Kedar's Blog

Hello World! The ubiquitous Hello World.. to announce something!

एक NRI.. वर्षानुवर्षं बाहेर राहिलेला. मनाने तरीही भारतातच रमणारा. जगणं कोणाला कुठे आणि कसं नेईल सांगता येतं का? असाच प्रवाहाबरोबर वहात आलेला तो… भारतात मिळणाऱ्या पदार्थांची चव अजून जिभेवर जपून ठेवणारा.. मधून मधून परदेशातल्या भारतीय हॉटेल मध्ये त्याच नावाच्या पदार्थांच्या फसवणुकीवर समाधान मानून घेणारा…   त्याच्या जिभेचे मनसुबे त्याला परत परत भारतात घेऊन येतात. २० वर्षांपूर्वीचं आयुष्य परत एक महिना जगायचं हाच प्रत्येक ट्रिपचा उद्देश.. मग कोपर्यावरचा वडा पाववाला, पुढे गेलं की सामोसा, कुठे पाव भाजी तर कुठे कबाब तर कुठे भेळपुरी.. सर्व सर्व हवं असतं पण सर्व एका वेळी खाता मात्र येत नसतं, कारण हे शरीर आता या सर्वाची सवय घालवून बसलेलं असतं.   पण तरीही तो जातो.. हट्टाने दत्त स्नॅक्सच्या दारांत उभा रहातो.. त्या वासाने इतके दिवस धरून ठेवलेला संयम तुटायला लागतो आणि काहीही विचार नं करता लगेच दोन वडा पावची ऑर्डर जाते. “साहेब यात कांदा घालू का?”, “हे नवीन बघा की try करुन”.. हे काही काही नको असतं. फक्त पूर्वीसारखा गरमागरम कुरकुरीत कंगोरे आलेला झणझणीत वडा, आत एक ओली आणि एक लाल सुकी चटणी आणि तोच...

July 4th 2015, 10pm : I remember my son and I had been watching some fireworks, that some of my neighbors were lighting up in front of their houses. We live in a nicely secluded townhouse section of my community. It was all fun and you could hear fireworks near and far that night. Finally we decided to go up to our 3rd floor bedroom. Next day was Sunday, and my wife and I were planning to watch a movie with a late night cup of coffee, once my Son went to bed. My Son went in his room to get something. He returned with a worried look and said to my wife “Mommy the kid next door is crying outside and his dad is also running out”.. I simply ignored him whereas my wife tried to say something to him to just let it be. After brushing his teeth and lying down in bed, my Son still wasn’t convinced – “but Mommy the kid was crying a lot and there was some light too”. Two minutes later, my Son and my wife said, someone is banging on the main door. I had not even heard it! Irritated, I went down ...

  A few days after we booked our Yellowstone trip, internet bloggers posted videos of Bisons and other animals running away from the park. They were suggesting that this might be due to an impending explosion of the Super-volcano on which the Yellowstone park is sitting on! ( http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/593833-yellowstone-volcano-eruption-in-2014-some-believe-animals-are-fleeing-park-see-it-as-an-alert/ ) I did not reveal this to the family or friends.. But frantically started reading all kinds of articles about the Geography, History, and Science related to this place, and just decided to go.. It’s like you never believe such things will happen to you in real! Two days into the trip, while coming back from Grand Tetons National park, my son and I went inside a gas station store. There on the way to checkout, a fellow customer asked me – in front of my son (!!) – if I had heard that a road in Yellowstone had MELTED that morning and all the roads going north into the park were c...

Did anybody tell you that I am doing a funny speech today? Was it mentioned anywhere that it’s a humorous speech?? [Pause.. look around the room] ‘cuz tell you what.. I got news for you.. THERE IS NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT THIS, OK?? I am going to tell you about my PROBLEM and it.. is.. not.. funny!.. And I will tell you about it, as long as you promise to NOT give me one more solution.. ! Because, THIS [Showing the thinning hair on my head] is my problem!! Yes, my thinning hair, my impending baldness.. whatever you wanna call it.. Now do you REALLY think this is funny?? I betcha some of you still think it is.. I can see some of you smiling.. there! But let me tell you, you are way outta line here! Go ask that person who has to watch this exodus of youth every day, ask that person who is in the shower every day begging to his falling hair not to leave him, ask that person who has lost all his interest in his pictures simply because all he sees there are his bald spots, ask that person who ca...

