nokia 3650 which was a rage among people. I soon switched over to a used handset of Nokia 3660 which was the second smartphone from Nokia which had a huge screen & keyboard layout. My friends used to call it the Brick phone :)

The best thing about the smartphone was that you could extent its capabilities by installing software available on the internet. Due to its large displays viewing photos, videos & SMS messages on it was a delight. Also installed an mp3 player, movie player on it. I listened to mp3 songs on this phone for the first time ever. I paid Rs 4000/- for this one for a used handset.

Then came the shortcomings of this phone which I realized slowly.. The smartphone OS symbian was highly unstable causing phone hangs & crashes often. Also it supported external memory only up to 256 MB. Due to its large display the battery used to get drained very early which was a major problem.

In late 2006, I was forced to switch to a new mobile phone again. This time it was the Nokia 5200 XpressMusic. It was an excellent phone with mp3 music playback capability with 2 GB external memory card support. Excellent design with external keys for controlling music.

To be continued.... stay tuned !

Coming up...

Nokia 5700

Nokia 5800

& finally the almighty Nokia N8 :)

Child is the Father of a Man

This blog is a long pending itenarary in my bucket list.

Its going to be a year ever since that I have been blessed with the greatest gift a man could get.

Yesss... Its about my darling baby girl Neha that I am talking about !

The moment I heard the news from my WIFE that I am gonna get a promotion in my life, I was on cloud 9 & was exuberant !! The sense of being a creator is amazing which

one should experience in a LIFETIME. Apart from being very excited to welcome a newcomer into our family, it also provoked my thoughts towards keeping my personal health & fitness up to good levels since suddenly from nowhere the feeling of wanting & craving to live LIFE for as loooong as possible was born.

As a result I started working out & joined our nearby Gym. In the process, it also inspired some of my buddies to join me in this new found hobby. Yes sir, we wanted to look fit & handsome to my new born baby. :)

The day when she was born was the most unforgettable day of my whole LIFE where happiness knew no bounds for both me & Sunitha.

The two of us had now graduated as parents for our tiny little beautilicious pumpilatios Neha !!!

I could observe the divine smile that she was beaming with, right from day one. I mean, I could forget the worrisome world & leave it behind when I could see the smile of my baby.

She showed great affection towards the people around her. Especially her grannys & grandpas.

Month after month.. I could see that her enthusiasm & inquisitiveness on the things around her increased.

She was now able to blabber cute words which was a big bundle of joy to our ears.

Another sweet & cute thing about her was her thumb sucking habit. She was so flexible that she could even suck her toes. :)

We have lessons to be learnt from the kids to keep ourselves fit. Her excitement was now being transformed into physical movements. It was a great sight to see her moving around by rolling herself or by crawling.

Once she became something around 5-6 months, she came back from her granny's house to our home. There were no bounds to my happiness on that day. I still cherish those moments when she was back for good to our sweet home.

She had developed a great fondness for her mommy dear which I was happy about but somewhere underneath I was a bit jealous about it. All these days, It was I who had proactively showed affection towards her & looking Neha actively showing a likingness to her mom really amazed me. I had to make myself more dearer to her to reach to the level where Sunitha had found herself. :) so that Neha proactively shows a sense of affection towards me.

These are some of the sensitive & some of the most important things in LIFE which most parents do not realize. But getting close to their own kids right from their childhood is a very key thing from my perspective.

Gradually I could see the results of my efforts from her actions. Whenever I was back from office she used to exclaim with joy which is a sight to been seen to experience the pleasures of fatherhood. She liked being with me as much as her mother now. Even Sunitha noticed this & she did admit it to me about it which doubled by joy further. :)

Hmm.. so as a result of being able to spend a lot of time with Neha, I have learnt a lot of things in LIFE by interacting with her which made me conclude that "The child is the father of a Man" which I will reveal & explain in a series of chapters.

To be continued....

