~~Partners in crime~~

With my cousin in natural history museum in Pittsburg.

~~Trip down to embassy street~~

 In Delhi one street which used to amaze me was the Shathi Path with lots of embassies on both side of the road. I would guess the country name with the flag flying outside the building. Most of the building would have its unique architecture resembling their own country.

I was in Washington DC last week with my classmates, we took a trip to Massachusetts avenue where most of embassies of many countries are present,as usual I was guessing countries by looking at the flag and screamed loud to everyone when I saw the Indian embassy. It had the statue of Mahatma Gandhi and a tri color flag flying high. Its a treat to go to this street with group of international students with each one looking for their embassy on the street.

~~Visit to Pittsburgh temple~~

  Pittsburgh Sri Venkatachalapathy temple is also known as the Tirupathi of US. The temple built in 1976 on a small hill attracts many Indians from all over the US who make it point to visit it atleast once during their stay. We saw cars registered from different states from US in the parking lot.

When we reached the temple around noon it was crowded like all other temples in India, we had to wait around 10 minutes in the queue to get a proper Darshan. Asha being in Pittsburg for more than 15 years seemed to know most of the people there. Finally the main for of visiting a temple in US is for the good food they provide, we had puliyodarai with curd rice for lunch which tasted really good.

~~Moon pictures~~

Being a day after full moon ,the view of moon rise from Asha's back yard was spectacular. Sivaram and co went   out to take pictures of the moon.

Can you count number of moon pictures Sivaram took from his camera.

~~Grand meet @ Pittsburgh~~

  I should say that after coming to US I m meeting my relatives more often than I do it in India. I used to go to native once in a year or so but after coming to US at least once in a month I m catching with my relatives.
Last week when my cousin Gayatri came to Ohio for an official work .So people from Chicago Philadelphia Detroit and me from New York planned to have a meet up at Pittsburgh.

I caught a bus from New york on Friday evening and reached Pittsburgh by 1am in the night. The first impression of the city is the best impression you get. At 1am the city of buzzing with activity with pretty girls partying around and people singing and dancing on the street.The shops and restaurants are buzzing with activity. I have been to cities which looks deserted by 11 leaving you alone with only street lights for company. Pittsburgh was my second choice after New york to do my masters,seems I wasn't bad at my choices.

Its was so much fun to be with family over the weekend and will try to write stuffs we did there!

~~Go India~~

 World cup has started its time to cheer India again! It was pathetic to see India lose out in 2007 .

My friend Ashwin sent me a mail from Tokyo reminding me of the last world cup we watched together!

Remember? 4 years back we were watching world cup match in 6E Panjos, and you were telling me, dei Ashwin, watch the match da, cos for the next world cup, don't know where everyone will be :P

So, here we are, all in diff countries, Ramki in Kuwait,you in NYC. 

Now its 4 am here and world cup has began .I m hoping to see India win!

~~Innovative ideas~~

 I m taking class this semester on social enterprise and social entrepreneurship, each week we used to have case study or speaker explaining on how to build business model for people in BoP(bottom of pyramid).

This week it was by a Japanese guy seeing the amount of junk food eaten at one side of the world and other side  of the world starving came up with an idea Table for two. So with the cost of one meal healthy meal they remove the extra calories from one end of the table and transfer to other end.

If you are more interested to know about it drop me a mail or give a comment I will send you the case study.

~~Something about NYC~~

  Was browsing through a book it had an article about  E.B.White who wrote a book "Here is New York" in 1949. Just thought of sharing it.


There are roughly three New Yorks.There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and turbulence as natural and inevitable.Second, there is the New York of the commuter—the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night.Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these three trembling cities the greatest is the last—the city of final destination, the city that is a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York’s high-strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion. And whether it is a farmer arriving from Italy to set up a small grocery store in a slum, or a young girl arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors, or a boy arriving from the Corn Belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and a pain in his heart, it makes no difference: each embraces New York with the intense excitement of first love, each absorbs New York with the fresh eyes of an adventurer, each generates heat and light to dwarf the Consolidated Edison Company.

~~Changes people make~~

    Policy implementation has its own setbacks and like a piece of ice when it passes hand and reaches the final person nothing is left the hand. There are not many people in Indian politics who are doing the job right with most of the policies they implement will just take care of their own well being.  

Nitish Kumar is an outlier among the gang of Indian politicians, when people saw no future in Bihar he took over the reins implemented basic policies which changed the everyday lives of the people.Direct money transfer a simple and straight forward policy which directly transferred cash to the people to get stuff. He trusted his own people than the officials putting tenders and getting stuffs for the people. This simple policy eradicates the corruption,the delay in processing and huge administration burden. He was awarded the Politician of the year award by NDTV. Watch his interview in this link

~~Spring is here ~~

 It is great to see the weather changing gradually day by day. Today it was bright and sunny in the morning ,so my mood was up and never had that Monday morning blues. I went to college and attended class sincerely.  By evening even though the sun was shining it started becoming windy but it was not the freezing wind. I took a walk to the Hudson river.

