The Sur`prize'

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME, .... Is this really it ? "

" Excuse me ? "

"Do you know what this is ? Do you know what its called ? "

" Not really Maam ! " {with a wild look}

"Oh My Gosh! I dont believe this, I have found it, I have finally found it ".

"My Precious.... Finally after a year's search in Watsonville , Menlo Park Farmers Market , San Jose flea market, And ..and ....its right here, 2 miles away from my home, Under my very nose,
a constant supply of Purslane.... Verdogala .... `my mumma's Gol Ki Bhaji ' , Haven't been this estatic before " ..

"(Thinking) Crazy lady"...

55 Fiction

Friends

"Well? Don't you have anything to say?"

"I'm just...I really wasn't expecting this."

"Say something. Anything."

"I'm sorry. But I don't feel about you that way."

"Oh."

"I mean you're a great guy and I like you but..."

"Oh."

"I hope we can still stay friends."

"Hmm..."


The Study Group

The readings did not match the graph. Five people, four months and no results. He heard the beep of her cellphone. She excused herself. He saw her blush as she closed the door behind her. He leaned back in the chair and sighed.

He knew she would leave now. The simulation would have to wait.


The Invite

He had been away. A business trip. The mailbox looked like it was about to burst. Bills, preapproved offers, a wedding invite, dvds, more bills, flyers...wait! Her wedding invite. He threw it into the trash.

He couldn't sleep. He came back and fished it out. Better shred it. Too much id theft nowadays.


Terminal C

"Hi."

"Hey, fancy seeing you here."

"Yeah, work travel. How about you? Another annual trip home?"

"Yes."

"Alone?"

"Yeah, actually he...uhhh...Why don't you sit down?"

"No, my flight leaves soon. I just saw you so stopped by to say hi. Sorry, gotta run."

He seems happy.

She's been crying.


Opinions

"Who is this girl?"

"Huh?"

"The one you write about."

"No one. She doesn't exist. It's fiction."

"Raaaight..."

"Anyhoo, could you just tell me what you thought about the stories?"

"I can't, without knowing more about the characters. So, who is this girl?"

He sighed. He would just have to post it as it was.

Late Night talk

A Typical Afternoon in the office includes a hot cup of coffee which usually just sits there half empty, a colorful screen with all kinds of red, orange and if lucky green-blue simulation signals, and a good set of sony headphones, the kind which I recently received from D. No, unlike what you might be thinking, I did title this correctly. It not about afternoon that I wish to talk to you about. From the "circumaural" headphones comes out a very sweet sound of a song which takes me back to those cold nights in Cincinnati at a speed more than my simulation can run.

Those were the days. Me and one of my very close girlfriend with our class of 2007 use to spend nights after nights in our VLSI lab at Cinci. Our survival kit included the fudge cookies, brisk ICE tea from the wending machine across the hall in the nap room/break room and the our lone CD in the lab. We used to play our favourite song, "bheegi bheggi ratoon mein by leslie lewis". And not only did we play it , we kept on playing it. As the number of nights we spent in the lab increased, the sweet sound of the song was followed by our out of Sync voices. The song transcended from being an addition to the project nights to an addiction.The nights I spent in the 880 Lab does not remind me of the project deadlines or blood shot eyes but more about the fun we had as a group.

It would be close to a year now since I left my student life, but every little thing brings back memories including the 9'O clock Fox shows. My rommie's blog does not make the task any simpler. I miss those days and above all I miss the people. Wish I could go back in time for just a day back to the lab, back to my friends back to Apt 12, relive the moment over again.

Confessions Of A Cynic

The following thoughts and ideas have been loosely abridged from my observations of life and are postulates so to speak, to be accepted without proof.

Expectation is the root of all misery

Expectation sets mental standards. Failure by people around you and life in general to meet these standards leads to misery. So ingrained in our minds and lives is the law of action & reaction that we subconsciously expect returns for each and every action, no matter how small it might be. Master the art of giving up expectation and you will overcome unhappiness once and for all. However, the fact that you won't be unhappy does not mean that you will be happy.

The worst unanswered questions in life start with Why

"Why did he say that?" "Why did she do this to me?" "Why must life suck so much?" "Why Me?" It all starts with Why? We all wonder Why? Given a choice, most people would rather want to know "Why can't we be truly happy?" instead of "What is true happiness?" Answers to What questions are philosophical. Answers to Why questions are practical.

Hope is the biggest trick of them all

The biggest trick that was ever pulled on mankind was to make one believe that having hope can somehow affect the outcome of whatever it is one is hoping for. Thinking about it logically for a second makes one realize how ridiculous the idea is. However, the success stories of a small percentage of people hoping for something and then getting it, usually get more media attention and thereby overshadow the huge failure rate. It is this fact that keeps up the smoke screen. I put it rather bluntly though. Hopeful people would rather put it as: This is what keeps people going.

Rejection is the root of all conflict

Rejection: Of ideas, of love and often of common sense. Wars, heartbreak, crimes, divorce, global warming...the list is endless. But it can all be traced down to rejection. Rejection of one basic value, on which had the conflicting parties been able to agree upon, would have led them to not being conflicting parties in the first place. Variety is not the spice of life. The varieties of rejection are the spice of life. In fact, it would be a safe bet on my part to assume that many of you readers would rather reject my ideas of cynicism after having convinced yourself that optimism is a better choice.

