नाताळ

दुपारचे २ वाजले आहेत. नुकतेच जेवण झाले आहे. माझ्या आजू बाजूच्या चार cubes मधे कुणीही नाहीये आणि मला प्रचंड झोप येतेय. पण मी इथे झोपू शकत नाही. का तर म्हणे हा professionalism नाही. Recently एका Internet Survey नुसार IT क्षेत्रातील 20% लोकांनी हे मान्य केले की ते ऑफिस मधे झोपतात. पण मी झोपण्याचा विचार सोडून blog लिहायला घेतला.
गेल्या काही दिवसांत बरयाच गोष्टी 'घडल्या'. त्यात EAD कार्ड चे प्रोसेसिंग, नविन जॉब आणि नविन गाडी ह्या जगाला सांगण्यासारख्या गोष्टी... आणि मित्र-मैत्रिणींबरोबर चकाट्या पिटणे, केस कापणे, latest गाण्यांची CD बनविणे, कपडे आणि shoes विकत घेणे, train ने ऑफिसला जाणे, नविन बॉस बरोबर downtown मधे फिरणे अशा अनेक interesting गोष्टी करुन झाल्या. आता 2008 येई पर्यंत हे असंच चालणार. Holiday Season म्हणजे नुसती धमाल. सगळी कडे christmas चे रंगीबेरंगी डेकोरेशन, दुकानांमधे सेल, माणसांची धावपळ, खरेदी, खाणे-पिणे आणि वेगवेगळ्या ठिकाणांना भेटी देणे... वर्षभरात 2080 तास काम केल्यानंतर कुणाला नाही आवडणार अशी मजा करायला?

Perspective

माझी अडीच वर्षांची भाची, सई, नुकतीच शाळेत जायला लागली आहे. तिच्या शाळेमुळे घरात सकाळी सकाळी प्रचंड गडबड असते (म्हणजे घरातले सगळे उगीच प्रचंड गडबड करतात).
पू (माझी वहिनी) सईला सोडायला शाळेत जाते आणि २ तास शाळेतच थांबते.
सई शाळेत गेल्यावर मोठ्ठा भोंगा पसरते. आज पू ला फ़ोन केला तर पू ने सांगितले की सई आता अजिबात रडत नाही. मी आश्चर्याने विचारलं की अचानक हा बदल कसा?
तर पू ने एक अफ़लातून ट्रिक शोधली आहे. शाळेत पोहोचल्यावर पू सई ला सांगते की, ’आपण इथल्या झाडांना पाणी घालायला आलो आहोत. तू तुझ्या मैत्रिणींबरोबर खेळ तोपर्यंत मी झाडांना पाणी घालते.’ हे ऐकून सई हसत हसत शाळेत जाते. कधी कधी मात्र पू ची ही थाप पचत नाही कारण धो धो पाऊस येत असतो. सई ला प्रश्न पडतो की एवढ्या पावसात झाडाला अजून पाणी कशासाठी? मग ’झाडाची cutting करायला आलोय’ अशी पू ची नविन थाप तयार असते.
एकंदर ’आई कामाला येताना आपल्याला घरी न सोडता बरोबर घेऊन आली आहे’ ही concept ’आपण शाळेत आलो आहोत’ यापेक्षा नक्कीच भारी वाटते ना?
मला पण ऑफिस ला जाताना असा ’नवा’ perspective शोधला पाहिजे.

आज मी पंकज ला मराठी मधे टाईप करायला शिकवले. गूगल ने दिलेल्या हया facility ने तो चांगलाच impress झाला. त्याला auto-help चा option फार आवडला.

Today Joyce got Sticky Rice for us. She cooked it herself and I must say she is a good cook.The recipe is similar to Maharashtrian 'Ukadiche Modak'. The rice cone is wrapped in a Banana Leaf and then cooked on the steam of water. Now its my turn to cook Biryani. Everyone in my office is excited about the idea of eating Basamati rice :)

Pardes

Things I recently got to know about Houston:
Incident 1:
A family of 4 (father, mother, a son and a daughter) is going to Havana for vacation.
Mother sends email to the school teacher asking for permission.
School teacher replies back positively with 'Have a nice time' note.
The family enjoys in Havana, comes back and gets a letter from county office saying
'This is a warning for criminal C offense. Your child had an unexcused absence for which you and/or your child may get a sentence to jail or a fine of about $500'
According to the law, the parents should make a phone call to the school EVERY DAY to inform that the kid is going to be absent.

Incident 2:
A group of teens having lunch at a fast food place at around 11:30 in the morning get a ticket by the police.
The Day Time Curfew law does not permit the kids below 18 to go to the public restaurants during school hours (8:30 am till 2:30 pm).

