Duet of One

Yesterday , after a day long meeting at the Manhattan Head quarters, we headed to Times Square for dinner. This is one place in the world where you realize that some spectacles make life worth living. – the vision of the Taj Mahal in Agra is another such place. Times square has a dream like quality. The flashing neon and plasma screens create a heightened visual experience that almost borders on an out-of-body feeling. You can almost sense the gaiety and joie de vivre in the air. The Bubba Gump Shrimp Company was a favorite of my host and so we went there. The restaurant has an incredible view of the Times Square ( pictured above)and then , lo and behold, it started snowing! The flashing lights gave color to the slowly drifting flakes of snow. Later we walked in the rain and snow to Penn Station to take a train into New Jersey. I could see cars parked at train stations being covered up by snow- it was a surreal sight. Today, at day break, I opened the blinds of the window at home to w...

As is my everyday ritual during lunch time, I logged on to the Times Of India Web Portal to read the eNewsPaper of the Mumbai edition when I spotted the breaking news. I got home early as the office closed for the Thanksgiving weekend at around 3:00 pm. Since then my home resembles a "Situation room"! The TV is tuned to BBC which provides a live link to a Indian TV channel- the subtitles are in Marathi! Three laptops are pulling live video feeds from different Indian News Channel. The phone is ringing all the time as friends call to share their anguish. I was at the Maha Ganapathi temple in Flushing NY today morning where I joined in a prayer meeting. The Mayor of NY, Michael Bloomberg attended and camera crews from TV stations were interviewing members from the audience for their comments on the Mumbai situation. priests from the temple recited mantras for peace and well being of all. One of the mantras : Peace Invocation Om taccham yoravrini mahe ghatun yajnaya...

This is the title of a local TV program. And I chanced upon it during a surfing expedition with the TV remote.. I discovered that Real and Chance (R&C) are the names of two African - American brothers. They seem to be Rap Artists and sport a variety of headgears and chains round their neck. Real is stocky and mean looking. Chance has a lean look and reminds me a lot of my erstwhile driver Mahesh in Mumbai. Some 15 girls, of different shapes and sizes are vying for the attention of the two brothers. They dress sparingly and are seen smooching and cuddling them all the time. The girls are split between the two brothers and during each episode, the brothers are shown cavorting with the babes in bath-tubs or dining at swanky restaurants .and exchanging notes with each other on which one is hot and which one is not. The girls are shown at loggerheads with each other and freely exchange expletives. So their verbal interactions are censored with the usual beep-beep. R&C are wealthy fe...

On Friday, November 14, 2008, I joined my colleagues to work at the Morristown Soup Kitchen . This Kitchen is located on South Street in Morristown , adjacent to the Church of the Redeemer . The Community Soup Kitchen is more than a place to eat for the poor and needy. An Outreach Center provides services such as a social worker’s services, Mental Health Professionals, Substance abuse counselor, nurse, job counselor and English as a Second Language (ESL) classes Betty Caldwell who supervises the “operations” has everything under control. Gifted with a booming voice, she has a “commanding” presence. She know the guests, she knows where the milk is, she know where the Styrofoam cups are stocked. Our team helped make the salad, cut pastries, cook the pasta and lay the table in preparation for the “guests” who would arrive in the afternoon.. Soup was provided by Madison Hotel and we did a quick “milk run” to fetch it. At around 12:00 noon the doors opened and the poor and the homeless “g...

Today , nature is creating magic outside my window. It was dark and rainy at around 8:00 am and suddenly a white light engulfed the landscape as sleet and rain began to fall. And then, dramatically, the scene was transformed as I watched “the woods slowly fill up with snow”…a white Diwali after all!! I cannot resist remembering my favorite Robert Frost poem: Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

The falling leaves make me nostalgic. I remember the Nat King Cole song “When autumn leaves start to fall” . And my mind dives deep into it’s archives of saved images and sounds and smells. I woke up the other day remembering the hissing sound of the flame of a kerosene stove. Water for my bath is heating up and my dad is calling out to me to wake up – a National Echo radio is playing Meerabhai bhajans of Lata Mangeshkar- circa 1965. Its around 6;00 am. Later I called dad in Mumbai to share with him this vignette that flashed in my mind. He goes of on a tangent to some other mundane subject… Diwali is here. I send out greetings messages to everyone on my gmail contacts. We pick a box of kaju khatris from the local Desi store. We pray at the Balaji temple and the day is done.

On Saturday, I was at the beautiful Shri Ranganatha Temple at Pomona. I have been planning to go there for over a months but something would come up and I could not go- that told me this is not a place that one goes on a whim. And so , as I stood in front of the Deity, Lord Ranganatha, reclining so majestically, I knew that this was a special place. Some months ago, during a festival , the disciples spotted a Garuda, the Lord's "vahaana" circling the sky briefly and vanish. This is considered a miraculous occurrence. A priest was kind enough to explain to us the importance of the temple and the concept of Vishishita Advaita propounded by Ramanuja Acharya. By some strange coincidence, the priest was finishing his one year term at the temple that afternoon and on his way back to India. He would return to the Venkateswara Temple in Dombivilli, near Mumbai. If you would like to read about this temple click on this link: http://www.ranganatha.org/

As I type this I hear a knocking sound at my window and, lo and behold , there is this beautiful squirrel standing up with it’s two front legs resting on the glass. He had a brief look at me and ran away. Talking of squirrels, last week , I was driving to a store with the significant half beside me when suddenly she says in Tamil, ” Turn back fellow !”. I looked at her incredulously and she says, “Not you, there was this squirrel coming our of the garden patch and had crawled up into the road ahead and as if he could hear me, turned back into the grass safely!”. Not all have a safe trip across the roads though. You find them plastered on the road – a squash of flesh and blood. A couple of days ago, when driving to work on the highway- a six lane road with a center wall of around 3 feet height in the median, I noticed a squirrel dart across the road and climb up the center wall. I do not know if he made it across to the other side but it got me thinking. What was it on the other side th...