Love is a scarce natural resource in need of conservation

Understanding a quality as complex as love requires the application of logic beyond the normal realms and boundaries of analysis. The world population is constantly on the rise. However, there is only enough love to go around. A common scenario of demand exceeding supply. It would help you to understand if you think of love as a spiritual or psychological oxygen for the human race. Or for the technically inclined, an internet connection with limited bandwidth. For new people to fall in love, people already in love have to fall out of love to make resources available, leading to divorces and split-ups. However, if the feelings of mutual affection of the new people who want to be in love are not stronger than those of the current people, resources are not freed up, leading to heartbreak. Love, therefore is a non-renewable scarce natural resource in dire need of conservation.

Footnote:

These ideas have not been presented with an aim of converting you into followers of cynicism. In fact, I suggest to the optimists among you that you feed on these golden morsels of information and think of how lucky you are to be privy to this knowledge without having to undergo the arduous quest to cynical enlightenment.

En Route to the Epicurean Alley

I have always loved reading blogs. I feel most people do an amazing job of being witty and informative at the same time. I never really thought I would try out writing one myself but the love of food and the excitement of sharing innovative recipes made me turn to my windows machine ( Now now, I wouldn’t do this on my linux, would I !) But still am not too hopeful to create a blog of my own and so would take up a few MegaBytes and appear amidst toastmasters speeches and short stories, adding a little zest to topgunw’s blog (as I did in his life :) ).

A little introduction would be a good starting point. I hail from a west Indian City of Ahmedabad, Gujarat. {You have a gujju ben amongst you.} But surprisingly only a part of my food has been influenced by Gujarati cooking, that too thanks to my childhood neighbors and my mom-in law. The rest is all Hyderabadi.
My friends teasingly call me Hajrati J Not such a tough sandhi is it.
Due to my mom and more so my aunt, I love ginger and green chilies in my cooking. My crisper is dull and boring without them. I believe they have a knack of making any dish fresh and green. Try adding greens to any dish, it can be just cilantro, and experience the change it creates. My friends last week just had a close brush with my green chili passion with an overdose of them in a potato curry. I believe that was the end of my “cooking for my friends” phase. They would never lend their gastronome tract for my experiments again.

Being in San Jose, California, we have plenty of sunlight (or so people say, we have been through this cold dull month of winter recently). Hence I head to the farmers market whenever I can. As a result I get so many “special” veggies which we would have never tried otherwise.
To figure out which recipe best enhances the taste of a particular vegetable, I go through many food blogs before dinner. Recently I came across some who really did a good job of food blogging. Some of my favorites are http://www.nandyala.org/mahanandi/about/ and www.evolvingtastes.blogspot.com/

Next time I experiment, I would be loaded with chilies, ginger, garlic and my canon SD600. Let’s see how much quality contribution I can make to the world of food blogging.

The Time Machine

The final test. He had perfected the time machine. No flaws or explosions this time. "The mad scientist" they had nicknamed him. He'd show them. Those mindless fools sleepwalking through life without a purpose, who couldn't recognize his genius. He'd show them. Just one last test. A human subject. Him.

He knew it was dangerous. But he had a strong feeling it would work. This time it was for real. After all, the tests with inanimate objects and animals had worked fine. He had to try it.

He set the date. 18th century. The Revolution. He wouldn't see much as he would return in five minutes. But still, it was an interesting period. And it would look good when he announced his invention to the world. He was ready. Everything double checked. He'd show them...

Initiating time-travel sequence in 5...4...3...2...1...

He vanished from the lab. So did the time machine. Broke the space-time continuum. The Big Bang, they would call it. Years later...

The Cliché

He opened his eyes. He was waiting for her at the train station. It was late. Almost midnight. The train would be leaving soon. And they'd go away. Far away from the family feuds and the intimidation and the pain and the...But why hadn't she come yet? She had to. She had promised. The light turned green. A whistle sounded. The train set off in motion with a gentle shove. One last searching look. He rubbed away the tears. And stepped on to the train...

He opened his eyes. His head felt heavy. And a couple of sizes too big. Something cold was pressed against his hand. A .45 automatic. Used quite recently. He could smell it in the air. He tried to get his eyes to focus. And regretted it immediately. She lay on the carpet in a pool of blood. He stumbled over and hugged her. Then carried her lifeless body and placed it on the bed. He knew he would be the prime suspect. His fingerprints were all over the place. Well, so be it. He rubbed away the tears and reloaded the gun. They would pay for this...

He opened his eyes. Someone was calling his name. He walked over and got his espresso. 3 more hours of studying. And then 2 more in the examination hall. He wondered how many more espressos he'll need. He tried to concentrate on the squiggles which according to the author were a data plot. Someone who smelled nice squeezed past him, stumbled and scalded his neck with her latte. He screamed. She panicked. Everyone stared. She got some napkins. She said she was sorry. He said it was alright. He made a quick trip to the restroom. He sat down. He saw she had the same textbook...

He opened his eyes. The hospital tiles stared back at him. Cold, unfriendly and spotlessly clean. She'd been in surgery for almost three hours now. His brain was numb from worrying. And praying. All he wanted was for someone to come out and tell him that she was going to be okay. It had been a drunk driver. One who hadn't noticed or hadn't cared for the red light. Why? Why her? Why today? Why hadn't he picked her up from work like everyday? He rubbed away the tears and looked up. The nurse was walking towards him. Please let her be okay, just please let her be okay...

"What are you doing? And why are these crumpled papers on the floor?"

"Well, what does it look like I'm doing? I am trying to write a short story. But everything I've tried so far just sounds so clichéd."