Cruel Story

"The world is too crowded" - one of my American collegues.
"What?" - I and my chinese friend with obvious astonishment.
"The world is too crowded. That is why every man has to think about his bread and butter and cannot do the things he really wants to do" my American collegue was getting grumpy. He wanted to be a movie director but landed in Georgia-Tech University for a bachelor of engineering and stayed there till his masters. These days he is doing 'Software Development'. We all were laughing at his comments. But we did not know that the atmosphere will get extremely serious in next 10 mins.
We started talking about the population and the policies to control the population in various countries.
"In China, the government forbids you from having more than one child" - My Chinese friend.
"What do you mean by 'forbid'? How can someone forbid you from having a child? I mean our government 'discourages' people" - I
"I will tell you a real life story. It is about my sister-in-law" she said.
Afterthat whatever we heard was shocking. Here is the story:
Her sister-in-law is in China. She has a daughter. She wanted to have one more child (a son). When she got pregnant the second time she hid in a country side home. She did not even go to the hospital as she was very scared of the strict government policy. One day she went to her house to collect some clothes. She was 8 months pregnant then. Someone saw her and reported it to the government. Within hours there were 5-6 huge men around her. They forced her to the hospital where the doctor gave her some kind of a shot. Eventually she delivered a cute little baby boy. But the boy could hardly survive for an hour. To put it correctly the doctors killed him. This is a normal routine in her country. The government forces the mothers to abort.
How can someone be so INHUMAN? We went back to the very basic question of morality. How does a human develop his sense of right and wrong?
I think our parents, our society and our surroundings play a very important role in this. But then China does have a developed society and a family system in place. What is missing there? Is it the 'religion'? When asked, the communists say "my religion is communism". I was surprised that how much a religion can make a difference in ones life. I may not believe in religious rituals but unknowingly my religion has helped me to develope the ability to decide what is right and what is wrong.
Thank God!

Metro

परवा 'Life In a Metro' पाहिला. मन जरा वेळ सुन्न झाले. अनुराग बसुच्या इतर movie सारखाच हा movie पण अंधारात घडणारा आणि depressing होता. पण realistic होता. story-line चांगली होती. काही काही गोष्टी unnecessary वाटल्या. e.g. धर्मेन्द्र ची story. पण एकंदर movie कुठे रेंगाळला नाही. गाणी background मधे होती आणि सुरेल होती. इरफान खान, कोंकाना सेन, के के मेनान आणि शिल्पा शेट्टी ची acting उत्तम. मला आवडलेलं character म्हणजे 'Monty', played by Irfan Khan. Monty हा इतरांपेक्षा 'weird', 'less polished' असा माणुस पण आयुष्यात काय हवय हे माहित असलेला. त्याचा एक dialog अतिशय आवडला 'ये शहर हमे जितना देता है उस से कई ज्यादा हम से लेता है'. Overall एक वेगळा movie म्हणून एकदा बघायला हरकत नाही.

The Incredibles

Today I am very excited!!
First of all it is the end of the week and I am going for 'The Incredibles' tonight.
I am going to see Sonu performing LIVE...How I wish I had the first row tickets. The group seems to be impressive. Sonu Nigam, Asha Bhosale, Kunal Ganjawala and Kailash Kher..Wawww

माँ तुझे सलाम

Today I was talking to two of my colleagues, a guy originally from Vietnam and a girl originally from China. Both are in their forties and are settled in America now.
Our topic inevitably drifted towards ‘the migration - causes and implications’ as we all have migrated to USA from different countries.
Everyone shared his/her story.

The story of the Vietnami guy (let us call him T) was like this:
T was living with his family in South Vietnam. His dad was a Hiring officer in the government. They had a big house in a big city of Vietnam. Basically he belonged to an upper class and educated family.
One day he was playing guitar in the backyard. He was happily singing the American rock music as every teen-ager would do. Suddenly the police came and arrested him. His offense was that he was singing ‘bad’ ‘American’ songs. His father went to the police station and got him released. Such incidents were normal in day to day life.

Then the famous war of Vietnam started. During the war, the North Vietnam government arrested T’s father and put him in the labor camp for almost 12 years. Meanwhile T’s mother was taking care of the whole family. She was allowed to meet her husband once a year.
To add to the sorrow, the South Vietnam lost the war. The communist government started harassing T’s family. They were asked to evacuate their own house for no logical reason. When they refused to do so the government cut their electricity and water supply. The government even tried to stop the food supply to his family. The discrimination was everywhere.
The government brainwashed the school kids in favour of communism. Many kids, including T, fell into the trap. T’s mother was really shattered when she realized that her son is supporting those people who kept her husband in the jail.
She asked her kids to leave the country. T’s brother was the first one to escape. He went to Italy. T and his sister tried to escape but failed 4 times. Finally they succeeded to escape to the USA. They were kept in the refugee camp where T met with a fire accident. The left portion of his body is badly burnt.
He started his new life in this country. Eventually his father got released and his whole family came to USA. It has been 25 years since he is living in this country and he never feels like going back to Vietnam.
The story of the Chinese girl was not very different. Back in China, she belonged to a joint family. She used to stay with her grand mother, her parents and her uncles. One day the Chinese government asked them to evacuate their big family house. In return they got a very little money. All the brothers had to separate. Her grandmother was just not ready to listen. She stopped having food in protest of this decision. All her sons tried to persue her but after 10 days she passed away.
I was shocked listening to the stories.
I am so lucky to have a galore of fond memories of my country.
I guess we realize the value of the freedom only when it is absent.