T-Mobile, you made my day…
My precious
Oct 31
My spanking new Suzuki SV650SF. I rode on the freeway (@70mph) today at 1230AM in the rain and with heavy winds. Probably the most hardcore riding I’ve ever done in those conditions. Really stable 
I’m back
Oct 27
I don’t remember how many times I’ve said that here, but I’m back again. The past couple of months have been a little crazy. I realize that moving from one phase of your life to another isn’t really the easiest thing to do. Things that you looked forward to are no longer that enticing once you have them. I’m now a working man/guy/kid that has nothing but 4 decades of earning and climbing the corporate ladder ahead of him.
No, don’t get me wrong. Its not that I don’t plan to have a life while I work. Its just that, while I was in school, there was always something different coming up in the next 2-5 years. Like middle school meant looking forward to high school, high school had college and college had working and making the big bucks. And then, work has retirement 
Work is good and pretty busy these days. I have a brand new 2009 Suzuki SV650SF that I ride around and my ‘94 beater Civic just wont give up, saving me thousands of dollars
This is a new beginning…
to microblog or not?
Sep 20
Twitter has had a huge impact on what gets detailed attention reports on my weblog here. I’ve tried debating on what is better – to micro blog my mind under 140 characters or to wait and let my ideas/thoughts to build up and then unload them here in unlimited characters.
I think I just overshot my *mind-blogging* capacity of 140 characters…what a shame.
A reflection
Sep 20
Its been a little more than 2 weeks since I came back to Seattle after a 6 week vacation in India. Strangely, Seattle felt more like a home than Chennai for reasons that I can’t quite comprehend or rather don’t want to. I’ve given trying to come up with the list of the best indian cities to live in but I know for sure that the worst one has to be Kolkata aka. Calcutta. I can never, ever go back to that city even if someone put a gun to my head.
All that said, the vacation was definitely one to remember and I covered all parts of the country. There are a ton of pictures from the trip but the memories and the feelings that I have from the trip are priceless and will stay with me forever.
And that, my friends, is all that I wish to say about a great vacation.
On the move
Aug 26
I’ve been pretty busy these past few weeks, traveling all over India. I’m leaving for New Delhi tomorrow and will be back in Chennai on the 30th and leave for Seattle on 1st of September. Its been a great trip so far and I shall try and reflect on all of it before I leave India or as soon as I have a stable internet connection.
BEE-ARE-BEE.
Smoke rings
Aug 17
Sometimes, I wish I could be a physicist just so that I can do this all day -
Identities
Aug 6
Yesterday was one of the most auspicious days in a Brahmin’s life. It was Avani Avittam and today was the followup to it with Gayathri Japam. Check out the links for more information on it.
I woke up yesterday to find my dad waiting to help me change my poonal. I took a shower and he promised that it would only take 5 minutes to perform the ceremony, which usually takes an hour or so. Half way into the 5 minute ordeal, I ask him a few questions about why some things had to be done the way they were and he responded with the usual ‘we just do good things and don’t ask questions…’. At the end, I had a new poonal on me and I guess that made my mom happy, which is what my dad and I were to hoping to get out of it all. I think my dad understood that I wasn’t really interested in these rituals much.
Fast forward to this morning, I wake up and my dad is no where in sight. Today is ‘Gayathri Japam’ where we sit down and recite a mantra 1008 times to get good things to happen to us. My mom doesn’t say much except for a fleeting question as to whether I plan to do the japam today. I nod and she starts talking about something else. I took a shower and said the mantra 36 times and went about my business after that. If you are wondering why I did the mini-japam by myself without any real prodding, I would have to say that I don’t really know.
What I have been trying and fighting to shed all the years is not my cultural identity but rather my religious identity. The problem with being a brahmin boy born into a practicing brahmin family is that my cultural identity as an Indian, a south indian, a tamizh person, a brahmin, an iyengar, a thengalai is so intertwined with the Hindu religion that it makes everything complicated. I am proud of what I was born into, I just don’t believe that being born into something makes me who I am now. That said, I still can’t really tell you the difference between my religious and cultural identity.
One thing I do appreciate is how patient my parents have been with me, through all this. Although there have been numerous debates and arguments about my religious preferences, I’ve never really been pressured to follow what they believe in. I question everything, don’t follow rituals that make no sense, don’t believe in superstitions, don’t visit temples(anymore), don’t pray, etc. It takes a lot of courage and effort to accept your kids for who they turn out to be and for my mom, I am the embodiment of the worst brahmin kid that any brahmin mother can hope to have. But she is able to see past all that and see me as her son.
And that is much more than what I can ask from her….