When he died, they showered posthumous encomiums! For days, my Facebook page was filled with RIP messages for Steve Jobs, with adulations like genius, visionary, scientist etc. Some of them took to the extent of comparing him with Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton! The funniest comment that I saw was - If Apple is religion; Steve Jobs is its GOD! OK, agreed, Steve Jobs was a great visionary. But, was it necessary to elevate him to the Almighty status only to take every opportunity to rebuke him a fortnight later?
It is no doubt true that, Steve Jobs built great devices. He revolutionized the laptop, and smart phone industry. He changed the way we listened to music. Probably, it takes eons to come up with next Steve Jobs. The charisma, determination to change the world, aggressiveness he possessed was extraordinary. It isn't a child's play to come up with such great ideas in a career span of 35 years. The same guys who lauded his contribution to the tech world, now utter everything possible - "Steve Jobs wasn't great - not even close to!" Well, if he wasn't even close to being great, what are we? If he fell short in the graph that measured greatness, I guess, we would not even cross the zero-mark!
At least Steve Jobs achieved what he wanted to. He stood by his words. He stayed hungry and foolish most of his life. He didn’t let others’ opinions drown out his inner voice. Passing slanderous remarks need no thinking. They need no brains. But, it needs more than just brains to lead thousands of people, to take timely decisions, to design wonderful devices and ultimately to change the world. Instead of wasting life trying to malign Steve Jobs’ image, let the departed soul rest in peace. Let his near and dear ones get the strength to live without him.
Off late, I have been viewing a number of petty crimes in our locality. Last year, the economic crisis could have been held responsible for such crimes. But, it is surprising to see them happen now. Or probably, I could be observing more of them these days. Few days back, on afternoon I saw 3 police cars near our apartment complex, and four to five cops were interrogating two people. This reminded me of something that happened last month when on a bright sunny day in the last week of August, I was all set to attend the orientation at my graduate school.
We were four of us who had decided to meet at the bus-stop near my apartment. I happened to be at the bus-stop 20 minutes ahead of other girls. I am used to waiting for the buses on the otherwise busy, lively, safe El Camino Real (which I have previously referred to as Gandhi-Bazaar in one of my posts). Well, I saw two buses arrive and depart. At some point, I was the only one waiting for a bus. I have had such experiences in the past where I have stood alone waiting for a bus without any fear. But on that day, suddenly a short-lean guy wearing a red T-shirt, and carrying bag-pack, came to the bus-stop. He looked drunk from every angle. Seeing me waiting alone, he tried to begin a conversation. "Hey youuuuuu, are u going by bus?"... "I am going by a bus"... "Coming with me??"... etc...
I didn't panic unlike how I had when I had taken my in-laws to visit my grad school at San Jose downtown. On that day, a well built, drunk guy almost attacked us. My little-cute mother-in-law's fair face had almost gone tomatoes on seeing him. I had even dialed 911 to report. The connection failed though :(.
It wasn't the scenario in this case. It was more like an Indian film hero trying to save the heroine. Now, I don't mean, my husband came on a bike like a hero to save me from the red-shirt attacker. I started walking towards the other end of the road, immediately when I saw a maama appearing in front of me from nowhere in his bike.
He had already slowed down his bike. Well, now, I panicked a bit. He saw me. I saw mama, the red-shirt guy and stopped in front of him. He parked his bike, started questioning the drunk guy. It looked like, he was behind the guy for some reason and he just found him and everything happened in front of me... In two minutes, there were 2 more police-cars and the interrogation became intense. My batchmates slowly arrived and I had to narrate the entire story to three of them one after the other. In the next two minutes, one of the cops kept his bag in the trunk of the car and the guy was handcuffed at his back, our bus arrived, we entered the bus, the guy entered the police-car and all of us left the scene.
A weird incident on the day I was to embark my graduate studies. A day to remember indeed :-)
This is one of my favorite festivals since my childhood days. I always liked Dasara(Navaratri) more than Deepavali. The very idea of arranging dolls fascinated me. "Bombe pradarshana" in kannada means - displaying the dolls. As a kid, I arranged all the dolls, souvenirs and some attractive flower vases on a small table in my house and invited my friends from my dance class to have a glimpse of the arrangement.