My Tryst with the Idiot Box

To whatever extent I can go back to my childhood memories, the first thing I remember probably apart from my mommy dear is a box with a glass pane in the front, when switched on shows people doing all sorts of things I could ever imagine as a kid.

Yes, dear reader, I am talking about the Idiot Box that we all glue ourselves to, whenever we get a chance to do so. The television is perhaps one of the best things that has happened to Mankind from the mass communication's perspective.

The feeling that I am getting while writing this... is like,, yess... I always wanted to write about the TV. Nonetheless lets also look at the cons that the Idiot Box has caused to the society along with the Pros. I ll talk about all these serious matters later...

Going back to Nostalgia, I think I still remember that the first TV that I used to watch did not belong to us. It was our neighbour's black & white televison. This was in the mid 80s. The time of the sole channel available to the TV viewer - The Doordarshan.
Still remember that shehnai sound & the image of the DD logo spinning....
I think the first ever serial that I remember watching is Nukkad. It was a light hearted comic depiction of the lives of people living in chawls.

Then it was announced that the great epic Ramayana will be aired on Doordarshan. This was the cause for biggest rise in the sales of the television sets. And my dad happened to be one of the new consumer for the Televison manufacturer. The then famous brand.. The BUSH televison. It was a black/white TV though. But mind you.. owning a TV set was a luxury in those times.

I was mesmerized by the idea of being able to watch the Television set at my own house !
Come sunday.. it was the time to relish on the yummy cartoon shows. One of my favourite ones being the Spider Man, Mickey Mouse & the Tom & Jerry Show.
I liked to watch the Bow & Arrow fights in Ramayana too... though I did not quite understand why Rama went to the forest to pay for the foolishness of his father.

Times passed... the advent & the popularity of the color TV sets came about. Owning a Color TV set was possible for only the rich atleast for a few years..
I used to get bored of watching the black & white images after seeing the Color TV images of the Vikram Betaal Serial in my neighbour's house yet again ! Naturally... our neighbours have always been or appeared to be richer than us.. hehe...

Then Ramayana concluded & wrapped up & yet another great epic called the MahaBharata was announced to be telecasted on the coveted Doordarshan channel.
This time, my dad wanted all of to be seeing the color images of the Indian Mythological saga to be played out on the TV. And yes.. he bought a colour Televison set for us this time.
I still remember that we were in the Davanagere city when this happened & we lived in an area called the Kasturba Extension. It was the time when the neighbors who were 10-15 houses apart were as friendly & up close as the close relatives are.

And there were only 2 houses which had color TV in our road & one of the houses happened to be ours. It was such a proud feeling that people used to look up to as the super rich !
And come Sunday 9 pm.. All the neighbors used to throng our house to witness the Mahabharata serial on the color screen.

The serials which remain imprinted in my mind when DD was lone ruler on the TV..
Doordarshan did not leave any territory unexplored.
1. Mitti ke Anek Rang... this serial used to telecast one short story every week with a socio-moral message hidden under it.

2. Malgudi Days - Very proud even today about this serial as it is from the house of Late ShankarNag who was talented to the core as a director & a film maker. Even today I relish on the episodes whenever I get a chance to see it.

3. Circus - This lively serial introduced the present ruling king of the bollywood industry - Shahrukh Khan through the small screen. His energetic acting ability & the restless attitude shown onscreen made him an instant hit among the households.

4. Afsane - The story of a postman who does not deliver a set of posts as he dies & this is found by his son who takes up the job of delivering the posts after a few years.. I think after 10 years. This was one of the most intersting stories I had ever seen as it showed how things would have changed in each of the lives of the individual postal addresse to whom the post had to reach 10 years back.

5. Street Hawk -

6. Time machine based serial -

7. Udaan - An aviation srory based serial.

Then there were these detective serials which used to keep us on the edge of our seats:
7. Byomkesh Bakshi -
8. Karamchand -
9. Tehkikaat -

Comedy Capers:
10. Mungeri Laal Ke haseen sapne
11. Flop Show by Jaspal Bhatti
12. Office Office