How does one encapsulate what it means to be an Indian in less than 30 seconds? This " Trueroots " advertisement which airs on the Indian TV channels here in NJ is so refreshing and heart warming... here is the youtube link: http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=a2lPniSsFxs Enjoy!

The world is debating if it is appropriate to throw a financial life-belt to the beleaguered institutions that are drowning . In the final analysis , it is the government' s job to save the lives of drowning citizens first- be they rich or poor. There will be time later to find the culprits and pass a new SOX -2 legislation. But now, America needs to rescue itself. The economies of the world are also at grave risk.

A friend , who babysits for his granddaughter , a three year old, tells me this incident of last week. She asked if the stars in the sky were made by God. He confirmed her understanding. Did God also make everything else? Yes, he said. After pondering for a few moments, she asked, "Why did God make the mosquitoes ?" I told my friend that this is the sort of question we ask our Guru in India!

This was an eye-opener. The big malls end up with a lot of food stuff , toys, cosmetics, personal care stuff that are slightly shop soiled, primary /secondary packaging damages.. They send it to the Food bank for distribution to the poor and needy- free. NJ has a sizable number of these banks who collect them and forward them to outlets for the poor. A week ago , I went along with my colleagues to do a day's work at the Food bank. We sorted out the huge quantities of supplies , put them in cartons and placed them on pallets . We should be able to start something like this in Mumbai ... Back breaking work but very satisfying. Here is the link: http://www.njfoodbank.org/Programs/distribution.htm

I thought I had left the Cauliflower Manchurian and veg fried rice and the rest of the "Indian Chinese " food back in Mumbai . So , when the family wanted to revive their taste buds , we decided to check out the rumour that Edison, NJ was the place to go for anything Indian and so we headed to the Oak Tree road and had some Indian Chinese at the Ming. Good stuff , a tad pricey!

The Times Of India "Speaking Tree" column of today mentions his name. He is a Buddhist philosopher and photographer with quite a few books to his credit. I discovered a web portal where you can find his beautiful thoughts... http://www.ikedaquotes.org/index.html Take a look.

Years ago the General passed through the Pluckemin town in 1777, where I live. They say he rested with his army under a tree and they even have a stone commemorating that event Legend has it that there used to be Inn and the owner would create a hole in the ground and the horse carriages would get stuck there- this was his creatve way of getting customers and he plucked 'em in from the streets-hence the name...

The other day , Geeta and I were walking around the neighborhood- a very pretty place with lovely trees and flowering bushes and I noticed a strange black animal slowly crawling on the grass. It looked a bit like the Meerkat minus the long tail. It was black and large eyed and the size of small cat. So I stopped to stare. Geeta, who likes to keep a mile between her and any animal urged me to come on and I did so obediently. Later I learnt it was a skunk . The animal, if it takes a dislike to you, turns around , it’s butt facing you and squirts an awful juice at you that is supposed be such a stink that you can become a social outcast instantly! I was told that you need to take a bath in tomato ketchup to clean up and get the smell off your person! There is a lot of wild deer and rabbits in the area. In India you would see a dead dog on the highways- here you see dead deer. There are road signs that indicate “Deer Crossing”- apparently the deer use the same route ! And I have seen deer ...

People readily hug each other when greeting. Geeta has been a regular “victim” . The neighbor does it, my realtor does it.. I have not been so lucky though A friend and I were installing his new GPS which has Bluetooth capability and can sync with his cell phone. So when you are driving and a call comes in the cell phone diverts the call to the GPS and you can speak to the GPS. The GPS also refreshes itself with all the phone numbers on the cell phone. So, as I said, we were setting it up and my friend accidentally triggered a call from the GPS and we ended up dialing the 911 number. A clipped voice said” Police” and my friend said” Sorry sir, wrong number!” and hung up. I went to the local laundry store- I decided that it was just too much to spend evenings pressing my clothes . I asked him the charges and he said “Dollar and 80 cents wash and press” . I regret fighting with the local Bhaiya in Mulund when he was charging me 1.25 rupees!! I joined the local Library where you can draw ...

Who would have thought that there is good “literary humor” associated with a simple burger- A “Burger King free coupon” led me to yonder store and I got myself a Burger , and a my son a “value meal”. In case you are wondering why Geeta is not on this list, you should know she is a strict vegetarian. So, I bring home this burgers and we sit down to eat. I notice that the burger wrap and the bag have interesting messages- here is a sample:” Have it your way!” One message praises you for your choice! Another says that you are welcome to mix Sprite and coke – juts have it your way. The dumpster in the store has a message that says “somehow get the trash inside..” Another: “Some fries are mavericks. Free spirits that slip over the cardboard wall and make straight for the bottom of the bag, where they can then plan the next move. We call them spud separatists bagglers, and they’re especially delicious. Maybe it’s because they’re a little out of bounds. Life can be like that.” And another: Yo...