Case of mistaken identity - 17th Jan

The breakfast buffet manager greeted me today with an unsual mischief lurking in his smile ... after the usual good morning he told me that people here are mistaking me for Sehwag! A staff member even placed a bet of 1000 Rs ... While I was ecstatic at this association with Veeru, I feel sorry for the guy who placed 1000 bucks on me ... I almost feel like "re-imbursing" him :)

In a similar vein, while I was talking with my grandma, I thought I would tell her about my brush with Yuvraj ... so I asked her "Mummy do you know who Yuvraj Singh is?" and she replied "Yes! he is the son of some xyz in some saas-bahu serial!" ... I found this really amusing ... it just shows how different fields are important to different people and how even a celebrity name is not guaranteed to be a primary key!

On a different note, we finally had "Chaat" in MS Cafeteria ... Nitu had been eagerly looking forward for this moment and I think she was not disappointed ...

Cricket mania continues - 16th Jan

Today was our first day in IDC and hence we got up early and headed for an early breakfast. We found Dravid and Sehwag in the breafast lounge! From their faces it appeared that they were having some serious discussion. Needless to say that I was thrilled to see them (especially Sehwag)! but I did not interrupt their discussion by my hellos and wishes.

The first day at IDC turned out to be easy and fine ... The buildings here are indeed more beautiful than the ones at Redmond (probably because these are new buildings and the fact that we love colors and stylish things) ... it felt good to be in the cafeteria ... 15Rs ka dosa aur 15Rs ka fresh mixed fruit juice ... yum ... bye bye salads and stir fry!

Workout with Yuvi - 15th Jan

15th was Sankranti & Pongal and most of the markets were closed. Nitin mentioned that an estimated 33 lakh people went out of Hyderabad giving its roads a much needed break.
Later in the afternoon we went out to meet Chandna, Amit (our friends from IET) and Ananmay (the youngest manager of Coke!) ... went out to eat lunch and caught up on various things, played with Ananmay and then headed back to our hotel.

In order to keep up with our New year resolution to exercise more we headed to the fitness center of Taj Banjara in the evening. There were two people (a guy and a gal) already working out in the modest fitness center. Nitu hopped on to tread mill next to the guy and I followed on the one next to Nitu. Turns out that the guy was none other than Yuvraj Singh, the cricketer (you will see in a later post why I need to describe what he does)! As I was trying to confirm my suspicion of him being Yuvraj, I whispered to Nitu that this might be Yuvraj. Nitu got lost in translation and thought this was another MS guys who was relocating and happily continued jogging on her tread mill! They don't say "ignorance is bliss" for nothing.

Anyways I later wished Yuvi luck for the coming world cup and then we called it a day.

Taanvi & our little house - 14th Jan

Today we went out to meet Nitin, Smita and Taanvi. Taanvi is pretty cute and amazingly sharp. Here is how she amazed us. Nitu and I were very eager to checkout the progress at the construction site of our house. Since Nitin, Smita and their Jiju were also interested we decided to go there together. As we were preparing to head out, Taanvi sensed that people were going out somewhere and obviously she wanted to join. In order to dissuade her from going with us, Smita asked Taanvi the following:

"Beta, aapko yahan patang udaani hai ya fir aise hi bore hone jaana hai?" ... Little Taanvi replied "Bore hona hai!" and we were all in fits :) Kids are really getting smart :)

Well we checked out the construction site. As is always the case the unfinished house looks much less interesting and sometimes disappointing than a finished house. Overall the place is coming up well. The houses though are "very" close to each other ... probably in line with how almost everything is close to each other due to space crunch ... the other way to look at this is that this is "by-design" so as to promote closer and deeper ties with neighbors in accordance with our culture :)

We then got back to "Serene Towers" (Nitin & Smita's place), checked out an empty apartment in their complex and then headed back to our hotel.