It was so windy that the water there looks like to move in opposite direction. There were those lazy seagulls trying to fly but the wind was pushing them back and they decided to sit back.

~~Celebrations today~~

  Egyptian people in our college had planned a protest in our main campus today ,since the protest weren't necessary they turned that into a party. With Arabic song singing loud in the background people were happy beaming with pride.We were served with Egyptian Sarbet which was not a choice in that cold weather but it tasted good.

I even gave my opinion to one of the freelancer at side telling the importance of Yesterdays event and it significance for democracy and people of Egypt.

~~What a remarkable day~~

  Not many days we see revolutions happening around the world,not many times those have been successful. But to day is one such day where the people of Egypt proved that by non violence revolutions are still possible by overthrowing a 30 year old dictarship government. It is one of the days where everybody wants to be an Egyptian!

I was so happy for my classmate Miral who was spending sleepless nights worrying about the situation in her country. When ones brother,family members and friends are protesting on the street it makes matters worse. Yesterday night was one of the most terrible one as the president refused to resign and the whole place was like a pressure cooker ready to burst. Today morning when I went to college she asked to help to stick fliers requesting people to gather for a peaceful protest, I casually told her "this  wont be necessary as your President is going to leave today" .By noon we got the news that president had resigned and the whole place erupted in joy.There are few emotions which you cant describe but feel it. There were many Arabs celebrating the occasion giving sweets and even jokingly said we are celebrating it grand because these things happen once in 30 years.

This is a revolution initiated by the people under 30 years of age using social network such as facebook and twitter as their main tool. It show what the faster flow of information  can do to a country. I did follow the trend on twitter today and I liked the following quotes directly coming from the hearts of the Egypt people.

• Today I walked in the street & wasn't uncomfortable. I stood in a huge crowd & wasn't suffocated or afraid. Why? BECAUSE EGYPT'S FREE
• We may be not those who did the technology, but we are the best in the World using it."
• WE DID IT! WE DID IT! WE DID IT! I feel happier at this instant than I did in my entire life. Joy, pure joy. Hope. Love. The Egyptians, with their culture, their history, their wit, their intellect, their passion. The Egyptians have woken.
•  I'm egyptian, I don't just read history, I make it
• The world only gets better because people risk something to make it better. Congrats Egypt
• 3 am Cairo..I am in a country where everyone I meet is smiling, laughing 
• I have seen birth, I have seen marriage,I have seen death but I have never seen happiness like this, and it is everywhere.

and this was email from my class mate

EGYPT IS FREEEEEEEEEEEE

Miral,
the happiest person on earth

This one such day that every ruler will remember that they are in power just to serve the people and they can be over thrown if they dont do the job right!

~~My notebook for this semester~~

 Below is the picture of note book which Sundu got me from Disneyworld. Since it was too big for a single subject and heavy to carry I spit into parts and take which ever is necessary :)

~~Liberty Statue in museum~~

  There was a miniature version of statue of liberty in the Brooklyn museum.

We can get more closer look than the original one!

~~Look alike~~

  When I was in the Egyptian section in the museum I saw a girl who looked familiar but the girl I was thinking about lives in India and here I m seeing an almost exact replica of her. To confirm that I went ahead and talked with her and asked her for a picture.

The above is the comparison ,the girl left is Aarthi one of my family friend and other girl is the one I found in the museum.

~~Trip to Brooklyn muesum-2~~

  The Brooklyn museum also has a dedicated section for Egyptian arts and culture. It also has a mummy chamber where they have 4 mummies which they have collected over the period of time. Last they opened one of the mummies took it for CT scan and found lots of information about it. They have details about how the process is done and why the bodies don't decompose over the period of time. It was interesting to see how advanced method they have used 2500 years before.

There was a separate room for Egypt arts and culture where they had tablets written in ancient Egyptian scripts which fully consists of pictures. My Egyptian friend had earlier given me the ancient alphabetical scripts synchronised to our English alphabets which I have attached below. So I was trying to correlate few of the alphabets.Good thing about writing it tablets is that it never gets destroyed. It sad to know most of our manuscripts were lost because they were written in ஓலை சுவடி which decomposes very quickly.

 

While returning back from this section I crossed into a familiar looking girl in museum, more about this later :)

~~Trip to Brooklyn muesum~~

 With bright and sunny weather outside i didn't want to sit at home. So I decided to go to Brooklyn museum which is an hour away from my place. It is a big museum but always gets over shadowed by the huge museums in Manhattan. There were many American collections from late late 18th to 19th century.There was also section for African arts,European,Asian and Middle East.