 Hello everyone! Well I just recently had my annual review. And as usual, I came out with the same feeling as always.. Dissatisfaction! But can you blame me? Tell me one thing, is there anyone here who thinks that he deserves less than what he is already getting? Is there anyone who says, oh, I am a pretty useless fellow, so I don’t really deserve this increment or bonus or whatever it is.. Does it ever happen? No, everyone in fact, feels like Life has not been fair to them.. My dear (friends), is Life fair to You?… Don’t even think about it, the answer to this question, is almost without exception, a big NO! A secondary corollary to this is – “Life is fair, but to someone OTHER than me..”! And the irony of this is, Each one of us thinks this way! 🙂 Well, we are all human beings.. and we like to complain.. That’s understandable, nothing wrong with that! It’s in our genes.. Even my Son started saying “This is unfair”, since the age of 3..!! Daddy, it’s not fair that I don’t get a t...

 

 Let me start by telling you a story. This happened a few years ago.. one day, we were all watching TV in our living room with a few family friends. A 2.5 yr old boy was playing on the side. We were watching a Bollywood movie song, which was filmed on a beach. So there were a few girls in that song, playing beach volleyball in their bikinis.. Suddenly this boy shouts, “Daddyyy!! Look, they are wearing diapers.. Why are they wearing diapers like me?!”… That boy, is my son! The subject of my speech today.. now don’t ask me how I answered that question…! 😉 I started my life as a worry-free human being.. without a care in the world and without having to care for anyone in the world. And then, my life turned upside down! The warning signs were there, it’s just that I happily ignored them! I went from being a free man, to one behind bars, and then to one, who is behind bars and chained to the ground – or, in other words, I went from being a bachelor to a married man to a married man wit...

With wife gone out of town on a business trip, I was left alone with a kid for 5 days..! This morning, I had Dr appointment @8:30, son had school @7:50.. So I wake up @6, get ready, try to wake him up.. finally after a few tries, success! He goes in the bathroom, just stands in front of the mirror even though I have kept his brush ready with toothpaste, a little shout wakes him up, hands start brushing, then I push him in the shower, half asleep he simply stands under the shower, I intervene, put soap on him, he lets the water wash it away!, I jump in again after some time with a towel, I have kept his clothes ready on the bed (hey, I hate to choose my clothes! And now I have to choose for him too!), seeing the speed of his movements, I put his clothes on him. Thanks to the weather there are 3 layers of clothing, uh oh the jeans are too tight.. “Okk, take them off, put on the other one”, “Go down to the kitchen, without any stops in your room (!)”, he happily ignores the warning and st...

I actually borrowed this idea from another blog because it makes total sense.. Like most of us, I did want to do way too many things in life and I still do. But because life is so “one-way” and time never stops, I kind of kept dropping the ball on each one of them one by one. So this post will let me at least remember all the things I wanted to do in my life.. ..if there is another life and I still remember the blog address for this life (!!) and if my hosting company is nice enough not to nuke my site, since I won’t be paying for it during the time between my 2 lives (!!), then I can come back to read about this life and try to do the things I wanted to do, in the new life! 😉 With that *simple* hope, here goes: DREAMS I remember when I was a kid, I used to love breaking stones with a hammer!! So there was a time when I used to say I want to do that in life! Overtime, I realized that this is not really an exciting and profitable dream to hold onto 🙂 When you are a kid, who doesn’t fe...

