A Boss is second only to Hitler

I came back to my apartment early this Friday and found I was out of movies to watch. Then, I found something that looked interesting to watch on Netflix. I found Office Tigers in documentary section. Its a good watch if you have some time to kill. The film is about few American entrepreneurs setting up company in India that trains and provides professional services to clients around the world.

Half way through the film, a guy from US with the title "Associate Vice President for Training (AVPT)" training the employees and starts off with writing the word "Excellence" on the white board. He says "When you think of Excellence, write down the names of first two people that pop up into your heads...Just quickly say in one sentence, explain why you thought of Excellence when think of that person...".
At this point I had a hunch that I would hear couple of odd names like Bollywood or Cricket "stars". One guy said Micheal Jordon (fair enough!). A girl, who looks like she has ways and means to go places, said the CEO of the company. Another guy said Sigmund Freud.

Then "the" guy said "I had Hitler on my list"
AVPT : "Excuse me!!"
the guy : "Hitler!" (you hear everyone in the room cracking up at this point)
AVPT : (shocked!) "Adolf Hitler? you have Adolf Hitler?"
the guy : (nodding very assertively) "YES"
AVPT : "OK! I just wanted make sure I heard you right. Why?"
the guy : "Barring his ideology he is a wonderful leader..."
AVPT : "Alright. Well...um...may be we should talk about it after the class"
...
AVPT : (calm and collected now) My European family were all slaughtered by Hitler and the Nazis. So...when throw his name around, particularly with people from United States, you should be very sensitive about it...Sorry! I didn't want to spoil the spirit of the discussion. But you should just know that....

(OK! its all fine to be politically-correct and culturally-sensitive but wait for the punch-line!)

AVPT : ...So...Do you have second name on your list? (laughing out loud at this point expecting some other crazy name)
the guy : (looking embarrassed) well...yeah...My Boss...!(his voice gets drowned in AVPT's roaring laughter)

Outer Banks

Couple of weeks back a friend from college who lives in Chicago was here in North Carolina. I hadn't seen him in almost 2 years. He was here for the weekend and wanted to see some places around. As the joke goes here in this part for NC, this place is 3 hours from the beach and 4 hours from the Smokey mountains and nothing happening in between. So we went on a sight-seeing trip to Outer Banks which is on the Atlantic coast.

Outer Banks is cool place to drive through and its almost unique. Its a chain of barrier Islands. Its home to few attractions such as Hatteras light house and Kitty Hawk (where Wright Bother's first flight took place). If you have a 4-Wheel drive vehicle you can actually drive on beach which are many many miles long.

Driving through rural Eastern NC, driving on the beach, ferry rides, Hatteras lighthouse, Sea food and Sand-dunes are usually highlights of such a trip. I have done this before and its not bad. But then when you have 2 years of catching up to do with a friend, driving snywhere wouldn't matter. Here are some pictures from the trip.

Hatteras Light house. Almost a Postcard. A State icon of North Carolina.












Woo Hoo! rural area. Screw you Bangalore!












Irrigation. The real thing, not the golf course thing. Again, screw you Bangalore.












Mannina Maga Deve Gowda's irrigation plan in action...just kidding!












A rural intersection.












while driving on the beach.













You see our SUV's tire tracks? I am telling you one last time. You can actually drive on the beach for miles on end.

Uppitt Day

Its all happening here this weekend! (just like Bill Lawry would say!). Final round of Formula One race in Brazil, the lone 20Twenty Cricket match between India and Australia and one of my favarite radio show Prairie Home Companion in Charlotte, NC. With Cricket Match being scheduled nicely for 9:30 Saturday morning I decided its perfect time for Uppitt. Yesterday evening I made sure I had Rave (Soji), Curry leaves, green chilies and other ingredients.

I woke up at 10:30 A.M. halfway though the Cricket match and made Tea (Chai, actually). As per the plan I proceeded to make Uppitt after sometime. Half way through the "mission", it was time for adding salt (which is Uppu in Uppittu). I opened the cupboard and found myself out of Salt. Then I searched another cupboard frantically, only to find an old empty salt container. I cut open the containers and I could only muster 1 spoon of salt. I was Mad-as-hell!