India Poised - 13th Jan

We woke up around 7ish in the morning ... it was good to see the morning sun and I was eager to checkout what the morning paper had to say ... and it had a lot to say ... the paper seemed to be full of news heralding the progress India is making in different sectors and a dozen snippets about the plans for the future ... Indian corps buying international companies ... investment government is making in improving infrastructure ... numerous entreprenuers that are making big waves in non-traditional fields like agriculture, adventure sports, wind power, hotel industry etc ... there was an edition of "Business Today" that was kept on the table that is dedicated to the progress we have made in the last 15 yrs and the one we are poised to make in the next 15 ... Times of India is running a series called "India poised" that highlights what we are doing in various fields ... it felt nice ... really really nice! With my head held high, I looked down the window of my 7th floor room from where I could see the city coming to life ... the increasing noise of car horns ... somehow the noise felt nice ... I felt alive after a looooong time :)

The rest of the day can be summed up as follows: Awesome breakfast, lots of TV, Awesome lunch, lots of sleep, Awesome dinner, sleeeeeeeeeeeep

Seattle to Hyderabad - Jan11

Journey to the Airport
10th evening ko bahut snow padi and as a result driving on roads became treacherous ... therefore most people who had to reach the airport on 11th morning or after booked taxis in advance resulting in shortage of cabs! ... so thodi tension hui raat main kyonki jis bhi taxi service ko call kiya wo ya to chal nahin rahe they ya overbooked they ... khair kisi tarah ek mil gayi ... subah uth kar, mast naha dho kar, Adi+Jaya ke paranthey sabzi baandh kar, aur bheemu ko pyar kar hum nikal liye ... pehle Harish ke apt gaye apna saaman uthane ... last baar apne apt ko dekh kar unexpectedly bura laga ... khair Harish se vida le kar airport ke liye rawana ho gaye ... Airport tak ki journey mostly eventless rahi ... both of us were unusually quiet ... grappling with sadness of leaving so many good friends and excitement of finally going back to India ... A couple of times when the cab driver made dangerous cuts to avoid other cars stemmed the flow of thoughts and brought us back to reality!

@the airport
khair airport pahunche to wahan par pata chala ki mere pass stamped visa nahin hai aur na hi naya I-97 hai ... thodi tension hui ... fir Microsoft legal ko anticipation main phone ghumaye ... sabki voice mail par gaya aur kisi ka wapis phone nahin aaya ... khair fortunately kuch dikkat nahin hui Visa ki ... lekin fir checkin bag bhaari nikale ... fir maal re-arrange kiya ... tab tak 1 ghante se kam ka samay tha aur security check bhi nahin hua tha ... fir security check ke liye meeloon lambi line thi ... khair wo bhi hogayi aur jab tak departure gate par pahunche tab tak boarding shuru ho chuki thi ... to bhaavnaaon ko bahar aane ka jyada mauka nahin mila ...

Flight
flight was relatively eventless ... as Raghu & Mahati told us, food was a disaster between Seattle and Amsterdam and pretty good between Amsterdam and Hyderabad ... Met a nice IT guy, B.N.Rao (who is originally from Hyd), in flight from Amsterdam to Hyderabad who confirmed that our decision to move back was indeed a brave one ... I have always felt uneasy when Hyderabad localites say that and I think almost all Hyderabadis have told me that :) .. but as you know I have not been deterred so far ;)

Hyd Airport to Taj Banjara
Flight landing was a little less than normal as the pilot applied heavy brakes for a long time ... BN told me that this was normal since the runway at hyd is on the smaller side ... he mentioned that once a flight had to take off from the runway when it was unable to come to a halt when it was landing ... scary stuff ... actually Pannu had once told me the official name of this touch-n-go procedure but I can't remember it now ... khair ... apart from the fact that we had to wait more than 1 hr for our baggages, things went smooth ...
outside the airport there were two taxis waiting for us ... one sent by MS and the other sent by Taj Banjara ... well we almost took the one sent by the hotel (for which we would have had to pay) but our company taxi driver, Omar Sharif, intercepted in time and saved us some money!
On our way back we saw a couple of flyovers in progress but other than that the city seemed fast asleep ... we had a great customory welcome at Taj and after checking in we were happy to straighten our backs and get some rest ... it was about 4am