I remember it was a dark chilly evening.. I was lying there under the stars.. a mental struggle still brewing… but I was helpless.. An ambulance siren sounded in the distance and grew louder as it approached.. Within minutes I was being whisked away on a stretcher and the next moment, I was reading the names of hospital wards as I was being carried inside. Finally we stopped in front of a large door.. Through my lifeless eyes, I read the sign there.. it said – “Facebook Addicts”! And then, I was pushed inside, in that darkness… and that’s where my flashback started… Three years ago, my colleagues introduced me to Facebook.. I had started Twittering just a few months before that.. but this was new. For some time, I stayed away but as it outgrew Twitter, I started frequenting it more.. and that’s where my story starts.. I am sure most of you have heard about Facebook! – unless you are one of the last remaining DNAs on Titanic..! Still living in the year 1910.. edge of the deck with your ...

  If there is one question I face everyday in my life, it is the “How are you” question.. I have to think about that every single time! I bump into that in the office elevator, in meetings, in grocery stores, in my son’s school, at the hair cuttery, and even in a bathroom.. no, I am not kidding!! And then I have to come up with various kinds of answers! If you ask me, “How are you” is one of the most abused questions of modern times! I am not sure how many people who ask this question are really interested in the answer! Even I am not sure if I am either! I think when two people face each other, they have to say something.. just like 2 Ants..! Have you seen 2 ants bumping into each other and exchanging some words? 😉 This is similar.. and this question is one way to address that situation.. ! Everyone has his own way of dealing with this question. Some people just smile or nod.. so basically they understand the need of that other person to address them with this question, but they ...

  When I stepped out of my bachelorhood, I certainly knew there was something called Grocery shopping.. ‘coz you need milk, you need vegetables, you need soap, toilet tissues.. the list goes on. But before marriage, I was sort of noncommittal towards it. My mom would ask me to get something and I would get it. Marriage on the other hand, brought this commitment much closer to my heart and wallet! Just when I think I can laze around on a rainy Sunday – lying on the sofa,  sipping tea, eating junk food, and such..  my wife tells me to go get some Milk. Now why does milk have this uncanny ability to get over suddenly?! In my childhood, a milkman used to deliver milk at our door. How convenient, isn’t it? But even he used to miss a day or two, and I used to have to get up right in the middle of my early morning sleep to get milk from the store. Anyways, I remember in my childhood, we did not have supermarkets. There were small grocery shops. One would go there with a list of ...

Mid-life crisis is a term that some of you might already understand.. and for those who don’t, I am an example in front of you. You know, ever since I was born, I was destined to get old. So, mid-life itself wasn’t a surprise. But I didn’t know there will be crisis written all over it! For a long time, I happily lived in my 20s.. Even when I crossed over into the 30s, I was still doing okay, thinking I am still in my 20s.. Until I moved into the later half of the 30s, and now things really appeared to be moving in a direction that I did not want to go! This is like that feeling of standing on a beach.. Pretty soon the ocean starts pulling you in, along with the sand under your feet! Now with all your might, you are trying to hold your ground. It’s the same feeling.. Scientifically speaking, I don’t really think there is such a thing, disease, or medical condition as Mid-Life Crisis.. But there are some symptoms that you are bound to notice.. It hit me one day when someone took a pictur...

“I want to give my kids just enough so that they would feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they would feel like doing nothing” -Warren Buffet

 I am going to tell you 2 stories today, and I hope to make my point in the process. The first story is of the days when I could openly disclose my age to anybody – when I was in my teens I mean..! It was a fine summer night, when I faced the truth for the very first time.. There on the wall, was the test to my bravery, a test to my being a man.. My father was out of town and I was the only one to face this ultimate challenge..! Now whenever I think about it, even with my 48 inches of frame at that time, I myself must have been a challenge to my challenge on the wall. But it didn’t feel that way in my mind. ..because, what I was staring at, was a no-nonsense live 5-inch-wall lizard crawling on the wall in front of me.. The women folks (- my mother and sister) were expecting me to get rid of it.. “Do whatever the hell you gotta do, just get it out of our sights permanently!”).. Man vs animal.. I sensed that rush of adrenaline and somehow remembered the Gunfight at the O.K.Corral, Du...