I didn't want to go to grocery store at that time. And then as I was looking around the kitchen cabinet I found a small salt dispenser I filled in months ago to host a party in my apartment. It had as much as I wanted. I was so glad and relieved to have found "Uppu"(salt) to make Uppitt. Its such an Irony. I couldn't help taking pictures of it. Here is the picture of the open salt containers and the small salt dispenser which had some slat left in it -


The Uppitt itself came out very nice. A bright sunny Fall day outside, a live Cricket Match on TV, bisi bisi Uppitt first thing in the morning...What else can a man ask for? ...SwaRrGakke KiCchu AcchuEnda SarWagNa!...(Translation : whit things like that,Who cares if the heavens catch fire!). Here is the picture of Uppitt I made this morning -

My Driving History Sucks!

My Car insurance is up for renewal again and this time its hurting my pocket, very deep!. They have increased my premium by 50%. I am talking about the basic liability insurance I need to drive in this state. Some of my friends (read Ravi) have more speeding and traffic tickets than all of my movie tickets for last 5 years put together and they seem to pay much much less for the insurance than a safe and sound driver like me!

I am not kidding. The first speeding ticket I got was speeding at 65 in a 45 miles zone. I had gotten my Driver's license that Monday morning and Thursday afternoon, I was pulled over by the Cop. So, he gives me the ticket and I tell him I had had my license for only 3 days and pleaded him to be generous. He reduced the ticket to 50 on a 45 miles zone. The worst thing is I shouldn't have been on the road at the time. One of my co-worker had called me over as he had run out of gas after his lunch. I got the ticket while "speeding" back to work!

Almost 7 months to the day, I was pulled over right in front of my office. Again for speeding. This time I was genuinely speeding to make it to a 9:00 AM meeting. I could have started with apologizing to the Cop, instead like a brain-dead idiot I am before 9:00 AM, I said I wasn't speeding! This time I had to go to the court as I was doing 70 on a 45 mile zone. On the court day, the court clerk asked me if agree for the reduced charge of 50 on 45 mile zone. I said yes as I didn't have many other options.

In next 5 months I never went 5 miles more than the speed limit. Meantime I was lucky enough to have been pulled over for making a Right turn on Red in a traffic light in a God-Forsaken small rural town here in North Carolina. This time I was wise enough to apologize to the Lady Cop and she let me go with a warning.

Then came the long road trip to Chicago in Sep. of 2006. I made it safely all way across 2300 miles in 3 days through Hurricane Ernesto and a severe hangover. I was in Virginia only 100 miles away from getting back to the place I live when I skidded off an entry ramp to the Highway and ended up in a ditch with air-bags blown on my face. I barely survived the accident intact as there was a truck skidding off the road right behind me when I was getting out of the car. I had to call 911 and after investigating the scene the state trooper gave me a "reckless driving" ticket. Take a look at the tyre tracks in this picture I took while waiting for the towing company to show up.



I had option of either pleading guilty or hiring lawyer to argue my case as I had a good chance of getting the ticket dismissed as I could make the case that Hurricane Ernesto was receding from the area and blame the difficult weather conditions. So I hired a local lawyer and drove to the town of County court which is about 100 miles. Guess what, the Lwyer doesn't show up!

The court clerk called my name out loud and I had to go in front of the judge.

Judge : Mr. De-var-juu. Do I say your name Right?
Me : Yes, Sir (Although I could barely make it out myself)
Judge : How do you say your first name?
Me : Ranganath
Judge : Oh, OK (laughs), I wouldn't try that! (laughs). The officer here tells me you were driving in adverse wheather conditions and I am ready to reduce the charge to a much lesser charge of moving violation. Do you agree for that?

I would have agreed to sell the Taz Mahal to get out of more trouble. So I ended up paying a fine for much lesser charge. Then I had go in search of the lawyer whom I already had paid the fees before the court appearance. I found him and he gave my money back. All this time I thought the accident wouldn't go on my record as I was told that minor charges in Virginia don't count. Some how my insurance company found that out through State DMV records and increased my Premium.