Mumbai Terrorist Attacks: What we actually lost and some random thoughts

I am finally glad that it is over now as it will save me from watching the animalistic competition of TV channels for the same breaking news. Those indeed were breaking news and I could see a lot of things breaking for me, including the restaurant where I had my first ever mug of beer - Leopold. It will be a waste to write about other things broken for me by these channels. If they are interested let them read it somewhere else.


At the same time, I am now having a feeling of excitement and nervousness becuase now starts the festival! Political parties, Social organisations, Military and Intelligence agencies, thinkers, intellectual masturbaters, celebrities and people on the street - welcome to the drama and mud slide festival of India 2009! This festival will be solely and completely sponsored by all TV channels companies and their respective owners provided that you promise to them that no matter what happens, you wont think on your own. You promise to us that, you dedicate your passions, emotions and brain to us and we will show you everything that is important and worth seeing about Mumbai Terrorist Attacks and everything related to that. It is just a side effect that my TRP rating goes up. Our job is to bring this great festival to you.

And then, my friend you will sit in front of the big screen viewing the image of burning Taj, clipping of Karkare getting ready and Ratan Tata crying. You too will cry perhaps, your blood ofcourse will boil, you will use certain chosen words from your monther tongue for the politicians. I don't even doubt your love about this country and the pain you feel when the terrorists attacked Mumbai.

But thats about it!

On 26th November 2009, you will remember this attack on Mumbai when a TV channel shows a program about it at prime time. Your love for the country and pain you feel when the terrorists attacked Mumbai will still be same. You will also start feeling good about this - that you love your country so much and you feel pain when a terrorist attack Mumbai. You will also like the fact that you are still helpless as you felt in 2008. You will also realise that you indeed feel inscure these days! And that about it! Festival will still be on!

On 26th November 2010, you and your friend watch a program on one TV channel about comparison of the latest terrorist attack with that happened on Mumbai in 2008. You still will feel love for your country and you will be fed up with the terrorist attacks on cities like Mumbai. You will also feel disgusted and helpless about not been able to do anything about it 2 years back. You will hope that finally, Goverment accepts the demand that civilians be allowed to keep weapons against terrorist attack. And thats about it! Next festival is just going to start!

esnips, uploading files and copyright

Last week in a feat of enthusiasm I recorded some 13 poems. Some I just read. Some I sang. (Sorry about that!) I thought that I will keep these for myself for the time being. Then I thought that I will share these with Ashu (my sister), Chaitanya (My brother in law) and parents. Well what is better than eSnips for that. So first I empthrised all the files. (Well if any of you say that there is no such verb in English then kindly accept this as a gift from me to English language. em.p.thr.ise [em-p-thra-ayz] means creating a mp3 file. If you accept 'googling' then why not this - just because I am Indian?) Well then I uploaded all 13...well I 'tried' to upload all 13 files. eSnips allowed me to upload only 11. Uploader of eSnips claimed to suspect copyright violation in the last two files. Well, I said fine at least 11 are uploaded. Then with the same enthusiasm I invited my sister, my brother-in-law and my parents to listen to the the poems. Two days passed and no compliments ot comments. I checked it with my sister and she said that she cant open the files! Surprised, I tried it myself. The files were still there but when one tried to play those, eSnips said that those files are no more there! Perfect - one can not download the files, one can not listen to the files. Well, I could have really understood if the files were really copyright violation. But these are poems read using my own voice and recorded on my own computer. Well I wrote to supprt team of eSnips. 4 days have gone I am still waiting for the response. Till then - me, my recorded poems and copyrights - all are with me!

Cuatro Cienegas...(Part 1)

The Plan...

As usual, on the last Thursday Hector and I were planning to visit El Huezo for our regular game of eight balls. Hector told me in the morning that Enrique is in Monterrey and is coming to meet us in the evening. I told Hector to invite Enrique to join us for the drinks. In the evening four of us started off from the office. The four of us including Mauricio...well...yes...I was successful to emotionally blackmail him and convince him to join us. As a rule we first went first to my house to drop-off the car. (The rule is - rather than paying the fine for drunken driving, it is better to pay for the taxi and the drinks...the incentive is you are allowed to drink one more "Dos Equis Amber"!) Enrique visited my house for the first time. I introduced him to Sneha, Krishna and Anusha. Sneha made some fantstic tea. (If only she can make it everyday...I am just joking...honestly...) Over the tea Enrique talked about his family and kids. (He has four daughters and one son and is married for 17 years now.) While talking he said that next to next weekend we should visit Monclova and Cuatro Cienegas. Cuatro Cienegas - yes - I had heard this name earlier from Manoj and Deepak. Also from Kimi. They had gone there in January for camping. So I knew that it is a nice place to put a tent and have a nice swim in the ponds. It sounded exciting for a weekend plan. And so it was a plan indeed!
The Preparations...
On Friday I confirmed it to Enrique that I will be coming. Ajit dropped off as he wanted to attend the Black Sabbath concert. Well...I was in two minds too...as Cynthia kept her Birthday party on Saturday. I apolgized her and declared on Friday evening at home that we will be going to Monclova and Cuatro Cienegas on Saturday. The plan was that on Saturday we will go to Monclova and will play in the swimming pool, in the night he will call a few friends and we will have a good grill (barbeque). On Sunday morning we will go to Cuatro Cienegas and will come back in the afternoon and then return back to Monterrey. With a firm determination that we will start our journey exactly at 0700 hours in the morning we went to sleep.

The Start (Day One)...

Waking up on Saturday morning at a pre-determined time is a function of many variables. I would like to make it very clear that the time at which one sleeps on Friday has very little weightage as a variable in this function. You see, it is more like a probability distribution function and therefore the actual time of waking up is mainly driven by the distribution function rather than your determination, habit and all those things people say. In short: we could not and did not wake up early enough to start from Monterrey at 0700 hours. Well we were not even close enough to get second runner-up prize. Apart from that, we still had to complete our ritual of packing the bags. Honestly tell me - How much time is really required to pack the bags? As per my experience not more than 3 hours in the worst case. Now, again honestly answer my second question. When do you start packing your bags? In my experience, in the past I started packing my bags for an international journey 5 hours before the scheduled departure. (That time one was not required to reach airport 2 hours in advance and one could cover the distance of 2 Km on the airport road of Bangalore in less than 20 mins.) But that should not have been the reason for us not to be ready with our bags packed. A good amount of energy went in packing the bags - some 80% went in shouting, 15% in searching and 5% in actual packing. Well that meant that we could not prepare and eat breakfast at home. With all that we started from home at 9:30 AM. VIPS provided an excellent breakfast for 4 of us and with an assurance of no complaints from stomach for next 5-6 hours, we left Monterrey at 11:30 AM in the morning.

The Journey (Day One):

Journey to Moclova is easy. Saltillo, Monterrey and Monclova make a kind of triangle. Monterrey in the East, Saltillo in the South and Monclova in North. Enrique recommended me to take the road to Saltillo and then take the road to Monclova in order to be on a road I was more familiar with. The weather was great for travel - not too hot or not too cold. The road from Saltillo to Monclova is single road - meaning - to and fro traffic travels on the same road and road is not divided. This was new to me. But I got the trick quickly and I was overtaking the cars pretty well. I did not expect it to be 195 Km. Well - that was the level of my preparation.

A blog for family

Wanted to create a blog for my family - that includes Krishna, Anusha, Aarya, Aai, Sneha, Ashu, Baba and Chaitanya. Idea is to share the things with them.