This year too, I arranged the dolls in my house. I was afraid, that my school commitments could come in the way of Dasara celebration. Thankfully, it didn't. Unlike my childhood days, when arranging the dolls was just fun, I now feel, I have grown up to be a more matured individual. I see "bombe pradarshana" more as a passion combined with responsibility.
Few days back, my husband and I went to an Indian restaurant to eat dosa. The place boasts of varieties of dosas. Unlike SLV dosa camps in Bangalore, dosa places here lack the aroma of butter or dosa batter, unlike Vidyarthi bhavan, the dosas lacks the taste, unlike MTR, the chutney-sambhar isn't spicy. But, being lucky enough to atleast have something than nothing, we decided to munch the dosas.
My husband was placing orders while I took sometime to do my hair in the ladies restroom. The restroom was a single room with sink, toilet, everything at the same place. Well, now, I double-checked as always to ensure that, the rest-room was locked. A minute later, a lady opens and bumps in!!! I was horrified. To avoid the embarassment, I was combing my hair. Both of us were shocked for a moment. I couldn't blame her as well, since the mistake was with the locking system in the restroom... After exchanging apology messages, she went on to complain the waiter regarding the non-working locks...
Then I came out and joined my husband at the table. My husband had ordered Rava-onion masala dosa, mysore masala dosa, and cream of tomato soup. To our dismay, the soup smelled rotten and tasted bad. After the ghastly restroom experience, I was determined to return the soup. The waiter, was indeed friendly. He apologized and served us with another bowl of soup which didn't taste great but was at least fresh. He did admit that, the cream used was old. Ironically, the tomato soup we ordered as an appetizer served as a dessert :-).
We had our "dessert". The waiter was happy. We were happy to at least get something for our money. Happys Endings :-)
I have always had a terrible experience playing any sport. My sole achievement in sports till date is winning a First Prize in Slow-cycling competition when I was a 12-year-old girl. I have always wondered what it takes for one to excel in sports. My relation with sports has always been worse. As a kid, I used to follow the tennis matches on DD-1, the only source of entertainment
Sometime back, I tried my hand in bowling again. To my dismay, I scored the least in all four games. Last year, I tried to play tennis with my tennis-maniac husband and ended up injuring my shoulder. After series of failures, I am not a player, just a sports-watcher is what I have surmised. Though my records have always been low, I enjoy watching so much that, my heroes have always been sports-persons. All my teenage crushes were cricketers and not film stars ;) I have been a huge fan of Sachin Tendulkar and tennis star Roger Federer. Few years ago, I used to be an aficionado of F1 too.
I used to wonder that I might be lucky at least in playing indoor games. To my chagrin, I am bad in that either. I am probably one of the worst carrom players. I can't hold a cue properly in snooker let alone striking a cue-ball :P...
With this terrible history of my connection with sports, I almost gave up playing anything. But now, I have finally decided to start afresh by learning tennis from none other than my husband ;). After my first session, I feel, I should wrap his mouth with a piece of cloth, while we are playing. I have heard from many that, husbands are the worst teachers. Let me see... how long I remain hooked to tennis!
The old and young, rich and the not so rich, lovers and non-lovers of music, were all compelled to shed their egos, inhibitions, become speechless and let their hands and legs talk for one evening. It was a magical "musical" beginning to the week-ahead. To all those who wanted to reminisce those days of pre-Mungaaru Male era, it was a perfectly made occasion, thanks to the Kannada Koota of Northern Calfiornia who took painstaking efforts in what was considered one of the best programmes ever arranged. Once again Padmashri Dr. SP Balasubramanyam and his troupe proved that there are only two kinds of people in this world - lovers and non-lovers of music. If there are non-lovers of music, then yesterday had been the day of enlightenment for them.