The best part of the museum is the collections of Norman Rockwell who drew pictures from normal day to day life scenarios in a funny and creative way. I have seen one picture in Sundu's home in San Diego "The run away ". Emotions in the paintings were wonderful and natural. The one I liked is the below where the magazine he worked asked for a self portrait.

Overall a day well spent !

~~Links I liked~~

1) Awesome shots of NYC:

 Wonderful video of the city with a beautiful music in the back ground.

2)Cleaning the snow:

   This man should have lots of patience to clean up the snow this way.

3)Video of Universe:

   Awesome video about the universe

4)Effect of Meditation on brain :

  Physics have proved on what changes meditation can bring to our brain.

~~time piece~~

I found this time piece cute and cheap,so I got it. 

Now I can hear the the tic toc sound in my room :)

~~New year Resolution~~

 This is long pending post but due to my busy schedule I never had the time post this. Before I went for Christmas vacation I attended a dinner party at Japanese restaurant. Once the dinner was over we exchanged gifts. I got a gift from one of my Japanese class mate. When I opened the gift there was in fact two gifts but not one. There were two colorful Japanese paper balls which can be blow like a balloon and can be rotated with a pen or a stick.

The other was the important one, he termed it as "your goal sheet" in which we need to write our or what we wanted to achieve or at least write a new year resolution. Then also told me in Japan they take this as a serious business such that they spend three days thinking about what they want and also they make sure than they shouldn't write something materialistic.He also suggested me I should take recess to natural area that is away from the city buzz then think there and write something useful.

I did as he suggested and finally wrote the above quote and struck it directly in the wall in front of the bed such that every morning when I get up it catches my eyes. I thought I should post this for New Year anyways today is Chinese New Year/Groundhog day, so I found an occasion to post it :)

~~from my classmate~~

 One of my class mate is from Egypt and with that country hitting the headlines for the past one week. She was on the streets in Cairo protesting on Jan 25th but came back to NYC to attend the college.She sent a detailed mail to all our classmates under what circumstances that the revolution is taking place.

Hello fellow pepmers,

  As an Egyptian, I felt it was my duty to explain to u all the current situation in my beloved country; after all that is the only thing I can do at the time being, since im not able to join those brave protestors back home who are trying to free Egypt from its DICTATOR.

  As u all know, Egypt is an old, historical country(7000 years old); it’s known as the land of civilization, culture, history, prestige & wealth. Its current main sources of income are tourism (we have 1/3 of the world’s monuments),cotton & natural gas exports, revenues of the Suez Canal(one of the most pivotal and important hubs in the world) as well as remittances. Egypt is one of the most populated countries in the Middle East (84 million) and is considered the leader and most influential country in its region.

  Mubarak has been ruling us for 30 years now -since 1981. He is a military man and is now 82 years old- one of the world’s oldest presidents!!

  During those 30 years, Mubarak managed to DERAIL Egypt; turning it from a rich, strong, pivotal, leading and higly infleuntial country into a poor, weak and chaotic one.

  Latest data show that 40% of the Egyptians live in absolute poverty; the unemployment rate is 30%; we have very very high levels of corruption(everything now is run with bribary,embezzelment and nepotism); we have a very high level of income inequality (where 2% of the population possess 80% of the country’s wealth; with the middle class nearly demolishing!!).We also have a very low education quality,degraded health services and increasing levels of illegal external immigration.

  On the political side, Mubarak managed to stay president for 30 years through FORGING elections; both presidential and parliamentary(sometimes the voters lists would include names of dead people who have miraculously voted yes to him!!!!). He has been ruling us under the so-called Emergency Law, which gives him the right to jail and even shoot anyone who opposes him without any trial!! Ofcourse, his plan was to stay president till he dies, and then his son would take over- thus turning Egypt from a republic into a “republicharchy” ; a mixture between a republic and a monarchy.

  For all the above reasons, the Egyptians finally decided to stand up against this Dictator and tell him we’ve had enough (we were ofcourse inspired by the success of the Tunisian revolution that occurred recently).

  Our revolution started on Jan 25th. Since then, Mubarak did everything to make it fail; he blocked the internet, switched off the phone lines, suspended the trains, cut off oil & food supplies, killed the protesters (so far almost 500 were killed), spread fear, terrorism and looting in the streets.

  Yet, HE DID NOT SUCCEED IN KILLING OUR REVOLUTION; ON THE CONTRARY HE MADE US MORE ANGRY & MORE DETERMINED TO GET HIM DOWN & HE WILL BE DOWN SOOON.

Wish us good luck


Though she is feeling that she is not in her country when its making history ,she is creating awareness on whats happening there to  the outside world .