As always, the Indian organizers in the Pacific time zone proved their strict adherance to Indian Standard Timings. The fabulous evening kick-started at 4:50p.m. which was 25 minutes beyond SPB's plan. But, there was absolutely no sign of impatience or anger given his preference to begin a program atleast five minutes before the start of Raahu Kala. A true patriot, SPB started his concert with Vande Mataram, joined by his singer-sister SP Shailaja, Kalpana, a talented singer from Tamil Nadu and Sri Krishna,music based reality show winner from Andhra Pradesh. The sleep-deprived team after having performed in North Carolina, the previous night, travelled to California over night, and with less than two hours of good sleep, they were back on the stage for an excellent performance.
SPB and his troupe went on deliver some of the best songs ever made in the Kannada film industry. Some of the old unforgotten songs like Maamaravello Kogileyello, Jeeva Veene, Madikeri sipayi were a tribute to the recently departed Kannada super-star Dr. Vishnuvardhan. The artists on the instruments performed brilliantly with the co-singers doing more than justice to the original singers, though SPB stole the thunder. If one thought, he or she was blessed to watch the God of Indian music perform, the God himself surrendered to the ultimate supernatural power, when he removed his sandals while singing Pavadisu Paramaatma Sri Venkatesha from Sreenivasa Kalyana. The concert also included some of his ever-green hits from the movies Geeta, Bandhana, Nammora Mandara Hoove, recent hit Nenapirali. The ardent fans unfastened their seatbelts to dance for the song from Nenapirali.
The singing troupe had less than three songs of the post Mungaru Male era. The budding singer from Andhra Pradesh Sri Krishna got an opportunity to realize his potential when he sang what is apparently considered the second Kannada Anthem Anisuthide from Mungaaru male as a token of appreciation for the "AmeriKannadigas" who boast of the renowned Bay-area based music director Mano Murthy. Kalpana, another budding singer from Tamil Nadu, sang on the Kannada stage for the first time. She proved her prowess singing some of the best hits of the South Indian singer Chitra. Her solo performance of the song Nadheem Dheem Tana from the recent Kannada flick Gaalipata was mind-blowing. SP Shailaja, undoubtedly did justice to S. Janaki by co-singing with SPB and singing a few solo songs.
At the age of 65, the living legend cast a magical spell on the insatiable music lovers not just by his wonderful rendition, but also by his mild and timely sense of humor. The mesmerized house-full audience had nothing in return other than ovation, and saying "once more", "awesome", "excellent", "superb" and "come back again". The audience seemed relentless to even let the organizers share stage and wanted only SPB and his group to make maximum use of the three hours. This short, beautiful, triumphatic musical evening came to an end with the much awaited song "Santhoshakke haadu santhoshakke" from the movie Geeta.
Few months back, I read "Last Lecture". Yes, I know, I should have listened to the lecture. I prefer reading than listening or watching. So, I chose the former. A lot of professors are invited to give Last Lectures. A professor has to keep in mind that, his death is imminent. So, what does he want to impart to others in his last lecture before leaving this world forever? With regard to Randy Pausch, former professor at CMU, this was indeed his ultimate lecture since he was suffering from pancreatic cancer then. But surprisingly, the last lecture from a 45-year-old man nearing his death was more filled with life than a person who had breathed 80 years without living completely.
One thing, I realized from Randy's lecture is that, you must implement whatever you plan and should never regret about not doing so. Only by executing all plans will you really live life to the fullest. His last lecture was more rejuvenating than actually it should have been given his deteriorating health. No wonder, there is always a paucity of time, energy, resources etc. But overcoming all odds is the only solution. I feel, we are all crazy about several things in our life. After reading the inspirational book, I started noting down all those crazy or whatever it be things I wanted to accomplish in my life. My list seems to be endless. His words resonate in my mind so much that, whenever I think about something impossible, the gut-feeling I got after reading his lecture, makes me take up the task seriously.
This book, undoubtedly was an eye-opener to me. It gave an insight into how you should lead your life, do whatever you wish, etc. Trust me, if you happen to read the book or listen to his lecture or if you have already done either or both, then you should start applying it in your lives. You will surely realize how worthy you could be. You will not just breathe but you will live your life. After all it is one life - live it.
